Osborn Fiber Studio

This is my 500th post. 500! Coming as it does so near the turn of the year, this seems an appropriate time to do a little reflection on this blog, and everything that has happened to me through it, because of it, and since I started it back in May of 2009. If I were to do so in a simple list format, it might look something like this (actually, exactly like this):

• Because of this blog, I began to feel like an active investor in the larger world of knitting and handcrafts.
• Because of this blog, I had a meaningful record of my work, and a way of further using my knitting as self-expression.
• Through this blog, I found a medium in which I really like to express myself. (My best thoughts are about blog-post length… which is problematic when it comes to writing long papers.)
• Since I started this blog, I went from a rather serious hobbyist knitter, to an industry professional, to an aspiring full-time crafting artist.
• Through this blog, and the business that sprouted from it, I found my “voice” as a designer.
• Through this blog, my mum and I became business partners.
• On this blog, dozens of people have been kind enough not only to read, but to encourage me to do more of what I really love, taking the opportunities that came up as God presented them

Do you believe in serendipity? I don’t, not really. As Jenna over at Cold Antler likes to say, the way to find yourself living the life you want to live is to put it in the front of your brain, to invest in it in your every day life in little ways. This blog, on top of all the knitting displayed on it, ended up being how I did that. If something really captures your heart, you may find yourself doing this anyway, if you give yourself permission. And the opportunities that have sprung from the woodwork for me to take things to the next level, I can only attribute to the providence of God. Landing jobs at two different yarn shops, just at the right times? Coming up with a design idea last Lent that took off? Having a mother who is also both passionate and capable in the fiber arts? Those are just the big ones.

I know this is still in no way a sure thing. God might take this away from me; I’ve lost enough, and seen enough small business owners and artists struggle, that I know that’s how it goes. But I certainly wasn’t expecting any of this to happen, so I have no reason to think that I know how the rest of my life will play out. I may neither live long nor prosper, but I think I get now that that really doesn’t matter.

I’m not really a new-year’s-resolution type; they always seemed to me like a recipe for perceived failure and fruitless self-hatred, which I try to keep relegated to my past. But as December closed, I felt a little different. After processing a lot of things through Advent, and engaging in that prayer-around-the-edges that God grants even those who are a little miffed at him, I found myself ready to start trying again. To engage with life a little more, this time a little more sanely. So with that in mind, I made one resolution: I want to take better care of myself. That’s it: no long-term goals, just better (if you’ve seen how I’ve been living for the past six months, you’d know I have nowhere to go but up). So far I’ve been on several walks, and done a good number of push-ups. Myself and the three other housemates have a plan to consistently make the house a nicer place to be. Tomorrow I’m making Portuguese kale-sausage soup, in an effort to get something green into my body that isn’t mostly comprised of high-fructose corn syrup.

I’ve also got a wee resolution for the blog, on occasion of its semi-millennial post. I think, after all this, I can set goals with my hands open. By the time I write my 1000th post, as Randall Monroe just did, I would like to have published a book. A book related to knitting. I have a few good ideas, and I’m not telling you what they are. But I think it might just happen. It might not. But it might.

Tomorrow starts two weeks of interterm classes, appropriately called “intensives,” so you might not hear much from me for a bit. My goal is to get up early and walk to class every day. Wish me luck! I’ll be knitting…