yin yoga

Knitters sit . . . a lot. And there are therapies we need that can help alleviate the tightness that results. So I offer the following.

Some years ago, my daughter told me about a new yoga she was doing. It felt like a role reversal as she told me the benefits and that You really need to do this, Mom. I explained how it wasn't gonna happen: I travel too much for a regular class schedule, I like to break a sweat when I work out, I don't have the discipline for yoga, yada, yada, yada. All foolishness!

So, one Christmas she was at my place, down on the floor in a pose, and I looked at her and said I need that! What is that?!? She rolled her eyes as only a clever daughter can and said I told you, Mom, YIN YOGA!

She explained a little about it: I got online to do some research. At that time, it was not easy to find a practitioner in my area, but there was a book highly recommended by everyone:  Paul Grilley’s YIN YOGA. I ordered it and began a study.

Okay, so I'm still not disciplined enough for the regular practice of it. . . . But I am informed enough to know how important it is. And when I get into trouble (stiffness) and do it (for only a few moments), I see immediate benefits.

Here's the deal. Yan Yoga (what we are most familiar with) works on the muscles—which are like elastic bands (lots of stretch and hard to break unless you pull violently). Yin Yoga (a rarer practice) works on the connective tissues—which are more like pull taffy (with not so much stretch and easily broken unless you pull gently and slowly). So Yin Yoga has the following features.

• It's called the quiet practice because it's slow and gentle . . . and quiet.
• You always do it sitting or lying, so muscles are not engaged (because when muscles are engaged, the connective tissue cannot be stretched).
• You hold a pose for at least 2-and-a-half minutes—because that's how long it takes for the connective tissue to loosen and stretch. (As we sit in the simplest of poses—a forward bend—we may feel nothing for the first 2 minutes or so . . . but then the head slowly drops, and eventually it may touch the knees. I can tell you that never before—until I did this a few times—had my nose ever gotten close to my knees!)
• As we get older, it's the connective tissue that we need to work on: no matter how much we strengthen our muscles, an over-time shortening of the connective tissue is what makes us older girls (knitters and non) stoop. (This from my chiropractor.)

So, a true Yin Yoga class may be an hour long with only a few poses—no more than 10. But even if you do only one pose—like I do when I wake in the night with stiffness—it will make us feel limber and stand taller.

There is much more to it than this, but I invite you to check it out. After introducing one student to it, she later said Thank you! I think you just saved my life. I don't know if that proved to be true, but certainly improving quality of life is a result of a yin yoga practice.

knitting, the right brain, and making connections

If you've read much of my stuff, you know that when you are knitting (doing something physically repetitive, intellectually undemanding, and visually stimulating), you are in your right brain. And what the right brain does, among other things, is make connections.

So here are two that came to me recently.

The movie connection
 I was knitting while watching the movie TOAST. It's a pretty good British piece--based upon a real person and his memoirs--and I don't know what the reviews were like but I thought it quite good . . . good enough to recommend to a friend.

But nagging me throughout the movie was the father. Who was he? Where had I seen him before?

While watching this movie, I thought of another movie I'd recommend to my friend--one of my favourite-all-time movies, THE GIRL IN THE CAFE. No connection between the two occurred to me except that they were British.

But then I googled the father from TOAST and found that he was a major character in THE GIRL IN THE CAFE!

This is a fully characteristic right brain experience. It makes the connection--and solves your problem--even though you might not be aware that a connection has been made or a solution has been found. It's been said by many that to be creative, to solve problems, to harness intuition we need to listen very carefully to this wee, quiet voice that doesn't always explain itself logically.

The weather connection
We are having a deadly brutal heat wave here, and I don't know about yours but my entire family had a meltdown on Tuesday night. 

And then my right brain went for a wander. . . .

If we have meltdowns in the heat, what do we do in the cold? We don't get cranky, we don't vent, we don't meltdown. Rather, we do the opposite: we shut down, withdraw to our corners, find a place to cocoon.

Still wandering, I thought about knitting through the heat (pretty much all you can do when it's painful to move!) And I thought about what projects we might knit (small pieces) and what fibres we might wear (cotton).

We wear  cotton because it draws heat away from the body. If you hold a ball of cotton in your hand, your hand will feel cool because the cotton draws the heat out.

And what do we wear in winter? Wool. Why? Because it holds body heat in. If you hold a ball of wool in your hand, your hand will feel warm because the wool holds the heat in.

And then my right brain had a big WOW!  (Bear with me here!)

