Colorwork, improv quilts, and holiday traditions

In this episode, I talk about how improv quilting and colorwork knitting is helping me to stay focused this holiday season. When you love someone who struggles with addiction, the holidays are never easy and so i'm focusing on what's making me happy: improv, scrappy mini quilts and colorwork. 

Music Credit: Ketsa, "Day Trips"

Transcript

Holly 00:31

Hi I am really happy to be talking with you and I only have a few moments. I'm about to run off and do some errands. It's Saturday evening and weekend is getting away from me but I wanted to pop in and say hi. It's been a little bit. 

Holly 00:54

I’m a little bit rusty but I was listening to a podcast that was talking about the holiday season and traditions and how everything's different this year and it just made me realize how much I appreciate this community and I just wanted to come on here and say hi. 

Holly 01:10

I know that this is a really hard time of year. And listening to the podcast that I was listening to--it is just a general one about you know how to run your life more efficiently-- and it was so clear that people are really struggling this year because they have this wonderful family traditions that are built on stability and repetition and community and that's disrupted and that's really giving them a lot of grief and I'm-- you know I feel for them but it also kind of made me recognize that for so many of us, we... we never get that. And that's also really hard. It's hard to hear other people mourn something that we haven't been able to have or if there is repetition and tradition, it's certainly not happy memories and there's just so much isolation that surrounds addiction and families of the addicted and there is so much shame and there's just so much grief and so I wanted to come on here and think a little bit about that with you in a positive way about you know some of the recognition I've had this season particularly that even with the pandemic and how it's throwing a kind of wrench into all the holiday traditions, it's helping me stay focused on what really matters which is you know my recovery and being present in the moment and my connection to my kids and my friends and honestly to  you all as well who have helped me get through this year.

Holly 02:57

So I want to begin by thanking you as always for being here. It really means a lot to me. I think this is the 30th episode-- wow that's really remarkable-- and I want to thank you for that again. It really means a lot to me. The other thing I want to say is that I'm just rambling here about my own particular story of strength and hope in the hopes that it provides a little bit of comfort and that something I say might be helpful to you but if it's not: take what you like leave the rest and continue on with your knitting and being happy.

Holly 03:32

One of the things I have been finding joy in...so that I have like a win and then I have a frustration. So my win is that I have really been loving any kind of free content that has to do with just general process making do I talk to already about how much I'm loving I'm Kafe Fasset’s crazy ball theory and color work knitting and it's really inspired me to try color work. I've had buried in my stash-- I think at the start of the pandemic I bought a skein of yarn from my local yarn store as part of Brooklyn Tweed Alone Together kind of program.  I bought one skein or maybe I bought 2 skeins of their peerie yarn, which I guess is like a fingering weight worsted spun. It’s a really really nice yarn.  High twist to make a pattern that I bought... I think this time of year last year, which is the tubular Socks pattern by @awesomesocks, Tabee Gandi, on Ravelry and it's a really great 70 sock pattern. It has this kind of Charlie Brown chevron stripes in these great 70s colors. I think the pattern is supposed to be made all of that Peerie yarn. But it has four different contrast colors, so that would be a mighty expensive pair of socks. So I just bought the main color when I bought the pattern and it was just sitting there in my stash.  

Holly 05:13

But what I realized is that over the summer I was gifted all those mini skeins of yarn and I suddenly was like, wait a second I have the contrast colors that I need and they all works really well with Peerie yarn and so it hit me that I had everything I needed to cast on these socks. And so I yet again threw my hat into the ring and tried color work. It's very fun and it's been you know something I've been trying unsuccessfully to do for years and my tension was always off. I've made my friend Alan this pair of mittens (laughing) colorwork mittens I think it was by hello yarn and they had these squirrels on it and they came out like children's mittens (laughing) they were so tight. I guess over the years my gauge has really opened up but not with what color work. 

Holly 06:07

One of the things that I've got better at this year I’m realizing is both knitting continental style, which is just what I normally do and then also I guess knitting American style or English-style, which is throwing the yarn. And that's what you kind of need for color work--both styles. What I'm rambling about right now is that colorwork is kind of where I am at.  I love how wonderfully scrappy it is and how that sort of connects with my love of using things up and also trying something new and just letting myself play. All of that is sort of jiving with me right now. The color work socks came out really great-- I can actually put them on! They fit (laughing) even the colorwork section. (Whispers as though sharing a secret) I just added a few extra stitches. That was my secret and it worked wonderfully well. 

Holly 07:03

I’d say I am a quarter of the way through, or maybe half of the way through, my second sock. I just have to turn the heel. This pattern has a really nice heel, by the way, it's worth checking out for the heel. It’s  not my normal go to sock pattern, which is toe up with a German short row heel. This is different; I'm turning a proper heel, which I haven't done in years and it's been super fun. They're super retro and I'm really loving them.  

Holly 07:34

So that's my win: I'm really into to color work and it's reminding me of my other win, which you know I have always been intrigued by quilting, which is again colorwork Kaffe Fasset, I'm just sort of my head is there right now but it's always seemed super intimidating and fussy like both the sense of what colors look good together and then also the sense of like how to cut everything so that it’s super exact. I don't know I've tried it and it just never worked for me. In fact my very first sewing machine was gifted to me by a friend who I am sadly not in touch with any more who herself was a quilter. She used to be a knitter and she hurt her wrist and then became an incredibly passionate quilter and she bought me this sewing machine because she wanted me to be a quilter too. 

