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Nadine Feldman, Author

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You are here: Home / Archives for crafts

crafts

Feels So Good to Finish

February 11, 2015 by admin

I don’t do “projects.” I do long-term relationships. I started my novel-in-progress more than two years ago, and it’s just now shaping up enough for me to think about sending it to an editor. Lord knows when it will be done, though I’m hoping by year-end. I’m forever walking the line between optimism and soul-crushing disappointment as I live with this story over and over and over and over again.

That’s why it’s nice to finish something, anything. And to finish a large project, well, that’s particularly exciting.

So today I reveal to you a new bedspread, a year and a half in the making. The pattern of the double wedding ring is common in quilts, but this is a knitted version. Turns out that for the cost of the yarn, I could have bought a hand-made Amish quilt, already done.

Knitted Double Wedding Ring Quilt
Knitted Double Wedding Ring Quilt

But where’s the fun in that?

The pattern for this, if you are a masochist dedicated knitter like I am, can be found on Ravelry. It’s easy to knit, but putting all those pieces together? Oy. 1,080 pieces make up the rings, and the assembly alone took more than six months.

As with all long-term relationships, there’s the thrill at the beginning. You can’t wait to get started and get to know each other. Each day brings new discovery and excitement, and you want to spend all your time with your new love.

Then one day, you’re sick of your beloved. The relationship isn’t as easy as you thought it would be, and you want space. Maybe you cheat, taking on a smaller project on the side, such as making sweaters for your granddog, or patchwork throws from spare yarn. You have to re-evaluate your commitment.

What all the cool dogs are wearing!
What all the cool dogs are wearing!

Yet when the relationship is real and true, though, you hang in there until you get to the other side, and you fall in love all over again. You notice how the relationship stays with you even on your worst days, waiting patiently without judgment. It’s worth all the trouble and hassle and time.

Under the bedspread at night, I am cozy and safe and secure, the same way I feel in a relationship that works. And as I enjoy the satisfaction of completion, I am buoyed again and know I can finish anything I start, even those pesky manuscripts that aren’t yet ready to release.

With our beloved, whether a person or a project, if we hang in there, we can be more than we thought we could. Safe and secure and warm, we can soar.

Do you have projects that take forever to complete? Please tell me I’m not the only one! 

 

Filed Under: creativity, writing Tagged With: completing projects, crafts, finishing, knitting, relationships, writing

The Zen of Wool

October 10, 2012 by admin

A group of ladies sat outside in the fresh spring sunshine spinning wool into yarn. Each wheel had its own charm and one, or sometimes two, treadles. Fluffy fiber transformed into even strands that wound onto their bobbins. They looked serene, relaxed…happy. “I want to do that,” I said. So, when I saw the name and telephone number for Amelia Garripoli, aka The Bellwether, I was ready. She was starting a new beginner spinning class the next week.

A leap of faith — a new wheel!

My first spinning efforts, like me, were tense. Terror showed up in the thread as it alternated between “not spun enough” and “spun to within an inch of its life.” Here I was with yet another “enjoy the journey” activities, darn it! 10,000 hours, Garripoli says, is what it takes to develop mastery. At my age, let’s see, that calculates to…never mind.

A future sweater?

As I practiced spinning, I thought about my writing. I’ll get the obvious out of the way: while spinning yarn, I thought about spinning yarns. Buh dump bump. Cue groans from the audience.

Still, if you can deal with sucky drafts, writer’s block, and working in spite of life’s constant interruptions, then you are qualified to learn to spin. Having taken a few months off from writing, I just traded in messy drafts for messy yarn.

I could have just bought yarn in the store. Knitting should be enough, right? But no, I have to keep going down the rabbit hole. Maybe spinning a cleaned, carded fleece would be enough. But then…

I hadn’t planned to buy a wool fleece, but the bag of rich, deep brown fiber looked too delicious to pass up. It came with a photo of the sheep, for God’s sakes! I had gotten a glimpse of him lounging out in his field. I imagined turning his winter coat into one for me, and I salivated at the thought.

My teacher had given me instruction on fleece washing, but I decided to catch some YouTube videos to brush up. Turns out that there are many ways to wash a fleece, with plenty of adamant opinions about the right way to do it. I watched several and took the common denominators to heart. Namely, don’t turn the darn stuff to felt.  This happens when we do “too much.” Too much agitation, too much temperature, too much handling.

Hey, it works, even when my teacher isn’t around!

I thought of an essay writing class that I took years ago in Houston. During my critique, people praised my work, my skill, my emotional connection…then asked me to revise it in such a way as to remove the circus tent poles that held the whole thing up. When I tried to rewrite it, it disintegrated into one long, boring mess. Too much handling. We writers have to find that balance, and we have to surround ourselves with people who won’t critique our work down to a pile of mush. Fortunately, while I can’t do anything about a felted fleece, I could reconstruct the original essay — which I then got published.

As I carded the fleece, it turned from globby matted fistfuls to smooth, soft hair, lighter in color than I expected, more of a golden tan. Each rolag, or rolled fiber taken from the cards, felt like fragile cotton candy. But would it spin?

I fed the fiber to the wheel, I felt something shift. I’d spun fiber that had already been prepared, but this was different. It was as though starting to read a novel from the beginning instead of jumping in at the middle. I knew it better. I had a relationship with the fleece. My work was still uneven and imperfect, but less so…and as I gently tugged on the fibers to lengthen them, I felt the rhythm of the treadle under my foot, the wheel turning at just the right speed, and the yarn filling the bobbin.

