Fibres of Meaning
Four Unpredictable Patterns
I spend most of my time either working on the land and with the animals, working desk jobs to pay for the little dears, or writing to encourage others to engage themselves in some kind of self-reliance, especially if they might think they have left it too late. I do also practice what I preach and try to extend my skills to decrease my dependency, if only theoretically.
The home arts of creating our own clothes can seem daunting, but much like growing food, or supplying our own water or energy needs, something is better than nothing, and we all have to start where we are. I love to spin, and rearing the sheep, shearing the fleece, scouring, carding, spinning, plying, and finally knitting the sweater is my end goal. I’ve got as far as a headband (I didn’t actually do the shearing, but apart from that I covered all the bases,) and I move on! Everyone, though, can try their hand at simple skills such as knitting, crochet, and sewing.
Here are four unusually meaningful ways to make a thing:
The Journal Cowl
It was in an issue of Taproot that I saw a pattern for a ‘Journal Cowl.1’ I say a pattern, but it was rather a collection of very small patterns.
It was a new one on me, but the idea was a glorious one. The knitting of a cowl - a long, moebius loop of a scarf which can be a neck warmer or a hood - was undertaken during an expedition. In the example, it was an extensive journey across the varying landscapes of Europe. Drafted patterns represent each feature of the landscape. A river, a bridge, forests, foothills or mountains, castles, tunnels or tundra - each has a simple, short pattern, represented in just a few rows or rounds.
As the journey progresses, each time the knitter passes by or through a feature, they will knit the pattern. Rail track, castle, bridge, rail track again, forest, river. The pattern does not repeat in any predictable way. Whatever comes along next accounts for the next few rows.
I have sought permission to use this photo - and linked to the pattern purchase page below.2
I love the idea that the pattern creates itself. There is some mystical element in the feeling that to you, the pattern might be intricate, and pretty, and complex, but is nevertheless just a pattern, but to my eyes, every band of stitches creates a vista, a window to a sight I have seen and lived, and can relive by the magic of association.
I wonder if two travellers have ever bonded over their journal cowls - I imagine them in a rather Agatha Christie railway carriage, high in the Alps, when one says to the other “I hope you don’t mind my asking, but is that a journal cowl?”
“Why yes!” the other replies, “I see you are knitting as we go - are those mountains?”
We will leave them there. I do so hope they are real, somewhere.
The Temperature Snake
In a similar way, there is a trend for temperature snakes, or temperature blankets.
This gorgeous thing is lifted from a Etsy listing - I have again sought the owner’s permission,, and I’m putting her link in case you’d like the pattern
The general idea with these is that you crochet, or knit, a round or two of your snake, or a row or two of your blanket each day. You create a key whereby colours represent temperature bands - usually icy blue for very cold up to fiery red for raging hot, but it’s up to you. The snake or blanket then represents the whole year, in our temperate climes probably going from blue and grey through yellow and orange, the odd spot of red and back to blue again.
I have wondered if you could make it more complicated by adding in wind speed or rainfall. Two rows a day for temperature and one for rainfall? Different stitches. I am overthinking this, aren’t I? Maybe a family of snakes? A temperature snake, a rainfall snake, and a wind speed snake, all curled together on a sunny window seat.
Imagine beginning this project in your youth, and faithfully crocheting a temperature snake for every year of your life. Your entire den of snakes (I checked, and den is correct, though slither is allowable, if one is being poetic) would be vast, and their colours? Only time will tell.
The Memory Quilt
I believe memory quilts have existed for centuries, no doubt, sometimes, almost by accident, as a busy prairie mother patched together anything and everything to create a warm cover for her children, she undoubtedly reached for scraps from dressmaking, worn out clothes, anything a square could be cut from.
I like to imagine her, in her old age, should she gain it, on a rocker on the porch of a house I stole from the Waltons and moved to Laura’s prairie town, dozing in the sun with the quilt over her knees. I hope her daughters are now caring for her, as they should. Her open Bible and a cool glass of lemonade rest on the table beside her, and she runs her fingers over the soft, worn fabric of the quilt - and her mind travels back over the years, to the dresses, the shirts, the flour sacks, and all the journeys, and sorrows and joys they recall for her.
I once read a blog post, (long, long ago when a blog was something different, an innocent diary of daily events, with nary a ‘jump to recipe’ button in view), detailing how to make a very specific quilt top from men’s shirts. I think it may have been from ‘Frugal Queen’ who is now ‘Frugal Queen in France’ on YouTube, should you wish to revisit her.
It was a very detailed tutorial as to how to cut up the shirts to best advantage, and what pieces to make from where. As far as I remember, these shirts were purchased on knock down sale days in charity shops, but at around the same time, an American blogger did something similar with the shirts of her late husband, and I can only imagine the comfort that quilt gave her.
The Gallbladder Throw
This last one is less random, and more personal. It is not, as it might sound, some bizarre event at the Highland Games, but a project I undertook this time last year.
A year ago, I had surgery to remove my gallbladder. Aside from two dramatic C-sections, during both of which I was conscious, I had not previously had surgery, and I was scared.
I was also very twitchy about the enforced rest immediately after the procedure.
I had two tactics with which to confront this monster. The first was a month’s trial subscription to the channel which had every episode of ‘Foyle’s War’. The second was the purchase of a bundle of yarn in colours which matched those in the curtains currently adorning ‘the room.’ (For newer visitors, the ‘designers’ of our current abode, a tiny mid terrace on a new estate, did not feel that 3 bedrooms hinted at the need for more than one room to do everything else but sleep in. So I did away with calling it the sitting room on grounds that it was a bit pretentious really.)
For the long, tedious two weeks that I was largely encamped on the sofa, I crocheted squares in a fake random way which I found on a website3, and eventually stitched them together into a sort of knee blanket/throw which I now keep on the self same sofa, to remind me that, much as I love Foyle’s War, I am indeed fortunate to be well and strong enough to set that little blanket straight, and walk away from it.
That’s a Wrap
Deciding to make stuff which will increase your self sufficiency feels good, but immediately you ask yourself ‘what, then?’ it feels daunting. I find these simple, modular, meaningful ideas to be wonderful starting points.
Have you come across any others? Maybe you have your own ‘meaningful make?’ Do please let me know in the comments!
Normal service will resume shortly.
https://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/journal-cowl
https://www.etsy.com/uk/listing/1622972026
https://www.mamainastitch.com/granny-square-blanket-pattern/
The temperature snake!