Knitted Bowl

Elation!

Yesterday I found
a pattern for a knitted bowl.

I had given this idea
some thought but had
discarded it as one of my
more eccentric ideas.

Once upon a longtime ago...
the 1980's probably...
Jim and I saw burl bowls
at the Rhinebeck Craft Fair.
It was love at first sight for me
but they carried a hefty price tag.

Jim guffawed, "I could make those!"
And he did.

"Burl: A large rounded outgrowth on a tree."
(American Heritage Dictionary definition.)
(Essentially a cancerous growth.)

Jim made three bowls.
He peeled away the outer bark.
Gouged out the center rings by hand...
deep craggy inner bowls resulted.
He sand papered each wall with care.
Linseed oiled all the surfaces.

I have two bowls.
Jenn has the third.
Jenn chose the bowl from
among my mother's possessions
when Mom died.

I used the bowl as a writing topic once.

BURL BOWL

The burl bowl sits on the kitchen countertop. Its irregular shape, and hollowed space--gouged out of an aberrant tree growth--accepts apples, Christmas balls, mail, or sunlight filtering through the window.

Other times the bowl remains empty. Transformed into a legendary "begging bowl." Myth holds that monks take their empty bowl into the world each day to be filled or not as fate wills.

Emptiness engenders simplicity, wisdom, gratefulness; the bowl becomes a blessing.

And now I can knit a bowl.

The process is quite simple.
Cast on five stitches and join them.
Increase on the even rows
Knit all stitches on the odd rows.
It works on the same principle as knitting
the thumb of a mitten.

Kathryn Vaughn the designer
of the pattern then felts her bowl.

Of course,
I will have to learn
to felt yarn.

My experience with felting
has been by default...
a knitted garment
dumped into hot water
by mistake or
a sweater allowed
to agitate
for too long.

Anyway!
Today my emptiness
has been filled by a
gracious knitter willing
to share her insights
with an unknown kindred spirit.