lunes, 25 de agosto de 2008

The Easy Art of Knitting.

I hope that last week you had an excellent time full with many joyful hours of knitting. In my case my usual time dedicated to knitting had to be posponed a bit due to some unexpected things, some that made me reflect on the way we live our lives nowadays. I am positive and hope that some of you have reflected on the same thing I concluded after to many events happening one after the other: our lives have become way to complicated and there is no stopping.
What happened to me was the damage of yet another laptop due to a software problem and then my iPod lost all of its data and was unable to restore it. As you can imagine I was both stressed and very sad. After these events I just kept thinking, "do I need this? Not at all!"
To many nip codes, to many passwords, to many actions asked in order to perform many of our daily life activities. It is all so ridiculous! Perhaps this is the reason why I literally threw myself into knitting some years ago.

Knitting, such an amazing art. Could it get more simple than just a pair of needles and/ or hook and some yarn? It is a friendly and an easy-coming activity that surpasses any level of consideration as it can be a hobbie, a healing experience and a professional activity, individually or all at the same time. Ironically, if being compared with what I wrote above: instead of asking for complicated tasks in order to do simple things (I mean, technology is supposed to make our lives easier, right?), knitting comes the other way: in its basic form it is so simple and it only depends on you to take it into much more complex arenas, only if you want so. I love this, in my book this is called FREEDOM.

I am currently exercizing my freedom while still knitting my first Fair Isle (Jacquard) pullover. It can look complex but it won't delete or crash anything. If you make a mistake, you unravel and start over, in your time, whenever you are ready.

Still posting on knitting, while I went out to a market to forget about passwords and nip codes I was introduced to a technique that absolutely absorbed me: a knitting board. Has any of you tried it?
The owner of a little yarn store at the market taught me the basics of it while listening to the merchants sell their produce. Here in Mexico it is named "telar", in english "loom"; a mistake as looms are a completely different thing, but still this little knitting board and the simplicity of it healed me too from technology. Wow, I love it.
Check out what I knitted in just a day:

On other things I am currently trying to make a knitting diary by using my file at Ravelry. I have been taking pictures of everything that I have knitted and will soon add them up at "my notebook" at Ravelry.com. They are all a reflection of so many things lived through in my life. One of them is the following, and it represents a lesson I had to learn because unfortunately I will only be able to show you a picture of the project at the magazine:


The photo belongs to a sweater that I knitted for someone who was special back then. I was starting up in knitting and inspite of the many long evening hours spent, the results were very good. I gave it then as a gift and never thought I would lose track of it forever because eventhough I asked for a picture of it I never got it and so back then I learned to value my time and effort better and get wiser when it comes to giving away projects that have so much of me in them. If anyone asks me if I have suffered from the "curse of the boyfriend sweater" I have to answer yes, twice. Now I just knit scarfs :) :)

Thanks for reading, I am still recovering from last week.

Hasta Pronto!

lunes, 18 de agosto de 2008

A Surprise from Down Under.

It is starting to feel like Autumn here in Mexico City. The sun shines in the first part of the day but soon in the afternoon the shadows start to get longer and the rays of light begin to take a soft orange color. I simply love it. It is definately my favourite season of the year.

This time the first signals of autumn started with a a very special parcel from beautiful Australia. My dear friend Patrizia sent me a very special gift that has brightened the whole season.

Isn't this lovely?:


A beautiful wool and angora lace scarf, 4 delicious Twix bars and the cutest stuffed bear to accompany my knitting bear. They look good together, don't you think?



Thank you very much Patrizia, my very best to you all the way to Australia!

Also to celebrate the coming season I designed, cut and sew myself a blouse. This is the first time I am posting here a piece of clothing made by me. I love its color -again green, right Patrizia? ;)
Fashion Design is something that is part of my personal and professional life so I'll be glad to start also sharing this part with you here.



See you soon!