The Great Upheaval

This weekend was the occasion for a lot of change. Youngest has moved out and will henceforth be visiting occasionally rather than living here, which renders my nest nearly empty. I hope that they are not upset that I immediately decided to convert their room into a writing loft for myself, in which I will allow them to stay every other weekend.

But if you know me at all, you know that I can’t change just one room. Everything is moving around. A new bed-set was moved into the loft, the old mattress and [broken] frame were moved into the garage prior to proper disposal, and I moved my recently acquired secretary desk and hutch into the dining room; I still need to figure out a permanent location for a four-drawer filing cabinet full of writing. But first there was the clutter which needed to move aside so we could do things like bring in a mattress and box spring and bed-frame and a desk and a hutch, and move a four-drawer filing cabinet. Then there was the cleaning that needed to be done if Other People would be in the house. It’s exhausting, I tell you. Many thanks go to my friend Elizabeth, who rented a U-Haul and brought me the whole sleigh bed set all the way from Madison.

part of Before

part of After

part of After

It’s all for the good — or at least for the better. All of the Things are getting nearer to where they ultimately need to be, including me.

Writing loft or guest bedroom? Why not both?

I have already moved in the perfect little wooden office chair, which I acquired this week for $4.99. It’s 110 years old and I love it. I need to clean up the cast iron pieces a bit, and it has some settings that I will need to investigate, but it’s lovely and fits right in at the two wooden desks that are already in place along the south wall of the dining room. The next piece I’d like to get is a heavy-duty runner to span the width of all the desks, so the little office chair can just slide back and forth. The runner will also give a visual and physical definition to this end of the room. (The green bath mat below the computer desk? That’s Monty’s mat for curling up while I write. Right now he’s splayed out on the bare floor in the front of the typewriter desk, but sometimes he likes the cushioning.)

One chair to sit at them all.

I also acquired another typewriter and typewriter table this week. The typewriter in question is a Smith Corona electronic with a built-in dictionary; it beeps if you misspell something, and with the touch of one (or more) buttons it will correct the spelling before you go to the next line. The manual was included in the purchase, and I’ll have to consult it before doing much more with it: the machine by itself was not especially intuitive. It’s from approximately 1988, which makes it older than the electronic typewriter I took with me to college in Fall 1985, but a couple of years younger than Ernie, the other electronic typewriter in my current collection.

The typewriter table that I purchased with it is, possibly, more interesting. It may be a Tiffany-brand table — not that Tiffany — which was sold as a kit in the 1940s and 1950s, to provide a sturdy base for the new (and heavy) electric typewriters. It is certainly very solid, and it now supports a 1942 Royal KMM with a 14-inch carriage. I wouldn’t want to rest that beast on anything flimsy. The typewriter table that formerly support the Royal has gone up to the writing loft to support a 1953 Smith Corona Skyriter, which weighs about 3 pounds without its metal lid. I suppose that I’ll need to put some typing paper in the loft as well. Twist my arm….

(Not my carpet.)

Before I picked up the table I thought about cleaning it up and repainting it gloss black with gold trim. But now that I see it’s actually kind of an Army green, I think I’ll repaint it in that color after I clean it up and treat the rust. Someone with a military typewriter might especially appreciate it.

After all that moving around, I just couldn’t stop. Materials for my novel went from the library to the loft, materials for Formula 1 and another writing project went from the library and the dining room to the brick room, and books from the shelves in the brick room went to shelves in the dining room. Where will it end?

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Knitwise, I have carried my current project to work and back home again but not knitted a single stitch — not even during the Grand Prix of Saudi Arabia (guess who won). But isn’t it the thought that counts?

Chasing rainbows

I had good intentions when I sat down at the computer tonight, I really did. I didn’t know what I wanted to write about, but I honestly intended to crank out those one thousand words about…something.

