No photo and very little textile news this morning. I'm feeling rather flat.
Yesterday I started a new project at Newlands Community Centre. It's a quilt project with a group of Arabic speaking women. The morning went quickly. It's going to be a challenge, but in a good way. I now know three words of Arabic. I'll sound more excited about it when I have fewer other things to worry about . . .
I came home to the news that my friend R--let's call him my foster son, since that's how we operate--had been admitted to hospital. That's a long hard story and I'm worried about him. I thought about him a fair bit during the night and didn't sleep all that well.
When I woke and went to the kitchen to make myself a coffee this morning, I heard a definite dripping sound--please don't laugh--I traced it to the bathroom,which was awash. I can only think this is the next installment in my DIY drama. I'd hoped that particular saga was over. Apparently not. I'm not going to get myself out of this particular spot of trouble with my usual energy and ingenuity. Instead I'm going for the mature wisdom approach--when DIY goes bad twice in the same project it's time to call a professional. He's booked to come tomorrow. Meanwhile my friend L can give me a bed for the night and I'm going to call the hospital.
Tuesday, July 6, 2010
Monday, July 5, 2010
Cafe Knitting
I caught up with my friend M after spinning yesterday afternoon. I arrived at the cafe half an hour or so ahead of time and sat sipping my smoothie and knitting my scarf--a pleasant way to wind up a Sunday afternoon. When M arrived we ordered coffees and compared knitting progress. M is about to become a grandmother for the first time. She's been knitting up a lovely nest of cardigans and blankets for the little one. When she pulled out her latest effort I spied a cute, clever little gizmo. You know, I love gizmos.
It's a teeny tiny stitch holder:
About the length of a teaspoon! It's like a miniature knitting needle with a springy strap and a little end cap to secure the stitches. It looked just perfect on a cream wool newborn sized cardi. M reckons she's had these at least thirty years and was surprised at my fascination. Oh, so cute and functional--there's nowhere for the stitches to get snagged and they're not going to fall off.
It's a teeny tiny stitch holder:
About the length of a teaspoon! It's like a miniature knitting needle with a springy strap and a little end cap to secure the stitches. It looked just perfect on a cream wool newborn sized cardi. M reckons she's had these at least thirty years and was surprised at my fascination. Oh, so cute and functional--there's nowhere for the stitches to get snagged and they're not going to fall off. Well, we knitted a little, chatted a little, enjoyed our coffees and headed our separate ways home. But I took a picture of this clever cutie with me to share.
Sunday, July 4, 2010
Recovering
I'm slowly recovering from last weekend's DIY disaster. Yesterday I spent an amusing and productive hour at the local hardware store buying supplies to patch my plaster wall. If I had a bit more courage I could probably make up my losses with a couple of comedy gigs! The story gets a reaction every time. I'm now the owner of a stud detector that also traces power cables behind the wall. Apparently there is no tool to detect plastic (PVC) water pipes--at least according to my group of new hardware friends.
I came home with enough plaster to fix many, many holes--3 kg is the smallest tub available.
I love the name: "Final Finish". It has a tone of assurance about it! I need that. You can see the patched wall in the background. This morning I'm trying to convince myself that it's safe to have another go at installing that cupboard. I have to confess that patching my wall was easier than patching my confidence. I'm going to carefully map out the territory lurking behind the plaster before I even think about picking up my power drill. Wish me luck.
I came home with enough plaster to fix many, many holes--3 kg is the smallest tub available.
I love the name: "Final Finish". It has a tone of assurance about it! I need that. You can see the patched wall in the background. This morning I'm trying to convince myself that it's safe to have another go at installing that cupboard. I have to confess that patching my wall was easier than patching my confidence. I'm going to carefully map out the territory lurking behind the plaster before I even think about picking up my power drill. Wish me luck.
