Knitting with Floss

Preorders available for Knit Red!

2012-02-09T14:30:00.000-05:00

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.

The Knit Red book is now available for preorder!

I'm putting a copy on my wishlist! If you'd like to pre-order the book as well, you can find it on Jimmy Beans Wool here.

Happy, healthy hearts!

Flossie

The Art of Ripping it All Out, or, I Suck at Math

2012-02-09T11:00:00.000-05:00

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.

Seriously, I ruined 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.

Wish me luck.

Flossie

Crafting Quickie #5: Recycled Crafts

2012-02-08T14:54:00.000-05:00

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!

How meta is the beer tab beer cooler bag?

You can follow Teresa's work on facebook or contact her here.

Was it good for you?

Flossie

Valentine's Day Lavender Hearts Pattern

2012-02-04T12:00:00.000-05:00

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.

©flossieKNITS

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.

my_hearts

Crafting Quickie #4: More T-shirt crafting!

2012-02-03T14:30:00.000-05:00

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.

First up: bags.

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.

One of us! One of us!

Happy crafting!

Flossie

Ivano Vitali and his paper knits

2012-02-03T11:00:00.000-05:00

When you think of someone knitting with strips of paper, you don't think of this:

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.

There are even guitars.

On his website it says that "The guitar and other paper instruments are used by Ivano in his performances." I'm very curious to see how that works.

He also knits giant "tape-stries" on what I imagine must be size 100 needles.

© Ivano Vitali

The results never look like paper—they always look like expensive, hand-dyed yarns that could pass for recycled cotton or bamboo.

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.

Happy Crafting!

Flossie

40-ft Lions Running Loose in the UK!

2012-02-02T16:30:00.000-05:00

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.

To see more of Shauna's work, click here.

Happy crafting!

Flossie

Crafting Quickie #3: T-Shirt Scarves!

2012-02-02T13:30:00.000-05:00

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.

All you need is an old t-shirt.

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.

See? I love you.

Happy scarfing!

Flossie

Chunky Knit Coats!

2012-02-02T11:00:00.000-05:00

According to the NY Times and Pitti Uomo, chunky knit coats for men are coming into style.

Lucky men.

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.

Happy knitting!

Flossie

A Shameless Plug for Geoffrey Arend

2012-02-01T13:00:00.000-05:00

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!

Crossing the Lines: The Many Faces of Fiber

2012-02-01T11:00:00.000-05:00

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.

Happy crafting!

Flossie

Nothing Like A Fresh Cake

2012-01-31T11:00:00.000-05:00

I've wound a lot of skeins of yarn in my day, and I get some pretty lopsided, mangy looking messes coming off my swift. More often than not, I find myself untangling yarn that wound too loose and fell into the gears of the winder, or weaving errant ends out of the swift because they've somehow found their way over and under a whole skein and if I try to wind it, they just get tighter and tighter. I can spend an hour untangling a ball of yarn that just didn't agree with the winder or the swift—beautiful yarns that are silky and resilient and wonderfully lofty (you wouldn't think so, the way they behave!). They are as stubborn as I am, so it becomes a battle of patience and time. And you can't let the yarn win.

This...

...becomes this

Yarn is beautiful knit up, but I might venture to say it is prettiest in a cake. When you wind yarn the right way, it forms a perfectly squat, cylindrical little cake that is neither too tight or too loose, and absolutely beautiful in its perfection.This can be especially true with multicolored yarns. Sometimes you buy a multicolored yarn that looks beautiful in the hank, then you wind it and it looks even more beautiful in the skein, then when you knit it something goes... wrong. The colors don't line up the way you thought, or they pool together in clumps, or they don't mix as well in the knitting as they did in the skein. I bought yarn that was pink, spring green and light brown that looked absolutely beautiful in the skein, but when I looked up projects on ravelry, I saw socks that had been knit with it and they looked like the stuff that comes out of a baby, and I don't need to tell you which end of the baby (it's both ends).

Not this kind of cake. Though I sometimes wish it were.

So yarn might be at its best in a cake. It still has all the potential for being absolutely anything, and it still looks good. If you liked the color when you bought it, well, it hasn't changed much yet for you to feel differently about it. And a cake of yarn is anything. It's a hat, gloves, scarf, sweater—it hasn't committed to anything yet. It's still just a spark, and there's nothing better than that really. It can't disappoint and it can't be a let down—it's just not possible yet—but it can be everything good you can think of. That's pretty amazing. What is even more amazing is if you start knitting with it and it doesn't turn out like you thought it would, well, you can rip it out and start over. Although, it's never again that perfect cake. You can't wind it back exactly the way it was when it came fresh off the winder.

Like this.

That's a perfect little cake of yarn, if you weren't sure what a cake of yarn was. It used to be in a big long hank, then it turned into that.
Incidentally, I've already started two different hats with it, neither of which pleased me, and so I ripped them out. I've decided I need to design a hat, but I've never really designed a hat before, not beyond a very basic, ribbing-on-the-bottom-stockinette-in-the-body hat. Like a real design, with design features, maybe a cable? I tried something initially and The Doo told me it looked like something they put on patients who are getting tests on their brain. So of course I had to rip it out.
I'm having one of those weeks where I think I can't design anything and I look at all the young designers on ravelry and get depressed at how great they are, and how seemingly quickly they got where they are, and I wonder why I bothered learning something so late, with no art background and no innate understanding of design or clothing structure. I feel like I can never catch up, and maybe I don't really have anything to offer.
And then I look at my perfectly squat little cake, and feel just a teeny bit better.

Flossie

knittingwithfloss.com is now flossieknits.com!

2012-01-30T16:21:00.000-05:00

I've just transferred my blog over for the sake of consistency, so now everything is flossieKNITS, whether it's facebook, ravelry, blogger or twitter. My blog will still be called Knitting with Floss, but expect more features on the webpage flossieKNITS.com in the future, like free and paid pattern downloads, a handy-dandy About page, and a photo album of all my projects (all courtesy of my tech-saavy brother, Ralph). I figure since there aren't that many of you reading this (yet, hopefully), you probably won't get lost in the Interwoods.
See you soon!

Flossie

The Crochet Dude Wants To Go All The Way

2012-01-28T12:00:00.000-05:00

Have a great Saturday!

Flossie

Wearable Meals

2012-01-28T09:00:00.000-05:00

It's not exactly my taste (pun fully intended), but it is brilliantly done.

Scarf meals, or meal scarves, done by Ashley Gerst (pineapplesauce knits on etsy).

That would be my problem—I'd try to eat it (© Ashley Gerst)

If you'd like to buy a delicious scarf, check out her store!

Yummy crafting!

Flossie

Hack a Knitting Machine!

2012-01-27T16:00:00.000-05:00

I really meant for this to be an in-depth post that included instructions and fun links and pictures and what-not. But I am exhausted. Drop. dead. exhausted.
Not only that, but I'm also embarrassed to admit I don't quite understand how this hacked knitting machine works, because a machine, when opened, has a complete, tiny universe inside that functions on a microscopic level through energy fields, magic and wishes made on unicorn horns. I mean, am I right? I'm right. They scrape the magic out of the bone marrow and that's why there are no more unicorns and that's why the world is fresh out of magic.
See? I'm tired y'all.
Ennnnyhooo...
This guy Andrew Salomone is a mechanical genius who figured out how to hook up a knitting machine to a computer in order to create custom, photo-realistic knitwear. Seriously. Unicorns.
He made this "identity preserving" balaclava with his hacked knitting machine, and it creeps me the hell out, but is awesome nonetheless.

Andrew is a pretty amazing artist outside of his hacked knitwear, creating Tina Fey portraits out of nerds, an embroidered sweater with all of Amy Winehouse's tattoos, and a portrait of Bill Cosby made out of jello cups. But my favorites, of course, are his machine knits.

Like his recursive Cosby sweater.

That would be a lot of work if you were handknitting. Thank god there's a HACKED KNITTING MACHINE TO DO IT FOR YOU.

If you'd like to learn how to tame a unicorn, steal it's horn, and hack a knitting machine, here's a helpful video.

Happy Hacking!

Flossie

Crafting Quickie #2: Knit the Sky!

2012-01-27T13:00:00.000-05:00

My recent Olek post was reblogged by Katonah Yarn Company, located only an hour upstate from me (yay, I have a reader!) and I couldn't be more thrilled. A new yarn store I have to visit, huzzah! Ahh NY, I do love you. Although... they said I was a guest post from 'across the pond,' which I only just noticed. At first, I thought that meant they were in the UK (I got really excited that I had a UK reader—remember when I thought I didn't?), but then I saw that they were indeed in NY, so I guess they think I'm in the UK. This is the second time this week someone thought I was in the UK. Bloody hell!
Anyway, I saw something on their site that I first saw a while back, but I don't think I ever spread the information here. It's the perfect Crafting Quickie, if I do say so myself.

Meet the Sky Scarf!

©Katonah Yarn

The Sky Scarf is a genius design thought up by Lea Redmond at Leafcutter Designs. I think it might be my favorite idea for a beginner project as you are only knitting one row per day (although, if you get obsessed like me that won't be enough).

Basically, the idea is that you knit the sky. You look up, take note of the color, and knit two rows in the color of the sky. The next day, you do the same thing—pick whichever color matches the sky, and knit with it. And so on and so on, until you have a scarf.

Instructions for the scarf can be found here, but definitely check out Leafcutter Designs as Lea is doing amazing things with Conceptual Knitting. To see some sky scarves in action, check out the Conceptual Knitting Flickr group. It's fun when you learn where people live in relation to their sky scarves.

Katonah Yarn Company has teamed up with Lea to offer kits to make your sky knitting even easier; you can buy them here. I'm going to buy a kit when I visit Katonah in the very-near future.

So... was it good for you?

Flossie

Happy Birthday Mozart!

2012-01-27T12:12:00.002-05:00

It's your 256th birthday! Thank you for making my days sound better. Way better.

Click through to see more famous composer pigs (knit with Anna Hrachovec's mochimochi pig pattern)
Happy Knitting!

Flossie

Stitch Red and Jimmy Beans Wool

2012-01-27T10:50:00.000-05:00

I love Jimmy Beans Wool. If you're a knitter, you should too. It is truly, honestly my absolute favorite knitting store, ever. I could go on and on about their insanely amazing customer service, or their Willy Wonkian-selection of yarns, or their incredibly interactive, user-friendly, highly navigable website, but I won't. You'd never get to the end of this blog post if I did.
Suffice it to say, I've never actually set foot in their store. I've worked in an actual yarn store, and their store is still my favorite store in the entire world. I dream about one day going to Reno just so I can visit and meet all the people I feel like I know already (I don't need Vegas if I got yarn!).
So I am all too happy to dedicate this post to an amazing cause that Laura Zander, owner of JBW, started to fight heart disease.

It's called Stitch Red and it aims to "inform women of the dangers of heart disease, encourage them to lower their risk factors and help them stay heart healthy." Heart disease is the number one killer of women in the United States.

The project is joined by many great names in the knitting industry: Interweave Knits (another personal favorite), which is generously donating 5% of the profits from these patterns to The Heart Truth, a National Awareness Campaign for Women About Heart Disease; Berroco, which has designated a shade of red in their yarns as a Stitch Red product; Namaste, which has designated a nifty red accessories pouch for the cause; Artyarns, which has turned one of their most beautiful shades of crimson into a Stitch Red color; and there are many more—too many for me to list, really. Jimmy Beans has gathered up over a dozen partners. You can find them here, with their Stitch Red contributions here. All partners will be donating 5% of the profits from their designated Stitch Red products to the Foundation for the National Institutes of Health.

Lantern Moon's Stitch Red Clutch (© Jimmy Beans Wool)

As if that weren't enough, Stitch Red has teamed up with the biggest, hottest knitters in the design world to produce the Knit Red Book, a coffee table book with 30 patterns for red garments and accessories, all of which have been generously donated by the designers, who share tips on how to stay heart healthy as well as their personal experiences with the disease.

The list of designers is insane: Jared Flood, Debbie Bliss, Stephen West, Ysolda Teague, Iris Shreier, Debbie Stoller, Ann Norling, Debbie Newton, Trisha Malcolm, Cecily G. MacDonald, Deborah Norville, Martin Storey, Melissa Morgan Oakes, Diane Soucy, Amy Swenson, Daniela Johannsenova, Andrea Jurgrau, Maia Landra, Barry Klein, Sarah Hatton, Kristen Ashbaugh-Helmrich, Kim Hargreaves, Kit Hutchin, Cornelia Tuttle Hamilton, Jeanne Giles, Tanis Gray, Kieran Foley, Norah Gaughan, and the list is growing.

