Knitting at the IHOP

I'm in a booth at the International House of Pancakes at 10:45 p.m. on a Saturday with a knitting project in my lap using the high-speed internet to blog. Life is truly weirder than fiction!

Once I truly start a knitting project (as opposed to the false starts that make up 90% of my knitting ;o), I want to take it everywhere with me...to the movies, to hang out with family and friends, to watch TV, to the IHOP. Why is that?

I'm knitting a short fleecy poncho. It's knitted "in the round". The first time I started it, I was knitting happily 8 inches along, but was annoyed by two big twists which caused the yarn to get tangled, and couldn't wait to take it off the needles and untwist it. Then I realized...mental head slap...taking it off the needles won't untwist it! I was basically knitting a 3-D infinity symbol with no value as a poncho. So I pulled it out and started over.

The good thing about chunky fleece yarn is it's going pretty quickly. 

"Little One" strikes a pose

For weeks after finishing the Unicorn quilt-collage, I imagined the next project would be a portrait of my cat, "Little One", done in the same quilt-collage style as the Unicorn. I took dozens of pictures to try to get the perfect shot: a composition that would translate easily to embroidery, that showed his lovely undulating black & white markings, plus captured the utter relaxation of resting cat. I tried drawing him from life...not easy with a cat...and although composing a picture seems impossible, drawing from life inspired me with details that photographs couldn't. In the end, the idea of a portrait of my cat was more appealing than actually doing it, so I moved on to a knitting project.

Then, with the knitting supplies spread out and the planning underway (for a cute little poncho), Little One sat down in the middle of it all and struck this pose, which meets all my requirements for the cat-collage idea. The irony is delicious.

Do you believe in magic?

I created this blog as a journal for inspiration — for creativity in life, in art, and in relationships. I love it when the mind is in overdrive, and ideas flow faster than one can write, draw, or speak them. This blog is called Magic is Real, a tongue-in-cheek acknowledgement of the big-d Divine in everyday life. (I just hope the url "magicisreal.com" becomes available soon...that would be the icing on the cake.)

I like to play with word pairings like this...

poetry		~		paradox
people		~		computers
art		~		science

Periods of mental exhilaration often follow periods of confusion, uneasiness, and self-indulgence. It's cyclical. When I'm meditating or journaling regularly, a period of confusion is almost always followed by an awakening in some area of my life.

Magic is Real

This quilt-like collage represents a hopeful synthesis of my spirituality and my craft. I started by laying out inspiring materials I had on hand, let go of self-conscious second-guessing, and started pinning and sewing. It's not magic...or maybe it is...

I was inspired by a guided meditation about climbing a mountain and finding a peaceful place at the top. We were guided to see a pure spiritual being and receive our personal message...and the first creature that came to my mind was a unicorn. The unicorn said to me, "The spiritual work you do is worthwhile, and even though it may not seem like anything is happening, it is." I felt a touch self-conscious and silly about imagining such a, well, imaginary character...and also knew it's not silly at all. Unicorns are eternal. They're completely imaginary yet imbued by our culture with all kinds of spiritual meaning. Kind of like our own spiritual nature...invisible, but every bit as real as we believe it to be.