Saturday, July 3, 2010
Fascinating Rhythm
Anyone who regularly reads this blog will know that I am fascinated by colour: the way colours combine with one another; how to mix them; variegations; contrasts; colour illusions. I'm never done thinking about them and experimenting to see what I can make. Lately I've been thinking particularly about the ways colour is distributed in a skein of dyed yarn. Here are some examples from my drying rack:
All four skeins are the same fine cotton yarn--designed for crochet, but in my mind intended for weaving. The outer two skeins are dip-dyed. The pattern of colour in the skein depends on the way I've folded the skeins before dipping them into the dye bath. the blue skein on the left was turned over after the warm blue dyeing was finished and the opposite end of the bundle of yarn was then soaked in a turquoise blue. By the way, I thread a chopstick through the looped skein and balance it on the outside of the dye pot to keep the yarn where I want it to be.
The inner two skeins in the pic are cram-jar dyed. This is more random, because the skein is pressed into a confined space to combine with the dye. For the red-orange skein I first used a warm red along with about a third of the skein of yarn; then the warm yellow and as much more of the yarn as I thought would take up the amount of dye I had poured in. Finally I tipped a little bit of cool yellow over the top. The colour change is slow and fairly regular, though not as predictable as it would have been if I'd used the dip-dye technique. The blue-green skein second from the left is more jazzy. I was getting to the end of my dyes and the end of my energy for the day. I had soaked the skein in soda ash to prepare it to take the colour. When it was readyI just poured the blue into the top of the jar where the yarn had been soaking. I tipped a bit of yellow into one corner and got ready for bed. I couldn't resist having a look after half an hour or so, and found that the colour had all stayed in the top part of the skein as it was crammed into the dye pot. I turned it over and added a bit more blue dye. I decided to leave it at that. I quite like the lighter and white areas as part of the colour scheme.
As if all this variation in the rhythms of colour across the skein wasn't enough, I'm now anticipating what will happen when the yarn is turned into fabric. Whether I knit, crochet or weave it, the colours will combine again in different ways depending on the pattern I use and the size of the piece I make. In weaving, there's the added variable of the colours of two different yarns interlacing with one another. Oh, it's exciting to think of all the possibilities!
All four skeins are the same fine cotton yarn--designed for crochet, but in my mind intended for weaving. The outer two skeins are dip-dyed. The pattern of colour in the skein depends on the way I've folded the skeins before dipping them into the dye bath. the blue skein on the left was turned over after the warm blue dyeing was finished and the opposite end of the bundle of yarn was then soaked in a turquoise blue. By the way, I thread a chopstick through the looped skein and balance it on the outside of the dye pot to keep the yarn where I want it to be.The inner two skeins in the pic are cram-jar dyed. This is more random, because the skein is pressed into a confined space to combine with the dye. For the red-orange skein I first used a warm red along with about a third of the skein of yarn; then the warm yellow and as much more of the yarn as I thought would take up the amount of dye I had poured in. Finally I tipped a little bit of cool yellow over the top. The colour change is slow and fairly regular, though not as predictable as it would have been if I'd used the dip-dye technique. The blue-green skein second from the left is more jazzy. I was getting to the end of my dyes and the end of my energy for the day. I had soaked the skein in soda ash to prepare it to take the colour. When it was readyI just poured the blue into the top of the jar where the yarn had been soaking. I tipped a bit of yellow into one corner and got ready for bed. I couldn't resist having a look after half an hour or so, and found that the colour had all stayed in the top part of the skein as it was crammed into the dye pot. I turned it over and added a bit more blue dye. I decided to leave it at that. I quite like the lighter and white areas as part of the colour scheme.
As if all this variation in the rhythms of colour across the skein wasn't enough, I'm now anticipating what will happen when the yarn is turned into fabric. Whether I knit, crochet or weave it, the colours will combine again in different ways depending on the pattern I use and the size of the piece I make. In weaving, there's the added variable of the colours of two different yarns interlacing with one another. Oh, it's exciting to think of all the possibilities!
