pepermint twist

Note: If your name is Niece Francie, you should not read or look at this posting as it will totally spoil your christmas surprise....

This little goodie is the stocking cap I am currently attempting to make. It is taking A LOT of wool and is very thick, and possibly too heavy to really be feasible(or pleasant) as a stocking cap.

Right now it looks more like a very snarled, potentially poisonous jelly fish, and I am gamely trying to get it done on time, but am less and less optimistic. Live and learn.Perhaps I will send it out to somewhere very cold as a charity hand-knit gift- say Afghanistan- where it's qualities and aesthetic might be better appreciated.

next time I make a stocking cap I will:

• Cast on the suggested number of stitches
• use lighterweight yarn
• use equal weight yarns
• use few colors

My devil-may-care, invent and add as you go approach has NOT worked well with this project, which was intended to be portable. Instead, I have been lugging around big bulky bags of assorted tangled candy-colored wool all week. I will post a picture of the finished item, when it finally happens....

finished shell

Well!

In the better late-than-never category, here is a picture of my finally-finished giant nautillus shell. There is certainly room for improvement here, in terms of stuffing, yarn choice(thick and thin- bad idea)etc., but over-all I am chuffed!

other people's knit sites

I have been taking a fascinating foray into the world of knitted shapes and forms. This has lead me to kooky quasi-mystical sites on golden numbers, divine proportion, and to really wonderful mathematical modelling sites, which, innumerate old me can only stare at with jaw-dropped admiration. On the whole, the aesthetic end of the maths sites are a bit wanting: the just are rather awful visually.

Case in point is Mark E. Shoulson's site with homemade topological shapes- intriguing yet not visually quite there yet: web.meson.org/topology/

However,
one can find wonderful knit versions of all sorts of mathematical topologies, including the moibus strip (which I am already, sadly, a MASTER at making myself) here at: www.toroidalsnark.net/mathknit.html,

which Sarah-Marie calls"The Home of Mathmatical knitting"!
How great is that????
she is coming out with a very exciting new book, in December 2007- truly a great holiday gift idea for those hard-to-shop-for knitters:

Making Mathematics with Needlework Ten Papers and Ten Projects
by sarah-marie belcastro (Editor), Carolyn Yackel (Editor)
Price: $30.00 Availability: Not yet published.Expected release: December 2007 You may preorder this item.
here is the site for ordering the book:www.akpeters.com/product.asp?ProdCode=3318



All of this("research"? "time-wasting"?) is a spin-off of my attempting to make this giant ammonite pillow(as shown in the previous posting below). I have ambitions to make a large, more tall version using the Fibonacci series and some very thick grey yarn I have my eye on at Yarntopia (http://yarntopianyc.com/)

See picture of coveted object above, and imagine

knitted in chunky pearl grey wool.

Change color as desired.
This, in turn goes with my yearning to make a series of all-knit Platonic solids.

They would be(uh) art pieces-cum-room-decor, I guess.

Above is a painting of Luca Pacioli, apparently the father of modern accounting, shown at work decoding the secret of the universe through shapes and numbers....

medieval intellectuals thought that understanding such geometry brought one closer to understanding God, which is where all of the kooky divine-proportion sites come in.

It certainly is humbling to look at the organizational beauty and total appropriateness of the geometry in the natural world, and there IS something appealing about the idea that the world can be broken down into lovely sets of digits....

Much more visually astute than the average mathematician's site, and taking the wonder of knitted geometry into the realm of really inspired children's toys is

Kimberly Chapman's gallery (and instructions!) on her site at:

kimberlychapman.com/crafts/knit-gallery.html

Her site is very nicely organized and has all sorts of useful tutorials for making your own curly tubes, torus rings, and a darling stuffed DNA toy!
My favorites are her more abstract explorations, and I think the knitted tubes toy on the cone base is pure genius- just perfect.

Her knitted spirals are on my increasingly long list of things to try( I want to make an octopus), as is the DNA model- though I think it needs clusters of balls on it...

One of the best patterns for balls can be found here: tiajudy.com/yarnball.htm

It is a pattern by Judy Gibson, and can be found along with many other gems on her website, the beautifully named "String and Air".

It's a smallish, juggling sized affair.

There are surprisingly few larger sphere patterns on the web...

