Archive for March, 2007

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rambling socks

March 22, 2007

emily’s forest for the trees socks

and the last pair of socks for the thesis.

ingredients:
mill ends from mountain colors dye shop
size two addi turbo naturas for magic loop (loved them!)

i really like mountain colors. not only are they only an hour from my hometown, they make such unique yarns – so dark and scrumptious. i used the french (classic round) heel and the french toe from Knitting Vintage Socks by Nancy Bush.

these were mostly knit while sitting on my exercise ball for posture and listening to knitting podcasts. and i must ask, because i’m so new to such things, do any of you have a favorite knitting podcast? which and why?

so, i’ve been a bit under the weather for a while now. i can’t seem to shake the inflammation in my shoulder muscles. my shoulders hurt, so i made ben massage them and apparently that made them even worse. now i’m taking my fair share of ibuprofen and feeling very tired. yesterday i slept three hours in the middle of the day… because the day before i did dishes, went on a walk, finished these socks, spun a bit, i’m sure i used the computer- that doesn’t sound like too much in one day to me. oh well. i guess i’ll just have to live it out. i did manage to get a prescription for a massage therapist, but i have to wait until the inflammation goes down. how’s that for a catch 22?

in thesis news, we all met in the library yesterday. i must say that my show is like my living room in many ways- full of yarn and knit goods and spinning stuff. if you bring my stuff, it will feel like my living room which is exactly what i want, a den of fibery goodness and learning (lord only knows that ben will appreciate being rid of some of it for a while too). so the rare books reading room, no problem. unfortunately (my advisor and i both thought so) the room is no longer the room with all of the books in it like in the old library. ah well. my part of the show will be fine. currently i’m more worried about the other two people, because they do need optimal space and the space available to them is not optimal to say the least. i still think that the ethical move on Regent’s part would have been to rent a gallery somewhere. really, if they expect you to be a professional artist before you come, they need to treat you like a professional artist when you get here.

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dye a lot

March 20, 2007

yesterday i did a dyeing day with my friend cara because she needed to learn how to use her maiwa dyes and she needed some roving for a project in a arts and theology class she is taking. we had a great time and came out with so much wool each! i wasn’t planning on doing any yarn, but when it comes to exhausting dye baths, i don’t really like using roving. so you can see the yarn (and the rest of the roving) in my stream over at flickr. i’m particularily happy with how the blues and greens came out.

before cara showed up i was reading a bit from my twisted sisters sock workbook. i love this book. in fact, it is probably my favorite dyeing/spinning book. the best thing about it is that they show the dyeing from roving to spinning and spinning to knitting. although my colors tend to not be as dark and vibrant as theirs (i’m working on it!), i think i’m going to use this little batch of dyeing to try plying together some different colorways, just to get used to the idea and expand my horizons a bit. i am entirely too fond of plying wool back on itself. in the end, i have a feeling i may still favor the subtle, but who knows! next time i dye i plan to try some of the hot pour dyeing similar to what they have explained in the book… cause lord only knows that i won’t follow their instructions completely. measure my wool? measure my dye? i don’t know, sounds kind of sketchy…

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apple crisp hat

March 20, 2007

some more sabbath playing with my handspun. ben likes this hat quite a bit, but i think contrast in between the handspun and commercial yarn might have been interesting.  in the end however, the white button and the white embroidery provided the counter-balance (and crispness!) that i needed.

ingredients:
my handspun yarn
spun from batts from knitty dirty girl and black cat handspun.
thrifted button

my favorite part? this. it makes me smile. here’s another fabulous one.

i used to not like tassels and pompoms. i thought they were certainly a waste of yarn (this from the girl who thinks that each little tiny ball of wool is precious!)… but with handspun i can barely withstand them. they show off the yarn so well. i’m slowly becoming more and more fond of even the plain ones!  now to learn how to make a decent pompom (mine are more tassely).

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golden grapevine neckscarf

March 19, 2007

see blog entry for the beginning of the story.

i tried this as a solution, but it didn’t work. i knew i needed it to be stiffer so i crocheted a chain loop, crocheted three stitches up the fabric, did another and so on. i love how haphazard it all looks… it shows everything i love about handspun singles – varying colors, thick and thin, etc. anyhow, it made for a nice stiff edge that stays up. i was certainly influenced by the high button up collars of… what are they of? victorian times?.

unfortunatly, this color does not look overly well on me, so it’ll probably end up in the shop.  that may be good since i haven’t had anything real to add to the shop for a long time.

