Oh WOW!

This woman's workwork is out of this world! Look at her designs for The Trojan Women, and her Commedia costumes.

What could it be?

As promised (or threatened) I am knitting scarves. I thought it would be a good exercise in re-learning everything I have never learned about knitting.



This is the Corkscrew Scarf from the Loop-d-Loop book, knit in Manos de Uruguay in a fantastic colorway (so yummy I want to eat it), on size 10 circulars (although only because I don't have any size 10 straights).

A dear friend who lives in Grand Rapids has asked for a scarf, somehow I don't think this one will fit the bill. Not much in the warmth department. I will have to find something larger for those long cold Michigan winters.

My avatar and me.

We are so alike, yes?

And this is what happens when you point a camera at me for too long...

A good day to dye

Well I did it. I mixed and mashed and steamed and here are my first attempts at dyed roving.



I'd give specific details, except that I don't have any. This is the first time that I have used this type of dye. I have used Rit dyes in the past; they have a limited color range, and are not very saturated at all. The .5-ounce size of the Jacquard dye is sufficient to dye 2 pounds of fiber! I had about 3/4 of a pound of roving on hand, so I had plenty of dye. I mixed about 1/2 teaspoon per cup of water, and then added a 1/4 of white vinegar. I laid out long swaths of Glad Wrap, laid the roving on top of that and poured on the dye, randomly. I then steamed each bundle for 15 minutes. When I rinsed out the bundles I was really surprised that more color did not wash out! Next time I will put a little more thought into my colorways (oooo get to use big $10 crafting word). But since I am not going to be spinning this, I really can just dye hunks in colors that please me.

I really do need to find some better fiber to dye. The roving that I purchased is really scratchy and doesn't felt very smoothly.

Next stop: get out the soapy water and get to felting!

Just dyeing to try...

just trying to dye!

This arrived yesterday...


Wanna guess what was inside? Ok, I'll show you...


I am undeterred despite my previous disastrous attempts to dye roving with Kool-Aide. Now if I can just find some nice soft merino roving. The stuff I have is pretty scratchy. And in case anyone was worried that I am about to jump on the recent spinning craze, don't. I am strictly a felter! This may just be the antidote to my recent "decrease" set back.

Confiscate my sticks

Clearly I am incapable of following the simplest increase and decrease instructions.



Notice how half way up the decreases move abruptly to the right? This is wrong, it should be a smooth unbroken line! I have to frog this(O$@#%&*&^%# again. Is it worth banging my head against a wall again, and again, and again?

I have knit this:



and this:



So why can't I knit this:



I cannot get the number of stitches to decrease according to the pattern. My decreases are incrementally larger than the ones called for in the pattern! The only thing that I can think is that the picked up loop at the lead edge of the front should not be Ptog on the purl row!!!! But the pattern specifically says "do not count the picked up loop" followed by "purl first stitch and picked up loop together" on the very next row! I attempted to add stitches sneakily on the armhole side to compensate for my dippy decreases, but as you can see it breaks up the line of the front (and would probably add a weird extra pooch). Part of me is ready to throw this monster in the frog pond, but I really want it! Perhaps I should just find another bolero/shrug to knit!

I give up. I am going to knit scarves from now on...

****

On another note, does anyone know what a wahoo is? This man does:



This is my Pop-Wop, looking like a kid in a candy store (or a wet kid who just caught an 18 lb wahoo). He is one of my favorite people. All of my friends have at one point in time or another compared him to Indiana Jones. He is adventure and fun and bad jokes and my very own Pop-Wop. He lives in Panama, and probably doesn't even know that Sunday was Father's day. But he sent this fangtastic picture, so I thought I'd share one of my best friends with you.

Ich bin so in der Liebe (or too much time on my hands and a wee love affair with Babel Fish)

Hallo, ist was dieses?

Dieses ist ein Hüftegürtel. Hallo Hüftegürtel, sind Sie so reizvoll!


Und dieses ist ein erstaunliches Armreife



Und was haben wir hier? Ein gebürtiger amerikanischer Beutelbeutel? Nein, es ist ein Anhanger!



Tee hee. I love Burda. I love Germans (I should, its a good half of my ancestry). I apologize to any Germans out there who are offeneded by my obvious lack of language skills or the ablity to locate the umlaut on my keyboard. I apologize to any knitters out there who are disapointed by lack of actual knitting content - this is a less than obvious attempt to distract...

Dahlias

are my favorite flower.



This is the first bloom of the year. They never fail to impress me with their size, color and logevity. I LOOOOOOOOOOVE dahlias!

