The Independent Stitch

A few hours in New York City: Subversive knitting?

I'm in New York City for the annual conference of the American Society of Journalists and Authors. I flew into LaGuardia for the first time, and in the process got to see the Statue of Liberty "for real" for the first time (not just a photo) as the plane flew north across the city toward the airport.

It was actually a great flight for seeing things from the air at other times, too. As we passed Chicago, the clouds parted and I was able to recognize buildings along the shoreline where I grew up. I think I could even see the Baha'i Temple up by Wilmette Harbor (I can't imagine what else would be that size, in that location, and white) and probably downtown Evanston as well. The most surprising part of seeing the city was how small its downtown area really seemed, and how the clusters of tall buildings looked like tiny mineral growths, concentrated in small areas. The city sure never felt that way when we walked along the streets with the winter wind being channeled by the massive structures around us! In all the flying and traveling I've done, the view I had today was not even remotely like any I've experienced before.

LaGuardia began operations in 1947 and feels that way. I like that. Getting from LaGuardia to the hotel in Manhattan was a cinch. I'm accustomed to flying into Newark, which I don't think of as hard, but . . . well, this was easier. (Hmm. Newark's been doing its thing since 1948, but there's no comparison in the feel. It's been upgraded. Actually, I remember Newark before it was upgraded. Spooky. Now it's very slick-feeling.)

I settled into the inexpensive hotel a friend and I found last year when we were staying in a hostel that was overrun with teenagers who were not only ignoring quiet hours but crossing out (with black magic marker) the signs about quiet hours. I like hostels. I stay in them often. That one had several other drawbacks, but the fact that it was only quiet between 3 and 6 a.m. was the deal-breaker. So we hit the guidebooks and found what used to be called the Pickwick Arms and is now the Pod Hotel. I liked the piped-in music better when it was the Pickwick Arms, but it's still reasonable, clean, functional, and affordable.

New York is a relatively new discovery for me. When I was thirteen, my grandparents brought me here and we went to a show at Rockefeller Center. That's all I remember, because (this being my grandparents) we probably didn't stick around but just passed through. For a decade, I was married to someone who was born and raised in the area. When we'd visit his family and friends, they'd mention all sorts of things they'd show me some day—top of the list was The Cloisters, for the Unicorn tapestries.

Sixteen years after the divorce, I had a reason to come to New York so I began discovering it on my own, with a first trip five years ago. In addition to the conference I was attending, I went to The Cloisters and saw the tapestries and much more. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. The Frick. Grand Central Station. More.

Now I know just a bit of my way around, so when I came in today I threw my stuff down at the hotel and headed for the Museum of Arts and Design, which has an exhibit up now called Radical Lace & Subversive Knitting. Thursday's the day the museum is open late and "pay whatever you want," instead of regular admission.

No photos allowed, and the photographs of the pieces that are in the brochure don't do the work justice and don't depict my favorite items. (Make got permission to photograph, but they didn't shoot what I would have.)

The definitions of "lace" and "knitting" are broad. Some things simply mimic lace and knitting in other materials. The show's on two floors of the museum, with a couple of pieces that span the intermediate spaces. The stuff I liked best was not what might be categorized as subversive (which seems too easy . . . the truly subversive, in my mind, isn't obviously so) but what pushes the limits of craft or takes a new view of thread—or the appearance of thread.

There's one work that's made from sheet metal auto-part discards that have been perforated with lace-like patterns. It's cool.

One of the pieces that's been shown in publicity for the show is a pair of tiny gloves by Althea Merback. Yep, they're cool, but what was even cooler were the three breathtakingly miniature and detailed jackets or sweaters next to the gloves.

My favorite group of works is the "Coral Snake Series" by Ruth Marshall. It consists of sixty-eight "biologically accurate life-size replicas" of coral snakes, some coiled and some flat. The natural tendency of stockinette to curl is eerily reminiscent of the natural tendency of snakeskins (sans snakes) to curl. The colors were lovely, and well represented by the gauge of the knitted stitches, the color mixes, and everything else.

Downstairs just after I arrived was a lecture by one of the exhibiting artists, Janet Echelman, a sculptor who has done, among other things, monumental fiber-based installations around the world. Two of the museum guards made sure people who were looking at the exhibit (including me) knew about the event and reception and urged us to go. They were right. It was fun to think about being able to play with fiber at that scale and with that level of effectiveness. Watch for that name in conjunction with the Vancouver Winter Olympics (2010).

