One day last week I reached into my knitting bag to find that all the stitches on one needle had fallen off. I was having problems picking up the stitches so I decided to pull out a few rows. Sometimes it's easier to pick up stitches this way.
I hadn't picked up the stitches by the next morning and wanted to take my knitting with me. So I broke the yarn and started the second sock. The nice thing about this is that the two socks will share more colors this way.
Adding a bit of red to the shawl in progress.
I was worried that I'd missed seeing the bank of magnolias bloom at one of our local parks but I was right on time.
Playing with photoshop again:
The current reading list:
A library card is a wonderful thing...I check out books I wouldn't necessarily buy. It's possible to do things like check out the book version and the movie. I've already watched Handmade Nation, but have just taken a peak at the book. I'm not sure the movie said anything new to me, but it was interesting (warning if you watch the trailer all the images may not appeal).
Almost every movie needs popcorn, even a documentary:
This is a spicy version: cinnamon, nutmeg and chipolte powder.
The latest pair of socks I've made...mostly while riding the bus.
They make me think of the song "I Can See Clearly Now." One of my favorite versions is by Holly Cole, but I really like this one by Bobby McFerrin that I just found too.
The next socks will be bright:
I think Kaite and I have the same yarn...
it's quiet in the neighborhood.
I took my spinning/knitting projects out to the front porch. A cool evening, but too nice to be inside.
Deliberately, I am letting the end of the roving catch in the already spun yarn.
The roving I am using for a shawl has patches of color that matches the fungi growing on the stairs.
And also the snail that is crawling by my foot.
He's probably heading for the primroses.
Mostly I buy my dairy products in glass bottles, but once in awhile some plastic will come home. Last week I decided to cut a container into square tags and then write the names of the tomatoes being grown on the plastic with a sharpie. I'll either use a hole punch or a hammer and a nail to poke holes in the tags and then hang the tags on the appropriate stakes when they move outside.
And then a close up of the shawl I'm now working on:
I've decided to use some other colors for stripes but the green blend will be the "primary" color.
I decided to dip the sleeves of my sample shirt into the indigo vat. I like it...might dip them in one more time.
And of course just a touch of blue for the sky scarf...
It's a very powdery soft blue. We've had a small handful of blue dawns over the last couple weeks.
Out of the hat came the name Suzanna.
Congratulations!
The yarn that I made this cowl with was made by Manos del Uruguay, bought at one of the locally owned yarn stores where I live. While I am trying to buy local wool as much as possible now, this feels like a good exception.
I always come back to connections. How do things connect in a sustainable way? Sustainable for me to maintain, for the environment...to sustain who I want to be.
I stitched my fish down. The fabric for this project was reclaimed from two shirts that had seen better days. The fish is made with fabric dyed with leaves from the garden, onion skins, and pomegranate.
I want to make more fish to be used on the other side of my Following Sea blanket...
My thought is to leave this side pretty much as it is now. I am going to stitch a few jellyfish on the top, moon jellyfish. I'm pretty sure these are the jellyfish I remember from my childhood.
The other side, that's where most of the creatures of the sea will be, under the water. A community...
"Each of us harbors a homeland, a landscape we naturally comprehend. By understanding the dependability of place, we can anchor ourselves as trees." Terry Tempest Williams
"Having once put his hand into the ground, seeding there what he hopes will outlast him, a man has made a marriage with his place, and if he leaves it his flesh will ache to go back." Wendell Berry
It always seems that the words I need at any particular time tumble into my life. I just started reading An Unspoken Hunger by Terry Tempest Williams. The sentence above are words that make so much sense to me. Words that I want to linger in my mind.
I've carried images and pieces of Wendell Berry's poems in my mind for a very long time, the first book of his poetry a gift from one of my favorite teachers in high school.
Being able to grow, the capacity to change, is an important part of creativity for me... but growth isn't always a good thing.
Today I planted indigo seed, madder, safflower, calendula, cabbage, broccoli, swiss chard, and onion seeds.
As one grows larger, the other grows smaller...transformation.
So much to learn...
When will we have our last snow this year? Was it today? Last year it was the first week of April.
How long will the indigo vat last at 60 degrees Fahrenheit? This is day three.
How fast can I make a local, sustainable, organic dinner for the Dark Days Challenge? 20 minutes
This is hash browns, scrambled eggs, pear and sorrel from the garden.
Curiosity can drive creativity...
I'm dyeing roving in the indigo vat for the sky scarf. Tomorrow I'll plant indigo seed. Maybe this fall I'll have local organic indigo to dye with?
Some things are just a bit behind schedule. Finishing up a pair of fingerless mitts that I'm making for my dad. Should have finished them 2 months ago.
(A bobby pin makes a very handy stitch holder for 10 to 12 stitches.)
