Alchemy

Posted on April 7, 2012 | Leave a comment

Natural dyeing is still gathering steam throughout the US.  
When we leave here I hope to take some weld and madder with me to start a new dye garden in Essex.

Photo from NYTimes of Sasha Duerr's dye liquors

At the end of summer,  I hope to find some local plums to make Damson gin! (Can you guess I’ve been watching Masterpiece Theatre’s “Marple” while knitting?…the one with Geraldine McEwan!)

And a visit to the NY Botanical Gardens in the Bronx yielded a day of intense color and a rise in my own creative sap by seeing the glories of spring!

 

I have an armillary sphere in my garden, and now I want to display it like this, on a pedestal, and grow a vine through it!  This was my ‘take away’ gem of the day!


Leave a comment

Posted in dyeing, gardening, inspiration

Change

Posted on March 28, 2012 | Leave a comment

We are stumbling closer and closer to our move to Connecticut.  We have a buyer for our house in New Jersey, and we’ve committed to a house in Connecticut…..but getting everything to fall into place so everyone involved can move on has been a bit difficult.  It looks like we will be en route to our new home by the middle of next week!  We have been rattling around in our empty, echoing house for a few weeks now.  It doesn’t feel like our home anymore, so it’s time to move on….

We packed my last loom over the weekend.  I probably should have taken some photographs!…but it was too stressful.  I had the strong impression that one of us was going to end up in the ER, so grabbing the camera just didn’t happen.  This last loom is my big Toika, and it had a warp of cotton seine twine on it for a boundweave project.  My dear friend and experienced Toika weaver, Sister Bianca recommended leaving the warp on the loom.

Sr. Bianca advised me to take the beater, the harnesses, and the jacks from the top of the loom, and wrap them all together around the warp beam.  It was a brilliant suggestion!….

….executing it was not so brilliant….. imagine cutting the warp from the front apron and taking the reed out of the beater.  While trying to keep that from flopping about, I then tried to hold all the jacks in place while my husband tried to disconnect the jack-holding frame from the large side frames of the loom.  Where was our 3rd set of hands for this job???  Certainly no extra hands for photos…  At one point I thought the jack frame would surely hit one of us on the head, necessitating a hospital visit, and possibly necessitating a long recovery from head injuries (if not worse).  My husband was not amused at my conjectures.  I wanted to take a ‘time out’ to plan a strategy; he just wanted to get it over with!  Typical male/female disagreement, I believe!

I’m happy to report that there was no loss of life…..or even loss of consciousness!  But I don’t want to do that again any time soon.  If there is to be a next time, I must remember to get more detailed information on how to accomplish this! Advise welcome!

With my looms packed, I have turned to more portable projects.  (Hey, who am I kidding?….I haven’t actually woven in several months, just knowing that I was going to have to pack up those looms.)  Have you seen the swing knitting projects on Ravelry? Amazing!  I’m intrigued…

I did buy the workshop download for learning this technique, but I didn’t want wristlets, or a hat, or socks.  I wanted a jacket!  So I jumped in the deep end of the pool, and really, this technique is not difficult to understand.  There is no reason to do a little project if you really want the big one!  This jacket, designed by Heidrun Leigmann, requires four sections just like this one which I finished a few days ago:

Swing Knitted Jacket by Heidrun Leigmann

As you can see, it is a mitered square with short rows to create the curving elements.  The yarn called for is Noro’s “Flower Bed,” which I cannot find here in the US.  Since it is roughly sock weight yarn, and since I love the weight and bounce of Shetland, I have chosen to use a Shetland-like yarn by  Kauni in a long colorway that runs through the entire spectrum.  Is it too colorful??  Probably.  Do I have the guts to wear something this blinding?  …not sure… but I am enjoying knitting it!  Can I really knit four of these sections without losing motivation?  …not sure of that either!

In other facets of life, when not packing, I have made another “Blooming Gardens” crystal bracelet, along with matching earrings and even a small pendant.  The purple one is for my sister’s very belated birthday.