I’ll be honest. It’s been a busy week and my mind and my tasks have been all OVER the place. I’m doing research on a topic that might not bear fruit for years. I’m [waking up] thinking about what I need to do to help my department(s) prepare for the coming academic year. I’m bracing myself for the workload of this fall’s graduate course in higher education leadership. I’ll have two sons in college and my youngest son in his senior year of high school. I have Secret Projects About Which Nothing Shall Be Revealed Until Afterwards. And it’s Sunday night, so I’m also finishing the laundry for the week.

I sat here for a while, and what came to mind was the rainbow. Good people in Waukesha County, Wisconsin, Google it, have been making Good Trouble for the last couple of years over their support of other good people who support the students in their school district.

The Minocqua Brewing Company has been “shut down” by officials who don’t have the authority to shut it down, in part because of the company’s support of Progressive policies and persons who find community and shelter under a rainbow umbrella. When some businesses need to follow the rules and others don’t, that’s called “selective enforcement.”

So I did a Google search for CHASING RAINBOWS and I discovered a lovely song by John Mellencamp that was released on the 2022 album “Strictly a One-Eyed Jack.”

You can listen to it, and watch it, here: https://youtu.be/TMUpq8fIXKw

Here is “Chasing Rainbows” by Big Freedia and Kesha: https://youtu.be/ZlNI7UhRoyc

Please let the message sink in. There are folks out there who could use your support and protection. All human beings deserve human rights. If you need a minute to think about that before you come around, take the time. We’re waiting for you.

Then celebrate with Irish band The High Kings and their own “Chasing Rainbows”: https://youtu.be/46jAXMq7esQ

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Knitwise, you know the drill. No stitches added, no stitches removed. No net gain, no net loss. It’s all good.

A short poem

Saturday I
went driving out
to pick up some
ingredients
for our beef stew.
Just short of an
intersection
I saw a truck
preparing to
make a left turn
onto my road.
I stopped far short
to give him room,
but the driver
behind me was
impatient, and
pulled around me
to pass before
he saw the truck
right in his path.
He just made it
through the small gap
between my car
and the big truck,
which was pulling
a long trailer
laden with hay.
Still, I had not
left enough room
for the truck’s turn,
and so I pulled
more to the right
and the truck passed.
Then I pulled up
to the stop sign
and saw the man
who had passed me
had pulled over
after his turn,
presumably
to take a breath;
to be grateful;
to wait until
his life had stopped
flashing before
his eyes. I hope
the rest of his
day was better,
and that he then
went home and hugged
his wife and kids.

Where’s my thing?

I hadn’t intended to spend so much time away from the keyboard, and it’s probably time for me to resume a regular writing schedule.

This summer I have been:

• traveling
• unraveling
• cooking
• booking
• trashing
• de-stashing
• knitting
• sitting
• framing
• gaming
• watching
• swatching
• cleaning
• gleaning
• reading
• feeding
• drinking
• thinking
• walking
• talking
• spicing
• ricing
• altering
• faltering
• waiting
• anticipating
• entering
• centering
• renovating
• innovating
• breading
• dreading
• driving

and

• surviving

The surviving is really the most important part, because without it there would be nothing else. So when I have gotten to the end of a day and I have not had an extra two or three hours in which to collect my thoughts and write creatively, I have usually chosen to go to bed and try to get some restful sleep. That’s not always what I get, but one has to try. It’s analogous to sitting at the computer (or notebook) and hoping for good writing to result. It doesn’t always happen, but it certainly won’t happen if you don’t even show up. So I’m taking care of myself. My friends who struggle day to day have also been taking care of themselves, sometimes just enough to still be with us. Força, folks. Força.

It’s also been a summer of goodbyes, as some of my campus colleagues are saying their farewells as they retire or move on to other jobs. Some transitions were anticipated, but others were not. I’m also working to welcome and integrate several new employees into our department, our college, our campus… and in some cases our state and nation. What a great responsibility to be entrusted with!

At home I have been working all summer — with the kidlets — to get rid of the things we don’t need and shape the things we do need into more appropriate arrangements for us. All of my four children are at least teenagers now, and some of the “childish things” of our past can be passed along to younger human beings. Our rooms and living spaces can also mature a bit with us. Each room is still in a bit of flux, but I am proud to say that we finally got rid of that stinkin’ ugly couch that was too short and too poofy-soft for anyone to comfortably sleep on. HUZZAH. It only took two months of planning and a day’s worth of emails and phone calls.