The other exhibit at the museum consisted of many contemporary netsuke, or Japanese-style miniature sculptures. Diverse, magical.

Either show on its own would have been worth the time to go to the museum. Both plus the talk? Delightful. I had to go back to the hotel to recover.

Sustaining the creative life: From the big picture to a single breath

Guest and topic: Eric Maisel and Ten Zen Seconds

Today I'm en route to the East Coast for the American Society of Journalists and Authors conference, followed by a quick stop at the fall sales conference for our distributor, National Book Network.

The photo shows part of what I've packed for the trip. The guest I have here today is Eric Maisel, the author of one of the books I'm taking along, Ten Zen Seconds.

Eric Maisel is a writer, creativity coach, psychologist, and more. The occasion for his appearance here is this brand-new book, just released by independent publisher Sourcebooks.

Yesterday's post lists some of Eric’s publishing background and a few comments on how his work in general has helped mine.

Eric has developed a practical, simple set of techniques for centering the mind and clearing out clutter. (Wow, do I need this . . . and I can also say Eric's methods work.) The techniques can be used quickly (ten seconds), unobtrusively, and anywhere. I’ve found these tools useful for transitioning to creative work—especially when my more mundane task lists are overloaded. They’re also helpful for times like being stuck in traffic, which I'm pretty good at but can always use more tricks to manage.

Today’s post here is part of a seven-week blog tour for Ten Zen Seconds. Throughout the tour, lots of people are looking at how Eric’s ten-second centering techniques apply to their creative activities and everyday lives. I'm looking forward to checking out some of the other participants' blogs (and catching up on my blog reading in general!) while I'm on the road.

Because, like Eric, I have more ideas than time to implement them, one of the many things that interests me about this new book is how Ten Zen Seconds (both the book and the practice) has been derived from and is helpful to Eric’s own creative process. The breadth and depth that his work demonstrates obviously requires careful attention to his own creative impulses and methods.

Interview

DR: Hi, Eric! Welcome to The Independent Stitch. Thanks for taking the time to be here.

Here are a few of the things I’ve been thinking about your new book, along with a handful of questions.

Ten Zen Seconds merges Western with Eastern concepts. From the Western fields of cognitive and positive psychology, you drew the idea that we can strongly influence our experience of life by shifting our thoughts. From Eastern spiritual traditions, you incorporated breath awareness and mindfulness techniques.

In order to devise a simple and powerful synthesis like the one you’ve come up with, you needed to combine depth of knowledge about the outside world with personal experience.

I know you’ve got undergraduate degrees in philosophy and psychology, master's degrees in counseling and creative writing, and a doctorate in counseling psychology.

In addition to your background in Western thought, how did you explore and embrace the Eastern ideas that are essential to your vision of the simple, powerful Ten Zen Seconds combination?

EM: By involving myself, in a peripheral rather than a “convert” way, in those Eastern practices. For many years I worked at a San Francisco counseling center, The Marina Counseling Center, with counselors who, in their “other lives,” were Zen dharma teachers, Reiki teachers, and so on. Because we were a training facility, we had regular access to workshops in everything arcane, occult, and Eastern.

At one point I teamed up with a Zen dharma teacher and abbot (now a Zen master) and we began offering a training called “Zen and Creativity.” So I have been a modest “student of Eastern practices” through my work in the transpersonal psychology world, rather than through any formal or regular practice—except that I have incorporated many of those ideas into my daily life in such a way that they inform my “everyday creativity practice.”

DR: In one of the interviews in which you’ve explained the Ten Zen Seconds process, you say, “I’m not much of a fan of self-help books that come entirely from the author’s head; this one has been tested in the crucible of reality.”

I participated in the online group that contributed to the development of the ideas in this book, so I know something about the ways in which other people have tested these ideas in the crucibles of their realities.

Can you talk a bit about how you have tested it in your own reality?

EM: As a creativity coach (and therapist) for more than twenty years, I have grown keenly aware—really hyper-aware—of what my clients say to themselves (as it comes out in their speech during coaching sessions) and what I say to myself, and how often those “utterances” and pieces of self-talk not only do not serve our aims and interests but really undermine our efforts. This, of course, is the central tenet of both cognitive psychology and Buddhism, that “we are what we think” and that we need to “get a grip on our mind” in order to function properly.

