I feel like the white rabbit from Alice in Wonderland, rushing rushing rushing because I'm latelatelate. But I have just enough time for a CQ, I gather. Merve Şendil is an Istanbul-based female artist exploring the use of knitting in her work. I recommend clicking over to her site because she is doing some amazing things with color, light, and shadow. I'm in love with this piece, which I might want to copy for my own home. It's called Landscape.
I wish I could whip over to Turkey to see her work on display; if you're reading this from Turkey, (a) the exhibit is running until March 3, so hurry up; (b) your city is beautiful; and (c) thanks for reading flossieÖR-ECEK!
I am in absentia here, I know. I know! Oh, how I know it. I had a successful job meeting this week that was very exciting but will mean less time for my personal work, but honestly, it's so exciting and awesome that I don't even care. And if the four of you miss me, well, maybe you'll give a shout-out so I know you're actually there and I'll pop back in to blow a kiss and wave hello.
Anyway.
I'm working on babyKNITS right now for Whitney Mara photography, which is nice and relaxing and fun because it is also quick, quickquickquick to knit things for newborns. Perfect Oscars knitting, if you ask me.
I don't have much time to be here, as I have many cargo articles to write and edit, must finish these newborn knits before the newborn is newly born, and I also have some new yarns to play around with that were gathered from said job meeting, to be used for possible accessories designed my yours truly.
My life is exceptionally good right now, if not extraordinarily busy.
But I dream about finishing my first pair of socks, my dad's Bauhaus blanket, a lacy bamboo tank I started last summer; I dream about starting my mother's alpaca sweater, her small vintage capelet, and a number of items for myself.
So in the spirit of dreaming and Friday and the weekend is here! (which, for someone who works from home, doesn't really exist anymore because you work all the time, anytime), I'm listing a few projects I would love to start, but obviously can't.
I have a really beautiful, incredibly expensive cashmere blend from VKL that I'm dying to use for the Goodale Cardigan by CGM. It's called Kitten and I drooled over it here.
And then there's the Lanesplitter skirt. Le sigh. I purchased the yarn for you many moons ago, and if I had you right now, I'd be wearing you all the time because the weather is perfect. But alas, there are not enough hours in the day.
Of course, this is only three out of a possible 831 favorited pieces I have on ravelry. I will die knitting all these things, and probably only get to wear them once.
In the summer of 2006, my brother was performing in Mother Courage in NYC with Meryl Streep, Kevin Kline, and Austin Pendleton, directed by George C. Wolfe.
Because he often likes to create personal pieces around the current works he is inhabiting (like his Body of Proofmusical and his Trust Me taglines), he of course created one around Mother Courage. It's one of my all-time favorites, and I'm so happy Meryl Streep gave the go-ahead to release.
That's right. Meryl Streep is in it. and Kevin Kline.
I'll let Geoff explain the rest.
"This video was conceived and directed by Fred Weller and myself during the summer of 2006, while we were playing brothers in the Public Theater's production of "Mother Courage and Her Children," at the Delacorte Theater in NYC. We showed this video on opening night, immediately after the curtain dropped and then it was never seen again. Until now, that is.
While watching, you must understand that this was one giant inside joke. It was made for the cast and crew, so the comedy refers to things that happened while preparing and performing the play. Many of the impersonations are of actual cast members. Also Christopher Walken WAS a part of the show for three days, before he dropped out. That sequence imagining the last moments of that collaboration uses several actors to portray George Wolfe, the director.
On a personal note, this was one of the greatest and terrifying summers of my life. Every day for two months, I got to work and play with a cast and crew brimming with insane brilliance. It was summer camp on steroids; not only did I make friends that I'll keep for the rest of my life, but I learned more about performance in one summer than I did in four years of conservatory training. This video would not have been possible without the support of everyone involved in the production, though I must single out the generous genius George Wolfe and the indefatigably kind Meryl Streep for playing along. Without those two, none of this would have ever happened.
"With a supply of yarn that never runs out, Annabelle knits for everyone and everything in town until an evil archduke decides he wants the yarn for himself."
Need I say more?
I would love a print from this book for my knitting room.
The book is available for order on Amazon, if you have kids (or want to send me something for my birthday on Sunday)
I've been quietly following Lindsay Degen and her unconventional knitting for a few months now. At just 23-years-old, she is doing some fairly 'strange' (as in, outside the normative) things with knitting.
