I have very fond memories of driving from Boston to Winnipeg in a white rental van in the middle of the night with Karen teaching me how to knit in the back seat. I was told to pick a color before we left and once we collected a huge pile of purple yarns, I spent many hours of our travels (being too young to drive a rental car at the time) stitching away. Before long my cries of "Karen! I think I broke it again! Can you fix it for me?" died down and I started my first official tour blanket.
Each of us in the van that year had our own mountain of yarn and a blanket we were working on. (Some of us more than one! The van was very full!) Over the three months we traveled around the country performing our blankets grew (as did our piles of yarn. There are a LOT of great yarn stores in this country and we did our best to visit as many of them as we could!) and transformed from patches of fuzzy warmth into a physical representation of our trials, tales and travels.
I was given a silver frizzy yarn at the start of the trip that Karen used as shoe laces that summer so every time I added a silver row I thought of Karen and her many pairs of "practical" shoes.
After we sat furiously knitting while watching the news with friends in San Francisco on September 11th each blanket had a darker, more somber patch of color.
Some rows remember where the yarn itself came from, like the Jumper, a little ball who jumped into Karen's coffee at a restaurant we frequented in Winnipeg. Some remember where they were knit, like the patch of blues added while hanging out with the Meehan Brothers in the sweltering heat on the front porch in Minneapolis. Some rows reflect the landscape, like the beautiful coppers and rusts that began appearing as we ventured through the Southwestern US. Each color change was inspired by some aspect of our travels and the adventures of the person who knit it.
My first tour blanket is currently hanging as part of the JP Licks Emloyee Art Show in Jamaica Plain! While the blanket will be up for a few weeks, you should head over to JP this weekend for Jamaica Plain Open Studios!! Email me at MonkeyhouseBlog [at] gmail [dot] com to see the whole collection and learn how you can own one of these gorgeous pieces of Monkeyhouse history!
We've been talking a lot about inspiration here at Monkeyhouse, especially with Dance at the Fells right around the corner which was so strongly inspired by the beauty of the Middlesex Fells, and how much art and environment can inspire creation. Tell me what inspires you and you'll be entered to win your very own Monkeyhouse Loves Me t-shirt!
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