I am always noticing if something I say to myself amounts to me “getting in my own way,” and I credit the lion’s share of my productivity to the fact that I think few thoughts that impede me. I almost can’t think a “negative” thought without noticing it, disputing it, and substituting a thought that serves me better. The incantations—the thoughts at the core of Ten Zen Seconds—initially arose from a personal recognition of which of those “better thoughts” were proving most effective and were then tested on others.

DR: I'm a lot better at shifting my thoughts than I used to be, and I've found that everything I learn about it helps enormously. Even though I'm allergic to affirmations! What you're talking about is different.

One of your comments in Ten Zen Seconds is: “As a cultural matter, you have little or no permission to incorporate ten-second centering into your life. . . . To center you will need to step outside the culture.”

How do you see that this perception arose from your own experience?

EM: It really hasn’t arisen so much from own experience, as I am always stepping out of the culture and “fighting” with the culture and not minding looking conspicuous. But in working with clients I see how much trouble they have “looking conspicuous” and dealing with powerful self-consciousness around such “innocent” matters as writing in a café or painting out of doors.

The more you care about how others view you, what others are thinking about you, how seemly you are looking, and so on, the less permission you will have to do anything “unusual” in public, whether that unusual thing is stopping to write a paragraph, do a little tai chi under a tree, or spend ten seconds centering.

DR: I've been writing in public for decades. Yet as we're preparing this interview, I'm wondering whether I'll be comfortable doing yoga in a corner of the boarding area at the airport (or uncomfortable but doing it anyway).

In another of your books, The Van Gogh Blues, you say “[Y]our life plan may still make all the sense in the world . . . , but the reality of your situation makes you despair.”

I’ve been challenged all my life by balancing the absolute necessity of creating (without which I do go nuts) with responsibility toward others—parenting, financial reliability, friendship, and other aspects of a full, well-rounded life. I’m also currently reading Jeannette Walls’ The Glass Castle, about her experiences as the child of two determined creative spirits who did not successfully achieve these balances. It's really amazing that the four kids survived.

Can you talk a bit about how Ten Zen Seconds might help others who strive to do their own work while still being good citizens and family members?

EM: One of the great tricks, tasks, and challenges that a creative person faces is “switching gears” between everyday life, where mistakes and messes are really neither wanted nor acceptable (you don’t actually want your checkbook not to balance or your customers to return their purchases) and creative work, where you must have complete intellectual and more importantly visceral permission to make BIG mistakes and messes, mistakes and messes on the order of spending two years writing a book that may never come alive (which, if you are wise, you chalk up to process and move right on to your next book).

Since switching gears between two diametrically opposed ways of being is really so difficult, you want some tools that make this transition possible—and that’s where the Ten Zen Seconds techniques come in really handy. You use incantation 1, “I am completely stopping,” to announce to yourself that you are “stopping” your usual work, where things are supposed to be mistake-free, and preparing to enter a world where anything can happen; then you use the name-your-work incantation, incantation 3, to say something like “I am writing my novel” or “I am painting now” to let yourself know that you are fully and actively entering that other world. By using this method, you can switch gears more easily—and ultimately effortlessly—between your “everyday life” and your “creative life.”

DR: I'm working on this, and I expect to get in some concentrated practice while I travel—with the intention of making progress on at least one of my creative projects despite the fact that I'll be in strange places and will be juggling an unusual set of conflicting demands.

Thanks again, Eric. I always appreciate your insights and the tools you have figured out for the rest of us to benefit from.

Eric Maisel: Guest tomorrow, background today

Eric Maisel will be a guest on this blog tomorrow, talking about his new book, Ten Zen Seconds. I participated in an online group that Eric worked with while developing the ideas in this book, so I've been experimenting with the practice for a while.

Eric’s background

Eric Maisel is the author of more than thirty published books: fiction, creative guidance, meditation, practical psychology, and inspirational journals. The basic list below, in reverse chronological order, is not complete but it’s a good start.

Connections

I first picked up A Life in the Arts about the time my daughter was finding school impossible. I didn’t have time to read the book then, but it lived on my shelf as a reminder that the life I envisioned would, perhaps, be possible some day.

Over the following years, I bought and added to the shelf several more of Eric’s books.

Finally, I had (or stole) the time to begin reading these books, instead of just browsing from time to time and wishing I could do more. I plastered my copies with sticky notes. I wrote out the exercises and felt reassured and supported.

