travel

What would you take in your caravan if you were pulling up roots and hitting the road?

Bob would love it if I could manage to fit all my fiber dreams for the fall and winter (and early spring) into these two bins.  It’s harder than I thought it would be.

On my list:
Non-negotiable:

1. Alice Starmore “Mary Tudor” supplies (in basket so colors will stay organized)
2. Vivan Hoxbro “Ann Jacket” supplies
3. Nadita’s “Soo Feminine” supplies
4. Vivian Hoxbro “Zig Zag” wrap supplies (more than 75% done I’m happy to discover!)
5. Einstein Coat supplies, ready to start sleeves
6. Bergere du France wrap, with its 3 cones of Zephyr
7. Partially finished circular shawl by Liz Lovick with notebook of instructions
8. Revontuli shawl supplies
9. “Wingspan” shawl supplies
10. Evelyn Clark “Flower Basket Shawl” supplies
11. skeins for 6 pairs of socks, some already in progress
12. All my knitting needles

It appears that I might not be cut out for the gypsy life.  Perhaps I am too much of a home body, nesting in all my wooly, silky, fibery material possessions.  How can I cull this list?…because I know it will not all fit in my two bins.  And I haven’t even started to list the spinning projects!

1. Electric spinner (at least this does not need to fit in the bin!)
2. Drop spindles
3. corriedale hand painted roving
4. Mohair hand dyed roving
5. Ginger red alpaca batt

Lastly, for those times when neither knitting or spinning seem to fill the bill, I thought I’d bring along one or two embroidery projects.  This is my solution for not taking any weaving with me.  Meanwhile, I have not even done any embroidery in about a decade.  I do realize this seems a bit manic on my part…. the fear of not having just the thing to occupy my textile obsession.  At least embroidery takes up so little room.

This is an Evelyn Clark shawl design called “Flower Basket” that was first seen in Interweave Knits, Fall 2004.  I’m using Mini Mochi in colorway “Seaview” that is so much subtler than the colors shown here.  The colors are soft blues and aquas on pale sand, just like a summer day at the beach! I wanted to finish this shawl before we leave so I could block it at home. (It is for a friend who has spent her life on the water.) No such luck!  I will be trying to block on our bunk on the boat, without the benefit of my blocking wires!

Departure date: Tomorrow!

 

A rainy Saturday

And the first tomato from my garden….yes, I did eat it on my homemade bread with pesto from the basil in the garden, topped with parmesan….it was a very comforting lunch.

Here is the progress made on my boundweave wall hanging.  Aside from the tree, which is not my design anyway, I am not happy with my images.  Drat!  That second figure is supposed to a coleus plant.  Are you laughing?  (I’m not.)  And the next figure is a lady slipper.  I think others may wonder if it’s some kind of bug, or a really bad rendition of a person standing on her head.  Dear Bob says these are things that mean something to us, so I shouldn’t worry what other people see in them.  I’m trying to convince myself of that!

This is a lady slipper, this is a lady slipper, this is a lady slipper…..I still don’t believe it….

Some boundweave hints:  many years ago when I did a Christmas wall hanging on 4 shafts, I remember reading about how the weft will slant up or down according to the direction of the treadling, because it is a twill afterall.

So, if you wanted eyes or hair (or in the case above, the lower petals on the orchid) to slant in a particular direction, you have to consider that in your treadling.

So the tree and the coleus were woven by treadling from left to right across my tie up.  But the petals on the orchid did not look right done that way, so I switched to treadling ‘backward,’ or right to left.  I could have changed direction in the middle of the orchid so that the individual picks up the upper petals would have slanted upwards.  My experience with the coleus plant was that treadling either direction didn’t quite give me what I wanted, so I decided not to change direction.  The source of this information is Clotilde Barrett’s book Boundweave, Chapter 7, page 60.

The other thing that I’ve found very helpful this time around is graph paper.  On the previous project I used square graph paper and had to figure out how many rotations of the treadling sequence it took to make my weaving square.  Now I discovered on  Weavolution that Karen in the Woods is using a flattened type of graph paper, where the height of each space is shorter than the length, making squat rectangles instead of squares. I went looking for graph paper like that.  I found it at incompetech.com (clever name). Click on ‘Grid/Graph Paper.’ I chose this one, and it is pretty close to being on square per pick.  And by ‘pick’ I mean a full rotation of the treadling series, which you’ll understand if you’ve done boundweave.

