Author: Betsy

my $.02…

| Betsy

I’m not entirely sold on the banner above, but for the time being, it’ll do.

At the moment, I’m doing a temping gig to pay the bills while I try and figure out what to do (and where to go) next. My temp job is on a university campus, in a building on the far side away from the lush green quads and the ramshackle frat houses. I sit in a cubicle all day long, staring at grey walls, grey floors, grey cabinets. On my lunch hour, I walk.

Today I walked through parking lot after parking lot with my headphones cranked up loud. The sun was shining overhead, without a cloud in the sky. And I was struck by the absurdity of this sea of metal and concrete around me. This vast landscape that was lying in front of me completely devoid of people, but entirely populated by steel.

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There was a lot of grey concrete, yes, but there was also a rainbow of reds and blues and greens, dotted every so often with white, black, silver and champagne. And it was beautiful. Like blobs of paint on a palette or scraps of fabric on a seamstresses table. But it was so quiet, despite the fact that I had my headphones on to block out the silence. There were no people, no sounds of laughter, no birds, no bits of trash swirling in the corner.

All day I sit in that cubicle and stare at an ocean of grey, while myriad colors are left stagnant and stranded just a few feet away thanks to this modern era of commodity and consumption. And more more more.

I don’t think that people are crafting to get away from technology, but quite the opposite, I think they are crafting in order to better embrace it. This creation allows us to make sense of what is going on in a cold steel world by letting us remember that there is more beauty in a purled stitch than in a pixel. By letting the two interconnect and coexist, we don’t lose sight of either the absurd or the beautiful.

one more project for the list…

| Betsy

Although I get emails from people with encouraging words about what I’m writing about, it’s rare that I hear what people are doing for charity. If you’re in the process of making something or even just thinking about it, I’d love to know.

At the moment, I’m working on those blankets and hats that will be donated to Olivia’s Angels in Georgia. There are also some chemo caps in the works. Today I’ve added another project to the list, using my scrap yarns from various other endeavours, and making blankets for Snuggles.

People ask me how and why I choose the charities I send things to. It usually starts by something pulling at the heartstrings whether I mean for it to or not. The preemie things are because I was a preemie and my mother a scared mother who needed a little comfort when I was 2lb and so small. The chemocaps for my grandfather because he is fighting prostate cancer that has metastatized and my grandmother who survived breast cancer. (In fact, it’s a rather long list, this one.) The Snuggles blanket in memory of my dog, Annie, who has been a part of my family since the spring of 1991. She was put down last night.

I make and donate things because of the kindness and compassion that has been shown to me and to those I love, and because I want to add a little bit of light to the lives of others. With every stitch I sew or knit or crochet or whathaveyou I am fighting against coldness and for more warmth.

While such a tiny act may not make a difference to loads of people/animals at once, it does make a difference for one. Or two. Or three. Or however many donations you choose to make. That’s the power behind such a small, simple act.

In giving things made with kindness and hope and love to others, I not only embolden and replenish their spirits but my own as well.

enough.

| Betsy

Today’s officially the worst day of the year. Which got me thinking…

I have a lot of shoes. Especially black ones. Sometimes I look at the floor of my closet and am abhorred at the number of black shoes I own. Some are for work, some are for play, some are for parties and others are just plain lovely.

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I also own entirely too much yarn. It’s spilling out of baskets and peeking out of drawers all over my house, like little woodland creatures from a children’s storybook. A tiny bit of pink fluff here, a wisp of bright green there. Of course, I haven’t knitted anything for myself since a still unfinished sweater from 2003. I currently have a list as long as my size 19 needle of knitting projects I need to tackle, bits and bobs for family, friends and charities.

When I first moved into the house I decided to nail some fabric and yarn to the wall. I fear I enjoyed the process entirely too much, and that if I live here very long my house will become covered in 3D textile projects and I will finally turn into that crazy lady I always feared. That crazy lady with all the yarn and shoes, aimlessly wielding a hammer.

