Katie Rempe: Today's topic is something that we have touched on briefly in
the past, but I thought
it was worth dedicating a whole episode to it. And that is the power of TINKing. I
see
the confusion on your face, Jim. It is the word knit backwards. That's right. We're talking about the
power of undoing stuff.
Light from Lantern presents Knit a Spell. I'm magical maker Katie Rempe. And I'm the maker of magic James Devine. Join us as we stitch together the symbiotic relationship between crafting and the craft.
James Divine: I would have never guessed that's what Tink was.
Katie Rempe: In the knitting community,
if you have to undo your work, what are you doing? You're unknitting.
James Divine: Sometimes I feel like I just want to rip it out and do it again. And you're the one that said, keep it. It's fine.
You need records
of your first time knitting.
Katie Rempe: Yeah. To see how far you've come! Ripping out is good, but also it's not always necessary and there's many ways to remove a thing and reasons to do it.
James Divine: I'm excited to flip the idea of undoing something. That sounds like a blast.
Why Undo?
---
Katie Rempe: I wanted to start with explaining some situations that knitters might find themselves wanting to undo their work.
James Divine: As a not very experienced knitter, I want to guess first, and then I want to learn the actual reasons.
So if I were to come in, I know why I want to undo my work,
Katie Rempe: Yeah.
James Divine: cause it's ugly and uneven and I'm not good at knitting. Rip it all out,
Katie Rempe: Yep.
James Divine: Start over.
Katie Rempe: That is one reason. Yes. It's ugly.
James Divine: I bought the wrong yarn and it's not working.
Katie Rempe: Oh, Yeah.
James Divine: I'm one stitch off, and I inadvertently fixed it, and it's 18 rows back, and I'm really mad about
it.
and so I want to rip it all out.
Is that a good reason?
Katie Rempe: Yeah, all of these
are good reasons.
James Divine: I thought you might say it's the karma of the sweater.
Katie Rempe: Sometimes the karma of the sweater is pulling it all back and restarting the
sweater.
James Divine: I know,
I listened to an episode that talked about the boyfriend sweater as I'm knitting a boyfriend sweater and I decide to rip it out because I don't want to break up.
Katie Rempe: Oh,
maybe you
decide you do want a
breakup, and that's why you rip it out. Yeah,
James Divine: what are good reasons
for a knitter to undo their work?
Katie Rempe: First of all, embracing the fact that we all do this even me, a knitter who has knit for many, many, many years. You learn more the more you screw stuff up and redo things. Don't feel bad at having to undo stuff.
So here are some reasons why you might find yourself wanting to undo the work.
Number one, and you mentioned this, is you made a quote, mistake, and do you want to go back and change it? Especially if this is something that's A lace pattern, or a repeating pattern. You might find that it's worth your while to go back
and fix that,
as opposed to just hoping that it works out later.
James Divine: Yeah.
Katie Rempe: Unless you don't care,
And then that's fine.
James Divine: I guess that makes sense.
Katie Rempe: Another reason that you might want to go back is because you want to redo something to try to do it better or better. Differently.
James Divine: Oh, is this if My tension is different and it's all wobbly and weird looking.
Katie Rempe: Yes.
Maybe you cast on too tightly and you're like, oh no,
Katie Rempe: this is
gonna be too tight at my sleeve cuff or sock cuff, do it again. No problem. Or if a bobble came out weird, like we were
talking about
in the bobble episode,
Sometimes
blocking doesn't fix that stuff.
It's better just to undo it and redo it a little bit better.
James Divine: Makes sense.
Katie Rempe: Another reason to undo something is because it doesn't fit well. However you wanted it to fit, it doesn't fit like that anymore.
maybe that's because
you bound it off and you didn't try
it on or do a gauge and it came out too small.
James Divine: I want to undo it because I threw it in the washing machine accidentally on hot and then I threw it in the dryer and it felted.
Katie Rempe: oh, there's no undoing that,
Unfortunately,
That's a repurpose opportunity at that point.
