The Thing About Lace

We’ve all heard it.  This is the Summer of Lace.  There’s a yahoo group, so it must be true, right?  I’ve confessed my ovine tendencies with regard to knitting lace and socks and, well, let’s say, being easily distracted by bright and shiny objects.  But I’ll also confess that a year or so ago, I would have told you that you wouldn’t catch me knitting lace.  I might have even been a little, um, snotty about it.  Sorry.  I’m eating my words now.  They’re actually kind of tasty.

Now, I do enjoy wearing shawls.  I feel kind of funky and artistic in my handspun, handknitted shawls.  But aside from a pashmina that you’d really be better off calling a scarf, I don’t know that I’d go out and buy a lace shawl.  Mostly, it’s about the fact that I made it.  And lace is sort of a perfect expression for something as lovingly crafted as a handspun yarn, or for a yarn as spectacular as the Fleece Artist Handmaiden I'm using for my FBS.  It honors the process.  And as Margene has been overheard to say, it is, after all, all about the process.

But let’s talk a little more about the process, and the concept of Zen that Margene so conveniently brings up.  I don't identify as Buddhist, but I’ve read a bit of Thich Nhat Hanh and Pema Chodron.  At quite a few moments of my life I have worked toward building a sustainable meditation practice.  Usually, I renew my interest in meditation during times when my life seems noisy and chaotic, or when I am working through difficult stuff.  But it has never come easily to me.  I have a bad case of what some Buddhists call “monkey mind,” that busy, bouncing, noisy voice that swings around the cage of your skull screeching “eee-eee-eee-ooo-ooo-ooo-ah-ah-ah” whenever you try to stop thinking for five minutes.  Seriously.  I’m sure most of us have tried it.  “Don’t just do something, sit there!”  Not, by a long shot, as easy as it sounds.

I know I’m not alone with my monkey mind.  And I know I’m not supposed to just sit down and be able to calm my 21^st century, information-age, Internet-addicted mind in a matter of seconds.  So there are all these tricks, I mean, techniques, that people have developed to help you still your mind.  In some traditions, it’s called a focal point.  The basic idea is to rest your attention lightly on your breath, but some people add focal points like counting breaths, looking at a candle flame or stone, or observing some other very simple thing in order to keep the mind calm and to give the attention a place to rest while you become quiet.  I’m sorry if this is a poor explanation of the practice of meditation; like I said, I am no expert.

But I’ve recently discovered, quite to my amazement, that a difficult bit of lace is actually an ideal meditative focal point for me.  I’ve been more able to find a relaxed and quiet state of mindfulness while knitting lace than I ever have while sitting on a meditation pillow with my legs crossed.  I know it’s a terrible case of cultural opportunism, to imagine this Irish-American girl knitting Icelandic (or Canadian, or for that matter fancy-pants Shetland by way of Yorkshire) lace creating some pastiche of Buddhist mindfulness, but that’s what I got.  And hey, I’m a Unitarian (most days), so we kind of have the market cornered on spiritual pastiche anyway, right?

Somehow, lace has been a whole new adventure for me, and it’s making me, far from my usual ironic snark, kind of reflective.  Early in the project, I’m lost.  It’s just me; me and the chart, and the repeating pattern in the row, and invariably, invariably, I will knit one part of the pattern twice or another part of the pattern not at all and it will be a disaster  (hello, non-attachment!).  That screwup is almost always because the monkey mind starts talking (that, or a short person thinks it’s time to jump on my head).

Then I get a few rows going, and I start to have something to base things on.  I get to know, on each row, what the fabric below looks like when I should be yarn-overing, and what it looks like when I should be k2togethering, and what it looks like when I should be SSKing.  I’m not saying I don’t screw up at this point, but I usually catch it within a few stitches because things aren’t lining up right.

