Temporary Distractions from Nihon Vogue

I have taken some breaks from the actual knitting of Nihon Vogue projects because the Aran and the Gansey were both in the design or "calculations needed before proceeding" phase which required blocks of time. In my mind, I was desperate to be productive or show progress on something "crafty" and pulled my sewing machine out of the attic storage where it was buried beneath luggage, fleece fabric, and Christmas wrapping paper. The German made Pfaff machine is an exquisite machine. Lots of stitches, embroidery and many other features I have no idea how to use. Yikes. I am embarrassed to admit that it had been so long since I have devoted any time to sewing that I had completely forgotten how to wind the bobbin. Trouble with the bobbin tension forced me to haul it in to the friendly Issaquah store where I purchased it at 8 years ago. Duh! They oiled the bobbin case and that was all it took for the machine to work perfectly. I decided to make some gifts for a friend's baby: a dress and pants set out of sunflower print fabric and overalls with an animated golf print. I think sunflowers are rather scary and have never held a golf club in my life but... sunflowers are the mom's favorite flower and the dad is an avid golfer so I hope that the fabric choices I searched far and wide for is somewhat pleasing.
On another evening, I pulled out my jewelry pliers and cutters and made a necklace using beads I had purchased from Etsy, a fantastic site for handmade goods. My youngest sister has a flock of 50 or so chickens and I was hoping she would find the lamp worked chicken beads as silly and amusing as I did. She did! I just wished she lived closer so that I could enjoy some of those farm fresh eggs... The second, asymmetric necklace was a design challenge to myself by limiting the necklace to just some basic crystal beads, wire, and chain I had on hand. I'm finding that restricting myself to use what I have (yarn or beads) rather than simply buying new or more of the same can contribute greatly to the creative process. Don't worry though, I am still doing my part to stimulate the economy!

Just call them "done"

Both the Dolman and the Raglan sweaters for Nihon Vogue Year 2 were on mandatory "time outs" for longer than they should have been. I had to find inspiration deep from within to finish both of them. For reasons I can't quite explain, I dreaded pulling them out of their respective project bags to work on. If they were not required projects for Nihon Vogue one or both of them would have officially ended up as an "Unfinished Object". I was pleased with the design of the raglan and was especially proud I had used remnants of yarn from my stash for it - meaning no new yarn was purchased for the making of the sweater! However, sewing of the 4 raglan seams was more daunting than I had imagined. I finally came to grips with the fact that the sweaters were not going to finish themselves. Every day I felt the huge burden of them not being completed whilst embarking on a new, more favored project - Aran with saddle shoulders. There is a specific process to sew the raglan seams together which involves going into a stitch that sits underneath the decrease stitch that is leaning along the edge. Now I know why I don't normally knit with black yarn - the stitches were so difficult to see! I worked each of the 4 seams during different evenings as it was almost too overwhelming to do more than one in a single period of time. Once I got each of the 4 seams attaching the front and back to each sleeve completed, the rest was smooth sailing. The raglan albatross was no longer hanging around my neck! I sewed the side seams, sleeve seams and then knit ribbing in the round on the neck. I had to adjust the number of stitches and size of needles to make sure the neck opening would accommodate going over my head. The last step was sewing on a little ornamentation of an abalone and silver polar bear button that I had purchased during the last Beppa button sale. Rob advised against it (he doesn't share my "more is more" philosophy) but I did it anyway - it just seemed right.