And lastly, I finished the Nantucket basket that I want to give as a wedding present to a dear friend’s daughter.  It’s only three months late…. that’s actually quite good for me! Now I’d like to make one for each of my own kids!

 

Leave a comment

Posted in baskets, inspiration, knitting, weaving

Tagged , ,

Helena Hernmarck

Posted on February 18, 2012 | 1 comment

A friend of mine invited me to visit Helena Hernmarck’s tapestry studio yesterday.  She had been introduced to Helena through her current tapestry mentor in the mentoring program of ATA (American Tapestry Alliance), and she invited me to join her!  Meeting Helena Hernmarck has been on my ‘list’ for at least a decade.  I have a few acquaintances in common with Helena, and I even used to live in the same town.  But none of these connections had panned out or paid off as the years went by.  Yesterday was pay dirt!

My first exposure to Helena’s work was seeing a photograph of her from what I think was the 19060s, standing in front of her large tapestry of Little Richard.  I was so impressed, but that quickly took a back seat to  the tapestries that came off her looms in later years.  When I bought her book a few years back I saw photographs of her recently completed studio in Ridgefield, CT.  I even knew the man who helped design it, and he promised to make an introduction for me…. Well, everything comes in its own time, doesn’t it?

Helena Hermarck's wall of tapestry wool

What a thrill to see this wall of color in person…. I was mermerized by it almost as much as by some of the tapestries hanging in Helena’s studio.  She has two upcoming exhibitions, one at the Textile Museum in Washington, DC, and one at the the textile museum in Minneapolis.

I have always been fascinated by the weft floats in her tapestries, due to the use of weave structures other than plain weave.  The floats not only give a texture to her work, but also such a saturation of color, making strong highlights and deep shadows.  So effective!  I struggle to convey light and shadow within plain weave…. it boggles my mind to think of also trying to place color with floats as well.  Ever since I’ve seen Helena’s work I have wanted to try this technique of weaving tapestry with structures other than plain weave.

In her current work she is using a double cloth structure that allows her to continue to have floats on the surface of the tapestry, so integral to her way of conveying imagery, along with with the ability to add some structural integrity to the back of her pieces by having a second layer with a weft that can add structural rigidity to the fabric.  By doing this her finished works hang flat against the wall!  Brilliant!

front of back of recent tapestry by Helena Hernmarck

I enjoyed her enthusiasm in telling us about her work, about the connections she’s made over the years.  She is on my very short list of weavers I’d love to study with!  There is a glimmer of hope that this could happen!  She hinted that she might need help winding on a large warp….. I’m there!

 

1 Comment

Posted in inspiration, tapestry

Tagged

Not by Bread Alone…

Posted on February 16, 2012 | Leave a comment

An odd title for this post, since in fact, I am at a terrible stage in life when bread has been banned.  And I miss it dearly….

…but that title sort of conveys the suggestion that we all do something when we’re not doing what we’re known for doing…. When I’m not weaving, or knitting, or spinning  I cook.  (Cooking has been particularly challenging for me for the past 11 months while I’ve been attempting to eat a low glycemic diet).  Cooking and baking is my default activity when I’m ‘stuck’ in anything in life.  My ultimate cooking guru is Julia Child, whom I was fortunate enough to meet once, along with Jacques Pepin (!!!), for a day of cooking an entire dinner menu and eating the results! I own all her books and have read everyone of them!

Recently I have discovered food blogs!  I know there must be millions of them out there, and many of them must be fairly mundane.  I was lucky to stumble on a brilliant one, Orangette, and I get a real boost whenever there is a new post!  Now I own this blogger’s book A Homemade Life and am enjoying her writing as well as the recipe at the end of each essay.   Each day the temptation to get back to bread (and carbs!) gets stronger and stronger…

Molly Wizenberg's "Vanilla Bean Buttermilk Cake with Glazed Oranges and Creme Fraiche"

This week I succumbed and made Molly’s “Vanilla Bean Buttermilk Cake with Glazed Oranges and Creme Fraiche.”  Oh my.  Luckily I made it for a group so I managed to only eat one piece.  It tasted like sunshine, brilliant and warmly comforting all at once.  Everyone loved it!  Thank you, Molly!

