C R A F T S
PART I
Sometimes, life just knocks you down. Not permanently, but for a time. Too many things go against you, and nothing good just kind of accidentally happens. As if the world had run out of serendipity.
I think many of us have felt that way during the past seven months. Covid-19 came like an enormous tidal wave, covering the entire Earth. Many things about work and home and relationships and hobbies had to be re-defined. I stayed home, knitting and gardening. I had too much time to tend to the plants on my balcony, seeing them thrive somewhat eased worries over a non-thriving thesis and I’ve been eating tomatoes daily since the beginning of August. I have more chilis than I could ever consume.
PART II
A couple of weeks ago, I finally finished Natalia’s dragon-scale jumper, knit in a fine, beautifully blue-purple linen-cotton blend from Ullcentrum Öland. I started it in early spring, the scale-pattern is by @lavishcraft but the rest is an experiment springing from my and Natalia’s shared imagination. However, experimental design is an inevitable process of knitting, realizing it’s too tight or loose or just weird-looking, partial or complete unraveling, and then re-knitting. I know this, because most of my pieces are one-off experiments. But this jumper was extreme. Except for the second sleeve (which obviously was a repetition of the first), every single part of this jumper has been re-knitted at least twice. And with such a fine yarn, that is no quick task. I was so sick of the whole thing by the end.
And in a way, this felt a bit symbolic of the time in which the jumper was produced. This year, that has felt like biking up an endless, bumpy hill on a bike with broken gears. One step forward, two steps back. But also, there is no one I would feel more content over having spent all that time and effort for. The almost weekly Skype calls Natalia and I have had, re-watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer together, are one of the things that have helped keep me sane in the time of social distancing. Doing things for each other, that’s how purpose is created.
PART III
Now as the leaves on the birch outside my home office window turn yellow and slowly fall to the ground, the unease has lifted a little. I’ve started to knit a dress for myself, in a yarn about twice as thick as Natalia’s, making it delightfully quick to work with. I am seeing progress in my thesis again. No less than five good colleagues and friends have successfully defended their theses since the end of August. Last week a production, Partisan, that one of my oldest, best friends Kirke worked on was awarded the prize for best TV show of the year in Cannes.
And last night, my dad’s biography about the Swedish musician Olle Adolphson was nominated in the non-fiction category of the August prize, the most prestigious Swedish literature award. There is something encouraging about that. Not only because he is my dad, but also that it is possible to do something for the first time in your sixties, for example write a book, and then end up being considered among the six best to have achieved that in the past year. It is never too late to do something new. Good things can happen.
And soon, there will be a most fantastical photo shoot of the dragon-scale jumper co-created by the me and Natalia dream team.
Photos: 1. Some of my balcony tomato harvest; 2. Me defeated by the dragon-scale jumper; 3. Natalia trying on the final version of the dragon-scale jumper for the first time. Posted on Instagram on October 20, 2020.
Katja Malmborg 