She recently started a lingerie line that featured single socks, with the intent that people buy the socks mismatched. You can imagine how intriguing I found this, as I just finished knitting my first sock and the thought of having to repeat the process to gain a second sock is giving me agita. I'm sure other sufferers of SSS know what I'm taking about.
Lindsay is a Fine Arts graduate of RISD, and it was at RISD that she joined a performance art knitting group called Knitting Nation, which was a "commentary on how humans interact with machines, global manufacturing, trade and labor, brand iconography, and fashion."
Degen (center) premiered her new lingerie line by the same name at this year's NY fashion week.
Degen incorporates both machine and hand knitting, and is incredibly interesting, to say the least. I can't actually imagine where I would wear this kind of stuff, although I do think knit boy shorts would be supercute for around the house. And that long-sleeved, tan with red stripes top above might be cute over a dress. But the meta-nipples? Uhhh.
This isn't even a question for me, because I am not a woman who collects shoes or even pays much attention to them. I like boots, and sneakers, and flats. Things with heels make me nervous, and while I have heeled shoes, they mostly stay in my closet for the one or two occasions a year when I may have to wear heels.
While these Dolce + Gabbana shoes are not all-knit, they do have big crocheted flowers on the front and they sport some pretty convincing knit patterning.
I'd never wear them, but again—I don't wear heels. So I don't really count.
If you want to snag a pair, they are on sale here.
I've knit up two samples in my hat pattern, and now I'm preparing to knit the third—from that blue yarn above. Sorry for the picture, but I didn't want to give anything about the project away until I submit it to Knitty. The deadline is April 2, so I'm furiously knitting it up in different colors and testing it out to make sure the pattern works. I just noticed that in the space of a week, Knitty has gone from accepting patterns for the spring/summer issue to accepting patterns for first fall, which made my stomach drop a little. I really thought I was getting a head start but the reality is, it's only a month away.
You'll have to excuse me if I become a little absent here. I'm meeting with a possible writing job Thursday, have to start knitting baby samples at the end of this week, and really have to finish this pattern and the accompanying samples, while also doing all the regular work that pays the bills. I think I'm going to need to interrupt my natural circadian rhythm and start waking up super early.
In the meantime, happy knitting! It's getting colder here in NY so everyone should be crafting extra hard to keep warm through it. And stay tuned, because if my foray into Knitty fails, that hat pattern will be landing here asap.
Just a quick reminder about Stitch Red, the great program started by Jimmy Beans Wool to help prevent heart disease in women, which I previously blogged about here.
I have been fairly absent from the blogosphere for the last few days. I wasn't intentionally ignoring my meager audience of four; I've just had a lot going on. I've been in contact with a female photographer who needs some babyKNITS samples for her photo sessions (I can't wait to get started and see the professional photos that come out of it!) and I'm also working on a new project which has grown bigger than previously intended.
Remember that beautiful cake of yarn? Well, I probably should have left it alone—it was so perfect in its latent, undisturbed potential state, and I had to go and ruin it.
Although I do love that when I put it on top of my vase, it sort of looks like an appendageless character gazing wistfully out my window, I still wish it always looked caked.
Alas, when you rip out your knitting and re-roll the yarn, this is what it looks like.
For the record, I have been knitting and reknitting this yarn for over a week now.
I'm trying to design a hat. I figured, what could be easier than designing a hat? Take a basic hat formula, and apply some fancy stitches to it.
Well, both the first and second time I tried this, I wound up with a hat that looked, as The Doo graciously put it, "Like those skullcaps they put on patients when they want to run brain scans."
Yikes. Don't be fooled by how happy she looks. That is not attractive.
Mind you, I created this awful, brain tumor cap twice. I was convinced there was a way to make it work, but there isn't. There is no way this will ever work outside of a doctor's office.
So I started knitting something completely different, something that shirked the very idea of design, and I will leave it at that because I don't want to give it away yet. And it works, for the most part, although again, I had to rip it out twice because it wasn't working exactly the way I wanted.
In case you don't know (or haven't read previous entries), I am butt-stupid at math. It's not that I can't do it; it's that my brain just doesn't process it quickly. I have a permanent math roadblock in my brain. I can see a word once and remember it forever; I can use words I've seemingly never heard, and properly, but if I see a group of single digit numbers and have to add them, it will take me longer than I think it should.
