The Creative Process

THE CREATIVE PROCESS
at Blueroof Farm

Showing works of the past 50 years by Kim Ondaatje

Until Oct. 31st, by appointment: 613 374 2147

My blog and what I write is not just about knitting. It's about what I find interesting in the world around me, and what motivates me to keep searching for the best possible way to enjoy my life. This task obviously includes running my knitting store with the most fun, enthusiasm and creativity that I can muster.

I don't know about you, but every now and then I look at my life and have a sense that everything that I've lived has led me to this particular situation. All my experiences (well, those that I can remember anyway, being in my 50's) are feeding how I see the world, how I respond to it, and what I bring to it creatively.

This is exactly the point of Kim Ondaatje's exhibition at her magnificent Blueroof Farm, near Verona.

Kim is one of our faithful customers, and she is the first to tell you that her patronage has nothing to do with her skill or love of knitting; we, at WOOL-TYME Kingston just happen to be the logical source for her most recent medium of choice...yarn to knit afghan blankets based on the colours of the four seasons, the collection of which is on display during the show.

This is how Kim describes the presentation now on at the farm until Oct. 31st:

The Creative Process

Certain experiences - even moments - in our lives cling to us like burrs. They drop into memory, a storehouse for our imagination and inspiration. If we are creative, they find their way out into our music, writing, performing or visual work. We are often unaware of this process.

Years may pass before we realize where the inspiration and feeling in a particular work originated. As an octogenarian, I realize that the longer we live, the more we understand what we did and why...

In the 2009 Kim was honoured with the Governor General's Award. In the awards catalogue, then Governor General Michaëlle Jean states, ”It is that collection of signs left by artists and artisans, both tangible and intangible that constitute the timeless heritage of humanity”.

Now if that wasn't reason enough reason to head out up Hwy 38 to Bellrock Rd to immerse yourself in the beauty of all that you too can be, once you get there you are surrounded by the magnificence of Kim's greatest work of art: BLUEROOF FARM.

Acres of beautifully landscaped terrain, with the greatest respect of an artist working with nature. Any of you who are willing to own up to a creative bone in your body, owe it to yourselves to make the short trek. Link here for details of a VisionTV feature episode of Recreating Eden, featuring BLUEROOF FARM.

When Kim first told me about the show she said: " Don't come alone. Find an artistic friend with whom to share the experience. But do come." What a great idea. Furthermore, as Kim notes, she is of a certain fine "vintage", and recognizes that she isn't likely to be on the farm for many more years. This is an opportunity of great value that we have been offered. I can't wait to get out there in the next couple of weeks.

Only in Anchorage, Alaska you say?...Pity.

"Three-year-old Stevie Primera hangs onto a sheep during the Mutton Busting event at the 2011 GMC Truck Rodeo Roundup presented by Rodeo Alaska at the William Clark Chamberlin Equestrian Center in Anchorage, Alaska." photo by Bill Roth/Anchorage Daily News/AP

This is an example of why I now love the Globe and Mail newspaper.

A couple of years ago we received a call from the subscription office at the Globe and Mail in Toronto, extending an offer that we couldn't refuse. They were reaching out to small businesses as a way to increase their distribution numbers and looking for a wider readership per newspaper delivered. Since then, we've been getting the paper at the store every weekday morning. By the time I get in to work, bring the paper home and get to read it the following morning, most of what's on the front page is old news but there's still lots to read that is current.

One of my favourite features is a daily photo pick (backed up by on-line notes of why the photo editors picked that particular picture). Mutton chops, pictured here, was Wednesday's feature that I had to share with you. Don't you love the kids face? Can't you just picture Sarah P. off to the side?

Here's another picture that I have spoken of previously in this blog but until recently Icouldn't find. Well here it is - a picture from October of 2000. That's me with my "little" brother and my Mom. I'm wearing a Kaffe Fassett inspired sweater that I made during the 1994 Winter Olympics. (It just goes to prove that knitting Olympics was around long before the Yarn Harlot so cleverly turned the idea into an international avalanche of mutual supporters) I remember one of the actual events as my 3 1/2 year old commented while she watched Tonya Harding performing one of her figure skating routines, that she didn't like her, as she pointed to the television. "She looks mean." From the mouths of babes... You will remember Tonya resorted to some pretty nasty tactics to lessen the competition from her team mate Nancy Kerrigan.

Needless to say that Tonya and Nancy's spat has little to do with my sweater, or does it? It is a rather strident looking garment, don't you think?

