Finishing date: April 2023. Photographed by Morgan MathisonSlee in May 2023.
I made myself a blouse for the desert.
Here’s a taste of my particular flavor of crazy: I received a travel grant to go to Tucson, Arizona, for a workshop in May 2023. My first thoughts? I need to knit something desert-appropriate! To wear at the workshop! And photograph in the desert!
I came up with a t-shirt design idea, to be made in linen yarn. I spent Easter break (yes, I took some days off, because, life got a bit crazy and I needed a moment to breathe) hiking on the mountain ridges around Bergen, drinking tea and knitting my desert outfit with a view.
This is also knitting with a view.
In May 2023, I went to Arizona. Mainly, to attend a meeting about resilience research and such scholarly things. (Amazing meeting! Amazing people! I’m so happy I got to go!)
But I also had time to pop by the vortex on Cathedral Rock in Sedona for a little knitting sesh.
In my (finally!) weather-appropriate crocheted hat. While the mountainsides were in full spring bloom.
So, I designed and knit a blouse for the desert. I had some fine light blue linen from Jerboa garn at home from, so I used that – but then ran out before the blouse was done. It happens, with my impulse yarn purchases and design experiments. So the blouse also got a burgundy bottom border, leftovers from my PhD defense dress.
Morgan took the photos, in a break between conversations about the future of resilience scholarship. Me, also, in the earrings I bought from a local designer in the Phoenix art district a couple of days before. Us, in the setting sun, on a hillside at the ranch outside Tucson, Arizona.
Katja Malmborg 