The Dolman. What a history this sweater already has! From a knitting architecture standpoint it was fascinating, but sadly, the end result does not rank as one of my favorites. I did a Whelk slipped stitch pattern to break up the opportunities for pooling by the variegated yarn. Because slipped stitches compress row wise, the gauge was difficult to calculate. Using size 9 (5.5 mm) needles, the resultant fabric is a bit thicker and has an insulating quality to it. The pattern stitch made it easy to match the seams on the shoulders. I liked working the placket and was happy to incorporate some new learnings. I wanted to do a collar as well but didn't have enough yarn for that on this sweater. Perhaps the next sweater will get a collar. For some strange reason the sleeves are a few centimeters longer than what I had planned. Not sure how that happened because all of the other pattern measurements are exact. Because of the way the short rows are done at the cuffs, this is not an easy sweater to adjust the length of the sleeves, after the fact. So I decided to just give it to my younger, much taller sister. She is a willing, receptive and grateful recipient of all things hand knitted. Isn't that what Elizabeth Zimmerman recommended? If the sweater doesn't fit, find someone who the sweater fits to give it to? Not wanting to make the sleeves even longer with ribbing, I crocheted a nice edge around each cuff using a single crochet and twisted stitch. Quite lovely. I made the bottom ribbing longer so that the sweater wouldn't be too short for my sister. In retrospect, I would have done some things differently for the design of this sweater. As much as I like slip stitch patterns, I wouldn't do that again on a Dolman. I would stick with stockinette stitch or a simple pattern. I liked the placket and would do that again. At least I now know what to do for the Henley sweater Rob wants me to knit him. Believe it or not, I would make the bat wings larger and a bit more prominent. I was intent on making them as small and unobtrusive but in turn that affects the fit of the sweater. I find I like the structure and fit of the Set In sleeve style better than the Dolman style of sleeve. This sweater feels different on while wearing since the seam is on the shoulder and not around the armhole. I keep wanting to pull my sleeves up at the shoulder because they feel as though they are "falling down" even though they aren't. All in all, a fabulous learning experience - that is what it's all about, isn't it?



Put a fork in them and just call them "done"!

Art treasure in Tacoma, Washington

The city of Tacoma, Washington long ago abandoned its heavy industrial roots and reinvented itself as the town that art built. Native son and world famous glass artist Dale Chihuly was a generous donor and instrumental in the city building the Museum of Glass, by architect Arthur Erickson, on the Thea Foss Waterway. A recent visit from Lino Tagliapietra, master glass blower from Italy drew admiring crowds in the hot shop. The Chihuly Bridge linking the museum to Pacific Avenue features dozens of vessels lit up by the outside sky and protected by bullet proof cases.
Scott Fife's towering sculpture "Puppy" welcomes visitors to the nearby Tacoma Art Museum. An extensive collection of Chihuly glass is on display. An exhibit through mid June 2009 by David Macaulay entitled "The Way He Works" based on his masterful series of books was informative as well as intriguing.
The Hotel Murano is an art lover's dream! A gigantic glass sculpture sits outside the front entrance, the lobby is filled with comfy seating surrounded by blown glass vessels, paintings, chandeliers and sculptures. Each of the 25 floors feature glass pieces by renown artists and are immediately viewable upon egress from the elevator. Adjacent photos in each hallway illustrate the artist's implementation of their concept. I unexpectedly woke extremely early on a Sunday morning while at Madrona Fiber Arts and decided to ride the elevator, uninterrupted, to every floor. I was mesmerized by the variety and talent of the featured glass artists. One of my favorites was a striking piece comprised of thousands of ruby glass filaments by Toots Zynsky and a rich archeological interpretation by Willliam Morris. His work is unique and extraordinary. I have seen some of his other work on display at SeaTac airport and the Pacific Place building in downtown Seattle. His creations never fail to absolutely and completely enthrall me.