As if that weren't enough.

You can find out more about the designers here.

The book will be available in June of this year, and I will be sure to post an update as soon as it is available. You can find out more information about Stitch Red here.

And please, if you can, like Stitch Red on Facebook, follow them on Blogger, Twitter, and Ravelry, and spread the word.

In the meantime,

Happy, healthy hearts!

Flossie

Out and About in NYC!

2012-01-26T16:00:00.000-05:00

Yesterday The Doo and I took a break from our otherwise busy and oft-Serendipity style (as in the 2001 John Cusack romantic comedy) lives to take a lunch date in the city. If you haven't seen that movie—good for you! It was awful! But it was all about two people just barely running into each other. Despite the fact that we live together, The Doo and I have the misfortune of suffering from exactly that.
We barely see each other! It's astounding, truly. Busy, busy bees. He's got his comedy hive and I have my knitting-air cargo-craft blogging hive. Did you know that was my hive? It is. It's a crazy hive.

Don't ask me why we match

As you can see, I wore my Clapotis scarf (which I call my Clapo-me, because I'm lame), which kept me surprisingly warm despite how light and airy it is. God bless that Sea Silk.
We went to Cafe Sabarsky, located inside the Neue Galerie on the Upper East Side. I love small, intimate museums much better than big museums—they're less crowded, more personal, and there are usually no big, loud school groups. I like my art with a side of silence.
We first discovered the cafe and museum upon trying to visit the Guggenheim only to find it closed. We are the King and Queen of Happy Mistaken Discoveries.
The Neue Galerie is focused on German and Austrian art and design, so of course I love it. From Bauhaus to your house, ammaright? It's a matter of course that the Sabarsky serve Viennese food.

The first time we went to the Sabarsky, they were all out of Bavarian pretzels. It was really uncalled for. I was extremely disappointed. I would not be a good (1/4) German if I didn't get a Bavarian pretzel at a Viennese cafe. My Papa done taught me well.

So this time, I got my pretzel and sausage.

If you've never had a real Bavarian pretzel, I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry for you. They are unbelievably delicious. That beautiful, crackly, caramel-colored exterior is wafer thin and tastes salty and butter soaked. The inside is a whoooooole other story. The inside, which you might assume to be leaden and thick like most NY pretzels, is actually as light, moist and airy as a croissant.
There is nothing more delicious than a real Bavarian pretzel. Nothing. Don't fight me on this.
And those are pork and milk-fed veal sausages. Also, yum.
The Doo decided on a smoked trout and horseradish with creme fraiche crepe, no less delicious than my lunch (minus the pretzel). (See above for: NothingIsMoreDeliciousThanMyPretzel)

And between the two of us we split a salad... (The Doo had a cucumber soda)

...and some apple strudel, mit schlag.

Do yourself a favor. Visit the Sabarsky.

After the Sabarsky, we went for a walk along Lexington Avenue, where we discovered the most glass bottle sodas I have ever seen in my entire life. And I grew up in a house where the entire top shelf of the fridge was stocked with glass bottle sodas. Still is. I kid you not.

I went home to get proof

I don't lie. And that's only been reduced recently, now that there are no kids in the house. It used to be rolling hills of coke, far as the eye could see.

Anyway, this place had way more cokes than my parents have, and the cokes hailed from all over the world.

Chelles, France perhaps?

There were so many kinds of glass bottle cokes. And a lot of them had stickers on them to tell you where they came from.

Did I mention that we are the King and Queen of Happy Mistaken Discoveries?

The coke bottles belong to the Lexington Candy Shop, located on the corner of Lexington Avenue and 83rd street in Manhattan. It's a luncheonette that was established in 1925, and according to the website, "Our display includes Coca Cola toy trains and trucks, as well as unusual bottles and cans. The bottles are generally from U.S. regional celebrations and sporting events, while the international cans and bottles show the global side of Coca Cola. Our display is constantly growing through our own acquisitions as well as 'gifts and donations' from our customers and visitors."
They also have a vintage 1940 Hamilton Beach milkshake mixer, coffee urns from 1948, a soda fountain from 1948, and decor lovingly managed to maintain vintage authenticity.
We loved it. And we never even stepped inside.

Although you can be damn sure that's where we're going for our next luncheon date. I really should have taken more coke pictures. It was a corner diner, so there were 3 full windows of cokes.
After that, I got a haircut. See that rat's nest of hair? No more!

I apologize for the lack of crafting in this post. But it's a late-in-the-day, borderline weekend post, so that's ok, right?

Happy living!

Flossie

Crafting Quickie #1: Doily Lights!

2012-01-26T13:00:00.000-05:00

I'm starting to realize that my blog posts are either fairly long, or short and sweet. Like, Hey here's this thing I like, wanna like it too? Ok bye.
So I'm starting the Crafting Quickie series in the hope of identifying such posts so that my reader will know exactly what he/she is in for when he/she clicks over. I imagine these Crafting Quickies will happen mostly around lunchtime because, you know, afternoon delight and all.
And yes, I said reader, because I'm convinced there is only one of you.
A tale told by an idiot full of sound and fury signifying nothing blah blah blah.
Anyway.
In my recent internet trolling, I came across this lovely woman's blog in which she talks about upcycling doilies to use as light covers. Her name is Shannon South and she's a designer who specializes in using recycled materials "to create beautiful, long-lasting, well-made products that positively impact the environment and the people who use and make them." Her line, reMade USA, is in pursuit of that dream.
Well, I honestly can't think of a better use for doilies. Honestly. I can't. Because doilies, seriously? I don't have much use for them otherwise. But these light covers really are beautiful.

I do love what it does to the ceiling.

To see more of Shannon's work, click here.
To read about the doily covers and see Shannon's blog, click here.

Was it good for you?

Flossie

Olek is back!

2012-01-26T10:45:00.000-05:00

As if she ever went away!

If you're an avid reader of knittingwithfloss (which none of you are), then you may remember the last time I referenced crochet master Olek when she covered a piano in rapid-fire crochet.

Olek is the Johnny Appleseed of crochet, I'm convinced of it. She's traversing this planet and dropping crochet seeds everywhere she goes, carpeting all open surfaces with neon, multi-colored treble crochets. In fact, rumor has it Olek has already covered her entire apartment in crochet (more on this later).

Regardless, Olek is spreading the gospel of crochet across the globe. As she says on her website, "Hour after hour my madness becomes crochet. Life and art are inseparable. The movies I watch while crocheting influence my work, and my work dictates the films I select. I crochet everything that enters my space. Sometimes it's a text message, a medical report, found objects."

I have to say it. When I first read that statement, I immediately thought of a video The Doo made a while back that still cracks me up:

I don't know if it's the "hour after hour my madness becomes crochet" bit, but I'm sure someone could film her in black and white furiously crocheting with her narrative playing and it would be Bergman genius.

Anyway, the point of this post was to spread the word that Olek has a new show opening at Tony's Gallery in the UK. Go Olek! Craft on with your fibery self!

The show opens today, if I have any readers in the UK (I have no readers in the UK) and is called (wait for it)...

I do not expect to be a mother but I do expect to die alone

Oh, Olek. Be still my heart.

Apparently she has crocheted whole rooms with crocheted objects in them, as well as covering the floors and walls in crochet. She has also crocheted her trademark messages into the work, examples of which can be seen in the first photo up top. She uses a lot of text messages she has received and many of them are dirty, which she feels is exemplary of the sexism inherent in the world today.

Oh, Olek. Be still my heart.

Later this year, Olek will be featured in the Smithsonian American Art Museum exhibition 40 under 40, in which she will be displaying her crocheted studio apartment... and I assume that means her entire apartment is covered in crochet. My first thought goes to the bathroom, and what must be happening there, but I guess I'll have to wait until the exhibit opens later this year to find out.
Here's some random Olek...
I love what she did here....

....and this truly terrifies me

Whatever she's doing, I love it. She's elevating crafters everywhere.
I'll leave you with this image of a London taxi cab that ran into Olek. You don't run into Olek and walk away uncrocheted.

Happy (existentialist) crocheting!

Flossie

Vogue Knitting Live 2012 #3: Mochimochi!

2012-01-25T16:00:00.000-05:00

Well, because I posted the earlier link for VK crochet amigurumi zodiac patterns, I figured now is as good a time as any to post the wonderful mochimochi display Anna Hrachovec made for VKL 2012.

It was HUGE. A gigantic snowball fight that looped around on two tables. In case you can't read it, the sign on the lower righthand side of the picture says "NAUGHTY ADOLESCENT GNOMES MAKE A PG-13 STATEMENT." I think you should be able to make out the statement.
I for some reason become too excited to do anything but gape at things and squeal to myself like a little pig, so I rely on The Doo to be photographer. I have him to thank for all these pictures.

It was Snowmen vs. Gnomes, and it was amazesnowballs.

There were all these little details, I could have stood there for an hour if not for the siren song of yarn calling me from stand after stand.

These gnomes got knocked out

I was really astonished by the depth of her imagination and her ability to sculpt it into reality. This was my absolute favorite scene.

I can feel the effort those little, black twig arms are making to push that snowball

These next two images aren't mine, but I had to include them because they are really incredible.

Eat it Gnomey. EAT IT!! (pictures © Anna Hrachovec)

The tables have turned! (pictures © Anna Hrachovec)

I love how she made the fire. And I really, really love the snowman choking the gnome out on a snowball. Very up my alley.

I especially love that it's amigurumi without the crocheting—while I'm fairly proficient in crocheting, the knit option is a blessing. And all of Anna's work is knit!

I was given her book Knitting Mochimochi as a gift a while back, and it really is a great introduction to the craft. I especially love the fat little grouchy couch.

She's really become a master at this tiny art.

She also sells kits if you don't want to commit to a large project, with yarn and stuffing included. I recommend the tiny burger.

I kind of want to make it just so I can tell people I'm on a diet, then when it's time to eat, I can say I brought my own food and pull it out of my pocket. Yeah, I want to be that girl.

You can follow Anna's work here—she's currently working on some tiny sushi!

Happy tiny crafting!

Flossie

Gong Hei Fatt Choi!

2012-01-25T13:00:00.000-05:00

I almost forgot - Happy Chinese New Year!

恭喜发财

If you'd like to make your own Chinese zodiac animal, Vogue Knitting has a free crochet pattern waiting to be downloaded. All the animals are made from the same body (except for the snake); the only difference is in the features. Enjoy!

And remember, this year should be extra-prosperous as it's the year of the Dragon—the only mythical animal on the zodiac.

Happy Crocheting!

Flossie

Sweaters... for Chickens!

2012-01-25T10:45:00.000-05:00

Yeah, you heard me. Sweaters for chickens. Apparently, hens produces a certain number of eggs and after about a year, they moult all of their feathers. The feathers grow back, but it takes anywhere from 3-6 weeks. It's during this period of time that egg producers usually send their birds to slaughter because they are no longer producing eggs, but still need to be fed.
Enter Jo Eglen, the woman behind Little Hen Rescue in the UK. She takes in chickens during the moulting period and houses and feeds them until they regrow their feathers. The hens never produce the same number of eggs—it reduces year on year—but they are still productive, bald or not.

So... chicken sweaters! I love it!

It's unclear why the chickens lose their feathers; it might be stress, or they may just be shedding them. Whatever the reason, chicken sweater = adorable.

If you'd like to knit your own chicken sweater, click through for the pattern. I think Jo is full-up on sweaters for right now, but you can sign up to be included on the next email blast. I think a chicken sweater is a pretty great first project, all things considered.

Chicken sweaters!

Do you think I could turn that into a thing? Like, instead of "Aww, shucks," start saying, "Aww, chicken sweaters."

I think it's doable.

Flossie

Knitting for the Super Bowl and the Naptown Knitters

2012-01-24T16:00:00.000-05:00

Super Bowl organizers have created a program called "Super Scarves" to provide scarves to volunteers in order to keep them warm. They initially wanted 8,000 scarves, but received over 13,000, sent in from all over the world.
I think the most inspiring part of the story is that a prison knitting program created in Indianapolis called "Naptown Knitters" got in on the fun. Prisoners were taught to knit and started knitting up scarves as fast as they could. A convicted murderer had this to say: "Here's a group of a guys sitting around knitting, something we normally don't have inside prison. No tension, everybody just sitting back and laughing. And knitting."