In my defense, I remember that we didn't have a real yarn store in Cornwall, where we were living at the time and I had to resort to cobbling together yarns and colours that were available to me in a chunky weight. I also remember that winter I was feeling a need for BRIGHT colours as the winter dragged on. In hind sight, I believe that one of the reasons that I wore the sweater sparingly over the years was that I had to feel in a very out-going mood to sport it as it was the kind of garment that had people looking at you.

You will notice that my mild case of ADD is apparent in that I seldom knit the sleeves to match the body of a sweater in those days. My point being that I was usually bored with the body pattern and wanted something easier and/or more interesting for the next part.

As for fit, well, we did like our clothes baggy in those days, but that one was a bit excessive. I loved the coziness of it, but I do believe that it measured out at 62" chest. (I filled out about 40" of it.)

As for what I've been doing lately in knitting, I'm having a great time assembling first the actual afghan for our upcoming BLOCK AFGHAN PROJECT, which is going to be a sort of on-going Knit Along, featuring a series of knitted squares of different stitch patterns. The squares were knit by a couple of my faithful knitters, then I got to put it all together...all 25 squares. I love it.

The kit will be available (for delivery beginning Sept 1st) in 3 sizes from shawl/baby blanket dimensions to a full 25 square double bed size. It can also be done in CASCADE 220- pure wool, in Cascade's brand new PACIFIC 40-60 wool/acrylic blend (which they say absolutely cannot pill), or in Patons DECOR.

It's a big project - even now that the assembly is complete I'm working at putting the pattern booklets together and organizing the promotion for it, but this is all part of what I really enjoy of having the yarn store (and a good example of what I'm doing when you don't see me in the store.)

A little support?

You know that the really nice summer weather is here when the halter tops come out.

I found this one on a walk through downtown Kingston the other day, near Skeleton park.

And while we're on the subject of support garments, although they may be the same colour, these socks below are definitely not your granny's support hose. They are featured in the latest edition of Vogue Knitting Magazine.


Designed by Alexandra Richards, these toe-up knee socks with brioche stitch designs are absolutely exquisite but I would definitely need some support if I ever decided to take on such a project - the kind of support that we get from friends and family when accepting the challenge of running a marathon for instance.


By the way, this edition of VKMag has been designated "early fall". I sure hope that they mean that they are offering suggestions for knitting projects appropriate for the early fall, because after the month of May that most of us in North America have just lived through, I for one am prepared to protest forcefully if we are suddenly jettisoned into early fall before we get our due summer.


And as we await Game 4 of the Stanley Cup finals, how can we possibly talk about support without mentioning Tonya Raworth's Ultimate Canucks Fan Scarf, available on Ravelry. To be fair, I tried to find an equally committed project in support of the Boston Bruins, but alas, Ravelry didn't have anything. I did however find a vintage Bobby Orr pom pom toque on Amazon for $27 but it seemed like a poor subsitute for the real thing from the fan's hands.

By the way, we often have customers coming in to the store looking for a scarf pattern that shows off team names. I love how Tonya has done this one, using garter stitch for most of the scarf then graphing the letters to be knit sideways. She uses stocking stitch to work the graphed stitches, but I'm sure that the garter stitch could be used for most of it, employing the few purl stitches necessary to hide colour changes yet keeping the scarf from curling at all. Way to go Tonya!
By the way... Go Canucks!

Doing what you do best...then combine it with something else

A couple of months ago I was contacted by Robin Hunter, whose blog: How to Become a Professional Knitter has been gaining popularity. One of the features of Robin's blog is that she does interviews with people in the yarn industry, asking a series of questions about their attitudes towards the present and the future of knitting as well as about how they came to find themselves in this field. I was happy to be asked to participate- and the interview and my answers can be found here.

Robin subtitles her site: a knitting blog about career transition, personal development and the search for fulfillment. I love it.

When I was teaching school, I spent most of my career telling my Grade 8 students to prepare for a world that is unlike their parents' world. There will be very few single career lives anymore, they will have to be flexible, creative, open to change and able to see value in unexpected situations. Although I had had many different jobs before coming to teaching, I really assumed that it would be my career for the rest of my working life. I never suspected that having joined those ranks at 30 that I'd be getting out at 42. But truly, as I look back on it now, I AM A TEACHER. No one will ever be able to change that about me. It just happens that a lay off notice in 1996 pushed me to follow the lessons that I'd been passing on to my students for 12 years: Be flexible! Embrace Change!