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With all this accumulation, however, comes conflict. How can I write about issues stemming from ethical living and have so much, well, crap? It doesn’t seem to gel, really, here I am writing about trying to live your life openly and ethically, writing it atop a mountain range of yarn. But I’ve come to think that maybe it’s this internal conflict that makes us human. It allows us to become fully cognizant as to why we are making the choices we are making.

And in becoming aware of our choices, it’s hard to not to feel like we are not enough, that we never do enough, care enough, give enough. Even though this is universal, especially as women, we never feel enough.

I am tired of not feeling good enough because I can’t fully identify as a vegetarian or vegan because fish keeps my serotonin levels up and I work with wool. (Although it is my hope to work one day with wool that is ethically produced.) I feel conflicted when I wear my leather belt that I abhor because it is leather, but adore because it was a gift from my father. I feel like a bad feminist as I try and cover my fledgling wrinkles with foundation. I feel like my convictions aren’t strong enough when I eat dairy at my grandmother’s house because I know how hard it is for her to cook for me seeing that I think she thinks that chicken is not meat. I feel like I’m not punk rock enough because I really like Lionel Richie. (The man is a genius, I tell you!)

I have all these shoes and all this yarn and yet I walk a lot in lieu of driving and make things for others instead of myself. But I still feel like I’m not enough because 100% of my choices aren’t ethical. I sometimes shop at Target, all the toilet paper I buy isn’t recycled, every now and then I’ve been known to squash really terrifying looking spiders when they refuse to be captured and escorted outside. Even though I do a lot by some standards, for my own it will never seem like it’s enough.

Being aware all the time hurts my brain, but not as much as not feeling enough. I feel like my spirit was trampled for years underneath this weight and that it’s freed itself only to get frustrated by seeing how much everyone is struggling, too. At the moment, this is particularly resonant because I see all these glorious things that people have made around me, and I wonder, “why didn’t I think of that?” and “why don’t I have time to make that?” And immediately, I find myself back in the same vicious cycle telling myself I’m not this or that or whatever.

Which is why this time of year turns me into a hermit. I stay indoors and drink tea, watch bad television and make things for people. I read and absorb and try to refuel myself for the new year after the excesses of the last one. Come February, I begin to crawl out from underneath my heap of yarn ready to fight the good fight, cup of coffee in hand, and a pair of black shoes on my feet.

So today, just a little bit of comfort on the Official Worst Day of the Year.

May you always feel enough.

I like the small things.

| Betsy

My favorite sight today was the man I passed during the inauguration speech with the handheld battery-operated radio. He was walking down the street with the radio tucked under his arm like a book, listening to the President take an oath to office.

There was a lot of anger and frustration expressed at today’s events. There were people on the internet vehemently posting about Not One Damn Dime Day as well other pieces denoting its uselessness. In particular, I found this to be the most insightful take on the ‘protest,’ which I first thought to be a good idea. Then I started to realise just whose businesses it would really be hurting.

While I agree that it’s okay to get angry, I just don’t have that kind of energy anymore. I’d rather make things and send them to people who really need them because it’s cold out and they’re homeless or they’re sick and need a little cheer. It may not be showing my political dissent, but it does show that I am using energy formerly put forth in anger in more positive ways. And there are myriad different ‘positive ways’ to choose from, this is just what I’ve chosen.

I still believe that by crafting in general, you are demonstrating against the status quo and consumer culture. By choosing what to make when and constructing things with your own hands you are being political.

With that in mind, two links for today both sent to me by my always thoughtful friend Karen:

made with love by a liberal: because the world is bigger than you alone.

buy blue: because even the little choices add up.

Lately it’s the small things that have provided me the most solace and beauty and wonder. It’s funny how often we forget the small things, which are usually the most important.