Of Goddesses and little monsters

There is a new goddess in my knitting universe, Teva Durham. Truth be told, the name Loop-d-Loop does nothing for me, or did nothing for me until I looked at her book at Yarndogs (and was subsequently complelled to purchase it). I was frankly uninterested her sweater pattern in the last Interweave. The book has made a convert out of me! Her take on knitting is fun, funky, historical, practical, storied, spiritual, and just damn good! Still not crazy about the leaf sweater (featured in Interweave), but that is just one project in a book of over 40 that doesn’t fire me up! What are the odds? Not only that, she managed to convincingly persuade me that Loop-d-Loop is a pretty good name for her approach to knitting and design. Her background is in theatre, so what is not to like about this woman! She has made manifest the many things that I thought you could do with knitting, but that I have yet to be able to do!

The patterns are structural (and leave me weaping with desire):


vicious (if she can wear it so can I, if only I can find my Sex Pistols t-shirt...):


funky (great sweater although the model has a baaaaaaad case of 'baby chicken head'):


fun (this is the antidote to the overly popular shrug, and first on my list):


And I want them all. Now.

On the other hand; Rowan patterns in general, and Kim Hargreaves in particular are really chapping my hide. My wonderful slipstitch wrap twist increase is all WRONG! It is not as I had previous thought an increase at all, it is a short row instruction. How did I find this out? Last night I was sitting and knitting on Iris and it just wasn’t working, it was getting wider and less shapely by the minute, in short it was beginning to be a knitting monstrosity, something that would be tossed in a bag, shoved in the back of the closet and never discussed again. I decided that I must be a knitting dunderhead, scrapped the whole project, threw it in the back of the stash drawer and stomped off in a huff. Chalk one up to experience. Its not as though I don’t have a number of little monsters lurking in the closet, waiting to be frogged and knit into something worthwhile. But I am a compulsive knitter, so I decided that I needed a simple project, something that would knit up quickly and restore my own faith in my abilities. I chose the Corkscrew Scarf from Loop-d-Loop. Lo and behold the whole principal of this scarf is based on the wrapped stitch short row. The clouds parted, a chorus of cherubic heads began to twinkle and sing , the scent of rose wafted on the air, the grass grew green beneath my feet… (my interpretation of an epiphany if you were trapped in a Victorian greeting card…)

Here is what she has to say about the wrp-t or wrap and turn:

“With yarn held in front (purl position), slip next stitch from LH needle to RH needle purlwise (when you slip purlwise you do not change the orientation of the stitch on the needle [insert cherubic singing here]; turn piece so WS is facing (the sts just worked, plus the slipped stitch are now in the left hand): bring the yarn to the front between the needles (purl position), return the slipped stitch to the RH needle purlwise…” then continue as pattern directs.*

Hellooooooo! How simple can that be? I am a blithering eeejidit! That said, I am casting on the left front of Iris at lunch, and we shall see how far I get by the end of the weekend. If I am unable to get it going with this sort of clean instruction, my needles should be confiscated!
* Italics are my own.

Oh frabjous day!

I did it! I figured out the wrap and turn all by my lonesome! It is a stitch increase! I am not a blithering idiot! And it doesn't leave annoying little holes, like my first attempt did! I can knit! I am allowed to run and play with pointy sticks!

I have not had a chance to take pictures of this most marvelous miracle, since I discovered the key to the wrap stitch increase at about 10:30 last night, but in the spirit of learning new applications, I have used Microsoft Painter to create some faboo illustrations of my new found talents!

Illustration #1*

Here the red stitch illustrates the slipped stitch.

Illustration #2

Here the green squiggly shows the yarn passing to the front of the slipped stitch. OK so it looks like scrap yarn, but trust me its attached to the ball. Now you pass the slipped stitch back on to the left needle.

And herein lies the difference between making a hole in your knitting and actually make a new stitch! Instead of looping the yarn all the way around the stitch, the yarn goes over the top of the right needle:

Illustration #3


You then knit the stitch you passed back to the left needle, keeping the "wrapped" stitch over the right needle. Magically you now have two stitches where there was only one!!!!



Please forgive the unevenness in the lengths of the needles, the varyng number of stitches, the wavering length of the "knitted fabric", and the randomness in the size of the ball of yarn. I consider it a feat to have created these illustrations at all! Gives y'all an idea of how busy I am at work...