I've lost track of how many socks, hats, mittens, scarves, sleeves of sweaters I've knit on the bus. But I do know I've traveled at least 11,242 miles by bus over the last 5 1/2 years. If my math is right, another 241,469 miles and I could have traveled to the moon...
I've recently found a quote I really love (at The Drawing Board):
"But unless we are creators we are not fully alive. What do I mean by creators? Not only artists, whose acts of creation are the obvious ones of working with paint or clay or words. Creativity is a way of living life, no matter our vocation or how we earn our living." Madeline L'Engle
Noticing: Pulmonaria in the garden. The Forsythia started to bloom today too.
And doing:
Mending a hole in my buckwheat pillow.
And:
Knit, fulled, and dropped into the cabbage dye bath. The shiny yarn is a banana fiber. The dye didn't take in the wool well so I tossed it back in. I rinsed the fabric sooner than I usually do.
One of my great-grandmother's lace doily's. It has some stains/rust spots. One of the interesting things about this piece is that the center medallion is crocheted in a heavier thread then the outside ring of flowers. I tossed it into an onion skin dye bath.
I have an idea.
I've been reminded that sewing with knits and altering patterns can be a bit scary...
I have made a lot of pj's with my experiments. Some don't even make it to that stage. Those end up as rags.
My latest experiment will have to be used as a rag...good thing I used scraps from the t-shirt. And that's actually part of the process, testing the pattern. Especially if the body type is not considered "average."
On Saturday I decided to try the tank top pattern from Alabama Studio Style. I didn't have high hopes that it would fit, but I wanted to see how close I'd be to the sizing.
The results?
*A good case of the giggles.
*Knowledge. I know that it fits, sort of (surprise!). But I would need a lot more ease to feel comfortable. That's pretty easy to fix with this pattern as it has princess seams. The length was way off. But again, the princess seam will make that easy to fix too.
This was much more successful. If any part of a t shirt is going to be difficult for me, it's the neckline. I decided to try the binding method described in Alabama Studio Style and did some hand stitching. The first time round with the binding looked nice but didn't lay right. I decided to fold it over one more time and stitch it down again. It worked!
For anyone thinking about trying a project with knits; the most important thing I think is to start with a new needle designed for knits (if using a sewing machine) and to go slow.
And then there is the hat:
Hello everyone!
What to do when you've left your favorite warm hat at work and it's suppose to be really cold in the morning?
Put aside the sewing and grab a skein of yarn from the stash and start knitting. Use big needles.
It's too dark to get a really good picture of the finished hat tonight, but I'll have a warm head tomorrow.
Good thing too.
The snow started at about 1 PM. Big feathery flakes.
And then the sun came out. And most of the snow melted away.
But the wind is from the NE and the low tonight is 20F. A hat will be nice tomorrow morning.
Some days I like to walk home in the rain and the wind.
Today I could have made a better choice about footwear though.
It made me wish I still had some of the tomato soup I had for dinner last night.
This is my dark days meal for the week. I made it with tomatoes from the freezer, an onion, herbs, and just a tiny bit of olive oil and salt. The olive oil and salt were not local. All ingredients were roasted in the oven for about an hour. And then I tossed everything into the blender.
Since the oven was on, I decided to bake the last of the potatoes from the farmer's market. I'll still be able to get local potatoes from the co-op, something that makes me very happy.
And then a small project that also brings comfort:
I made this scarf a year or two ago with a skein of locally spun/dyed yarn. I love this yarn, but it slides of my neck very easily. Rather annoying. So tonight I spun just a bit of yarn and crocheted the two edges together to make it into a cowl. Much better.
Last Friday I walked home along the boardwalk...
This Friday I played a little bit...
It's been a very long week... but it's Friday again. And Monday will be a new week.
Jude's post today (Spirit Cloth) reminded me of something I hadn't posted yet. A little sample I worked on the last month of December. My parents found some local cashmere wool for me. It's a bit hard for me to spin by itself, but mixes in beautifully with some other wool that I have. A bit of the cashmere can be seen in the picture. It's a brownish gray and is so very soft.
Food:
For the next Dark Days post there is a challenge, to make desert! What a great reason to do a little playing in the kitchen...
Coeur a la Creme, raspberry sauce, and cookies. It was a bit of work, but I'd do it again.
First I started with making cream cheese. Cream cheese is really easy to make, it just takes a little time. I used directions from Home Cheese Making by Ricki Carroll. It wasn't until I was washing the dishes that I realized one tiny little non-local thing had made it into the mix, the culture for the cream cheese. Oh well! Cultures probably aren't something I'd ever give up as I explore sustainability as a life style.
My recipe for Coeur a la Creme called for cream cheese, sugar, cream, egg white and kirsch. I substituted honey for the sugar and left out the kirsch.