With each turn of the wheel, I felt my love of writing return as I longed to share the experience. I remembered each tender draft of a manuscript, messy and uneven. With yarn, it’s possible to add more or less twist where needed to create even strands. With novels, each draft brings improvements and new insights into the writing process. With time and patience, both the yarn and the writing smooth out.

Spinning is a form of meditation, and I see when my mindfulness disappears. All of a sudden my gorgeous strand of yarn has doubled in width, or the wheel turns in the wrong direction, causing my work to unravel from the bobbin. I stop, take a breath, fix what I can, and then go again, just as I do with my “regular” meditations. Our minds wander. That’s what minds do. All we can do is come back to the present moment.

The same is true for a manuscript. There are places where the writing sings, and then sentences where I say, “Huh?” Even after several drafts, I find places where my mind has checked out of the story and decided to explore other territories while I thought I was writing. The writer’s life requires patience and an ongoing return, return, return to the present.

Even in the end, the thread is never perfect. Yes, I can even it out and fix obvious mistakes, but in the end, homespun thread will never have the technical perfection of storebought. Mine won’t, at least!

Writing is never done and never exactly right. But at the same time, there is the time to let the book go out into the world, warts and all. A book is never perfect, never fully finished. The moment comes when the author must say, “Enough. Enough. This is the best I can do now.”

One day my fleece will be a sweater or a throw, something warm and soft and nurturing to the body. From sheep to sweater, I will know every aspect of this particular fiber. No other fiber will feel or act exactly like this one. It is my first, and it feels like a miracle. I feel the same way when I see one of my books for the first time. For all the imperfections, all the stumbles, all the struggles, there is a book in my hand, a miracle of cover and fonts and page numbers, with a story that only I can tell. From start to finish, it is mine, and perhaps it will fall into the hands of someone who will feel as though she has just donned a warm, soft, nurturing sweater to shield her from winter’s cold.

 

Filed Under: Life Changes, women, writing Tagged With: books, crafts, knitting, meditation, mindfulness, spinning yarn, writing, zen

Women’s Work

May 2, 2012 by admin

My sister Amy modeling the prom dress I made.

When I was eight years old, my grandmother taught me how to knit. I started by making a belt with heavy yellow yarn, and the stitches got so tight I could hardly maneuver my needle through them. Still, I was proud of and excited about my efforts.

Over the years I learned to sew and embroider as well. Once I dressed up a pair of my sister’s blue jeans with an embroidered, multicolored Volkswagen (she owned a bug at the time). I took a couple of years of Home Ec, where I learned to make clothes. My proudest accomplishment was the prom dress I made in senior year, with lots of lace trim.

Those of us who grew up in the 60s and 70s got plenty of mixed messages. While we were learning how to do Women’s Work and make a proper home, we were also being exposed to new choices and possibilities. We learned that we didn’t have to feel tied to Women’s Work. This was a good thing, and I embraced feminism then as I do now.

I learned that engineering and science could be Women’s Work. I saw more and more women enter politics and other fields that were once male-dominated. It was an exciting, heady time.

Here’s the problem, though: I really enjoyed the traditional Women’s Work. I found it fun and relaxing to do. Yet I put it aside, seeing it somehow as oppressive, activities best left behind in the quest for a career.

For years I didn’t sew or do any kind of craft. Later, though, when recovering from a long and difficult illness, I rediscovered the delight of Women’s Work. I learned to quilt and make drapes. In working with fabric, I found healing in my body as well as my soul.

Still, once I got better and went back to work, I left my Women’s Work behind yet again.

Lately, I have found myself weary. I love to write novels, but I find the marketing difficult and tedious. In the midst of our cross-country move, I sent Blood & Loam off to my editor with the instructions to “take your time.” Sales for The Foreign Language of Friends have been flat, in large part because I’m not that consistent with the marketing. It’s still sort of a deep dark secret, actually. Other novel ideas have fizzled out. I have had to take a step back to regroup.

It is time to reconnect with Women’s Work.

Quaint Port Gamble, which reminds me of the small Massachusetts towns I love so much.

Here on the Olympic Peninsula, Women’s Work is everywhere. This past weekend we attended a Fiber and Fabric festival in Port Gamble, where women were spinning on the sidewalks, and I don’t mean with their bicycles! You can get big bags of wool, dyed or not, and spin away. It looked so relaxing, I wanted to run out immediately and get a spinner.  Groups abound, where women get together to chat and knit, spin, or quilt — and I am welcome to join.

I bought some fabric to make curtains. I picked out a quilting kit (I decided that to get back in the flow, a kit would be easier), and I bought some yarn to knit a skirt. I have a dedicated place now for my sewing machine, right by a cheerful window, and I’ve started to work.

Curtains in process.

Of course, a funny thing happens when I start doing Women’s Work. A delicious idea for a new novel bubbled up from the depths of my subconscious. It’s compelling and insistent, and I have to heed the call. Yes, my writing is Women’s Work, but to do it better and more happily, I may need to pick up the needle as well.

 

Some cool linen yarn to make a skirt!

Filed Under: Life Changes, writing Tagged With: crafts, knitting, Port Gamble, quilting, sewing, women, women's work

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