Throwback Thursday

Ooh, so there's not been an awful lot of anything (except painting) going on here lately. I've been having problems with my wrists and had to take a break from knitting. Feeling much better after a week off but still a little unsure about what the problem was as it felt as though my upper back/neck/shoulders were the problem which then affected my arms. Should have been to see the physio really, that always helps. Fingers crossed though that it'll stay gone whatever the problem was.

Here's a Throwback Thursday in any case (till I have some nice things to show).

So, this was all the way back in 2010! The pattern is Manu by Kate Davies and the (beautiful) cardigan has been sat half unravelled in my knitting basket for a couple of years now. I really should finish unravelling it and put the yarn to good use.
Its an odd sort of cardigan/yarn story really and probably a massive overshare or as they say on Mumsnet, TMI (too much information!). Basically not long after I'd finished knitting this cardigan, I wore it on an unintentional night out. It was the association of what I was wearing that night with what happened that meant I couldn't wear the cardigan any more because it reminded me of everything and made me feel so ashamed. Oh, and before you imagine lots of horrendous things, it was a self-inflicted alcohol horror night. Back in 2009-10 I used to drink most days and it was my number one favourite thing in the entire world, I was getting quite over fond of it at the time of the incident, and a bit weirdly sneaky, just doing things like getting another drink quietly while Rich was out of the room, having a secret pointless one before bed. I'd also had a few events where I'd go absolutely bananas & flip out and behave very oddly (like trying to climb out of the upstairs window with a 10 foot drop below me), I only remembered snippets of these events, they were very disturbing both for myself and for those around me.
And before you think 'just stop drinking when you've had enough', I would have loved to do that, but the thought would literally never even cross my mind. It was extremely odd and very annoying (the genuine lack of control over myself). I used to feel so sad every morning and wish I could have the willpower not to drink so I could wake up without a hangover!
On cardigan night I (accidentally - because I never once thought I should have a coke/go home/stop drinking) ended up completely legless, vomitarama, ambulance called (this was the final nail in my booze coffin the morning after - I have never in my life felt so ashamed of myself), apparently I threw a punch at some poor girl who was trying to help me as well. Through all this my friend Little Rach stayed by my side and helped get me home. Heaven only knows why but she remained my friend after 'Fright Night', her forgiveness when I phoned to apologise the afternoon after that night was truly humbling. (Thanks Rach, and Kate and Rich - my guardians the other times I had a major alcohol-related black-out/flip-out event).

I swore the morning after that I would never touch booze again (oddly/luckily I'm actually frightened of it now) and have been 5 years sober as of a couple of weeks ago. I really should do something with that yarn...

Thoughts about hand dyeing yarn

I've recently (impulsively) decided to give hand dyeing wool a go here at home. I've been feeling increasinly disillusioned with the art world, under pressure to produce things for people (lovely people, lovely things), taken advantage of by too many art galleries & dealers, and I just want a little change, to combine two things I genuinely love, yarn and painting.
The knitting community is very different to the arty ones, it is very supportive, friendly and relaxed. For example, lovely knitters adding me as a friend on my new Instagram account, even though I only have two posts and not a lot else, simply because I've added them. Now, I know this makes good business sense, and some are dyers but it's still friendly and welcoming and appreciated. I'm not sitting here behind the laptop crying because nobody loves me or appreciates my art by the way (lots of kind people say kind things), I simply want to get more into my yarny pursuits & see if my painterly ways would translate to skeins because I am literally obsessed with skeins of yarn at the moment. Obsessed in the sense that I lie awake at night matching skeins to patterns and wishing I had more hours to do more knitting and also lying there smiling about the colours in a skein. With Hedgehog Fibres for example, I see the colours in Beata's yarns everywhere, particularly in the skies over the moor (where I live). I love to think about yarns while I'm walking although I'm not sure it's normal to be quite so obsessed with yarn. But then I think about Birthday Cake!!! I have enough Birthday Cake for a third Oblique cardigan, took me ages to decide which cardigan to knit with it because variegated yarn sometimes needs texture & lace to allow it to really shine. Oblique has it all and I can't wait to get started. But then there was a post on the Hedgehog Fibres destash page on Ravelry, of their Merino DK in the Monarch colourway (previous post, last photo), 7 skeins, enough for a good sized cardigan and destined to become White Pine by Amy Christoffers. Leftovers from the two colourways are going to become a thick pair of socks.

Anyway, coming back to hand dyeing here at home, me on my own, who knows, it could be a massive disaster & totally not work for me. We'll see, I'll keep an open mind and an open heart as they say!
One thing I worry about (and do so with my paintings too) is that I might unconsciously emulate somebody else's style. If that happens and is blatantly obvious, embarrassingly so, then it may be time to go back to the drawing board, leave it to the experts so to speak. Fingers crossed I can make it work and make something that is me and not a mish mash of my memories of everyone else's amazing yarn.