Holly 00:35
Hey everybody I am very late in recording so I just wanted to steal a moment; my son is playing the saxophone and my daughter is doing online school and I think I can steal maybe 10 minutes to do this but I'm really inspired and I wanted to chat from a place of feeling light and happy.
Holly 00:57
And the reason I'm feeling so inspired is that I just got out of Al-Anon meeting and we discussed the page of the day--today is November 18th--and the page of the day in courage to change is about step two sanity and the importance of play and having a hobby and I just it just resonated with me and so I thought I'd record.
Holly 01:23
One of the things that I did this weekend that made me really happy was that I signed up for one of Vogue knitting Live’s online classes. The online class was with Kaffe Fassett and Modern Daily Knitting and it was about color play and it was really just amazing to listen to him talk about how he thinks about his making and it reminded me of how important it is.
Holly 01:50
I sometimes feel a little bit embarrassed [laughter] about how much time and energy I’ve spent this year making things, either sewing or knitting or even doing embroidery [laughter] and I realize that I shouldn't feel embarrassed about it. It's part of my recovery and it's also part of something that is just a part of life that gives me joy and hearing Kaffe Fassett, this renown artist who has had his work shown in the Victoria and Albert Museum, who's known for his quilting as well as his knitting patterns talk about his approach to this as well, it was just so freeing. it just made me feel like it was a creative license to make every crazy craft project idea I have in my head [laughter]
Holly 02:41
and I guess that's that's what I heard today in the meeting as well. That you know leaving space to be creative and play and to think to think about something other than the ways in which my disease shapes my life and impacts my reality is a good thing and that that's related to sort of a bigger sort of feeling of connection and purpose in the world. Or in Al-Anon terms like step two being restored to sanity by belief in a higher power. Now if that's not your jam that’s totally cool. Sometimes that’s not my jam either but thinking about making as linked to a sense of purpose and being creative and expressing myself? That seems nice and sometimes silly to think of like weird, ugly sweaters as an expression of self but it is! (laughter)
Holly 03:39
so I logged on to this tremendous recording of Kay fassett--I’m sorry, my heat just kicked on and it’s very loud. But I’m going to keep going! The other thing that I heard him say is that life is too short to have any aspect of your home covered with man-made decoration so I think what I heard [laughter] is you know a complete license to cover my house with every weird creative impulse that I have and you knowif it's resonated with me because one of the things I've been doing this year especially during covid-19 lockdown is painting the rooms in my house and I've even been working with my therapist to like get over the fact that I have to pick the perfect color paint because it's just paint. And so I'm letting myself make weird weird murals in the house and it's coming out fine. It's helping me to make a space to call my own. One of the challenges I’ve had this year is exactly that. My husband moved out in February and I’ve been lucky enough to keep the house so I’m trying to make it feel full and happy space and my own.
Holly 05:08
The other thing he said is that I don’t have to make everything so complicated. He doesn't like cable stitching or lace and he really only works with knitting and purling to focus on color play. And that is what allows him to work quickly and he even showed us the back of his work and you know it's not perfect and so that was also really freeing. Like, I don't need to execute everything I make to an exact level of perfection. It can be about the process of making and that that was just so wonderful to hear, especially as I'm trying new things and trying to design my own work and play around with my hobby. Because it’s supposed to be fun!
Holly 06:03
And then the last thing that I really heard, well, this came from a kind of serendipitous alignment, somebody in the chat said, “you know if you like this you should go look at this class on craftsy-- there's a class about using crazy balls of yarn to do color work and I didn't quite understand what it was but I looked it up and it's all about how to create yarn balls from your scraps of yarn and you just sort them into lighter colors and darker colors. You don't overthink it and you just sort of make these loops you can you knit. I think the class focuses on his Persian poppies pattern, which is a really famous pattern of his, and you just make this swatch by playing around with your scrap materials and I love this. and one of the takeaways [laughter] from the class is that: when in doubt, add 20 more colors. If you’re having trouble with your color, with sorting your colors, you just add more. The answer is more not less!
Holly 07:08
And that rang like a loud bell in my head! That’s what I've been doing! That's why I have so many cast on projects. I am in a really hard place. I think we're all in a really hard place and oh my goodness you know I was talking with my therapist about how it's about to get harder.
Holly 07:30
Next week's Thanksgiving and that’s never a good time of the year for my qualifier and it's probably not a good time of the year for yours, either. Or if you're the person who struggling with addiction, my goodness my heart goes out to you because this is a challenging moment. There's just so much going on right now and it's already a tricky time of the year and it just feels like this year in particular is so overwhelming. So when in doubt, of course I’m going to add 20 more pieces of color to this mix to distract myself in as many ways as possible whether it’s with embroidery or all of the test knitting I've signed up for pattern testing for selling that I signed up for or you know I want to make a tote bag. Even as I feel completely overwhelmed by school from home and being a single parent during a pandemic and managing the budget and the household chores and the dog and all the things the last thing I need, at least my friends say, the last thing I need is 20 more projects and yet what I found in today's reading and what I found in Kaffe Fassett’s lecture and that weird craftsy course is that yep, you know I do need that. {laughter} I need 20 more varieties of color to feel like I have space to be more than just addiction and my response to it, and to find laughter and play and peace and self and expression and all those good things.
Holly 09:18
So here's to the crazy balls and to sanity and knitting beautiful things that make us happy that are maybe not useful or even pretty. Maybe they’re ugly knitted things but if they make me happy, then that's good enough so I'm going to stop now.
Holly 09:35
I apologize for the sound quality. I just wanted to get this out there. and just as a quick reminder I'm speaking from my own experience of strength and hope. Please take what you like and leave the rest as always and know that it means a lot to me that you spend some time listening to this. I hope that you found something helpful here and I hope that in the week ahead, especially if it’s challenging, that you have beautiful materials to work with and that you're making something that gives you joy and sanity and laughter and maybe it has 20 extra colors in it.
Holly 10:08
Take care. Bye!