i remember reading somewhere once that, throughout the history of the film industry, just about every facet of it has had its fifteen minutes as the "star" of the scene. actors and actresses never really stop being significant, where gossip and faces are concerned, but there have certainly been times when just as much oooh-aaaaah credence is given to directors (coppola! scorsese! romero!), or even writers (joe esterhaus?). and, keep in mind, back in the day, it was the heads of studios who were the bigwigs who everybody talked about! (louie b. mayer - what's he eating for breakfast?)
i have no chronology for it, but i have to guess that within the handknitting industry there is some shift from time to time as to who is the "star" - designers? writers? actual artists producing one-of-a-kind works to be shown in exhibition? spinners? dyers? people who run magazines? shopkeeps? bloggers?
or, a little more esoteric - is it sometimes the day-in-the-sun for... needles? of course, that sounds silly, but i think it just as silly, the amount of importance that has been placed on yarn in knitting. i addressed this over a year ago in a post entitled voluptuous stoicism, in the midst of my yarn-buying moratorium. that moratorium was a successful, albeit somewhat foreshortened experience, but put me in a new, permanent space. as mentioned in the "voluptuous stoicism" post, there is something repugnant to me about hearing yarn brand names and colors being spoken of nearly as though they were people. creativity at any elevation is not dependent upon materials to that extent.
more knitters seem to be stirring themselves out of the self-induced trance of buying and "coveting" yarn (the way the verb "covet" has attached itself to knitting lately is in my opinion particularly weak-minded), and there is now a group blog called "knitting simplicity" wherein knitters gather to talk about, it seems, using up the stash they have, using recycled materials, and concentrating on the knitting more than the acquiring. i think it's a good step, but it does bother me that each of the members of the knitting simplicity group blog has his or her own blog as well. why not just talk about the topics that matter to you about knitting, on the knitting blog you already have? is safety in numbers that much of a concern? and, even if it is, if the comment fields are open on your blog (and the blogs of others you read), why not just use them? in that way, i think "knitting simplicity" is a small step rather than a large one; i would feel like the empowerment was spreading even further when knitters just chose to express this heresy about not buying yarn in their own "homes", rather than just in the lantern-lit secret meetingplace. but i do applaud the effort. if that's where things have to start, then that's where they have to start.
but i'm well into the journey of knitting being far, far more than "all about the yarn", and the fact that other forms of fiber art are almost in spite of the materials they use, it's no wonder that i am thinking more about those forms.
when a friend and fellow writer - a woman who sews but does not knit - read my first draft of the interview feature i did with chunghie lee for KOREAN QUARTERLY, she (my friend) claimed to be "very glad (chunghie lee) didn't say 'i just let the materials do what they want, and the pojagi happens.' " that was an unprompted comment from someone completely outside the fiber arts community, and i feel the same way.
i don't let yarn "figure out what it wants to be". i am sure this does work for some knitters, and that they achieve the effects that they desire. it's certainly less likely to work in making pojagi, where the materials aren't as likely to tell you "what they want to be" as much as yarn might, for two big reasons:
one, they already are something (since pojagi are often created from scraps of existing garments and goods); and two, they're going to be a pojagi - which, sure, could be a sock or a hat or a kite or other pojagi-inspired piece. but it's a matter of pojagi materials going from a bigger range of identifiables to a smaller range, whereas with yarn i think it's the other way around.
if i don't know what i want yarn to be, i put it away. then eventually i want something to be, and i'll find the yarn for the job. it might be here, it might not. when i buy yarn i concentrate more on what seems to me to be the quality (which will not alter, regardless of the project) or the specific type of fiber content and color (because they are aesthetically correct for me, for a garment or for my home, and this does not change that much from project to project either.) i have a local yarn store that i trust to give me accurate information on the quality, durability and tendencies of any yarn i choose there, and a decade of shopping there has proven to me that i'll never get upsold or pushed towards the flavor du jour. that's what i depend on, when i do purchase - that knowledge.