In case you missed the guy with the handheld radio, you can read the transcript of Dubya’s speech here.

knitting is nerdy. honest.

| Betsy

Ever since I started studying crafty stuff (history, trends, activists involvement, etc), many of you have asked to read my final dissertation. Below is the so-called ‘zine version’ of my dissertation, which I wrote in September, it’s pretty stripped down, but was the original ethnographic base for a much longer piece. As many of you know, I’ve been having crafty issues lately and trying to study this sort of stuff more but having a hard time finding funding/programmes. So for now, I’ve decided to update this site on Mondays with longer pieces about The State of the Craft’ and on Thursdays with shorter bits that are activist/political related. I know this is really long, but…

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We all have our channels/waves of resistance. It’s just that some of us are more aware of them than others. It came from altruism/It started out as altruistic.

My interest in knitting came out of wanting to volunteer at nursing homes. I figured that somewhere in New York City there would be one little old lady that could use the company to ease the boredom, tedium and would get a kick out of showing me how to do a dying craft. Maybe it was all the stereotypes getting to me of the old woman in the rocking chair clicking away with her needles, but I was curious. No one I knew knit, so I figured I would try and go straight to the source: old people.

Waiting for a staff meeting to begin at the publishing house, I asked my co-workers if they knew of any nursing homes in the area (as I was still relatively new to NYC) where I could volunteer my time and in the process learn to knit. Out of eleven co-workers (10 female, 1 male, all under 40), 9 responded, “I knit.” They all kind of eyed each other for a minute as if they were thinking, “You, too?” One of the non-knitters said she had a friend in a knitting circle and that I could learn at one of their fortnightly meetings.

The next week, I headed to the Lower East Side with a curious friend complete with size 9 bamboo needles and 4 skeins of kelly green yarn from my friend procured for me because at the point of agreeing to learn I suddenly feared yarn shops. Irrational, but true.

As we entered the apartment, I was gobsmacked. It was like a secret society, women ranging from their teens to their 80s, speaking a variety of languages were in little circles scattered throughout the flat, some busy knitting while either learning or chatting while others were gossiping over a glass of wine of nibbling away at the vast array of hors d’ouevres everyone had brought individually.

I don’t remember much from that evening as I spent most of it whispering swear words under my breath as I tried not to drop either the needles or the yarn- trying to will my fingers to grasp a concept they seemed to fight with every motion. But I do remember overhearing one woman tearfully tell another about her marriage that was falling apart. From their conversation it was obvious that the listener had been hearing bi-weekly installments of the story via the knitting circle. It amazed me how once people started knitting, their conversation deepened.

I only went back to the knitting circle one other time as I was ashamed of my misshapen thing masquerading as a scarf complete with myriad holes and dropped stitches. I continued to knit until I had acquired a horrendous looking scarf over the course of the next few months. All of the election 2000 furore was still continuing. TV was boring. I was crap at the NY Times crossword. It just seemed like a more productive activity way to watch TV while listening to the continuing debate over what constituted as a “pregnant chad.”

I moved back to North Carolina and had no TV, but I did have a computer. I was bored, so in an effort not to become boring went online and looked for various online publications to send some work to. As you do- I ended up on a girl’s personal site about her life and her personal efforts which included rehoming abandoned rabbits. On the links page, I clicked around a bit until I came across a site called Getcrafty. All these creative ideas that mixed art and punk and craft. I was overblown. I started making marble magnets. I made them all winter. I would go to friends houses and leave one or two behind on their fridge. I found a photo of a friend in a magazine and made a magnet of her head. I was marble magnet mad.

My search for ways to make better marble magnets took me to the local craft shop. There was a whole wall of acrylic yarn at the back. I remembered the kelly green yarn nightmare (still not completed) stashed in the closet, but faced with a whole new world of colour before me, bought some yarn. There was only so far I could go with the marble magnets, and I felt I had reached my peak performance.

After 9/11, my brother arrived at my house with an old TV my mother insisted I have, lest anymore national disasters struck. She considered NPR a lesser news source than CBS, and I was secretly happy that as well as being informed of our nation’s security efforts, I could also watch “Oprah.” With the TV, I began to knit more. All useless and full of holes and acrylic, but I was knitting.