In the past three years, I’ve participated in several of Eric’s online courses, been a contributor to some of his idea-development groups, and worked with him as an individual long-distance coaching client. We have met face-to-face once, for a few seconds, at BookExpo America during a book signing.

I’ve already bought copies of Ten Zen Seconds to give to a couple of friends and my daughter is waiting for me to finish the interview so she can read my copy, because she perceives (correctly, I believe) that it’s exactly the bit of wisdom that she needs to connect with right now.

Eric's books (most but probably not all)

The titles with asterisks are those I currently own. My copies are festooned with sticky notes. If you need a place to start exploring Eric’s work, check out the books with that are in bold. (Some of my favorites, like The Art of the Book Proposal and A Writer’s Paris, aren't in bold because they are not the first books I recommend.) If you want just one, go for Ten Zen Seconds or Coaching the Artist Within.

2007 * Ten Zen Seconds: Twelve Incantations for Purpose, Power, and Calm (Sourcebooks)
2007 * Creativity for Life: Practical Advice on the Artist’s Personality and Career from America’s Foremost Creativity Coach (New World Library)—I haven't read this one yet; it's too new!
2007 Everyday You: Create Your Day with Joy and Mindfulness (Conari)
2006 * A Writer’s San Francisco: A Guided Journey for the Creative Soul (New World Library)
2006 What Would Your Character Do? Personality Quizzes for Analyzing Your Characters (with Ann Maisel; Writer’s Digest)
2006 Toxic Criticism: Break the Cycle with Friends, Family, Coworkers, and Yourself (McGraw-Hill)
2005 * A Writer’s Paris: A Guided Journey for the Creative Soul (Writer’s Digest)
2005 * Coaching the Artist Within: Advice for Writers, Actors, Visual Artists and Musicians from America’s Foremost Creativity Coach (New World Library)
2004 * The Art of the Book Proposal: From Focused Idea to Finished Proposal (JP Tarcher/Penguin)
2004 Everyday Creative: 30 Ways to Wake Up Your Inner Artist (Red Wheel)
2004 Everyday Smart: 30 Ways to Spark Your Inner Genius (Red Wheel)
2002 * The Van Gogh Blues: The Creative Person’s Path through Depression (Rodale)
2002 Write Mind: 299 Things Writers Should Never Say to Themselves (and What They Should Say Instead) (JP Tarcher)
2001 20 Communication Tips @ Work: A Quick and Easy Guide to Better Business Relationships (New World Library)
2001 * Sleep Thinking: The Revolutionary Program That Helps You Solve Problems, Reduce Stress, and Increase Creativity While You Sleep (with Natalya Maisel; Adams Media)
2000 20 Communication Tips for Families: A 30-Minute Guide to a Better Family Relationship (New World Library)
2000 * The Creativity Book: A Year’s Worth of Inspiration and Guidance (JP Tarcher/Putnam)--great stuff in here
1999 * Deep Writing: 7 Principles That Bring Ideas to Life (JP Tarcher/Putnam)
1999 * Living the Writer’s Life (Watson-Guptill)
1997 Fearless Presenting: A Self-Help Workbook for Anyone Who Speaks, Sells, or Performs in Public (Back Stage Books)
1996 Affirmations for Artists (Putnam)
1995 * Fearless Creating: A Step-by-Step Guide to Starting and Completing Your Work of Art (Putnam)
1994 * A Life in the Arts: Practical Guidance and Inspiration for Creative and Performing Artists (Putnam)
1992 Staying Sane in the Arts: A Guide for Creative and Performing Artists (Putnam)
1986 Fretful Dancer (Aegina Press)
1984 Blackbirds of Mulhouse (Maya Press)
1982 Dismay (Maya Press)

Journals/sketchbook:
Writers and Artists on Love (New World Library, 2004)
Writers and Artists on Devotion (New World Library, 2004)
Artists Speak: A Sketchbook (HarperSanFrancisco, 1993)

Tomorrow: Eric responds to some of my questions about the creative life, large and small.

Everything old is new again. . . .

Yesterday several friends and I drove to Denver to attend a workshop by Barbara Sher about what to do if you're interested in too many things. It was an enjoyable day that included lunch at a favorite restaurant (delicious, reasonable, and vegetarian-friendly), lots of people with diverse skills and interests, and copious quantities of good energy and optimism.

