Archive for the 'Designing woman' Category

Design challenged

Tuesday, September 5th, 2006

Back in August, when I was still on the road, New England was still a steaming inferno, and the world was just a little younger than it is today, my sister issued a design challenge.

She challenged all of you to design original knitwear of any shape, size, or description as long as it incorporated a leaf mofit, any leaf motif. All entries received by October 15th would be entered in a contest and the designers of the best three would receive a prize of my sister’s handspun.

At the same time, she beat me with a copy of Barbara Walker’s Second Treasury of Knitting Patterns until I agreed encouraged me to design a leafy something, despite the fact that I have never designed anything before in my life. And bitterly enough in the spirit of fairness and decency, my design would naturally not be included in the competition since I am a partner and stakeholder in KnitSisters Enterprises.

She even gave me handspun superwash wool
sockyarn
for inspiration.

Last night, I placed that lovely yarn on top of these helpful books
knitbooks
and left it there overnight. I had heard that sometimes if you get the right combination of books and yarn, a special alchemical reaction occurs and a great design idea is there just waiting for you in the morning.

So far, no luck. But that’s why I’m starting early, you see, while I still have time to monkey with the book-to-yarn ratio and run further experiments.

But seriously, I am certain that when my sister suggested that I “design a little something,” she was chuckling to herself at the thought of how she and everyone else in the contest would kick my butt from here to South Perth eager to see me expand my knitterly horizons and exercise my creativity so that I too could soar on wings of woolly inspiration.

In that spirit, I am panicking waiting in a peaceful zen-like manner to see what the design goddesses whisper in my ear.

Even if the worst happens and my design is shamefully subpar, I can erase my identity and live out the rest of my life under an assumed name in the remote, mountainous regions of Nepal chalk it up to experience and laugh along with the rest of you at my awkward freshman effort.

So far, the design goddesses have said only one thing: “Socks.”

I also thought I heard one of them say, “If you build it, he will come,” but that may have just been my imagination.

On a much nicer note, there is more of Icarus to love all the time:
icarusandbuddies

He agreed to a close-up:
icarusclose
Actual color may vary and in fact be a heckuva lot more like what you see in the next picture, but what can you do?

And finally,
icaruslight
Icarus, bright and dark.

There isn’t much to say about the actual knitting process, except that the rows are getting longer (as the days get shorter…), but I’m not getting bored.

After all, in these trying times—what with skunks roaming the back yard and this design challenge hanging over my head—it is consoling to know that I can still knit my way out of a paper bag produce something beautiful. That is, thanks to the design genius of my fiber-arts superiors like Miriam, whose efforts—believe me—I only respect more with each passing day.

Friday’s leftovers

Friday, August 4th, 2006

I’m a little worn out today, and consequently have had a lazy kind of day.  I’ve gotten a few things done, but not much.  I did go ahead and put a facing on the leaf edging for Blue Bamboo. 

leaf edging with facing 

I just used the same yarn, having had no luck finding anything silk or rayon in the stash that would work for the facing.  I like that idea, though, and I’m definitely going to keep it mind for a future project.  (By the way, the yarn I’m using for this is Brown Sheep Cotton Fleece in the color “Blue Paradise.”  It has stood up remarkably well to all my experimenting and ripping out.  Good show, Brown Sheep!)  I did go down a needle size for the facing, though, and then attached it with a half-graft.

Diane asked in the comments if you could finish each leaf point separately, like a sawtooth border.  I don’t know how exactly you could do that one this type of edging, which is picked up from the vertical edge and worked outward.  However, there are leaf edgings which achieve that kind of look that are worked in a strip and then applied, or can be worked perpendicular to the edge and joined to the body every other row, like you would on a shawl border.

Here’s a detail of the leaf motif that will go on the upper back; I didn’t think it showed up too well in yesterday’s photo.

blue bamboo leaf detail

I also finished another skein of the cabled yarn.

cabled yarn

When I went outside to take my photos late this afternoon, Tortellini came over and talked to me for a while.

Tortellini 8-4-06

She loves to be outside in the summer, and walks through the grass as though she were a big cat stalking her prey on the plains of Africa.

Wool wash

Thursday, August 3rd, 2006

First, let me say thanks to Alex for his thought-provoking post yesterday.  I’m going to have to read it again just to make sure I have a good grasp of all the salient points!

Yesterday I started washing the lamb’s wool I got from John.  When I wash my wool, I do it in my kitchen sink; I used to wash fleece in my washing machine, but then we got a front-loading washer, and it doesn’t work so well for washing fleece, although it’s a gem in all other ways.  But I digress.  I put the wool in lingerie bags and wash it in the hottest water that will come out of the tap.  (Pretty hot.)  I add some plain old laundry detergent to the water.  (Purex Free and Clear in my case.)

First wash:

washing lamb's wool first wash 

I soak this for about 20-30 minutes. Then I pull it out of that water, gently squeeze as much dirty water as I can from the bags of wool, run another sink full of very hot water, add detergent, add wool, and soak for another 20-30 minutes.  Second wash:

washing lamb's wool second wash 

Repeat the above procedure, sans detergent.  (We’re rinsing now.)  First rinse:

washing lamb's wool first rinse

Repeat squeezing, running water, soaking, etc. for a second rinse.  (I didn’t take a picture of that one since it looks much the same.)  Then I put the bags into my washing machine for just the spin cycle (very important) and spin all the excess water out.  Finally, I hang them up to dry, outside if at all possible.

And I get this:

washed lamb's wool                                   (That’s Rob’s finger poking into the shot.)

I love wool.