Hands down my favorite is the football, at Eve's wonderful Needle Exchange site,
found here:
http://needles.guzzlingcakes.com/2006/06/11/world-cup-soccer-ball-knitting-pattern/
which I also intend to have a go at.

Her pattern is elegant and fun and lends itself to all kinds of color variations due to it's star-like construction.
Hat's off!

This "globe" pattern is (jokingly) available on the Lion Brand site:http://cache.lionbrand.com/patterns/Globe.html silly, but witty....




There is also Eric Lancaster's gorgeous and innovative "pillow" (see image below)

at Shibuiknits(http://www.shibuiknits.com/Patterns/Pattern.php?Pattern=15 ,
which is available for online purchase at pure knits:
www.pureknits.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=66_87&products_id=273

This leads me once more, as all roads seem to these days,

back to the Institute for Figuring's site, and their wonderful slide show of the gallery of Crocheted Hyperbolic Models!
this can be found here:http://www.theiff.org/gallery/index.html#....

It's crochet at it's finest, and makes up for centurys worth of awful doilies and horrible granny-square vests in bicentennial colors...

Please remember:All of the patterns talked about here, shown above, and on the sites linked, are the result of hard work and many hours labour on the part of the designer. Please visit the sites and tell them how wonderful and ingenious they are, and please use the patterns for personal and non-profit use only. A bit of respect for the inventors, please...

While I'm not convinced on the spiritual decoding end of things, I am totally entranced with what one can make with some sticks and yarn and a bit 'o stuffing: look at all of the wacky forms that can be knit and crocheted, and how wonderfully irrational they are!
What richness!
What Variety!
La Chaim!

Ammonite

These pictures were taken of me by my good friend Janice, who journeyed up to visit me from New Jersey to New Haven, CT, where I was participating in our annual "Open Studios".
She has a rather spiffy i-phone and took these images of me at work on my large-scale "ammonite" pillow, based on Beth Skwarecki's brilliant design "Nautie"(see Knitty.com for pattern). I am using absolutely GORGEOUS sea green/blue thick and thin yarn, hand spun and dyed at Done Rovin' farms in Maine. I really like these pix, which is no mean feat as I am notoriously unphotogenic, and have a huge head cold, swollen jowls, and generally feel pretty shirty all-round.
I ran out of cotton balls for stuffing, so had to stop mid way on Sunday.
Too bad, knitting is PERFECT for such events,
and puts the nervous public at ease as they enter one's work space.....

so long!!!!

It has been simply ages since I last posted, but this does not mean that I have not been knitting....
during my travels this summer I added considerably to my yarn stash, by purchasing:
lovely sport weight Shetland wool in a peaty brown and a deep indigo while in Cornwall, UK.
While in France, in La guilole during Bastille day, I bought some superfine mohair/silk mix yarn in a glowing milky white and a deep night blue. This was purchased from the Farmer himself at an outdoor market in the town square. I have been using it to make my "eclipse" scarf based on the moon chart calender at MOMA...
and lastly, Dun Rovin' farm in Maine- always my downfall.
here I bought thick-and-thin hand spun wool in a really odd light blue with greeny bits. It was the last she had and she did not remember they dye recipe, so it may be the last of it's kind. I bought all she had-300 yards, not much. It is really sea weedy looking, and is kind of more patinaed than dyed, really. It looks sort of organic and a bit dirty, which I really like. Most light blue is so horribly clean and chemical looking. This, looks like the sea. Not having much of it, I am a bit limited. I have started a larger ammonite pillow with it, based on the "nautie" design. so far so good, the chunky yarn gives great texture, but the thin bits do leave some holes....

Meanwhile, fall finds me in New York, where I have been prowling around the fabulous Yarntopia store, located on Amsterdam ave, at 108th street. Yarntopia is that rare bird, a really good boutique yarn store: ok prices, great atmosphere and wonderful range of goods. The store features really cool projects in the window, including some very sculptural hats, hipster mini dresses in chunky yarn and a selection of knitted dessert cakes. Very inspiring indeed, and handy(or dangerous, depending on your perception), as I live around the corner...

Knitting nature:

There is something I’m after, something ephemeral and richly patterned but discrete.
It’s there in the elegant forms of nature- somehow graceful AND endowed with a sense of humor, whimsy in a good sense. No mean feat.
I see it in feathers, insects, fish scales, snake skins, rocks and leaves and very rarely in art.