One of the things I have liked about Barbara Sher's work for many years stems from her early, emphatically expressed disdain for affirmations, which she considers insulting to the brain. She's in favor of optimism, but not of "positive thinking." Her work and Eric Maisel's recent writing have been helpful to me in making these distinctions and in developing my ability to Not Worry Quite So Much and to Do The Things I Need To Do, No Matter How Impractical It Seems.

(Two asides: Barbara brought her new rescue Yorkie, who is recovering from previous trauma and looked like a true sweetie but did not want to be more than three feet from his new protector, and she also is involved in helping Turkish women who weave kilims sell their work through e-commerce. I'm especially fond of the kilim in the image here.)

Anyway, it was an excellent day.

At the end of it, however, I had a conversation with another participant that I found thought-provoking in a different way. This person was young and enthusiastic and more engaged with her own process than in listening.

What she'd done was develop a method that she thought was original for knitting particular types of garments. She was quite proud of herself, and justifiably so. She'd worked out these ideas on her own, with her needles and yarn and intelligence and persistence. To her, they were news and were of her own devising—as they were.

Yet I knew that the idea was well established in one of the knitting traditions with which I was familiar. I could have named it for her, told her that other knitters had been playing with this concept for generations, and given her leads to find more information on the method and its associated techniques (for which she didn't actually know the English terminology, either--for example, "provisional cast-on").

Her approach was simpler than the traditional one. For several reasons, it might be a candidate for publication in a knitting magazine or book, if she had been interested. I did ask, "Have you ever considered submitting your designs for publication?"

She said yes, but then buzzed along on her own track about how inventive her work was and how she is beginning to market it.

And it is inventive. And her ideas are good. And she will, I hope, be able to earn income from her creativity.

I wonder how much richer her new discovery process might be if she knew more about knitting history, and could appreciate the explorations and ingenuity of those whose own experiments with their needles, yarn, intelligence, and persistence occurred in far-away places and times and preceded hers?

I think there's joy in a good idea re-discovered. And I think there's a lot to be gained by sharing our finds and in the connections between knitters, whether we know each other directly or not.

Which, in a way, was what the whole workshop we attended was about: dreams, visions, and the communication and support that gives them wings. What we need to do is honor our dreams and visions and be open to communication and support.

Neither of those is as easy as it sounds.

Travel trade-offs

With several trips in my near future that involve airplanes, I've been thinking ahead toward knitting. I need something that packs a lot of activity into a small space and won't catch the protective attention of any TSA screeners. TSA people are apparently least likely to be alarmed by needles made of bamboo or plastic, and by circular needles that don't exceed 31 inches.

The work also needs to be interesting but not demanding. Vast quantities of stockinette don't provide enough diversion to make airports less boring. I need to be able to pick up the work and put it down again at a moment's notice—or stuff it into a bag in mid-row without risking disaster. Although travel is the perfect time for either knit-without-pattern work (like socks) or for enjoying someone else's design, it isn't the time to experience Sharon Winsauer's dragon shawl.

Many knitters find that socks constitute the ideal travel project. Socks usually don't work for me. I knit loosely. On bamboo or plastic needles, which are manufactured down to 2 mm (size 0), I can make hiking socks. To make finer socks that fit inside my everyday shoes, I need smaller needles, which are inevitably steel. Right now I have enough heavyweight socks. I need lighter-weight socks, but I'll have to make them when I'm not flying.

Sweaters tend to be bulky. First there's the yarn (and I always have to take all the yarn, because I might need it). Then, as the yarn supply diminishes, there's the growing garment.

Scarves . . . maybe. Even when the knitting's intriguing, though, I find scarves boring.

Afghans . . . even partially knitted, an afghan can be handy for napping on a plane or in a terminal, if a flight's delayed, but an afghan requires a dedicated carry-on bag. On these work-related trips, where I have to carry other essentials, I can't devote a whole bag to knitting.

There are lots of other options, but what I'm coming down to here is a shawl. If it's lace, I can work on larger needles than I'd use for the same yarn in another type of pattern.

I do sometimes break down and buy yarn for a travel project, but I try to invent travel work from what's already on hand.

The ideal for this trip would be the two-ply alpaca lace-weight that I have three balls of—enough for a generous shawl. If this worked out, it would provide lots of knitting in a tiny package—just over 5 ounces (150 g). I had a bamboo circular needle of the right size and length. This yarn, combined with one of Gene Beugler's patterns, was my first choice to explore. I briefly met Gene many years ago at an Interweave event in Denver and have been admiring his designs for a very long time.  I like to use my knitting to make virtual connections between years and across miles. This qualifies.

