The Back Side

I have never been a needlepointer. Spell check doesn't like that word, so I'm so not a needlepointer that I'm not even exactly sure what one is called. But this past summer while on vacation on St. Simon's Island, our family made our annual stop at the local yarn shop (you have to visit and support the lys when you're on vacation if you want there to be lys' when you need one). I bought a few things that I can't get at my lys -- Knitch -- and offered to buy Natanya something. She had just finished Fiber Camp where'd she knitted, sewed, felted and more. I had visions of us sitting on the porch, soaking up the sun and the sea air, knitting away while the boys napped. But she didn't want more yarn, she wanted a very expensive and advanced needlepoint canvas/kit of a Fabergé egg. I had to say no. I knew it was too complicated, and wasn't even sure if she abandoned it whether or not I'd be able to do it. She was set, determined, stubborn as all get out. But we said no. She pouted, she may have even cried. I asked the woman who owns the shop for suggestions of something more age and skill appropriate. Natanya wanted nothing to do with the giant holes on the kid's kits and truly the images were at best insipid. We were about to give up and leave when I saw a small basket of needlepoint kits. They were make-up bags, scissors and eyeglass cases. They were called "Stitch and Zip -- Preassembled Needlepoint" kits. Natanya lit up and selected a small cosmetics bag with an image of lipstick, mascara and nail polish -- complete with silver, gold and red metallic threads. You may be thinking "tacky" and I'm not going to argue with you. But it also said "little girl" and I could imagine wanting something just like it when I was 8. So I acquiesced. But I went a step further, and bought my own tacky kit -- this one a leopard print scissor case.

I just modified my vision and imagined that Natanya and I would sit with our needlepoint on the porch, sewing away, soaking up the sun, while the boys napped. And so we did, a few times anyway, but boy, needlepoint is slow going, especially when you're regularly stopping to help your daughter rip out wayward stitches and rethread her needle. And when we got home, they managed to find their way to a drawer and sink deeper and deeper below other abandoned, I mean hibernating, projects.

Flash forward to today. Natanya is home sick from school -- the second day home with strep. She probably could have gone back today, but I wanted her to be well for a day before returning. So, we spent the morning together with our unearthed projects--sitting on the living room coach needlepointing. She finished the metallic silver mascara case and started the red metallic nail polish bottle. And I finished all but the black spots on my leopard scissors case. But here's what I'm wondering. What does the back side of needlepoint look like if you know what you're doing? What did the back side of my mother-in-laws needlepoint look like? I doubt it looks like the back of mine--in fact I know it doesn't. Even the back of Natanya's needlepoint is neater. Mine is a rat's nest of threads, split, sewn over, and the image from the front is not at all repeated on the back. I would have thought it would be a mirror of the pretty and neat outside. Afterall, the back side of my knitting always looks good. Hmmm.

Being me, I can't help but look for some meaning in this. I have mused over this type of symbolism in my life before. I love clear, clean spaces. A clutterless room makes me feel good all over. But I will achieve that clutterless state by cramming things into drawers, piling papers into boxes and tucking them away. And then with some regularity, I'll go through a ritualistic cleaning of the hidden spaces, which also feels really good. I'm well aware that if I were truly organized, not just a person who enjoys organizing, that my hidden spaces would be just as neat as the public spaces. As one who has meditated a lot, I know this to be true of my mind as well. It's important to have the outer part of oneself, the way one acts and expresses oneself in the world, be clear. But if the inner mind is cluttered, disorganized, crammed full -- then real sustained peace is never achieved. I have always managed to achieve that peace in small doses. Just like cleaning out the drawers one can clean out the mind. The struggle I have is not letting it get cluttered up again.

A few weeks ago, my husband gave a sermon in which he talked about the building of the Mishkan, the portable Temple the Jews carried with them for the 40 years they wandered in the desert, and the construction of the Ark (think "Raiders of the Lost Ark" and you've got the picture)that was used to carry the tablets on which the Ten Commandments were engraved. The Ark was a square box made of wood and the Torah explains that: "You shall cover the wood with pure gold from the inside and from the outside." (Exodus 25:11) Now, we can easily see why you would put gold on the outside -- but what would be the point of putting the gold on the inside, where no one would ever see it? The Talmud explains that a person's outside should be a reflection of their inside. There are more clues to this teaching in the Hebrew language itself. The Hebrew word for face, transliterated "paneem" is practically identical to the word "pineem" which means interior. There should be no difference between the face we present to the world -- the outside of my scissors case -- and the interior. Oops.

