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.