When I started to swatch, I ran into several problems in the match between yarn and needles. The swatch never achieved a comfortable flow between my hands. I also had a sense that, especially with the lack of fluidity between yarn and needles, the pattern I'd chosen would be a bit too complicated for the planned context. If my stress levels were going up at home, the situation would be worse on the road and would produce results directly opposed to my intentions.

So I put the lace-weight yarn away for when I can test out one or another of the new, fine-pointed lace circulars (which are metal) under circumstances that will let me have access to more brain cells.

Next I took a quick look at the fingering-weight hand-dyed alpaca I picked up a couple of weeks ago at Serendipity Yarn. There are three skeins, or 24 ounces (685 g), which is more than I want to carry. I also intend to design my own pattern for this yarn, and I see a lot of swatching in my future to make that happen.

So I retrieved a fingering-weight alpaca. (After all of the Norsk Strikkedesign-inspired wool worsted , I detect a pattern. I seem to be drawn toward the sleek feel and sinuous drape of alpaca.) This yarn's a soft natural brown and just heavy enough to give me many choices in needles. I have two 8-ounce skeins, for a total of 16 ounces (456 g).

I swatched with the 3.25 mm bamboo needles that were in the needle binder. That's a size 3—a size that can be obtained in several types of both plastic and bamboo. The initial combination felt good enough, but not great. Because I'm not leaving for a while, I had the luxury of refining my tools and approach. (Blue binder: needles up to 3.75 mm. White binder: 4.00 mm and up. It's significant which one is reinforced with tape.)

The trade-off here is that the yarn quantity is sufficient to make a great big shawl, while this plan will also require lots more space and will contribute more weight than the balls of skinny yarn.

Ah, well. At least it's fingering-weight and not sport or worsted.

I chose a shawl pattern by Evelyn Clark that's intriguing enough to keep me awake and amused. It's also not so challenging that I'll go nuts if I need to stuff it quickly into a bag. Although I don't think I've met Evelyn (if so, I didn't have the chance to talk with her long enough to remember . . . one of the hazards of editing a magazine and meeting waaaay more people each year than one brain can sort out), she's a friend of several friends and we've had peripheral contact over the years. I like the way she thinks about lace, as demonstrated in the patterns of hers I've read. So this knitting connects (not a requirement, but a big plus).

Now the trick is to get the work far enough along to be good travel knitting, although not so far so that it's nearly finished before I leave. Because the pattern is published by FiberTrends, purveyors of unusually fine designs, I need to knit to past the part that's printed on dark paper. I find the black-on-dark portions of the patterns hard to read . . . better to do at home, where it's calm and I can control the lighting.

So I ripped back my needles-and-yarn test and began a shawl-start swatch . . . which has turned into the actual start of a shawl.

I knitted far enough to know that, although the charts are very clear, I wanted to redraw them in the symbols that I find easiest to read and to chart the half-shift of the repeat (the pattern includes a complete, correct, but space-saving version) so I'll find it easy to memorize the sequence while I'm en route. I certainly don't need to memorize it before I go. I just need to get ready. I've done those two things.

Because I have the luxury of prep time, I've also tested several needles with this yarn and this pattern: two types of bamboo and a new Bryspun circular. I like the feel of the Bryspun, although the join between the needle and the cable results in a bit of drag with this yarn in this pattern. While both of the bamboo needles have swivel joins that don't impede the movement of the stitches into ready position, one of the needles swivels more annoyingly on this project than the other—and the one with the more compatible swivel is also the one with the smoother points. For another project (probably not lace, so a heavier yarn), the other bamboos might win the competition.

The combination of yarn, pattern, and needles can make an incredible difference in the pleasure that I take in a knitting project. Although I could work with whatever's at hand, and often do, I am also grateful in this case to have a wealth of choices and the time to determine the best alternatives.

And now, so I won't get too far on the shawl, I'm going back to that pair of socks-in-progress on steel 1.5 mm (size 000) needles, at a gauge that most people would achieve on a nice, normal size 0. I'm not about to tighten up my knitting just to make my passages through security easier . . . and I want easy transitions through security. I'd rather keep my knitting relaxed in my hands by changing projects for the duration.

P.S. Here's just outside the frame in my “photo studio” on the living room floor. Having been neglected in previous lives, Tussah does not like to be far from any human who might have a moment free to pat her.