This Ugly Bag or Catching Memories in the Stitches

When you see this bag, I can already see your facial reaction. It scrunches in puzzlement tinged with disgust, or vice versa. The combination is very wrong. I took a yarn with every neon color under the sun save purple, and what color do I decide to use for the strap...purple. Not even a neon purple, but a miraculous hue that is savory and tasteful. What streak of insanity could drive me to this extreme? I have my reasons (my main being the prevention of having said bag snatched) but it is not the appearance that I want to speak of here. I wish to talk about what this bag has captured within its  stitches. 

When we knit, it is not simply about fiber and needles, we are also keeping a journal of our creative phases. Some can pick up a brush and keep track of their souls on a canvas. Others choose pens and pages to record their words. I do possess some ability in these arenas, but I cannot do them consistently. I write my thoughts, but only when unique. I paint, but only after months of simmering and contemplation. I do not express myself in these realms until I consider what I have worthy of expressing. Knitting is different for me. It is a constant state of creativity where I create my own work using the foundations of someone else's idea. 

This bag particularly rings true since, although the pattern was generously gifted to me by a fellow raveler, the bag has become mine just by virtue of my hands creating it. The bag is mine because I cast it on DPNs rather than circular needles. The shape is unique because I had to decide the width of the base. The stitches are even because I knit most of the body while watching a rather ridiculous movie in Cape May with some of the best friends I have ever had. The strap is of my own invention, and it makes me giggle to think of the look on another of my dear friend's face when she said bluntly, "It is hideous, you know that right?" (she is such a gem!) 

The point I am trying to make is that the difference in every knitter's work is not in the tension, gauge, or overall technique. It is in how much of ourselves we are willing to poor into that particular entry of our fiber chronicles.