Instant Karma, gonna knit ya

Knitting another planet is way more fun than I expected. Each little creatures that springs from the needles is precious to me. Heck, even creatures that didn't work out as I envisioned. There's an entire bag of mismatched body parts next to my yarn now, waiting to be assembled into some kind of Frankenknitty.

Part of the process is letting my ideas shift around. Since I usually knit without a pattern, the end result is often a surprise. Knitting is as close as I get to a formal spiritual ritual. I sit down with some sticks and yarn and voilá! Sometimes something emerges from the yarny fog.

For me, knitting is all about making different things, praying that gumption and creativity will compensate for the lack of actual skill, patience, or experience that seasoned knitters cultivate over years. It's likely that once skill, patience, and experience show, I'll hop the first bus out of knit-town.
The fact is, despite my admiration for mastery, I will never master anything. I dabble. Experiment. I graze across many pastures. Instant beginner's mind, over and over.

In October, I started to knit a Buddha. Because I was planning a gift for Noelle Aguayo's little Buddha Ezra, I was using Noelle's favorite color. About half a torso into it, I could sense that the green Buddha just wasn't happening. So much for my plan.


In November, Super Buddha Baby—perhaps my favorite knitting project of all time— started out as an experiment with cables thanks to an especially long train ride and some "I'm quitting knitting" yarn that my sister gave me. As I cast on, the circular needles whispered something like "hat," but by the time I got home, the Buddha body had emerged. I added the arms and legs, and held them together with baby-safe bows instead of using snaps or buttons. Super Buddha Baby is cloaked with the beginnings of the green Buddha, the beginning idea still part of the new idea. I love this guy. He looks like he gets it.