Quarterly

Can you believe the first quarter of 2011 has been and gone? It is an oddly cheerful thought and I have had an excellent first three months of the year. Selected highlights:

• I knitted a purple cardigan
• ..and finished another cardigan which I really, really need to sew together.
• I celebrated my ten years of blogging
• I celebrated my mumble-mumble birthday.
• I bought a sewing machine
• I exhibited at the Tramway Art Gallery
• .. and helped the curators with fun bits and pieces behind the scenes.
• I took a jazz singing workshop
• I was in UK knitting magazine Let's Knit
• .. and also in UK newspaper The Guardian
• I did a quilt workshop at The Life Craft which resulted in my first quilt
• I saw Patrick Wolf in concert, huzzah!
• I also saw Submarine (youtube link) which was excellent..
• .. and Skeletons (youtube link) which was very odd.

Not bad. I just need to read more books because I only finished one (one! ONE!) book during the first three months of this year. That is abysmal. I blame Zadie Smith's On Beauty which I really, really did not like.

New project on the needles. This is my take on the Unwind wrap from Rowan Magazine 49.

The original has a very muted colour scheme - soft mauves, dusty blues and earthy neutrals - but I have long wanted to combine three bold colours of Kidsilk Haze so I took my inspiration from Bollywood instead. I'm using a very bold fuchsia as my dominant KSH colour together with coral red and deep orange with lime green as contrast and a neutral pink to tie things together. The pattern also uses five different colours of Rowan Summer Tweed and again I have opted for pink-red-orange-green hues.

The wrap isn't difficult to knit as it's all stocking stitch. I think the difficulty lies in which colours to choose. These colour schemes spring to mind: ocean blues, greens and greys; spring garden in pretty pinks, greens and yellows; earth and stone in browns, beiges, fawn and soft greys; girly in soft hues of pinks and whites..

.. my Fancy jumper is zipping along really well too. It is weird having two KSH projects on the go at the same time. I think I might try to counterbalance all the airy mohairiness with some sewing later this week. I have some self-imposed deadlines (as always) and I'd also like to wear some self-made things on a trip to Yorkshire I'll be making next month.

I wonder what my next quarterly review is going to look like?

FOs: Cowl & Quilt

What a great spring weekend. Perfect for finishing projects and take photos of said Finished Objects in the park.

First up, my new favourite piece of knitwear. A super-simple cowl knitted in the round out of three different silky yarns. It feel luxurious, it is easy to wear and I love the play of textures. It is not a shouty piece of knitwear - it does not go look at me, I'm handknit! - but it is really versatile. It'll live 'round my neck until proper summer hits Scotland.

I have rav'd the cowl here and I recommend trying to pair up very different yarns and textures. My next big knitting project is all about textures too but more on that later.

Now my next project and one which gave me that amazing did I really make that? feel which I rarely get with knitting these days (sad but true).

My first quilt, y'all.

The second weekend workshop took place yesterday and I managed to finish piecing the top, sandwich the layers, quilt the whole thing and do the binding. No wonder I'm exhausted today!

An error on a sewing machine supplier's part meant that instead of freemotion quilting we had to choose quilt patterns that we could finish with straight-stitching. That sudden constraint worked wonders for the class' creativity, I think, and people became very engaged in thinking up quilting designs rather than worrying about getting their patchwork perfect. I chose to do an asymmetrical starburst on top of my (mostly) symmetrical design. It may be difficult to tell by the photo but the starburst is oddly effective. The interplay between the patchwork with its rigid lines (and made from geometric prints) and the asymmetric quilt lines lets your eye travel - and also looks far better than any freemotion attempt on my part would have done.

My good friend Kirsten Marie wondered if I enjoyed quilting and if so what I enjoyed about it.

Honestly, I am not sure if quilting is for me. I am not a very precise crafter - I work best on the basis of intuition and fudging things - and I think you need to be anal rentative into measuring things twice and following rules to really enjoy quilting.

Having said that, I am really bowled over by my first quilt of mine and I really liked seeing it come together. I enjoyed having an idea in my head regarding colour and seeing how that idea panned out.