So it would appear that Robin, like so many others including me, has done the career shift and has realized that it's not a matter of exchanging one hat for another, of wearing many different hats - sometimes simultaneously - sometimes in succession.

Maria Offin approached me this winter to do a photoshoot at the store. Maria is a knitter who was wanting to expand her photography portfolio at this new stage of her life. And like so many of you, Maria recognizes the beauty of fibre and she was wanting to incorporate it into some of her photographic business. I was thrilled and have some great shots of the store to use including this one of me, that I must say, I quite like.

Frankie LeMonde-Meunier is one of the featured artists from the Kingston Fibre Artists on display at the WOOL-TYME Kingston store this month. Don't you love her crocheted garden? Frankie's Fibre Art is usually more of the needle-and-thread-and-fabric-and beads type. Here, she let herself go into another whole world of crochet crazy colours grouped together in a giant wild and wooly bouquet.

Finally, let's hear it for Alicia Peltsch whose knitted brain was a very special gift, incorporating her grounding in neuroscience and her love of knitting. Here's how she describes it:

When I graduated with a PhD in neuroscience I wanted to give my supervisor a non-traditional but special gift that was more “me” than the traditional bottle of scotch.

Since I basically knit my way through my PhD to keep my sanity intact, I thought it would be only fitting to knit him a brain. He LOVED it! He even brought it to work the next week to show everyone.

I’ve finally attached the free pattern - enjoy!!

Each of us, Robin with her knitwear design and blog writing, Maria with her developing (pardon the out of date pun) career in photography, Frankie with the beauty of her crochet bursting into her other artistic media, Alicia with her statement of combined commitments, and me - taking the plunge all those years ago to opening the store into a world I love, have had to spread our wings over new territory, incorporating several aspects of ourselves that we know we're good at and developing a link between them. How lucky we are to be able to play in the same garden where we work!

The Knitted Legacy

A couple of weeks ago I was listening to a noon hour call-in show on the radio and the question was: "How have you kept the legacy of a loved one alive after their death?"

There were lots of calls about recipes, treks through mountains and so on. Then a call came through that had me nodding to myself.

The caller's mother had begun a knitted baby blanket for the first grandchild who was expected within a few months. This soon-to-be grandmother's terminal condition made it difficult for her to work on the blanket for long periods of time but she did what she could. Predictably, the caller told us that her mother died before she was able to finish the blanket.

I thought back to all the similar stories that I've heard at our store. Seldom a month goes by without someone bringing in a project left unfinished by a loved one. Sometimes the pieces arrive ...well, in pieces, moth eaten, dust worn. Sometimes they're wrapped in a tea towel, sometimes in a plastic garbage bag, sometimes in blue tissue paper. The bearer sometimes just wants more material to finish it themselves. Sometimes they would like to pay us to do it for them. And seldom does it work out.

As any crafter knows, it's almost impossible to pick up someone else's project and complete it to anyone's satisfaction. Often there's a very practical crafting reason why the person stopped working on it: the pattern got lost, torn or was just too complicated or boring. Sometimes it becomes painfully obvious that there won't be enough yarn to complete the project: try finding yarn to match a 30 year old product or colour! And even if everything is in place to complete the project...who has the precise tension of the original person or the time to develop it in order to achieve a beautiful finish?

And let me tell you, it's heartbreaking to have to tell these people that there is very little likelihood that we can help them achieve the finished product that will live up to their hopes and expectations. I have a personal reason to feel bad for them as my grandmother, the one who taught my brother and I to knit by creating those great Mary Maxim sweaters for us when we were little, and who made beautiful hats and mittens galore for us, left as her knitting legacy to me but a single pair of really ugly socks in a crystal blue plastic-like worsted weight acrylic yarn. She never knew that these would be the only things that I still had of hers that fit and hadn't worn out - probably because I never wore them.

All this was going through my head as the caller relayed her story...which then took an amazing turn. After her mother's death, her father decided to learn to knit in order to complete the baby blanket. His skill was that of a beginner, but he did finish it and the baby has a wonderful momento of a grandmother that he never met and a grandfather who went above and beyond the call of duty. I think that as a knitting teacher, I would have been so proud to help this man in his quest.

I do not, however, plan to take up woodworking in order to complete any of my husband's unfinished projects in his shop. I value my fingers too much to put them that close to something sharp that is whirring that fast.

