Let your day unwind from a skein and wind into the ball of yarn that is ready to be knitted into a work of art.

Time is a work of knitted fabric. It is the past that is tangible reality, the present at the tip of your needles with your power to take them along conventional expectations, the breaking of rules, or other, innovative ways, the future a living pattern still in your mind.

Needlework is addictive because it marks both time and space.

You embroider your day with colored threads on fine fabric.

Do not bother to react to other knitters who try to put you down. Otherwise that would be equivalent to casting purls before swine. 

This piece is titled "Memories of a Sunday Afternoon". It was part of my 1991 fiber art exhibit _Cubao After Dark_ at the Cultural Center of the Philippines. I hand-knitted this piece out of stripped cotton fabric.

Collection of Barge Ramos

Sometimes I believe that human beings conceived of knitting while contemplating spider webs.

My Sister Sylvia's December 2016 Office Project

My sister Sylvia's December 2016 office project in Sydney, Australia:

What You Cannot See, You Can Feel

I've been knitting for more than 30 years now. While working on projects I noted that the yarn I used had a unique texture depending on what color it was. Pink yarn, for example, feels sticky to me, while red yarn feels rough and sandy. I asked my mother and my sisters if they noticed the same thing, but they said that they did not, or that they did not bother to, and so I kept quiet about it for some time.

In 2013, while I was teaching creative writing in my "Writing from The Heart" workshop at the Philippine National School for the Blind, I remembered my knitting and introduced a new exercise. I asked the participants to peel the paper covers off every crayon in their boxed sets. I then placed one crayon of the same color in their hands, a color at a time, and asked them to feel it while thinking of specific associations. I even allowed them to smell and lick each crayon.

At the end of the exercise I asked the class to raise the crayons that corresponded to my words--Red, Orange, Yellow, Blue, Green, and so on. NINETY-FIVE PERCENT of the participants successfully completed the exercise. The teacher-monitor who was observing the workshop was shocked speechless.

Try this exercise with crayons and with yarn. It heightens your powers of observation.

My Wuxia Scarf

Finished my wuxia scarf in December 2015 but couldn't find the right model to photograph it on. This full-length piece with a shaped hood was inspired by my viewing of The Return of the Condor Heroes a.k.a. The Romance of the Condor Heroes on Taiwan's GTV. This part of the trilogy is about the life (childhood through old age) of the wayward, maverick, and rebellious Yang Guo, a warrior who falls in love with his mentor, an enchantress, and marries her. He becomes an old man while the enchantress remains young forever.

The scarf I made looks nowhere near that worn by the character in the wuxia, but I definitely had him in mind while knitting it.

Photos by Jefferson Solayao

Never snap up new yarn and then frenziedly produce something with it to show others. You will end up looking at others' knitting like a housewife on a house-hunting show who enters a modest kitchen and whines, "I don't like it!" "I want modern!" "I want the appliances updated!" "I want stainless steel!" "I want granite!"--not realizing that stainless steel makes any kitchen look like a morgue and that "granite" is really liquid polymer fiberglass. Unbeknownst to the housewife, she is at the mercy of the house agent. The agent could walk her into ANY kitchen and either say "This was built in the 1970s" (and you can hear the housewife immediately reply "I want modern!" without thinking) OR say "This was recently renovated" (and you can hear the housewife immediately reply "Wow!" without thinking). Yarn promoters are like that real-estate agent.

Any housewife with character will want and need only appliances that WORK.

Therefore, when buying yarn, discern and discriminate. Don't ride on trends. Never fall for fancy names; such names could be disguising old yarn with new labels. Buy your yarn like buying exquisite textile. Consider setting it aside for several years. And then use it to create something after the yarn is no longer in stock and is no longer available to anyone. That way, no one else can copy your work.

Don't make your knitting timely. Make it TIMELESS.

My Sister Sylvia's 2015 Christmas Creations In Sydney, Australia

My sister Sylvia's team leader asked for help decorating the office for Christmas this year.

Sometimes it is a good idea to combine different thread textures in your work to prevent it from looking like it was made out of a kit.

All too often I have seen dinky scarves that look like table runners, piano keyboard covers, and throw rugs, no matter how complicated their patterns.

Knit a painting. Paint a story. Write a piece of knitted work.