Apparently, some of the men "forgot where they were" for a couple of hours. I did a little Google sleuthing and found this quote inside one of the many articles on the Naptown Knitters: "One of the knitters even compared the story of his life to his knitting. Omitting mistakes in making your first scarf, he said, is like going off track a few times; and, with the support and encouragement of others, you will get back on track and life will look better and better." I can't tell you how many times I've said this to people about knitting.
If I didn't think I'd get shanked with a US size 8, I'd love to rehabilitate prisoners with knitting (I kid, I kid).
To read more about the Super Scarves program, click through the link!

FiberPhiladelphia 2012

2012-01-24T13:20:00.000-05:00

The Doo has been asking me for a few weeks what I want to do for my upcoming birthday, and I haven't been able to give him an answer. He offered Sleep No More, which I want to see but somehow am not in the mood for, then I thought a symphony would be nice, but now I think I've made up my mind.

A friend of mine just earburned me on facebook regarding the upcoming FiberPhiladelphia art and fiber festival, and I'm sold. As if I needed further proof that the planet is going fiber-crazy, this festival sets out to shine a light on the explosion of artists using textiles within their work. The keynote speaker, Elissa Auther, will open the festival with a lecture on how "The 21st century has witnessed a tremendous increase in the visibility of fiber in art, a rise related to the broader currency of craft within the context of DIY and artisan movements, among other social, political, and cultural forces."
It's not just Baader-Meinhof. I'm seeing it everywhere because it is everywhere. It seems I started knitting right when knitting and fiber-related, DIY projects were hitting an upswing. I'm finally riding a zeitgeist!
The festival is running from March through April, so I'm going to have to look through the exhibition schedule with a fine-tooth comb in order to figure out when is best to go. I'm already picking things that I would really love to see. I live in NY; I can take day trips, right?
The first thing that caught my eye, which I will share with you here, is the work of Melissa Maddoni Haims. Melissa is a Philly artist who likes to work with recycled and reclaimed fibers to create crocheted and knitted sculptural works. She has a piece called Heaven, which is showing in the festival and looks like something I could stand under for hours.

Heaven, copyright Melissa Maddonni Haims and Haimshouse

She writes: "As you enter into this alternate cosmos, convoluted, cloud-like sculptures, stuffed with recycled fibers, hang from the ceiling. In this version of heaven, many of the sculptures are formed and named for those who have passed from this world to the next, including the artist’s mother, the catalyst for this project. Others have been commissioned to memorialize loved ones. These sculptures are organic and unconventional, not at all the predetermined forms associated and derived from faded stitchery pattern-books. Here we have rambling rows curling around into sensuous newness."

Melissa is also a yarn bomber, which doesn't surprise me at all.

Click here to see more of her fantastic fiber work—she also knit and crocheted a Hell!

I'm going to continue looking through the festival offerings as time permits and keep posting here. Maybe the process of sifting through everything will help me make a decision about when is best to go, and hopefully it will help others too. It looks like a pretty packed schedule!

Happy crafting!

Flossie

Vogue Knitting Live 2012 #2: The Stash

2012-01-24T10:45:00.000-05:00

I did what we all do. I took a predetermined amount of money out of the bank, put it in my wallet, and thought, This is is. This is all that I will spend.
I did this, knowing full well that the amount of money that I committed to VKL was well under what I would reasonably spend, especially given the fact that I already knew I was going to spend 3/4 of it on 7 skeins of beautiful, undyed alpaca in order to make a sweater for my mother. Which would leave me enough for possibly one skein of yarn for myself. One skein? Seriously... who was I kidding? I love when we perform tiny little tomfooleries against our own brains... and do it like we're actually going to get away with it. Silly little primate!
I wound up spending a lot more money than I should have. A lot. Enough that I probably shouldn't buy any more yarn for the rest of the year. But rather than fall down the rabbit hole of money spent (too much!), I'd much rather take pictures of the yarn I did buy.

First up, Mom's yarn. I should probably preface this by saying that I've worked with this yarn before. When I went on the Hampton Yarn Hop last summer, one of the last places we visited was the Long Island Livestock Company. It was there that I met a llama!

I bought a worsted weight 92% alpaca, 8% wool blend in a deep, heathery black that I used to make this sweater:

It's called Francis Revisited and it's available free on Ravelry.

And it's my new favorite sweater.

Of course, the second my mom saw it she decided she had to have one for herself. I can't blame her, really.

She wanted the same color as mine, but unfortunately by the time I got to VKL, there wasn't enough left. There was, however, this rich, dark camel.

I'm sure she won't be disappointed

I can't wait to start working with the Long Island Livestock yarn again. It's some seriously beautiful stuff. I thought I was going to run out of the heathery black when I was making my sweater, and I contacted them to send me another skein. Despite the fact that it was months later, they were able to match my yarn with an entirely different yarn. That's service! You can (should) click through the picture to Like them on Facebook.

My next purchase was, of course, perceived as a a necessity. Upon further inspection (when I got on the train and went through everything, tiny bag by tiny bag, then again when I got home and could lay them all out on my bed, then again after I put them back in my shopping bag so I could take them out a week later and look at them as one whole purchase one more time. Yeah.), I was able to confirm that the purchase was, indeed, a necessity.

I know there are lots of indie dyers out there. A cursory search on Google, or better yet, etsy, will show you that's true. And I know there are lots of NYC stores currently carrying indie dyers, and those stores get a big hurrah from me for doing so.

But can I ask how it is that I haven't yet seen Creatively Dyed Yarns in any stores?? How are shopowners missing this yarn?

Creatively Dyed Yarn is the brainchild of Dianne Lutz, who hails from Trinidad and Tobago but now lives in South Carolina. Dianne calls upon her roots to inspire her colorways, and I've truly never seen anything like her yarn - my personal favorite is that middle skein, which has so many different colors working together. All 3 skeins are incredibly vibrant and beautiful—no camera could do them justice—although you can see I tried. If you're a fan of rich, vibrant colors, be sure to check out her site.

My next purchase was driven by my current obsession with alpacas and alpaca farms. This yarn is so silky smooth in the skein, and the colors are so rich, I already have a set of colorwork handwarmers in mind. It comes from Furnace Mountain Alpacas in Lovettsville, Virginia. The yarn is a sportweight and is incredibly lofty and soft. I can't wait to work with it.

And finally, the motherlode purchase. You have to ignore this picture. It's not a good picture. But you can't completely blame me. It's not entirely my fault. Frankly, I'm of the belief that nothing but the human eye possesses the capacity to process this color properly. Through a lens it looks black, greyish black, raven black, or not-quite-blue, but it is none of those things. In fact, I'm fairly certain that each person that looks at this yarn must see a slightly different color, because when I saw it I said, aloud, "Oh it's like a really deep, dark evergreen. Like a forest at night," and The Doo said, "No it's not. It's like a midnight black." I think the color is called Midnight Blue, so there you have it. I'm afraid to even say how much it cost. Let's just say The Doo bought one skein and I bought one skein, so that I wouldn't have to feel so crazy just buying two skeins, and even then it still felt indecent. I shouldn't be spending money like this on yarn when people are starving, but The Doo just keep telling me "You deserve it."

The picture I took really doesn't do it any justice. The below image was slurped from a fellow ravelry user, and I think she did a better job than I.

The yarn is called Kitten, it's a 65% Cashmere, 35% Silk blend, and it is all milky silky goodness. It is like petting a kitten, and I could easily sit and pet it all day long without ever knitting it into anything. I'm really in love with it. Maybe if I stick googly eyes on it, I won't ever have to knit anything from it and can just sit in my house petting it all day long. It would also be nice to wear as a wig, pretending it's my real hair. Is it weird that I sincerely think these things?

It comes from Tess' Designer Yarns in Portland, Maine, and it wasn't the only beautiful yarn she had, but I had to purchase it because I couldn't stop petting it. Even now, as I type, I can't stop petting it. It's a little ridiculous.

Well, those were the yarns. I hope you aren't taking out your calculators to figure out how much I spent, because that would be lame on your part and unfortunate for me. Just trust me when I say it was too much.

Methinks VKL Post # 2 will involve some delightful amigurumi, so stay tuned...

Flossie

Vogue Knitting Live 2012 Post #1: Julia Ramsey

2012-01-23T11:00:00.000-05:00

I went to Vogue Knitting Live this year—my first time ever since I started my foray into this fibrous, colorful world of knitting—and I have a number of stories about the trip that I need to individualize, because it really was amazing. Expect this to be the first of many, as I'm finally getting a chance to pluck them from the day and plant them on paper. It's better for me to spread them out anyway so I can revisit the experience as I move further and further away from it; it serves as a gentle reminder of how soft, fuzzy and warm this year started for me, which will be good for when the blots show up, as they so often do.
For this, my first VKL post, I'd like to focus on Julia Ramsey, who had a gorgeous knitted dress on display.
I've always wanted to knit a dress (specifically, this dress, although it has no pattern), but her work really pushes the stitches when it comes to modern imaginings of knit dresses. Usually, when you think of a knit dress, you probably see in your mind's eye something tight knit, definitely not see-through, and probably not very long. For those who don't knit (and as someone who isn't that far away from having been that person), a long, knit dress seems like it would be heavy and stretchy and sweaty and awful. As a knitter, I now have the wisdom to know that isn't the case.

Enter Julia Ramsey. Can you believe this dress?

Julia is the newly-hired knitwear designer for Anthropologie, which is no surprise given her vision and the fact that knitwear is slowly creeping into most brand names. Even athletic wear is picking up on the knitting trend—have you seen the knitwear specifically made for bicyclists? Knitting is the blob, people, and it's coming to a town near you.

Julia studied under Kaffe Fassett, a master textile artist (or textile artist master) and former fine arts painter with a penchant for beautiful colorwork, geometric shapes and fabulous patterning. I can't possibly take on the amazonian task of describing his work further—remember, Google is your friend.

If you didn't have a chance to see VKL, please do yourself a favor and visit Julia's website to check out knitwear from her new exhibit, Engaged, which explores shape and texture in beautiful, white, knit wedding dresses. I have to say, while I have no plans on ever getting married, there is a part of me that fantasizes about having an occasion to wear one of these dresses. Specifically, this one.

If wedding dresses aren't your thing and you want to see something in person, fret not—Julia currently has an exhibit at the Textile Art Center in Brooklyn from January 13 - February 24. The exhibition is called Pelt and focuses on gorgeously creamy, chunky white knits - I'm guessing size 50 needles here. Julia used minimally processed fibers—basically, raw sheep's wool, no ply intended (har har)—to create beautifully structured pieces. It blows my mind, because usually super-duper chunky does not hold hands with structure; people tend to lose their shapes inside super-duper chunky knits.

But good lord, look at the shaping on this waist!

I love the beautiful lacey detailing that sweeps outward from the waist—it does wonders for the shaping as well.
I need to get my butt to BK as soon as possible. It seems like something you have to see in person. I only wish that high-collared jacket above had a pattern. I would definitely make it in some Twinkle Soft Chunky if I could... but maybe with a smaller collar... or a hood!

Happy knitting!

Flossie

Tiny Things Make Me So, So Happy

2011-10-20T10:30:00.000-04:00

I don't know what it is. I'm generally a sucker for good packaging, which is terrible news for me, but great news for companies at large. There is something about teeny tiny things that yanks the wallet right out of my back pocket. Remember itty bitty erasers shaped like anime characters?

I had tons of them, and I never used them. Ever. Because they were too damn cute. And I couldn't bear to grind their little faces away. Not only that, but I think they were pretty bad erasers.

My boyfriend will actually buy me things based on their size. Which is why I have the tiniest, itsiest turtle pendant in the world. I can balance it on my pinky nail. It really is the cutest.

So you can imagine how I felt when I saw this:

My goodness; is that not the skwinkiest, witsiest crochet turtle you've ever seen?!?

Think it doesn't get any cuter? Take that!

And that!

And THAT!

