Episode 2: Gabrielle De La Puente
By Hand Podcast
In this episode of By Hand, Gabrielle De La Puente discusses how the onset of Long COVID and POTS fundamentally reshaped her relationship wi
Key takeaways
- Gabrielle De La Puente uses knitting to find a sense of 'progression' while bedridden with Long COVID/POTS.
- The book 'Poor Artists' explores the intersection of financial struggle and the desire to create art.
Main topics
- Disability and Craft
- The Politics of Chronic Illness
Notable quotes
Any art making is like a very desirous act.
Conclusion
A moving exploration of how physical limitations can drive creative in
Transcript preview
Speaker 2 (0:00) oh okay I can see I can see not only what I want to do vaguely in my head but I can see like all these different possibilities all these different futures that felt so good that felt so good Speaker 3 (0:26) Hi, I'm Lydia Morrow, your host. I'm an artist, writer and knitwear designer. I'm Rose Daigle, audio producer, musician Speaker 1 (0:34) and knitwear maker. This show Speaker 3 (0:37) is an extension of the conversations that we have as a part of our shared practices. We talk to guests who we think can broaden those discussions and take us and hopefully you to new places. Speaker 1 (0:47) Not all episodes contain swear words or explicit themes, but a lot of them do. And to be honest. Isn't that more exciting? Just in case you've got kids around. Speaker 3 (1:01) We recorded this episode in March 2026 with Gabrielle de la Puente. We talk about the surrealism of disability, writing as a desirous act, and academic gatekeeping. It ended up being way too long because we got carried away. This is roughly the second half of what we recorded because it's got the most juice in it. Sorry if it has references to earlier conversations you haven't heard yet. I don't know if you can tell, but we are very new to making a podcast. Maybe in the future we'll release the earlier bits as a bonus episode. Who knows? Okay, let's dive in. Hands first. Speaker 3 (1:41) Hello, and welcome to By Hand, a show where we talk about the things the mind wanders to while the hands are busy. In each episode, I speak with a guest whose work pulls on threads that inspire us. Crafters, artists, writers, growers, showers, and everything in between. And this week, we're going to be talking to Gabrielle De La Puente. Gabrielle is a critic, a writer. She's one half of the White Pube, which you may have heard of. feel like I can't remember a time in my adult life that I haven't actually known about Gabrielle's work, which is quite Speaker 2 (2:14) wild. Speaker 3 (2:15) I'm really excited to have her here today. Hello, Gabrielle. Speaker 2 (2:18) Hello. Thank you for having me. It's such a nice idea for a podcast. Oh, thank you. Speaker 3 (2:24) For every episode, we have the idea that our guests will always be bringing something to do with their hands. And I'm so curious to hear about what you've brought. Speaker 2 (2:34) I am On my fourth groove warmer by Mini Groove Studios. It's like a fingerless mitten with long vertical stripes. Speaker 3 (2:46) Nice. Speaker 2 (2:48) Using like Aran weight wool. And basically like I watch this knitwear designer on YouTube all the time. Like I'm a big, big YouTube person. But I never wanted to download the pattern because I've never... I've never done much with multiple colors. So Speaker 3 (3:06) eventually Speaker 2 (3:08) I was just so overwhelmed by it. the style of it um that was like I've just got to get over this mental block it can't be that difficult and now I actually like can't stop making them are Speaker 3 (3:24) you like uh can you knit and talk at the same time or are you gonna like well we're about to find out okay Speaker 2 (3:29) so this isn't something you do very often no to be honest like I will listen to audiobooks that's so I like I'm happy to have input but I don't know if I can give output much um I'm not a big multitasker in that way and and I have this like uh craving to join like a knit and natter type group because we're all alone in our houses and we should be in person with other people and I need it and I feel it but I just think if I went I would be absolutely silent and everyone would be like, who was she? I mean, are you making something right now underneath the camera? Speaker 3 (4:14) Yes, I am. Oh yeah, Speaker 2 (4:16) oh my god. See, yours looks well more complicated than mine. Speaker 3 (4:19) Well, actually, I feel like it's all just stuck in it. So I feel hopeful that I will be able to continue. It's when I have to like, I guess color work or like counting. when it makes me actually share my attention, but it's so mindless to me that I'm just like, I guess like a lot of what we're interested in is like the mind wandering and how a lot of that can happen in craft or in the ways that people are creative. So it's cool to have like at the top of the show, just this little bit of like, how does that work for you? Speaker 3 (4:56) I did want to talk to you a bit more specifically about your experience of becoming disabled. That's like, I guess it's not actually that recent of a development for you anymore, but I feel like when you become disabled as an adult, it feels so fresh often. Speaker 2 (5:14) My more veteran sick friends still call me a baby sick. Speaker 2 (5:26) But it's nice to talk about it here because for me, it's so tied to knitting. Well, okay. So that's kind of what I had thought. Speaker 3 (5:38) And I wasn't sure, but I was like, I don't remember Gabrielle being a super textile-y person before becoming disabled. And it seems like they came together. Speaker 2 (5:50) And yeah, I'd love to hear about that. So my mom is a textile-y. type person. She always sewed