Feeding your brain….

Last night at the OKG meeting I had the distinct pleasure of listening to knitter and author extraordinaire, Sally Melville, speak while I knitted on my Koigu Wrap Shawl in the enjoyable company of many other knitting enthusiasts. Her topic for the evening was “Knitting as a Metaphor for Life”.

At the end of her talk I, and others too I think, was gripped with the new thoughts and ideas she had put into my head. She had talked at great length about how knitting is a process and not just a way to get a product. I learned why the process is so compelling on a physical level, and how appealing the process is to specific aspects of both the right and left brain. She spoke about the value of learning to knit, that the lessons we learn that are paramount to achieving success in life, and the growth these lessons provide over the course of a lifetime.

Much has been discussed in knitting blogdom about production knitting vs. process knitting. Sally’s mantra is “The process is more precious than the product”. Even I have mentioned this process vs. product thing before, about the fact that I seem to be more of a product knitter first, seeing the actual knitting process as a means to an end. This is not to say I don’t enjoy it the process, because I certainly do. I am completely driven to knit to since I picked up the needles and cast off my first scarf some almost 4 years ago. It is just to say that I crave the satisfaction of a completed item in my hands, and token of my sometime tremendous effort especially when trying something new.

But each person is different. Susan too, has written that she is a process knitter, easily finding simple joy in the just the knitting, even she says, to the extreme of knitting the same skein of yarn over and over again if she had to. Privately I worry that my need to knit and produce things, perhaps even too quickly, somehow shows a lack of discipline and patience, or a materialist need I need to examine more fully.

Either way, we are both compelled to knit. And at the core of Sally’s talk was the why of that necessity. What makes us do it? Why do we become so addicted to knitting? What need does it feed us and why is it so important to listen to that voice in your head to the exclusion of all else?

Sally’s talk and my subsequent musing while trying unsuccessfully to fall asleep last night has left me with more questions than answers (I think that might have been her intent!) and is driving me to look deeper inside my self to see if I can find a way to slow down my production needs, and instead become a more active and attentive participant in my own knitting process. You can bet that I have reserved a copy of her books from the library this morning. Seems like a good place to start my next life lessons!

At the end of a thoroughly enjoyable and thought provoking evening, Sally advised that she is moving to Ottawa! I can only hope that I will have many more opportunities to hear her speak again as she infuses this town with her wisdom, talent, enthusiasm, and knitting wonder!

Knit on…………