Archive for May, 2007

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yarniness

May 21, 2007

i have been doing fibery things, most of which i cannot show you. the book stuffs are to be mailed on the 11th of june and then i’ve four more days to finish the written part so i’m pretty busy right now.

so, in place of knit goods, i’ve some nice handspun yarns to introduce to you.

top left, mohair/wool dyed by fleece artist from fibrefest. all i have to say about that one is yum! and so soft! i have a green colorway to do next.

on the upper right, you see some batts spun up that i bought from knitty dirty girl rachel-marie. my favorite part about this yarn is some crazy bright read thready chunks that run through it.

bottom left is some of the silk/wool i found at the thrift store. most of this one was spun in demo at the gallery opening. i’ve another skein of it already and there’s at least enough for one more. i think i’m the only person who has a crisis when she has too much of one kind of wool – i feel pressured to use it all in one project :)

the bottom right is my first spun mohair! it’s fun, but i’ve not the slightest what i’m going to do with it. i saved a bit of the colorway to spin side by side with some wool just for fun.

if you’d like to see them in all their glory, get into flickr and click that all sizes button on the individual photos.  i do so love that option.

and lastly, i pulled my handspun from the etsy shop. i put them up in the shop and then i admired the skeins and want to knit with them. i’m having difficulties not keep all the handspun for myself (or, rather, for the shop in a different form). i think maybe the thing that best sells on-line for yarn is the wild and exciting (or the cheap, but i’ll not be going there) so maybe i’ll dye some colorways specifically for the shop. this also will allow me to do larger quantities (more than one skein) for all of those who like such things and i’ll probably keep one for myself. seems like a plan to me. one for me, a couple for you…

have a great monday! if you’re in canada, happy victoria day!

Posted in cosyknitsliterally, spinning | 1 Comment »

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dreams of home/space/place

May 21, 2007

i am a roots girl (no, not the canadian clothing corporation). as i said in the most current meme, i have spent most of my life in montana. i was born in missoula, as were my grandmother and my father. the ‘hospital’ where my father was born is now an apartment building. a guy with blue liberty spikes who has a show on MCAT (public access television) lives in one of those apartments. it is up the street from the old sears craftsman house that used to belong to my friend tova’s mom and a great coffee shop that i’ve watched expand and change over the years. they have the best cream cheese and berry filled pockets. i used to walk there during lunch sometimes when i was in high school, buy a pocket and eat it on the way back, arriving just in time for 6th period. i spent my summers at camp on flathead lake. i spent my vacations with my family camping. before i moved to vancouver, i pretty much only existed in montana.

reading this post by my friend erin who is doing amazing thinking about the community she lives in and this post by melissa who really just wrote about clothes lines this time, but also writes about family and crafting and home have got me hoping and dreaming again. hopes for family, home, hospitality, laundry lines, a little bit of space in a place i love, care for, and that i make a difference in. hope for good work to do, for a great church job experience for ben (the last one was more than HORRID), for digging my fingers into soil, growing vegetables, knitting, laughing, and making soup.

in short, i pray for a space/place/home in pittsburgh even if we’re just there for a bit. we had one move and one chance to figure out how we want our household to be, now we’ll move again and i hope to sharpen that even more. i hope and pray for good household economics in this new space. wendell berry (who may be one of my very favorite thinkers ever) defines economy broadly as quoted below and emphasizes the household economy as the root from which all else grows:

Economy is our way of making a living. It connects the human household with the good things that sustain life. This involves the money economy and many other things that our present idea of “economics” excludes: good work, good care of the materials and other gifts of nature, faithfulness to one another in all relationships.

pulled from this interview here.

i bet you can guess i’ve been looking at craigslist again, too. a house please, little, with a yard (a garden?!?). pittsburgh has lots of front porches and back decks… and can we have a cat? a dog? maybe enough space for a baby? (and how about some health insurance while you’re at it…).  and near our friends.  you can imagine the look on ben’s face when i say, months before we move there, that maybe we’ll stay in pittsburgh… i’m pretty sure he just rolls his eyes at me.

regardless, my need to just be somewhere, and be present in and to that place and to the people and land is one that runs so deep that i can’t help but hope to fulfill it sooner rather than later. i guess i feel that with my feet strongly planted in the soil, i can actually do something, live better, make a difference. in the meantime, i will continue to vicariously live through melissa and erin. you should join me. they’re great.

in thinking about this subject, i am curious where my readership is. where are you? are you rooted? do you feel the need to be rooted? what do you love about your place/space/home?  answer any or all.  i’d love to know more.

