Alternative Knitting

A l t e r n a t i v e K n i t t i n g what's this about? alternative knitting blog journal knitting in public commentary philosophy yarns triumphs freedom inspirations socks patterns yarnstash NLP misuse exposed ATPNI discorde initiative guerilla knitting wools chat books yakyakyak knitting deities psycho-neuro-immunology knitting activism cats underground knitting triumphs intelligent knitters pni politics stress yarns triumphs blog journal creativity expansion the big picture more yarns

Yes! Here's my button

Knitting Bookstore
to browse and drool

Anne's
s*t*a*s*h!
(blush)

52 or 79 things I have discovered about me, life and knitting. Or fewer. Or more. Currently 77

What Anne does for a living

Work on needles

New for 2006

Lace scarf / shawl
In yarn left over from the beaded hemp top. Wavy shale pattern. Maybe this will become the shawl I promised myself last year.

Amethyst cashcotton sweater

Anne's finished projects 2006
None yet :)

2005 2004 2003 2002

Online yarn stores and resources

Knitty
Threadbear
Ozeyarn
Martina for sock yarn
Kangaroo
House of Hemp
Ford Barton
Laughing Hens
Hip Knits

SECRET

Well, nothing really. Can't even tantalize myself.

Bodywork and other training
I've done a shed-load of training in the last few years, some in new areas, some pretty advanced. I recommend these training establishments for outstanding integrity, professionalism and allround excellence:

Jean-Pierre Barral Visceral Osteopathy

John F Barnes
Myofascial Release

Upledger Institute Craniosacral Therapy

Jing Advanced Massage
(I also teach with these guys)

Pilates Training Solutions

February 28th

Bizarre month
Where did it go? February, I mean? I'm used to February taking at least 7 weeks to drag by, but this one's disappeared without so much as an afternoon's need for hot chocolate because the world looked as if it was standing still. No chance. And I was bored? Was that really February? Maybe there have been several extra weeks to February this year, and I just didn't notice.

Team Wales, Olympic Knitting, and new projects
Have finished a frondy thing for the Unexpected Knitting modular jacket. Or is it a shawl? My lovely friend Rachel would like a lime green cashcotton sweater like the one I finished in January (having worn mine on the courses we taught together last week, and yes, it does suit her very well; better than me in fact; hisssss), so I'm going to buy the yarn for that this week. I've also ordered rather a large amount of hemp yarn from House of Hemp just because I love the feeling of it as it slips through the fingers.

Which reminds me, I've finished the lacy hemp scarf, hence the yarn withdrawal symptoms. It has turned out quite shawly and drapy. And I've got going on the amethyst cashcotton sweater again. Is there no end to my willingness to complete things? I may sickening for something. If I start a couple of pairs of socks, that will keep the WIP count up to scratch.

OK, OK, I'll get some picis done. It requires two computers in different buildings, hence the shoddy service.

Sheep gone shopping
The woolly quadrupeds in the field next door have indeed taken themselves off into the middle distance, no doubt where the deli-section is fresher. I'm not sure whether they have all been rounded up yet, but at least they didn't escape via our land. Three who were billeted as lawn mowers in a neighbour's extended garden liked the look of an entirely different sheepie gathering across the road and slipped through the fence to join them, and then were rounded up with them into several lorries a couple of hours later to pastures new. There is much identifying and extracting going on at this very moment. It's all mildly amusing and the stuff of which country living is made, at least in moments of reduced agricultural stress.

Gangaji
Am still reading Gangaji's Diamond in Your Pocket, bit by bit, page by page. She says the same thing in a hundred different ways, which is bliss, or maybe I am homing in on the one thing I need at this moment and am hearing it in a hundred different ways.

February 19th

Team Wales knitting
Am about to take picis of part 1, a rather squirly freestyle knitting... shape. Yes, it certainly has shape. Three-dimensional shape, at that. All greens, looking a little like something frondy and undulating from the depths of the ocean. Or some kind of viscera. See how my horizons are broadening?

Amethyst cashcotton sweater
... is looking exactly as it did when I last put it down. That means that the knitting fairies haven't been visiting lately, and I'll have to finish it myself. I've been sidetracked by the Knitting Olympics and my hemp shawl, which is in fact nearly completed, i.e. I am about to run out of yarn. As much as I do expect knitting fairies to grace me with their presence from time to time, just to help out, I have to say this is not based on anything factual, and their track-record in my case at least is lamentably zeroish.

Sheep in the garden
Some beautiful woolly yarn-providers have taken up residence in the field next to the studio. DH Mi watches them through the window as he is watercolouring. They are particularly fond of a privet bush we have on the side of the terrace and have been munching their way around what they can reach. Yesterday, one particularly bright / hungry / intrepid sheep slipped inbetween the middle and lower fencing wires and positioned herself on the terrace to gain a better angle on some tasty, tender shoots. Mike shooshed her back over onto the field and was glared at balefully. DS1 Chris has also had to redirect a woolly quadruped and this father and son team have found that the best way to move a sheep is to creep to the bottom of the steps leading up onto the terrace and rush up them, waving their arms and yelling "woof woof" - otherwise shaggy yarnbearers just do a "Does my face look bovered?" stare and continue ripping the privet apart. I vote for telling the farm, as it's only a matter of time until one of them finds out about a) the open gate onto the road and b) several more very yummy munchy greenery options in the garden. Or c) our deep freeze. Only joking.

OK, I'm not bored any more
I was bored, just bored, not in need of a roller-coaster ride! GF has found herself someone else rather more available than 'hardly at all', so that is A Good Thing, and certainly what the deal was, although it has provided a shock to the system. Thank goodness, being women, the original protagonists still love each other, so that lines the stomach through any ensuing trauma :)

February 12th

What news, what news?
Well, I've been training in Visceral Osteopathy, have dreamed up some new exciting movements for my Pilates classes involving spiky balls and foam rollers, have cast on for the Knitting Olympics Team Wales, have rediscovered juggling and am making some stitch markers with wire and weird beads. I also spent inordinate amounts of time and money updating my Norton antivirus, which wouldn't download for me at all (corrupt files, please start again), so I had to go and buy (second buy!!!) a CD to load it that way. Was not too impressed.

Graffiti art and urban cross country runs
Have been through one of my regular phases of being very bored and yearning for something 'on the edge', whilst knowing that satisfaction would be just a sham. Decided that all the things, juvenile thrills as they are, that really drew me, like graffiti art and cross-country runs through people's gardens, were not on, due to ethics and suchlike. Damn. What was I looking for? At the same time, I am slipping more and more easily into a meditative state, floating inbetween the particles, pure consciousness, loss of individuation at the same time as clearer individuality, that sort of thing, when receiving bodywork or, indeed, meditating, all of which seem to be diametrically opposed to my 'on the edge' appetite. Hn?

Does the deepening of one make the lure of the other all the more sharp? How can I be so grounded and free one minute and sorely tempted by clearly illegal and intrusive, antisocial activities the next? I'm hoping it's a phase and will pass. Maybe I need a more interesting social life. Or more sex. It's certainly allowing me an intriguing glimpse into aspects of me I never knew existed.

I'm reading Gangaji's 'The Diamond in your Pocket' which seems to describe in words what I experience when I slip into the spaces inbetween (see, my own words are really not adequate). Reading her tends to increase the ease with which I slip.