Well, I don't want to be too hard on myself. It is my first attempt at needlepoint. But I think if I decide to do it again -- I'd be wise to seek some advice from those who have needlepointed before me. Maybe read a book. Maybe practice before embarking on a project. Maybe needlepoint just for the purpose of having a neat interior. Just like yoga, it doesn't happen overnight. That's why we call doing poses our practice.

shatnez = wool + linen

I'm an observant Jew, and that affects me as a knitter more than you might think. First, I don't knit -- or create anything new -- on Shabbat, from sundown Friday to sundown Saturday. I sometimes miss great classes with visiting knitting teachers because I don't drive or write on Shabbat. I'm not really complaining -- this is a choice that I made that no one is forcing me to make. I embrace a day of rest, a day devoted to devotion, even when that means that I can't knit. Well, sometimes I complain, just a little. Mostly because a quiet Saturday afternoon while my husband is napping and my kids are playing together nicely seems like the most perfect time to knit in the world. And yet it isn't.

The other way it affects me is through the law of shatnez. The Torah says, in two places, that one should not wear shatnez: "Do not wear Shatnez - wool and linen together" (Deut. 22:11), and "A Shatnez garment should not cover you" (Lev. 19:19) Believe it or not, there are some really great yarns out there that combine linen and wool, and I can't knit with them. Now, why can't you? The Bible doesn't say. There are two kinds of commandments in the Torah -- the ones we might have figured out on our own, like "Thou shall not kill," and the ones that there are no explanations for, including all the laws of keeping kosher, and this one -- the law of shatnez. For Jews who choose to observe the commandments --and let me say here that I believe we all, no matter how observant we claim to be, pick and choose which ones we're going to observe (for example, I have not broken the neck of a cow at the border between Atlanta and Decatur because there are unsolved homicides in the area, and I think it's good that I haven't)--we follow both kinds of commandments and let it be a mystery. Following the commandments that have no explicit reason for being are an opportunity for expression faith and devotion. It doesn't hurt me to follow the law of shatnez -- but it is a way for me to make the mundane things of life holy. I actually have to think about being Jewish when I get dressed, when I shop for clothing, and when I buy yarn.

So, that all leads up to my almost dilemma this morning. Quite a while back, I bought a Habu yarn kit to make a jacket out of Silk/Mohair yarn and "paper" yarn. When it said paper, I thought it meant paper and even though I wondered how I would ever wash such a garment, it seemed cool and I bought it. My stash has been speaking to me lately, and this kit just called out to be opened. So, I'm dutifully knitting a gauge swatch holding two strands of the silk/mohair yarn and one strand of the "paper" yarn this morning when my husband -- who is a rabbi -- walked in. I told him that I had looked the Habu yarns up on their website and was surprised to learn that the paper yarn was actually 100% linen. And then we both stopped mid-conversation and said "oops." But, I really want to make this jacket. I'm loving the gauge swatch of the purple, taupe and gray yarns together. So I ask -- well what does the Bible mean by wool? Isn't wool just from sheep and isn't mohair from goats? He admitted he wasn't sure whether "wool" meant just from sheep or not. So, we went to the internet. And thank God for the Shatnez Testers of America (because you can send your garments to them and they will test them and tell you if they are shatnez or not) and the following from their website:

"When we speak of wool, we are only referring to wool obtained from sheep or lambs. Other materials, such as camel's hair, mohair, angora, cashmere or alpaca wool, present no shatnez problems. Similarly, linen refers only to fibers derived from the flax plant, whereas other bast fibers, such as ramie, hemp or jute, may be combined with wool."

So, I learned a little Torah today. And I get to keep knitting my Habu silk/mohair, linen paper jacket. Now, I just have to remember how to read Japanese patterns.

musings on masks

A few weeks ago, I had this idea just come to me that I wanted to make felted masks. Now, to know me now is to not be at all surprised that I would felt something. I'm a voracious knitter, and I love felting--whether it's felting something I've knitted, or needle felting, or wet-felting. I just love it. But most people I know at this point in my life don't know that I used to make masks--plaster casts of my own face, which I then painted and embellished. It was a big project I was working on -- which I never completed -- to make 16 masks which each represented a different aspect of my persona. I got about half way through. They're in a box, which I think just got moved to mini-storage. Perhaps it was looking at them briefly as I dropped them off at the Space Max that rekindled the desire to make masks -- but with my current medium -- fiber.

What intrigues me about masks is that they both hide and reveal. They hide the wearer's face -- of course -- but through the vision of the artist and the actions of the wearer -- they reveal something much more intimate and personal than were one to be looking at the wearer's actual face.

I started right away -- just picked up wool and needles and begin to freehand knit a mask. It went quickly -- it came out just as I had imagined it in my mind's eye, and I felted it right away. I loved the way it came out -- especially the mouth. I've made 3 more, each with a different fiber, each playing with the shape of the face. I'm going to make a few more before I begin needle-felting them with patterns and symbols. I feel like they're -- or I'm -- not ready for that stage yet.

To use another fiber metaphor, I feel like this project is a very pivotal one for me -- one which weaves my past and present together. The warp is me -- the weft is my past, present and future -- anthropology, shamanism, symbolism, art, Judaism, fiber art, handwork. I will post more as they progress.