Okay, so, he’s a dog.

I am particularly excited about some room changes that should happen this week. A renovated and repaired dresser is scheduled to be delivered tomorrow; a consignment-store loft bed could be assembled this week; a new mattress to fit the loft bed could arrive ten days after the order is placed and an old mattress set will be removed from the premises (okay, that’s not quite happening this week, but I got the timeline information today, so it should still count in the imminently-occurring category).

We are working on our rooms because they are reflections of who we are and who we hope to be. We have filled Goodwill-donation bags over and over again with who we used to be.

The house is still cluttered, and our identities are still clouded. The future is filled with uncertainty, as it has always been. But we breathe, and we eat, and we write, and we try to sleep as we also try to discover who we are.

The title of this post comes from a kids’ show associated with a comedian I will no longer name. There was a particular episode in which the title character yearned to discover what his “thing” was after seeing the other members of his family display their different talents and passions. But it also refers to an instrumental performance by Rush, featuring Neil Peart, AKA The Professor. This evening I watched and listened to a seven-minute Buddy Rich video, shared by a Facebook friend, that awed me. I have been incredibly privileged not only to have attended several Rush concerts in the 1990s but also to have taken Eldest to one with me before the band retired. In honor of two of the geniuses of percussion, here is a video of “Where’s My Thing?”

The person who loved me and introduced me to Rush and to so many other things no longer walks the earth. We did so many things together, and had so many heartfelt conversations in person, on the phone, and via email. What happens to those experiences, those emotions, and those memories when we’re not able to reminisce with each other, to tell the beloved stories over and over? I suppose that you have to live on for the ones who have gone; you have to carry them with you as you go forward. And perhaps, when I am gone, they and my memories of them will finally be set down with no one to take them up. I hope that, somehow, they know that I carried them as long as I could, doing my best to finish their unfinished business.

So, here’s my thing. I’m going to help my colleagues, to love my friends, to write my stories, and to guide my children as best I can. As well as I can discern, those are my assigned tasks while I walk the earth. If you’re able to help, I welcome your assistance.

Choices

With just a few hours of the evening left to me, it’s time to choose. Do I write about what I haven’t gotten done yet — and can’t possibly finish tonight — or put off the writing in an attempt to hit some sort of benchmark for the day or even the month? (I’m not worried about the goals for the week; there is plenty of week left.)

I could finish reading a book to boost my page count for the month, as I only count the books I finish. Right now I’m about one-third of the way through In No Uncertain Terms: A South African Memoir by Helen Suzman. It’s a very enjoyable read, but finishing two hundred pages in two days seems a bit of a reach. I have only 150 pages left of The Curse of the Boyfriend Sweater: Essays on Crafting by Alanna Okun. I’m not reading anything by Alan Paton right this second, although more of his books are arriving this week. The next one I have waiting in chronological order is his 1973 Apartheid and the Archbishop: The Life and Times of Geoffrey Clayton. That’s another 300 pages, but before it came his 1964 (or 1965, depending on the publisher) biography of Jan Hofmeyr. (It’s en route and may arrive this week. Amazon won’t tell me how many pages it has, but it does weigh 2.2 pounds.)

So far, such good reading.

That’s the long way ’round of saying I’m not close to finishing anything I’m reading right now, with the possible exception of The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie (page 74 of 230…oh, never mind).

In the area of Formula One, last weekend I actually watched all three free practices, the qualifying session, and the race of the Azerbaijan Grand Prix. Okay, two of the practices were foreshortened due to red-flag incidents, and my mind drifted off during the actual race, which was considerably less exciting than practice and qualifying. The point is that I watched them all and deleted the recordings from the DVR. Except for the Spanish-language broadcast I recorded from Univision so I could brush up on my racing-technical Spanish… rats. More to do.

