This could also be E for enthusiasm, but enabling covers so much more! According to dictionary.com, to enable is to
- to make able; give power, means, competence, or ability to; authorize: This document will enable him to pass through the enemy lines unmolested.
- to make possible or easy: Aeronautics enables us to overcome great distances.
- to make ready; equip (often used in combination): Web-enabled cell phones.
Think of this in the knitting context. Knitters (and crafters in general, I think) are big sharers of information, technique, ideas, opinion, what-have-you. Websites like Ravelry and Crafster thrive because of this! And how many people have you struck up a conversation with based on yarn colors, yarn choice, technique questions? These are perfect strangers in the aisle at a LYS or Micheal's or on a bus ride or waiting in line at the DMV or pharmacy, but a bit of KIP-ing and you are getting new knowledge or sharing your own quite readily. Probably also getting part of their life story, while you're at it :)
And then there is also the addiction-feeding sense of enabling too, isn't there? Are you really gonna turn down those skeins of gorgeous hand-dyed yarn when you have a friend oohing and aahing there with you? It becomes so much easier to justify that purchase and see that stash grow when you have someone looking at the yarn with the same mindset!
For me personally, this post falls at a particularly enabling time! I just got back from Stitches, so had a fellow fiber fanatic to browse with in Market, and tons of really experienced knitters to learn from both as instructors and fellow class mates. And yes, Sarah and I probably were bad influences on each other at Market :) That's her above with her new spinning wheel. I'm below there with two of my instructors, Melissa Leapman (L) and Edie Eckman (R). I had two classes from each and learned so much!
And then back home, we've gotten Mom knitting again! Mom used to knit a bit before we were born, but then Anne and I came along, and the knitting kinda fell by the wayside. In fact, one of the yarns in my stash (not yet inventoried on Ravelry, as I've no idea how to catalog it) is a kids sweater, partially completed, that she had been working on! Anyway, she's been hitting up the yarn shop where Anne works part-time when Anne comes into town to visit and on one trip was admiring a scarf one of the ladies had been working on. From what I gather, it's a simple sock yarn knit-in-the-round pattern for a scarf that lets you show off all those lovely sock yarns you have stored up. For Mom, it was a great project for her to (as she put it) "get back on the horse." So, that's the picture up there that she sent of her scarf. She's been trucking along on it, as has about 6 inches or so left. Yay for Mom! Yay for Anne and I being good influences! (We got her into caving the same way, come to think of it!)
And then there is also the addiction-feeding sense of enabling too, isn't there? Are you really gonna turn down those skeins of gorgeous hand-dyed yarn when you have a friend oohing and aahing there with you? It becomes so much easier to justify that purchase and see that stash grow when you have someone looking at the yarn with the same mindset!
For me personally, this post falls at a particularly enabling time! I just got back from Stitches, so had a fellow fiber fanatic to browse with in Market, and tons of really experienced knitters to learn from both as instructors and fellow class mates. And yes, Sarah and I probably were bad influences on each other at Market :) That's her above with her new spinning wheel. I'm below there with two of my instructors, Melissa Leapman (L) and Edie Eckman (R). I had two classes from each and learned so much!
And then back home, we've gotten Mom knitting again! Mom used to knit a bit before we were born, but then Anne and I came along, and the knitting kinda fell by the wayside. In fact, one of the yarns in my stash (not yet inventoried on Ravelry, as I've no idea how to catalog it) is a kids sweater, partially completed, that she had been working on! Anyway, she's been hitting up the yarn shop where Anne works part-time when Anne comes into town to visit and on one trip was admiring a scarf one of the ladies had been working on. From what I gather, it's a simple sock yarn knit-in-the-round pattern for a scarf that lets you show off all those lovely sock yarns you have stored up. For Mom, it was a great project for her to (as she put it) "get back on the horse." So, that's the picture up there that she sent of her scarf. She's been trucking along on it, as has about 6 inches or so left. Yay for Mom! Yay for Anne and I being good influences! (We got her into caving the same way, come to think of it!)
3 comments:
Enabling! What a perfect E! I completely agree, and I think needleworkers and crafters are the most generous with sharing their time and talents and always so ready and willing to pass along knowledge. Great post. E for enjoyed!
Enabling. How true. My knitting buddies enable me to learn wonderful things, create beautiful knitted things....something I never thought I could learn a few years ago. Hooray for these wonderful enablers.
Thanks!
I love your post. I used to think of enabling only in the negative sense, but you're spot on about how positively knitters enable each other. Just working on this abc-along has enabled my creative juices to flow where they had been stagnant for years, and I've got all of you guys to thank for it.
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