Presenting WOOL-TYME Kingston's IRISH Knitting Tour 2011

This time last year, I was on the train heading for the west coast, traveling through northern Ontario on the only rainy day of the whole trip. But what did the rain matter, I was watching the amazing wilderness roll by from the comfort of the club car, knitting on my first toe-up sock. I can't tell you how much I enjoyed the whole experience, and every time I hear the sound of a train I reaffirm my resolve to make travel a part of my life for a long time.

On the right are a couple of young ladies that I met in the observation car. They too had brought handicrafts to pass the hours, showing off their model airplane. It was all just too much fun for words.

And in just a few months, I get to strap on my traveling shoes again and head to Ireland with WOOL-TYME Kingston's very own tour, organized in conjunction with Service Guaranteed Travel.

From Sept 26th to Oct 6th, 2011, you can join us on a tour of that most fabled land of glorious knits, visiting castles, cathedrals, pubs, abbeys, a sheep and wool museum, capped off with an authentic Irish knitting workshop which will include learning all about Aran knitting.

You will touch down in Dublin, Waterford for the crystal factory, Cork, Kerry, Killarney, Limerick, the Aran Islands, Connemara, Galway and back to Dublin with lots of time in each location to gain a sense of the flavour of the area. All this in the luxury of a modern motor coach with driver and a guide, offering a half day tour of Dublin, a ferry trip to Inishmor (and back, of course), breakfasts each day, a medieval banquet, and 4 other dinners along the way. And all of this for the very sensible sum of about $2500. Truly a travel bargain.

With a local guide to shepherd us around the country, my job will be to act as your knitting support, on deck to answer any and all knitting questions, help with patterns that befuddle, pick up stitches that escape and generally be your knitting "auntie" for the trip so the experience will be as fulfilling as possible in all ways.
Link here or on the tab at the top to go to WOOL-TIME Kingston's IRISH Knitting Tour 2011 page to keep abreast of new information and to get further details.

For just $250 you can reserve your spot for this wonderful knitting experience of a lifetime.
Don't miss out.

TICO 50013205

Let's hear it for the Volunteers!

When I heard that April 10th-16th has been set aside to recognize the work that volunteers do in our community, I naturally thought about Project Linus and the thousands of blankets that we've distributed to children in the greater Kingston area, blankets that have been kindly made and donated with yarn that is often donated too. When WOOL-TYME Kingston took on the role of coordinating the local chapter of Project Linus, we were collecting about 10 blankets a month. Now, through the generosity of so many contributors, we are up to about 50 blankets each month!

Then that got me thinking about volunteers in general.

In sorting out the yarn donations that we receive regularly at the store, there is some yarn that isn't of use for the purpose of making children's blankets so I have a list of about 7 or 8 other charities who are always ready to accept the baby yarn, the Phentex, the fancies to make projects for their own fundraisers. Furthermore, each location to which we deliver the Project Linus blankets: Children's Aid, Almost Home, Interval House and Dawn House and many others, all have their own group of dedicated volunteers who are committed to their own work.

Being a business, we frequently receive requests for donations to fundraisers. This week alone we were privileged to receive a request from the Canadians for Women in Afghanistan for their upcoming Gala and the Andrew Trudeau Memorial Golf Tournament raising funds for the Mental Health Assoc. and for projects working against impaired driving.

Then my friend who is a nurse working in palliative care sent me a copy of an article about the "Izzy Dolls" ,which originally gained popularity being made for children in war torn areas, but from her perspective, my friend says that they are invaluable for calming people who are stressed and/or suffering from dementia. In an upcoming newsletter, we'll be offering the link to the pattern and a bit of encouragement to our customers who would like to make some to be distributed locally.

Finally, I started thinking about my own humble volunteer cap that I wear (figuratively speaking) and I'll let you in on the secret that I've discovered to feeling great about any volunteer job that you choose to do: BRING FOOD! Every time I show up at the local shelter for which I've been making sandwiches for at least 8 years, I'm greeted by staff and residents alike with appreciation and actual joy (especially when there are some cookies or other treats accompanying the sandwiches).

Twice a week I deliver these sandwiches made of white bread, margerine, processed meat and mustard (at their request). Except for the mustard, we wouldn't probably have any other these other products on our regular shopping list, but although salami sandwiches are not my cup of tea, I DEFINITELY understand the value of comfort food to someone who is going through a rough patch. So I started calculating the output and by my estimation I've buttered 16 000 pieces of bread to make 8 000 sandwiches over the past 8 years. And of course my only wish is that they weren't needed but while they are, I plan to keep it up.