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recent spinning rundown

March 17, 2007

with the arrival of all of the batts i ordered you can bet i’ve been spinning this week too! this picture’s not the best (it’s rainy rainy rainy) but i took some okay shots of them individually, so i’ll redirect as i go through. going from left to right:

1 – apple jack
ordered from black cat handspun (i am more than happy with my purchases from her!). from her description: “domestic wool in BRIGHT green, added some coopworth in darker green and falklands in pale olive to tone it down a touch, and then added green and gold sparkly nylon.” i spun this on my whool and what i most liked about this one was the color. mmm green.

2 – tropical waters
from this bfl roving that i hand dyed. love the bfl – this is the first time that i have ever spun very thin consistantly, and i might say that it took FOREVER. spun on my wheel.

3 – right off of an animal
from black cat handspun again. from her: “I got this bag of loose fiber, and threw it through my carder only once to retain the crazy texture! There’s llama in natural reddish brown, dark brown, and a beautiful peachy color, some wool, and mohair locks dyed in peach, burgundy, and blue.” i spun this on my wheel and i can’t tell you how much fun this one was to spin. you just had to take whatever the batt gave you next and deal with it. i also love how wild it turned out.

4 – christmas wreath
i talked a bit about this one earlier. from knitty dirty girl, “contains all or most of the following:
different textured wools, bling, sari silk, tencel, polyfill, coltswold.” spun on my drop spindle, plied on my wheel. very fun. talked about in this blog entry.

5 – pale in comparison
from black cat handspun: “I took lovely, soft Falklands roving and handdyed it in a beautiful blend of red, blue, and green with lots of white left in it. I carded it with an angelina that is a blend of bright green and gold.” spun on my wheel – this one was simply lovely to spin. soft and pretty.

spinning fiber batts that others have created has been a great experience for me as a spinner. fun and playful – i think it is helping me to understand fiber better and to become a more intuitive spinner. i would highly recommend it… but be prepared, you’re at the mercy of the batt designer…

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she’s up and running!

March 17, 2007

on his day off (tuesday) ben put the new wheel together. i guess it will have to wait till we move to get a new coat of linseed oil.  see my very first lazy kate in the background?

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plain ribbing and thesis chatting

March 15, 2007


yesterday i had a meeting with the professor of record for my thesis. it went really well. i still have the paper to work on, but almost all of the knitting is done. i had her choose a piece as a gift and she chose these which couldn’t thrill me more. she’s moving to nova scotia and i think she’ll need them. she has been so helpful and lovely, including encouraging me to knit my thesis to begin with. i’m actually becoming excited about the library show because i may get to use a supercool space called the rare book room. it’s a room at the front of the library with at least two glass walls where all of the really old books reside. mmmm. old books and wool. that would mean it would be locked and that i could bring a spinning wheel and maybe some other woolie stuff in for demo and education. i’m also currently thinking a little booklet per project for people to read about the wools/patterns etc. it may be too much work, but it’s really what i’d like to do. i’ll keep you posted. we’re going to check out the library next wednesday.

if anyone’s around, the show is going to be on April 18th – May 4th at the Regent Carey Library at Regent College on UBC campus. the title of my part of the show is ‘I Reclaim: Knitting as Theological Practice’ and the reception is the 18th from 4-7 (i think…). i’m sure i’ll mention it again before it gets here.

without further ado i present to you some plain ribbed socks with short toe heels and toes. they’re to flesh out the thesis a bit. i needed some plain socks. right now i’m working on some stockingnet socks with french toes and french heels. someone told me that people who used to knit for money knit ribbed socks for themselves and stockingnet to sell. it makes sense, but i don’t know if it’s true. sometimes i just like a stockingnet sock. these ones are for someone special, but i don’t want to disclose it right this minute.

ingredients:
jojoland bloom – 59% wool/41% cotton
on size four needles

not much to say on these. easy peasy – flew from the needles. ever tried size 4 needle socks? i also like the thickness of them. here’s another pic.

yesterday was a busy day, besides that meeting i also volunteered at the thrift store. the woman who sorts buttons was there and let me go through all of her buttons and priced some for me! you can see those here. speaking of buttons, i’ve been drooling over this shop over on etsy lately, and especially these.

i also spent a wee bit of time yesterday considering what to do with the yellow lace i made the other day and decided on neckwarmer. i laced some yarn through the edges, but it didn’t make a stiff enough fabric. too shifty. i’ll most likely add crochet loops and buttons up the edge. but that will wait for another day. on today’s agenda, yoga, tea, bath, stockingnet stitch sock, npr. maybe cooking something.

