Monday, October 27, 2008

Monogamy and the Polycrafter

Let me start by saying that knitting, spinning, quilting and the other things I do make it harder to remain monogamous than it has been for me to remain monogamous in the main relationship in my life. That's probably a good thing. Most things I've read and heard lately stress the term "monogamous". Everywhere I turn, some asks, "Am I a monogamous knitter?" Well, since I don't have every set of needles occupied with yarn, yeah, I am a monogamous knitter. I finish one knitting project before I start another. No, I'm not crazy - I'm cheap. While I have all kinds of knitting needles in lots of sizes, it seems that whenever I stray from the one project, it encompasses buying another set of the same size, I'm already using. This really didn't hit home until I did a needle inventory and realized how many circular size 2 needles I have. Given the cost of needles these days, I'd rather spend my money on yarn or fleece.

While a lot writers, bloggers and podcasts emphasize "monogamy", I think the magic weasel word is "polycrafter". By no means do I have just one project going, so I'm not strictly monogamous. I have one project per art/craft! So, right now I'm knitting a pair of socks (Sugar Maple pattern from 2-at-a-time Socks by Melissa Morgan-Oakes in Kaffe Fassett sock yarn by Schachenmayr nomotta Regia Design Line); spinning Sally Sue (yes, she was sheared first); long-arm quilting Tesselating Cats, designed by Jinny Beyer; and piecing another quilt. Again, I rationalize with weasel words and differentiate between long-arm quilting and piecing a quilt as separate arts/crafts. I don't think monogamy is supposed to involve this much rationalizing or the use of weasel words. So the magic word is polycrafter, not monogamy.

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