Aran Sweater Design for Nihon Vogue

The Aran sweater design project for Year 2 of Nihon Vogue is one I have been eagerly looking forward to. Texture through the use of various cables, bobbles and and filler stitches is my very favorite knitting adventure. I decided to make this sweater for Rob's mom, Marilyn. She is slender and usually wears layers of clothing to fend off the cold and damp weather of the Pacific Northwest. She wanted something in green-blue so my choice is Lana D'Oro which is a 50-50 alpaca & wool blend from Cascade Yarns. I love this yarn! It comes in beautiful colors, is soft and will be comfortably warm but not heavy in weight. The wool blend adds memory to counterbalance the drapey-ness of the alpaca. More local yarn stores should carry this line - it was more difficult to locate this luscious yarn than I had expected.I broke out a plethora of books to help me in my quest for design fundamentals and desirable cable patterns. Janet Szabo's "Aran Sweater Design" from Big Sky Knitting Designs is one I have relied on again and again. This valuable book is indispensible for anyone interested in Aran design as there are design considerations explained that are quite helpful. In great detail, she explains types of cables such as: ropes, waves, plaits, braids, zig-zags, diamonds, triangles, lace cables, slip stitch cables, closed ring designs and ribbed cables. She also covers other design elements such as filler stitch, knots, bobbles, twisted rib and trims as well creating an Aran design, putting it all together and useful knitting tips. Various sweater construction methods for bottom up, top down and sleeve types for dropped-shoulder, set in sleeve, peasant sleeve, raglan sleeve and saddle Arans are described from start to finish. Janet also includes complete knitting directions and patterns for 4 Aran sweater projects. There are some beautiful cables illustrations in the books but alas, not all of those cables are identified nor are there any instructions for completing them. The only other slight point of contention I have with this book is that I am used to odd number rows being right side rows and her cable patterns all have even number rows as right side rows.
Annie Maloney has an astounding collection of How-To-Knit Books for the serious knitter. In addition to "Mastering Lacework", "Tips From a Knitters Notebook", "Personal Knitwear Design", I am especially fond of "The Cable Knitting Handbook" and "Knitter's Guide to Stitch Design". The cable book has 101 original cable stitch patterns that are intricate, unusual and simply stunning. All of her books have a tremendous amount of detail that is not found in other resources. I would not consider my knitting library complete without the set of Annie's books. If I was stranded on a deserted island, her books are the ones I would absolutely want to have with me.I drafted the pattern for Marilyn's size, added ease and got to work swatching. I used an entire 219 yard skein up in swatching. I ended up eliminating some favorite cables because they were too wide to be combined with an expanse of lattice like cable pattern that Marilyn wanted in the sweater. Each different cable section has the potential to have a different stitch gauge. Not wanting to do short rows within the body of the sweater, my intent was to have each cable and the filler stitch pattern to have the same row gauge. There are many things to keep in mind with regards to an Aran: cable compatibility, where the cable pattern starts and ends on the garment, how short rows within the body or at the shoulders will impact the pattern, what ribbing to use and how it will transition into the cables and texture pattern. The transition between rib to cable pattern is one that Naomi and I have had several lively discussions on. I decided to take the path of least resistance and do a 2 row reverse garter ridge between the ribbing and the beginning of the cable patterns. Since I am making a cardigan, I reworked the schematic of the lattice cable pattern to be wider so that I could use one half of that pattern on each cardigan front adjacent to the button bands.
I am making progress one slow row at a time. We are supposed to have the back, fronts and sleeves knit up to the saddle by the time the next class is scheduled which is the end of March. Yikes, pokey turtle knitter that I am..... I may have to speed things up a bit!Happy Birthday wishes to my son Aubrey who is 28 years old today. I love him with all my heart.