clothes, she always knitted, she used to like, so like school would finish at quarter past three, half three. and she would like put me and my sister in the car and then like bomb it into town so that we could go to this giant fabric shop called El Kilos or Abakan Fabrics and it was huge it was like two floors of big fabric rolls but also I would just like stand and look at the bit where all the buttons are you know when there's like tubes oh my gosh on the end I would like Or the bit where the tassels are, like for the ends of curtains. I would just like be there. That's where I would play. And me and Speaker 3 (6:37) my Speaker 2 (6:37) sister would like climb into the fabric shelves. And I don't know, she was trying to get there before it closed because it closed at four. So I don't know what she was doing. I just liked it. I just loved it when she said we had to go. But I would never ask for anything or want to do anything. And maybe there was like one or two times where I said, can you teach me how to knit? Because she'd be watching the telly knitting. and then I would forget and then I would ask again a few years later and then I would forget again. I just could do that very simple thing of like knitting one row and then this by the third row there were like a completely different number of stitches and I was like yeah this is I don't know I don't know what's going on I'm gonna go back to Pokemon I'll see you later. So then years pass. And then I get sick. And I get sick with COVID and it becomes long COVID. And I don't know at the time that I've got POTS. I just know in my body that every time I stand up, I feel like I'm dying. So I just, I'm like lying flat as much as possible. Zarina takes up like a lot more of our workload. Speaker 1 (7:48) and Speaker 2 (7:49) at the time I had like a second job and I had to stop doing that job so I was like I was just in the house doing nothing basically for about about 18 months um and about halfway through that I'd seen on Instagram lurker baggers work the oh yeah and I was like what is this this is like it was I genuinely was so depressed And everything that she made was like, so the opposite of depression, like the, the palette and the like scrappiness of it. And it just changed. And then sometimes you would in, in posts, you'd be able to see like into her studio and there would be like, yeah, it looked like the fabric shop. It looked like, yes. When she, and she Speaker 3 (8:37) visits, like she'll visit like a sequin store or something and post all about it. But then Speaker 2 (8:42) she like brings it all back Speaker 3 (8:43) into Speaker 2 (8:43) her, into Speaker 3 (8:44) her studio at Speaker 2 (8:45) home. And it, it just looked like the fabric shop and i was like obsessed i was like who what what and i just um There was a point after about 12 months in the house where I'd gotten medication for pots. So I was starting to take beta blockers and I was starting to do these like little walks up the road. And there's a shop, maybe like a 10 minute walk away from me, full of junk. It's just full of random shit, like plant pots and Tupperware. Like it's, none of it makes sense. But at the back of the shop, there was a little wall of acrylic yarn. and big giant plastic needles and mini sewing kits and I remember just being like okay I'm gonna buy I think I bought a set of size six millimeter giant giant plastic needles and I got I got like five balls of what was giant balls of what like too big I didn't know what it was I Speaker 3 (9:42) didn't know how it would translate is it those ones that look like a baby almost huge exactly giant you can like cradle them Speaker 2 (9:51) huge I just bought because it was it was so cheap it was like a pound yeah each it was like ridiculous prices now looking back um and I left I put it in the house and maybe it took like another three or four months before I was like back in bed and I couldn't do anything and just okay I'm gonna watch a YouTube video I'm gonna I'm gonna do this I'm gonna do this and I watched whatever the first video is when you type into YouTube how to net Speaker 2 (10:21) It's probably like very Speaker 3 (10:22) pink or something. Speaker 1 (10:23) It Speaker 2 (10:24) was some guy. It was some guy. And it was, I figured out how to do a few rows. And then it was just genuinely so nice to have a project. You know, we were talking before about like when you don't have lots of things on the go or lots of different activities to switch between. It feels like time stops. I felt like time had stopped. I felt like my life had ended. Nothing was progressing. every it was the opposite of progression um I had no energy I had no ability to think I didn't see anyone I didn't I didn't go anywhere um and I just didn't feel like there was a future so then actually like just knitting a few rows and seeing something grow was progression and that was so emotional and so like it was like easy sort of I know knitting cannot isn't easy for everyone but it felt easy yeah um so I was like okay what can I make and then I found this like other YouTube video where you just knit a square and then you can like make it into a rabbit that you just and I didn't have any yeah like a little it just folds in a certain way oh and I didn't have any stuffing to make the rabbit like look like a rabbit um But my boyfriend also has a crafty parent. His mom is crafty. So he's inherited some of this. And he went downstairs, put his hand inside the cushion, ragged out some stuff in, came upstairs and handed me a bit of floss. He was like, here you go. Speaker 3 (11:57) Just Speaker 2 (11:58) put it in. And even that was like, oh, I needed that. This little silly rabbit. I needed it so bad. And then that