• Cotton pulls the heat away from the body.
• Wool  holds the heat in.
• In hot weather, we vent (releasing emotion).
• In cold weather, we withdraw (holding in emotion).

So in the winter we need to hold in our body heat and can't afford to get all passionate about stuff. But in the summer we need to release body heat, and so we get all worked up about stuff. And as silly as this all seems, it made me wonder if maybe it's not actually a stereotype that people from northern places are known for being cool (in the sense of restrained), while people from southern places are known for being hot-blooded. Maybe this makes as much sense as wearing wool or cotton? It's how we have learned to behave in order to survive.

Can this possibly make sense? I do not know. But this is what the right brain does! It makes connections. Sometimes they solve problems, sometimes they feel like pure silliness! The thing about the right brain is that is has no filter. It thinks all connections are equally interesting and worthy of consideration.

What I do know is that we are all desperate for this heat to be over!

getting better at what we do

I was encouraged to do a 10K run 3 years ago, and I got hooked. But I have certainly learned a few things about taking on something new. And those lessons surely apply to our knitting.

What I learned from my first run 
I can do this!
A crowd (in this case, 10,000 runners) is very motivating.
Equipment matters: my running shoes weren't.
I would probably do better if I studied this!

I was proud of how I did in my first run. And I started dreaming of my second. Notice that I dreamt about it, rather than actually training for it.

What I learned from my second run
The motivation of the crowd doesn't help if you set unreasonable expectations.
I would probably do better if studied this!

So I thought about how it feels to learn something new. (I was learning how to run--something  thought I knew how to do, something everyone knows how to do, but which of course can be improved with training.) Now that I am training properly for a fourth run, I've looked at that training and realized how very much it applies to knitting.

So here's how we train to run, and here's how it translates to knitting.

Each week we do 4 kinds of runs.  
Translation We need to always have 4 kinds of knitting on-the-go.
How many of us don't do that? How many of us think we have to finish one thing before we start another? This is not, apparently, how one masters a skill.

Type number one is a short and slow run.
Translation This pattern will be easy and small--perhaps a pair of socks, something small for charity, something for a baby.
As we get better at something, we can easily forget the value of these little, carry-along pieces.
 
Type number two is a long and slow run.
Translation This pattern will be easy but long--a simple shawl in a lace-weight yarn, an Einstein Coat, a blanket.
This is the knitting we do while we watch a move--maybe a foreign film with subtitles--or as we read a book, or while in a meeting, or hooking up (forgive the pun) with friends. If the knitting for these events is too challenging, we could end up ripping long hours or work.
 
Type number three is anywhere between a half and the whole of our distance but approaching our race pace.
Translation This pattern will be more challenging and something we want to wear.
Race pace is the runner's goal, and isn't it a knitter's goal to knit what we wear, wear what we knit, have it admired far and wide?
 
Type number four is a short and very challenging, either sprinting or running hills.
Trranslation This might mean simply knitting complex swatches (from a stitch dictionary) or taking a class on a new technique. Or it could mean trying our hand at pattern drafting--short and simple to start, increasing challenges as we master it.
The results of the swatching or classes might be stuff we never use, but we'll be better knitters for the experience. The results of the pattern drafting makes us masters of our craft.

The other lessons I learned from my first 10K still apply:

• join a group (a guild or a knit-and-chat circle) because they are motivating and we can learn from them;
• equipment matters . . . because it just does.

And one final lesson . . . 
When we run, we are also encouraged to cross train: bike, roller-blade, lift weights, whatever. It doesn't make sense to do just one form of exercise, so we are encouraged to mix it up.

I translate this to knitting by believing that we should all be including other stuff in our hand-work: sewing, crochet, needlepoint, quilting, weaving, spinning, etc. We'll be better for it, and who knows what cross-over can produce. One of my greatest joys has been putting knitting and sewing together: if you have not already seen it, check out  http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/best-of-both-tunic-top. Nothing in recent years has been as exciting for me as the creativity that this cross-over has sparked.

We've all heard that it takes 10,000 hours to get good at something. But mileage without goals, without challenges, without training, without mixing-it-up doesn't make us better. What I've learned from running--and applied to knitting--is how to get the best from those hours.

saving the world, one yarn shop at a time

We all find ourselves making decisions these days--for financial and ethical reasons. Whether food or shoes, we are thinking differently about what we buy, how much we buy, and where we buy it.

So, with this in mind, I'd like to share a sad story with you.

I was recently in a wonderful yarn shop (doesn't matter where). I spoke to the owner about what fabulous yarn she had, and she shared with me a not unfamiliar story . . .  that there are a significant number of customers who enter, fondle, leave, and buy the same yarn elsewhere--for a few dollars less.