The raspberry sauce was made with frozen raspberries, water and honey. I cooked the berries until they were syrupy.
The cookie recipe came from here. I used butter, honey, local flour, and hazelnuts. If anyone decides to try this recipe, watch the cooking time. I almost burnt my cookies. I want to explore this site more as I switch to baking with honey rather than sugar.
All that cooking inspired me to clean the fridge:
I store my bulk items in canning jars. I have rice, flours, nuts and seeds here. Plus pickles and jams. And cream cheese!
Seeds:
I've been considering a lot how eating local depends a lot on planning ahead. Last week I found quinoa seed. I've never grown it before, so it will be a bit of an experiment.
Yarn:
My latest bus project. I've lost count of how many socks I've knit now. The yarns used in these socks are "leftovers" and the green in these socks is a local yarn.
Slippers I made for my mom. The pattern is here. I think this pattern will be added to my "basic, go-to patterns." For the next pair I'm going to crochet the toe, knit the sole and then crochet the edging.
I do have one sock and a pair of fingerless mitts (a favorite pattern) to finish before I make more slippers though....
This is a bit of a ramble.
I wonder often about creativity. How it comes to us. Why some people are considered creative. Why some people don't consider themselves creative.
For me it is often about finding connections and curiosity and problem solving.
For one of the Magic Diaries posts, Jude spoke about rings and connections and making meaning. As I was listening to the audio clip she had made, I was finishing some of the last rows on my sweater. It started me thinking about how knitting in the round is all about building ring upon ring, one row at a time until it becomes something more. Generally some sort of shelter. And that led me to the understanding that what ultimately draws me to cloth, is that cloth is about giving shelter. Even perhaps something made for the wall that we might consider decorative might also be a form of insulation. Or perhaps shelter for our hearts and souls. Such an important thing, shelter.
Originally the word or concept I wanted to explore for 2012 was "current" but I'm wondering if "shelter" might be a better direction, a better focus. Or perhaps they will connect a bit. We often need shelter from air currents or water currents; electrical currents travel through our homes and our bodies.
And then...as connections seem to come to me; I read in Pilgrim at Tinker Creek by Annie Dillard:
"We found other caddisfly cases that day, Sally and I, after I had learned to focus so fine, and I saved one. It is a hollow cylinder three quarters of an inch long, a little masterpiece of masonry consisting entirely of cemented grains of coarse sand only one layer thick... The caddisfly larva will use any bits it can find to fashion its house...."
Ring after ring...building shelter.
For the last couple days most of my "making" has centered around knitting the sweater. Two more inches on the yoke and I'm done other than finishing up the underarm seams. It will be finished by the end of next weekend. The big mystery at the moment is, will it fit? I wanted this sweater to be a little less loose than the blue one, but I may have overestimated. Ah well!
I've also started to stitch on a little project. This is fabric I dyed with goldenrod. I laid the flowers across the fabric and wrapped it around a copper pipe. The tree pattern was pretty obvious to me when I unwrapped the fabric. A little bit of drawing confirmed that it was the right direction.
This is the sky scarf at almost three months. It doesn't include yesterday or today's gray rows.
It is large enough now that it folds upon itself as I knit.
Practice is certainly making me more consistent.
And strangely enough consistency seems to come when I stop paying attention.
Which leads me to believe that if I want an irregular texture I will need to be attentive and deliberate.
And other things.
I am often asked on the bus if it is hard to learn to knit. I have to answer that I honestly don't know. I learned to knit while I was a child. And to crochet and to make pie.
(This pie was made with half oat flour and half wheat. It turned out very well.)
Thinking a lot today about when and how we learn skills.
Spinning is a new skill for me (about one year). Spent an hour or so practicing plying this morning. Oh what fun!
Practice, practice is an important part of it all.
That, and a willingness to play.
That's what I was doing with the geranium leaves when I realized they made a rather nice flower.
P.S. The photo of Briar and I is ten years old now. It was taken right after her first bath.
P.P.S I think the secret to good pie crust is to use just enough water to hold the crust together, that the water should be cold (and the butter if that is what you are using for a fat), and to not overwork the dough. I specialize in rustic looking pies rather than re-roll.
Yesterday there was a bit of slush on the deck, but no real snow here. Sunny today, but cold enough that the frost never melted in some places. Cold enough for the wool coat.
I've had this coat for over twenty years. For much of that time it's been my primary winter coat. I have started wearing raincoats more often (better for riding the bus and walking when it rains of course), but this is still my favorite for a cold day. It is showing it's age a bit and needs some mending.
This morning's project:
I can see covering the whole backside of the collar with stitching. I don't think I'd ever have thought about mending this way without Jude. Thank you...