Then, as I have a few repeats under my belt, I just start to get it in a way I didn’t up until then.  I am not sure how to describe this, but maybe it’s partly that I’ve started to memorize the pattern, and partly that I start to see how the whole thing is coming together.  What was a kind of mysterious set of holes and stitches is now becoming a constructed fabric with a certain logic  to it.  The baskets of the Flower Basket Shawl start to make sense to me, and I realize that, during that mysterious row where you only knit two plain stitches between each of the yo-centered-double-decrease-yo maneuvers, you’re actually in the only place in the repeat where you’re decreasing for the finish of one basket and the start of the next at the same time. 

And the two stitches on either side of the decrease?  Those kept bugging me because, you know, two stitches, it just didn’t seem like enough, and guess what?  It turns out all four of those stitches are part of the new basket you’re making, since you just turned the old one into a simple little line ready to stretch past your new basket until the next repeat.  It's all so clear now, on repeat number eight, but the first couple of times I knitted through the repeats, I could barely even see the baskets.

So okay, maybe this does sound a bit like monkey mind, I won’t deny that.  But there’s a certain depth to the knitting of a simple lace fabric that is hard to find in other things.  There's a sense that you can look and look and look and look and still see something new on the next repeat.  I feel like I am knitting a pattern until it gives up its secrets, until it tells me the truth about itself and I’ve discovered something.  I don’t think there’s anything particularly useful about what I’m discovering, I don’t even know if it will help me knit the next lace pattern without my ritualistic screwing up of the first row.  But then again, how useful is spinning my own wool and wearing it as a fabric full of intentionally-placed holes?  In July?  Because somehow, somewhere, in between the spinning flyer and the drawing of the wool and the yarn overs and the ssks and the fabric emerging from light and air and the warm blanket of a sheep’s clothing, maybe there’s a little more stillness than there was before.  Or maybe it's just the magic trick of suspending those stitches in mid-air, between the yarn-overs, and then watching the pattern emerge.  Maybe it's just a chance to focus, lightly, one's attention on something real.

So, okay, clearly not cheaper than therapy.  But you know, probably a bit more fun.

Comments

[Kim]

What a lovely post on knitting lace and relating it to meditating. I enjoyed it very much!

Hey, your birch and my birch look related :-)

[Kat]

Definitely more fun than therapy. And yeah, there's something about lace...

[Cara]

I completely and utterly get it. I agree, also, with what you're saying about FBS. I'm finally seeing what I'm knitting - if that makes sense. Where each stitch fits into the pattern.

If you've got monkey mind, I've got gorilla mind or something. It works against me ALL THE TIME. Knitting and running and writing when it's good are the only things that calm my mind. Throwing pots (on a wheel - not at the wall or anything) used to do it too. It's the act of doing something physical while concentrating - I think the whole sit still and count your breaths thing drives me crazy. The physicality - the keeping my body busy so my mind can rest - gets me to that place I need to be.

Excellent post. Thank you.

[Laurie]

I really like how you phrased the intertwining of lace and meditation. I experienced that with a simple lace patterned scarf today while waiting for PT, and find I get the same focus from drafting.

[Deb]

Yep,I get it, too. In a similar vein, I'm reading "Mindful Knitting," which speaks to what you're saying--knitting being meditative, and the concept sure is a good one! Your FBS is looking great, by the way. I'm hoping to have pictures of mine to post tomorrow. (Not that it will be done by tomorrow, but, you know!)

[sara]

snort - ok, speaking as someone who has yet to see the (candle flame) light - I trust your experience but do not yet believe :) Meaning, lace still boggles my mind and is just a bunch of following charts that make no sense. Says the one who is one sock tube through her first real lace project (not counting the leaves she added around the edge of a hat). Hopefully, I'll get there, not unless there's some serious culling of the monkey pack in my head.

great post!

[Judy]

You know, I actually experienced that same moment during the knitting of the FBS. I too, had NO interest in lace until a couple years ago when I really needed to keep my mind on any one thing.
It's (lace)not a project that I DO in a group setting, although I do find it helpful in sitting still in front of the TV when I have absolutely no interest in whatever is on.
terrific post!
btw.. fair isle does much the same thing, in color

[Barb]

Certainly much prettier than therapy, and I bet it doesn't give one a bad case of watery-eyed puffy-face by the end of a sit-down, either.

