Seattle Yogini

Body of Work

I was all excited to post this afternoon, but I can't find the camera...which means I can't download the photos that were pertinent to the post!  Sigh.  Thankfully, I have plenty to say about other topics.  :-)

I had a great conversation with a student this morning about "the body".  Those of us who do not identify our "Selves" as our bodies often refer to this fabulous physical vehicle as "the body", rather than "me".  We are, I believe, in the minority, at least if one may make such a supposition based upon popular media, the rate of low-self esteem/body image issues, etc.  Our culture places a great deal of value on the body, and yet teaches us to bemoan its so-called inadequacies at every turn.  The body is equated with the overall value of a person, as if we can be no more or less than our physical aspect.  We are taught to view the body as separate from us and yet completely us, all the while treating it as if it were the least important gift we have, distancing ourselves from its true needs, its language, its abilities.

Anyway, this student and I were talking about the modern educational system, and how we train children to be less in their bodies and more in their minds.  Teaching them rote memorization skills (think of the 3-year old who "knows" their ABCs) and discouraging imagination, fantasy, and now in many schools even physical play time (used to be called recess, remember it?).  It used to be that children learned to read later, and nobody worried about it.  It used to be that children played - with sticks, with animals, with other children, with (gasp!) bugs and mud and sand and goo.  They interacted with other children on children's terms, rather than in adult-organized classes or "events".  All of this physical interaction with the world helped them understand it through their bodies, learning to trust the body, trust their senses, their balance, their ability to fall down, get scratched, and watch the scrapes heal.  Their bodies were great tools, taking them through the ups and downs of childhood.

I do not yet have children of my own, but I do a lot of research into child development, as it helps me better understand the adults who walk in my studio door.  Many of them identify a great deal with the mind, and feel disconnected from their bodies.  It shows in how they speak of their bodies, how they move and the kinds of physical challenges/complaints they have.  As the concept of "the mind/body connection" grows, I see more and more people come to try yoga, and re-introduce themselves to their bodies.  It is beautiful to see them befriend the body, re-learning its needs, its signals, how to move it and use it and generally care for it better so that it may carry them along their paths with more grace and dignity.

Indeed, it is my observation that we are embarking upon a new level of awareness, and many people are waking up to the realization that their body is not the enemy!  Learning to love this vehicle, which gives us so much ability to interact with the world, is a valuable and life-changing undertaking.  If we want our children to become adults who understand and respect their bodies, we must heal our own relationships with our bodies and model healthy behavior.  In our interactions with children, encouraging them to play (and I don't mean on a soccer team), to explore, to tell stories, make finger puppets, play make-believe, draw, etc., etc. are all great steps on the road to healthy body-image.  In order to fully "own" this body, we must accept it unconditionally.  Helping children understand the value of the body, and how to care for it, may just be the best way to set them up for happier and healthier adulthoods.

A Tale of Two Socks

I made new socks:

About two months ago, in a fit of "I can't take this sweater anymore" (sound familiar?), I started a sock with some fun Panda Wool, a bamboo/merino sock yarn from Crystal Palace, in colorway "Cinnabar".  Sounds yummy, and is a good linguistic fit for the colors of the yarn.  Anyway, sock one was finished in about 3 days, plus another couple of days to undo the toe, add more length to the lace, and redo the toe to my preferred fit.

Then came sock two.  The knitting took a few weeks, rather than days.  It was a great travel project, the lace design being so easy to memorize.  Upon completion of the knitting, however,  poor sock two was left to consider its future on our coffee table for almost a month (yes, on top of the month-or-so to knit it).  Sock one was draped over the back of the sofa, mocking sock two and looking smug.  Even the dog wasn't interested in sock two, in spite of it's proximity to said dog's sock-lovin' mouth.

Last week I finally grafted sock two's toe.  Then I washed, patted out, and dried the pair.  I used the Lacy Mock-Cable pattern and modified it to more or less match the height of my the socks my sock pal made for me this summer (they are SOOOOOO great!).  I also made a little adjustment to the lace pattern, substituting [ K1, sl2, pass knitted st over slipped stitches] for [K3, then pass the first of these k sts over the last 2 and drop it] in Round 5.

I put them on, modeled them in the sunshine, admiring their lacy/cabled goodness:

So, imagine my horror when, at the end of a single evening of wear, one sock was sagging around my ankle, both of them felt loose in the foot, and they generally felt Way   TOo      BIG!!!

Sigh.