James Divine: I, I now
have
fabric.
Katie Rempe: Yeah,
exactly. Yes. Fabric that you can't
pull out because it is one.
I've had this happen. You change body sizes and then the things you made at one point don't fit the way you wanted to anymore.
That happens.
sometimes. It's retroactive.
James Divine: That scarf doesn't fit anymore
Katie Rempe: I hate
it. I know. my neck. is just too thin
James Divine: Too big.
Katie Rempe: Yeah,
Exactly. So you got a scarf that doesn't fit anymore. You mentioned this next one. It's ugly. Like sometimes stuff just turns out unappealing at the end. You're like,
James Divine: but it was so cute on Pinterest.
Katie Rempe: And sometimes you're like it was fun to make. That
James Divine: this
poopy
color?
Katie Rempe: is a good point. You pick a yarn and you're like, I love it in the skein, and then you knit it up into the thing and you're like,
James Divine: You
know what that
would be with me?
I would pick like the most delicious purple and then I'd be like, I look like Barney.
Katie Rempe: Yeah, or you do the big yellow cardigan and you look like a giant banana. If you're not doing that intentionally, it's a bummer and
you might
be finding yourself pulling it out.
The next reason is another that, all of these I have done.
James Divine: So this is from
experience.
Katie Rempe: from experience, yes. And that one is you never wear it. You made it, and it was great. But for some reason, you just never wear it. Pull it
out!
James Divine: What if you receive a gift
from someone and you never wear it? Can you pull that out, or is
that a different thing?
Katie Rempe: Depends on the person who gave it to you,
James Divine: If you see them often and they suddenly see a hat
in the same yarn that they made that scarf.
Katie Rempe: That would be so funny.
I
don't know, I think maybe like a knitter would kinda be like alright, I respect that, I don't know. You have to use your own judgment with that one.
James Divine: I would tell a lie. I would say I still have the scarf. I knit a hat to
match.
Katie Rempe: It doesn't fit around my neck
anymore, so I got this hat instead.
James Divine: Because
my head is way thinner than my neck.
Katie Rempe: So thin now! I
lost all this head weight and it just
all went right to my neck,
I hate when that happens.
James Divine: I like how you say my neck with
Katie Rempe: My neck.
Yeah.
James Divine: M apostrophe.
Katie Rempe: my neck.
James Divine: My neck.
Katie Rempe: Or this also you just mentioned, maybe you're undoing a premade item just for the yarn, like
you might
James Divine: I can do that with the sweater I get from Macy's.
Katie Rempe: or Goodwill. There's
a lot of
opportunities to get high quality fiber in sweaters. That maybe
are
ugly, but guess what? If you know how to rip it all apart, you can reap all that yarn. Just give it a soak so it relaxes all of like the stitches that's been worked in so long and then remake it into
something
James Divine: I love it. I love
reuse. That's awesome.
Katie Rempe: Yeah. And
it's
a nice low cost way of getting, again, like some pretty costly fabric,
So like cashmeres and silks and
things like that. Sometimes you can really find some good stuff.
James Divine: That's where my idea of washing the sweater comes from. I have a really good friend. She lives in Wisconsin and she finds cashmere sweaters at Goodwill. And then she washes them in a old fashioned washing
machine in order to felt
the fabric on purpose and shrink it.
And it becomes this amazing cashmere Felted fabric that she can then use to make stuffed animals for kids or patchwork sweaters or all kinds of cool stuff.
Katie Rempe: that is awesome. They're really nice to use in soap, over soap, too. And, yeah
James Divine: Oh,
yeah
That's cool.
Katie Rempe: soap
covers or whatever, yeah.
use
your imagination! It's endless possibilities out there!
So those are some reasons, and I'm sure not all reasons, that a knitter might choose to undo their work to varying degrees.
Unmaking in Magic
---
Katie Rempe: And now I'm curious, is there ever a situation circumstance in like the magical world where you might
purposefully make something to undo?
