Whenever I work on my afghans at work, men come by and ask me why I’m making so many hotpads. I find it annoying sometimes and amusing sometimes that they assume that yarn work must have a useful product and they can only imagine that the use of circles and squares would be as kitchen implements that a woman would use. I sometimes tell them that the pieces are going to be placed together as a bit of artwork to hang on a wall, but I don’t think they understand. Even if I show them photos of the pieces being put together, they still don’t think of yarn work as “art.” It is only a craft unless it is in a museum, I guess. Or only a craft if a woman is doing it.
This particular piece was inspired by the log cabin design of many quilters. I find inspiration in a lot of quilts. I go to quilting shows and look in quilting magazines for things that I like, and then I think about how I could use that idea as something to put into a crocheted or knitted piece. I do both equally easily, though I usually do knitting for something that is meant to be flat and crocheting for something that is meant to be curved, but it’s also true that it can be easier to do smaller pieces as crochet because of the casting on and off process. Knitting can also be more difficult to transport because if it gets knocked off the needles, it is a much bigger pain to put back together (as I learned when my children were small and got into my knitting).
I had also been learning about visual language from photographers and painters on YouTube. I thought about how I could alter the log cabin design to have the 60/30/10 split of colors. I chose yellow and purple because they are close to the opposite on the color wheel of green. Green has been my favorite color for a long time, but I wanted to have the visual illusion effect of some of the log cabins, so I purchased white/gray/black skeins to do the alternate. It took several tries for me to figure out how to place the colors properly, so they didn’t seem like a mistake, but originally designed this way.
I don’t think that anyone could see what I intended until the pieces were all put together. I’m not sure that I really knew what I was doing, either. I kept playing and fiddling with placement and posting it online. Some friends suggested there was too much yellow and it was distracting from the overall piece. But ultimately, I ended up taking out several purple squares and turning them yellow, then adding even more yellow squares. Not one of these squares is the same as any other.
And as usual, I was playing with placement of the more blue and more soft green squares until I felt some sense of “yes, this is right” and started putting them together. With this piece, I hand-basted the pieces together on my hands and knees before I did a proper final crochet of each piece together, because I was afraid I would end up with turned squares. Even so, some of the squares were turned upside down and I had to undo them and put them together properly in the final stages. Then it took another full day for me to find all the ends and sew them in. I figure there were over three hundred of them.
I don’t know if this particular piece has a meaning beyond the abstract pleasure in using a pattern from another artform for my own, and twisting it a bit. I feel like this is also something I do in all my novels. I write mystery, but with Mormon characters, or with autistic characters. I can follow the rules, but only up to a point and then I deliberately have to break the rules. How long can I delay the body showing up? How long can I write a denouement after the confession without annoying my reader? How many pages of description of Mormon wedding rules before I need more plot? That’s what I’m doing visually here, as well. How much yellow is too much? How far can I break the rules of log cabin before it’s not a lob cabin anymore?
If you’re asking yourself why I don’t just do quilting, I’m not sure I have a good answer for you except: I don’t want to. I’ve done some quilts before and for whatever reason, I didn’t want to keep doing them. I won’t guarantee not to do them in the future, if a pattern appeals to me. But I like stealing ideas from other arts and then making them uniquely my own. It’s what art is for me. I also like pointing back to where I got my ideas because I’m not ashamed of stealing.
As for hot pads, I keep being tempted to share this piece with everyone in my office, so if they see me working on the latest project, they’ll understand that it’s not about one piece at a time. But I am scheduled to bring one of my pieces into a special art show at the office, so we’ll see what kind of stir that makes. I like the idea of people seeing me with my yarn, listening to me talk on the phone while working, and realizing that you can make art in any circumstance. And that for me, even if I’m working, my art is my priority. I’m an artist first.
It’s gorgeous!