But I got something done on my F1 cooking project as well: Azerbaijani chicken plov, which came out almost perfect, and which Eldest actually ate. He even made a suggestion for the “next time” I cook the dish, which is an extremely positive sign. On the other hand, his suggestions was to leave out the two onions, which may slightly impact the flavor and character and cooking chemistry of the dish. But I feel glad to have finally taken a step into researching and preparing Azerbaijani cuisine, so there’s that.

Chicken thighs and onions…

Yes, that is a HEAD of garlic.

Absolutely fabulous!

This weekend I also walked to raise money for the March of Dimes, saw Avengers: Endgame, survived a spring snow squall that melted within 24 hours, went to a Yom Ha’Shoah event at Congregation Emanu-El of Waukesha, did a little laundry, and (with Eldest) diagnosed and fixed my van’s overheating problem. (We are so proud of ourselves.)

In knitting news, I cast on for a baby blanket last week and have been making steady progress of 2-4 rows each day. This morning before work I pulled out my knitting and was surprised to discover that I had left my pattern at home. But I was just at the point where I could read my knitting and proceed accurately without the pattern. Which I did, for two rows.

It’s been a stressful month for me. I’m trying to make my choices very carefully this week (and next month). I could be upset but I choose not to. I could be angry but I choose not to. I choose to be careful and kind and full of hope.

All the other things

The end of a weekend is a natural time to sit still for a moment and take stock of things. I naturally think, Did I get everything done that I had planned to do? And the answer is invariably No. I tend to overplan, when the kids are here my plans usually go happily off the rails, and stuff just seems to happen that looks infinitely more interesting than what was already planned.

This weekend all the kids were here. I went shopping with one of them. I got an unexpected haircut. We made cookies and frosted them. We rested, played, and ate our way through a stack of pizzas. We did laundry. We shared memes and YouTube videos.

But that nagging voice reminds me that I didn’t completely organize my desk. I didn’t pay the bills. I didn’t get the floors swept and the carpets vacuumed. Those things all need to be done, and I didn’t get them done this weekend.

One question I have absolutely never asked myself at the end of a weekend is, Are you happy? That’s a shame, because it would be a very good time to ask that question. It would be an especially good question to ask when you didn’t make it to the end of the task list — when it was the kind of weekend to make smoothies and hot pretzels instead of making a proper meal, and to talk politics with teenagers, and to reminisce about (of all things) television commercials from the 1970s.

Are you happy even though you did not check off each item on your list?

Are you happy even though you still have to do the dishes?

Are you happy even though you fell on the ice?

Are you happy even though you still have to pay the bills and sweep the floors?

Are you happy even though the CD player doesn’t work and will have to be replaced?

Are you happy even though you didn’t practice the piano?

Are you happy even though you put your pajamas in the laundry and then didn’t do the laundry?

Are you happy even though the van needs urgent repairs?

It took a while, but I chose to be happy. I was having a bit of a crisis of confidence meltdown this morning when a friend reminded me of the four major accomplishments I had in my house (to say nothing of the dog). I had not previously thought of my children as my accomplishments, but his comment made me think about the relationships I have with them and the ways in which I could actively work to maintain and improve them.

He went on to say, “What you have done is a springboard for what you will do.” I have to admit that this is when I started to cry. I am interested in so many things that I cannot possibly do them all. Prioritizing one interest feels like abandoning another; choices are truly painful. This could explain why I have a library of hundreds, if not thousands, of books: on my impossible quest to learn and understand everything, I refuse to give up, refuse to be defeated even though a rational mind can see that I will never read all of these books. But here is someone who knows a bit of what I have done and sees all that I could ever do, and he thinks that I can do it, whatever “it” is.

Those words got me going this morning, and they kept me thinking about my real priorities. My writing. My relationships with my children. My curiosity. My perseverance. I think I’ll keep going.

Mid-hunker

Today, though it was dangerously frigid outside, turned out to be quite similar to many of the other days I have spent at home this month. I made two brief forays outside with the dog — I’ll make another one after this post is published — but other than that we’ve just stayed in, heated up food, done a little homework, and surfed the Internet for distractions.