I also cannot, for the life of me, imagine the way something is constructed by just writing it down or drawing it out. I have to actually pick up the needles and start knitting it to see how it needs to take form. And if it doesn't work, well, I rip it out... and listen to my mother or The Doo squeal in horror at all the hours of work being frogged.
I am the worst possible choice for a knitwear designer. I know it. I think about it constantly. But I want to do it so badly, I'm just plowing through the math dyslexia to see what the other side looks like, if I can get there.
This new design is all about my math dyslexia. It's pretty impossible to mess it up—believe me, I'm trying. It's also something that I believe will be universally accepted and enjoyed by knitters, but perhaps I'm being full of myself.
It's going to be a free pattern, so look out! It will be a while before it comes out though, because I plan on submitting it to Knitty for First Fall—if Knitty rejects it, off to Ravelry it will go.
I thought I was an environmentally friendly crafter because I buy recycled yarn from etsy (if you've never done it before, it's a really awesome way to find unique yarns that have been unraveled from old sweaters).
But I have to say, Teresa Everly really takes the cake.
Teresa crochets dolls, bags, hats, animals, rugs, bags, holiday decorations—anything she can think of—out of plastic bags, VCR tape, cans, scrap yarns and whatever else she can get her hands on. It's actually reached the point where friends will leave bags of recycled materials at her door, knowing that she will have use for them. She even won a 2011 Reduce, Reuse, Recycle Award from Washington County in Maryland for her efforts.
Her most beautiful items, in my opinion, (and of course, her most popular items) are her beer tab purses, which don't look at all like they've been made with beer tabs. She even lines the insides with fabric!
This is a free pattern I've had out for a while now. It was my first pattern, written about two years ago, so I recuse myself of any mistakes you might find in it. I'm fairly certain it works out ok, because one other person on ravelry knit with it and their heart turned out fine.
I started knitting in September 2008, and these hearts first came to my mind in September 2009. There were other patterns for hearts on ravelry, but what I had in mind was very specific, and I hadn't seen it anywhere. What else could I do but write my own pattern?
My older brother was getting married a month later, and I decided the best possible gift I could give to him and his wife would be to knit enough hearts for every guest at the wedding to take home as a wedding favor. Let me repeat myself.
I was only a year in to knitting, and I decided, a month before a wedding, to knit 50+ hearts, felt them, stuff them with lavender, and embroider them with initials. Actually, it was more like 100+ hearts because I had to make two hearts for every one heart so they could be crocheted together and stuffed.
I really wish I had taken more pictures of this month-long debacle, because it was absolutely bananas.
I also wish I had better pictures, but unfortunately my only camera at the time was a crappy cell phone camera (sidenote: it's kind of amazing how far we've come with cell phone cameras in only 3 years. My current cell phone camera is insanely better than the one used to take these pictures, and it's only about 2 years younger).
There were hearts everywhere. I was going to work everyday and knitting hearts on the subway both ways; I would knit hearts during my lunch break and when I came home from work, I would knit hearts until I went to sleep. I would even eat meals and knit hearts while I was chewing my food, stop to put more food in my mouth, then continue to knit hearts.
I didn't go out, I didn't see friends. All I did was knit hearts.
The hearts were taking over my entire life, but I kept telling myself that it was just one month, and then I would have all these beautiful hearts to show for it. Never mind that I didn't know how to felt, embroider, or crochet. Never mind that. Also, the needles I used were just slightly thicker than toothpicks. That's not fast knitting.
I have to thank all the lovely ladies of my former Stitch 'n' Bitch for helping me crochet, embroider, and stuff the final hearts, otherwise there is no way I would have gotten it done—eternal thanks also to Barbara Lynn for hosting us. Three years later and I still think I should be thanking you all.
And the Doo. The Doo actually got into the bathtub with the hearts so he could felt them by hand. I really wish I took pictures of that. Our hands were red and sore and wrinkly, but it worked!
I really didn't get any good pictures at all. I wasn't thinking like a blogger; I was just trying to get everything done on time. At the wedding the hearts were lined up very nicely in a beautiful wicker basket and the guests seemed to love them—one woman kept shoving them into her purse, which was nice to see. I still have a few in different spots of my apartment—they're really great for clothing drawers, your car's rearview mirror and just as general decoration. Even after three years, mine still smell good!
So, if you have a special someone who needs a sweet-smelling heart for their car, or their dresser, or their coat pocket, I give you Lavender Hearts. You can see the pattern below, download it from Ravelry, or email me and I can send it your way.