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interviews

March 13, 2007


Queen Cosy of the woodland realm Originally uploaded by alissa.piroska.

there’s a new interview with me up online over at the aesthetic elevator. the theme of this blog really resonates with me as something i think about daily. self-described as “Exploring the visual arts, architecture and community planning in the context of American culture — towards a well-considered visual environment.” How necessary! Paul, the artist who runs it, also has a lovely set of sculptures seen here. He found out about me through his wife who is a fellow etsian.

if you’re not so into theology, there is very different interview with me by shannon okey of knitgrrl fame here.

if you have any further questions from reading these, i’d be happy to answer them! my email is cosyknitsliterally (!at) gmail (!dot) com.

UPDATE: this blog entry is a brief description of the thesis too. i realize that many of you are newer readers and the entry had been buried back at the beginning. maybe i should learn more about blogging and put a link to a page in my sidebar…

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old growth love

March 13, 2007

this is my friend carrie in a hat i knit her while visiting in pittsburgh. i’d been harassing her to get rid of an acrylic one she’d been wearing for a couple of years now. anyhow, it chose right when i was there to fall apart (i kid you not! it was very ironic and weird… maybe related to aforementioned powers in this post). Anyhow, a favorite sweater that her dad bought her while she was in high school had recently gotten a huge hole in it (twilight zone music here). Upon inspection, the sweater was in fact wool (and lovely wool at that! you don’t always get lovely wool from sweaters). So, called by the wool of the sweater and the destruction of the other hat, I immediately embarked upon ripping an arm to knit her a new hat, and this is what was done two days later. the blue wool came from a 1980’s irish sweater that i purchased at a thrift store while in pittsburgh. and with that, my good work there was done.

on another pittsburgh note, i also snapped these photos of socks i knit carrie and her husband dj. i knit these pre-digital camera, so i’d never gotten pics of them. his are based on this groovy pattern from this pattern booklet.

because of the argyle on the cover of that booklet, i really wanted to share this great quote from No Idle Hands: The Social History of American Knitting talking about the argyle faze of the 1940′s:

Many people sought to extract the agony from Argyle knitting, but knitters somehow felt the challenge itself guaranteed deeper appreciation.  Despite mountains of gadgets such as the “Line Reel,” “Yarn O’Bobbin,” “Stitchex” and “Rispindle” (to dispense yarn from the wrist), the task remained daunting.  An ingenious approach was “Colorplus,” yarn dyed in the premeasured lengths and guaranteed to “knit up” into diamonds and diagonals if knitters ruthlessly maintained a steady, predetermined gauge in “plain stockinette” stitch.  When fashion-crazy, bobbin weary knitters strayed from gauge, truly grotesque pattern emerged from their needles.

Was this the first self-striping yarn?!?  tee hee.  they’ve made it much easier now.

on another very exciting note, my friend erin has joined the world of blogging with the Prairie Roots Blog. Here’s the description of what she will be trying to do:

“The content of Prairie Roots will focus on place and the land, specifically this place and this land—living on it, caring for it, digging into it, loving it—along with a bit of theology and philosophy about it thrown in. I’ll gradually gather all of my land stewardship-related paper scraps, articles, and bookmarks here (and maybe even a favorite recipe once in awhile). My hope is that the Prairie Roots blog will be a resource for like-minded people in this little corner of the world.”

so if you live on the prairie or are into sustainability, the land, growing things, and like hearing about someone’s experience of such things, check her out! welcome, erin. i look forward to reading more.

i love that the title of this post (and carrie’s hat) is old growth love because these are two women who i feel very connected to.  carrie and i met at church camp when she was going into 5th grade and i was going into 6th.  i let her borrow my sleeping bag when she had sun stroke.  we’ve been friends ever since.  erin was at regent with me my first year, here to study sustainablity, land, justice, and food.  she just feels like an old friend.  we’ve much in common and i really look forward to see where she goes with her interests.  here’s to good knits and old friends.

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on my favorite drop spindle…

March 12, 2007

a beautiful batt. i’ve been splurging just a bit lately out of the paypal account. the new rule is that if i can dye it, i am not allowed to buy it. so, i’ve been branching out into buying blended batts (something i don’t do). i actually got two packages today… so there will be more to come.

the first package i got (with this batt in it) was from the lovely rachel-marie of knittydirtygirl. this is the first time i’ve spun from an arty batt and i can’t wait to knit it! every two seconds there is a new surprise.

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