Tricotomania and more

In case you were wondering why my blog is called what it’s called, I submit evidence that I actually knit.

The bigger pairs are for Tigger. The blue ones are in a cotton/lycra blend from Elann.com using the stashbuster spiral pattern, sort of. I did them top down with an afterthought heel. Not so sure I like that heel method but it was good to try it.

The green and cream ones are in Lorna’s Laces, a colour I got in Purl last fall in New York. I bought two skeins for my mother as part of her Christmas present and she recently returned what she had left over because she thought there would be enough for a pair of Tigger sized socks (but wasn’t going to knit them herself, I guess). Those are toe up with short-row heels. I tried a different short-row heel method based on what is in these instructions (there are photos of the encroachment stitches somewhere, too). I didn’t have the instructions in front of me when I knit the heel though and the cable was out at the time so I couldn’t check so I wouldn’t swear that they were done exactly like that. But I kind of like the method I used. Also did a picot cuff. Didn’t cast off, just left a long end and sewed each loop to an appropriate spot and kept the sewing tension reasonably loose.

The little ones are for one of the myriad boys that seem to be being born this summer. I just decided wee Koigu socks would be a good idea. I panicked at that point that I’d run out of yarn though so I’ve started the other one and have now decided to frog back to before the heel and do the heels in plain blue then continue the leg in the loud stuff and then finish in blue ribbing. Loud Canadian socks from a loud Canadian friend. And a good way to use up leftovers.

In case anyone is interested, I did look at the baby socks Ann Budd had in Interweave Knits last summer but the guage was different. These are done on 2.25mm needles in Koigu on 40 stitches. She gave the measurements as 6 cm around and 9 cm heel to toe, so that is what I’m going for. I started with a turkish cast on at the toe (8 stitches on each of two needles) and increased using the backward loop method 4 stitches every second round until I had 40. Short row heel. Knit till I’m feed up.

There has been substantial progress on the shawl though there is no point in photographing it unless I’m going to take it off the needles and stretch it out and I am too lazy to do that. I’m done one skein of yarn and have wound another skein into a ball. I forget what row I’m on but it is in the last full repeat of those squares.

Israel pounded suspected Hezbollah positions across Lebanon on Thursday, extending its air campaign a day after suffering its highest one-day casualty toll since its military offensive began. An Israeli cabinet minister said lack of agreement on a ceasefire gave Israel permission to press deeper to wipe out the Islamic militant group.

This is the first paragraph of an article in the Globe and Mail this morning. This makes me furious. By not coming out and clearly condeming the violence, the world has implicitly supported an escalation in the violence.

It is possible to condemn all the violence. No one needs to support terrorists. But our political leaders need to get off their butts and condemn it. It has got to stop.

Sometimes when reading critics of unschooling, one gets the impression that they think this is a lazy way of educating children. And in some sense, it is. I don’t plan a detailed curriculum with texts to read, exercises to do, assessment of learning, etc. I don’t struggle to get my child to sit and do the things that I have planned.

But looked at another way, unschooling is rather difficult. Observing my child to know where her interests are taking her and how best to meet her learning needs is not an easy task. Children cannot articulate their interests and needs clearly and part of my role is to help her discern these and help her find a language to communicate these.

Helping her find appropriate ways of folllowing and developing her interests is not that easy either. How much depth does she need or want at this time? What conceptual level is she capable of understanding? Sometimes knowledge of the average developmental abilities of children her age is useful (and thus things like ‘grade level’ or age level indicators will help), but the extent of variation around those averages means that my child may be capable of much higher or much lower levels than such information would suggest. Trial and error is often the only way to go.

But the most difficult thing I have been facing in the unschooling of Tigger is religion. I was raised in the Anglican Church, was baptized, confirmed, sang in the choir, was even an alter server. But I had what might be called a crisis of faith over 20 years ago and left the church. I did not believe in God. Or, perhaps, I did not believe in God as He was presented to me in those years in the church. (There are difficulties here with the tense of the verb which I’m going to overlook.) In any case, I walked away and lived as an atheist for over 20 years.

This was not difficult. For most of that time, I lived in England. I am politically on the left, feminist, queer. I rarely came across people who had religious convictions or who attended church regularly. In fact many of my friends have no experience of church attendance at all. My partner is an atheist and has attended church maybe 6 times in his life for things like funerals or weddings or compulsory school things (there is no secular schooling in England).