These are all the adorably squinky creations of Su Ami, a vietnamese family of 5 crochet crafters with a shop on etsy. I think these actually make pretty awesome gifts, if you have someone in your life who would appreciate them. I can't imagine how they make them so darn tiny, but I'm very thankful that they do.

I'm also very happy that they price them for as much as they do, because people should get paid for their crafting, and paid well. I can't tell you how disheartening it has been to look up what people are charging for their handknits and seeing that for what they're making, they're barely covering the cost of the yarn. Well-crafted, handmade goods deserve acknowledgement. Just because you can buy a knit hat at the Gap for less, doesn't mean you can find a handknit hat for the same amount of money. Especially when your handknit hat will more than likely outlive the Gap hat by decades.

Anyway, I'm putting this on my Christmas list...

Happy Tiny Crafting!

Flossie

Thread and Breakfast

2011-10-19T18:07:00.000-04:00

Sometimes, I think I'm just not obsessed enough... especially when I see massive installation projects like Thread and Breakfast, which is an actual room in the Pelirocco in Brighton where everything inside it is knitted (except in the bathroom, because that would be moldy, weird and gross).
At just over $100 a night, I think it's worth it. But I guess I'll have to hurry and get over to the UK, as it will only remain knitted for the next 3 years.

click through to see more pictures and read about the room!

Knitwear, forever making a comeback

2011-10-01T16:37:00.000-04:00

Does knitwear ever really go away? I guess it wasn't so prevalent in the 80s and 90s... well, apparently it's been making a 'comeback' for some time now, by which I'm not at all surprised. Last November I went to Amsterdam on business, and I made sure to take pictures of all the knitwear I saw in shop windows - it was pretty amazing. There seemed to be more there than there was here, but maybe it's just another case of Baader-Meinhof phenomenon, which, as you know if you read me enough, is a phenomenon of which I am particularly fond.
Here are some pictures of knitwear in Amsterdam from one year ago:

I really love the white cable dress and the bizarre, chunky floating-cables turtleneck next to it.

Now that the season is fast approaching, I'm hunkering down to knit some really big, chunky cowls and thinking of the design elements that will make them stand out most. I'm hoping to have some of them up for sale, especially as my schedule just cleared up considerably with the inevitable exit from the part-time yarn store job. I thought I would be sad, but have discovered that I'm not - the goal is to keep moving forward and push myself towards my own design line, and hopefully, eventually, some written patterns and online sales. It's exciting to have the opportunity to pursue your own creative endeavours and become the sole beneficiary of your creative work. No more selling myself short!

The inspiration for this blog was the unveiling of Isabel Marant's Spring 2012 fashion collection, much of which is not only knitwear, but inspired by knitters in general, which I think is really cool. She says the pieces are inspired by the girl who is "a bit crafty. She tie-dyes and patchworks, and cuts up her sweatshirts to knit with!" Click through the picture below for more from her line!

Happy Fall crafting!

flossie

The Seamstresses behind the Moon

2011-08-15T21:39:00.003-04:00

There's not much I can say about this that this article doesn't cover, so I'm just going to say this: if you're a crafter, or are appreciative of fine craft, or art, it behooves you to read this. Basically, the NASA spacesuits were not machine made, but hand sewed, which, given my recent and somewhat infuriating foray into hand sewing, is absolutely astonishing.
Enjoy!

The blanket, she is done!

2011-08-10T10:00:00.002-04:00

Apologies for the long absence, but I've taken on far more knitting projects than I think I can handle.

I also took a trip to the Hamptons on a bus full of yarnies and knitters and got to meet Kay Gardiner, half of the womanly brains behind the above blanket design, who you can read more about over at Mason Dixon Knitting.

Once I've processed all the projects I've taken on recently, I will be sure to blog about that trip, which was kind of amazing. I just haven't been in a blog writing mood, more of a frenzied knitter mood, so the typing of things has fallen by the wayside.

But back to that baby blanket...

It's done! I hand sewed the whole thing! But not until I got 3/4 of the way through, realized the fourth side wouldn't line up, started crying, ripped it back, traveled with it half-sewn to the baby shower so I could at least show it to the mommy-to-be, then brought it back home and started in on the torture again.

I'm not very good at hand sewing.

But I'm fairly proud of my fairly straight back stitch.

The most amazing thing about my yarn trip to the Hamptons was getting to talk to Kay about the blanket, and then having the quasi-humiliating experience of her reading my blog post about hating to weave in all those ends. She did the best thing a person could do for me, which was to tell me to get used to weaving in ends. It's part of the process, and I have to get used to it. And frankly, after my experience with hand sewing that piece of unforgiving fabric, I have to agree with her.

So with that in mind, I set about trying to come up with a design that would force me to weave in ends on every row. Because I am sadistic, and I have to teach myself a lesson. Now this design, I thought it was genius. And I thought I was a genius for coming up with it. I need you to stick with me here when I say that I've only been knitting for 3 years, and the things I find novel are pretty old hat to experienced knitters. But I'm a total Christopher Columbus - I think I've discovered something and get all puffy-headed and candy-notioned about it without realizing not only has it been discovered before, but it's been civilized.

I'm not going to say any more about it, because the experience deserves its own blog post. It was really character building, I'll tell you that. It didn't make me cry, but it definitely beat me up a little. So the next post will invite you in to my heart ache, and give you a recipe for a fairly simple Old Hat hat. And then perhaps the post after that will talk about my trip to the Hamptons. And the one after that, my trips to yarn stores in Mystic, Connecticut and Boston, Massachusetts. You know, in between participating in a Stephen West KAL, knitting a blanket for my Dad's birthday in September, and finishing a tank top that I'd like to wear in two weeks.

Basically, check back in a year.

Stitch'N'Pitch

2011-08-02T17:13:00.001-04:00

Apparently, there's an organization called Stitch'N'Pitch that arranges for knitters, crocheters and crafters alike to attend baseball games and sit in their own special section, where they can enjoy the game and work on their respective projects.
They recently attended a San Francisco Giants' game - I think it's an awesome way to get all the crafters from one area together to meet one another. Not only that, but Stitch'N'Pitch is also a charity organization that finds needle mentors and gives them the resources to teach crafting to kids.

You think they'll ever come to a Yankees game?

Sewing?

2011-07-01T10:00:00.000-04:00

I don't know about this one. I think I may be pushing my own limits here.

I used to sew a lot of things together when I was little. I never worked on an actual machine, and I never made anything I could actually wear. In fact, I remember working on a machine once and feeling as if a famished monster was gorging on cloth in an effort to get to my fingers, and that was the end of me and machine sewing. What can I say; I have a lead foot.
I think I liked taking a needle and thread and stitching two pieces of whatever together. That was pretty much it. No form, no function. I think my little sister did the same thing, although she may have been more successful with it. I even took a weird sewing elective in junior high (in addition to wood shop and painting, and I kind of wonder what the other options were because I don't remember any other choices), but we didn't really sew much of anything in that class either. In fact, I don't remember sewing anything, but I do remember learning back stitch and whip stitch and some other stitches, and most importantly, I remember my friend Michael Leung being super-gross and cool and sewing his fingertips together, which at the time was like NO. WAY... DUDE!
But knitting has led me back to sewing in the most surreptitious way. Because now that I'm finally making things that I like and want to have for a long time, I want to back them and line them and make them fancy-like. It's handmade, not homemade, right?
I am also incredibly opposed to weaving in ends. That's the devil's work, weaving in ends. GOOD LORD is it awful. Unlike many knitters, I actually enjoy seaming, but I'll leave that exposition to a different post seeing as how I don't want to infuriate and annoy anyone before a big holiday weekend.
But weaving in ends! All those little ends from balls of yarn that need to be joined and hidden, ceaselessly, in that never ending project that has finally ended. What a horrible, horrible twist of fate, that weaving in ends. You did so much work and you're finally finished and really, at this point, there should be the knitter's equivalent of cobbler elves that come out at night to weave in all your ends.

THERE ARE MORE THAT YOU CAN'T SEE

But alas, the weaver elves of old were long ago killed by the angels of mercy, because weaving in ends SUCKS.
Not only is it tedious to thread those bad boys on a tapestry needle one by one then loop them through your own knitting, or pull them through with a crochet hook, but depending on the slickness or sproinginess of the yarn, they might just pop out. Again. and again... and again. You see, they hate us. Because we gave up on them to use a new ball of yarn and treated them like whores, never appreciating everything they did - oh forget it. I can't even give them a story. I just hate them.
Which brings me to sewing. See, if I sew some really pretty cotton fabric on to the back of this baby blanket, I won't need to weave in all those ends. Then my pregnant friend won't know just how sinfully lazy I am, because honestly, if I can knit a whole blanket for a month and yet refuse to tuck in a few ends, that's some kinda paradox lazy I can't even define. ESPECIALLY if I take the time to HAND SEW cotton to the back of it. WHEN I DON'T EVEN KNOW HOW TO SEW. Is it laziness? Or just deep-seated loathing? I don't know. But I'm going to do it. In the next two weeks.
Because it's vacation! And because I just got my baby shower invitation. And because it's two weeks away.
And because I hate weaving in ends.

They make me feel like this.

Happy Fourth of July y'all!

And Happy Birthday brother Ralph!

The Crafting Takeover

2011-06-28T17:02:00.001-04:00

I don't know if it's just because I only started crafting about 3 years ago, but it feels as if more and more people are crafting these days, or at least that crafting is receiving more attention than it ever has before.
With the first International Yarn Bombing Day just two weeks behind us and Ravelry sporting over 1 million knit and crochet members, it feels as if the crafting bug is catching, and like communities are sitting up and taking notice.

(I think Laura Marsden's street signs in Vancouver may be my favorite yarn bombing project ever; copyright for these street sign photos belongs to her)

Growing up in New York City, throughout the years I have seen a lot of outdoor art projects - many of them interconnected and scattered around the city. If you live in New York, you probably remember the New York City Cow Parade from 11 years ago, which featured hundreds of cows painted by different artists and placed in parts of the city.

I really liked Starry Night Cow, copyright cowparade.com

The funny thing is, even with all those hundreds of cows, not a single one was covered in knitting or crochet. This was in 2000 and I certainly wasn't knitting yet, and I think I might be right in saying that fiber art really didn't make it into the forefront until now. It can't just be a Baader-Meinhof phenomenon, can it?
Well, New York now has a pop-up piano art installation filling its streets, with 88 pianos on display through this Saturday, and low and behold! There is a piano covered in crochet, designed by a woman named Olek from Poland.

(Phoebe Zheng/The Epoch Times)

How cute is she in her crocheted top? She likens crochet to 'painting with thread' and apparently works so fast that if she looks at her hands while she's crocheting, she gets dizzy. That's some serious crocheting.
The organization behind the pop-up pianos installation is Sing For Hope, a non-profit organization that encourages artists to bring their work to communities and participate in programs that benefit schools and hospitals.

I think it's pretty amazing that right now there are pianos plopped down all over the city where people can sit and play. With all the traffic and people noise you hear everyday, it's pretty surreal to think you might hear a piece of live Brahms wafting from around a corner in Central Park.
The program culminates on Saturday with a free concert at Lincoln Center from 11-2pm.

(Phoebe Zheng/The Epoch Times)

For more information on the installation, click through the pictures.

Side note: Why can't Mayor Bloomberg smile without looking like a lizard? Thanks for the Highline, Bloomsie, but seriously, you need to take the A King's Speech version of smile lessons.

Tom Hanks Pranks Julia Roberts with Knitting

2011-06-27T15:45:00.001-04:00

You know Tom Hanks is getting old because, besides the fact that his face is getting tighter and more womanly (lay off the botox, TH), he is also now playing pranks on his co-star and KNITTING is the gotcha.

Oh my god! The Grip is knitting.
Get. OUT!
Men don't KNIT, ammaright??!?!
splugh.

You have to fast forward to about 1:40 minutes in, unless you want to watch TH goofing around with a weather girl for a minute and a half... which I didn't. It's a challenge, but if you can do it try watching all the way to the end to catch a glimpse of Billy Bush crocheting.

I've Made Up My Mind - I love it!

2011-06-26T17:07:00.001-04:00

I finally finished my Make Up Your Mind racerback tank from the Spring/Summer 2011 issue of Knitty, and was super-excited to wear it today. It is the second top I've ever made that actually fit.

