My DH has been watching me work on this and being very supportive.
He's from Ames IA, and his dad worked for Iowa State. Last night he commented on how I could probably have gotten a degree with a major in knitting from their Home Arts school.
I'm curious-has anyone here formally studied fibers and textiles???
Monica

Hi Monican,
I have a BFA in Crafts/Fibers from University of the Arts in Philadelphia. It was a really intense program with primarily weaving, printing, papermaking, dyework, etc... This is a fine art oriented program, one of a kind gallery type creations. Functional = BAD, BAD, BAD, at least when I was there in the mid 1980's.

The end use of the degree was for textile design, gallery work, cutting edge fashion, maybe. I used it for a business designing sewn hand puppets and later at a living history museum here in MA, analyzing and planning reproductions of artifact woven & knitted textiles and antique dye recipes.

Really any area you study intently helps to shape your view of the world and your way of processing information and drawing conclusions. Now I am a physical therapist assistant, but I think everything I studied before has helped shape me into a creative and empathetic practitioner.

But I did learn the hard way that sometimes its best to keep your most creative energies for self expression, rather than earning a living submitting them to other people's control. As they said back in art school - Art for Art's Sake. For a long time, I could only make things for a "purpose", not just for the joy of creating, as I am now relearning to do.

quote:

But I did learn the hard way that sometimes its best to keep your most creative energies for self expression, rather than earning a living submitting them to other people's control. As they said back in art school - Art for Art's Sake. For a long time, I could only make things for a "purpose", not just for the joy of creating, as I am now relearning to do.

I agree with this statement! Yarnmeg you really summed it up for me!

While there are people, many I'm sure, who do knit, crochet, paint, etc., for the pleasure of it as well as make money/a living at it, I agree that the quickest way to turn something fun into a job is to try to make money at it. That's not to say you couldn't make scarves, hats, socks, whatever and sell them and still enjoy it, but when you start to feel that's all you can do, it sucks the joy right out of it.

As I said recently, after my first sale of a pair of custom handknit kilt hose (72+ hours), if I didn't *love* doing it, you couldn't *pay* enough for these socks. I hope I can keep the "business" to a place that the joy part is still primary -- joy in the knitting and in the relationships it builds.

For me, the joy is nearly all in the process. I'm always amazed watching how the structure builds, the changes from just a slight difference in the flick of wrist. I love coloring the wool and watching the spindle change it to yarn, differently depending on the type of wheel and wool. Then the fabric that comes out of it all. Swatching is often my whole project! Hat shaped swatch, mitten shaped swatch, sock shaped swatch, and so forth. Lots of times I will knit something up just so I can try some fix-it type process, like unravelling & recrossing a cable, etc. Or I just work until the thing becomes predictable, and then . . .

When I was in art school (see above) one of my classmates did an installation of 100 knitted socks she had made, all hanging identically in a grid drawn on the wall. Every one was different, no pairs. They were different sizes, stitches, fibers, techniques, some hand made, some machine, everything. Lots of people were bothered by the sight, but I loved it. She said the second one was "extraneous to the process of creation. Just a copy of the first."

Of course this attitude isn't much good if you are primarily after keeping the feet warm, but utility is not always the same as joy when it comes to creation.

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utility is not always the same as joy when it comes to creation.

Though for some of us, it is. If I were, as you say, primarily after keeping my feet warm, I'd go to the store. I take pleasure in exercising a skill to create something of both beauty and utility--so creating socks that keep my feet warm brings me joy.:-)