James Divine: We actually talked about this a little bit with brandy williams in our interview from episode I forget which number but we'll link it
Katie Rempe: The one that's up on your screen right now if you're watching us on YouTube.
James Divine: That's right.
Where she will. think about something that she wants to undo and will crochet a chain
and then
she'll yank the chain and it'll just come undone and it's a release or an undoing of something. And I think that is a super powerful way to create something to then undo it. And that is actually using fiber and, crocheting something.
It's very cool. Knitting doesn't quite undo like that. I guess you can rip
it out.
Katie Rempe: you could do like a cast on, in a similar fashion, but, and then pull it off the needles and pull it like that. That would be similar, but
James Divine: it's
Katie Rempe: about that crochet chain.
James Divine: A crochet chain is a really simple thing to do. And of course, you can do it with the color of your yarn matching your intention, you can the yarn with a little bit of a particular oil and
then undo it.
Undoing Spells
---
James Divine: What are undoing spells? They are Something that you would intentionally want to, release and a lot of times that can be for healing. Something that you want to break apart an addiction, or an obsession. Maybe you want to undo the binds of a relationship, maybe there's a toxic relationship with, an
in law or a relative or
a
friend or someone at work.
You can
do, things like that, in that realm.
So even if you are undoing a piece of work that you made, if you made the Traveler's Talisman, You were working on that, and then you realized, I need to rip this out, I need to tink this.
You might want to think about, how can I rip this out with the same intention I had in knitting it?
And what would that intention
be?
Perhaps it would be based on your, rationale. It's ugly. Okay. Is it ugly because of the color choice? Is it ugly because of the wobbliness of your, of the tension or something like that? So then you can think about, I want my travel to be beautiful. And
so I am not going
to stand for ugly travel. I'm not gonna be invisible by occurring ugly to people.
Katie Rempe: Yeah, I can't leave this mistake in
here that I noticed because then people will notice me and that's the whole
opposite point of this thing.
Yes. Oh.
James Divine: So there can be some intention with, I'm going to
undo the, intention that I knit in here. Or perhaps you were knitting a cap for someone who has cancer, but you realize, gosh, the whole time I was knitting this cap, I put my fear of their potential death. of their possible death.
So you realize that and you say, I need to net a cap for them. That is with the intention of love and Hope and
something else. So
that's a reason that you might want to intentionally redo something.
Those are the metaphysical reasons, not just the physical reasons on why you might want to rip something out.
In a magical sense, a lot of times
we do a spell or we do a ritual and it is creating something to take the place of something that was there before. So there's not often a deconstruction element to
doing
ritual or doing spells.
Oftentimes the spell just doesn't work if it's not aligned. Or, you just need to put something
else in its place. So it's more like the energy moves out and moves away from you and you put something new in its place.
There's not a lot of undoing, although you could undo stuff with some of the techniques that we talked about with the yarn, or you can have an effigy of something and you can burn it. You can write something on a piece of paper about your
new intention
and you can burn that.
Or you can burn a photograph or something like that. If you're intentionally trying to get away from a toxic, situation
with a person.
So these are things that can be considered maybe undoing. What do you think Katie?
Katie Rempe: Those are all great suggestions. When you were talking earlier, I thought, Oh, yeah, this is like a perfect time to do like a cord cutting, which isn't exactly undoing a working necessarily, although if you made a cord with a specific energy and then used the two candle method to burn it and destroy the cord in that way. But that's just one example.
James Divine: The other way that you could look at the crochet chain and pulling that out and straightening it is something that I think is really powerful. I would personally suggest it over cord cutting is cord healing.
So you can crochet a chain
thinking about, gosh, this relationship is very burdened.
There's
lots of
baggage. There's lots of complications. I'm walking on eggshells with them or they elicit an emotion in me and there's all this bad sort of blood between us as you're crocheting, that chain, then. You can take it and say, my intention is to heal this connection.
