The Slanted Eye

I owed you this one: the stuff I brought from Sweden:

lush... lush... yumyum

I went to see Joan as Police Woman yesterday, great, great artist. Maybe a little over the top in her -in between song chat routine- but not to my taste, I loved her. Great voice, funny, bit weird, nice and entertaining to the audience. My kinda singer!

I guess working at different venues over the last years I've seen too many arrogant self obsessed bands and artists. Leaving the stage when the audience made too much noise or just never making contact with the crowd at all. Shyness, maybe, but hey, you're an artist, this is what you want and choose to do, right? I don't go to a venue to see a version of the shy boy next door acting out like an drunk teenager hitting puberty.
Ok, there's the exception that makes the rule, like when a band gets famous for exactly that sort of behaviorur. I saw the Libertines once, when they were still complete, on a small stage in my hometown, making fools of themselves acting like stray dogs on garbage food turned bad. That was pretty entertaining. Actually no, it wasn't at thát point,definitely disliked their attitude while watching the show then too. It was more like I was intrigued and later on after all the press coveredge, it was interesting that I've seen them be obnoctious in real life. (Something to tell my (grand)children...?)

I was starting this post to tell you about something completely different... ehm...

Right!
The Slanted Eye...

raffia balls: I plan to knit it into an open knit bag for the Swedish game 'Kub' we bought, It's played outdoors with lots of wood bricks and poles. You're supposed to knock down the other teams bricks for points. The red stuff is dyed wool, ready to spinn, my next adventure, to be continued sometime this fall.

Before the show I talked to my friend Seema's brother. I've known him as long as I know Seema, about 8 yrs, but we hardly ever see each other. Seema had informed him about my recent career moves and had also let him in on the special thing we like to call 'our knitting gettogethers' (onze brei-eenkomsten).
And surely, there it was... The Slanted Eye!
Brother: 'Say... I heard you are into knitting...'
Me: 'Yeah... -in reaction to The Slanted Eye I alwaimmediatelytly start explaining myself- ... but you know, it's all hip and funky stuff you know...'
Brother: 'Like what? What do you actually knit then?' (The Slanted Eye remains, only slightly relaxing)
Me: ' Ehm... scarfs, mittens, hats, shirts, bags ... you know... stuff'
Brother: ' Right...' (The Slanted Eye is back in all its slantyness)
Me: ' I'm learning all the skills so I can eventually design stuff.'
Miracle!! The Slanted Eye unslants and a smile appears!
I always pull out the 'design card' when talking about my knitting to hip and creative fellow humans, they álways go for it!

...

It's not a lie, I really really want to design eventually. I'm just not there yet. I'm about as there yet as a Yeti is*. (that's a hard one... explanation at the bottom)

Why do I feel inecessaryarry to explain myself?
And whý do I feel slightly embarrassed when confronted with The Slanted Eye?
Is it so important to me to be cool? No, but I really think knitting is cool, I féél it is cool, there's just no way around the coolness.
So why then?
I feel the need to talk about it, I could choose to never speak about my obsession in certain crowds. I could do that. That would be safe. But I can't... even when there isn't a friend bringing it up, there's about a 70% chance that I'll start talking about it myself. I'm like those new parents around non-parents; totally obsessed by a really small piece of the universe while no one else is even the slightest, tiniest bit interested, meanwhile boring the h#ll out off the people around me.

a nice organic skein of hand dyed cotton (will someday probably become either small bag or baby hat), 3 balls of 100% untreated wool for making the Swedish writs warmers with knitted beads in a star pattern (I translated the pattern and wil post it as soon as I finish a pair or wrist warmers) and pieces of sheepskin to line or decorate hats and mittens.

So why?
I just don't know.
I júst don't know...
If some one recognises this, please let me know, I'm way, way interested!

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The pictures are of the treasures I brought from Sweden. Great, great stuff. It's getting me focused and creative and even more obsessed about this tiny peace of universe that's called 'Knitting'.

Beads for knitting into the wrist warmers, pompom makers, a handmade i-cord maker (punnik 'padestoel')

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* a Yeti isn't ...