Madrona Fiber Arts - Winter Retreat

I spent 4 glorious days last week at the Madrona Fiber Arts winter retreat held in Tacoma, WA. The annual event began 10 years ago by fiber enthusiasts who wanted to bring great knitting, spinning and weaving teachers to the Northwest. The camaraderie, creative energy, and the sharing that is generated among students and teachers is what makes it a truly unique and extremely popular event. Dozen's of classes take place from Thursday to Sunday and offer everything from Latvian Mittens, Cool Socks, Designing Self Striping Yarns to Japanese Tailored Knitting and Productive Spindling.
The annual Charity Night collected jillions of knitted items and over $6K for charities such as Doctors Without Borders and Heifer International as well as those supporting the Shetland Museum and local disadvantaged children. Stephanie Pearl-McPhee was the featured speaker. Her words of wisdom coupled with frequent humor was unforgettable. She is an amazing woman with a great humility and I adored her. Friday evening brought a presentation by Cat Bordhi who must be some sort of sock knitting goddess. A gallery showcasing the Madrona's teachers' work as well as that of Nihon Vogue students, including yours truly.Saturday lunch was an opportunity for Nihon Vogue knitters in Year Two to get together with Year One students. It was fun to hear about their projects and to get to know Jan, Allison, Leslie, Donna and others better as well as learn how they are faring in the intense program. As always it was good to see fellow Nihon Vogue classmates: Arlene, Scottie, Andrea, Candace, Helen, Sarah, Caryn, Naomi, Melinda, Phyllis and Karen. I had the privilege of meeting knitters from Arkansas, Virginia, Maryland and Canada. The Saturday evening was a banquet dinner and a presentation from premier designer, Elsebeth Lavold of Sweden. She gave a fascinating presentation on the intersection of knitting and ancient Viking symbols. Her inspiration comes from the ornamentation of Viking age relics such as monumental rock carvings to runic inscriptions to small pieces of jewelry. The ingenuity in which these ancient Nordic symbols are translated to fiber is astounding. She has more than a dozen knitwear books published and a line of yarn in her name. Her work will be included in the "Knitting Along the Viking Trail" exhibit at the Nordic Heritage Museum in Seattle from February 6 to April 5, 2009
A sampling of the instructors at the event include Ruth Sorensen from Denmark who makes the most wonderful mittens, shawls, sweaters. Her beaded wristlets are based on traditional work as well as her own designs; Sally Melville who is coming out with a new book next month in collaboration with her daughter. Unfortunately I didn't sign up for her classes at Madrona but I have taken many classes led by her in the past and enjoy her creativity, design sense and great teaching style; Jean Wong, my wonderful, patient and immensely talented Nihon Vogue instructer who teaches the extremely popular Tailored Knitting and Fine Finishing Techniques classes; Gloria Tracy's Multicolor Knitting - a class I would like to take in the future after seeing her colorful, textured designs and creative way of stacking buttons; Nancy Bush, Vivian Hoxbro, Joan Schrouder, Ann Bourgeois of Philosopher's Wool and the list of fantastic instructors goes on and on.
I signed up 4 classes: "Bead Knitting On The Edge" by Betsy Hershberg. This was her very first year teaching at Madrona and she was worth the wait! She combines my love of knitting and beading in the most exquisite jewelry creations. The second day was with the incomparable Catherine Lowe who taught a condensed version of "Foundations of Couture Knitting". I had first met her during a weekend to Portland with Arlene and Scottie. She is delightful, meticulous and thorough as anyone I have ever met. Saturday morning was "Short Row Wizardry" with the colorful, whimsical Lucy Neatby. I have many of her excellent knitting DVD's and the breadth of her knowledge and capacity to share learnings is unmatched. Sunday morning was topped off by a "Knitting for Speed" class by Stephanie Pearl-McPhee. She gave an insightful presentation on why different cultures use different styles of knitting. It is dependent on what they knit since some methods are more suitable for some products than others. She uses a lever method which originated from generations of women knitting for production in order to earn a living. She knits at more than 75 stitches per minute. Blazing fast. The current world record is held by Miriam Tegels of Holland who knits at an unbelievable 118 stitches per minute. The picking method or continental is especially fast for those who knit in the round, and purl infrequently. I knit by the "throwing" or English method. I knew I was a slower knitter or euphemistically known as "deliberate" but was despondent after she timed us knitting for two minutes. Egads, I am one of the slowest knitters in the universe! No wonder I am unable to work on any projects outside of Nihon Vogue assignments! Naomi sat next to me in class and is approximately 75% faster than I am. No wonder she can turn out those fantastic lace shawls as well as finish her Nihon Vogue projects on time. I am in awe... and practice nightly the lever method of knitting. Yes I am doing that. If I don't get faster, how will I eventually knit through my stash of yarn?
The market was stocked by traditional vendors as well as some new ones: Two Swans Yarns, Acorn Street, Fancy Image Yarns, Stray Cat Woodworks, Black Water Abbey Yarns, Ernst Finely Crafted Glass etc. etc. etc. I bought some rose hued silk yarn for a shawl from Blue Moon Fiber Arts and a beaded kit for the River Run shawl from Just Our Yarn of Virginia.

Little things to smile about

Today was a day in which I seemed to be especially clumsy or absent minded: I broke my Flip video camera by walking into it after inserting it into the USB port on the computer tower in Rob's office. I scheduled a meeting for work and had the telephone conference bridge number erroneously set up for an hour earlier. I took Whimsy for a walk and forgot to wear gloves so my hands were cold the entire outing. I shredded the wrong stack of documents. A cartridge from the cantankerous HP printer in my home office leaked indelible ink on my fingers, cabinet and carpet. So... in a modest attempt to focus on the positive, this posting is of things that have made me smile today. I have not been very productive in my bead or jewelry making projects because I have been so distracted by work, house and knitting projects. During a few days off over the holidays I ventured out to some of my favorite bead stores and was inspired to rescue my pliers and wire cutters from exile. The result is some knitting stitch markers that combine two of my favorite pasttimes. The charms are etched with "Believe", "Love", "Trust", "Inspire", "Create", "Laugh", "Live" and "Imagine" on them.