I haven't joined the Summer Of Lace phenomenon yet, but I've got a skein of KSH kicking around here that's been waiting for a purpose for a while, so I'm thinking I'm going to try Branching Out, see how that goes.

Lovely description of why I keep knitting, btw. Just wonderful.

[Jessica]

Clearly way cheaper than therapy - I totally get the meditative quality of lace. I'm knitting a Kiri shawl (birch knock-off) currently and just this morning was thinking how calming it was for me. It really quiets my monkey mind! I also just got to the spot where I "grok" the pattern and have seemed to internalize it - I love that moment! Knit on Cate! Wallow in the summer o' lace.

[Lee Ann]

Far more fun, far more comforting, and no wadded up half-box worth of kleenex in the purse. Not to mention the fact that this particular colour of KH is soooo sooooothing...wish I could wear it and not look dead. I opted for Lord. I'm hoping that it will confer some kind of jump in authoritativeness when I wear it ;-)

[Juno]

Oh yeah. When you start to bypass your verbal mind and see the pattern (be the knitting....) - very cool, very, very satisfying. Although those are poor, weak words for the experience.

Did you read Knit Lit 2 - there's a story in there by a man who is a yoga teacher about seeing his wife ripping her knitting as a sacrifice of a very spiritual kind - interesting.

[Margene]

By golly I think you've got it! Lace knitting is meditative and a good way to get that 'Zen' feeling. It isn't that you want your mind blank when you meditate; it's more a focused thinking...just like you have found when you knit lace. You see where it is going and you understand. You are having a perfectly Zen moment with lace.

[Kristen]

well said - all of it. (I'm a bit afraid of how you said you'd never knit lace and now, a year later, looking at your finished shawls you'd never know it'd only been a year... It's a path I'm sure I'll travel, and I will probably enjoy it. I'm not really sure what's keeping me from starting. (yes, I always do things a few months after most people; it might be that I'm waiting for a "fall of lace."))

[Bethany]

Hello, new reader here! I totally get it. I am currently working on my first shawl, the Shoalwater Shawl from Fiber Trends, and it's starting to come together for me. I'm still carefully keeping tabs on the chart, but it's making sense, and my knitting is becoming something. It's an incredible transformation, both of the shawl, and of my mind.

Thank you for this post.

[Julia]

Great post! I just finished my FBS and can so relate to what you're writing. Isn't blogging great? Almost everyone I know would think you (or I for that matter) are totally crazy.

[Wendy]

Beautifully said!

[claudia]

Reflective is nice. But ironic snark rules.

;-)

[Jenifer]

Definitely cheaper than therapy if you figure in the retail cost on FO's. :) Don't forget that part. And figure in a high number, because we all shop at fancy pancy boutiques, right?

[Marcy]

WAY cheaper than therapy, and in therapy you don't get a lovely shawl as a parting gift. Ommmmm.

[julia fc]

Amen. When things are going well, but thiss week I am in lace limbo, making bad energy and cursing out loud.
I should just remember that sometimes one washes the dishes just to wash the dishes, or as in my case, one knits rows 157 through 165 just to knit rows 157 through 165. And again. And again. I'm getting no better at this.

[Teresa C]

Very well said. Lace takes you to a whole new place. I often refer to the pattern as I am knitting as my mantra. Over and over again. Very meditative. Birch is the best for that.

[Jo in Ottawa]

I'm behind a bit because I was by a lake knitting lace and not by a computer... But I note that you say there is a 'yo-centered-double-decrease-yo maneuvers" in the FBS and the thing that struck me is that that double decrease isn't centred. Did I read that wrong or did you?

I totally get what you mean about the meditative quality of knitting lace. That happened with my peacock shawl... though the pattern changes every so often.