I keep circling round this theme with my knitting interests: the random frenetic electric stripping of my sweater below, the nautie pattern with its increasing built out form and these spider webs- the one from the park, and this one here from needle beetle patterns, by Liza Souza.
Ingenious yes, but not quite there yet.

I first started really wanting to knit having seen the books of Kaffe Fasset. I loved his fearless use of millions of colors and elaborate patterns and all photographed in lovely complex natural settings: among turning leaves and against lichen incrusted stone walls.
I too wanted to knit Turkish carpet designs and world maps and moss patterns!
I still do, though I’m not sure what to do with them exactly.

Clothing-wise I really do prefer spare, minimal and monochromatic garments.
The problem for me with Fasset’s patterns: while I adore looking at the books, I don’t actually WANT any of the sweaters- they are, for the most part, too bulky and unshaped for my short, pony-like frame. But it’s not just a question of flattering my body type: the structure of the garments lacked the wit and imagination of the patterns. I chose the sweater (the one shown below) because of its ingenious no-seams construction, and the way the garment works with the wearer. 1940’s patterns have a way of being thrifty, interestingly constructed and generous to women’s bodies all at the same time. This is what I care about from a fashion angle, and it does also make for interesting knitting- this is after all supposed to be a therapeutic activity.

So I began with complexly colored and textured bags and mitts and other accessories- rich extravagant things that look good with dark simple clothes.
Here are two of my bags ”Klimt” and “Diane”. Klimt was made using lots of needlepoint yarn, which comes in wonderful colors and is pure wool, something alarmingly difficult to find in England where I was living at the time. But they have all those sheep!

You say- I see them in the fields near the motorways…
Yes they do.

What they do with the wool is a mystery, but it’s largely cheap nasty acrylic stuff in the UK LYS, sadly.
Diane was made shortly after, for a friend of that name who wears the colors shown- soft grays, browns and pinks. I played more with velvety textures here too, and lined it with some lovely oyster colored panne velvet from a pair of hand me down trousers that I wore to death but could not throw away.

Klimt too has a recycled interior and fringe- a beautiful charcoal lamb’s wool sweater that accidentally found its way into the washing machine and became doll sized. I used the ribbing for fringe, cutting in between ribs and part of the body for the inside. The sleeves I still wear as, well, sleeves. As arm/wrist warmers- very practical actually. The pattern was based on one of Fasset’s designs which I modified.

In homage to him I am also including these photos of Burgundian roof tiles. I was in Burgundy in June, near Dijon, and was delighted by the color, variation and daring of these roofs! Why are most roofs so darn dull?
They really reminded me of knitting, and my bags and the kind of aesthetic spirit I’m after- I love the way they play with the geometric patterns one can so naturally make using repeated overlapped shapes. Instead of looking shabby if the get a bit mossy and overgrown, or a vine takes over- they look even better for it- now that’s good design!

nautie by nature....

Here she is!
My finished nautie!
The eyes are larger than those specified in the original pattern.
I am traveling now, so am making do with what is at hand, which happened to be these particular buttons, lurking in my travel sewing kit.
I justify this aesthetically by thinking that it gives an appropriately large, light-deprived eye for an animal that lived in the profound primordial depths of the cretaceous sea.
Also, the right scary/cute Japanese anime quality.
One worry:
Aren’t buttons a choking hazard?
Can I safely give this to a baby, especially the baby of a beloved friend?
I DID sew them on extra tight and well, but I know babies can be strong, willful and persistent when it comes to self-endangerment…

I have started a mate for her, one with a blue ribbed (ooh la la !) shell and red body…

This installation, which very cleverly uses knititng, was part of a series of artistic interventions this summer at the Jardin de Luxembourg in Paris. Most of the works I was not very taken with, but this I thought was marvelous, the way it plays games with scale, the existing stutuary, and the natural life of the park itself to create an ominous and fairy-tale like piece.

I have been hoping to highlight more creative artistic uses of knitting that I run into, on this blog, and this fits the bill swimmingly.

nautillus!

here is my "nautie" as started the other week- since then I've finished it, but there is always a big delay with my photographing and posting....

it's in a very plush velvety velour cheneille(which means "caterpillar" in french!), that was very hard indeed to work on these small bamboo needles. But I kept doggedly away at it, and was really pleased with the cushy result.

I am IN LOVE with this ingenious shell design- so much could be done with it- I am thinking hats mostly here, but also a huge ammonite pillow!