Friday, July 2, 2010
Phew!!
Ah ha! I found the motivational key to my mending dilemma. The combination of public accountability and human interest did the trick. Here's the repair, done:
Once I started, it was a case of tackling the problem step by step. First weave in the broken ends. Then thread the needle with the repair thread and join it into the work near the holes. I've copied the treble stitches by making a double strand of yarn and working a couple of half hitches over each one. Then I've woven in the repair thread. That's the technical detail. The human detail is that I picked up the phone and chatted with my friend D while I did the job. That gave me an instant reinforcement on why I was being so crazy as to try to fix such a fiddly thing!
Once I started, it was a case of tackling the problem step by step. First weave in the broken ends. Then thread the needle with the repair thread and join it into the work near the holes. I've copied the treble stitches by making a double strand of yarn and working a couple of half hitches over each one. Then I've woven in the repair thread. That's the technical detail. The human detail is that I picked up the phone and chatted with my friend D while I did the job. That gave me an instant reinforcement on why I was being so crazy as to try to fix such a fiddly thing!
Repair Operation
Here's the pair of fingerless mittens which arrived in the mail this week. I made them for my friend D a year or few ago. The challenge is to mend the small area where the moths have eaten away some of the fibre. You can just see it on the left--slap bang in the centre of the back where a repair will be most obvious. Darn!
The fabric isn't all gone, but there's a weak area about the size of a ten cent piece and a few loose threads sticking out. This is going to be a case of creative reconstruction. I can't think of a way to actually replicate the crochet stitches. Thankfully there is a bit more of the exact same yarn available for me to work with, so colour matching isn't a problem. I'm not looking forward to this task, but it's not going to get any easier by delaying it, so I'm about to sign off here and just have a go.
The fabric isn't all gone, but there's a weak area about the size of a ten cent piece and a few loose threads sticking out. This is going to be a case of creative reconstruction. I can't think of a way to actually replicate the crochet stitches. Thankfully there is a bit more of the exact same yarn available for me to work with, so colour matching isn't a problem. I'm not looking forward to this task, but it's not going to get any easier by delaying it, so I'm about to sign off here and just have a go.Thursday, July 1, 2010
Yay Team!
Oh, I love a team! Unusually for a Victorian, not a football team, but a work-team. Here's why:
Yesterday morning this was a box of unconnected quilt blocks and squares. A couple of quilters had done some extra work to make spare triangle units. If you want to know how it looked, you can find it on the Quilters at Sussex Blog. Four of us got together at the Neighbourhood House yesterday afternoon to see what we could do about putting it together into a quilt top. Within three hours the job was done. It was so easy compared to doing it on my own. For a start, setting a time and place for a job helps me to get some focus. Then the company and wisdom of others is great for my motivation and problem-solving. While someone stitched, someone else pressed and another trimmed. Here are the details. We had cake and cookies and cups of tea and by dinner time I had a completed quilt top to take home. Today I'm going to drop into a couple of quilt stores to see about a border. Then there will be another team get together to do the basting. If yesterday's effort is anything to go by, we may even get to start the quilting on that day.
Yesterday morning this was a box of unconnected quilt blocks and squares. A couple of quilters had done some extra work to make spare triangle units. If you want to know how it looked, you can find it on the Quilters at Sussex Blog. Four of us got together at the Neighbourhood House yesterday afternoon to see what we could do about putting it together into a quilt top. Within three hours the job was done. It was so easy compared to doing it on my own. For a start, setting a time and place for a job helps me to get some focus. Then the company and wisdom of others is great for my motivation and problem-solving. While someone stitched, someone else pressed and another trimmed. Here are the details. We had cake and cookies and cups of tea and by dinner time I had a completed quilt top to take home. Today I'm going to drop into a couple of quilt stores to see about a border. Then there will be another team get together to do the basting. If yesterday's effort is anything to go by, we may even get to start the quilting on that day.
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