It’s All About Touch...

My friend Trudi from Colorado called me yesterday. I had sent her six of the eight stories I am working on for the collection I am trying to pull together by October. Trudi is my most long-standing supporter of my fiction writing. Back when I thought I had very little to say and not much skill at saying it Trudi was the one who would read my work and say, “No, this is good - write more.”

While we were talking yesterday she said, “You know what it is about your writing? It’s lush. It makes you feel like you are at a banquet.”

That’s an awfully nice thing to hear. I know that when I write I am very aware of the surroundings of my characters. I want them to breathe and revel in their environment.

Which brings me to two of the other things I think about a lot - knitting and sewing. I started sewing when I was 10 thanks to a neighbor lady, Mary Seeley, who formed a 4H Sewing Club for a bunch of girls. 4H is a wonderful organization and Mary was a wonderful warm and kind teacher. She taught us to love the process of sewing as much as the results. Later my brother Wayne taught me to knit. He had learned from one of the nuns in school. I loved it.

Knitting and sewing have been a part of my life since then - it is my relaxation and - more than that - it is how I let my brain quiet down and my hands be in charge for awhile. I work out a lot of issues with my writing while knitting and sewing (also swimming and driving but that’s another entry).

For most of my adult life I couldn’t really afford to work with very luxurious fabrics and fibers. I still made things but it wasn’t until recent years that I’ve had the resources and the access to silks and cashmere and alpaca and angora. Sewing with good silk or knitting with cashmere is a whole new dimension in sensuousness.

Since I no longer work in the corporate world and can dress to suit myself I have discovered that sewing a few simple patterns - drawstring trousers, simple tee-shirts, kimono-style jackets, and long, floaty dresses - makes me perfectly happy. I have a handful of tried and true patterns that I make again and again and again but always in the most luscious fabrics I can afford.

Last summer I made several pairs of drawstring waist trousers with big patch pockets out of a lovely silk noil and a sumptuous sand-washed rayon. I wore them every day and they got more beautiful each time they were washed. I never want to wear anything else. Since then I’ve bought up lots of silks, fine cottons and linens and some scrumptious linen-rayon blends - all in plain, beautiful colors - that I make into the most simple, unfussy clothes that I can. I love the way I feel both when I work on them and when I wear them. It is a private pleasure that is difficult to describe.

The same is true with knitting. I prowl eBay looking for great deals on silk and cashmere and have acquired quite a stash. Last winter I knitted a cocoon-style sweater in a simple lace pattern out of the most luscious deep black cashmere. At the moment I am working on a lavish lace shawl based on one in Meg Swansen’s A Gathering of Lace out of a very fine wool and angora blend yarn. I am finally at the edging (the endless edging) and I cannot describe how soft and scrumptious this shawl is going to be.

So if I wear my silk trousers and my cashmere sweaters while I write I guess it is only natural that some of their luscious touch would seep into my writing. I’m a big fan of my senses - they’ve given me a lot of happiness. I hope my characters get the benefit of that.

Thanks for reading.