Last night I was reading about Dutch Baby Pancakes. In Molly’s words, “The method for making a Dutch Baby, I thought, is only marginally less awe inspiring than the method for making a human one.” Well, that certainly sparked my interest.  After I saw the recipe I realized it is virtually the same as an old recipe I have from the mother of my childhood friend in Texas, which they’ve always called a “German pancake.”  It is a simple technique that bakes into a magnificently light confection, puffed up like a souffle, that you top with lemon juice and confectioner’s sugar.

Unfortunately, Dutch Baby is not one of the recipes Molly has posted on her blog.  I could give you mine, but this is not a cooking blog.  (Hmmm….my fellow blogger and weaver, Bonnie Claith (aka Cally Booker) has posted recipes on hers….  but I shall refrain.)  I’m certain Molly’s version is better than mine anyway, but I won’t find out any time soon since I’ve already transgressed enough in having the cake! You won’t find the cake on her blog either, but you will find “Bouchon au Thon” (and many other temptations!) which will be my lunch today.  This is a recipe I can make without guilt since the only carb involved is a small bit of tomato paste! Molly says it’s “what France would taste like,” and I look forward to finding out about that!

Molly Wizenberg's "Bouchon au Thon"

Lunch will be served momentarily…..
…okay, so the only connection I can make to weaving is the valentine cloth I made years ago that I’ve placed under the cooling wrack…  Please cut me some slack!  And I didn’t have gruyere so I substituted fresh goat cheese….and I didn’t have fresh parsley so I used dried tarragon instead.  Time to eat!

 

 

Leave a comment

Posted in inspiration

Yarn from Latvia!

Posted on January 30, 2012 | Leave a comment

All the yarn from Latvia arrived over a week ago, on Friday, January 20, but I’ve been remiss to photograph it and talk about it!  Here they are:

Three hanks Aade Long 8/2 artistic, in "Red," "Pink/White," and "Brown/Pink"

 

These yarns shipped from Riga, Latvia on Jan. 10, from two different vendors.  Actually,I did not order the “pink/white” colorway, and it was accidentally shipped from the vendor on ebay the previous day, Jan. 9 (it arrived on the 19th).  She wrote me immediately to say that she was sorry and the correct colorway “Brown/Pink” would ship the next day.  Both the “Brown/Pink” which was from the ebay vendor and the “Red” which was from an individual on Ravelry arrived together on Jan. 20th. Ten days door to door from Latvia to New Jersey is quite good, I think!  Aren’t they lovely?

The Red colorway is smallest hank, and it is exactly the yardage for the Revontuuli shawl.  The other two colorways are larger hanks and should have enough left over for gloves or socks.  I’m interested in seeing how the long the color runs will look on a pair of socks.  If I knit socks I must remember not to carelessly throw them in the dryer since all my socks are superwash wool.  That would be tragic!  I don’t usually dry my handknit socks, even if they are superwash, because I prefer how crisp they look when air dried on sock blockers.

Naturally, I’d love to start knitting the Revontuuli right this minute!….but there are other things I really should finish before starting another project.  Let’s see if I can be responsible…. hmmm….

Our house went on the market Wednesday of last week and got a full price offer on Thursday.  On the one hand it’s a great relief that all our work has paid off so quickly and I don’t have to make my bed by 7 am, or hide the laundry; on the other hand now it’s time to really get serious about packing and finding a new home.  Out of the frying pan and into the fire, as they say…  These days there is always something to keep me from weaving….sigh….

Meanwhile, the first bud on my Camellia has opened….there are four more to come!

Leave a comment

Posted in Fine Craft

January, the Selfish Month

Posted on January 8, 2012 | 1 comment

As it should be.  Surely I’m not the only person who thinks this.  Almost every year of my adult life I have taken the month of January to recharge myself.  In fact, for many years, the day after Christmas was a day when I’d gather all my knitting and weaving journals from past years and look through all of them, enjoying the inspiration and letting ideas for my own work wash over me.