Draped Knitting: Cotton Tops For The Tail End Of The Philippine Summer

It took me quite some time to knit these tops because they were executed with thin, Philippine cotton thread on small-size needles. Angelique's top was begun July 2015 after my daughter-in-law, Ivy, passed away, and was completed August. I then commenced Aubrey's top the same month and finished it November 2015. Aubrey's top, using three shades of pink, required additional time because of the lush shirring.

It is the purl that makes the knit, and the knit that makes the purl.

So is love completed and supported by friendship, for there can be no love without friendship, and there can be no friendship without love.

Although some knitters take pride in being able to do so, it is actually inadvisable to knit in front of the TV set. It increases the probability of making a mistake and having to unravel your work later. This is because, when you are seated in front of an enjoyable show, your mind goes in synch with the show and out of synch with your knitting.

I would probably knit in front of a TV set only if I were working a simple stitch, such as stockinette.

Knitting also takes you to that altered state of consciousness in which your psyche generates ideas for novels and paintings.

Knitting is the discipline that makes your magic work.

My Sister Sylvia's 2015 Christmas Project in Sydney, Australia

Work in progress

Do your best to make the seam between the fabrics of August and September smooth, clean, and visually pleasing.

I always have problems with scenes in movies and on TV in which someone is knitting something--it's always usually a tiny, insubstantial piece of work that functions as a mere prop rather than the huge pieces in progress that real people usually work on. When I see someone knitting on the screen I need to know exactly what is being knitted in order to convince myself that it is not just play-acting. Is there ever such a scene, for instance, in which someone drops a stitch and tries to retrieve it while speaking lines of dialogue? Or is casting on stitches? Or is knotting two loose ends of yarn together?

Shaolin, Magic, and Needlework

Caught another replay of Swordsman II on Screen RED again. It's an interpolation of the life of Chee Kung, though, in this movie, the protagonist is named Linghu-Chong. It is about the hunt for the Sunflower Manual, a secret book of Shaolin martial arts techniques, the mastery of which endows the warrior with the "Sunflower Skill". Most interesting is that the virile male antagonist, following the instructions within the manual to the letter, castrates himself and transforms into a transgender/woman whose embroidery then becomes her weapon--fantastic needles flying through the air and entering enemies' arteries, threads with needles as projectiles wrapping themselves round sharp swords, etc.

Does art imitate life, or does life imitate art?

Both?

Do You See What I See?

Like clouds, balls of thread unwind and reveal different shapes.

The heart of a ball of Philippine mercerized cotton thread. It was the most wonderful thread ever produced in the 1950s, and, to me, it still is.

Within another ball, a rosebud.

While resting from knitting, one of my greatest joys is picking up a favorite pen and writing lines on good-quality paper, allowing the ink to flow like liquid, expensive thread.

A knitter should be a writer, because every artist must be able to articulate his work, present his unique worldview, and show others that his oeuvre stands erect on a strong, philosophical spine.

A devoted knitter will proceed with his work even in the hottest of heat waves.

Draped Knitting

This pullover is for my first granddaughter, Angelique Pearl. Again I took only her body measurements and, as my work progressed, I draped the knitting on her body, deciding where to switch yarns and where to locate the sleeves. My mental stimuli for this project were assorted candy bars, including chocolate and vanilla marshmallows, strawberry cream, caramel, mocha, butterscotch, and sweet orange.

The verbs "unravel" and "ravel" mean the same thing. Personally, however:

1) I use the word "unravel" to signify a DELIBERATE act of unstitching in my work.

Example: "I unraveled two rows of knitting because I noted a wrong stitch two rows below my current row."

2) I use the word "ravel" to signify ACCIDENTAL unstitching in a knitted work.

Example: "After soccer practice he came to me and showed me the raveled edge of his sweater sleeve."

Having to unravel your work is really an intrinsic part of knitting. Enjoy it: you must know how to enjoy yin as you know how to enjoy yang. Take your time. Never rush unraveling simply to get it over with; as a matter of fact, you must unravel more slowly than you knit. Unraveling is hours well spent--it assures you of work approaching perfection.

Whenever you have to unravel, it is NOT as sign that you were careless or stupid. It is a sign that YOUR MIND NEEDS TO REST FOR NOW, and so, rest BEFORE and AFTER unraveling. Do NOT unravel immediately, while your mind is still tired.

If we are to expect great progress in gender equality, we should already stop conditioning people to associate pink with girls and blue with boys.

I have tried them all, and, at age 64, have decided that my preference for painting are hog bristle brushes (as opposed to sable or nylon brushes) and my preference for knitting are steel needles.

