211 Grace Notes

211 Grace Notes

From Cast On by Brenda Dayne

April 9, 2026 · 21 min · Season 21 · Episode 211

About this episode

In this episode, Brenda Dayne reflects on memory and knitting, exploring the connections between cognitive science and the craft.

Ghost in the Orchard . Four inches from done. I’d stare at the cable chart and the tiny squares would dance. Close my eyes. Open them. Over and over. The hands that made those cables could not remember how cables worked. Endel Tulving ‘s encoding specificity principle . Godden and Baddeley’s divers learning words underwater. Jonathan Spence ‘s memory palace. And 60% of the total surface of our brains committed to our hands. My second sweater - bricky red, carnelian buttons, the physical therapist who inadvertently retired it - became the Gaia Jacket from Jean Moss’s Sculptured Knits . Which became the red cabled vest I’m knitting now. Thirty years of memory in the same wool. Serotonin stripped the filters. Melatonin locked the repair. Dopamine lit the paths. Norepinephrine broke the bridge. Memory is where it all comes home. Music: Rore, Arrival ; Waveshaper, Our Time (Instrumental) If you’d like to help support the podcast, you can do so via Ko-fi or Patreon , or by spreading the word to a fellow knitter. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit brendadayne.substack.com

People in this episode

Host: Brenda Dayne

Topics covered

  • memory
  • knitting
  • cognitive science
  • personal reflection
  • crafting

Keywords

  • memory
  • knitting
  • cognitive science
  • Endel Tulving
  • Gaia Jacket
  • Sculptured Knits
  • personal reflection

Mentioned in this episode

Products: red cabled vest

Books & works: Gaia Jacket, Sculptured Knits

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