The first top I made was a really simple tee that I found in The Yarn Girl's Guide to Knits for All Seasons, which, incidentally, was written by the two women who formerly owned the yarn store where I currently work. They're mastermind knitters and were wonderful bosses to have - you can find them on ravelry under the group The Yarn Girls. I shopped at The Yarn Company for my first few yarn purchases a good year and a half before I tried to get a job there, and the book was a freebie for spending a certain amount of money (never-you-mind how much). I held on to the book until they hired me, and then scrambled to make the top before my first day this past September - I had exactly a week. Needless to say, I was about three days late in making it, then I felt like a huge nerd for making one of their patterns and wearing it in to work. Nerd? Brown noser? I don't know. It seemed lame, so I wore it other places and only recently, about two weeks ago (now that they're no longer there), did I wear it in. I'm sure they would have been flattered I made and loved one of their patterns, but I'm a nervous nelly about people thinking I'm lame. Because I kinda am.

Here's a terrible cell phone photo of that tee; at the time I hadn't even seamed up the other side of it, but I was so proud I made something (other than a hat/scarf) that I could wear, I had to take a picture with my cell phone - you can clearly see my hand clutching the other side closed.

After that, I made Petrie from last year's Spring/Summer Knitty, and it was an utter disaster. I finished it about 2 and a half weeks ago and it was HUGE on me. I don't know what happened. My gauge was fine initially, then something... happened. It ballooned. My chest was too small for it and it made me look really, really big, which is something I don't need help with. I made it out of a beautiful milk cotton and was totally bummed. Then my mom tried it on and despite the fact that she's shorter than me (albeit bustier, I suppose) it fit her like a dream. So rather than rip it up, I gave it to her. And resigned myself to Make Up Your Mind. I'm glad I did. I'm also glad I took a chance on making it in the multi-colored Noro Taiyo sock yarn, rather than a solid. It's super-cute as a multi.

The Doo takes really nice iPhone camera pictures.

The Doo and I met up after work today for our first date night in a long time and went walking along the Highline in NYC - what better place to snap a few shots of my MUYM tank for the ol' blog? I think wearing it today was pretty a propos given it's cheery, bright colors and the groundbreaking news about gay marriage in New York. I made a resolution a long time ago that I didn't believe in marriage if it were some privilege that could be denied to my friends and loved ones, and The Doo and I have agreed that unless everyone in the country can get married, then we don't want to. It's a reverse Groucho Marx: I don't want to be part of any club that wouldn't have my best friend as a member.

Equality from the Highline

As the sun went down on the Highline, I turned around and saw the rainbow colors of the Empire State building (it was then I realized that it sorta matched my tanktop) and felt pride for my city and state. I hope we can be a beacon of change for the rest of the nation. I hope this is the beginning of the end.

After a generous serving of Emack and Bolio White Pistachio ice cream (while it is a delicious ice cream chain, I can't help but think that Emack and Bolio sounds like some terrible disease from the 1940s every time I hear it), The Doo and I got on the train to head home so I could write and he could play some much-needed Call of Duty Black Ops. He snapped this picture of me on the train and modded it on the way home. I told him to take out all the color except for my knitting, as the color of the yarn is a clue as to which project I picked from the last three I posted about in It's Too Damn Hot.

Can you guess what I'm making?

The Mysterious Skein

2011-06-22T18:00:00.000-04:00

Where did it come from? How did it get here? Who made it? WHY can't I find it anywhere else????

Riddle me this...

These are just a smattering of the many questions that plagued me after receiving a beautiful wool/mohair-mixed skein of yarn from my boyfriend.
I have the not-so-unique habit of insisting on visiting yarn stores when I travel. I don't do it to find yarn I can buy online or locally - I do it to find those mystery skeins whose names and origins are delightfully sphynxian and completely impossible to find. When my brother and sister went to Paris a month ago, I frantically Googled for any store within their vicinity and then called them on Google video and begged them to buy me a skein, any skein, any color, any weight, so long as it was local and obscure. I think my urgency frightened them - that, and the fact that they know zilch about knitting and didn't want to endure the painful French-English exchange of trying to explain to the shopkeepers: "My sister wants something unique; a local yarn. She's crazy, so nothing ordinary, something no one would have... even though you would have to have it, at the very least. Soeur... fou*?"
Needless to say, I don't have any Parisian yarn... yet.
Well, my boyfriend is from Boston, and while I have visited Boston numerous times, I have yet to find a local yarn store - not because they don't exist, but rather because it has never occurred to me to look. I know, weird. Fou. Whatever.
Let me preface this by saying that my boyfriend is a very good boyfriend. He understands my yarn obsession, despite the creeping takeover of our house by 'The Yarn,' which is very much like a fungus doing a slow march over a pile of innocent food; it has tried his patience, but he is happy that I am able to relegate the infection to my office.
So, my boyfriend took a trip to Boston recently, and I dismissed him with one task and one task only: walk into a shop, ask for the most unusual, unique, indie yarn they have, and buy it.
And he did just that. Except... he did his job too well.

Which brings me back to my prologue: Where did it come from? How did it get here? Who made it? WHY can't I find it anywhere else????

So here's the scoop: It's called Dragonfly Dyeworks Handpaint Texas 2-Ply, and I cannot find it anywhere. I Google it, and nothing comes up except for a Tweet I did that was along the lines of what the frick is this yarn, and someone else's flickr account photo, which, ironically, is of an eerily similar skein to the one I have. I'm posting it here, because my above photo is really, really craptastic (I may fix that later...)

I guess I got what I deserved. This is a little bit of the ol' King Midas' Touch, except no solid gold daughter (dammit!) - all I wanted was a strange, unknowable skein of yarn that seemed to have materialized out of the dreams of unicorns and the whispered secrets of rainbows, and that's exactly what I got.

BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU WISH FOR.

If anyone has any information regarding this yarn, please leave a comment. I'm dying to know what I'm dealing with here. If I knit it, will all my dead pets come back to life (in a good way, not the Pet Cemetary kind of way)? Will an angel get its wings? Will McDonald's bring back the real Shamrock Shake?

*sister... crazy?

The first day of It's Too Damn Hot

2011-06-21T17:46:00.001-04:00

It's the first day of Summer and I'm going through a state of anxiety that I imagine must be uncommon among knitters, especially during this time of year. Let me preface this neurosis a little.
Summer is a weird time of year for me. I'm not really the Beach kind, although I do love the water - mainly, being in it. I can do without the sand and the crowds and the sun that wishes it were an x-ray machine, but I love to be in water. It's the pisces in me. I don't really find myself in many situations with a private Beach, lakefront cabin or private pool; hence, swimming is limited. So that's one Summer activity that goes right out the window.
I'm also not a shorts-wearing kinda gal. Or a baking in the summer city kinda gal. Or a tanning kinda gal. Too much sun makes me want to sleep, or cry. Once it goes above 75 degrees, my body starts sweating like it's fighting diphtheria. Basically, most of the things that define the summer are not on my favorites list. Except for Arnold Palmers. I love a good, unsweetened Arnold Palmer.
My time of year is the fall, and early winter, and NO, not because I'm a knitter - knitting is a relatively new thing for me. I just love being cozy and drinking warm drinks and smelling the leaves as they decay. I love the fall so much I think I would take it year round if it were an option in some distant, fantasy land. So usually in the summer I hide out in air conditioning, or in rooms with all the windows open where I can just veg out.

Or take pictures of my office plants, why not?

But this summer, and specifically today, the first day of summer, I felt an unusual anxiety that I have to share simply because what knitter feels like this during the summer?
I want to make EVERYTHING.
I feel like once the sun commits to turning the city into an E-Z Bake oven, most knitters put down their work, slap on a bathing suit and settle down poolside. Either that, or it's a lazy pair of socks or a shawl that can be worked throughout the summer, carried with you for train rides or idle moments and set down more often than picked up. Am I wrong?
Yesterday I catalogued and organized every piece of yarn in my room so that it corresponded with my online Ravelry stash, all in an effort to figure out what I'm going to make next.
I'm not even finished with my Make Up Your Mind Tank. I'm about one shoulder strap and a racerback away from finishing it, and already I'm getting anxious for my next project. Is it ironic that I can't make up my mind about what to make next?

Where do you go from here?

Aren't these supposed to be Fall/Winter anxieties?All I can think about are the numerous car/train/plane trips I will be takingover the next three months and all the knitting I can get done while on them -please tell me I'm not alone!

I've decided I should narrow it down to just three choiceshere; then at least I know I can stopstockpiling projects like someone preparing for nuclear winter... at least for the moment.

First up: the Geodesic Cardigan.

I've been eyeing this baby for a while now. The beauty of it is that myfirst It's-not-just-lion brand/patons/redheart yarn purchase was for 2skeins of Malabrigo Lace, which I bought at the now-defunct Knit and Be Happyin New Paltz, the store that led me to Ravelry in the first place. I figurethis would be great for cool summer nights as the Malabrigo is light and airyand it is a cardigan, after all. And considering this began as a way for me tocatalogue my painfully ginormous stash, using my first real purchase as aknitter is befitting.

Next up: Lacy Summer Socks

I've never made socks before, and these seem like a good, basic sock pattern, without being too boring. There's some lace involved, but the socks aren't very long so it's not like I'm committing to anything major... right? I'm kind of terrified of socks, if I'm being honest. I'm banking on the fact that these are probably easy enough not to ruin me on socks altogether. I have a sockweight yarn from Pagewood Farms that would be perfect.

And finally: Sizzle

Sizzle has been in my queue for quite some time. I just purchased the pattern and think I'm ready to do it. I've been following Wendy Bernard at Knit and Tonic for a few years now and I love her designs. This seems like it would be a simple, sexy quick knit, perfect for the summer. I have some goldish-green Cascade Pima Tencel yarn that seriously needs to get the frick out of my stash, and the yardage is perfect.

So which will it be? At least I've narrowed down my choices, right? Do I tackle the new and terrifying socks? Do I finally use those first 2 already-been-caked skeins of Malabrigo Lace (I know, I know - it's terrible to let them sit caked like that)? Or do I decimate the Pima Tencel with a little sexy Sizzle?

Opinions are welcomed!

Battle Born Knits

2011-04-08T12:54:00.000-04:00

I can't tell you how excited I was to participate in a naming contest for a wonderful pattern designer over at Jimmy Beans Wool.
Jeanne is a fabulous knitter who used to publish under the name 2 Askew Designs, but decided it was time for a change.

The 2Askew Acorn Hat. Photo Copyright Jeanne Giles.

So she published a contest on the Jimmy Beans Wool Blog, with the consent of JBW, and sent the word out that she was hunting for a name.
TWO of my names made it to a list of five, and one of my names ended up winning.
So I'm proud to introduce my new e-friend, Jeanne's, new design company, BATTLE BORN KNITS, and I wish her all the luck in the world. I really hope the name works out well and does wonders for her business.

And I'm really happy because I just won one of her patterns as a result! I can't wait to get started on these fish scale socks!

Spiders Are The Ultimate Crafters

2011-04-04T20:16:00.023-04:00

Me and Spiders? We don't have a heck of a lot in common.

They like to eat insects; I prefer the meat of mammals. They creepy crawl around on eight legs; I've just got the two. Same goes for the eyes - they've got a bunch; me, not so many. They pop out of nowhere, presumably from dark, musty corners that the human eye immediately goes to the second they appear, but never so fast as to catch their entry; I'm parapathetic when it comes to sneaking up on anyone. They are incredibly disturbing to look at as they resemble what I imagine to be the amalgamation of all nightmares; I, while not altogether fetching, do not necessarily inspire the destruction of all courage and sanity if looked upon.

The things we do have in common?

We both lead, and enjoy, rather solitary lives. While I don't eat all my visitors the second they sticky grip to my front porch, nor do I starve without the company, I, like a spider, do not fare well in large crowds of people, and feel as out of place and anxious as a spider would feel in a group of spiders, the only difference being that all the spiders in that group of spiders would feel equally out of place, whereas in parties I have had the misfortune to attend, no one else seems to feel as out of place as I do and in fact most endeavor to engage me in conversation, much to the dismay of my misanthropism.

Perhaps these rare instances would have better results if I had a literal appetite for human flesh, but alas, I do not.

Besides an obvious abhorrence of company, we also share a love of craft, and as it has been proven in Pakistan, our crafting ability becomes most vivid when we fear for the current, depredated state of our lives.