I also spent some time at a demonstration/sale put on by the local weaving guild today. A very generous group of people. I watched spinners, weavers, a carding demonstration and had some wonderful conversations. And then came home to try plying yarn. Crocheted up a little sample too. It's going to take some practice, but it's a good next step.
This handful of roving did not come from the sale, but rather from the farmer's market. It was a gift from one of the vendors. I had stopped to watch her spin and to look at her yarn and we started talking. She thought I might need a bit of orange for my sky scarf one day...
Today is one of those days when the heart feels full.
It was cold enough this morning that I waited until the afternoon to work in the garden. And so I knit...
I decided to add brown stripes to the yoke of my green sweater.
The brown is hand-spun yarn I brought back from California last year.
I think it will make this sweater just a bit more special.
Holding the sky scarf up to the light really shows where I have spun the yarn tightly and where it is looser. I like this...it reflects how days go. Some tightly packed and some loosely structured. It reflects the quality of the atmosphere as well...
I've gotten behind the last few days with my spinning and knitting and will need to catch up (big project at work that is now done). I knew this would happen sooner or later and that I'd have to decide whether to pick up with whatever day I was on or keep track of the days and make up rows. I've decided to make up rows, so that there is at least one row for every day of the year.
The sleeve to the sweater is finished and the pieces are all now joined together. Moving forward one stitch plus one stitch at a time.
And then there is this:
Using up the last of the goldenrod dye. I'll pull this out on Saturday. The blue line is from paint. I used this fabric for a bulletin board at work and doodled directly on the fabric.
And...goldenrod flowers and fabric wrapped around a copper pipe. The water has turned yellow.
Almost there.
Working on the second sleeve of the green sweater. If I can finish it this week, I'll attach the sleeves to the body of the sweater and start the yoke.
The latest sock to join the family.
From the garden. Beginning and ending and cycles.
P.S. The wool is some yarn I carded and spun last year.
The latest bus knitting project. It doesn't seem to crazy considering we've been having a lot of rain and haven't had a day over 80 degrees F yet this summer...but they are really for winter.
From one of the books I'm currently reading:
"Many of the paradoxes of creativity are embodied in play. Creative people know the rules of the game, but they are open to improvisation and serendipity." Play by Stuart Brown.
Spent two hours this evening in the garden. Weeding and picking blueberries and raspberries.
Not much energy left for sewing, knitting, or making decisions tonight. So I decided to wind a skein of yarn into a ball so that I can continue my sweater. I haven't worked on my sweater for over a month now because I've been needing to do this. Now I can continue.
It made me think about how even a simple step can create momentum...
Or maybe a cocoon.
It's done and I love it.
The pattern is called "Janet's Shawl" and I found it via Ravelry. I only used one skein of yarn so it's really a scarf not a shawl.
Finished the latest pair of socks tonight. They make me think of "Walking on Sunshine..."
(The video is a bit of a scary flash back...but the song always makes me smile.)
Gathered threads.
Transformed into yarn.
Pulmonaria, or Lungwort. Of the lungs. Breathing spring. About a month later than last year.
Crocheting ruffles into an old sweater. Originally I was going to felt the fabric and then sew it into a pillow. Now I'm not so sure about felting, but very sure it will make a fantastic pillow. The green is yarn that I spun. A few more rows to go.
I was inspired by a potholder that I found at an antique store:
Front
Back
When I chose the word "one" for the year I was thinking in terms of how one plus one plus one can lead to a difference or is the act of moving forward. I also thought of the practice of choosing to do one thing for a year, every day; but didn't think I was going to go that route. I've changed my mind though. I am setting myself the goal of learning one new thing every day, either a fact or how to do something.
What I learned yesterday: I wanted to know how long it really took me to make a sock. The answer is about 6 hours a sock. Or 12 hours for a pair. Washington state's minimum wage is $8.67 hour. That makes my socks worth $104.04, plus the cost of yarn. That really means that a pair of socks is a labor of love.
P.S. I consider myself a medium speed knitter and this pair of socks is just a tad bit higher than ankle length.
What I learned today: "The invention of a knitting machine in 1589 meant that socks could be knitted six times faster than by hand." Wikipedia
I knit just a bit everyday. Mostly on the bus. One more pair of socks finished.
There is also a shawl. Although I'm not a huge fan of pink, I love the variations of color in this yarn and it reminds me of roses. I was curious,too, about how it would knit up and I wanted to study how it was spun a bit more. If the pattern works out well, I think it would be a good one for hand-spun.
Walking today I saw...
I decorated my back pack with the first primroses of the year.
Yellow is not my favorite color, but yellow primroses often smell the best.
I spun a yarn and crocheted a swatch. I've never had a chance to play with pencil roving, but thanks to Grace I gave it a try. I've never spun such even yarn! And then I re-carded it and added a bit of blue flax that I dyed.
Some things, maybe even most, are more fun when they are inconsistent.
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