Copyright 2009, Flossie Arend. All rights reserved. Pattern for personal use only. Please do not sell products made with this pattern, or sell the pattern itself. Knitters code!
I got a fairly good response for my last T-shirt post (TWO people liked it, yeehaw!), so I thought I'd research some more ways to recycle old T-shirts into crafty things.
Apparently, you can turn a T-shirt into a functional market bag. All it takes is an old tee and a pair of scissors. I kinda wish I hadn't donated all those old shirts a month ago, although the Doo would encourage me to just cut up some of the other old shirts I have lying around. He'd like me to get rid of as many clothes as possible.
To turn your old T-shirt into a bag, click here.
Maybe you have enough bags, and you like all your T-shirts, and you don't want to cut them up. BUT, you happen to have one T-shirt that's just way too long. Well, feel free to cut off the bottom! Then take that bottom edge, and turn it into a headband.
It's a fairly simple process (you will need to know how to sew to stitch it to the right size, and to make the flower), but all the instructions can be found here.
Ok, I'm kind of in love with this next idea. Are you someone who has dozens of shirts you need to get rid of, and you can't bare the thought of a dozen T-shirt scarves, a dozen T-shirt headbands or a dozen T-shirt bags? Well, I hope you have a hula hoop. Yeah that's right, a hula hoop.
It's a T-shirt rug, and all you need is a dozen T-shirts, a hula hoop, and a pair of scissors. Remember when you used to make potholders as a kid? It's the same theory—all basic weaving, fun and simple. Instructions can be found here.
So there you have it kitties, three other ways you can reuse those T-shirts you have lying around, and none of which involve much more than your hands and a pair of scissors. Soon, you too can be crafting things as part of the DIY movement.
I had to stare at this for a few minutes to really take it in. It's knit entirely out of paper.
This outfit is called Marlene and is a "Wedding dress composed by a jacket made with the white edge of the dailies and silver ribbon (2004), a collar and a long transparent skirt (2009)." (Translated from Italian)
There aren't many people currently knitting with paper. Italian artist Ivano Vitali may be the only one, but even if he isn't, what he's creating with this fine, delicate paper is absolutely unique. The fact that you can see the contours of the ribbing at the edge of the sleeves and jacket is just ridiculous.
You can't get paper wet. You can't handle it too roughly without tearing it—sometimes you can't even look at it the wrong way. How is this man purling with it, let alone creating lacy yarn-overs?
He actually takes newspapers and sorts them out by varying degrees of color, so that they can be knit together in pieces that look as if they've been dyed. (This next one is woven)
"Black and yellow kimono made with newspapers and cotton thread."
He says on his website: "I start by ripping a newspaper into stripes, then I make a thread out of them, overlapping the two ends of the stripes without using water or glue, but just twisting them together. I avoid using glue because the thread would lose softness and elasticity and, by drying, it would create corners difficult to be knitted. I never add colours: the only colours I use are those I find in printed paper: sometimes the background is already coloured, other times I select pages of advertisements in a certain colour, which I then transform into balls."
I think this looks like the moon. Squint at it from a distance. It's uncanny.
These balls of yarn are amazing to look at. I'm transfixed by this one in particular, as the strands look particularly even, as if this were spun on a wheel.
Ivano doesn't just knit, of course; he crochets, weaves, and manipulates newspapers in dozens of ways, and never with any glue. He even takes wooden chairs and weaves their seats, shaker-style.
I love that his process is an art from beginning to end—selecting and separating colors, winding yarn by hand to give it a uniform thickness (so that it knits at an even gauge), then designing pieces with shaping and intricate detailing and either knitting, crocheting or weaving them together.
You can see more of Ivanov's work at his website. I know I went a little picture crazy with this post, but the work really is stunning.
Attention grabber!
A seaside town called Skegness in the UK (I didn't know anything about it until I wikipedia'd it - it's actually an old resort town where the first Butlin's was opened, and yes, I wiki'd that too) is hosting three 40-ft lions as part of an exhibition called Lionheart.
The lions (of course representing the three lions in the Royal Arms) were crocheted by artist Shauna Richardson and will be on display this summer.
I think she did a magnificent job with the details—I love the lines in the crochet mimicking the musculature of the animals. It's pretty amazing.
I have a lot of friends who don't knit. A LOT. There are more people in my life bewildered by the act of my knitting than there are people who totally get it, and I'm learning to live with that.