I only really started crafting when I realized I wasn't participating in a stimulative, creative act; I wasn't producing anything, and in that absence I found myself stuck in a dead-end job, drowning in papers and people that I didn't care about. The moment I started making things with my hands was the moment I began to rise out of the dredge and muck of office work, and after a year I left it and never looked back.

I don't seriously think spiders spin their webs to escape the doldrums of living in corners and eating flies; in fact, I think they rather enjoy their daily activities. But perhaps there is some measure of workaday boredom to their primary functions. If you knock down a spider's web, out the spider comes to spin a new one. And the new web is rarely that different from the old, especially if it has been relegated to form over the bracket of a room. The most beautiful and lacy of webs are often found branching the void between close trees, but even they seem to follow the same circular algorithms.

But put under pressure, faced with annihilation and an uncertain future, spiders really can belly up to the bar.

After the massive flooding in parts of Pakistan last year, the spiders, who I assume were previously living on the ground or thereabouts, were driven to the trees, where they are now all living together, shrouded inside protective web cocoons of their own making.

Not only have these webs kept them safe from the rising waters, they have also proven to be incredibly effective in catching the mosquitoes that live along the banks of water, which has been helpful for both their food supply and for the people of Pakistan as there are less instances of malaria.

Besides all the wonderful benefits to humanity and arachnids, I don't think I've ever seen anything in nature so beautifully and delicately crafted, and under such dire circumstances.

I'd also like to add that those craft spiders are Pakistani, so we have that in common, too.

Click through the pictures to see more pictures of their handiwork.

All Hollows, Always

2010-10-26T18:06:00.002-04:00

I love Halloween. I'm sure there are dozens of people who say this every year, but I really, really love Halloween.
When I was little, my parents would decorate the front of our house with bales of hay, scarecrows, pumpkins, and a flapping wind-catcher skeleton hanging near the door. We had Indian corn over the front knocker and diaphanous cobwebbing covered every available surface. Inside my house there was a motion sensor pumpkin (or skull) that would cackle when you walked past it, and candy on every available table top.
The week of Halloween, my brothers, sister and I would sit down in our t.v. room with piles of candy and small trick-or-treat bags my parents bought from the store, and then for at least two hours we would stuff the bags with candy, twisting them closed and placing them in wicker baskets that sar by our front door, awaiting trick-or-treaters. My Dad always popped in a VHS of Disney's Halloween Treats, a video collection of all the old, spooky Disney cartoons, of which I have visceral and exact memories. There was always a fire burning in our living room and a pot of apple cider warming on the stove. We had chicken soup and pizza for dinner, but only after trick-or-treating up and down the streets for a few hours. I remember watching the premier of Michael Jackson's Thriller on Halloween; I can still smell pumpkin seeds roasting in the oven; I can still feel the warm, autumn gold of our house lit up by the first fire of the season on Halloween night.

It was, and still is, my favorite time of year. Sadly, as we were growing up so were all the kids in our neighborhood, so the candy-stuffing has been abandoned, as well as the decorating. No one comes to the house anymore, and we've had our pumpkins smashed a few times, so I think my parents have given up on the Halloween festivities. Except for the wind-catcher skeleton, who still flaps every year on our front porch.
Last year I did pumpkin carving with my best friend, and it was a crazy, 4-hour mess. I think I love the idea of pumpkin carving, but it really requires a lot of time, dedication and commitment to actually carve a pumpkin. There's nothing I love more than shoving my hand inside a freshly cut pumpkin just to squeeze the slippery, wet gore within, but beyond that, it's just a mess.
So I wanted to come up with a craft that celebrates the idea of carving pumpkins, but without all the pump and circumstance. I mean pulp. Err, pomp. Sorry, I couldn't help myself with that one.

Hence, jack-o-candles. Or felt-o-lanterns. Whichever you prefer.

These are super-easy to make and require very little skill or materials, and they should literally only take you a half hour (if that) to finish. Plus, they don't go rotten like a pumpkin and you can just pull them out for next year! Feel free to come up with your own designs as they are only limited by your imagination!

Materials
Felt (orange, black, white)
X-acto knife
scissors
Measuring tape (or ruler)
votive candle
votive candle holder
pen
glue or needle and thread
cutting board

Instructions
1. Take your measuring tape and measure around the votive candle holder. Add an extra inch so that you can overlap the ends to glue them down. If you don't have measuring tape, you can also just wrap the felt around the candle holder and mark with your pen where it overlaps. Measure the height of the holder as well.

2. Mark the height and width of the candle holder on your felt with the pen. Fold the felt so that you can you can make a precise cut with your scissors. Carefully cut across the fold lines with your scissors. It doesn't need to be so exact as much of it gets folded later anyway.
3. With your pen, draw the picture you would like to cut out. I actually wrapped my felt around the holder as I drew the picture so that I could see how it would look.

4. Place your piece of felt over your cutting board. Carve out the shapes you have made with your X-acto knife. I found that with fabric, it is easiest to first carve out the shapes, then cut further with the scissors. The X-acto alone won't make a clean cut. If you're a master with scissors, you may not even need the X-acto at all!
5. Wrap your felt around the candle and glue or sew it shut. Place your candle inside, light it, and you're done!
Instant Halloween!

If you like crafting and love Halloween like I do, please check out Witch Craft: Wicked Accessories, Creepy-Cute Toys, Magical Treats, and More!

It was such an honor to be featured among these Halloween designers - there is so much creativity and ingenuity in this book and I am very proud to be in it. Or, rather, Dracula Bowl is very proud to be in it!

It's over!!

2010-09-08T11:26:00.000-04:00

I have a blog post from about a month ago that begins with something like... "The Doo told me I'm neglecting my blog..." and then I literally wrote nothing. That's a big ol' Case In Point.
I have not posted anything here in months. Last we heard, I was knitting a scarf for my mother that needed crochet borders, and we were just approaching summer.
Well, summer is over. Labor Day was two days ago; officially, it's done. It was hot and humid and sweaty; I paid an electric bill for August in the $400 range (don't ask); I went to Montreal and bought some local yarns (yay!), and my life changed completely. Utterly.
There's no better day for me to post than today.
Today, I have to order birthday cakes for people in the office. Again. Remember my first post? About how I have to order cakes for everyone, but then when my birthday rolled around, there was no cake for me? And I sort of had a 'story of my life' attitude about all of it?
Well, today I have to order two cakes. And they will be the last two cakes I ever order.
I quit! Over a month ago. Gave the job and people plenty of time to figure their stuff out, but I'm gone. I got a job at a yarn store on the Upper West Side. Between working part time for them and part time for my parents, I'm pretty much all set. I'm trying to open an Etsy store to sell hand knit headbands, scarves, cowls and what-not (trying is the operative word - I'm currently working 3 jobs) and I've been commissioned to make a baby blanket for a friend, which translates as getting-paid-to-knit.
Everything is pretty amazing. I told myself I would get out of this dead-end job in 2010, and I did it. I do not have to face 2011 disappointed.
I'd write more, but I have to work. I'm always working! I haven't had a free second in weeks. But once this terrible job is out of my system (end of next week), I'm sure more of me will be seen here. Certain of it.

Almost there Mom, almost there

2010-05-22T18:33:00.000-04:00

Mom's scarf, lounging in the sun

So, my mother's scarf is almost complete; I just have to learn how to crochet in order to make the border. The lace wound up being super-easy to do, and if I didn't have a thousand other things to do, I'm sure it would have knit up a lot faster than the three weeks it took. I love the color and the yarn itself is really beautiful - Alchemy Haiku. It's part mohair, part silk, and it's so light and feathery that if you toss a strand of it into the air, it literally floats back down. Believe me, I did it a few times throughout the process of knitting it. I think it's the softest yarn I've ever worked with.

This scarf has a really intricate crochet border, and I don't really crochet, so it will be a challenge to figure out the next step. I think I might actually take a break to make an easy-peasy dishcloth. I know; I'm lame.

But I think I deserve it, no?

Happy Winds-day!

2010-05-09T21:33:00.000-04:00

This is just a mild spring zephyr compared to the big wind of '67. Or was it, uh, '76? Oh, well, no matter. Oh, I remember the big blow well. - Owl, Winnie the Pooh and the Blustery Day
If you're residing in New York City or thereabouts, you've just been subjected to one of the windiest spring weekends of all time. I'm alone this weekend; The Doo is in Toronto making people laugh, and I am sitting in the house editing articles for my parents. I told him it was so windy, I felt like I was in Chicago. His response was that it was probably more like Boston, or Toronto, as they are actually windier than Chicago. My response was a resounding duh; Chicago's moniker of "The Windy City" is actually reflective of the blow-hard nature of their early architects and city planners, who thought that by talking up the city, they might make it sound better than New York. Which might have worked had Chicago not been knee-deep in sewage and factory run-off at the time. They did get some beautiful buildings out of it.

I've been pretending it's fall. I can't help it; my mind just goes there. It's easier today - the sun was hiding behind thick, gray clouds, shattering itself piece-meal through branches and leaves when it could.
Yesterday when the sun was hot and bright in the sky I had some trouble transporting myself to fall. The wind through the trees sounded too fluid for terra firma, leaves and branches crashing against one another like ocean waves on the sand. Sitting in my living room, with windows open and eyes closed, I may as well have been on the beach.

It's making me want to knit. There's apple cider in my fridge, waiting to be warmed, and a beautiful silk/mohair scarf for my Mother, just waiting to be finished. I took a break from the lacy blue mitts to make something for my Mom - one mitt is finished, the other... I think this is what they talk about when they talk about the One Sock Syndrome. It's hard to sustain that momentum, which seems solely driven by the need to finish something. It takes real dedication to duplicate the process once it's been done.
I haven't had a lot of time for knitting, what with transitioning between jobs and redoing the house (pictures soon, promise!), there hasn't been much time for anything else. Did I say that I was in Miami on business earlier this week? Well, that too.

So I think I'll go heat up some cider. And have a pastry. And finish this scarf.

Painting the Entire House, or the Art of Unavoidable Avoidance

2010-04-14T10:26:00.002-04:00

If I was a good blogger, I would have taken some pictures of our house before we were painting it so that you could see the travesty that was our unpainted house. If I was a good tenant, I would have taken those photos so that should my landlords decide to raise the rent next year, I would have the ability to show them all the work we did which, technically, they are required by law to do (landlords must paint your apartment at least every 7 years by law... unless your boyfriend has some kind of weird, special relationship with them where he feels like any false move will land him on the street). But I'm not a good tenant (though the rent is always on time, and I've sufficiently brought the apartment out of college dorm squalor and into relationship squalor) and I'm not a good blogger (at least, not right now. Not while I'm on antibiotics, slightly depressed, painting a house, suffering from terrible allergies and trying to stay sane).

Our bathroom alone required a Hazmat team. The Doo claims that a previous roommate was fond of taking steamy, protracted showers with the windows and door shut. Because of this, our bathroom looked like a heroin addict's den (or so my little brother called it) - the walls were peeling, the wooden window frame in the shower was rotted (thumbs up, architect! wood does so well in water, ya know?) and the ceiling was an over-sized petri dish of bacteria and mold. And when I say mold, I need you to imagine that our ceiling looked like the backside of some great Dalmation, or like those gum-riddled NY subway platforms (that black stuff is gum, right?) or like a Jackson Pollack painting that kind of makes you feel sick. You pick whichever word picture works best for you.

Like this

Oh, and the door didn't work. Because the same aforementioned roommate happened to be a really big guy who sort of fumbled about and threw his weight around like a linebacker going for a tackle (I'm assuming linebacker's are the ones that tackle) and he busted the door open one day and literally ripped the wood out of the door frame. Or maybe there was an actual heroin addict shooting up in the bathroom and he had to break down the door to make a citizen's arrest. I don't really know; the stories tend to swirl in these parts. All I do know for sure is that I hear tell he took really, really long, hot showers and ate a lot of fried bologna. What a heartthrob, am I right ladies?

The point of all this is that no knitting has been done. None. I haven't looked at my needles once in a week. With allergies and antibiotics and the chaos of the house, I can barely keep my head up. Which is depressing, and so unlike the season. Everyone loves the spring; it's beautiful and warm and colorful and full of life. I'm going to go out on a limb here and say I hate it. I hate the spring. It makes me sick, makes my eyes water, and I have to sleep through most of it just to make it to the summer. So there you have it; the ultimate pessimist's confession.

