Process or Product?

Do you read Kristin Nicholas' blog? I always enjoy it. My life and hers are quite different and I love looking in to see how things are on the farm. She posts lovely pictures, too.

She also loves color; can't get enough. I tend to be less colorful. So it's fun to see what she's designing, making, or painting because it is always bursting with color.

Her post yesterday which I only just read, has a wonderful link to this article on knitting in public and the reactions the knitter/writer receives. Kristin ends the post by asking her reader if they are a process or product knitter.

Well I've pondered over that one many times and I'm still not sure. Mostly I think I knit for the process; the necessity almost, of having something for my hands and mind. At the same time I pretty much need a product at the end in order to be completely satisfied. [satisfied with the journey, not necessarily the outcome!]

Now tatting is a different story altogether. I'm definitely a process tatter. I mostly never care if the piece being worked winds up used or not. In fact, I have quite a store of finished lengths or items and a number of scraps. Somewhere around here is a half-finished baby bonnet. Now a tatted baby bonnet is a frivolous* thing providing no warmth or shield from sun or wind. I also can't say that I've ever seen a baby wearing one. So why did I start it? The PROCESS, of course. It was simply too compelling to resist. Besides the pattern was in "Piecework". They've got my number!


*frivolitete' is French for lace and frivoliteter is Scandinavian for tatting [at least according to authors Gun Blomqvist and Elwy Persson] and that partial bonnet? Can't even FIND it! It is not in the small zippered bag in which I last remember seeing it.