I'm always going to have the connection with that person because I have known them and all humans have some kind of connection with each other, but I want to neutralize it, make it a non issue and I just don't want to think about it. And the reason I'm thinking about it is because it's all complicated and wound up.
And
so you think about the clarity
you put in your mind, this is no longer an important or significant thing to me. And then you just go pop. What a powerful magical act.
Katie Rempe: That is a really great point, and in most cases, you are not probably going to be able to completely cut a person out of your life especially if that person was significantly in your life, or, an amount of time, reasons, energy exchange, that stuff is long lasting.
So I think you're right in that healing the line in the cords, the connections, is the better thing to do. Ah.
James Divine: talks about that. We interviewed Michelle Welch previously and her book, The Magic of Connection, talks about healing that cord. So I wanted to pull that book out.
Katie Rempe: We should definitely have her on again because as you might recall that was the episode that I was stuck in Florida during the hurricane
James Divine: I forgot.
Katie Rempe: it and I didn't get to ask my alien questions and I think about it all the time.
James Divine: All right, we can have her back.
Katie Rempe: Yay!
James Divine: I'm going to see her
tomorrow, because I'm
flying to New York City tomorrow
Katie Rempe: there you go. Tell her I'm thinking about her.
One more thing that I was thinking about and you just reminded me about it in terms of healing. This would also be a good exercise to do. a healing of cords. If you have a yarn that's all knotted up somewhere, like something happened to it, and you need to take the time to like hand wind it and undo the tangles you can undo any yarn pretty much if you have
the patience.
That is one thing that you
could do
Symbolically to be like, okay I'm literally undoing these
knots, this
jumble, this tied up bullshit, and then that gives you the time to really have a meditative time to think about it, straighten everything out, and maybe by the time you're done, you come to a new resolution about the thing.
James Divine: Yeah, I think about if I want to clean my home and, but I'm just overwhelmed,
maybe start with some yarn
because,
Undoing those
knots,
can have a sense of accomplishment and get you started. And then you might be in
the So
of undoing like a mess.
Katie Rempe: Yeah, use that motivation or that momentum.
James Divine: yeah. I love that we can make mundane activities into
magical.
activities if we think about what could be a good intention while I'm doing this? While we're cleaning our house, we can put an intention of, I'm
cleaning up my friendships
or I'm cleaning up my calendar. I'm can put that intention in when you're doing something that's easy for you to organize. You can put that intention into something that's challenging you to organize.
Katie Rempe: Awesome. Let's take a quick break. And when we come back, we'll talk even more about pulling out yarns and reasons that we might do it and how to use them magically, more intentionally.
We'll be right back.
Knit With Color Magic Workshop
---
Katie Rempe: Hey there fellow knitters! Are you ready to enchant your stitches with the power of color? Discover how in my online workshop, Knit with Color Magic. In Knit with Color Magic, you'll learn how to use color as an intention setting tool. This self paced workshop will teach you everything you need to know to get out of your color ruts and conjure bewitching combinations while adding intention.
You'll also learn how to build a strong and simple intention, how to translate intention into colors, and to develop and develop. A personal gir of color correspondences. With a simple shift in your mindset and some personal reflection, you can start knitting color magic into any project. And for a limited time, listeners of the show can save $20 off this workshop by using the code COLOR20 at checkout.
Find all the information in the description or visit light from lantern.com/knit with color magic to learn more. Merry make.
Intro To Palmistry Workshop
---
James Divine: Hey Katie, you took my intro to palmistry course. Sure did. Why would you recommend it or would you? I, well, first of all, absolutely. I would, maybe I'm biased, but I don't think so. It for me was very empowering. It shined some light on how I tend to be personally self critical and you were really able to help me break that habit.
By looking at patterns as not things that are wrong, but just things that you can work with. The minuses became pluses and I think that was something that really was very empowering. I'm really glad you said that. This is one of my major ideas, is palmistry and tarot and other things reveal patterns. not predictions.
