cosymakes

they’re done! yay! now to finish writing the paper, but once again, the enflambe muscles. ugh.

here’s what i’m envisioning right now:

the room that my thesis will be in is fairly sterile, but has windows on three out of the four sides. that’s great because people will see the things in the room when they walk by. hopefully that will draw many random people in. the room is by no means huge, but really there’s no way that i could fill it up (the whole thesis fits into two medium sized bags!!). so i’m going to play the sterility to my favor by concentrating my thesis in on particular corner (back right when you walk in). there you will find my spinning wheel, a wooden chair, a lamp, some of the thesis knits, baskets of yarn and fiber, my coffee table draped with fabric. as you get further away from this focal point, the thesis will slowly disipate into the opposite corner where there will be the sterility of the room. around the corner with my wheel, i plan to have more wooden chairs for people to sit in while they look at (and touch!) the knits, so that they can feel like part of the fibery circle. it’s kind of a metaphor for what i’ve been doing as the communtiy part of the thesis- helping the fiber to spill out from my life into the lives of anyone else who would like it. another thing that i’m going to focus on while setting up the show will be trying to create some different levels of space in the room. there is a big table that i will need to deal with. it might be left in the middle of the room, so that it looks like my show is invading the scholarly room that it is. we’ll see. there’s also still a chance that the table could be moved out and maybe the potter will show with me. that would also be fine… our artwork contrasts nicely. but for now, in my head, it’s all mine and this is the current vision.

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.

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.

lithuanian socks, originally uploaded by cosymakes.

designed up by Nancy Bush, based on “a photograph of an undated pair of socks in the National Museum of Lithuania in Vilnius.” and found in Folk Socks.

ingredients:
reddish- lovely semi-solid superwash merino from fearless fibers
grey- Araucania nature wool

you all already know that i’m a big fan of simple colorwork, so of course i enjoyed these socks. several things occurred to me while i was knitting them.

remember this? well, brittany’s come in 5 packs! so i accidently found the fourth needle and thus finished this sock. i’m such a dork and that should tell you how organized my needles are. a lot of them are ‘stored’ like this.

i’ve also been thinking a bit about the texture of different wools and it makes sense to me that many cultures with knitting traditions in more than one color tend to knit with rougher wools. i’m thinking lopi and fair isle… i’m sure there are more. superwash merino was not the best choice on my part. it’s beautiful yarn and i love love love semi-solids, but not the best choice.

lastly, i came across some difficulty early on in my knitting when i read the first chart for this sock upside down! when i got past the heel and the Vs didn’t line up like they should have, i realized that i had read from the top down instead of the bottom up. for this reason, my socks have one more repeat on the top section. sigh. so much for trying to knit from the pattern. should have made them in my size too.

i knit this pattern for the thesis partially because i’m ¼ lithuanian. that’s a big chunk… in fact the biggest chunk that we know of. my grandpa on my mom’s side was all lithuanian. i also theived these socks that i made for ben for the thesis. i’m imagining a clothes lines of socks. we’ll see.