* Please note that although I am inspired by Kristy of She Just Walks Around with It, I am in no way attempting to poach her sensational line drawings. In the words of C.C. Colton, "Imitation is the sincerest flattery" (who knew? I just learned that the quote I have always misquoted {sincerest form}and long assumed was Oscar Wilde is actually C.C. Colton. And I don't even know who he is!) So despite the fact that I was trying to cleverly work Wilde into this, and can't other than by mischance, I hope that my illustrations are viewed as flattery. Enjoy them now; I won't be putting myself through that kind of fiddly torture again any time soon. Drawing is HARD!
******

More CC Colton:

"Applause is the spur of noble minds, the end and aim of weak ones". (Commenatary about bloggers from beyond the 18th century grave? Hmmmmmmm)

"It is always safe to learn, even from our enemies; seldom safe to venture to instruct, even our friends". (I guess I won't be teaching anyone to knit anytime soon, someone might lose an eye)

Craft Week in Review

Tales of near disasters, crafty crimes, and one emergency amputation.

1) Crime or Disaster (Jury is still out):



I started above pictured project on Thursday. I finished the back yesterday evening. I cast on and completed the first four rows of the left front and hit a dead standstill. The directions read "K 4 slip stitch to right needle wrap and turn". I am stumped. Is this a short row direction? Do I then knit back and repeat? This goes on for 34 rows. I cannot imagine that it is a short row instruction. Initially I proceeded as though it were not a short row and ended up with a hole in my knitting where I had wrapped the stitch. This does not look good. These wrapped stitches are spaced 4 apart on each right side row. I think it is supposed to add a stitch, but how???? Why do I have such problems with Rowan patterns. I can read. I am articulate. I taught myself to knit. I can even do passable regional British accents (Yarkshere, Saf Lunnun, BBC speak). And yet these patterns trip me up. Gah! I will make another attempt to tackle this pattern this evening.

Then of course there is the lettle problema that I might not have enough yarn to finish above-mentioned pattern. I am using stashed yarn. When I first started to knit I would go hog wild at the LYS. Piggily buying up colors and fibers that I liked. I had a rule of thumb - "buy 6 and that should be enough". This was before I discovered that yardage/fiber width and weight/needle size (ummm that pesky little notion called gauge) are critical to having enough yarn to complete the project. Ha! I am trying to use my stash, but I find that in general 6 of any given fiber is 2 too little. I figured that a bolero would be a perfect use of 6 skeins of GGH Samoa, but I have already used up 2.5 on the back... Will a bolero vest look too dorky? Sounds like the perfect top for a pair of corduroy culottes, and reminds me far too much of 1979 and many a 6th grade fashion faux pas. I guess I will only find out if I have enough yarn when and IF I figure out what the wrap stitch is all about!

2) Natural Disaster:



Well I felted the bag for my friend B. It looks horrible. I deviated from my original pattern. I wanted to make it bigger, better, faster. Mistake number one, the proportions are all out of whack. Ugh. Mistake number two, I used two different Cascade yarns; basic 220 for the main color, and an alpaca/wool blend for the contrasting color. The wool felted like a dream, the alpaca felted up like a big fuzzy, angry, spitting Camelidae, all tight and gnarly (Ok I know that I am stretching the limits of analogy suggesting that spitting mamal is also tight and gnarly, but I have worked with the alpaca's larger cousin the llama. Believe me Maggie, the llama of my aquaintance, was uptight and when she was busy spitting munched up carrot in your face it was pretty gnarly - STREEEEEEEEEETCH). Yech. I knew I didn't like alpacas!

Back to the drawing board, and back to using one kind of wool to felt per purse.

3) True Crime:

The Perp:



Method: eviscerating plush toys. Even as a tiny pup his goal was to get to the squeaker as fast as possible. His method: tear up the toy, scatter filling everywhere, ingest some of it, destroy and eat squeaker. (Only once did this result in a 4am trip to the emergency vet, where in we learned that not only did our four-month-old puppy eat a large quantity of stuffing, but he had also consumed a whetting stone. Apparently the whetting stone was the cause of his discomfort, not the polyfill. We were told, "it will pass"... and so it did. But I digress)

The Victim:


Adores her plush toys and treats them as tenderly as a four year old whirling dervish of a chocolate Labrador can treat a plush toy. She carries them with her everywhere, plays with them, and even brings them to bed. It is heartrendingly endearing. Makes me think that she might have been a very good mom dog (again I digress, and there really is no point in speculating about what can never be... )

The Crime:



And another view of the Crime Scene:



Godiva's beloved Lamb torn asunder, bits of foam and stuffing littered around, squeaker nowhere to be found. We gave her a substitute toy, which she played with dutifully but without a lot of joy, clearly she missed Lamb. So I performed surgery using my trusty surgical tool kit; gathered the stuffing and re-stuffed the lamb, amputated the nearly severed leg. Here is Lamb in recovery:



That is the craft week in review at Throwing Sticks. We hope that your week was better, that your crafting was satisfying, that nothing shrank to unsatisfying proportions, and that your family did not eat and destroy objects of value. Tune in later for more news from the yarnside.