And to be able to also look at your own hand and transform and reframe your perceived character defects or your self critical analysis and look at that as a tool that's super useful and can be very positive for you, I think that's an amazing thing to do. and having it apply to a practice that is traditionally fairly fatalistic.
Your approach of the divine hand method is so positive. I would recommend it to anyone who's interested in palmistry to any degree. Where can they go to find out more? You, listener, can learn the divine hand palmistry method at your own pace with my brand new palmistry course. Go to introtopalmistry. com to read more information about it and to sign up.
Knit A Spell Patreon
---
Katie Rempe: Hey Knit A Spell fans, we are back on Patreon with a new dedicated page. For just 5 a month, you'll gain access to behind the scenes posts, exclusive downloads and resources, and you'll be able to participate in influential polls with fellow fans. You'll also receive a free exclusive Knit A Spell sticker sent right to your door after being a subscriber for three consecutive months.
It's a great way to support the podcast and Jim and I are so appreciative to everyone who's joined so far. To learn more and patreon. If you'd like to sign up, visit patreon. com forward slash knit a spell. See you there.
Welcome back.
Ways to Un-Knit
---
Katie Rempe: I'm going to lay out a
descending order of knitting undoingness. That's the technical term. And then we can brainstorm on what some magical associations might be as to why we're using it.
James Divine: Oh, I love
this.
these
are the physical methods of actually undoing your work.
Katie Rempe: That's right. And this is specifically knitting. I'm sure there's some shared terms. If
you have
other terms that
you, we
didn't cover that you have suggestions for, you know what to do. Just leave us
a comment
at the end or at the video. And we'd love to hear from you.
TINK
---
Katie Rempe: let's begin with what is usually the smallest amount of removing work? And that is TINKing. So that is the knit backwards.
James Divine: Oh, I see. So thinking generally has the perception that you're going to keep working on the piece. You just
need to
think back to the mistake and then
knit.
Katie Rempe: Yes.
James Divine: say it? Is that how I would use that in a sentence?
Katie Rempe: Yep. You usually go
one stitch at a time that you're doing, and typically because it's a slow process to, quote, tink or unknit people will only do it over like
a short
span. Otherwise, they might use a different method.
James Divine: I guess I'm thinking in my head crochet, which is where you just pull the thread and it undoes itself. But when you actually have to undo stuff, do you have to use the needles?
Katie Rempe: Usually, it involves the needles.
Otherwise, it would be our next one, which is pulling back.
James Divine: Oh, I see. So tinking is going back with the needles
four stitches because
forgot to tink.
Do my color work or I forgot to switch Yep. This bobble over here that I just did I don't like the way that looks
Katie Rempe: now that I'm going
away from it, and I gotta go back
and do it.
Or, I forgot to
Slip
a stitch or, you might go a few rows back even, depending on the size of the project, but typically this isn't something that you would do to remove half of the work unless it's a pretty small piece.
James Divine: Okay. This is good to know. So magically, this seems or feels more like a very careful. self evaluation or evaluation.
I can think about time magic, like we actually go back, and redefine something that's happened in the past or, sending energy to someone since the metaphysical energy isn't bound by time or space.
You can actually send positive energy to someone even after an event has happened
can help influence.
and change
the past. It's a very deep topic. We could do
a whole
Katie Rempe: Oh,
I love
that
kind of stuff. Just like a immediate reflection tool kind of a thing. What just happened? Let's look at it again. Let's look at this thing again. Examine. Re
examine. I like it.
Pulling Back
---
Katie Rempe: All right, then next we have pulling back and typically, and fight me knitters about this.
If
you're pulling back, usually this is, you're removing the needles from the project and you're just Pulling the yarn and it's coming in the circle or, back and forth, however you made it, and you don't have the needles in there, and then you would thread the needles back in to begin working.
Once you've reached the point that you're satisfied pulling back.
James Divine: You
can put the needles back in if
you rip it out, like
to the exact edge.
Katie Rempe: Or in the middle, there's all the loops, and so you just put them back on the loops. Some of them might've slipped down a little bit, but you can fix that usually.
