surprise ending

I had finished the folded over flap for the blue bag with violet beads. I was on row 9 of the bag body when I put down the project and started knitting some socks I have been working on. I kept looking at the finished piece of beaded knitting. I made a decision. Fifteen minutes later, here's what I had:

I unravelled the whole thing! And you know what? I felt a sense of relief. I didn't want this project to wind up in the orphan project closet! I had a bad feeling about this little project, a sense that I had put way too much curvature in it and that when I sewed it up it would just look messy. Maybe it would have looked interesting, but I was so unsure about it that I wasn't enjoying knitting it. That's when I know I should stop. Usually, at this point, a project will go into the aforementioned orphan closet and never come out again. But these beads are lovely and I want to use them. Unravelling it felt great. I think I'll make a fairly simple rectangular bag out of them, but first, I'll finish those socks.

lace knitting workshop

I'll be teaching a class on lace knitting at Heavenly Socks Yarns in Belfast, Maine on June 5th at 12:00. Please click on the link to register.

Originally, I was going to focus on Shetland Lace Knitting for this workshop. However, I gave it some thought and decided to make it a general lace "learning experience". I remember when I first wanted to knit lace and how frustrating it was. The thing that totally turned that around for me was understanding the structure of lace. So, in this workshop, we'll play around with yarn. We'll actually learn WHY lace knitting instructions are the way they are (and how to read them). When we play with the yarn, we'll see what the difference between a K2tog and a SSK is and how it affects the knitting, a few different ways of decreasing more than one stitch at a time and how they look and how to do an invisible cast-on and a cable cast-on. When we're finished, you'll be well prepared to tackle any lace project and, here's the thing, know what to do when you make a mistake. That last one's the kicker, I think. Unless you understand the structure of lace knitting, you're at the mercy of instructions and knitting absolutely perfectly. Check my old blog posts for stories of knitting with clenched teeth.

This sounds complicated, but I guarantee you, it's going to be fun! I wouldn't be doing it if it weren't!

Supplies needed for class: A light colored plain yarn and needles appropriate for its' weight in "regular knitting". For example: size 8 if you bring worsted. Please don't bring lace weight yarn; I want you to be able to easily see what you are doing!

If you don't have any leftovers, here's a recommendation: Silky Wool (which is sold at Heavenly Socks). For lace knitting, it's knit on 8's. For the class, a 6 would probably be better. I also HIGHLY recommend using circular needles if you're not doing so already.

beaded bags. . .my latest obsession

I haven't posted any, but I've been enjoying making beaded necklaces for the last few months. When I discovered that there was such a thing as beaded knitting, I just had to give it a try! Yes, I'm late to the game. I have come to find out it was quite last year's rage. Here's my first bag. It's unfinished. I haven't sewn it up yet, and I haven't embellished it. I'm not quite sure what I want to do with it to finish it off. Most of the examples I've seen of these types of little bags are just too glitzy for my taste.

Even though I hadn't finished the first bag, I went on to making my second bag. This one has a whole lot of curvature in it. Unlike the one above, I'm not making it in one piece. I made it up as I went along, which is something I rarely do when I knit, so it was particularly fun. HOWEVER, I learned a big lesson (which I'm sure to REPEAT): stop knitting when you're tired and there isn't enough light when you're using 0000 needles. I made a big mistake and tried to fix it and wound up ripping out the entire thing 'cause I couldn't see the stitches. Luckily, it wasn't a whole sweater. Well, if it was, the whole incident wouldn't have happened. Stay tuned for the end of these projects. I'm kinda getting into the glitz thing. Hmmm. Perhaps I should be worrying about myself. Compare sashiko embroidery to beaded Victoriana. I do see the connection: obsession with tiny stitches.

just because

We've had a flurry of fantastic birds at our feeders this week. It's been hopeless getting a good picture. Either the birds are moving, the feeders are moving or it's been raining. In this picture, we have all three! Yet, I like the picture. It's got a Monet like quality. I know this has nothing at all to do with crafts. But, I adore watching birds and this is my blog, so here's the pic of a Rose Breasted Grosbeak and a Baltimore Oriole, at the suet feeder, in the rain:

sashiko

I've been doing Sashiko on and off for years now. I mostly work on small projects. I've made many little drawstring bags as gifts. The largest ambitous project I've done was a large mat in the traditional fan design. Where all the threads come together, one leaves long tails that are braided together at the end. I wish I had a picture; it was beautiful. I gave this to the Abbott of Zen Mountain Monastery when I became a student there. Here's a few projects that I am planning on framing by sandwiching between two pieces of glass:




This last picture shows my chalk grid lines. They just come off with water.

old chair day

Yesterday was a weird weather day. When the wind was blowing and the clouds were blocking the sun, it was almost too cold to be outside. As the clouds blew away and the wind died down, it was almost too hot. I decided it was a good day to work on some chairs. Notice I didn't write "restore", for that is decidedly not what I'm planning on doing with them. Messing 'em up might be a better word for it, thus far. Anyway, getting the old paint, dirt and varnish off of them was fun, especially since the neighbor girls decided to join me.


I had already removed a lot of almost black grime from this chair.












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This chair was a much brighter pink than this picture shows.
















Ashley and Aleesha got pretty competitive about who could take off more paint!

I painted the pink chair's seat bright red at the end of the day. It looked beautiful outisde but my kichen's walls are red and it was just too much red, so as I'm writing this, the paint stripper is hopefully doing it's job getting off the new coat of paint.

process vs. product

Since I'm on a Buddhist Blog webring, I feel a bit of an obligation to write some about how my crafts relate to my Buddhist practice.

I've always noticed a palpable difference between times when I am working on something with the end product in mind versus times when I'm focused on the process. I am totally process oriented and always have been. Quite frankly, I'd be happy to knit swatches all day. However, there are times when I "need" to make something useful, like curtains. It is times like these, when I lose sight of the sheer pleasure of just making a thing, when I, quite frankly, do a lousy job.

Lace knitting is a great case in point. Many years ago, before there were many knitting charts, I tried knitting lace. I was sitting on my living room sofa with an open book in front of me. That book had written lace knitting patterns and lousy pictures. I didn't understand the essential structure of lace. I kept losing track of where I was in the pattern. Over and over again, I kept ripping out my knitting (on size 0 needles, as I remember). This went on for hours. I must have had an awful look on my face, for when my husband came into the room near the end of the day, he said sarcastically "Are you having fun yet?" No, I was NOT having fun. It was hellacious. I had spent an entire day struggling with something that could have been an adventure and I had given myself a headache.

Now, I make lace just for fun and, yes, I love just making swatches. Often, I rip them out after I've finished at least one pattern repeat. Lace knitting is very meditative. One must do a lot of counting. In my mind, I'm thinking things like "knit 3, yarn over, knit 5, yarn over, decrease two stitches left leaning, yarnover. . . ." It is much like beginner meditation. Count your out breaths up till, ten, repeat. . .

And it very much like the sewing of the Rakusu, the "bib" one sews when one decides to "officially" become a Zen Buddhist.