I Just Don't Know...

You choose the yarn (translation: run hog wild at CommuKnity, snatching Rowan Denim off the shelves as if a ravenous pack of Yarn Snatchers were nipping at your heels. I was alone in the store mind you, but you never know when the Yarn Snatchers might swoop down and take the last skein/ball/hank of the dye lot you are eyeing). You swatch (translation: knit small square, much smaller than recommended swatch size, determine in vague way that everything will work out well enough.) You start knitting. You stop. You frog. You determine, based on your very scientific approach to swatching, that the resultant camisole, if knit in the largest size, will only fit an emaciated German tooth pick model named Jutta (translation: eyeballing swatch, picture of Jutta in magazine and own size 10 frame you note that it just won't work. Very empirical data!). You move up two needle sizes and fearlessly plunge into knitting (translation: you move up two needle sizes and fearlessly... you get the picture). And amazingly, surprisingly, you are pleasantly surprised. It doesn't look half bad, despite the fact that you knit far longer straps than needed (and have fixed the strap length issue by tying big knots at the tops of the shoulders).

But I just don't know. I am just not in love with it. I like the color, sorta. I like the shape, sorta. It was great fun to knit, sorta. I am just not that into it. I think it makes me look lumpy. And since I moved up two needle sizes the eyelets are humongous! To go without proper support, in this case nothing less than one of those super padded, iron clad Gap tee shirt bras, you will be airing your nipples in a very public peep show! Mein Gott im Himmel! Not a good thing.



Details: Chevron Camisole from the Summer '05 Issue of Rebecca; six balls of Rowan Denim in Memphis; knit on US size 7 needles (up from pattern recommended US size 5).

The upside is I can now start a new project! Oh who am I fooling, I am always working on two or three things at once. I do tend only to have one large project going at a time. I just want to knit everything!

I have been working on a few small felted projects. I made this little quickie bag for a friend who needed a pick me up.



I am about to finish the purse that I promised my friend B. And I have been working on a needle felted teddy bear. I'll post more pictures tomorrow.

What dogs do...

they retrieve.

A-Roving we will go

Carin Engen's beautiful,hand dyed roving arrived at Yarn Dogs yesterday, and I had pick of the litter! The merino is wonderfully soft and the colors glow. I brought it home and compared it to my home Kool-Aid dyed roving. I think my roving came from a derelict sheep, with a serious dry skin problem.

Carin's roving glowing in the early evening sunlight, lovingly posed on an age kissed bistro table.



My skanky roving, reeking of orangeade and berry, writhing scratchily on a dried up teak table.



See them together. Note how the lustrous black roving recoils with disgust from the proximity to the shocking, limeade roving.



The merino roving is so... voluptuous. That is the only word for it. Working with it is a tactile sensation! Even my bizarre first attempt at hat making was a joy to create.

Pinhead cloche displayed on pilates body rolling ball.




I really would like to make hats, cloches in particular. I am having a real urge to revisit the 1920s. I adored the '20s when I was a girl. My grandmother told me great tall tales of dancing the Charleston and drinking bathtub gin. A particular story stand out in my mind where she told me that her date spilled his drink on her and the plaid lining in her coat ran - gotta love that prohibition era hooch. One of my first and most favorite records was a recording of hits from the '20s, including "The Charleston" and "Yessir, She's My Baby". I was in love with 1923. I have a wonderful picture of my grandmother and grandfather standing in front of their house, possibly Denver or Grand Junction, my grandmother is wearing a cloche and what looks like a raccoon coat. It must have been about '26 or '27, she was 22 or 23. She looked fantastic, and the hat! Oh my! I love the clothes, the shoes, the hats, the music. I loved that hints of the '20s that were showing up on the runways last year. Since I don't have a waist, and never have had much of a waist, those styles are perfect for me (don't have much in the boob department either, also very good for the flapper effect).

Anyway I have been looking at a lot of my old costuming books, especially Poiret, Worth, and Erte. I know they are all a little earlier than the Flapper era, but that is what I have lying around, and they really informed the looser, shorter styles that came about in the '20s. The hats are great fun. I think I can make them. I just need to get a hat form (is there such an animal?) and go to. I suppose I could knit a cloche and then felt it, but there is so much more control when you work with roving. I say this like I am an expert... what I really mean to say is that I have an illusion of control!