James Divine: Wow, that's so cool.
Katie Rempe: it's a lot faster than tinking. However, it does have an element of danger to it that less experienced knitters may avoid this.
because it puts all the stitches out there to just do their thing. So sometimes a knitter might choose to tank because it's more secure. All the stitches are always on there as opposed to pulling back where little more free flowing.
James Divine: So you can go further than you want.
Katie Rempe: They can end up going back like beyond the rows that you're actually pulling, especially if it's a slipperier.
Fiber.
I would say it's more for you want to go back.
James Divine: I really hate the color of the stripe that I put into this sweater. Now that I have this much of it, it doesn't really work. So I would
pull that back
to the previous color.
Katie Rempe: Right. Yep, or maybe you've done a whole section of lace, and you're like, oh no,
I wondered why this wasn't looking right. And now
I realize it's because I read the symbol wrong, and I've been doing
it backwards or I forgot to do it all this whole time or
I didn't realize there was a knit three in between here, and so you're like, oh no, okay, no, just pull it all back, pull it all back.
James Divine: got it.
Katie Rempe: So that would be a case where you don't entirely remove it, But you do have a larger piece that you're like in a hurry to remove and that can also be very reflection based, I guess
all of these are probably reflection based.
James Divine: I think
you're pulling out a whole section. So the magical sort of correlation with that might be, looking at not just particular things, but like this whole week or this whole section or this whole issue or this entire thing, I'm going to
redo.
And you can put some energy into that. I'm going to redo the way that my
about page on my website is or I'm going to
redo a whole section of
something in my life or something that's important to me. And I just want to put, different energy into that. And when you're re knitting it, you could say,
all right, I've cleared the space. Now I'm going to put my new intention into the space.
Katie Rempe: Oh, yeah. It could be as easy as this is the first time you're doing a cable, or lace, or a technique, and you do that section and you're like, Oh, okay, now I learned. It didn't look great. I I would like to redo it now that I have this information, and so you undo it with the intention to do it with your new advanced skill.
So
it's not really undoing at all.
James Divine: honoring the pullback
honoring tink, is really important because it was, a mistake and we can totally be mad at ourselves for that. It's also not hard to then translate that into learning
We won't make that mistake as easily if we acknowledge the learning that's there and have a little humility and say,
instead of I knew better,
we can say, Oh, yeah,
that's right. I made this mistake
I need to remember that. And this is something for me to learn and, do differently next time.
Katie Rempe: That's great life advice.
That's how you
maintain your mental garden, right? You
just learn to figure out
what the weeds are sooner.
James Divine: Yeah.
Katie Rempe: And maybe they're not weeds at all. You just learn to work with them.
James Divine: If you wait till they flower, you might find out.
Katie Rempe: There you go.
Frogging (Rip It!)
---
James Divine: So we were thinking and then pulling back, what is this frogging? I
think of the video game
when I was a kid, Frogger.
Katie Rempe: Yes . It's not much like that.
This is when you decide you're ready to completely undo your project, you have no intention to restart. You are frogging your project. And why is it called frogging, Jim?
James Divine: Yeah. Why?
Katie Rempe: you rip it, rip it, rip it out. knitters, you're
clever,
Aren't we
James Divine: you guys are a trip.
Katie Rempe: So that's why it is called frogging. If you're totally ripping it out, that's a frog.
James Divine: So if I were to say, Hey Katie, what happened to that pink and orange and yellow blanket you were making last week?
Katie Rempe: That project, it's dead to me
now. , because I frogged it all out. The yarn wasn't a good match. I hated
how the color was.
I frogged it. I'm going to use that yarn for something else.
James Divine: I never really know how people use the word
Katie Rempe: I had this work in progress in a bag for six years. I just looked at it. Oh my God, I don't have this taste level anymore.
I'm frogging it. I'm going to use that yarn for something else.
James Divine: Got it.