I don't know if it's the yarn, the fact that once again I didn't bother swatching (it's a sock, after all, which seems like a swatch in and of itself!) or that I just knit it too big.  I'll probably just go buy some elastic thread and hand sew it through the cuff so that they'll stay up.  I really liked knitting the pattern, so I figure I'll try again with another - higher wool - content yarn.  Will that help?

P.s.  In perusing the pattern for the Round 5 notes, I saw that they are for a size 7 - 10 foot.  I wear size 6.5 or 7 shoes.  Clearly I need to make these not only shorter than indicated, but narrower as well.  Hhhhhhmmmmmm.

Finished! And Then Some

On Wednesday before Thanksgiving, we awoke to glorious, sunny weather.  Perfect for picture-taking, and dry enough that a wet-blocked 100% woolblanket might actually dry in a reasonable amount of time (gasp!).  So, I set about cleaning the kitchen, so that I could use the big, deep sink to wash a few knitted items.  Of course, that was also a good move in preparation for Thursday's cooking extravaganza, but on Wednesday morning, the knitting was front-and-center on my mind.  :-)

So, at long last, Brooklyn Tweed's Hemlock Ring Blanket is complete!  I used 1 and 2/3 (or so) skeins of Cascade Ecological Wool, which I really enjoyed working with.  It's soft and smooshy, and knitted up just beautifully.  I used US 10.75 bamboo circular needles, mostly because that's what I had on hand (I didn't swatch).  As usual, the project took a while to do because I was simultaneously working on Rob's Never-ending Raglan (it's kinda like a Willy Wonka sweet, only even more never-ending), some socks, etc., etc.  I took pre-, during, and post-blocking pictures, because I realized that that's the kind of photo-journaling that I enjoy seeing on other people's blogs.

Here are two pre-blocking photos.  I ended up with only two ends to sew in, because I used the spit/felt method of gluing two ends of yarn together.  It works really well, since this yarn is 100% wool.  Gross, but good.  :-)  Pre-blocking, the blanket looked like a misshapen blob of yarn, as anything lace is wont to do:

I particularly like the detail in the center.  The pattern was inspired (as you can read on Brooklyn Tweed's blog) by a doily pattern, then expanded upon with feather-and-fan lace.  The transition rows were a bit challenging for me, switching from the doily pattern to Mr. Tweed's feather-and-fan chart, but I muddled through with good results.

Here it is getting it's bath.  Check out that sink!  The designer was very excited about the depth of the sink.  We attained it by purchasing a deep-ish sink, but gained two more inches of depth because we used poured concrete countertops, which are two inches thick.  I think it ended up being a three- or four-hundred dollar sink, but if you actually bought one as deep as ours, it would cost over a thousand!  (Holy smokes!  A thousand dollar sink!)

This new kitchen is proving very useful in more areas than "just" cooking.  Ha ha ha.

I used Soak no-rinse wool wash, after reading it about it in a Yarn Harlot post.  It's worked well so far on my hand-knitted socks (including a fuzzy pair of Angora house socks), and I got a little pack with three flavors, all of which are mild and pleasant smelling.  Thankfully, after the wash - even though no rinsing is needed - the garments smell more like wool than perfumed soap.  For me and mine, that's a VERY good thing.

As you can see, it made lots of nice little reassuring bubbles.  I say reassuring, because bubbles are not an indicator of "more cleaning action", but they do seem to reassure us that some kind of cleaning is being done, don't they?  Think of your shampoo...

I noticed while squeezing out the excess water that the dog had become particularly interested in my work.  He was trying to rub up onto the wet wool, but of course it was safely stacked on the counter top, so mostly he was rubbing his neck - quite enthusiastically - on my leg.  After squeezing the length of the blanket twice, I laid it out on a towel, rolled it up, stomped on it, and repeated with a fresh towel.  It was all Sirius could do to obey my "leave it" command and NOT roll around in the pile of wet, wooly goodness.  Does he look put-out or WHAT?

After the stomp-a-thon, I took the wet mass upstairs to pin out.  I use the guest bed (a double) for blocking, and was a bit concerned that it wouldn't be quite wide enough to accommodate the full diameter of the circular blanket.  I didn't have enough clean towels to put underneath, so I used the mattress pad, a cotton blanket, and a flannel sheet on top of that.  Since I had managed to squeeze and stomp out most of the excess water, it worked out okay.  Rob helped me pin it out:

here's the detail of the center:

After a day and a half of drying, it was done!  This, I believe, is testament to the overall lightness of the blanket.  The yarn, while thick, is not heavy.  So the finished product yields a VERY cozy warmth, without a lot of weight (which also means faster drying times).  Finished, this lovely blanket looks like this (I have it laid over the back of the sofa, for perspective):

Here's the detail (with a blue blanket under it for contrast):

Okay, I'll post about the socks later, and do an "official" write-up on the Hemlock Ring Blanket for my "FOs" side-bar list later.  For now, I'm going to sew up the hem of Rob's sweater, start work on a sleeve, and listen to KPLU "Mid-day Jazz" for as long as I can stand it.

