The Thing

I hope to finish this in time to enter it in the Fine Art of Fiber
November 2 - 5, 2006
Chicago Botanic Garden
1000 Lake Cook Rd
Glencoe, IL 60022

It is going to be about five feet wide and about three feet tall in the middle. Inspiration for the shape is primarily from the dancing blankets of the Northwest Coast Aboriginal peoples: The Chilkat Blanket
Inspiration for the colors, feel, and spirit of the piece is from Cheryl Oberle's "Butterfly Shawl." Hence the name I finally chose: Butterfly.



I'm using mostly stash wool, some new purchases, some hand dyed by me. It's heavy worsted to bulky weight on size 8 US needles. Some colors are plied up from thinner yarns.

Two Ample Sweaters

Yarn and first bit of back panel for the Sandy cardigan from
Big Girl Knits.


Back of the sweater that may not have to die.

I hope to adapt the methodology of Sandy to re-fit the colorwork sweater, begun oh so many pounds ago, using shaped side panels.

Stitches Midwest . . .

. . . has ended. The highlights of this year were the Ample Knitters' luncheon on Saturday, organized by Lynn from Wilmette, and the classes. Thanks to all the beautiful women who shared lunch, conversation, and white elephants, and to the generous folks who donted door prizes. Thanks also to the dedicated and talented instructors who braved airport hell to get here and back.

Joan Schrouder, you really are the thinking knitter's dream come true.

I made only one yarn purchase: a pound of hand-painted merino destined to be the center panels of the Sandy Cardigan from Big Girl Knits. There will someday be photos.

The Saurel Jean Memorial Frogging

Saurel, our beloved friend and protector, died in his sleep Wednesday morning. No he was not a German Shepherd. He was our co-op's doorman, and part of this very odd family we have here in this building. Helpless and needing to take some action, I finally frogged that stupid never-ending Pi shawl.

I love you, Saurel. I hope you are somewhere where all the cars are clean and all the people are polite.

Happy Dance

I'm ecstatic.

Beginning July 10, I will be teaching knitting at the     Hyde Park Art Center, in the beautiful new facility. The new site has huge spaces with great light for galleries and studios. It was designed with a great deal of input from participating artists. I toured it yesterday after meeting with the Studio Manager. The studios are so inviting! I cannot wait to take a painting class, since my home studio was turned back into a living room after DH moved in.

Summer term at the Art Center is a ten week course. With two and a half hours per session, 25 hours instead of the usual four or six offered per class at retail shops, I hope to be able to inspire my students to find their individual voices in the language of knitting. The emphasis will be less on completing garments and accesories, and more on learning to use the tools and materials to create unique works of fiber art. Of course some students will want to complete useful items, and that is fine, but the emphasis is shifted, and I look forward to the experience with great joy.

Thank you and bless you, EZ and AZ.

Knit in Public

You will find me knitting in public at DucKon, probably near the Art Show.

Midwest Masters

My weekend in Wisconsin was wonderful. I took three classes from Anna Zilboorg: Lace edgings, exotic multicolor stitches, and twisted travelling stitches. I was brain dead by Sunday afternoon and went home, stopping at the Borders in Gurnee to pick up a copy of Big Girl Knits.

The lace edgings are just that -- and not hard to do. They would add a special touch to almost any project.

The "exotic" multicolor stitches are all variations on slip-stitch patterns, in which only one color is worked at a time, over two rows. In the round, colors could be changed every row for interesting variations.

The twisted travelling stitches are in the Bavarian tradition. These take a bit more patience to work, because you are twisting stitches on every row. Anna filled in a bit of history that I'd never heard before. It seems Irish cable stitch patterns are an elongated version of these Bavarian stitches. It happened when Irish and Bavarian knitters met in the US and brought samples home and tried to reproduce them.

I'm working on translating some of the Aran cables back to their denser forms, just for fun, while I wait for Stitches, where I will probably purchase the Bavarian pattern books.

Anna herself is a gentle and very smart person. Before teaching knitting, she taught at MIT.

Inspired!

Carol

This was a tagline on an old post to the Knitty lists:

"Remind them that they are the creatures who knit the wool, not the
creatures who grow it on their backs!"
-Barbara Walker to Elizabeth Zimmerman, 1971

Cheerleading

The Devil did not make me post this pic. But I had to, just the same. Let's just call it free will with a vengance.

Goldie's Sweater

Finished lace edging and chest strap and delivered on Valentine's Day. Goldie likes it. I'll need to make one more strap to withstand the Chicago wind -- but here are the pictures so far.

Apologies to Cody, who is still waiting.

Eleanor Roosevelt

Last night Steve and I watched a lenghty biography of Eleanor Roosevelt on PBS. All the amazing and fascinating facts about this awesome woman's life aside, I noticed that in image after image, she was knitting. In one segment, I think it was a sock. There were at least three pointy DPs visible.

When the vote was finally taken to accept the text of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights on Dec. 10, 1948, she is sitting in the US Delegate's seat, knitting.

Eleanor Roosevelt has long been a personal hero of mine, and of countless other women. Now I have one more reason to love her.

Knitting for Victory

Even if they win, they lose

A sewing store in NYC has started a fight with thousands of knitters they have never met over a few words we've been enjoying for years. Many of us are "mad as Hell, and we're not gonna take it any more." Read the story here.

What follows is the e-mail I sent to the offending company. I copied it to knitty.com, Vogue Knitting, Knit n Style, and TKGA -- whoever had an e-dress I could find.

Dear Sewing Store,

I was stunned and angry to learn of your claim to the use of the words "Stitch 'n Bitch" as used by informal knitting groups across the country (possibly all over the knitting world).

Your shop has nothing to do with knitting. It appears that you added knitting to your descriptions after the term became popular. You don't sell yarn and you don't have any knitting classes listed on your Website. None of your team members are knitters. Your motives are suspect and your actions reprehensible.

There are more of us than there are of you, and we spell it differently, and we don't use the word "cafe," either with or without the accented "é."

Have you any idea how much bad press you are getting from this dispute? Even if you win, you have lost.

Just after I hit "send," I scared myself, because I bravely and/or stupidly signed my real name. Ah, well.

The Incomparable EZ

Franklin Habit and Tricky Tricot have started a Knitters Almanac knit-along.

I probably will not knit all those things. But thank you, guys, for bringing me back to Elizabeth's delightful pages. Now I know that the person who perpetuated the falsehood about fisherman's pattterns as IDs for the dead was she. And the bit about the #8 needle -- ah, such wisdom.