That said, my values and approach to life are probably very influenced by christianity. A Jewish woman acquantance (and wife of a conservative rabbi) once described me as a “secular christian”, which seemed like a reasonable descriptor despite the fact that most christians would vehemently argue that such a thing could not exist. When I was pregnant, I met and became friends with a christian mother and we have many discussions about religion. Her experience was the chronological reverse of mine, having been raised without religion but coming to the church in her late teens. I also had a colleague with whom I discussed religion on the bus on the way to work.

Last fall, Tigger said that she wanted to go to church. I have particular values that some churches would actively teach were evil (not just wrong, I’m pretty sure) so I had to give this some thought. She is well aware that her dad and I don’t believe in God. But had been saying for quite a while that she does (at one point, she said that she was not a christian but believed in God, for example). Luckily, a close friend of ours was looking for a new church at the time and we found an Anglican church that we all felt comfortable with (it is an affirming and inclusive parish, with a large number of gay and lesbian members, and very active on social justice issues especially around housing and refugees). Initially my friend took Tigger. But when she couldn’t go or wasn’t going, I sometimes took her. As of this spring, Tigger and I attend regularly and have officially joined this parish.

There is obviously another story here about my own journey but I want to focus for a bit on Tigger and on how, as an unschooling family, we deal with this question of religion which has come from her. Her father is struggling to be supportive and doing very well at being accepting and not being at all negative.

So last week, I went to see the curate to talk about things. Prior to this meeting I often tried to explain where Tigger’s belief in God and desire to attend church has come from. This makes Tigger uncomfortable but my explanations, or at least the desire for an explanation, seemed entirely reasonable to me. I wondered if it was partly influenced by the fact that her best friend is a Christian. I wondered if it had come from things she had learned in school in England. But the curate at our church helped me to see that she might just be a very spiritual child and that her belief in God does not come from external influence.

She lent me a book, “The Religious Potential of the Child” by Sofia Cavalletti, indicating that Cavalletti presents some evidence of innate religiosity in children and that I might find it interesting (if somewhat difficult in parts since Cavalletti is Roman Catholic). We also talked about things like prayer (which Tigger has asked for help with and I have no idea where to start, though she did decide to learn the Lord’s Prayer probably at the suggestion of Laura Ingall’s Wilder and Anne of Greene Gables) and bible readings (which Tigger was also requesting). She recommended a translation of the bible that I would feel comfortable with.

So I’ve started reading the Cavalletti. I might follow Willa’s lead and write about it here as I read it. I’m still thinking about that. I bought a new bible (it was on sale). I think Anne of Green Gables and Emily of New Moon will provide a good starting point for a discussion of prayer and different experiences of God. I still feel a bit lost but have a bit of a foothold.

I do wonder sometimes how the more radical-libertarian unschoolers would respond to a child expressing this sort of interest.

Clearly, these thoughts are “to be continued . . . “

In the comments to the first of my Creativity posts, Liza made the following comment:

Recently I’ve realized that a really important factor was their Montessori nursery school experience where children and their parents learned to respect the work of play. What kids did was called work and not simply dismissed as silly child’s play.

My intention is not to criticize Liza as I had been thinking about this for a while in relation to other things, but I do want to talk about this opposition between “work” and “play”. Thanks for inspiring me to actually do it, Liza. In particular, I think that in our culture the modifer “silly child’s” is assumed even when not stated. So I want to start by stating some things that might upset people. And then explain why more of us should be upsetting more people in this way.

Play is not work.

Mothering is not a job.

The inverse of both of these statements comes from the same place. We all recognize that the subjects of both sentences (“play” and “mothering”) are not valued in our society. When we claim that play is work, or that mothering is a job, we are making a political statement. We are saying that play and/or mothering should be valued, just as work is valued.

The problem is, politically, that this strategy reinforces the very problem it seeks to solve. By equating play and/or mothering with work in order to value the former, we are implicitly accepting that work is valuable. And that play and/or mothering only have value in as much as they can be considered work.

Now, I can sort of imagine where some might argue that this isn’t a problem. But I would argue that the very things we value about play and/or mothering are those aspects of play and/or mothering which are not like work.