January is also my birthday month, so I get special dispensation to be selfish.  I can put my post-holiday inspiration and project-planning into action by spending money on myself!  There you go!

This year I’m struggling to finish a shawl for a friend during my selfish January.  This shawl should have been done back in November, but as I mentioned in another post, life has thrown some difficult stuff at me lately.  I’m a bit behind schedule.  I’m not worried though….I don’t mind having a selfish February if it comes to that.

Back in October, I bought four balls of Crystal Palace “Mini Mochi” from my local yarn store (The Stitchery in Pearl River, NY) for “Lala’s Simple Shawl” (available as a free download on Ravelry).  Just moments ago I bound off!  I hope I have just enough left to make a crocheted scalloped edge around the shawl.  If not, I have some Jaggerspun “Zephry” in a deep warm red that should fill the bill.  I’d prefer the edge to be Mini Mochi, but it will be what it will be!

I think these colors will suit my friend perfectly! She wears a lot of reds/greens/browns.  The LaLa shawl is simple and not too lace-y so the pattern doesn’t distract from the wonderful color changes.

It’s not blocked yet, so don’t judge it too harshly!  I’m not feeling confident about that little ball of extra yarn making it all the way around the shawl….but at least I have the “Zephyr” as back up!

 

 

 

Now to get back to Selfish January….
Here’s what has called to me….another shawl that is a free download on Ravelry.  The shawl is called Revontuli which is Finnish for Aurora Borealis, which is Latin for Northern Lights.  The designer is AnneM and you can get the pattern from either her site (follow the link) or here on  Ravelry.

Here’s the thing about this shawl.  It looks best with a yarn that has l-o-n-g color runs.  The designer shows this shawl made with a yarn called “Aade Long 8/2 artistic.” I did a search and discovered that it’s not available in the US, but is easily found on ebay and from an online shop in Germany, as well as from some individuals in Estonia.  Selfish me…. I’m getting two colorways!  “Pink/Brown” and “Red.”  They are both coming from Estonia, although from two different vendors.  Let’s see how long it will take for each skein to arrive.  Countdown starts tomorrow.

Aade Long 8/2 Artistic "Red"

Aade Long 8/2 Artistic "Pink Brown"

1 Comment

Posted in inspiration, knitting

Tagged ,

A Knitter’s Memory Lane…

Posted on December 29, 2011 | Leave a comment

Sometimes early in the new year I perform an “Airing of the Stash” where I get all my yarns and spinning fibers out and have a look.  I will be doing that as soon as I step away from the computer today.

Earlier today I did something that I rarely do: an airing of the stash of knitted garments.  I opened my cedar-lined, cherry chest which my husband made 35 years ago as a wedding present to me.  This chest holds three decades of my adult life in the form of knitted garments.  It holds every sweater I’ve ever made with exception of the ones I no longer own.  All the baby, toddler, and youth sweaters that my sons wore, all my own sweaters that I do not currently wear, and all the sweaters I’ve made for my husband in past years before I realized that he was never going to wear a sweater of any kind.  There are a few precious sweaters that were knitted by my husband’s mother and one of his two delightful and eccentric great aunts.  One of her sweaters is a cream wool Tyrolean-style cardigan with vertical columns of beautifully embroidered flowers between the columns of cables, bobbins, and eyelets.  You probably know the style.  No one does this much anymore because of the labor involved.  It is a gem.

Aunt Ruthie's Tyrolean Sweater

Then there are about a half dozen sweaters that I obviously knit in the 80s… they are painful to look at!  During that same decade I was knitting the baby and toddler sweaters that are so classic and timeless, but somehow, for me I was knitting sweaters with styles that could never stand the test of time.  I have removed these sweaters from the chest and am contemplating either throwing them out or donating them somewhere.  It’s hard to imagine donating them….they are truly awful, their single attribute being that they are at least made from natural fibers.