Posted in community, the fam | 9 Comments »

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girls day out

May 19, 2007



so the weather in vancouver has been AMAZING lately. the first whole summer i spent here it rained all of the way into mid-July, leaving a mere month and a half of summer (i nearly died). this year we’re having summer in may – the last two weeks have been spectacular. they have often found me with either knitting or laptop or both outside in the back yard working on the book.

anyhow, yesterday my friend susan, her two girls, another friend amanda and i all piled into susan’s car to head up to north vancouver to see the graduate exhibit for Capilano College textile arts program. we ate at the quay and then wandered up the hill. the exhibit was okay, with a couple of pieces that i really liked (mostly involving wool). some functional, some not.  but this story is not about wool, it’s about when we headed back down and hit the salvation army.

have i told you about the pottery that i find at thrift stores in vancouver? here are some samples.  i mean serious amounts of pottery. and i never expect to find so much pottery at thrift stores anywhere else ever again. i think it is good to be able to acknowledge what is amazing at your particular thrift stores and capitalize on them while you’re there. so, as you can see i bought pottery. but now that we’re moving, i’m trying not to collect more things to move with me… but this salvation army had pottery. lots of pottery. i may have bought a cup or two, but instead i fell in love with these edgewood tea cups. really, when you’re moving… pottery and china are in the same boat.

first, i found a fabulous japanese stoneware (my other downfall) mug for 99 cents. so i bought it with the dollar and bit of change i had and planned to buy nothing else. but then, while tooling around with the children, i accidently found a vintage cowboy shirt in the black dress pants sections (obviously hid) and had to try it on to see if it would fit ben. when i put it on and looked at it, it rang ben’s perfect size bells in my head. then the logic went, if i was going to use the check card to buy him that shirt, why not the cups too? so i came home with these cups. sigh.

i really really do love them though. and they hilariously match the book knitting project that i worked on in the car and finished yesterday. oh vancouver, i’ll miss you for your dishes. i think i’ll go make myself a cup of tea.

Posted in community, knitting, thrifty | 3 Comments »

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separating the girls from the women

May 19, 2007

From the section titled “The Forties: Knitting in War and Peace” in No Idle Hands by Anne L. Macdonald:

“Knitters became true connoisseurs of ‘proper’ Argyling techniques and looked askance to those who made knots (‘Oh, I see you didn’t bury the ends of the yarn on the diagonal’) even though the condemnatory practice was endorsed by a former teacher from Alice Maynard’s hallowed showrooms: ‘When tying one color to another, after completion of diamonds, tie the two ends together with a square knot right up against the needle, leaving about three inches of free end to thread through a needle later on.’ To this day that practice would separate the girls from the women of needledom!”

from Modern Needlecraft, Spring-Summer, 15th issue, 50 cents

this is from the stack of late 1940s, early 50′s patterns i found a while ago at the thrift store.  i also quoted a different quote from Anne Macdonald on the 1940′s argyle craze back here and talked about another of the ads from these pattern booklets here.

to read the ad, click on the photo to get over to flickr, then click all sizes right above the photo. it will bring up a larger pic that you can read.

Posted in history, knitting | Leave a Comment »

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space avengers helmet hat

May 17, 2007

remember when i was into the garter stitch section of my thesis? another hat from that era. it was a potential book hat, but i finally decided not to use it and put it up in the shop.

here’s a flat view where you can see the color better and the buttons.

with this one the metallic stuff running throughout the yarn was not so pleasant to knit with. it certainly looks like the proper headgear to save the universe though…

ingredients:
schachenmayr Skylab
10 % Kid Mohair/60% Wool/30% Polyamide

Posted in cosyknitsliterally, hats, knitting | 1 Comment »

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i’ve been tagged…

May 17, 2007

for the first time ever (by suzen). now i feel like a real blogger… or something…

Seven Random Things About Me

1) i am a third generation montanan and lived there for the first 26 years of my life. i miss it.

2) most nights i go to bed freezing and wake up like a heater. my husband is opposite.

3) while still in university i dyed my hair old lady purple, unfortunatly i had dyed it too much before then so it faded away quickly and i was very blond for the summer.

4) for the last five years, i’ve dressed up as a color for halloween.