When we were talking about Creativity (me and the people I linked to, and the folks in the comments; this is a great discussion), one of the things we were emphasizing was that we needed to just be able to explore materials, to have too much, to not focus on the end product prematurely. And some of us talked about the pleasure in creativity. Or the deep sense of personal satisfaction. Some of what we value about creativity is not about the work aspects (producing something useful), but the freedom and joy of play.

When we argue that play is the work of children, not only do we devalue the importance of play (maybe called “leisure” or “recreation”) for adults, but we feed into a line of argument that leads directly to universal preschool, the structuring of day care and preschool in relation to the needs of the school that comes after, the undervaluing of the personal and specific knowledge of mothers and others who know particular children well in favour of early childhood educators and other specialists, and the constant reduction of recess, physical education, art and whatnot during the school day in favour of “more important” subjects.

I am not opposed to day care. I am not opposed to the government funding of more daycare spaces (which are desperately needed). I am opposed to the idea that what children need is a structured program of activities, designed by experts in early childhood development, from a very early age, to ensure that they develop all the necessary skills to enable them to not only read, write, and do arithmetic, but also sit still, listen to a teacher, and so on. I am opposed, in other words, to children being required to work and to produce.

And I am constantly reminded that even the mothers who do not send their children to day care or preschool, and even many mothers who homeschool, feel pressure to provide this sort of programme for their children (even if they don’t always do it). Why else would the mothers of 3 year olds be calling what they do “homeschooling” (instead of “mothering”)? And why would some homeschoolers regularly give advice to such mothers to just let their little ones play?

And that leads neatly from “play” to “mothering” . . . Mothering is not a job. Mothering is not work. Mothering is a relationship. Yes, it involves effort. No, stay at home moms don’t sit around doing nothing all day. Yes, laundry and cooking meals and finding appropriate toys and cleaning up sick and all that other stuff is work. But mothering itself, and what we most want to have valued about mothering, is a relationship. By focusing on the work part, we do not make any inroads into making people value the part of mothering that we most value. Go and read any random collection of mom-blogs and you will see that what mothers most value about mothering is the depth of the relationship with their children. And though it will be harder to find, because they aren’t as plentiful, if you find anything written by dads who have chosen to stay at home or to take parental leave or just to make an effort to spend more time with their children, you will see that what they value most about that experience is the relationship with their kids.

No one gets deep personal satisfaction from cleaning up shit. But the intimate act of washing and changing your baby, and the opportunity that changing diapers offers for focused exchange with your baby (making faces, talking, gently stroking them, etc.) means that many parents do find deep personal satisfaction in activities that, from a work perspective, are about cleaning up shit.

Here’s the thing. Both stay-at-home moms and employed moms share this valuing of the relationship aspects of mothering. Sometimes they don’t understand how you could have a good relationship with your child if you are not there for big chunks of the day or, conversely, how you could have a good relationship with your child if you are busy doing all the work part. But many employed mothers are concerned about the quality of the day care available. Many of them are ambivalent about the focus on the “work of play” even for very young children and the (excessive) structuring of their children’s day. Many of them would also like more options in terms of both the quality of day care available and the number of options available to them for combining employment and mothering.

One of the reasons that parents have limited options (basically an all or nothing choice in many places, particularly the US) and that men find it very difficult to have closer relationships with their children, is that mothering is not valued as a relationship. In fact, I would go further and say that relationships are not valued much at all.

Instead of limiting our political demands to a recognition of the “work” aspects of play and mothering, we need to upset more people’s notions of what is really important. We should be arguing for the value of play (for everyone: adults and children) and for the value of relationships (all kinds: romantic, parenting, friendship, extended family, etc.) and the rebalancing of life so that work is not taking up such a big chunk of everyone’s time and energy. If work were not so overvalued, and play and relationships so undervalued, our society would be a much nicer place.

Just to be clear about my opinion of Liza’s comment, I actually think it is great that the Montessori education her kids had valued play and taught both kids and children that play is important. My only beef, is with the choice to do that by calling it work.

Play is not work. Mothering is not a job. Both play and mothering are very important.

For any of you interested in Charlotte Mason, there is a new blog that is posting her original writing in short, ponderable bits. This was suggested by Melissa at the Lilting House. Although I have no plans to do CM “properly”, I do find her ideas fascinating enough that I will keep up with this for a while, I think.

