I found this work from the early 90s inside my knitting cabinet. My eleventh and last annual play for Ateneo Children's Theatre was Ignatius of Loyola. I knitted the gauntlets with silver and black yarn, along with a lot of stuff for cast members, while sitting in on rehearsals. One of the boys who played Inigo brought me some baby yarn because he wanted me to knit a sweater for him.

This is the un-made-up, un-blocked, front design of the sweater.

The boy never came back to claim his sweater. That is why I still have it.

Time spirals on like yarn unwinding from a skein.

Part of My Archive of Knitting Literature

In the foreground are part of my jubilee collection of Philippine vehicles and, behind those, two of my magical bladed weapons.

One of my fetishes, an antique stone goat, sits complacently on the shelf.

More magical bladed weapons in the foreground--and a hand-carved, wooden spirit-caller from Thailand.

The Metaphysics of Knitting

To this day I have never met a fellow knitter--male or female, in person or in cyberspace--who shares my insights on knitting and can discuss with me the metaphysics of knitting. Other knitters seem to be more focused on craft rather than on art.

Knitting, to me, represents the ability to recognize patterns in life. In the 90s I taught an elective course titled Parental Wounding and Healing at a university; it was, in essence, a course in recognizing negative patterns in family life and, rather than stopping at that, going further and revising those patterns.

Mastering knitting is mastering the ability to see patterns, follow patterns, break patterns, and create patterns--that is the natural cycle. It is also about knowing how to knit, and knowing how to and be willing to unravel.

To see a ball of yarn transformed into a woven fabric is an earthshaking experience to me.

To view a cotton T-shirt through a powerful magnifying lens and to see that it is made of insect-scale knits and purls.

To mull over God's Creation, and to consider whether materials things--such as trees and stones--and non-material things--such as thoughts and emotions--could not be made of knits and purls as well, and to identify them.

To see the knits of everyday life, to see the purls of everyday life.

To apply the lessons of knitting to a lifetime.

To be willing to unravel.

To create.

Like a cup of hot soup at night that calms my nerves, knitting centers my body and my spirit.

I knit after I paint, and I knit after I write. Knitting unravels all the gnarled muscles in my forearms, hands, and fingers caused by other kinds of manual work.

I have yet to come upon a convincing explanation as to why a finished, knitted work becomes much heavier than all the balls of yarn it took to create it.

Knitting In Public

I went out of my way to be seen knitting in public: in schools, in offices, in public vehicles. Strangers would approach me and watch me work. They would ask what I was doing--they knew what crochet was, but had no concept of what knitting was. They called my knitting crochet (gantsilyo). Women, especially, would ask my permission to touch and fondle my work, particularly when I was using fancy yarn they'd never seen before.

Of course people laughed at me. That was the point. I let them--until they got tired laughing and took a harder look at what I was really doing.

In the decade of the 80s, when I was learning how to knit, the majority of women in the Philippines refused to do domestic, "women's", work. This was a result of the mounting waves of feminism in the country, some of it authentic, most of it postured. Every girl's dream was to have a career outside the home. This became evident even while the girls were still in school--they refused to do projects such as knitting, crochet, and sewing, and designated these tasks to their maids. The art of needlecraft was abandoned in the name of women's lib. Alas, most of the girls ended up as secretaries and filing clerks with broken dreams. Quite a few working mothers were perplexed when their children grew up dysfunctional.

At the time, I figured that if women were keen on shunning knitting, then it wouldn't be wrong for me to take over and succeed.

I think, that is why I knitted in public. I still do. It's a social statement.

My Bobbins

These are the two types of knitting bobbins I use.

The bobbin above is easier to use if one prefers unlocking the yarn once and having it flow freely while knitting an entire row.

The bobbin below is preferred by obsessive-compulsives. There is more yarn control, and one can even measure how much yarn will be consumed on a row by the number of times the yarn is unlocked from the bobbin.

I had these bobbins made of clear acrylic. I call them "ghost bobbins". It's as though the yarn is wound around thin air and hangs mysteriously suspended from my work, as I work. I use these only at home though. There is one disadvantage: when you drop them, it is hard to locate them on the floor.

Over the decades I attempted to encourage the people around me to take up knitting.

