Finished: Different Lines Wrap

This was a great carry-around knit.
I will miss it. I hope I enjoy wearing it as much as I enjoyed knitting it.  It's cushy. And the colors....mmmm.

Details and pattern info here

 

This last pictures shows my favorite part of this design - there is energy  and movement here - radiance.

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2011_Oct. 10-16 - Reading This Week : *

SageWoman magazine Issue 81 Weaving the Web
Mark Doty, Still Life with Oysters and Lemon
Martin Heidegger, Poetry, Language, Thought
Leanne Praine, Hoopla / The Art of Unexpected Embroidery

*being on the list doesn’t necessarily mean being read cover to cover, I might just be dipping my toes in the vast ocean of words out there

Birdwoman's Council Cloak

Weelllll, not quite a cloak, but I love the alliteration.
I worked on this piece in the late fall. I began with a woven triangle, picked up stitches around it and then knitted it the rest of the way.  I used 8 different yarns (my working title for it was Eight), changed colors whenever I felt like it. It's mostly stockinette, with a band of seed stitch and occasional garter.

I want to put some kind of magickal medallion at the point of the triangle and maybe dangling from the ends, as I did in the Serendipitous Soul Shawl.   (See, I love alliteration!) In fact, this shawl was inspired by that one. See that post for more construction details.
I pulled it out to wear at the opening of the fiber art show I was part of last October and loved wearing it so much I couldn't believe I hadn't made others like it. And immediately began this one.

And why Birdwoman?  Well, sometimes things just come to me as I'm working, bits of stories, characters.  As I was finishing this piece, wondering what elements I'd use for the medallions or charms, I just saw/felt a being called Birdwoman, and she was attending a great meeting for which she wore special garments. It seems like I might do a series of these cloaks for others attending that meeting.  I will have to see what unfolds...

Aestlight Shawl

Yup, I've still got this one on the needles. Aestlight.
In Dream In Color's lovely glittery Starry (real silver filaments...)

When I went looking for when I first posted about starting this shawl, I was shocked to see it was at the end of this post from Nov. 28, 2009.  I posted again here on Christmas Day and apparently shortly after I allowed Aestlight to languish.

I didn't put it out of sight, and it has been sitting there next to my chair, all squooshed into a plastic bag, and I obviously began to make up some kind of story about why, because when I pulled it out the other day, I could find absolutely nothing wrong with it.  In my head, there was something about number of stitches just not coming out correctly...something frustrating that made me want to abandon it, get sufficient distance between me and the vision of a completed lovely, sparkly shawl that I could frog, frog, frog it.

There was one difficulty...I didn't have enough Starry in the colorway I was using. Martha didn't have another. So, rather than try to find one online, I decided to finish in a different colorway altogether. But I didn't have a problem with that decision and I know that's not why it sat there.

In any case, I picked it up the other day intending to make A Decision, studied the pattern, counted my stitches, and realized I could just start knitting!  And so I did. I finished the lace border and began the edging in the second colorway and then something rather miraculous happened.

I decided I would try to knit by the chart.  This is a big deal for me. Normally charts make my eyes glaze over, like looking at long equations with Greek symbols.  I flee from them.  But I was finding doing the 16-row edging pattern incredibly tedious following the written instructions and I wasn't reading the knitting well enough to get the pattern.

So at about the 5th repeat, I went to the chart. Oh. MY. What an amazing difference.  This is a very simple chart as charts go, and it doesn't have the difficulties of reading a chart that requires repeats across a lengthy row.  So it is quite a perfect chart with which to challenge myself.

Anyway, it's a gazillion times faster and very much like touch typing over hunt-and-peck. I see the symbol and my fingers just do the stitch. I don't have to look at the chart as much as I did the written instructions, and I find it much easier to see where I am and am not tediously checking off row after row.

All of you who know and love knitting by chart already know all this, but for any of you who don't, give it a try with a simple pattern.  At the very least, it's surely a good brain exercise - I swear I feel a whole host of new neural pathways opened already!

Weaving - Shaman's Stone

My second Saori-inspired weaving adventure.


I wanted to choose a more neutral palette and remembered a whole bin of yarn I'd gathered to do some free-range knitting in the manner of Jane Thornley.
And, as these things happen, I realized these colors connect with the series of pieces in my head called Shaman's Stone, one of which I've already done. It's the second scarf in this post.

An interesting thing happened in the finishing process.
The warp is Fox Fibre 3/2 organic cotton, color Oatmeal.  I'd completely forgotten that much Fox Fibre does a color transformation when exposed to hot water - it darkens. Dramatically, if boiled.
In this case, it was just hot tap water, and I was amazed and delighted to see a piece that seemed very pale, too pale, darken almost the minute it got into the water. The warp became a very deep tan color.
And it changed the whole piece entirely, both in a physical sense, and in its spirit. That serendipitous
transformation was magical to me.