But after four days of painting and moving things around, the painting is finally done. All of our stuff has scuttled to the center of one room like some cockroach horde in reverse (ew), but otherwise, it's done. Now it's simply time to reset and move everything back. The bathroom is a pale, sleepy lavender; our bedroom is the color of a baby's bottom (we refuse to describe it any other way), our dining room is a tangy tangerine, the kitchen is lemon sherbet, and my office/crafting room is an olive-y avocado. I promise to post some pictures as soon as I get home from work.
Oh, and I have some pretty craft ideas for that office/crafting room. Ideas involving this shape:

And this structure

I know, it sounds crazy. But it's going to be really, really nice, I swear.

Un Crochet ou Deux Crochets?

2010-03-23T17:22:00.001-04:00

A question was recently posted on Wendy Bernard's blog, Knit and Tonic, that I found quite intriguing. She posed the question of why it was that crocheters rarely knit, and knitters rarely crochet.

When I first started knitting a year and a half ago, I was solely a knitter. I couldn't be much else because I wasn't an octopus and was just starting this new and lovely textile art. I think if I had eight arms I probably would have knit with two arms, crocheted with two arms and started quilting with the other four arms (I imagine it must take at least four arms to quilt - it seems pretty complicated). But I didn't have eight arms - still don't - and so I started with knitting, having been given the Klutz guide to learning how to knit, which came with two skeins of acrylic yarn, one plastic tapestry needle, one crochet needle and one pair of wooden size 8 needles (incidentally, this is a pretty good kit if you know someone who wants to learn).
I fell in love... after briefly loathing it, kind of like when two people can't stand one another and everyone around them thinks they should just 'do it and get it over with.'

A Metrocard wallet

This was my first project. As you can see, it's falling apart now. It was basic garter stitch, which I believe was a mistake. I remember finishing it and realizing something was wrong, but I can't remember what now - maybe it should have been stockinette...? I use it to hold my Monthly Metrocard and you know what? I loved it. Still do. It serves a function, and perfectly illustrates the way I operate:
I didn't choose a scarf. I could have - it was in the book. In fact, it was recommended as a first project. That's what everyone chooses when they are first learning how to knit. A scarf. Or a dishcloth. Or just a swatch - a length of fabric to try out knitting and purling. Not me. If I was going to spend time knitting something, I needed it to be functional. I also wanted it to be complicated. I needed it to involve more than one knitting skill - if I was going to learn how to do it, I was going to learn the complicated stuff too. Then everything that came after would be easy... right? It involved knitting, (what I thought was...) purling (...but clearly wasn't), decreasing and button hole-making.
My little Metrocard wallet is a constant reminder of my learning process and how I like to learn. I'm a messy learner, and a conquerer, and I often tackle more than I think I can handle just to prove I can handle anything. My next knitting project?

Dr. Who's TARDIS

Of course, right? Six different panels, four of which involved intarsia. Über complex for me, a beginner knitter. It took me 3 months and involved a lot of frogging... and maybe a little crying. But once stuffed and sewed closed, it proved well worth it. And after that?

Crocheted Katamari, complete with super magnets

I crocheted a Katamari for a friend. It's pretty well-known if you are a gamer, but if you aren't: a Katamari is a ball that starts off very small, rolling around to pick up everyday objects until it is large enough to roll up people, cars, buildings, cities, mountains and, eventually, planets. It's a fun game. I stuffed the above Katamari's nubs with super magnets so that it could roll up magnetic things, if nothing else.
And it's crochet.
But I'm a knitter!!
Here's what I think...
I think when you begin to knit, it's like learning your first language. You try to master the grammar of knits and purls, which help to build the syntax of garter, stockinette, seed stitch. The needles are your mouthpiece with which you speak this beautiful language, and while in the beginning it feels like you are swallowing your own tongue, holding these unwieldy instruments and persuading them to create beautiful lines, eventually it becomes second nature. Suddenly you aren't counting stitches anymore or even looking at your knitting as you knit, just as you are no longer looking at each letter in order to sound out a word. It comes naturally and you're just... doing it.
Now imagine you've learned English completely, with all the complex grammar, vast vocabulary and strict sentence structures. Imagine you've been doing it for a decade or more.
Then someone tells you you're going to learn Chinese. Put aside your English; it's time for Chinese!
Seems daunting, no?
But now, imagine that you are just a child and your parents speak to you in both English and Chinese. You are learning language by learning two languages at once, and suddenly, neither is so difficult.
I think this is what happens with knitting and crocheting.
If you only choose to learn one, it's going to be a lot more difficult later on to pick up the other. Not impossible, mind you, but definitely more difficult. If your hands are used to one crochet hook, two needles will probably look like juggling knives to you. If you are used to knit and purl then single and double crochet are going to seem strange and otherworldly. This, at least, was my experience. But I was also so new at it that the blow didn't fall so hard. I knit just two things before I crocheted something, and so it all seemed rather clear to me. And now, it's not so difficult either way.
English or Chinese, it's all Greek to me.*

*I know this expression usually denotes a lack of understanding something, but I couldn't pass up the opportunity to use it in such a delightful way.

Double Pointed Needles; or Stilettos, Corsets and Other Instruments of Torture

2010-03-21T04:09:00.000-04:00

It is 3:15 in the morning. The joints in my hands are killing me. My beautiful sky blue alpaca yarn is splitting and developing a fuzzy halo, which might be nice once the project is finished, but when you are trying to work stitches it just makes the yarn less manageable, more fickle. It's lace yarn, so once it starts splitting it happens at an infinitesimally tiny degree; if it splits more than once, it's basically gone. I've already threaded 25 beautiful, sparkly, light purple beads onto the yarn, and I don't really want to have to repeat that process.

Goddamn double pointed needles. I hate them.
There, I've said it. I hate double pointed needles. The same person who invented stilettos, corsets and, let's face it, tights, is the same devil who invented double pointed needles. I cannot even get past the first row. I can't. Not to mention the fact that these are size 2 needles, which are only slightly stouter than toothpicks. So I'm basically working with 4 toothpicks, each of which hold about 17 tiny stitches, and I'm trying to work my way around them without poking out my eye. I cannot do it. I admit total and utter defeat.

http://www.craftstylish.com/item/9847/double-pointed-needles-demystified

It should look like this, but it doesn't. I probably should have taken a picture of what mine actually looked like, but mine was a travesty, and I was so quick to rip it up. The thought of memorializing it for all time in a photo was too much for me to handle.

I hate hate hate double pointed needles. Hate them. I hate that I can't beat them. It's like taking an octopus and trying to knit with it's arms, despite the fact that octopus arms, beyond the initial impulse to move, basically like to do their own thing. If you don't believe me, check out what Israeli scientists are studying.
I think double pointed needles are like those arms; they have a mind of their own - a singular mind belonging to the devil himself. And mine don't line up perfectly and make a beautiful little crosshatched box like the one you see above. Mine get all squiggly and flap up and down and side to side and lie parallel to each other, twisting up my stitches. The ones that are left dormant move in front of the current needle I'm trying to work on, as if they are intent on preventing any further stitch work from occurring. There's even one that just likes to stab me int he neck every once in a while, just to make sure I know who's boss. I have the impression that they are in a constant battle for their own freedom, and so the only time they agree to work together is in a unified effort to prevent me from progress.
I. Hate. Them.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not giving up. I will make these beautiful little wristlets if it kills me. I just will not be using double pointed needles. They win. I surrender. I am not the cod, lying in wait for the octopus to grow weak, in order to swoop in, grab a tentacle, and twist until it breaks off. Yeah, they do that. Check out minute 6:20.
I'm clearly very tired when I start talking about octopi (they are fascinating!).
Tomorrow, I will do battle with this pattern using my Magic Loop Method. Then we will see who has the last laugh.

Inventing as you go, or The Art of Failure

2010-03-16T17:09:00.002-04:00

The idea of failure has preventing me from doing many things in my life thus far. Those things would be impossible to enumerate simply by virtue of their varied compositions - how can one quantify failure when in some instances it is the merest action, perhaps the inability to introduce myself for fear of sounding or appearing foolish, while in other instances it is a larger slight, the failure of turning away international travel for fear of the unknown. It is really all perception, when you get right down to it, because at the outset the missed trip may seem more important than the person, however, that person I failed to meet could have changed my whole life, whereas that trip may have just been a happy blip of leisure in my existence - one appears small while the other appears large, but appearances change upon examination of the resultant effect. One can't know how large or small a failure truly is because the failure is measured by an outcome that has not come into existence.

Is Schrödinger's cat alive or dead?

photo courtesy of http://www3.tsl.uu.se/~flechl/misc.html

I've lived my whole life sheltered under an umbrella of fear. I missed both sunny and rainy days alike for fear of the absolute sky, and so I missed the expanse of the heavens, the stars, the planets, everything but the sight of my feet trudging along beneath me. I've been so afraid of failing that I'm failing constantly, every day, just by not doing and trying.
Knitting has allowed me to fail, and gloriously. When I'm making something and I don't quite get it right, whether it's counting too few stitches and winding up with too many inches, or purling when I should have knit, I fail and I love it. I laugh about it. I learn from it. I love to fail in knitting. I know it sounds crazy, but ripping back a couple of rows in a piece of knitting is one of the most gratifying things about knitting something new. Because I know that I am figuring something out, and perfecting it. I know that now that I've been wrong, I can move towards being right.
Like this double knitting I'm doing now.

This piece? The stitches are too big; I'm going to run out of room before I have a chance to make all the letters I need to make. This surprise gift has to fit certain dimensions, otherwise it's completely useless. It was also supposed to be a black letter against a red background, but it's not - its the opposite.
I got as far as the next letter before I figured everything out. I took the measurements and realized it was going to be over 2 inches too long, and so I stopped. Ripped back the 20 or so rows and started over. Started over two more times. Ripped it back a total of 4 times.

AND LOVED IT.

I was completely satisfied and actually enjoyed being wrong. There was something really wonderful about it - it was freeing. My mother was horrified, The Doo was frustrated for me: how could I enjoy doing and redoing and redoing and failing in multiplicity?

I honestly don't know how to answer that. But I know it to be true. Knitting has put the umbrella away, and is changing me every day that I'm doing it. I've only been knitting for about a year and a half, and already one of my patterns is being published in a book, I'm writing up patterns of my own, I'm about two months away from quitting my dead-end job and I am reveling in failure. I'm burning in the sun and dancing in the rain, overheated, soaked, totally exposed and loving every minute of it.

Thanks, knitting.

Empty Nest Syndrome

2010-03-11T11:51:00.006-05:00

I'm not a mother, but I think I understand how a mother feels when her babies leave the nest.
Actually, no, I shouldn't say that. I could only say that if I knit something for 18 years. Something that had a cast-on edge of back-breaking pain, a cast-on edge that took anywhere from 12-24 hours to actually cast on and caused me to curse out my needles, yarn and anyone daring enough to be near me. A knitting project that cost money to continue knitting, even after the initial yarn was bought. And a project that was alternately beautiful and a bitch depending on the mood of the yarn swatch.
So no, I don't know exactly how a mother feels.
But I can tell you that putting Count Dracula Bowl in the mail was both one of the saddest and happiest days of my life.

I had to bring The Doo with me to even accomplish the task.
I was in no way helped along by my bizarre, innate fear of the post office, which is not going to aid my online craft business at all, but we'll cross (or burn) that bridge when we get to it.
He's quite handsome, is he not?
The pattern is also finished, though it hasn't left the editing stages yet. But basically, this baby has flown. I have more pictures, and will post them soon.

My next project involves double knitting, brothers, and sci-fi.

I'm hesitant to post pictures as it is supposed to be a surprise. Suffice it to say, it is really nerdy and cool and I'm employing the use of my brand-spanking new Interweave Work in Progress sketchbook The Doo bought me for my birthday. It's really great in that it has both unlined paper and knitting graph paper, which is very different from regular graph paper - the squares are squatter and wider to reflect the look of actual stitches. I can't tell you how many times I've used regular graph paper and had my color work come out looking completely wrong. Ok, I can. It happened with a bat towel I once made and with both Frankenbowl and Dracula Bowl. So three times. That was enough for me. At $10, it's small and portable and really worth having. I was also able to find a lot of free pdf downloads for knitting graph paper, so if you're especially scrappy you can just download sheets of graph paper and run off as many copies as you want. This I also did, at work, with about 50 sheets of paper. Ssshhh, don't tell the boss.