Feels like staying in bed.

I checked off a few things on today’s task list and I will check off a few more, but most of the day I felt that I just wasn’t doing very much. I seemed to be constantly busy, but maybe doing a lot of little necessary things rather than one spectacular optional thing made me feel less productive.

Not that every single day doesn’t have to be outstandingly productive. If we had a huge task to complete every day we’d soon be physically worn out or mentally discouraged. But I often feel better about the day and about myself when I can turn around at the end of a particularly busy day and say, “Now look at that which I have done!”

Today I kept washing dishes, and warming up food, and nudging MiddleSon and Youngest to do some of their homework, and reading sections of books here and there, and putting little things away. Every so often I would go to a window and peek out, as if I could see the cold. (I couldn’t.)

The most major change I made today was nothing monumental; I fixed a lamp. I have had this particular lamp for at least twenty years. A few years ago, someone bumped into the shade, which cracked. I looked for the same shade as a replacement, but ended up purchasing a different style that was on sale. I thought it would update the lamp, but it never quite looked right again. I moved the lamp from one place to another and never got around to plugging it in. When I was housecleaning and organizing before my surgery I moved the lamp to the floor of the laundry room, near the recycling. At some point I was almost ready to just give the lamp to Goodwill; by then the harp (the metal piece that goes around the bulb, and where the lamp attaches) was loose and I didn’t know if I could fix it.

This evening when I got ready to practice at the piano keyboard, I decided to bring the lamp into the library. I’ve been having a hard time seeing the sheet music clearly, as the only light source in the library is on the other side of the room. Next to my keyboard is a bookcase with magazine racks full of sheet music for guitar and piano. Maybe if I cleared some of them off, there would be room for the lamp.

I moved the music.

I found a converter to turn two outlets (both already in use by the keyboard and the boom box that serves as the keyboard’s speakers) into six so that I could plug in the lamp.

I removed the felt pad from the lamp base, reached way up inside, and managed to tighten the bolt that locked the socket to the lamp body. (The harp wasn’t the problem after all.)

And now I have light, and the rectangular shade turns out to be perfect for the space I have on the shelf. It will look even better if I can find other places for the rest of the sheet music that is still on top of that bookcase, but for now I’m just going to use the lamp and practice the piano and see how the setup evolves.

At the end of this evening’s practice time I noticed that I was on page 29 of my introductory piano book; only five pages of music remain. It would be foolhardy to make a hard-and-fast prediction, but if I keep practicing every day I may be working from another book sometime next week.

I wonder if part of today’s restlessness at “not getting enough done” is just because I’m closer to going back to work full time. Before I started my time off I could think of so many big things that I wanted to do in January: read the rest of my library books, do some literature-based research and writing, complete some online database work, watch some movies. At the beginning of my recovery I added even more things to the list: meditation, mindfulness practice, knitting, journal-keeping, and reading even more (and different) books. I knew that I was adding too many things, but of the course of the month I grew more forgiving of myself when I decided to set some things aside.

What I have done is, little by little, make a difference in my own life. I decided to write 6 out of every 7 days and I have kept to that. I decided to read a little every day, and I have kept to that — and finished more books than I thought I would. (I have also indulged myself by purchasing more books than I anticipated, but that’s a different issue.) And I finally decided to start again to learn to play the piano, and because I sit down on that rickety stool every night (fixing it is yet another task that’s languished on this month’s list) and make the effort, I am actually getting better at it.

My time at home has, I hope, also been beneficial to my kids. Now that they are all back to school — and I haven’t been — I have been more available to help them with homework and deadlines when they need it. I have also made a conscious effort to speak to them with more positivity, and to compliment them whenever I can. I think they’re going to be really nice people. They’ve certainly taken the time this month to hug me, help me, and tell me that they love me.

Blocked

My days have about half as much time as I’d like them to — maybe that’s because I haven’t made a habit of meditating and then planning out my day. In the morning, my mind whirls with everything I think I’d like to do; by mid-afternoon I’m scrambling to take care of what must be done. In the evening I’m in a panic at the “lost” day as I think of all the tasks I didn’t even start.