As it dried again, the warp lightened considerably, but still remained darker than before.  I don't know if the effect is so apparent from these pictures, but I'll have a go at trying to demonstrate it with them.

Here is the piece in process, when I photographed one of those beetles that looks like a ladybug. There are a few buzzing around the basement, and one suddenly dropped in on the weaving.

Here is a detail picture after washing:

and another detail:

Above is where I got literal with the vision of Shaman's Stones.

There's definitely a story to go with these pieces.

I just haven't heard it yet.

I didn't give Saori links before, but here are a couple:
Saori SaltSpring
Saori Worcester - page on Way of Saori

And Saori Worcester's huge page of Saori links.

Lest you think I've abandoned knitting, here's what's on the needles (besides the 30 UFO's previously mentioned a few posts back) and being actively, regularly attended to:

This will be the Aestlight Shawl designed by Gudrun Johnston.

Yes, will be. I will finish it.

Not only because I love the design, but because I am knitting it of yarn spun from a star-bedazzled sky.

(Yes, it's Dream in Color "Starry" in colorway Night Watch. Real silver fibers. More magick!)

Short Row Experiments

I was looking through one of a myriad of 'bits 'n'pieces' boxes I have and found these. Sometimes I'm just amazed when I find something interesting I've written or created and never really done anything with - I often think, I did that? Why didn't I continue the exploration? Then again, engaging in the process without concern about outcome (product) is both a learning experience and a Zen experience of being-in-the-now.

I was using Silk Garden and creating a variety of short-row triangles. I varied the number of stitches in my short rows - where the tri is biggest and has that neat curving edge I believe I wrapped-and-turned after just one stitch.

In the detail above, I don't remember how many stitches in the short rows, but I was also doing a 3/3 rib.

Actually, I just realized that these experiments (as well as the Blossom Shawl in Knitty) inspired the Short Row Wedge Wraps I did in Kureyon. I very lightly felted these. Here's one:
ah...process AND product.
Balance is good.

Namaste,
Zann

Two Tri-Loom Shawls

(Note: I added my mom's obituary to the "My Mom" post below. It took me awhile to write it...)

I finally finished two shawls I've been working on for ages. Both were made on small continuous weave looms.

The first is in Noro Silk Garden . I used 3 different Hazel Rose looms: 12" square and tri, and 7" tri. (Remember HR tri-looms are sized according to the sides rather than hypotenuse, so they can be matched up with the other shapes.)

The final shawl is very different than the one I started out to make, which was going to be a large triangle composed of squares and triangles. Instead, because of issues with the neck and drape, I wound up working in an improvisational way and ended up with this shape:


which sits very nicely on the shoulders and has an almost jacket-like appearance.When I first began putting the pieces together, my intention was to set the squares on point, with three forming the base of the triangle and then filling in with a row of triangles across the top. Somehow I decided that I liked the look of the central part you see below (2 tri's at the bottom, two squares at the top),
but discovered that the squares did not sit right at the neck and puckered and looked awful. This resulted in my making 7" tri's and gathering the squares just a bit to fit along the edges of those tri's, and then doing an interesting join between 2 12" triangles and one of the 7" triangles:


I edged each piece with a round of single crochet and joined with mattress stitch through the back loop of each sc. The whole shawl was edged with a round of single crochet and a round of slip stitch. I did not attempt to match edging colors, just used the Silk Garden color flow as it came.

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And here is the Forest Floor Shawl, which was started in the fall of 2006, finally finished. It languished in all-but-a-few-loose-ends state for months. I don't think I'll ever understand why so many of my UFOs wind up being virtually finished but for a wee bit of work left.
Quoting from my earlier entry while this was in progresss:

"It's made of small woven triangles in Noro Blossom, joined in a freeform fashion, with areas of
freeform crochet in the same Blossom. I'm also using some Noro Silk Mountain, for the edging and here and there in the body.

My guiding vision is of a shawl sort of magically whirled together out of all the leaves and twigs and seed pods and bits of bark on a forest floor."

I talked my yarn shop friend Jennifer into modeling for me. As you can see, the shawl either requires or inspires a bit of dramatic flair on the part of the wearer.

I swear....I shall wear this in public as soon as the weather becomes shawlish rather than longjohnish. (and a gentle pooh-pooh to the lady who said, 'but...but, there are HOLES in it!')

Some Work in Progress

Way too long since my last update and busy, busy days ahead. Here's a few pictures of things I've been working on:
Ingredients for a hanging/sculptural project I am envisioning.

Handspun being washed to set twist. Looked so grossly like a big bin of worms I just had to take the picture....