I held a fabric art exhibit, Cubao After Dark, at the Cultural Center of the Philippines in the early 90s. It received good press coverage. Many strangers, mostly female knitters, knocked on my door to show me their knitting and ask me for lessons and tips. All of them, however, were interested mainly in knitting for personal fashion and not knitting as a serious art.

I taught an elective course titled Handknitting at a university in the late 90s. I had a good number of students, with only one male, who seemed to be there for the novelty of the course and learned to knit at least the back of a sweater in one semester. None of them probably continued knitting after that.

I engaged with the personnel of Coats Manila Bay, a busy factory that produces cotton thread for distribution locally and internationally, but they seemed more concerned with sales quotas for their products and their kits.

I sponsored a summer knitting workshop in my house 13 years ago, hiring a knitting teacher to do the tedious work. My family participated in it but grew to abhor it. I recall that my granddaughter Angelique, then a little girl, kept crying in frustration because she could not cast on more than ten stitches.

The present generation seems to favor instant, as opposed to sequential, production, a result of the computer age. People prefer machines to do the work for them as much as it is possible.

I now knit only for myself, albeit knowing that I am the 100th monkey who will imprint the art of knitting in my country's collective unconscious.

Madness of Many Years Ago

These are my row markers (Left) and my stitch markers (Right). Yes, they are made of solid, 10-karat gold. I no longer recall why I had them made, other than that two goldsmiths used to visit the office on a regular basis, selling pieces of jewelry to my co-employees. Perhaps it was because I wanted to handle, while knitting, precious objects rather than objects of steel and plastic. It was a moment of Hadrianic madness. At any rate here they are--and, as you can see, I have already misplaced the fourth, big, stitch marker somewhere.

I learned knitting because I come from a family of needleworkers, though I learned this craft on my own without any prompting from them. I was into puppets when I was young. I was a writer for a children's television show. My mother and my youngest sister, Sylvia, would sew, crochet, and knit my puppet designs for me. Eventually my designs became more and more complicated and became exasperating tasks for them.

One night I picked up a how-to book on knitting and followed the instructions using two ballpoint pens and a piece of string. I discovered that I could knit and purl! I asked my sisters for knitting equipment they no longer wanted. I proceeded to knit scarves for my relatives and co-workers, then moved on to reading patterns and knitting sweaters.

My advantage was, when I had questions, my mother and my sisters were there to answer them.

It was fun following all kinds of knitting patterns, including those for gloves, socks, and stuffed toys. I amassed an entire cabinetful of knitting books and magazines. After five years of that, though, I temporarily lost my passion. SOMETHING WAS LACKING. I afterward realized, it was because I was not satisfied with the idea of knitting other people's patterns and being a slave to them. I was more than a knitter, I was an artist. I was bored with the trite conversation and petty intrigues of invisible knitters in Knitting Chat Rooms. I was challenged to create works of art, among functional works, out of knitting. Only then was my passion for this craft renewed.

Collecting Small Cases

I did not deliberately collect small cases--they sort of came my way over time. They serve me well, however, in my knitting work. Here are some of the small cases in my possession:

Top Row: Sterling silver cases--they remind me of Hans Christian Andersen's "The Steadfast Tin Soldier".

Middle Row: An enamel case between two sterling silver cases.

Bottom Row: A pierced brass case from Karachi, an Art Deco box, and an antique, sterling silver reliquary.

Top: A sandwich lunchbox, a gift from my granddaughter Angelique three years ago.

Middle: Antique tins.

Bottom Grouping: A round, cat tin containing measuring tape; a bird tin containing needles; a hexagonal tin containing stitch markers, a sunburst tin, a pig tin, a Madame Tussaud tin given to me by my sister Sylvia at least 15 years ago, and a TinTin pencil case given to me by my student Meeko two years ago.

Left Column: Camel-bone, brass, and rhinestone cases from India.

Right Column: Miniature, handwoven baskets from the Philippines.

Left: A case made of rolled, telephone directory paper, given me by children in conflict with the law at Molave Youth Home, Quezon City, when I conducted my "Writing from The Heart" workshop for them three years ago.

Right: Abalone case, a gift from Quezon City Mayor Herbert Bautista.

And, having done and said all that, my most useful cases are of translucent plastic. I want to know what I have because I can see what I have.