I’m lucky I didn’t crash the car this morning. Actually I didn’t come that close but I had the radio on and got some news. They started a fucking ground offensive. Very offensive, IMO. More offensive than swearing by a real long shot.

Anyway, my friend Charlie has a very good post up wherein he talks about this thing in relation to two friends of his, one Israeli and one Lebanese. Charlie was supposed to be in Beirut this week watching a football tournament (that’s soccer, for you North Americans). I guess that’s off.

Charlie is a journalist and writer. He writes good books. Many of them about football though more recently he does quirky travel books. He’s kind of like the Yarn Harlot for football fans and travellers. He will think it very weird that I said that and won’t really know what I mean. But I bet she would like his books (not the football one’s obviously because Steph knows and cares about as much about football as Charlie does about knitting).

Oh, and my paper came today. It has a nifty box on teh front entitled Death Toll with the number for the 5 days from July 13-17

Lebanese army 34
Lebanese civilians 210
Wounded 289

Israeli military 12
Israeli civilians 12
Wounded 109

Hizbullah 1 (isn’t that a really interesting number. Particularly compared to the Lebanese numbers.)

Others
Canadians 8 (This is kind of weird. This is a UK paper. Why pick the Canadians?)
Wounded 6

So I think that the comparison of Israeli military to Lebanese military is interesting (12:34 which is almost 3 lebanese soldiers for every 1 israeli soldier). But the civilian comparison is just fucking frightening (12:210 that is 17.5 lebanese civilians for every 1 israeli). And the total civilians killed to total military killed is 4.83 (I’ve left out those Canadians but they might make it an even 5, provided they are civilians, but I don’t see any reason why they wouldn’t be.).

Now there is an unschooling math project for your kids — calculate these ratios every few days just to see where we are going. Maybe add in some historical figures to show how warfare has become increasingly deadly to civilians (compare the 7 years war to WWI, for example). Talk about how most of those military casualties will be lower ranks (and thus drawn from the lower socioeconomic groups in their society). Look at how prior to WWI, generals died on the field of battle with the rest of the soldiers so if they made stupid military decisions (and they did. Generals through the ages have done so.), they died, too. Note how those dead civilians are probably disproportionately poor folks, too. Oh, sorry, that wouldn’t be a math lesson any more.

I’ll stop ranting now and go paint. Read Charlie’s post. He is much more coherent and doesn’t rant at all.

The other day must have been creativity day on the homeschool blogs because as I read through my regular list, I also found this great post over at Imperfect Genius, in which she directly addresses that weird feeling of not knowing what is expected, not feeling confident, not sure what to do that I so often experience. I was originally going to address that with my response to Andrea’s post but it started to get too long.

I’ve already talked at some length about the importance of having stuff around to be creative with, of that stuff being of good quality, and of the emotional difficulty of getting to a place where that feels okay. In this post, I want to talk about the sense that creativity is something that some folks have and other folks don’t have. I want to talk about how difficult it is to claim “creative” as an adjective to describe yourself. And how that limits what you do.

I do lots of crafty stuff. I knit. I spin. I sew. I quilt. I’ve done a bit of macramé in my time (hey, I grew up in the ’70s). I’ve done a bit of embroidery and needlepoint. I taught myself to tat once though I can’t for the life of me remember how (or why). I’ve done some beading with Tigger and generally tried a bunch of crafts.

I am very good at learning things from books. I taught myself to quilt. I have no illusions that my handquilting is small enough or even enough but it stays there, it looks good, and it holds all the layers together even when I put the quilt through the washer (which I have done regularly; it’s a baby quilt). I’ve made baby quilts for 3 friends’ babies and one for Tigger. I’ve also done a wall hanging with Amish patchwork and quilting based on some Celtic designs.

All of the recipients of my quilts really love them. They love the colours. They love the patterns. And yet, I have often felt that I’m not really creative, because all I do is play with geometric shapes. I use traditional quilt blocks and put them together. It isn’t that hard. The quilt I did for Tigger was from a book. I did it almost exactly as written. But I look at some of those quilts now and I can’t imagine anyone else doing the same thing with those traditional quilt blocks or with those geometric shapes. Would anyone else have put together that combination of fabrics? Would anyone else put the blocks together in that way?

