Category: Knitting

Skeins on a Plane

I’ve been AWOL from the blog lately due to a family emergency which took me out of town. Travel is something I like to dream about, but don’t really like to do when it gets down to it. I love to watch an airplane in the sky and imagine the exotic place it’s going. Sometimes I wish I was on that airplane flying away somewhere. Then I think of how it all works and I start to get nervous. Planes fly in the sky, right? A big heavy apparatus with real people inside, flying over oceans, mountains, and all that entails. Then there’s the planning which I am really bad at. 
This trip was different in that I had no time to think or plan because there was nothing to do but get to the destination.  No time to pack, just throw essentials in a bag.  When I have an emergency my fears fly out the window.  I had an objective and worked to meet it. What I did think about was taking my Artist’s Way morning pages to write in and a couple of skeins of sock yarn.  At least these two things would keep me calm and be productive in down time.

I took care to bring bamboo needles for the sock knitting instead of my favorite steel double-points.  In this post 9/11 time, flying is tough enough that I didn’t want to risk fighting with security over knitting needles and looking like a wacko flight risk.  Hey, remember people, this is New York!  Bamboo needles sailed through the check points.

Settled in my seat near a window, I took out the knitting and got to it. The “flight professional”, as they are now called, asked me for my drink and snack preferences and added that she’s seen knitting with two needles, but never with four. So I tell her, “It’s for socks.”  She starts laughing and hitting her head while I’m thinking, ok, what’s her problem?  Looking at me between the blue chips and the cashews, over the heads of my seat-mates she says, “You did say socks, right?”

Painting, and Knitting, and Beading, Oh My!

Some people have a hobby or two that they like to indulge in now and then.  Others do one thing very well and have fun doing just that.  When one enjoys their “thing”, whether a creative outlet or sports related, it’s a go-to activity that gives pleasure in the down time. 

Having too many enjoyable pursuits becomes a burden.  I am one of those people.  As an artist I really need to paint.  My favorite medium is oil paint and I paint BIG.  What am I painting right now?  Nothing.  I’m not oil painting, not right now anyway.  Right now I’m knitting!  And I’m knitting five items at once.  And I’m making bead/wire jewelry.  And I’m pastel drawing.  And I’m sketching with watercolors, which is painting, ok.  Did I say I’m knitting?

It’s all a distraction, you see.  No, not multi-tasking like people want to call it.  I’m working on one thing until I suddenly am very interested in another thing.  Then I stop doing the first activity and fluidly move on to the other.  No multi-tasking involved.  There’s a good excuse for this and it’s not ADD.  Since I haven’t used the oil paints in a while first I need to set them up on my palette.  This takes time.  This takes energy.  So I go to the next easy-to-get-to thing which is the pastels.  Just open the box of pastels, draw, and clean up the dust, and I’m done!  But I have to pull out the boxes from the shelf.  As I start for the shelf I see the half done knit socks I’m working on.  I head for the knitting.  I’m at a juncture in the knitting where I have to count rows and I spy another pair on other needles.  I pick them up and knit on them for a few rows.  Behind this project is the beading bag full of jewelry goodies.  I stop knitting and look through the bag for something I thought of.  Do you see where this is going?

Wouldn’t it be smart to get the oil paints out and just do that?  Yes, it would be a good thing unless the half knit sock is in the way.