You can pick up one of your own here!

Dracula's collar

2010-03-02T02:03:00.003-05:00

Dracula's collar is finished. I've set it atop my basket of yarn in order to demonstrate the nice pictures my new camera takes. Prefelted, it seems a little small, but once felted it stretched and fit perfectly to Dracula.

I'm using the white ribbon again in order to give the cape that suave, Dracula lilt. Fingers crossed that it dries this perfectly.

The double knitting went very well. Towards the end I started getting a little frustrated as I had to graft the sides closed in order to give each side a uniform look. Another first: kitchener stitch. Not so complicated once you get the hang of it, but ever so complicated if you've never done it before.

I think the two sides came out looking rather nice. I'd write more, but I'm exhausted. Next step, writing up the pattern.

Views from a Shut-in

2010-02-27T00:13:00.002-05:00

Right now in New York, all the cool kids are taking pictures of the winter snow storm and posting them on their blogs, sending them to news channels or sharing them on facebook.

I don't usually take part in photo shenanigans because I don't have a proper camera, and feel a little second-rate taking pictures with my phone. But, I figured, my perspective on this particular day should be documented.

I'm a self-professed homebody, and enjoy being one. Whether it's sunny or snowing, I like being home. Luckily, I have a front porch so when it's nice out, I can actually enjoy it without going anywhere. (Having a front porch in New York City is pretty rare, unless you own a home. And if you own a home, you aren't writing on a blog. You're probably riding around in a really nice hover car smoking diamond encrusted cigars. Translation: New York is expensive, y'all)

I'm not a hermit, I swear. Ok, maybe sometimes I am. Sometimes I'm a hermit by choice and prefer sitting at home and reading/knitting/writing, but today was not like that. Today I watched people play around in the snow on tv, and listened jealously to The Doo's plans for a movie and a walk through Central Park, and read facebook updates about people taking a snow day from work to sled around the neighborhood.

Today, I was sick. I called out of work not to take joy in the winter wonderland of New York City, but to sit in bed and watch episode's of Futurama while drifting in and out of sleep. I'm pretty sure my boss assumed I was just skipping out to avoid dealing with the snow (especially since he called from Florida yesterday and demanded that everyone not only come in no matter how hard it snowed, but to be precisely on time. You read that right; He called from Florida. Yes, right again - they are made of steel.)

I will probably continue to write about how much I hate my job until I actually get a new job, so besides the above, I'd like to add that the reason why I'm sick is because someone in my tiny office was sick. He's been sick for a week with the kind of cough one would find with someone who has consumption, and apparently he didn't think it was good enough to take a Sick Day from work. But today, when it's snowing out, he decides to take a Personal Day so that he can 'move'. Translation: I want to be sick all week at work and not do any work (boss is out of town), instead choosing to flirt with all the women who work downstairs. Then, when it snows and I'm feeling better, I'll take a Personal Day, say I'm moving, and go play in the snow. Because Lord knows, only a fool would believe I could actually move in this snow.

Also, he gets sick the way little children get sick. He's one of these people who coughs and sneezes into a closed fist, as if he doesn't understand that the action of covering your mouth is meant to be more than just a formality: it's meant to serve a function. Have we not all seen this commercial a hundred thousand times already? He should really Know What To Do About The Flu by now. And yet he's still one of these children, sneezing glowing green goo all over papers and people. And me.

So my view of the snowy winter wonderland, is this:

Post script: I'm still working on Count Dracula's cape, but it's slow going. It's insane how weak I feel. I can knit for maybe five minutes before I have to rest. I'm also trying to figure out how to increase your stitches while double knitting. And I'm happy to say that I had a little I can't do this freak out, and The Doo was smart enough to say, "You just wrote a blog about this. Yesterday. So relax."

Double Knitting, or the Art of Refusing to Learn

2010-02-25T14:00:00.002-05:00

There could not be a better time for me to learn how to double knit. As of yesterday, when my first attempt at double knitting occurred, I started my New Job search.
Anyone who knows me can tell you that I am somewhat terrified of new experiences. This is not unique to me, I know, but I remain astounded at my own ability to forget the process of learning and doing something new. By all accounts, I should know by now that however much I fear something at the outset, the end result is never nearly as terrifying as presupposed. And, more often than not, I derive great pleasure and joy from whatever thing it is that previously petrified me into immobility.
Case in point: Double Knitting.

←This is Double Knitting

It's a process in which you knit with two different colors of yarn at the same time on the same needles but with opposing directions.
That's probably a really, really bad explanation, but it's the best I can do. If this sweater were just all white on the outside and all black on the inside, the instructions would be to knit the black yarn and purl the white yarn all the way across, first one then the other, then do the exact opposite for the other side, and on and on ad infinitum. The fact that this lovely sweater actually has characters and designs and tiny little reindeer is making me sweat just thinking about it. I find the idea of two-sided photo negative style knitting to be frightening enough without the added task of creating a scene with it. If you would like to knit this sweater, or something like it, you can find it here. Just please refrain from talking to me about it, as it gives me the vapors.
So of course, when I gave myself the task of creating a cape for Count Dracula-bowl, I just had to make it double knit. I had to. The inside must be red, the outside, black. It will give him depth, character and an impenetrable sense of style. But how to double knit?? I looked at some double knitting not unlike the horror show pictured above, then quietly pushed that question to the back of my mind. I had still the question of But how to knit a bowl?? and that seemed less intense. Also, But how to knit in the round?? Both these tasks seemed easier.
So I put it off. I knit Frankenbowl, then Count Dracula-bowl, then sat and stared at my red and black yarn.

The thing is, I do this to myself all the time. It's mortifying. I give myself something to do that I don't know how to do, then convince myself that I will never understand how to do it. It's a way to feel inferior and stupid while also avoiding the appearance of being inferior and stupid - I am a master acrobat at this. Like getting a New Job. I desperately want to get a New Job, but by not doing it, I cannot fail. But oh no! you say; if you do not try to do these things, you have already failed! Yes, I understand that, but you see sometimes, I already feel like a failure, so these actions justify that feeling. And at least with that brand of failure, it's entirely privatized.
The flip side of this is when I actually do one of these things and succeed at it. I cannot adequately describe to you the sheer joy, the utter contentment I have at figuring something out or doing something I thought I could never do.
So you can understand how, when faced with hating my job and desperately wanting to leave it, I finally, finally started sending out my resume. And, because there's no such thing as one snowflake falling, I also decided to tackle double knitting. And maybe I'll get around to cleaning my office. And re-doing the bathroom. And learning how to bake bread. You see where I'm going? It's a manic mess, and unless you enjoy that ride, it's really not worth the ticket. I don't just enjoy the ride, I reinvented it for the 21st century.
But back to knitting, and more importantly, Double Knitting. This did not look like Double Knitting to me:

That just looks like a hot gothic mess. Mind you, I had only just cast on the stitches. I hadn't even finished a row. And I almost gave up. I told myself, Everything you think about yourself is correct. You cannot do this. Why did you even mention the cape? If you hadn't, you wouldn't have to do this right now. But you just had to go and mention a double-sided cape, without knowing whether or not you could do it. Now you're a failure, and when it comes time to submit Count Dracula-bowl, everyone will know it.

And then, this happened.

Red on one side. Black on one side. Wow. That was laughably easy. That was so incredibly easy. I could probably do this with my eyes closed.
Wasn't that a fun ride? Who wants to go again???

Making Halloween

2010-02-24T12:58:00.001-05:00

It is a blustery, wet day in New York City. If it were slightly cleaner, if the buildings looked older and the streets were still cobblestone, if we had a resident fog that took up arms in the early mornings and drifted by mid-day, one might mistake us for London. But alas, we are just New York City. Time does not stand still long enough that we could be mistaken for London. And our dreariness is without the English charm.
They are calling for a winter storm tomorrow night into Friday. Gusts of wind reaching 75 mph. That's 120 kilometers per hour, if you're in London. Either way, it sounds like I'm going to have quite the walk to the subway.
I was thinking, as I walked to the subway this morning, about the weather and how it might be trying to suit the mood of whatever project I'm working on. That is a hyperbolic statement.

But these little bowls feel so much like Autumn, that I find it hard to imagine this rainy, windy day did not belong to October. At least, these days seem to pine for October, pooling puddles and splashing streets painting out a love note for those Fall days. It's funny, how rain in the Spring, Summer, Winter and Fall can all feel so different; it's difficult to be amnesiac about your place in the calendar, although I like to try.

These little bowls are my contribution to a new Halloween crafting book coming out soon. The wonderful Alicia Kachmar, Craftress Extraordinare, is responsible for my involvement. While I have been dabbling in knitting for just over a year, Alicia seems to have been born with crafting in her blood, churning out all kinds of delicious edibles and warm fuzzies. Tactile and tasty enjoyments abound on her website.

Frankenbowl was my first contribution. While he was well-received, I think he might also be less recognizable than our dear Count, who was commissioned after Frankie was presented. Regardless of who was picked for feature in the book, they are still the best of friends.
The Count is currently drying on my table after a good hearty felting from The Doo. I've just started a round of harsh antibiotics, which means I can hand felt for about 15 minutes before I grow dizzy and tired and have to rest. Thank goodness for The Doo, who is willing to remove socks and pants and sit in the bath tub, in his underwear, rubbing and agitating The Count until he becomes the hairy monster he was always meant to be. I wish I had a picture of that hot action. That is devotion. Getting down on your hands and knees to propose marriage? Pshaw. Getting down on your hands and knees to felt wool? I'll take that any day.

I will have to post another picture of The Count, as I left him wrapped in tight, white ribbon in order to hold him to the shape of the bowl. Now he looks like the Mummy.

see?

The day before

2010-02-18T10:14:00.000-05:00

It is the day before my 29th birthday. I am not a published writer. I am not doing something I love. I do not like waking up in the morning.
But these are all negatives, and I should stop that.
This blog is for things I will knit. It is also to motivate me out of this job I hate. Whether that is by knitting or writing, it doesn't matter. Just so long as I get out. I have to get out.
Every time it is someone's birthday, it is my responsibility to order them a cake. There are about 9 people to which I am responsible. The Sugar Addict wants a chocolate brownie cheesecake - enough sweet to stop your heart. The Office Loki wants a carrot cake, because it is not so killer-sweet. The Deadbeat Dad wants chocolate whatever, as long as it is chocolate. The Man in Charge wants cupcakes - it's easier to scrape off the icing and just eat the cake. He scrapes off the icing because "it's bad for you, all that sugar." Also, because he is boring, and cheap, and lives half of a life, saving money and things for God-knows-what, as if once he's done with this life, there will be 20 more to live. 20 more chances to take a chance.
You can tell a lot about a person by their relationship with food.
When it is my birthday, someone is supposed to order a cake for me. I can't order my own cake. I don't quite understand the degree of formality involved - everyone knows they get a cake on their birthday, the surprise is pretty much dead. We all sit at the table when lunch is over and pretend we like each other, waiting patiently for someone to bring out a cake we all know is coming, but have to be surprised about. So I'm not allowed to order my own cake, because I have to pretend to be surprised, and I guess it's doubly hard to pretend if I've ordered it myself, even though I know it's coming? I don't think you can quantify surprise like that, but whatever.
The cakes we get are wonderful. They come from a bakery upstate and they are spectacular. I look forward to birthdays in the office for that reason alone: delicious, moist, mouth-watering cake. I love the red velvet, the coconut, the lemon meringue. The cupcakes are to die for. Go to Carousel Cakes and you'll see what I'm talking about. But you don't know me, so why trust me, right? Well, Oprah recommends it as well. Now I know you're clicking.
It's not exactly part of my job to order cakes for everyone, but it was dumped on me and I don't mind it. It is cake, after all. And if someone doesn't say what they want, I get to choose the new flavor we haven't tried yet. Plus, I really like cake.
I've just been informed that no one remembered to order me a cake. Whoops.
Now I just want to go home. Someone says they will walk around the corner and pick up an ice cream cake, and I refuse it. I don't want an ice cream cake in the dead of winter. I want my tasty, once yearly cake in the flavor that I love, and I don't want anything less. Why should I get anything less?
How is it that I can take care of everyone else, but no one can take care of me?
I am not ordering cakes anymore.