And still continued to check Getcrafty, where again, like in NYC, I was amazed at how all these women were talking about personal issues, struggles and joys on a site about craft. Didn’t these people have friends IRL?

As I hadn’t knitted in awhile, I needed some technical help. None of my friends knew how and my grandmother was into needlepoint now, so I was screwed. Until I asked for help online. As they say, “ask and ye shall receive.” The response was unparalleled- along with various online links for more information, and words upon words of inspiration.

I continued plodding along until one day, someone from my area posted, who also knit, and suggested we meet up. We finally got together and continued to meet at a local coffeeshop. We got flashed by a creepy guy while knitting and were told too many stories than I can count that started with “my mom/grandmom/aunt/insert random elderly female relative here used to knit” by older men. But mostly, we got weird looks.

I was beginning to pine for the group in NYC. The one that I only met with twice.
So I sent out an email to my friends. We had all been crafting in secret. I tried to install a monthly craft night but there was much protest and we made it weekly. On Tuesdays, because there was a rival group that met on Wednesdays. We ruled. We drank beer instead of tea and listened to cooler music.

So at this point, I knitted, met with friends each week, got new ideas on crafts online and read crafty magazines like Bust and ReadyMade. I kept hearing about a group of knitters who called themselves Cast Off in London. As I was recently accepted to graduate school in London, I was determined to find them.

So I moved to London. And called about lots of places to live- I only went to see one. Imagine my surprise when I got there and the owner of the house was one of the founders of Cast Off. We talked about crafts and how I once had coffee with Ian MacKaye and even rode in his car. We hit it off. I moved in.

Eventually my flatmate organized an event at the V+A. The press went crazy. Because my flatmate is only one person, I agreed to do some of the press. I did a TV thing for Sky News at the Museum of Natural History- knitting under a dinosaur. I made a dork out of myself attempting to come up with a “knitting is like a dog” analogy. I was also on the radio, live, which freaked me out. I still think I’m the only person ever to talk about “punk rock” and “knitting” on either BBC Shropshire or BBC Berkshire. I’m sure I rocked about five peoples world, as those radio stations are tiny. But, still, yahoo.

My friends started introducing me as “the knitter” to everyone. Was embarrassing, except when a boy I thought was cute told me I was “rock” for knitting. I like rock. I went to Paris and had a hard time trying to teach French people to knit at Palais de Tokyo. I knit a boy (a different one) a hat. He turned into a “jerk” so that’s what I embroidered on the hat in big red letters. Craft rocks because you can do whatever the hell you want with it. Like take out your frustrations, anger, etc. I ended up unravelling “JERK” and giving the hat to my best friend because it gets cold in Philadelphia and the hat ruled, even though that boy didn’t.

In August 2004, I go to a wedding in Wisconsin. I eat cheese and meet with my uncle’s “knitting friend.” We talk about knitting. Suddenly all the women in my family (most of whom don’t knit) were listening. Am amazed they were all silent for so long. And amazed at their interest and their age range and that we were all talking about something other than the weather or food. The whole time in Wisconsin, my Aunt Gene talks to me about knitting. Before this trip I have never really talked to Aunt Gene. We talk more in 72 hours that we have in 29 years. Am stoked.

And here I am surrounded by so much history and hope for the future, trying to carve out my own niche where I can teach, write, learn and research about all of this. Because it does branch out into the ‘outside world,’ because in the end it’s about something of necessity that turned into something of passion over time. Some days it feels super academic (well, when I use ‘academically sanctioned’ words), and other days just like a pipedream. At any rate, I’m up for seeing where this takes me nonetheless.

It’s all so nerdily exciting to me because, all of this IS revolution and following the evolution of a craft. Communicating, sharing, learning, growing, talking, loving, caring, creating. Revolution is about more than just fighting against, it’s about change and passion, too. And evolution is about more than making new strides and taking on new challenges, it’s about honouring the past and becoming familiar with the long and winding path that led to the present.

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