You know when you're explaining something to someone and they sort of look at you with pleasant, smiling eyes, but you can see that deep down in the well, they don't get it? There's nothing negative behind it; the spark of recognition just isn't there.
Sometimes I feel like I should be embarrassed, since knitting really is the antithesis of something I would be into, but then I remember how pacifying the process is for me—it's basically meditation, with the added benefit of forcing me to do math, rethink structures, problem solve, and accept mistakes, and it always results in something I can wear, sell or give away to friends. Yes, I still love video games, killing zombies, horror movies, swearing, comic books, reading/watching sci fi, being a negative, neurotic New Yorker, watching unapologetic comedy—yes, yes, yes, I still love all those things.
But I also love making knit handwarmers. And baby sweaters. I just do.
So for all my many, many friends who don't get knitting, and probably never will (and a big shout-out to Dawn, who totally gets it and sits most Saturday nights with me, knitting and drinking wine and refusing to watch foreign films because we can't knit and read at the same time, damnit), I give you the opportunity to make your own scarf, without knowing how to knit, and without needing to buy yarn.
Thanks to a fellow blogger at My Blessed Life who created a master list, you too can take an old t-shirt, cut it up, and sew it into a scarf. Just click over to check out the 10 different scarf-making techniques available; this one, this one, this one, this one and this one only require a t-shirt and scissors—so if you don't know how to knit or sew, you're in luck.
I've had my eye on a knit coat of my own, but I've been putting it off because I know it will take me forever. I already have the yarn, but I know once it starts, I won't see any other knitting for at least 3-6 months. It's by Blue Sky Alpaca and it's called the Audrey Coat, and it's really adorable.
I have this beautiful, heathery peacock blue stashed away for it, but if I start it now, well, it won't be done until the summer, and there's no way I'm wearing an alpaca coat in the summer.
Speaking of coats that are too warm for this season, Dolce & Gabbana also showed a knit piece during Pitti Uomo, but I think it's a bit much. I'm all for fashion, and you can probably even push me to accepting some outlandish fashion, but this, this is just ridiculous. Sorry D&G, this is a thread too far.
Where will a man, or a woman, for that matter, wear this? Even in the winter, I just can't make sense of it. I love knitting, but there's such a thing as too much knitting. This is too much knitting for me. Way, way too much knitting. That crotch also looks a little too baggy. Like, diaper baggy.
If you'd like to see some more knit highlights, click here to see the NY Times coverage. There is a really cute multicolored cardigan that would look good on anyone that is worth seeing. I promise, no matching pants.
Ok, this has nothing to do with knitting or crafting—nothing at all—unless you consider crafting song lyrics as a qualified example of crafting... which I do.
My older brother, Geoffrey Arend, is currently on the show Body of Proof on ABC. It airs on Tuesday, right about the same time as Glee, and he had the idea a few months ago to rewrite the lyrics to a song from The Little Mermaid, but make it all about inspecting dead bodies, thereby rivaling Glee. Pretty genius, if you ask me.
So he sat down and rewrote "Part of Your World"(along with his friend and fellow actor, Mike Damus), and as a fan of the song, I have to say, he did a pretty damned good job. I'm quite proud.
So here it is. Enjoy!
If you have a chance and you're in NYC, I recommend heading down to Tribeca to see an exhibition on view at the World Financial Center Courtyard Gallery that celebrates fiber artists, many of whom are women.
The exhibition, "Crossing the Lines: The Many Faces of Fiber" is on display through February 19th (my birthday!) and features some amazing work constructed from things like yarn, glass beads, pipe cleaners, tea bags, paper, metal, wood and anything else fibrous you can think of.
There are 57 pieces in the show—some are unconventional, like a bedspread stitched from teabags, some have been practiced by women for centuries, like handmade quilts, but they all speak volumes about women's lives, regardless of class, nation or color.
A Korean American artist, Won Ju Seo, used square pieces of silk to represent the "windows" through which she viewed her world; a quilt by Katherine Knauer is made of swatches featuring bombs, soldiers and military vehicles and is called Conventional Forces; Rachel C. Wright's Cathartic Birth is stitched together with parchment paper, tape and wire formed into a crouching figure with arms stretched out several feet in front of it—a reflection of the 36 hours of labor it took to produce her son.
If you'd like to see some more imagery from this show, there are some great photos taken by a fellow blogger here, including Cathartic Birth.