Until recently, I have never thought of myself as creative. This despite the fact that people have often commented positively on the quality of my craft work and how creative I am. I think of myself as being good at following instructions. My ability to choose fabrics and put colours together has never (until recently) struck me as being particularly special or “creative”. This means, among other things, that I am really bad at accepting compliments. And this is kind of rude to the person giving the compliment as it suggests that they are misguided or that I don’t appreciate their appreciation of my work.

I am now actively trying to change this self-perception. Because I have brought it to consciousness, I now recognize that similar beliefs hold other people back from exploring their creativity.

The thing is creativity is not about following rules. People often compare crafts with cooking and talk about how they use recipes. I like to follow the recipe almost exactly the first time I try it. I want to know how it works. I want to understand why the person who wrote the recipe did it exactly this way. After that, I’ll mess around with it. I will be able to deduce what sort of difference changing this or that ingredient will make. Other people are more comfortable changing things the first time. Both styles are creative.

So in exploring and developing your own creativity or helping your children explore and develop their creativity, there is a place for following instructions, using patterns, copying the work of others. It enables us to learn about how to construct a particular shape, what happens when we use a particular technique, how certain colours look together. And there is a place for changing things. Using pieces of different patterns. Using different techniques or different colours or different . . . Sometimes that will feel like modifying someone elses design. Sometimes that will feel more like creating our own design “from scratch”. But there is creativity in all of it. Recognize it.

Claiming creativity as an identity label, is more complex than just recognition. It leads us into questions of conceit and modesty. Many of us are reluctant to claim that there is anything special about ourselves. As if labels are only for the elite in any field. And yet folks who regularly engage in sports (individual or team) are likely to describe themselves as athletic. Why do those of us who regularly engage in crafts feel reluctant to describe ourselves as creative. And just as some people try a few sports before they find one that really suits them, we might need to try a few different creative media before we find our niche. And we will get better with time and practice. And only a few of us will ever make a living at it or be widely recognized for it. But that doesn’t mean we can’t call ourselves creative.

I have some other, hopefully more coherent, thoughts on the whole Middle East situation.

First, if you find a couple of kids fighting and you intervene, what is your reaction when one says “But he started it by … “? I don’t know about you, but I invariably say “I don’t care who started it. Stop now.” So why are supposedly grown up folks running whole countries allowed to get away with “But he started it…” and other supposedly grown up folks actually engage with that? Even the folks that don’t agree about who started it, engage in the discussion as if that is a relevant question. It is not. People are dying here. Air is being polluted. Infrastructure is being destroyed that will have an impact on the ability of millions of people for many years. I think it is irrelevant who started it.

Second, since when did calling someone names give you carte blanche to go around beating them up. When was the last time you told your kid that it was okay to beat up that other kid because he was a shithead? Never. Ludicrous. So how come calling someone at “terrorist” gets you out of having to actually justify why you are bombing the crap out of them? David Ben Gurion was a terrorist. Nelson Mandela was a terrorist. These men went on to run legitimate states (one of which is acting rather badly today).

We would do well to recall that the argument for releasing NM from prison was not that he didn’t blow anything up, but that the activities he engaged in (violent activities that caused death) were engaged in as part of a legitimate political struggle against oppression. Nelson Mandela has personally killed people and blown stuff up. We still think he is a great man. And he is.

Ben Gurion is before my time and I don’t know that much about him but he was involved in violent political activities that eventually led to the formation of the Israeli state. He was also a great man. Whatever you think of the existence or otherwise of the Israeli state. But he was a terrorist until someone changed the political circumstances and he got to be a statesman.

So saying that “these folks are terrorists” is just not a good enough reason for the actions of Israel or the United States or anyone else engaged in the so-called global war on terror.

I don’t have the answers but I am getting pretty sick and tired of the crap that passes for political argument in these issues. If folks can’t come up with something better than what your average 6 year old can come up with, something is seriously wrong. People are dying here and it has to stop. I don’t fucking care who started it.

