Tuesday, August 01, 2006

Caught in a Spiderweb


Sometimes I feel like knitting is flimsy. Literally, the project I am currently working on is the very lacy Icarus shawl in kidsilk haze as thin as thread, and I am using big needles so the overall effect is like spiderweb. It is soft and beautiful and feels like I could push right through it.
I know that I use knitting as a meditative distraction from my other worries: The one strand is manipulated through pattern, counting and repetition to yield something beautiful, soft, and three-dimensional.
I work a lot with numbers, and see the patterns in numbers very clearly. Slowly I am getting to a point with this pattern where I can glance at the chart and it all is clear, it all makes sense. I wish the rest of the world was like that.
Numbers I have seen this week:
20,000 Israeli ground troops, 1000 Hezbollah.
51 Israelis dead. 750 Lebanese dead. (Numbers from BBC)
Close to 900,000 Lebanese displaced by fighting (from UN Relief Agency)
Days of fighting (this round only): 20

I don't even know what to do with this. You see why I prefer to think:
"Knit 2, YO, k7,ssk,yo,k1,yo,k2tog, k7..."
And then I just throw it down because, well... It is all just so flimsy.

Update: A wonderful way to vent aggression through knitting! See Yarn Monkey and join the Sock Wars! Pummel your chosen target with hand-knit socks! (It is not lost on me that this wonderful idea comes from a Belfast knitter. You feel me with the knitting-as-flimsy-relief-from-territorial-aggression?)

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