Aside from being fit for heavy-duty use, steel needles invoke the god of steel in my knitting. As such they can be used, when necessary, as weapons.

I've already turned my back on plastic (there is no god or goddess of plastic), tortoise shell and whalebone (disapproved of by the goddess of the sea), and bamboo and other types of wood (actually breakable).

Knitting is poetry, for every piece you knit is a poem.

Every knitter is a visual poet.

Knitting is literature: every stitch a letter, every group of stitches a word, every row a sentence.

Knitting is a wonderful act of creation: from a mere skein of thread it is possible to stitch anything of any size and shape.

The most phenomenological experience of all is one that most beginning knitters undergo, which is to knit a flat square of fabric and see in it the past, the present, and the future, the Self and the world, light and shadow, life and death.

A hard-touch massage after a week of knitting is sheer heaven.

Knitting As A Reflex

It often happens that I have the urge to knit whenever someone is ill, or is in need of new values or a lifestyle, or needs a major change in life.

Perhaps it is an archetypal instinct linked to the goddesses Clotho, Atropos, and Lachesis.

Knitting is therapeutic because it distracts the ego from one's source of anxiety.

However, it is the duty of every knitter to address that source when he is ready, and resolve it without the aid of medication.

Even a master knitter will count stitches on every row as he knits.

It not only ensures that the number of stitches is correct, but also ensures that every stitch itself is correct.

Freedom from ribbing is a knitter's true freedom.

Draped Knitting

 

I knitted this pullover for my third granddaughter, Aubrey Rose, taking only her body measurements and knowing my tension on my favorite needles (9 sts = 1 in). As my work progressed, I draped the knitting on her body, deciding where to switch yarns and where to locate the sleeves. My mental stimuli for this project were springtime flowers in antique, Chinese vases--blue-and-white porcelain, celadon, ching pai, and polychrome.

Draped knitting is equivalent to a dressmaker's pinning and cutting fabric on a mannequin, as opposed to using flat patterns (in this case, as opposed to following a printed pattern).

Do try it. It liberates you from many traditional restrictions.

Alchemy is present in needlework and knitting--or at least in the materials that both require--in a fairy tale titled "Rumpelstiltskin" by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm. In this story, the protagonist, aided by a goblin, impresses royalty by being able to spin gold out of straw.

Like medieval alchemy, which dwelt on the conversion of lead into gold, and which socio-anthropologist Carl Jung perceived as a metaphor for the purification of the soul, we, too, can convert our yarn into gold--by knitting works that are works are of art and that can transcend the functional and the utilitarian.

Clotho knits the days and the nights. At sunrise she uses rose-colored yarn, then switches to azures and yellows as the day progresses, then to oranges at sunset, then to deep blues and violets at night.

These are also the hues one needs to paint a portrait.

Knitting rows while contemplating something is equivalent to walking a labyrinth.

The mind, after all, is capable of operating on several levels. That is why you can knit while watching television, deciding what to cook for dinner, and planning an agenda for a forthcoming meeting, all at the same time.

Knitted Gauntlet for My Children's Play "Ignatius of Loyola"

This pair of gauntlets was made of metallic silver trimming and black yarn. It was worn by the character Inigo in my two-act, children's play.

Switching from one type of yarn to another on a work is like lighting a variety of colorful fireworks in sequence.

Anatomy and Knitting

When knitting, ensure that:

1. Your spine is erect, and that you do not gradually slouch or slump in the course of your knitting.

2. Your legs and feet are completely relaxed.

Re-Stranding My Antique Beads

I collected bowls of antique beads over the years. I re-strand them into necklaces whenever I have time. It has a therapeutic effect on me.

The antique dealers I deal with are close friends and, as far as I know, trustworthy. In the Philippines, documentation of provenance is not a priority. It is alleged that these beads date back to the Galleon Trade in the Philippines and that they are mainly from North and South America.

At any rate I myself can't be bothered with documentation. If I like something, I buy it, and the basis for liking is usually a combination of how something looks, whether I think it is beautiful or not, whether I am willing to grow old with it, how it makes me feel, and its capacity to bring me joy. It's the very same basis behind my purchasing yarn!

Red and Orange Carnelians:

Cobalt Blues:

Chevrons:

Ifugao pang-ao (antique glass beads lined with gold foil, from North America):

Amber glass:

Two-Faces:

Assorted Kendi Beads: