New Work, UFOs

I've started a series of new scarves made with small triangles, joined asymmetrically with freeform crochet.

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For this one, I used some 2-ply handspun dyed by Bob of Winderwood Farm. For the edging and freeform joins, I used a beautiful semi-solid green Shibui sock yarn.

This is Noro Silk Garden Lite in a colorway that is inspiring me to create another series, unified by color and texture, called Shaman's Stone. For edging and connecting, I've used a beautiful Shibui colorway called "Honey," and some Dream In Color laceweight in Cocoa Kiss. I also experimented with some freeform knitting.

Here are two more, drying after I fulled them. The one on the left is in Noro Chirimen, edged with some 2-ply handspun in natural gray, along with a blue/grey variegated in Kureopatora, which was in my stash. It's a discontinued yarn that I believe was a Noro line. However, mine (which I picked up years ago at a knit shop going-out-of-business sale) is only identified as a "Knitting Fever" brand yarn.

The scarf on the right is my 2-ply handspun (not sure where the hand-dyed fiber came  from...) which I edged with purple Louet Gems.

I am doing a lot of weaving lately - more triangles and small squares for scarves and wraps I'm envisioning. Best of all, I'm finally working on my Ashford rigid heddle Knitters Loom!!  That deserves a post of its own. So that's all I'm saying about it right now.


On the Needle Harvest front - I think I located almost all my unfinished objects.
Thirty-seven. Yup.  And I'm actually relieved. Kiki had forty-eight!
I was surprised by a a few things:

- how resonant these projects are with the times and circumstances of when they were begun and worked on. My oldest UFOs go back to the very difficult times in 2004, and just looking at them took me to places that make tears spring to my eyes.

- how far along these projects were when they were abandoned.  There is a shawl (this is one that fairly thunders with the 2004 energy) which just needs some ends woven in and blocking. There is an Einstein coat that just needs sleeves.

- how there aren't that many needles to harvest. There are, however, lots of Denise cords & stoppers.

- how I don't have any patterns or notes with the projects, and have to guess at what size needles I was using.

- how few sock UFO's I have.

- how relatively organized my UFOs are.

 I found some in a  bin in the back of the closet in my workroom.

 I'm really excited to see the Jane Thornley Scotian Meadow Wrap again (up there in the right hand corner.) That may be the UFO I select to finish first.

The others were upstairs in the half of my spiritual room I devoted to crafts before getting the workroom when Patrick moved out.  In all cases, upstairs & down, projects were neatly packed in a zip-lock bag. Upstairs, I even had them divided up into plastic baskets by project type/size.

And never mind about any drastic changes to the look of my blog - I tried the newer template thingy and didn't much like it.  I did, however, change to their newer post-creating option. I do like that, especially working with images.

Finally, a Blessed Samhain to all who celebrate this festival on the Wheel of the Year, honoring Beloved Dead, letting go of the old year and welcoming the new.
Zann

Changeover

I'm just about ready to take the plunge and upgrade (?) this blog.
For ages & ages I have resisted the "customize" link here on Blogger and stayed with the old Blogger.

Once I click on it and go for it, my template & sidebar will change, all the by-hand customization I did will be gone.

But apparently, certain things will be easier. Maybe I'll be able to put it back as it was. Maybe not.

I'm going to do it.
What better day than Samhain - the time that is most resonant for me as the ending of one year and the beginning of the new.....

Zann

Roundup

Things I've been up to for the last few months:

1. Fitness Project - this has been my number 1 priority. Have lost 34 pounds so far and am very close to my goal, at which point I will assess how I feel, move (yes, and look!) and decide if I need to lose another 5-10 pounds. I've been posting a weekly note about this on my decluttering blog if you'd like details.

2. Maple Center work - This is where I have established a memorial fund for my son Patrick - a fund dedicated to projects promoting the expressive arts for healing. Our main workshop is the upcoming (Nov. 14) Creating a Path Through Loss / The Arts as Healing Tools.

This will be the 3rd one.
I'm also serving on the Board of the Maple Center, various committees, and working on the new website.

3. My work - At the end of September, I had a booth at the Street Fair / Crossroads Arts Fest.
It was divided between fundraising for the Maple Center art workshops & my own work. I had a wonderful time, despite the first two days of rain.

I met lots of nice people, got feedback on my work, sold a lot of my things, raised some $$ for Patrick's fund and got the award for best booth display!

Also at the Fair, I got together with some of the poets who read at the monthly reading I co-host with Sarah Long.
We roamed through the Fair reading poems.
Granddaughter Raven & I went up to Wabash and read for people at her mom's salon, on a bus bench and at RiverWools. Street Poets!

4. My work - Great daylong event out at Sycamore Farm - Celebrate Fiber! I led an afternoon workshop on triangle loom weaving and Martha sold a couple more of my pieces.

I bought some beautiful hand-dyed fiber (llama & silk) and came home and started spinning for the first time in a long time:



5. Last week, was the first anniversary of our reading - Third Thursday Poetry at the Grounds. Pete Wilson, owner of Coffee Grounds, very generously provided a fabulous cake for us, with our flyer on it.


It was a special evening, with our usual line-up of diverse readings, a lot of door prizes. I made buttons that said POET for our readers.
My son Shaun designed 3rd Thursday buttons and we handed them out to everyone. He also designed a new flyer for us.



Busy, busy days, huh?
I'm working on some new hats & scarves, as well as embarking on Kiki's September Needle Harvest project.
Better late than never. It actually became an ongoing project and there's a Ravelry group.
More another day.

Namaste,
Zann

Sock Washing Day

Yup. Today's the day I washed (almost) all of my hand-knitted socks. But it's not the major chore it once was, when I carefully washed them all by hand. Thanks to Martha at RiverWools, I have learned that my knitted socks can be machine washed - even the "handwash" yarn ones -if I put them in a mesh bag on cold wash/cold rinse and DO NOT put them in the dryer.

And I finally washed my Sol-Mate cotton socks...the ones we sold for the "rOcK yOUr SoCks" fundraiser for Patrick's memorial fund at the Maple Center. This is the link to a pdf flyer for that. Fifty pairs sold, my friends! And all the money in the fund goes towards programs and workshops which promote the expressive arts as healing tools. Sol-Mate allows us to do one fundraiser per year with their fabulous socks and I think we'll do it again next year.

I've been quite busy and now I'm sick with a respiratory Thing, but I'm hoping to pay more attention to this long-neglected blog, sooner rather than later.

I need to do a sort of round-up post. And that means I have to get pictures off my camera, resized and organized. But maybe not so organized...just get 'em out of the camera and onto these pages.

One thing I've done recently is to revamp & update my pages at zanncarter.com.
And get myself a business card:


Coming up with the text for the card was an interesting exercise, and one of the reasons I've not had an actual business card before. I do so many things...

(Todd, with whom I'm selling books again, pointed out that it doesn't say "bookseller" on it. Suzanne Carter, Bookseller will just have to get her own card....)

It was also hard to decide on an image for the card. These were some of the others I considered:



But in the end, it seemed most appropriate to use the picture of the piece called My Broken Heart (Mended). That piece truly represents who I am as a person & as an artist, a person with a broken, shattered heart...who mends herself each day.

Namaste,
Zann