So no intention to restart that. So this reminds me
of what we were talking about
before the break of really using a a chain of
Crochet to
be done with something. You're still going to keep the yarn, but you're going to completely redo something.
This might
be associated with
the intention of radical transformation with just completely starting something new. What I love about knitting is that you can't really, you start something new with the yarn without ripping it out first. And sometimes in magic we have a tendency not to clear our space or to make an evaluation of what's not working, what am I actually undoing.
Instead we just want the escapist idea of Moving to the next thing. In this case we can learn from knitting and from fiber arts if you want to reuse that yarn or reuse Those particular needles that are currently involved in it
You have to take some time to undo what's there.
That's huge. That's a amazing lesson that knitting can give to people who want to practice, magic or metaphysical work
Katie Rempe: Yes. And it's very forgiving. one of the best things about knitting and crocheting with yarn is that you can undo it pretty easily in most cases for whatever reason that you might want.
James Divine: And experience the freedom that you
have. And the renewed inspiration.
This pink and yellow and orange piece is no longer inspiring me, but that pink is perfect with
these other colors
for
this other thing
that I have in mind. And so you can have that sense of freedom. And this is the same in magic.
The relationship that I have with my You know, colleague at work is not working. I want to undo all of the things that, I have made up about them or thought about them, and now I'm going to approach it in a whole new
way. That would be a great magical
intent to go along with
that.
Katie Rempe: That
is such a good idea. Yes, you just vent it all into this piece. All this stuff I hate about this person, annoying, whatever. And then you just remove it all. Release. Okay, it's fine. Whatever. You be you. I'll be me. Okay, we're done. And then you knit it back with, like,
how
you want to appear in this situation, and thereby just letting that person do what they want, and you're not responsible for it,
James Divine: Yep.
Katie Rempe: relaxed like the stitches will be once you've re knitted and blocked it.
James Divine: When you frog something, does the yarn retain the squiggle and the shape that they were in.
Katie Rempe: Usually depends on the fiber, different fibers will hold it more than others. And anything that's been knit for a longer period of time will usually have it. The longer it stays in that shape, the longer it will want to stay like that .
James Divine: So I think about that connection with, the metaphysical and the psychological stuff. It doesn't matter if I have a good or bad or neutral relationship with someone, it's going to want to tend to stay that way based on how long I've been in that dynamic
with them.
So there's some really good sort of one to one metaphorical. imagery or experience with, frogging something, seeing how the yarn still wants to go back into those pattern shapes and
maybe rewinding,
rebinding.
Katie Rempe: Yeah. Block it all evenly again. Just cleanse it. Yeah. Great
idea.
James Divine: even rolling it on a skein again or balling it.
Katie Rempe: Totally.
James Divine: so as you do that, you
could also be thinking about, The transformation that you want and the pattern. I have a pattern of eating sweets at 3 p.
m. and I'm going to change that. And my intention is going to go with, as I'm frogging
this and as I'm wetting, moistening the yarn and balling
it up. It's
a way to get mold,
Katie Rempe: Wait for it to dry first,
James Divine: figuring out how to take
those stitches out of the yarn would be a great
thing to do.
Katie Rempe: All right, we have a couple of more.
Get Rid Of It!
---
Katie Rempe: The next one I wanted to talk about isn't so much an undoing of knitting, but it is.
James Divine: so is this under beyond the tink?
Katie Rempe: yeah, beyond the tink.
It is
removing the knitting, it's removing the entire thing. Let's say instead of undoing the thing, like there's nothing wrong with it.
You just
don't want it anymore. You could donate it, you could gift it, you could otherwise give it away, as a work in progress. It doesn't even have to be done. Sometimes other knitters like, puzzling pieces together of something that you haven't finished, but they might like to finish.
There's lots of opportunities. If you just don't want it in your life anymore, and you don't want the yarn, just get it out of there. Remove.
James Divine: To me, the metaphysical association with that is very
similar. What do you want to get rid of in your life? What do you want to purge? What do you want to simplify? A lot of times I think that we have a lot of mental or emotional or spiritual baggage that we can be free of. When we give energetic things or when we do energy work and we put the energy into the earth, it is not polluting the earth because The earth transforms it and neutralizes it.