So these were not people who had to buy online (those poor souls who do not live near yarn shop): these were people who

1. wanted access to the yarn shop so they could check out the yarn but
2. chose to buy it online for a reduced price.

I understand stretching dollars when times are tough. But we need to think long and hard about how we are doing this. Are we doing so in such a way that we undermine and threaten the viability of a much-needed business?

When we buy from a local yarn shop, we are supporting one of our community's entrepreneurs. And everyone tells us that the solution to economic growth is small business. These shops are essential to the well-being of our communities.

In addition, I will share with you some thoughts from The Watchman's Rattle. This is a book that lists the beliefs that hold us back from solving our problems. One of these beliefs is extreme business practices, which she defines as

• the need for profit
• the need for speed and efficiency.

When these, above all, are our motives, other important concerns can fall by the wayside.

So, to solve our problems and to save civilization as we know it,  we need to reject the need for profit and reject the need for speed for their own sakes. Neither of these will help us solve the huge issues that keep us awake at night.

Well . . . knitters are role models for this behavior! Given how expensive knitting is, nothing we do  can be done for the profit motive! Given how labour-intensive knitting is, nothing we do can be done for expediency! We should be rewarded for our rejection of business practices that don't serve the world!

(I would also guess that anyone who reads a blog about knitting is a role model for this behavior, so I am likely preaching to the choir??)

In addition, we could probably agree that pretty-much everything of value executed by human beings (art, family time, music, solutions to climate change, architecture, volunteer work) is, or will be, done without profit or efficiency as motivating factors.

So, back to the LYS. We absolutely must reject the need to go elsewhere to save a few dollars!!! The profit motive that drives us to do so might not be good role-modelling and does not serve us, our craft, our communities, our civilization.

Again, those ethical considerations we bring to bear on everything else we buy should be turned to knitting. Buy less? But buy local!

What is an appropriate gauge?

Many of us start knitting with shawls and scarves . . . which means that we learn to knit worsted weight on a 6mm / US 10 needle. Once we graduate to garments, we find it difficult to use needles many sizes smaller. Add to that the fundamental characteristic of knitting that we love—its drape—and we are inclined to want to knit garments that are knit too loosely.

Whether we follow patterns or draft our own, it is our initial inclination to like a fabric that is too loose. (I know this, because I did this . . . and have watched many others do the same.)

But what happens when we knit a fabric that is too loose for the yarn?

• The fabric is more likely to pill.
• The garment is more likely to stretch out of shape—especially after we wash it.

So how do we find the appropriate gauge for the yarn that will give the best results for the garment?

When I was first drafting and teaching, I wondered if the math would give us an answer. Considering that stockinette usually gives us 5 stitches versus 7 rows to-the-inch (which is .71), I wondered if that .71 relationship would go awry if I knit a piece that was too tight or too lose.

So I knit a whole lotta swatches, and measured their gauges, and then did the division . . . and still came up with .71. Sadly, whether it was way too tight or way too loose, it still came up as .71.

For once, the math doesn’t help. So what does? The feel of the fabric. We want a fabric that feels firm enough that it will hold shape over time: and most often this is a firmer fabric, knit on smaller needles, than we initially were inclined to go for . . .

 . . . especially if you consider that this fabric has to be relaxed before we accept its gauge. And what is this? We relax the fabric when we either steam press or wash it. (Many fibres and stitch patterns can be steam-pressed, which is certainly easier than washing, but there are some which must be washed—garter stitch, for example.)

Like every other knitter, I’ve tried to force a yarn to the gauge of a pattern. But if this produces a fabric that is too loose, I’ll end up ripping—after days of knitting and trying to talk myself into a fabric that is too loose!

So don’t do this! Please learn from my experience! Especially if you are knitting a vest or cardigan—a garment that will be worn over another garment—don’t knit a fabric that is too loose. Knit a good-sized swatch, steam press or wash it, and be really critical of the fabric. Be sure it is firm enough to hold shape over time and reward you with years of wearing!

PS If this is a gauge that doesn't quite match your pattern, go to my post of July 11, 2012, which discusses re-gauging a pattern.

the three realities of ripping

Recently, I made an horrendous mistake--by not reading my own pattern for which the back of a sweater is narrower than the front. Without reading my own pattern, I simply made the back the same as the front, and it was too big!!! Geesh!!

So what do we all do when this happens? We attempt to convince ourselves that it doesn't matter. We keep knitting past the error to the point where we can try it on. Then we spend hours in front of the mirror trying to argue ourselves out of the realization that this is not working!!!