Holly 08:18

And the funny thing is that she is an adult child of an alcoholic, now that I think about it and there's a lot there that I'm realizing about our friendship that you know I could probably make amends to her about now but at the time it didn't fully understand and I had my own issues and that's a whole other story but she bought me this incredibly generous gift. She bought me this beautiful gift and I just never liked sewing. I'll come back to this in a minute but but why I'm mentioning this is that the other thing that I've been doing is that I have been sewing an improv quilt and I beta-tested an e-course by Beth who is @sewDIY on improvisational quilting for garment sewers.  On the whole--it's a really good course. I think it's priced pay-what-you-can because Beth really wants to encourage sustainable sewing and it's really really worth it. For whatever reason the course just unlocked all of my interest in quilting. I had this pile of scrap fabrics that were sitting on the shelf-- you know I have all these beautiful scraps. I don't know if you hoard fabric scraps but I sure do and this really helped me figure out what to do with all of these bits and pieces. Her point is to think about shapes and not color and that really helps and so I've been doing improv quilting and it feels really good!

Holly 09:46

And for me, what I'm thinking about this year is especially where I was to begining with about the holidays is that improv quilting is.. it's no surprise that's where my head is because our holidays are always improv holidays (laughing) right? Like there's always the possibility that whatever beautiful plan I have, it is going to be knocked sideways by a something that has to do with addiction. And that's certainly true this year. And I keep hoping that my children's father, my soon-to-be-ex-husband will find some stable footing with recovery but that doesn't seem to be happening and it's always hard this time of year. And it's hard this time of year in a couple different ways, including financially,  legally and also medically and it's just bumming me out. A and it could have been a real big trigger for my Al-Anonic behavior but I'm really doing a lot of work, a lot of work, in therapy, in Al-Anon meetings and then I wanted to show up here as well to take care of myself and to stay centered in my recovery when there's so many triggers.

Holly 11:06

The holidays for me bring up so much; I want to be able to buy my kids you know the family that they don't have and that of course never works and only leads to debt and stress and me being a screechy, angry mom and it'd be much better if I just deal with what we can't have and sit with that and mourn it and make do with what we can. And the Improv quilts course kind of hit that perfectly right. I don't know if I can make a perfect quilt (laughter) actually I do know that I canNOT make a perfect quilt, i do not have that skill set, but what I can do is use up these scraps that would just be sitting there anyway and there's no reason not to use them and whatever I make ...even if it's the world's ugliest thing..  at least it’s going to free up a shelf and let me let go of this pile of fabric that is taking up space in my life. So why not use it as a source creative play and that has been really freeing and exactly what I needed to hear,  just like with the knitted socks in the color work, just a bit of colorwork, like it's literally I think 16 rows of color work right at the start.  It just, you know, hit the right stride and so that's been my win. 

Holly 12:26

I had one big fail, which is I tried to make my friend a holiday present. I don't know why I got it in my head that I was going to do gift knitting but I did and oh boy it has not been well. I have had to recast it on I think four times now and I’m trying to like reverse engineer a cowl that is beautiful but the pattern is like $8 and I don't want to pay for it and it's totally worth it but I just don't have it in my bank account right now. Things are really tight and that's hard to admit but I'm also practicing that there's no shame in saying that-- I'm a single mom and I tried my best and things are tight. You know as much as I tighten the belt, things are not meeting this month and that sucks so anyway... long story longer...I can't buy the pattern but I tried. I thought I can figure this out. it's just a cartridge ridge. I thought i could cast on, eyeballing it, an I could make it work and I think there's a joke here (laughing) about you know a cartridge rib and a pear tree. But you know what, I can't make it work. That $8 is worth it because I cannot reverse engineer it or I certainly don't have the brain space to do it and it's making me hate the yarn and I just had a moment of why.  Why am I doing this? 

Holly 13:32

The gift is for my beautiful friend who I love very much and who has had a hard year too, and  who's been there for me no matter what. But you know what? She doesn't need a cowl from me. She just needs me to call her and say that I'm thinking of her. She knows my situation. I just wanted to I wanted to, you know, all the al-anonic behavior. I wanted to present myself as this together person who can make things. I wanted to hide the fact that I'm having a financially hard time with gifts and the universe told me to stop. (laughing) It’s my higher power speaking to me in challenging cartridge ridge in the round. (laughing) I don’t know, does your  higher power speak that way? Like through frogging knitting projects? I’m being totally facetious but I am taking it as a sign that the project is not meant to be and I just need to put the yarn back in my stash and maybe give it a go another time of the year.

Holly 14:51

So I’ll end there because it's almost time for me to run the errands I need to run but I just wanted to end by saying thank you again. I am really, really happy that you're here and that we've made it to 30 episodes. That’s kind of crazy. I hope that you are well. I hope that you have everything you need. I hope that you have beautiful materials to work with and that the projects that you're working on for yourself are making you feel happy and fulfilled. 

Holly 15:30

I hope that you're having the richest holiday season, whatever holiday you celebrate. I hope that it feels really, really rich in all of the very best ways, which is you know, love and community and support and maybe some fun stuff.  And if you're like me and the stuff part of it is really challenging right now, just know you're not alone… (laughing) and I'm sure there's going to be another cowl to kick our butt in a few weeks. 

Holly 15:58

So I'm going to end now--I'm rambling--but I will see you all soon. Take care! Bye!