So we
don't have
to think about littering or polluting the earth with our energy
because our
energy is just our energy. That's something that could be really cool is I want to donate or give this energy of my migraine or the energy of something that isn't working. And I'm going to channel that and ground that down into the earth. As it's not negative to the earth. It's only negative to me.
Katie Rempe: And you could see
removing the item
as a positive, too, like removal doesn't always mean like you had horrible ties
to this
thing and now it's gotta go. It could be like, okay, it's done the work it
needs to
do for me, it's offered me comfort and warmth and
whatever, and
now it's time to remove it because I'm done with it for whatever reason.
And it's going to help someone else.
James Divine: Yeah, this brown, orange and white Afghan that was crocheted by,
some person I don't even know, that
can go to goodwill.
Destroy!
---
Katie Rempe: The final reason or way that I want to talk about undoing knitting is intentionally destroying something.
So we talked about this before, making it with the intention of destroying it. It's probably it's most obvious in terms of doing magic that is a release but it can also be like really empowering in terms of if you
feel like you
have no power over something, this is your way of putting all of it into a thing and then having the transformational power over it.
James Divine: Yeah. This is the equivalent of going to a rage room and smashing, Vases and mugs in order to get out your aggression.
And yeah. I think
about intentionally destroying as can be super healthy as a way to process strong emotions.
Though depends how you do it if you're actually ripping it.
But this is the intentionally destroying and without the intention to
reuse any
of the materials.
I can imagine that people might think that even the materials have been sullied by, whatever happened. So I don't even want anyone else to use this yarn again.
That's pretty intense, but that can be super powerful.
It can be the needed release the needed destruction of something.
That you can make
a clearing for the reconstruction to return.
Katie Rempe: Absolutely. Sometimes you just gotta get it out. It's writing a letter, to a person and then never sending it. It's just the release. Because We all need ways to get out reactionary behaviors and
you don't want to take that stuff out on other people, and as knitters, we have this whole practice as a way to put energy into something productively. That we choose what to do with it after that, whether it's keep it, reuse it, or buy
it. burn
it to the ground.
James Divine: Yes.
that's
Katie Rempe: Our choice.
James Divine: This has been super cool.
I'm really glad to learn the term tink and frog because you rip it
out.
Share Your Thoughts!
---
Did we turn undoing things on its ear for you? Oh, listener. Do you have ideas around what metaphysical intent is or that can be associated Thinking
Katie Rempe: We want to know. Leave us a comment here on YouTube or send us an email at [email protected] or even better, join us on Patreon. It's just five bucks a month. Great way to support us and we love chatting with y'all over there.
Coming Next Epiosde
---
James Divine: I'm excited for next week we are going to be talking about lace stitches with spells
I
I have so much to learn about lace and how it's made and all that. So I'm
excited.
Katie Rempe: It's a hole other story.
Yeah, That'll make
sense next week.
James Divine: You are so funny. I can't wait.
Katie Rempe: Thanks for tuning in,
and We'll
see you all next week. Bye.
James Divine: Bye all.
Outtro 2022: Thanks for listening. Thanks for listening. If you enjoyed the show, consider sharing it with a friend, leaving a review on iTunes and Spotify or following Knit A Spell on Instagram.
You can also subscribe to the Light From Lantern YouTube channel to enjoy full episodes of Knit A Sepll and see our happy faces.
You can also learn more about readings, classes, and events going on with your favorite Maker of Magic James Divine by visiting thedivinehand.com and subscribing to his newsletter. Then follow Jim's fun and interactive Instagram account @DivineHandJim.
Keep up with Katie the Magical Maker by subscribing to her newsletter at lightfromlantern.com.
You'll receive a free knitting pattern as a thank you gift, then follow Katie on Instagram @LightFromLantern for even more magical making tips.
See you next week. Next week.