The seams in my clear, vinyl knitting assessories bag from Whitefish, Montana finally gave out a few weeks ago. I substituted another bag but missed the ability to see through the fabric to quickly pull out exactly what I needed while knitting. After admiring a friend's handy bag, I ordered some lightweight but sturdy mesh bags and several travel pouches from Walker Bags. A 8"x12"gussetless color mesh bag for knitting assessories and smaller size for knitting needles-to-go. My color choices were "oh-so-predictible" in purple and fuschia but they have a wide range of color choices, combinations and styles. This little 4"x5"container is the perfect companion for a wound ball of yarn. The zippered lid has a grommet in the center in which to pull the yarn end through. It is so cute I can hardly stand it. Speaking of bags, Arlene brought back some unexpected goodies for me from her vacation in Vietnam. From the sounds of it, the shopping for handcrafted and fabric items was fabulous! The silk project box has a fabric tab on one side and a wooden ring on each of the other sides. The tab slides through each ring to close. The black handbag has beaded edges on the swirls decorating the outside of the bag. The bag is opened by a zipper that is placed on a diagonal between the handles. Very creative. It is so cool. Such thoughtful gifts. They make me smile... even while I still can't get the ink off my hands.

Winding down the Raglan!

I am still enjoying knitting the raglan (Project 3 for Year 2 of Nihon Vogue) but am discovering it isn't quite the "oh what a piece of cake" project I had convinced myself it was. Silly girl! The actual knitting is fairly innocuous but there are several calculations in which one truly needs to be PRECISE. Taking those calculations to shape each of 4 pieces (front, back and 2 sleeves) by doing decrease stitches on corresponding rows EXACTLY the same and then to continue further shaping the sleeves and back piece in accordance with the little blue triangle shown on the drafted pattern is fraught with peril. Well, perhaps peril is a bit of an exaggeration, but certainly there are plenty of opportunities to make a mistake. To keep myself from steering off course, I mapped out a spreadsheet to diagram what was to happen on each row, what color of yarn that row was supposed to be, and what the stitch count should be when the row was completed. The goal is to have the pattern (stripes in my case) match EXACTLY between the front piece, sleeves and back piece. Errors are unforgiveable as there is no recourse except to rip out and reknit. The decreases on the right side row are a pairing on opposites ends of the garment and are done with the first two and last two stitches: slip 1 as if to knit, knit 1, PSSO and K2tog. The decreases on the wrong side are P2tog and slip 1 as if to knit, slip another 1 as if to knit, return those stitches to the left needle point to point, P2togTBL.Despite my precautions, I still managed to miss a decrease and had to frog about 20 rows on the back side. Once I completed the front and back pieces I was alarmed to realize that each piece seemed a few centimeters longer than what the pattern draft was. What was that all about? I checked the knitted row gauge over and over and it seemed to be very close to the row gauge I had used in my calculations. Even if it went from 26 to 25, that would only account for 2-3 rows difference, not the extra length that was confounding me. I debated ripping out each piece back down to the armhole bind offs and doing the raglan decreases again. I took a deep breath and made the wise decision to wait for my moment of panic to pass. Other classmates have run into issues and have put their sweaters into a corner hoping a "knitter's miracle" would occur during the night. Yes, that is what I was fervently hoping for as well. The next morning I woke up around 4 am. Later that day Rob asked me "you woke up early because you were worried about your Raglan, weren't you?". It was more of a statement than a question. Ha! That man knows me too well!

I decided to throw caution to the wind - finish each piece, pin it together, and try it on to determine what the potential was for "letting it be" or decide if I should proceed with the dreaded ripping back. Arlene had tentatively joined her sweater together for a "trying on" as well and it seemed to be a good sanity check. I was sufficiently relieved to find the back and neck edges were not as high up on the neck as I had feared. Whoo Hoo. I forged ahead by removing the provisional cast on waste yarn and knit 7 rows of 1x1 ribbing for the front and back hem edges. Next up - ribbing on the cuffs. I can see the light at the end of the Raglan tunnel after all...

Change has finally come to America

Alas, we didn't make the inauguration of Barack Obama as 44th President of the United States in person but we were absolutely there in spirit via cable television! I was mesmerized by the energy, the welcome shift in power, and the meaning of the message conveyed. Given the enormous mess he has inherited, President Obama certainly has his work cut out for him. Through his leadership and vision of what is possible, I am confident there is hope and ultimately - better days ahead for all. His temperment and intelligence will be called upon to guide us through uncharted times of economic and world crisis. He has requested members of this proud nation to contribute to the re-building of America and I am happy to oblige not just for myself, but for my family, my friends and my neighbors. I can only hope that the few cynics "out there" have the courage to open their minds and their hearts before habitually spewing vitriol... and to recognize that the differences that divide us are much less than the similarities that join us.