I'm using my amazing powers of concentration to keep myself at home, and NOT at the Hilltop Yarn Black Friday sale.  I do not need more yarn.  I do not need more yarn.  I do not need more yarn.

Especially since I ordered this a few days ago.  Mwah ha ha ha ha ha.

Merlin's Pants!

Well, it's done.  I have finally read Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.  Don't worry!  This post won't contain any spoilers.  I was on the look-out for spoilers since that book was released, knowing it'd be awhile until I got around to reading it, and NOT wanting the contents -well - spoiled.  It wasn't easy, and there were even times when I asked people within my hearing to please not talk about the contents of the book because I "hadn'treadityetandREALLYdidn'twantitspoiled!"  Thankfully, all were understanding (or at least pretended to be) and refrained from detailed discussion of the juicy bits.

On the advice of many friends, I re-read Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.  That was a good idea.  As it was, I felt like I should probably re-read the entire series before embarking upon the final voyage of "year 7".  Sigh.  I am sad that it's gone.  Not the books, obviously, which I can read anytime I want.  Nor the movies, which I quite enjoy.  It's the story, the era, if you will, the years spent with some little bit of "when's that next Harry Potter book/movie coming out, anyway?" in the back of my head.  Not since the Little House series or Anne of Green Gables has a story entertained me so.  My imagination thrilled with each book, and I always felt sure that as much as I had liked the last book, the next one would delight me even more.

Anyway, I finished "year 6" last week, on Wednesday and went out to Half-Price Books to search for "year 7" on Thursday.  I found it, started reading, and finished on Sunday morning.  No all-nighters for me, though the reading certainly eclipsed most other activities during my "free" time.

But Harry Potter does not explain my neglect of the blog lately.  No, the reasons for that are too personal for this public-consumption medium.  Suffice it to say, I have opened up a piece of my (thankfully shrinking) "baggage", and found something languishing deep in an inside pocket that I didn't realize the blasted bag had!  These things take time, and - for me - introspection, energy, did I mention time?  The healing process was/is so consuming that it was ridiculous to even try to think of something appropriate for the blog.  Nothing that was "blog worthy" seemed important enough to spend energy on.  I could have posted some knitting pictures, but really, how many "in progress" shots of Rob's sweater can the you take?  :-)

Things feel on the up-and-up, and I've actually been looking forward to blogging again.  Today we had fabulous, sunny weather so I took pictures of (1) a gorgeous recent finished item and (2) one pair of great socks that were patiently awaiting their toe-closure for the last two or three months (yikes!).  The "gorgeous" is blocking, but if the weather is dry and sunny tomorrow, it might be dry in time for some "check me out" photos.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Where Am I Supposed to Feel This?

One of the most commonly asked questions in yoga class:  "Where am I supposed to feel this?" is not easily answered.  Where is dependent upon many factors.  What may be a more enlightening question.

I have observed that newer students often appreciate being told generally what they should/might be feeling during various yoga asanas (poses).  As a teaching tool, it can be useful to guide their attention toward certain parts of the body and give descriptive words for the feelings they're likely to experience there.  In Utthita Trikonasana, for example, the attention may be very strongly placed upon the front leg's hamstrings...which will feel a great stretch.  For some in the room, however, the deepest sensations will be in the hip, groin, shoulders or neck!

In providing such guidance and descriptions, I try to avoid labeling all sensations for the students, or stearing them toward certain places or labels that may not be relevant for their individual experience.  As a yoga teacher, part of my job is to help students get in touch with their inner teacher, while providing safe  boundaries, instruction and mentorship along the way.  I want my students to explore their experiences in the asanas, not just go into a pose and wait for me to tell them where/what to feel.  The point is for them to find the feeling!

For students who are very disconnected from their bodies, it is commendable that they just feel something.  As long as they aren't feeling pain, I focus on encouraging them to stay with the sensations without judgement, labeling or fleeing - just observing and feeling.  For advanced students or those who are very in-tune with their bodies, I try to guide them toward the more subtle experiences of a pose, and how the slightest adjustment can completely change the experience.

As students of yoga, our work is to observe where we feel things, learn the language of the body, and let go of whether it is "normal" - as in, others in the room are feeling the same things - or not.  Normal is relative, just as where one feels "it" is relative.  Turn inward for your true definition of normal...normal for you!