Tricot!

I’ve finished my sweater, which I am not going to show or talk about anymore, because I am hoping to publish it on Knitty

(see www.knitty.com), where the rules don’t allow projects already up on blogs. So, it will just have to wait. Suffice to say, it looks nothing like my sketch, has cap sleeves and looks terrific. I am really proud of it, all that tweaking was worth it!
I am still going to play around with the basic pattern, maybe do some waist shaping, and try a long sleeved version in lighter weight wool.

There are some terrific yarn places in France, but knitting has not had its renaissance here yet, so they are farther and fewer than I’m used to. Italy, by contrast, has gorgeous yarn shops all over, knitting never died out there. La Drogerie is a magnificent yarn, button and notions shop in Paris that has a very beautiful branch in the Bon Marche department store, as well as independent shops in Paris, Marseilles and all over France. Any person interested in knitting, sewing, jewelry making, or crochet should visit their stores- the selection was really exquisite. I haven’t been to the Marseille one yet, but I spent AGES prowling around the Bon Marche one.
Of particular interest:
Beautiful silk like yarns in yummy colors made of BAMBOO! Apparently this product has natural antiseptic properties, making this yarn good for baby things and socks.
If my suitcases weren’t already jammed I would have bought loads of stuff…

I heard a news report on the first Knit Café opening in Paris, and found it on the web later. They claimed to be an American style knit café, where one could knit, take lessons and have tea. It is amusingly named tricot te, and can be found here:
I have to say that the actuality sadly did not resemble the convivial picture posted on the web. To be fair, though, I went on a weekday, which means that most younger knitters would be at school or work. The place is in a not very scenic quartier, and the shop is TINY. It only stocks pingouin yarns, and the knitting books on sale there were of the stodgy old fashioned kind. There was no café part to speak of, which was a downer as I was really thirsty, and the only other client was an elderly lady looking to knit simple baby clothes. The table space was small, and I did not really feel that I could just sit down, whip out my project and start working away on it. They did however, have a variety of classes starting up, and that truly seemed to be what they were really about…
Rather disappointing on the whole.

My next project is going to be a kids toy “naughtie”, that was published a while back on Knitty (see http://knitty.com/ISSUEspring06/PATTnautie.html). It was designed by Beth Skwarecki, who can be found here: http://loxosceles.org/, and who took this photo.It’s really ingenious and I’ve been itching to make it since I first saw it. Now I have a good excuse as I have several pregnant friends to drum up gifts for…
Just before leaving NYC I got a great deal on some suede chenille yarn, soft colorful and machine washable- perfect for little baby baubles. I just need to get some stuffing, and I’m good to go!

It’s been a while since I’ve posted, so I have a backlog of images.

Here’s a picture of where I’ve got to so far:
I am doing both sleeves at once as I’m worried that I don’t have enough yarn left to get both to the right length. This leaves me with two options: get them both to elbow length and stop there, or order more yarn over the net. I’m going with the later, a bit of a pain from Europe, but if I’m going to spend months on this thing it had better be right…
I wish I had taken a picture when I tried it on the other day, when I had put all the stitches onto spare yarn to try it on sans needles. It fits well- is very snug and curvy, and has a higher neckline than I expected. Very flattering.
Now I am at a more exciting part, knit-wise: decreasing stitches and doing a finer rib to shape the sleeves. It’s working nicely with the yarn’s striated colors, and is looking really good, I think. From here, it goes to an even finer rib and fewer stitches, then moves back to its former 2X2 rib, but in smaller numbers and with subsequent decreases, to form graceful narrow sleeves.

I am including several notebook sketches- first, a projected image of the finished product, done before I had really tried it on. Only if I become a walking skeleton will it ever look like this on. It, in fact, is quite form-fitting, not at all drapey as shown.