In the chest is my very first knitted garment which must be from the mid-70s, a textured vest pattern from Tahki that was made from their Donegal Tweed yarn in brown with rust colored flecks.  I have a clear memory of knitting this vest during numerous evenings, sitting on a metal bar stool in my future-husband’s woodworking shop in order to spend time with him while he worked on a project.  Also in the pile is my first attempt at lace knitting….not a shawl or scarf, but a lovely lace Chanel-type jacket that was a Phildar pattern for which I used Phildar’s mohair blend yarn.  Sweet, sweet memories!
 The children’s sweaters bring back a flood of memories.  In particular there was one spring when my small community held a fashion show, and I decided to participate by modeling my first Marion Foale’s design, “Badminton,” while both boys joined me on the runway wearing matching cabled vests and coordinating knickers that I sewed for them. (I wore a store bought skirt with a print of ships’ signal flags on a sky blue background.)  We were all in shades of daffodil yellow and pale sky blue.  This memory is hilarious to me….my sons modeling in vests and knickers….how cruel!
 I am sorry to say that the Marion Foale sweater, while classic, has not made the cut for staying in the chest!

 This trip down memory lane is prompted by our hard decision to leave our current house and move out of the NY metro area.  We hope to go back to a slower pace and quieter lifestyle that we used to enjoy when we lived in New England.  I know that times have changed everywhere, but we hope to downsize both our possessions and our frenetic pace.  Hence, the airing of not only the stash, but everything we own!

Leave a comment

Posted in family, knitting, patterns

Tagged

Recharge

Posted on December 28, 2011 | 2 comments

Life has been pretty stressful for the past 8 months.  My blog is a place where I try to put my daily, non-fiber obligations behind me, but all those obligations have basically taken over my life these past few months so it’s been hard to feel connected here, especially when I’m avoiding talking about these obligations!

Thankfully, this is a time a year when I recharge my enthusiasm, my commitment, my passion for weaving, knitting, spinning, dyeing.  My wonderful family and friends have encouraged a rekindling of fiber energy by giving me some empowering gifts!

‘Warped 2 Weave’…..exactly the message I need to get me back on track!  My son ‘painted’ these sneakers for me with colored pens.  He says if I keep him supplied with shoes he’ll keep making them!

Finally!  A way to organize my circular needles!  Some Tofootsie sock yarn to knit while drinking my favorite morning beverage in this adorable sheep mug.

This sheep mug is from Herdy.  I’m in love…..
Their website has a creative video of escaping sheep that showcases their products.

Time to get busy!

2 Comments

Posted in holiday, knitting, sheep, weaving

Tagged , , ,

Holidays

Posted on December 1, 2011 | Leave a comment

 

Harry Lauder’s Walking Stick in the garden

It’s the week after Thanksgiving.  The weather is ridiculously mild.  We’ve had a holiday weekend of sun and warmth that felt like September, but today there is change in the air.  I was just outside taking some garden photographs, and moments afterward the wind kicked up and suddenly there is a little squall passing through.

 

Callicarpa "Beauty Berry"

I am starting the holiday gift making with a small Nantucket basket.

 

7" Nantucket basket design by Marlys Sowers

The base and rim were made by Jeff Sowers out in Iowa, and the basket design is by his wife Marlys.  His turned rim is stunning, so I can’t wait to get to that point!  This is a lovely basket, and I hope to make several!

Leave a comment

Posted in baskets, holiday

Thankful

Posted on November 22, 2011 | Leave a comment

Autumn in NY (by Chris)

Today I’m playing in the kitchen, making stuffing from a whole wheat baguette, a loaf of raisin pumpernickel, turkey sausage, onions, celery, chestnuts, a few more raisins, and lots of thyme, and also making pie dough in which I’m tempted to substitute vodka for water (have you tried this?).

My kitchen counter is also strewn with several colors of Jaggerspun zephyr which I’m swatching for Pam Power’s lovely Devonshire sweater.  Sigh….  Life is good.

Happy Thanksgiving….

Leave a comment

Posted in inspiration, knitting