be the change you want to see

This has been a long time in planning.

Many months were spent thinking, contemplating, wanting. More still were spent planning, choosing, researching. And, of course, after all the choices were made and the orders arrived, came the work. Winding, skeining, dyeing, drying, reskeining, labeling, packaging.

Fear, nervousness, excitement.

Selling.

This is the change I want to see.

This is the change I have needed to see.

Bellamoden is not just the name of my blog, and the name of my new little company, it is also an embodiment of what knitting and dyeing have come to mean for me: beautiful objects made by hand. My hands.

Bella, beautiful. Moden, of the hands.

The truest joys and deepest satisfactions in my life have been attained through creating with my hands. This has always been true for me.

Bellamoden has been a long journey for me.

You see, I broke my thumb and wrist in a fall eight years ago. Unremarkable, really, except for the fact that I developed de Quervain’s tenosynovitis. Over time and three operations, I lost most of the use of my right thumb and could no longer flex or swivel my right wrist.

I am not telling you this so you feel sorry for me. I am telling you this so you can understand what this venture means for me. For so long, all I could feel was the need, the unmet need to create with my hands.

It is hard to overstate the impact that this amazing substance, yarn, has had in my life.

Life affirming? Life enabling? Life enhancing?

All that and more.

With knitting, the motions are meditative and repetitive. Day in and day out, the compulsion is undeniable. Useful objects spring from my needles, and hardly a day goes by without the making and the wearing of handknits.

With dyeing, I paint, evoke colors, play with effects and create images that I see in my mind. There is nothing, to me, more sublime than handmade objects made with handdyed yarns.

More than that, I create things with my hands, exactly as they are. The problems are still there, my constant companions. But they matter less. They are not impediments. Because I found a dream that works with me just the way I am.

Yarn nourishes my soul every day.

And with bellamoden, I finally am the change I want to see.

Will you join me?