Andrea has written a really interesting post about creativity in the context of parents’ questions about how to encourage their children’s creativity. Her post really triggered a lot of thinking about broader issues for me that I started to write about in her comments and then realized I had a whole post-full…

This is what I said in Andrea’s comments:

What you say about adult creativity is so spot on. I am conscious of working on this myself. I also think it affects how many and what sort of craft supplies we have. Just look at all the discussions on knitting blogs about ’stash’. Folks seem to feel really guilty about having lots of yarn in the house, much of it with no defined purpose. And yet, the really creative knitters have a huge amount of stash. This means that if they get an idea they can start working on it, no matter whether the stores are open. AND that when they don’t have any ideas they can get (some of) the stash out, spread it out and look at it and feel it and be inspired. I frequently experience internal conflict about not having enough stash and not really ‘needing’ any more yarn.

In an e-mail correspondance that followed, we discussed a bit about frugality, as well. I think that there are several things at work here. One is about frugality. Not wasting money or the things you buy with it is one aspect of that. Another is not buying stuff just for the sake of it, which means having a purpose for it. There is also a protestant work ethic thing going on (which has become so pervasive, particularly in North American society that you don’t need any of the protestant religious belief that originally went with it). This contributes to anxieties about finishing things and also about doing them “properly”. That is then linked to the whole valuing of productive work over leisure, relationships, and other aspects of life which I’m mulling for a whole other post.

I returned to knitting a few years ago. At that time, I had a very strong sense that I should only start a project that I knew I could finish and should work on it until I finished it. I was living alone at the time and was unemployed (though looking for work). I remember going to a yarn store and thinking that I could commit myself to finishing something for Tigger. I really liked the Mission Falls cotton and asked for help finding a suitable pattern and out I walked with what I thought would be enough to keep me going for a while. I knit a cardigan (too big, still is 3 years later though closer) in 1 week.

I can’t remember what happened next but I think I just went and got more supplies. Then in the summer I went to a party and got talking to someone who also crafted. She mentioned some website she liked and when I got home (the party was in northern Michigan, don’t ask) I looked it up and followed links and . . . and discovered a great community of on-line knitting pals. At some point I actually asked these wonderful people about the issue of not finishing things or having multiple things on the go. One of them replied that it was even okay to throw half-finished projects in the garbage. This was mindblowing.

So I started to let go of my anxieties about finishing, multiple projects, and whatever was related to that. And I discovered that I actually finish more projects when I have several things on the go. This is partly because the several things are usually different kinds of things. So if I get bored with knitting a garter stitch cardigan (one of the WIPs in the current basket), I can pick up a lace shawl. Or if I am in a situation where I could knit but can’t concentrate enough to knit lace, I can knit socks (or the garter stitch cardigan). I keep socks in my purse for on the bus, in waiting rooms, in the pub, etc. They are small enough that I don’t mind carrying them around even if I don’t get them out, and they are mindless enough to do while carrying on a conversation. In my previous life, I think one of the problems was that if I got sick of a project I would put it down but then I wouldn’t start another knitting project because that one wasn’t finished. Mostly this led to abandoning knitting for long periods of time.

Now that doesn’t have a lot to do with creativity but in some ways it does. Part of freeing myself to have unfinished projects was about freeing myself from the obligation to the finished product. The process of knitting has become increasingly separated from the product that will result. I am still working on this but I am increasingly able to buy materials that are attractive and look fun to work with (in this case yarn, but it could apply to materials for any kind of creative project) with only the vaguest sense of what I might make with them.

Again, my on-line community helped greatly. I once asked how to decide how much yarn to buy. While some folks gave approximate yardage requirements for different kinds of knitted items (I now carry Ann Budd’s Knitter’s Handy Guide to Yarn Requirements in my purse), others suggested things like, “As much as you can afford.” (in cases of particularly nice but pricey) or “As much as they have.” (in cases of a good deal). Mindblowing again. I still need to be able to imagine one concrete product I could make with that amount of yarn, but I don’t actually make a commitment to myself to make a particular thing when I buy yarn now. It is more a case of “Is there enough to make anything with this.” than a case of deciding what to make before purchasing the yarn.

My stash is still pretty small. It mainly fits in six 1.7L containers in a cupboard (actually one of those has spinning fibre in it but there is yarn in the basket by my chair that probably balances that out). Some people have gone past the point where their stash can be an inspiration because they can’t get at it. But my stash could definitely be bigger. I recently had cause to lament the lack of sock yarn in the house, for example. (Don’t worry. Great friends have rectified that problem.)