I worked on my Blue Bamboo swatches yesterday as well, but first I had to (you guessed it) rip out the old ones.  I rethought and redesigned the leaf motif for the back of the sweater, so it grows organically out of the bamboo stitch and is no longer applied as a separate piece.  This was quite a feat of charting, let me tell you.

blue bamboo swatch

I also fiddled a bit with the leaf edging. 

leaf edging detail

As you can see, the edging is still on the needles.  I’m still thinking about how to finish this edging.  I woke up this morning with a cool idea in my head:  wouldn’t it be great to face the edging with a lighter-weight, slinky yarn like rayon?  Kind of like a lining in a jacket.  A visit to the stash seems in order.

Blue Bamboo

Tuesday, August 1st, 2006

Yesterday I worked on my swatches and ideas for Bamboo.  Here’s my progress:

bamboo swatch 

I think the actual bamboo stitch is working well.  In fact, Rob looked at it (from the side) and said, “Hey, that looks like bamboo stacked up on top of each other.”  A small victory.  I’m not as sure about the leaf edging detail.

bamboo detail

In my attempts to narrow the leaf (to make it look more like an actual bamboo leaf, you know), I think I inadvertently made it look more pod-like than leaf-like.  I was thinking this over last night in bed before I fell asleep, and I have an idea that if I continue the yarnovers up the center of the leaf and put compensating decreases at the sides of the leaf, that might say “leaf” a little more clearly.  Defining the center vein of the leaf, in other words.  So I’ll probably rip out this edging today and try that out.

I’m also a little stymied by how to finish the outer edge of the leaf border.  On this swatch I did a simple little stockinette roll finish, which looks OK.  I though about applied I-cord or even a purl ridge and hem finish, but I think that might get too heavy.

And here’s the leaf detail for the back:

back leaf strip

Still on the needles.  I like the way this looks but am having my doubts about applying it as a patch over the bamboo stitch. 

back leaf strip on bamboo stitch

It looks a little clunky, somehow. I think it needs to flow more organically out of the bamboo stitch, but I’m having a hard time figuring out how to do that.  A rethink is in order.  I know what I want it to look like, it’s just the execution that’s the problem!  Isn’t that so often the case, in knitting as in life?

Creative energy

Monday, July 31st, 2006

Well, as loyal readers of the blog know, Ellen is away this week on vacation.  She’s gone to the beach and I know we all hope that she gets a mean sunburn and vicious bites from sandfleas has a great time.  So, you’re stuck with me this week.  Bwa, ha, ha, ha, ha!  Actually, Alex will be doing a spot of guest-blogging on Wednesday, so that’s something we can all look forward to.

Over the weekend I dug out my design inspiration journal and starting pasting things in it.  I have a habit of tearing interesting photos out of catalogs, magazines, ads, etc. and stacking them up with a vague thought that “Someday soon I will paste these into my journal.”  Recently I’ve been collecting lots of garment ideas/details from catalogs, but I also collect nature photos with beautiful colors, other textile designs, visual patterns, quotes, and just pictures that capture my imagination. 

So, I started cutting these things up and gluing them down.  I try not to be too careful as I do this–just let things flow onto the pages as they come.  Not too much self-censoring, which I can all too easily fall into.  And doggone if this simple exercise didn’t get my creative juices flowing in a big way.  My head is now full of sweater ideas, garment details, and design enthusiasm.  I have three or four new designs floating around in my head, as well as new ways to approach some design problems I’ve been mulling over.

I have a little book that I bought years ago called The Fabric Lover’s Scrapbook, by Margaret Dittman.  I don’t know if this little gem is even still in print, and the projects look pretty dated, but it is chock-full of great ideas.  (This book is aimed mostly at quilters and sewers who accumulate prodigious amounts of fabric scraps and stash.)  Every time I look at it I come away with something new.  For example, Dittman has this to say about inspiration and creative energy:  “Welcome any source of inspiration, however irrational….Use the energy.  Seize the moment.  There’ll be plenty of time later to talk yourself out of it.”

So I took my creative energy and started work on a new design I’m tentatively calling “Bamboo.”   The basic idea is for an Asian-inspired jacket with a bamboo-like background stitch pattern, and edging and details with a narrow leaf motif.

I started experimenting with bamboo-like stitch patterns.  Here’s what I finally came up with: 

bamboo stitch pattern 

Obviously, this swatch hasn’t gotten too far yet.  (Although there was an intermediate swatch in there that got ripped out.)  And for the leaf motifs, I searched through Knitting on the Edge and came up with this:

windblown leaf border

Now, much as I love this book and revere Nicky Epstein, what I don’t like about it is that all the instructions are written out instead of in charted form.  I had to sit myself down and chart that puppy out:

windblown leaf chart 1 

That was the first incarnation.  Here’s the second:

windblown leaf chart 2 

I started knitting from this chart, and got far enough to know what I wanted to change.  I ripped that swatch, (have I mentioned I do a lot of ripping out?) and re-charted:

windblown leaf chart 3 

This chart is for the edging with the leaves bending away from the center on either side, plus they are longer and narrower.  My idea is that this motif will be a low center-back panel, knitted separately and sewn on, that gathers the back of the sweater just a bit at the waist.  The front edging will be a similar sort of leaf edging, but I haven’t gotten there yet.  Today’s task is to work on these swatches and charts and try to firm everything up.

Remember Friday’s task?  The peach preserves?  Here’s a half-eaten jar:

peach jam 

Harvey has really been enjoying these.

And, lest you think that I never knit on actual projects, my progress on the cabled sock:

cabled sock progress