5) i never even thought about having children until i met ben.

6) ben and i kept our own last names for the first three years we were married, then right before we moved to canada, we both hyphenated. now we have really pretentious sounding names to attach to all of our artistic endeavours :)

7) i haven’t shaven my legs since i was 16.

i tag erin, katy, rosehip, jan-knit, and ally - tell us 7 random things about you.

Posted in meme | 1 Comment »

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out with the old, in with the new

May 16, 2007

remember the saddest thing ever? well, time has helped. last night as susan and i sat knitting, me on my new socks and susan on her first pair of socks, i decided to not darn my rock star socks. instead, this one (with the hole) will be frogged and knit into baby socks if ever we have a wee one.

the other one is a gift for susan’s husband gregg who has always loved these socks. she and her two girls are going to make it into a sock puppet that reminds papa to not take things too seriously. seems like the perfect solution to me!

p.s. no, i did not only get cast-on last night…. i just decided with the stretch in the fabric it was too big. destined to be stockingnet stitch and picot edged on size 2 needles, with shortrow heels and toes using hello yarn’s sock ratio reinforced with maybe some navy sock yarn? i’ve always loved how knitting iris reinforces her heels and toes with extra sock yarn hanging around.

Posted in knitting, socks | Leave a Comment »

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on ranting and shopping

May 15, 2007

hey all you blog readers, you really come through when i rant, maybe i should do it more often :)

but seriously thank you, thank you, THANK YOU for all of your advice and discussion. after reading all your comments and thoughts, i think my main issue is that i don’t want to ruin the reputation of my business. everything relies upon that right now, and it is risky for me to be associated. but i need communities and i probably need the risky ones as well as the non-risky ones. i guess you always have to hope that who you are and what you do overshadows people’s stereotypes.

now, although i am quite the ranter when i get going, i am not much of a shopper. for that reason, it’s amazing that i bought anything at fibrefest. the first hour i’m always so overwhelmed that i see nothing i need.

that said, we stayed the whole day. so, without further ado, my purchases consist of things that i cannot make myself. besides the wood items from 2 posts back, i also bought the fiber from the rant post. the rule with fiber is that i can buy it if i can’t make it myself, it’s in a colorway i wouldn’t dye or it’s new and exciting to me.

so to the right, you’ll find some nice mohair in fun colors. now, i’ve never spun mohair before and i’m a bit scared. anyone? does it spin up nice on its own? or should i spin it side by side with some wool? i also bought three blank mohair balls to dye myself. fun fun!

down and to the left you see some silk/wool blend from Fleece Artist that i bought at the knitopia booth, same as had the russian support spindles. as you can see, i had to start spinning the fleece artist right away. soooo lovely, and appearantly not so easy to find (at least not here!).

i also bought ben and i some sock yarn each. Lorna’s Shepherd Sock Yarn for him and trekking for me from this fabulous booth. there was so much sock yarn i wanted there! i can’t even tell you how hard it is to find trekking and other fun sock yarns where i am in canada. even better, i really liked the ladies there, and they do this fun webcam shopping thing over their website! really, i just really want to own a sock yarn shop on an island…

and lastly, i bought what you see pictured above. the bottom left woolie thing is a giant hunk of gorgeous goats milk soap wrapped in wool from Joybilee farms. why is it that everything’s better wrapped in wool? and because i am unrealistically enamoured with all things wrapped in wool, i also bought myself a kit from Twist of Fate to learn how to wrap my own soaps in wool. never a naked soap again, i say!

Posted in community, knitting, spinning, yarn | 2 Comments »

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walking the line

May 14, 2007

as most of you know, ben and i are moving to pittsburgh for him to go to graduate school. in light of that i’ve been spending a little bit of time each day looking at housing on craigslist, looking into the crafting scene, organist jobs for ben etc… my pittsburgh research recently led me to join the Pittsburgh Craft Mafia. their description is very appealing to me:

We’re a local group of independent businesses striving to bring together Pittsburgh crafters in order to bring the scene up from the underground. We’re focused on promoting positive business practices and community in the greater Pittsburgh area

however, in many other ways i find myself at an impasse in my identity as a crafter as i try to solidify who/what i am. i am neither a cool hip indie craftsperson, nor am i a totally traditional craftsperson. even on etsy i see the two types and now i think i may be somewhere in between. i am merely a spinner, dyer, and knitter. very traditional. but i have internet presence and appeal to the younger set also… and have totally enjoyed the indie craft fairs i’ve been in. if i’m being honest, i am technically one of them, coming into my craft around the same time, under similar conditions.

