well, not really.
ruminating on the subjects of knitting revolution and counterrevolution has let me identify more clearly the likes and don't-likes of my knitting life, and given me clues as to what i can do to play with the knob. one of the likes, of course, is the forum for communication with other knitters -- in e-mail, on the phone, in person -- knitters and fiber artists a thousand times more proficient than i will ever be, and people who have been in my life for years and who i never thought of as knitters, who now are, and for who, due to their enthusiasm, april is still very much the apropos time to be making (and giving!) scarf after scarf after scarf.
what i don't care for, for lack of a better word at the moment, is the commercialism. i don't want to participate as actively in the feeding cycle of manufacturer > pattern proliferation > retailer > knitter-as-host-organism-slash billboard for said manufacturer/pattern/store. for me, right now, in april 2005, i believe there is more growth as a knitter available to me in taking a break from the cycle.
although it may change very little about what i choose to knit in the next year -- and may (time will tell) change very little about what yarn actually comes into the house, i have decided that from april 2005 to april 2006, i will not purchase any manufactured yarn through a retailer, whether bricks-and-mortar, internet, or festival booth. i will purchase handspun yarns when possible, and applicable to what i want to work on, hopefully directly from the spinner. i will purchase through secondary markets such as ebay when wanting manufactured yarns such as sock yarns. and i will barter (yes, that copy of walden i got for christmas is levitating off the shelf right now) with other knitters, either in exchange for what little stash i have (i mailed about 3/4 of it to tish this past winter) or for other stuff -- printing-related, or whatever. i will spin what i can, bias-cut what i can, tear up what i can.
i will need new needles and whatnot, assuredly, and will get them through the regular routes. right now my experiment extends only to yarn. i don't buy the knitting magazines. i'll still buy books. let's be clear: i don't think that the yarn business is "wrong", nor do i think anyone is getting unduly rich in it. i do think there are a ridiculous number of knitting books and yarn shops out there, weakening the bonds. that i most emphatically believe. they are serving the bandwagoneers, and as far as i care, that is a match made in heaven. i don't even want them to go away. why would i? just because i think they are boring and useless doesn't make it interesting to eradicate them. it's like putting a celery stalk in a business suit and calling it a stock broker. should we call security?
i cannot stress the extent to which i do not need anybody to participate in this "along with" me. i do not need the "support". i don't need the "company". indeed, i hope that this will help me look at the garter-stitch scarves of my new-knitter friends and see with newer eyes the delight that they have in novelty yarns, and yarns they have just plain never touched before. it would be nice to feel that. kind of the way i feel, sorta wistful and envious, about people who've yet to read catcher in the rye or see mike leigh's naked or hear jon faddis play the trumpet for the first time. barring the ability to experience anything i've already experienced for the first time, i have to put some space between myself and what is i know is "available" to me. right now, it is the sight of all those skeins stacked and stacked, and all those labels, and all those names of colors and types, that makes me feel a little dead inside. this is not what i wanted it to be about.
i feel that, initially, what this will provide me is: less immediate "gratification" at my fingertips. more of a challenge in finding what i need for the work i want to do, and more of an apprecation for how hard it may be to get it. an opportunity to patronize spinners i would otherwise be too lazy to buy from or barter with. a sharpening of the senses, and a welcome break from little loops of paper with SKU numbers and barcodes on them, littering the remote control holder hanging over my arm of the couch.
and if this experiment eventually makes me unhappy, i'll stop, and go by a bunch of something factory-fresh. before the year is up.
right now, i have plenty. i'm going to read walden and see if it makes me feel more on track. and then, maybe, i'll re-read huysmans' against nature and see if there's a way to apply that to knitting.
we'll see what happens.