And losing the focus on finishing a product that will definitelly get used also frees me from anxiety about whether the product will be any good. I can try new things and see how they work out. Knitting is amazingly forgiving compared to some other creative pursuits in that one can rip out and start again (or do something completely different with that yarn). But things can be tried and enjoyed for the learning process and the process of making them. The end product then becomes a nice bonus.

With my knitting this has led to two concrete outcomes: designing and lace. Designing has started from a desire to make things that fit and look nice. Much of it has been modifying patterns and pulling together elements from several patterns though I am currently working on (or not, since it is hot and it is wool) a sweater for Tigger that seems more designed than previous efforts.

And I have discovered that I love knitting lace. My initial reluctance had nothing to do with perceived difficulty (I know I am a skilled knitter) but rather with the perceived uselessness of the product. My sartorial style tends towards butch. Shawls seemed old ladyish. My decorating style tends toward the modern (therefore doilies would be really out of place). What need would I have for lace? Well, I got over that by knitting a lacy shawl for an old lady (my mother; I gave it to her for her 76th birthday, I think) and then I just knit lace. As a bonus, I discovered that wearing shawls was quite wonderful and that one can have a style that combines the best elements of butch (comfortable and easy to move in come immediately to mind) with a classy lace shawl. In fact it could be argued that the beauty of the lace shawl draws attention away from the fact that I am inevitably wearing sensible shoes.

Ah, but socks, you say. They are useful. And you would be right. But again this is only a bonus. Perfectly good socks are available from a range of reputable retailers (and even disreputable ones) for much less than the price of the wool I knit socks with (which assumes my time is worth nothing). I knit socks because I enjoy them. And I had a sock yarn crisis in April because I’m not going to knit socks with sock yarn I don’t enjoy knitting with. This means that Tigger has a pair of Koigu socks (which she lent to a friend and we haven’t had back yet, ARRRGH) and I have just started some in Lorna’s Laces for her. The fact that my father expressed a liking for the Regia Silk that I knit a pair out of for myself only gives me an excuse to knit with that again.

Freedom from the product also allowed me to take up spinning and to pursue it in a relaxed manner. When in New Hampshire at the festival and contemplating some lovely Grafton Fibres batts, I did ask how much yarn one could spin from one batt. But the answer (almost enough to knit a pair of socks but not quite) just made me realize that I needed two batts if I wanted to have any hope of making something useful out of my efforts (especially considering the likelihood of unevenness of spinning and the potential desire to be picky about which part of what I spun up would get used). To be really free to experiment with what you can do with a wheel or spindle, you need to feel confident that you have enough fluff lying around to play with.

And this nicely returns me to Andrea’s point. If you unduly limit the materials available, provide materials of low quality, worry a lot about the product and the ‘right way’ of doing things, you inevitably limit creativity. We need to free ourselves from these limits, or at the very least suppress our anxieties about them, if we are to raise creative children or become more creative ourselves. I do not pretend that freeing ourselves is easy. I am still working on it myself. But bringing them to consciousness is a good first step.

Edited to add links to someone who is being more coherent and is still capable of reading the news.

I am really angry. And it is an impotent anger which is the worst kind. I am tempted to just stop listening to news altogether but have been minimizing my exposure. The best you can say about the current situation in the Middle East is that Israel’s action is disproportionate. That is the best. And that is inexcusable. I heard an interview with an Israeli captain on As it Happens tonight and he had the gall to say that one of their objectives was part of the global war on terror. In the context of the interview, it sure sounded like this thing could go on forever.

Anyway, my main news source in the Guardian Weekly. It is published on Thursday evening and I sometimes don’t get it until Monday. I didn’t read it until today. The following articles were before the invasion of Lebanon and just deal with the Gaza situation (which is ongoing).

Jonathan Steele’s analysis of Europe’s shameful response. I’m not sure a lot more up to the minute detail is going to change much about his point.

Hornblower is more coherent than I am and is actually capable of reading the news and has some great links here and here. I’m having trouble getting beyond impotent rage.

And on the broader question of global terrorism, Karen Armstrong on why it is futile and counterproductive to ask moderate Muslims to “control” their extreme co-religionists. I might have to go buy more of her books.

In the same issue, I notice a review of a book by Gary Younge about the US. Gary Younge is one of my favourite Guardian journalists. His book is probably well worth it. Here is the review