Ryan Lobo is a photographer who practices what he calls compassionate storytelling. I was listening to it on my iPod on the train home and I was so moved and choked up I cried, right in the crowd. And I didn’t even get to see the photos! For now I’m off to watch it too. It’s just 11 minutes long. I think it might be the best 11 minutes of your day.

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I went to my ravelry friends page and started looking through, trying to figure out how to pick just one, and I realized I was tending to focus on people who also design. I finally narrowed it to two:

#1:  Lucy, of {a black pepper}. She’s zebraknits on ravelry, and she has a gorgeous blog, too. I have several of her designs either in my queue or in my faves: the beautiful jacket Adeline; Lillian, a gorgeous sweater; Coline, an elegant neckwarmer. Not only do I enjoy her designs and her own knitting, I just love her aesthetic. The photography on her blog almost always makes me feel calm and still, for some reason, and the styling is impeccable. And her writing is thoughtful and honest, which also makes me happy! If you haven’t encountered her yet, you’re welcome.

#2: six and a half stitches, a knitter/designer/blogger from Sydney. Where Lucy is lush, Alison is spare and minimal. Her designs are so clean (think Habu) and her blog is the most restful, beautiful place. She’s another one who leaves me feeling calm and still, but she also makes me want to get up and throw out all the clutter.  She reminds me of another blogger and knitter I love, who also happens to be an architect. Since I’m following a strict blog-reading diet I won’t allow myself to look through my Google Reader to find her right now, but I’ll try to post about her another time, because if you like 6.5sts, you’ll love her too.

It’s so wonderful, this online world, where we can encounter each other in these ways, admire each other’s handwork and style and art and photography, be inspired by other people’s vision and world.

Click here for more posts on the 3rd day of this blogging event: knitcroblo3

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purple and small, with Sunday Knits Eden

greenish and pretty big, with madelinetosh wren

big and in the works, with madelinetosh lace

Why does this pattern inspire me? First, it’s great fun to knit – and lots of people seem to agree, since Ravelry lists 6400 projects and it’s in 3268 queues. (At £3.00 GBP, Ysolda has done very well with this little project! Good for her!). The main reason this pattern inspires me so much is that it’s very cleverly written while still being a LOT of fun to knit. Scientific theories that explain a phenomenon with an economy of variables are called elegant, and that describes Ysolda’s patterns.  Ishbel hits all the marks, which is kind of great: it’s fun, it’s changeable (you can make the stockinette section larger or smaller, knit more or fewer repeats of each of the lace sections, etc), the end result is not just beautiful but also very practical, and it has clearly generated a very good amount of money for the designer while being inexpensive for knitters.

I’ve knit (or should I say, tried to knit) other patterns that were beautiful and ‘clever,’ but they were just fussy and kind of ridiculous in their cleverness. There’s no need to name names, because maybe I was just not a skilled enough knitter and others could easily manage the pattern, but there was one scarf that just made me so angry and you know? Who needs that in knitting! But Ysolda’s patterns are clever in the very best way, and I think Ishbel is a great example of her design philosophy. I would love to be able to do what she does; instead, I’ll just benefit from her talent. Me and thousands of other happy knitters.

Read the other posts on this topic:  knitcroblo2

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Here, on this last day of February, she writes:

In the month of March, we will be following light, reflecting in pictures and words on the details that light reveals in different hours of the day.

I’m in! My spirit fades and gets pretty thin this time of year. My genes are so profoundly Texan, I’m completely hardwired for a very brief winter; the long period of cold and gray up north just wears me down, man.  And yet I do know that you can find what you look for, if only you look.

Another blog I follow is needled – the blogger (Kate) lives in Edinburgh, Scotland. She’s a professor specializing in textiles, she knits, and her blog is always fascinating. And one month ago she had a pretty serious stroke. Since my dearest friend here in NY had a stroke a year ago, I’ve been closely following Kate and her progress. It’s impossible to make fair comparisons between two people, no matter what – and just as true when people are grappling with what looks like similar problems. Kate has the benefit of much better health care than we have here (so obvious it hardly needed to be said), and I obviously don’t know the extent of what she is facing, AND she’s in the early stages. But I have been so struck by her attitude of ‘ok then! time to work hard.’ Today’s post is about her gratitude for the various tools that help her regain independence. Those things are there – and what they give her – but she is looking at them, and that makes a lot of difference. She could just as easily look at her need for them, and come away with a different sense of things.

So join me, join perches in the soul, let’s follow light. The middle week of March my husband and I will be on the island of Roatan, off the coast of Honduras, where the light will be oh-so-easy to follow, but I still have the remaining weeks of March in Manhattan, where following light will require a bit more looking. I think wherever you are, though, there are days when following light requires an effort.

Happy last day of February, happy Sunday.

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