We whine, we curse, we have our little hissy fit--all the while, not doing the one thing we need to do: rip it out and do it right.

While twirling in front of the mirror, I made the following realizations:

• I had wasted a whole lotta time by knitting past the error so I could try it on and convince myself it didn't matter! Really!???
• I am wasting time in front the mirror when I could be ripping;
• I am wasting time trying to talk myself out of what time it would take to rip when the truth is that if I don't I will never wear the piece--which is a huge waste of time and money.

So I ripped--after probably 24 hours of avoidance. And guess what! I had that thing ripped out in fifteen minutes!!!!

Yes, of course, then I had to spend time re-knitting. But what was I going to do as soon as I finished this piece? Find more knitting?!?! I just found it.

• The first reality of ripping is that we waste far more time avoiding it than it would take to do it.
• The second reality of ripping is that we waste both time and yarn if we don't.
• The third reality of ripping it that it gives us the one thing we want most in life--more knitting! (And we didn't have to spend any cash to get there.)

Bottom line: ripping saves both money and time, and this is a lesson I should have figured out a long time ago! What does it say about human nature that I did not?

And can I truly say I've learned the lesson even now . . . .

jumping the fence

There are fences we walk along. People tell us we should jump to the other side. But we hesitate. Doesn't yet feel like the right thing to do, no matter what others say: not ready, too much work, may mean a loss of control . . . whatever the reason and despite all the advice we are given, we're not goin' there.

What am I talking about? Here's an example. Get a cleaning service! People tell us that as working women, but we think

• I can't spend the money,
• I can do the work,
• I'd have to do all that stuff before they take over!

This was me. But OMG, once you jump that fence you wonder what you were thinking that you waited so long! Major head smack!!! Once you cross over you are not goin' back. And you are now the one giving the advice to others: jump that fence!

There are other fences to be jumped that are kinda the opposite--where we don't give up the work to others but take on the task ourselves. Again, we think we're not ready, that it would be too much work, but this time the fear is that we don't have the skills. And so we walk the rut along the fence line, wearin' it down.

I was reminded of this yesterday when Nicole from Victoria (Hey there, Nicole!) wrote the following:

I just purchased the Kindle version of your new Knitting Pattern Essentials (and it’s nothing less than fabulous, as are all of your books), but I have a question about something that wasn’t addressed in the book.
 
I have a notebook full of design ideas, and I have several knitting design books, but I’m having a very hard time finding anything that specifically addresses large collars, particularly portrait-style collars. I used to do tailoring and dressmaking for a living, so I suppose I could buy a sewing pattern and use the pattern pieces as a template, but I would really like to have a resource from a knitting pattern designer who’s already worked out the bugs.
 
Any possibility you could point me in the right direction?

I answered. 

Nicole, I don’t know any more than I wrote in the book, which is the following.

1. There’s a section on collars that includes the collar stand (or not) plus the increases that have to happen at the center front.
2. There’s a small section at the beginning that explains that everything is simply horizontals and diagonals—number of stitches and numbers of rows.
   

My advice would be that YOU CAN DO IT. Find the model of one you like (on a blouse, in your head) and then work it out! Do understand that you WILL rip as you do this, but the good news is that this is JUST the collar, just part of the finishing, so ripping won’t be a big deal.

Remember that she said she had a book full of design ideas? So I continued.

When you have a book full of design ideas, it means you want to design. When you are ready to design, it means you are ready to explore a vision—definitely not always a vision someone else has written a template for! So this tells me that it’s time for you to have the confidence to do it. Don’t assume you must rely on others exclusively: get what you can from them, and then move forward yourself. You will be SO happy with yourself when you make that leap!!!!

And then, trust me, you’ll wonder why it took you so long to do this, and master it, and feel justifiably empowered!

She wrote back. (I was curious for this, not sure how she would react to my advice to jump that fence!)

I knew exactly what you meant – and boy, can you read me like a book!

I have totally been waiting for someone else to hand me all the answers, so I could just knit up my designs without a lot of trial and error. Sheesh.

I’ve literally looked at hundreds, if not thousands of designs, and not come across a single one that was exactly what I was looking for – that’s got to be a message, eh? There’s a whole design esthetic that I want that doesn’t really exist, or at least not my version of it.

You’ve convinced me…time to get off my butt and accept the challenge with passion and energy!

Thanks, Sally – you rock.

Sometimes jumping the fence means doing the work ourselves! And what a happy-dance day when we do! A whole world opens up, and we rock!

So what fence are you walking? Ready to jump?