In May I finished a first sample of a jumbo sized Maiya’kma , three yarns held together for a very sturdy “market bag”, and now I’ve finished my second. Its not huge, but a nice thick bag. This bag is so cool , for a couple of reasons; I started it when we were driving all the way to Stockton to meet Juno the day we brought her home, and I just think that’s such a sentimental thing, so I’m calling it my Juno Bag.
Also its shape is a wedge, with decreases in the body and oblong shaped bottom, is a bit perky and holds its shape well. I washed it inside out for 2 hot wash cycles in our washing machine, and spun at high speed for a long time. Still a little damp the yarn is very stiff, just look at how the handles stand up on their own, I love that! But most of all I love how the massively thick felted tweedy fabric looks with three yarns held together the whole bag.
A little frothy tasty treat, and so serene, theses little Nantucket Looms weaving videos popped up when I searched youtube for ‘ weaving on a flying shuttle floor loom ‘. Not that I’m going shopping for a floor loom anytime soon, but while I knit I find so very much pleasure and inspiration in watching short films about mills and weaving in general. The relationship between the fiber and the wood, loom creaking, swishing, clacking, sighing, wheezing into action. Any form of it, industrial or indigenous, slick linen or fuzzy mohair, I could watch for hours and forever the yards of warp inch forward, shifting on the heddles and the weft unwinding in the flying shuttles, interlocking in finality, growing and then winding up again, as purposeful useful thing… it just tickles a spot for me. I’m a dream weaver for sure.
Autumn Things all ready and waiting for my nieces to show them off. Next week we are meeting, and I can’t tell you how relieved I am that these turned out better than good enough. I was really worried there for a bit, but they are the perfect sizes, and as experiments go, a real success. I am hoping by the time my nieces are taking them home, I’ll have everything ready to go, I only need to double check and submit the pattern now, so watch this space!
I managed to finish my nieces’ Autumn Thing 2021 ahead of schedule! Needing only to sew on buttons and labels, before I meet them next week, and then I’ll be finished with their knitted things really early this year. Soon I’ll be able to settle into a calm work storm toward what is an upcoming new design, while I dream of cool rainy weather ahead. Intermittent knitting of socks is necessary I have discovered, to take a mental break from the bigger looming projects, and I find myself collecting balls of Kroy sock yarn, and excitedly squirreling them away like acorns in branches, on the hutch in my loft room. Presently the sky is cast orange from fires in distant counties, but if I bear down and work hard on the knitting, I can distract myself, getting through the remaining smoky weeks, hoisting up the sock works-in-progress on my blockers & posting. For now I’m rattling through these green socks for Mr B, and then will mail them off to their new home perhaps (if I time it right) stopping at Oakville Post on my way to St Helena to photograph my beautiful nieces at the castle, before they sail away to school.
Originating possibly on the Aran Islands, spreading wide through Europe, wherever the men were fishermen by trade their wives and sweethearts knit for them the iconic Fishermen Sweaters to weather the harsh conditions at sea. I find myself once again revisiting the elemental seascape through knitting, to stroll the sands of my creative imagination, collecting sentiments washed ashore, and above all, inspired from these iconic Fishermen Sweaters, I am working my needles to produce at long last, my own version. Just off the needles and blocking to dry, is the first of my own Fishy Thing . . .
How is it even possible that Juno can change from a 15lb tiny puppy to a 40lb “teen” dog in a little over two months? Juno is growing like a weed, getting lots of outdoor activity, and I suppose is being fed super well, all her vet requirements up to date, and lots of pampering, so I guess it should be no wonder or amazement. Yet, still I am mystified!
In last post Squiggly I discovered how much I am fond of whimsy. Traditional cables that do not twist around in the same direction of crossing, but alternate, makes a fun snaking variation of a traditional fishermen gansey pattern. In fact , this charting was going to be a variation of a theme, but now I’m considering making it the showpiece. Actually, this one and another in the pile of knits, are going to be bon voyaging in a couple of weeks with my nieces, for some big life adventures (oldest moving to the big city of Santa Rosa all on her own, and younger off to UC Santa Barbara for college) and we recently decided to plan our traditional Autumn Sweater photo shoot at the castle before they take off. Stress! I have had plenty of time to knit and design these at leisure over the last couple of months, but I hadn’t really figured out the upper body shaping yet, knitting the lower bodies to get them out of the way, and all the while thinking my nieces would be back home for a November Autumn photoshoot… um … but that likely will not happen. So now I have got to get going and get the two finished, for it is nearing August already. I don’t think it will come to panic knitting, and I am confident I’ll have them finished for the deadline, but lets get to work then!
Taking a break from all-consuming things, to find some joy in knitting a quick pair of Walking With Emma socks for a friend. These socks will have two fine merino yarns held-together, for speed of knitting and plushness for wearing, but this time I am experimenting with a bit of a fun variation of the cable, and that is to alternate the direction of the cable twist ~~ 1/2 LC & 1/2 RC ~~ the result creates a snaking line up the cable column, and is quite whimsical, and … squiggly ! I love doing this so much to cables now, I have even added the option to the pattern and updated it, and in a few days hopefully I’ll have this finished pair of socks to sample for the pattern. These socks are giving me a lot of entertainment, and I’ll look forward to posting more details next time, when I will show off the finished pair.
It has been a long while since I posted a weaving film, and about time I did. This is one I have been enjoying as I have been learning a little bit about the Mayan weaving and making of the … Continue reading →
Juno’s got herself a kiddie pool, so its fun in the sun and endless splashing and making whirlpools until she is tuckered out, fingers crossed. Today is an anniversary, two months ago we brought her home (where does the time go?) and just last weekend she turned four months old!