Lastly, a turtleneck version-Maybe with the bodice triangle NOT in rib….There are really a lot of possible variations- I really love that the whole thing is seamless, there is something so elegant about a design this simple and structurally sound…

I tried, unsuccessfully, to pick up more yarn during a week back in the USA. I’m in France now, with no LYS in sight, let alone a good one!
What was odd was that I couldn’t get this yarn at any of the shops I tried in New York City!
I had bought the yarn, while ago now, in new haven, and then sat on it…
The store DID have the same KIND of yarn, but no more of the same color.
My search led me to some really great places though.
“School Products” in NYC is an amazing resource, full of beautiful and luxurious yarns- camel, alpaca, cashmere, you name it. It has many odd lots and what appears to be an ever-changing selection…
My beloved P&S fabrics, down near Canal Street, which is normally a gold mine of affordably priced stuff, was having a huge sale and therefore had got rid of almost everything. They are about to move to new digs across the street and were busy trying to empty out. No luck there.
I also visited or called on all of the downtown yarn stores I could find, including three very precious boutiquy numbers, one on ave A, one in the west village, and a knit café on 14th st. All nice enough, but no cascade “fascination” in sight...
The big dud in the New York yarn store lot is Pearl Paint’s craft store, which does have yarn and needles, but largely stocks garish novelty yarns, and never has enough of one thing to really make anything bigger than a scarf. They should either give up the yarn side of things, or be more serious, but either way, I got the strong sense that they are stretching themselves too thin. What’s wrong with just being a good, professional art supply store?

Lastly, I have found some other patterns that use this same triangle bodice. Here is one, also a vintage pattern reworked and sold as a kit by White Lies Designs (http://www.whiteliesdesigns.com/) They have some really nice vintage patterns, and this one, “Myrna” caught my eye some time ago. They call it a “fan-shaped bodice”…

More oddly, is the version I found right here in Cassis, the small fishing village in the south of France, where I am spending the summer. There is a boutique here, pretty deeply unfashionable, for older ladies. The other week, hanging in there window I spied two short sleeved stripped acrylic machine knit versions of mine, although, like “Myrna” they had a more plunging neckline.I will try to snap a decent photo of these, if possible.I was really shocked to see them there, and thought about trying them on.

triangle!

OK, so I did get the front triangle done. Unable to wait I

had made a paper model of what I thought it would turn out like, and it was WAY too huge for words.This should have been enough, but no, I went ahead and knit it up, only to find, that it made something WAY too huge, extending all the way to my chin and demanding enormous voluminous arms that would require tens of balls of yarn.

So,

I frogged it down, and increased the decreases to get something better. I think it's working...

I am now working on the first sleeve! very exciting, so far so good.

This sketch dissects the sweaters structure, and gives an idea of what I THINK it will look like when done। This is, of course, a long way off, as I haven't even

got the basic 8 inches done before I start the front and back decreases....

I got this pattern at a yard sale in Maine, while I was visiting my dad. There was a pile of old knitting mags. in a box, and one of them, this 1946 gem had LOTS of great looking patterns(and a few real howlers). My history with knitting seems somehow connected with these Maine visits: I started knitting in earnest after buying a copy of "Stitch 'n Bitch" at the Bangor airport, which had the book, oddly, sitting among self help books, christian lit. books and romances. In short, it was the only option. I read it on the plane and then started in on the Alien Head scarf as soon as I could get yarn and needles. It took me ages, as I had to keep re-starting...

This is a picture of what I'm working on now, which I am knitting in Cascade yarns"fixation", which is a cotton-elastic mix. The yarn has a nice cushy, firm boucle
quality, when knit in rib, and I like the striated colourway, which does stop me from getting bored.
I drop lots of stitches using these 5 bamboo needles, and have added wedges of wine-cork to the ends to help stop this from happening, which it does, a bit.
I am trying to learn to knit well without looking at what I am doing and have taken up READING as I knit. this requires an active foot, to hold the page in place, or one of those plastic hair clips with teeth...
It sounds makeshift, but actually works pretty well, and as I've been ploughing through the novels lately, it allows me to kill too birds with one stone(though multi-tasking seems sort of antithetical to the lesuire activity aesthetic, doesen't it?).
Lately read and enjoyed: Ludmilla's Broken English and Cleaver.

MWLKNIT!

This blog is a place for all of my knitting projects...
I will be putting up images of various and sundry items I've made.
Currently I am working on a sweater from a pattern from 1948. It is either going to be very sexy, or like armour. The jury is still out on this one...
(I'm using a cotton-elastic yarn in a variagated grey pattern that is a delight to work with, but I've noticed the rib i'm getting is a bit stiffer and denser than I'd imagined.... hmmm...)

The other project in the pipes is an elaborate, multicoloured and metalic hand bag I'm calling "Gilded Lily". It is taking forever, largely due to indecision. I have however, found a lovely Venetian glass bauble to use as a faster for it...
pictures will be posted shortly!