I hope my next few figures are better.  I’m going to start weaving a loom now, and it’s not my design either, so I feel it’s bound (could I have picked a different word here?) to turn out better.  I’m not feeling overly confident about any of my designs, and yet 20 years ago when I did my last boundweave project, all the designs were mine and I think those figures turned out very well.

Elves and Reindeer

Santa

Santa Lucia

Onward…..

On Saturday I will travel to St. Paul to go to my first bobbin lace convention!  This is the IOLI, the International Old Lacers, Inc…..a rather dowdy name for such a talented group of women keeping these amazing techniques going.

I’ve been thinking that if lace makers are like weavers, most of the attendees will want to wear a little something that they’ve made.  I’ve had a good length of lace edging laying around for a couple years, slated to be used as an edging for some handwoven linen hand towels.  But I have not even got that warp on my radar yet….  what I do have is a lovely, old linen blouse that I suddenly realized might look very charming with a lace border at the neckline.  Hmmm….. this blouse is probably more than a decade old now.  I sure hope it has plenty of life left in it since I now love the touch of lace at the neckline!

Gosh, I hope someone notices!

This is my new little corner of the world.  I feel very lucky that it is so beautiful here and so conducive to happiness and creativity!  Although you can always ‘bloom where you’re planted,’ some places are easier than others!  I do feel like blooming!

I have finally climbed under the Toika to tie up the lamms and treadles!  Go me!  It took some rather close scrutiny of Su Butler’s website,  a lot of fretting, and a pep talk from my younger son who is visiting to get me to do it.  Why are these things such hurdles for me??

And…meanwhile….in between everything else…. I knit….

One completed section of the “Ann Jacket” by Vivian Hoxbro

One virtually complete pattern repeat of “Mary Tudor” by Alice Starmore

The finished pieces of my “Soo Feminine” jacket!  ….

A week or so ago, I realized that I have been knitting for 50 years.  I don’t really know if it’s this year, or last year, or next year, since I’m a bit fuzzy on exactly how old I was when my grandmother taught me. But it is somewhere near my half–centennial of knitting….my golden jubilee.   I need a celebration!

What would make a better celebration than knitting a project, or projects, that are truly captivating…. enthralling…. compelling…. not to mention beautiful!

I’m already knitting one that has kept me happily intrigued for a couple of months now.  It is a pattern by “Nadita” called “Soo Feminine.”  It is a fun short row technique called “swing knitting,” which has been quite popular in Germany for some time and is certainly taking off in popularity here now too.

This might be even more fun to knit than it is to wear!  But I won’t know that until I finish!

Another project jumped into my arms while I was visiting Harrisville Designs on my recent trip to New Hampshire: a Vivian Hoxbro kit!  All of Vivian Hoxbro’s kits, which use Harrisville’s “New England Shetland,” were on sale for 30% off original prices!  I love Vivian Hoxbro!  Her designs are flattering on me, and the knitting is fun, involving color changes and multi-directional knitting.

This design is called “Ann” and can be knit as a jacket or vest.  I’m doing the jacket in the purply/plum colorway shown on the vest above.

And lastly, there is Alice Starmore, queen of color!  This is her “Mary Tudor” design.  What I love about it (aside from the obvious, duh!)–  all her designs are a masterful blend of colors on a design that perfectly balances the horizontal-ness of the knitting and color changing with a strong vertical-ness to flatter the body–but as I was saying, what I love about this particular jacket is the button band and collar, which depart somewhat from traditional Shetland design.  I think those two details make this sweater absolutely elegant!    Decades ago I knitted her Oregon cardigan in the blue colorway.  It is probably my most precious handknitted item.

Aren’t all these sweaters beauties?

“Soo Feminine” and the “Ann Jacket” are on the needles now.  The yarn for “Mary Tudor” has arrived and I’ve been sighing and moaning over all the little balls of precious Shetland wool.

But the pattern book has not arrived.  Wouldn’t you know I have almost all of Starmore’s books, but not Tudor Roses.  Ugh! I cannot believe I’m one of the suckers who paid over $100 for a knitting pattern book.  I had to do a lot of justifying to make peace with that.  You know the rationalizations, I’m sure!  It’s less than therapy, it’s better than some other addictions, it’s feeding my creative spirit…etc…etc… and it’s part of my golden jubilee celebration!