That’s just something I’ll have to get over. I’ll work on it.

In the meantime, I’ll tell you about what I did do, and not fret about what I haven’t done yet.

Today I worked a little, read a little, and drove a little. Our high schools have really strange exam schedules that are nothing like the exam schedules from my day. The length of the class time varies, the length of the school day varies, and I don’t have a handle on it at all. Eldest went to a different high school than MiddleSon does (and Daughter goes to a third district with which I rarely interact), and I have never figured any of them out. I am constantly taken unawares. That’s the long way ’round of saying I found out at 1:20 that I needed to pick up MiddleSon at 1:20.

I have a long history of being taken unawares by school deadlines and timelines. But that’s not important right now. Moving along, nothing to see here….

A little thing I did today, which is really more of a big thing, was to light a candle and do some reading in memory of a friend’s sister’s dog which ended its 14 years of life today. Losing any companion makes for a sad time. And if you have a pet, give them an extra treat tonight.

A big thing I did today, which is really a little thing in the scheme of all things, was to block the Kindness KAL Shawl. And I took pictures! I you are a yarnie and you haven’t blocked a finished piece yet, this should help to put you at ease and give you the confidence to do it yourself.

DISCLAIMER: Not everything has to be blocked. For wool lace shawls it’s a must. Cotton won’t block, alpaca cares about blocking almost as much as a honey badger does, acrylic requires a special steaming process called “killing,” and blends can usually be tossed in the delicate cycle and just come out soft. But I have made a wool shawl that needs blocking to create the shape it was meant to have. So, here we go!

First, you’ll need to get a set of foam mats. These are interlocking mats you can find in the “workout” aisle of a department store, and they usually come in sets of four. (You can also find them in the “preschool” aisle but they will be different colors and have letters in them. They work, too. Wait for a sale and you can sometimes get them at 20 to 50% off. This pair is a bit the worse for wear because they usually sit in front of the washer and dryer. I wiped them down briefly before putting them on the dining room table (with the extra leaves in). I should have used two more mats for this project, but they were in the garage, combined with others, under a weight bench with at least 200 pounds of weights. So sorry. Will make do with two.

Next, cover the foam mats with an old towel. You’re going to wash your knitted object by hand or on the delicate cycle in the washing machine with a gentle soap, and when you lay it out to dry you’ll need the towel under it to absorb the moisture.

Here I just dumped the shawl onto the towel, right out of the washer. I did have the shawl in a mesh bag while it was in the washer, because I didn’t want it to get snagged in the agitator. But you can see here how the ends of the shawl curl dramatically. This curl would have been less dramatic if I had used larger needles, but we have what we have. Blocking is the only thing that will straighten them out. The blocking wires, or pins, that I am going to use are visible just below the mats.

Here I have threaded the first blocking wire through the garter stitch bumps of what is actually the cast-off edge. Yes, I was actually knitting a triangle, so each side has to be straightened with a stiff wire.

Now, for the long edge. This one showed the most curvature, so it was the side about which I had the most concern. This took two blocking wires because of the length. At this point I wasn’t sure that I would be able to successfully block the shawl into the triangular shape. Look at all that extra area, bunched up in the middle!

All the edges have blocking pins now, but this is not the final shape we want the shawl to be. The stripes aren’t even and the edges aren’t straight. And you can see why I would have wanted to have two more of the foam mats (and another towel) at this point; I would have used quilting pins to lock the blocking wires in place through the foam mats.

After a tug here and a massage here, this is the triangular shape we were looking for. If this were summer, I would have brought a floor fan downstairs and trained it on the shawl, oscillating until the shawl had dried. With this week being so cold, that seems ridiculous and counterproductive. I’ll just leave the whole setup in place until the shawl is dry, and deal with the inconvenience.

Wool is an amazing fiber, and one of the qualities it has is called “memory.” That means that when my shawl dries in this position, it will STAY in this position after I remove the wires. If I have blocked it incorrectly or sloppily, it will show in the finished shape. To change that shape I would have to wash it and block it again. (This may also explain why the care instructions for woolen handknits are often simple “don’t get it dirty”.)