and although i like and value the indie community, weekly i find them totally offensive and unprofessional. must be the punk rock d-i-y stuff they have at the core, while i have the gooey 1970’s macrame and spinning revival at my core :).

anyhow, i kind of feel like i’ve joined a club and think i need to join another group to be a part of something bigger than just 20-somethings. it’s like church – a church of all one age group defeats the purpose of church for me. for that reason, i know i can’t be only an indie craftsperson, i need to be something more.

that said, does anyone out there have any craft guild advice? what to look for and whatnot? i’ve been looking into a spinning group, the craftsmens guild, and the fiberarts guild. i’m sure i’ll need people to knit with too. one problem is that i’m not totally sure what i need. the craft mafia is definitely organized when it comes to craft shows and i am thankful for that. they are indeed business oriented. should my next one also be business oriented to tap into the traditional craft fair market? or should i go with a group that brings in good speakers and workshops? or just some people to spin with?

obviously the answer to much of my problems is the cheezy, be true to your art and craft and work hard and… but really, i will do that. i suppose my decision to join the mafia without a balance is winging me for a loop right now.

as a person with an English degree and teaching certification, i believe in the power of language to build community and empower, but also to alienate. i don’t see how the indie craft movement (in general) can move beyond themselves without changing their view of language. if you want to be a professional craftsperson, you cannot use language that excludes 2/3 of the population. it almost seems to me as if some of the movement is buying into the cult of youth that has been taking over the US for so long and that bodes ominous in my mind. i often like talking to elderly women about the things they make more than young people. i might buy the things from the young person, but i’ve so much in common with and so much to learn from those who came before me that i can’t imagine intentionally offending them away. i have to link again to this lovely post by shannon, where she says that

I had to think about how during the early stages of this internet craft community’s formation, one would see such-and-such described as “not your grandma’s craft.” More than once I saw this! And I really have to disagree, at least from my vantage point. I feel SO connected to what the women of previous generations have done, and inspired by them.

unfortunately, i still see this happening, especially through language. and i guess i can only hope that as this young movement moves forward, it develops respect for all sections of society in language as well as attitude. in the meantime, and perhaps forever because i’m beginning to think it’s who i am, i walk the line.

Posted in community, cosyknitsliterally, knitting | 11 Comments »

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wood and spinning go together like…

May 12, 2007

i had a great time at fibrefest wandering around with my friend susan (although long days of shopping always nearly kill me). it was a strange sort of year… they got rid of the consignment section and so susan, who had been saving and was supposed to get a spinning wheel for mother’s day did not. there was also an insuance booth? antique dealer? and other quite random things. thus goes the way of many good things – hear the voice of the people with money and power, but not the voices of the community. sigh.

on the other hand, there were some great people who i ran into (including rhiannon and ally) and there were several very lovely booths that got my patronage. one of my favorites, Joybilee Farms, had 8 month old angora bunnies (so cute!). i can’t say enough good things about this family, i remember their booth from last year and it was one of my favorites then also. from them i bought the lovely wip gauge that you see on top, handmade out of juniper.

another very lovely and interesting booth was that of susan of woolcombs.com. i bought the beautiful orifice threader that is second from the top to pull the yarn through the orifice on my spinning wheels. of course! the threader doesn’t work at all on my (as far as i know one-of-a-kind) spinning wheel – it has the smalles orifice ever. ah well. this one is made out of an exotic rosewood called cocoa bolo… which makes me want to lapse back into childhood and call it oingo boingo or congo longo or any such silly combination.

the last thing in the bowl is a really cool wrist distaff that i picked up from another etsy seller, Twist of Fate. up until this point, i’d never seen a wrist distaff design that i actually liked, but this one i love. it’s maple and was made by erynn’s father (she’s the proprietor of the shop).

another thing that is kind of fun is that that susan and i bought the same wooden items from the same vendors (all different and individual of course, but still!). susan was also looking for a nostepinne, but none really caught her fancy.  the most interesting thing i saw yesterday was a russian support spindle demo, the way they used to make the yarn for the famous gossamer shawls.  i may not have the patience for that one!  i’ll share more of my spoils later!

Posted in community, knitting, spinning | 1 Comment »

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