Summer is upon us! Nothing is as awe inspiring to me in my life than the play of light & shadow among the posts and beams, and I do love to capture it especially as the season changes, for the light reflection and shadows cast move throughout the day, and throughout the year. I love to be home, to get things done. But! As for getting things done, I am a bit overwhelmed presently with things-going-on that have nothing to do with knitting, so at the same time my life feels chaotic, the slow progress with knitterly things marks a pause in life for now. Well, that’s a good thing maybe. Moving across the day with the shadows on the longest day of the year goes seemingly the slowest. Happy solstice everyone! xx
Juno is thirteen and a half weeks old, and we’ve had her with us now for four weeks, where in it appears she’s doubled in size! Needless to say, life hasn’t been the same since. Having to reinvent my schedule , but that’s a good thing. Juno’s favorite thing is getting up on the bed for a cuddle, which I indulge her in several times a day, wrangling me with her leash (such a shepherd!), chasing the water spray out of the hose whenever I water anything . . . but mostly just lots of misbehaving.
♣ ♣ ♣
During the year & a half we lived in the tiny house waiting for our home to be rebuilt, I was knitting a lot while watching all kinds of knitting as well as cross-stitching podcasts. I just decided one day to try a cross-stitch projecct, assuming the skill involved to make some nice pieces would to be straight forward and easy enough, but I found it to not be easy at all, in fact it is extremely tedious and quite difficult! Humbling because at one time in my life I had considered myself a pretty good needle worker. I suppose the cross-stitching thing stems from the desire to decorate the our new home with handmade and primitive feeling objects, but like so many things in my life, I am just out of practice. I resolve to decorate with puppy things instead.
1 strand of cotton floss on 32 count linen.
This tiny little piece is not trying to be any kind of great work; the counts are off, and its rather rickety looking, but it is a sentimental thing as it commemorates the move back into our Home Sweet Home October 2019.
I haven’t had a chance to sit down and write a post for weeks, as I’ve been really busy and distracted with things going on. Yes, of course, understandably, mostly now its raising Juno the puppy, but also working out of doors mowing wild grass, nervous as a rabbit in a race against the fire season, hoping to be prepared for the hot drying days ahead. Also I’ve been working on a new pattern that I started to write a couple of years ago when living in the tiny house, and then for some reason that I can’t remember, I put it down and did not follow through. In fact it has been very difficult for me to design anything in the last year, oppressed by worry, but now I feel lifted a bit, and able to focus on the intensive process required to write and knit several prototypes for a new pattern, all the while hunkering indoors being a puppy mommy for the remaining weeks of Spring, and all through the coming months of Summer. Relieved am I to have finally got an idea going again, and so I am putting my stashed yarns to work making samples, one after another, until one day in late summer, I hope to put it all together for Autumn. Until then, I will fill the time with stitches and puppy walks and my usual string of themed posts to entertain myself, wandering through research wormholes on Wikipedia, and of course anybody else who enjoys reading, watching, and listening to what I post, while I slowly but surely head to the finish. Ok! Revisiting of the sea, again, a theme which continues to pull me out with the undertow, and I’ll not put up any resistance. . . how about I kick off with a sea shanty to get in the mood?
Oh, and I am calling attention to all knitters who regularly read this space who might want to take part in knitting this upcoming design with me in the secret test-knitting phase, all in good fun. If you are feeling up to it, please message me over at Ravelry soon, and I’ll fill you in and you can decide if it is something you’re itching to knit. Thanks to all and I hope all are doing well, if not much better, on this flipside of a very dreary fifteen months which has been unbearable but is now nearly past. xx
Day 1: Leaving the litter has got to be a difficult day for a dog. The puppy is disoriented and tentative, and we humans are so overly careful about not making any mistakes, ever, and wake up reeling the next day with a horrible night of little sleep (see previous post) Day 2: Reinventing the wheel and trying to remember the whole art of puppy rearing, like stumbling in the pitch dark through an unfamiliar and messy room, the whole day preoccupied with haphazard attempts to have order and a schedule, humbly aware of the sixteen year gap since Emma was a puppy. Oh! And Juno loves being in the garden! Day 3: Early morning I nursed my cup of coffee, opened my planner with pen in hand, a habit I’ve been forming since the start of the year, with lists of creative ideas and work to do — and I just went blank seeing the irony of it all (of making plans) — I guffawed, closed the planner, and shoved it aside. Day 4: Juno has transformed into her true self, puppy switched fully ON, having her territory established, her humans trained, and being the Queen of Everything. Alternately a shark wiggling all over the place following its teeth, then passed out a tired lump at my feet, and somewhere in between, undoubtedly contemplative moments, where she’s mapping it all out with the finely honed instinct of a shepherd. The first week(s) have got to be the hardest. Day 5: Morning . . . a blur, no photos since day 1, so I thought to take and post a few, as she is 10 weeks old today. This morning I am facing the reality that not much focused or complicated knitting is likely to get done for a while, and grateful I had finished several weighty hibernating works-in-progress up to this point. Also realizing that since Juno arrived I have gotten into a strange divergence of making instant coffee in the day, through measured moments of short puppy walks, lurching interrupted attempts to get things done, but blissful, grateful and satisfied knowing that unrelenting “being busy” is what I need. It is nice to feel the presence of Emma’s things as they are handed down to Juno, her squirrel toy, rolly kibble dispensing (orange) ball, water dish, some bedding & blankets, flexi leash . . . her lovingly used things. And I’m feeling the impulse to get chatty with the commenters, and writing much more than I have felt like doing for a long time.