Even as I write this, the shawl is “drawing in” as it dries, and I had to adjust the two wires that are threaded along the longest edge.

Another way to block a shawl is to use straight pins rather than wires; this uses a LOT of pins but is very helpful when blocking out shawls with picot or scalloped edges. The following example is a shawl I knitted a few years ago.

Shaelyn shawl, before blocking.

Shaelyn shawl, pinned out over beach towels.

Shaelyn shawl, detail.

Blocking is not hard at all. It’s really just a process of gentle washing, pinning the project out to the desired shape, and allowing it to dry with that shape. Having the right materials on hand makes it so easy! Mild disclaimer: I do not have a cat, and my dog is neither able nor tempted to jump upon the dining room table to disturb this shawl as it dries. If you do have pets that might interfere with the blocking process, you may want to do this in a spare room or at a kind friend’s house.

Tomorrow beckons. Maybe I’ll do some knitting while you are treated to a guest post from MiddleSon!

Resting and listening

This recuperation process, it is hard for me. But perhaps I just take after my father. Many years ago he traveled to Mississippi to have special surgery done on his colon; they kept him there for six weeks, only incrementally increasing his amount of freedom from his bed, his ward, his floor, and his hospital. I would probably be better off with the same type of restrictions in my own six weeks of recovery time, but the powers that be have allowed me perhaps too much freedom.

That’s the long way of saying that I went into work today — briefly — because there was worked that needed to be done which could only be done from there. I worked for two hours and got the job half done; I’ll try to sneak in tomorrow to finish it up and get out of there before the snow comes to our region.

If I get snowed in this weekend, I will have plenty of knitting to do. I’m coming along nicely on the One Row Handspun Scarf, and I now have an updated photo of my work on the Aperture Shawl (I just force-uploaded the individual photos to Flickr).

The hexagonal needles are quite comfortable to knit with, with super sharp tips. And they’re walnut!

I’m slowly starting to understand the rhythm of the Aperture Shawl’s lace. That is not to say that I will be able to knit a single right-side row without giving the written instructions my full attention (the wrong-side row is just k1, kfb, p to the last 2 sts, kfb, k1, so…yeah) or that I am even going to look at the charts. But it means that I can start to see the pattern developing and I am getting better at reading the stitches and tinking it back when necessary.

16 rows complete. This may take a while.

I have also started reading a new set of books, which I will discuss on another day, but most of my reading in the last 48 hours has been a means of listening to the big conversation (started on Instagram and a blog and continuing on Ravelry) about racism and racial exclusion in the global fiber arts community. It’s not easy reading, but it has become clear that this situation is bad and it must change. The good news is that most people want it to change, and it can change. Those of us who have either been shutting people out or not realizing that we need to let people in can listen, think, and mindfully change. It’s an opportunity to increase kindness and fairness and creativity all at once.

To frame the argument in terms of a trivial example, many of us yarnies have had the experience of walking into a snooty yarn store and being treated like an intruder at best and a shoplifter at worst. This certainly happens at quilt shops, too! This is a much more common experience for yarn artists who don’t “look like customers” because they are young, or male, or black, or just not the store owner’s mental image of a knitter, whatever that may happen to be. Dropping in at a new-to-you Knit Night can go the same way — this hobby can be cliquish to the extreme, whether or not racism is the root. If you’re not welcomed where you go, whether it’s a yarn shop or a church or a store or a mom group or a PTA meeting, you usually don’t ever go back. This is, bluntly, ridiculous and unnecessary, and we can and should put a stop to it.

As someone who has only occasionally been snubbed and shut out, it falls to me to listen to the differing experiences of others. I can take action to keep a seat available at the table, to actively invite new crafters to the group, to include rather than exclude, and to continue to listen. The more we listen to the conversation, the more we understand that it really is necessary to work for change. Please, people, listen and keep the door open. Invite others to join you. Expand your groups and reach out. We can be better, and we will.