Short row wedge shawl - Kureyon, felted/fulled. Am still working out this pattern for another project.

Some Freeform Work

June Scrumble for the exchange I'm in. There's a pocket on this one (mostly handspun yarns) with a wee scrumble baby peeking out.
And here's a picture with the baby scrumble. (Sorry for the poor colors...)

July scrumble......

...and the hat I began working on after being inspired by that scrumble.

This scrumble exchange has been very useful for me. Working on a single palm-sized scrumble, with no bigger project looming in my mind frees me in so many ways. I explore color and texture, try new stitch combinations. Of course, that can be done on one's own and I certainly have enough in the Bits and Pieces Box to demonstrate. But because the scrumble IS the finished object and has purpose, there is also a sense of gratification and accomplishment.

Being inspired to do a project based on the colors and stitches is a bonus. That hat above is nearing completion, which is a very good thing, since this month's scrumble has also given me project ideas that I'm itching to start.

Namaste,
Zann

Shawl, Morning Glories & Marigolds

This shawl's name was inspired by the colors I worked with. Colors most true in the second photograph. It's a shawl that sits wonderfully on the shoulders and is rather cape-like. And light as a summer breeze, as it's made of silk, cotton and soy silk.

Started it with a triangle in Rowan Summer Tweed (silk & cotton) woven on my Hazel Rose 12". Picked up stitches and knitted from there, bands of SWTC Oasis soy silk in random lace, a different color of the Rowan, more random lace, some seed stitch, but mostly stockinette. Edged in crochet with the soy silk and I did some subtle embellishment with a dark green pearl cotton (3/2, I think) around the triangle and along the front and neck edges.

The bottom cast-off edge was an unvented* edging of my own. First, I cast off by crocheting - a double crochet in each live knit stitch with a chain 1 between. This edging was too light to not curl under, so I unvented another edging which I will attempt to explain:
* [slip stitch, chain 4, slip stitch in 2nd chain , slip stitch in same stitch as first slip stitch] picot (?) made, then slip stitch in next stitch* Repeat to end of edge.

This edging proved perfect to weight the shawl and keep from curling under.

*unvented -- Unventing is an Elizabeth Zimmerman word, coined to describe something you've thought of on your own but are sure that somewhere, sometime, someplace...your brilliant idea has also been thought of by someone or many someone elses.

Namaste,
'Zann

The Very Special Shawl

Here is the seventh Isis shawl, made of that lovely thick-and-thin hand-dyed cotton I wrote about in my last entry. The Isis shawl is the pattern I chose to use for calming comfort work the week after Patrick's death, and over this last year I've posted pictures of the previous six shawls. I've given four of them away, the last one to my friend Cathie upon the loss of her daughter Lydia in December.

It is a very special pattern to me because of that connection. And because I began calling it the Isis shawl when I discovered it reminded me of Isis' wings when it is spread out and then months later read that the Isis myth is considered to be an archetype of grief and mourning. I read that in a book about losing a child. Synchronicity - yes!



On this one, I added to the inside back neck a small peace sign
because it was a gift to:

Cindy Sheehan, the anti-war activist whose son was killed in Iraq.

I was asked to make "something special" for her as a gift from Terre Haute Stop War on Iraq - our local group that formed in opposition to this war months before the war began.

I had the honor and pleasure of presenting it to Cindy at the beginning of her speech here in Terre Haute yesterday.

In the presentation, I told her it was knit with thoughts of her and her journey throughout, with admiration for her speaking truth to power, with profound hope for peace in the world.
I said I hoped she would feel it as a hug from one grieving mother to another. And I got to tell her that the Terre Haute activists for peace and justice think she rocks.

She was warm and generous of spirit and she gave me a big hug and quietly asked me what happened to my son. Then she proceeded to wear the shawl during the speech and in the lobby where she signed books and spoke with people afterwards.

I was as impressed with her speaking in person as I have always been impressed by her television interviews. She is articulate, knowledgable, and has a powerful but calm presence, and holds her own quite well when dealing with those who confront her with hostility. (And, boy, does she get confronted!)

On a lighter note, earlier this week I was running about saying I'm SO glad Cindy Sheehan is 6 feet tall. That's because the shawl came out much bigger than all the others I made because the yarn was thicker and needles larger. I had seriously considered taking out the final section (about 12 rows, looooooong rows) and reworking the edging row. And then I googled "how tall is Cindy Sheehan" and was astonished to actually have at the top of the list a link to a bio that had her height. My friend Cathy, who had met her at Camp Casey in Crawford, Texas, confirmed it. So it was actually serendiptous that the shawl came out so much larger than I'd expected.

In this picture, she is describing to me the very large peace pipe she was given at a previous speech, and saying she is happy that the shawl will be a bit easier to pack and carry.


peace,
'Zann