And I liked how everybody's quilts in my class looked so different because of fabric choice and how personal all the quilts felt as though they really did reflect the personalities of the people making them.

(I think my quilt looks modern, colourful and Scandinavian - I think that runs pretty true to my taste!)

Will I be doing more quilting? Probably, yes. I do think the cost of materials is fairly prohibitive and I stress out during certain parts of the process, but I will probably return to this craft occasionally. I like snuggling up in blankets, after all, and there is something to be said about making your own quilted blanket..

Just Knitting

Sometimes I get so very tired of knitting. No, I do not tire of knitting - that simple enjoyable activity that involves a ball of string and two pointy sticks - but I do tire of certain aspects involved in knitting.

I tire of the one-upmanship I see in the knitting community. That you need to be knitting the latest viral pattern craze in precious hand-spun unicorn yarn from a small island off the coast of Chile to be a cool knitter. Or that coolness equates you knitting crazy Estonian lace at knitting group whilst shrugging off its difficulty with a modest "oh, it's straightforward, really" and frantically counting in your head. I'm currently that last knitter (although my stitch pattern is straightforward, honestly) and I'm even knitting my crazy Estonian lace in an expensive designer yarn. Where is this one-upmanship coming from?

I tire of the idea of "a knitting community" too.

I was recently contacted by another knitter who asked me to share a copyrighted pattern "to support our knitting community". Really? Just because I knit, I am not automatically your new best friend. We share a common interest but I am not just a knitter. My identity has so many other markers that I do not feel automatic kinship with anyone who knits.

Besides, the very idea of a "community" is ridiculous when I see these self-confessed 'yarn snobs' and 'knitteristas' roll their eyes at seeing someone knitting a baby jacket on straight needles using cheap mass-market yarn. Isn't "the knitting community" just another way of saying "exclusive club"?

So, honestly, I needed something to cleanse my palate. I wanted to be reminded why I love knitting so much.

I took my inspiration from the recent Rowan magazine - it is actually turning into one of my favourite resources together with Knit1 Fall/Winter 2008 - and specifically Kaffe Fassett's Unwind Wrap. I looked in my stash, uncovered some yarns that went well together and I sat down to knit. I had no plan, no pattern, and I just used up some spare balls from the stash. No fuss, all freedom.

It felt great. I felt great.

I'm going to weave in my gazillion ends now and then get my partner to shoot a few photos of me wearing my newest project - but I'm not going to make out that it is the most exclusive, most amazing, or super-difficult project ever. Knitting it made me feel good and wearing it (despite the many loose ends) makes me feel good.

But at the end it is just knitting, you know?

Lessons Learned

I have learned several lessons today. 1) I was right to buy more fabric for my first quilt. Remember I felt uneasy about the matchy-ness of my fabrics? I decided to mix up my orange fabrics with some aqua. I rather like the result.

2) I get really, really stressed out about measuring and cutting my pieces. At one point my hands were so shaking so much that I was ordered out of the classroom to get some fresh air. Well, you'd be stressed too if your first go with a rotary cutter resulted in you making a big and very uncalled-for cut into your expensive binding material.

3) I find the sewing part very relaxing and intuitive compared to the cutting. Nothing can go wrong now. Except if you sew wrong bits together but that is what a seam-ripper is for.

4) Seeing how your fabrics look together makes up for a lot of stress.

5) No matter how careful I am when measuring & cutting my pieces, I will need to dip into my scraps for extra squares because I struggle with imperial measurements.

6) And when I get home, I will take a ubiquitous photo of my semi-finished craft project in The Usual Spot.

I have homework for next week: I need to finish sewing all my squares and ironing them because next time we'll be putting the quilt together! I'm slightly terrified of the binding and very apprehensive about the actual quilting, but I'll be fine. My teacher, Bronwen, was a calming, encouraging influence throughout the class and even managed to make me feel accomplished despite my numerous shortcomings.

Also: I loved seeing how the other quilts were shaping up and how much of a difference fabric choice makes.

In knitting, a jumper looks more-or-less the same whether you do it in green, blue or orange. Katherine had chosen to use all bold patterns in teals, blues, and greens. Dr J had gone for one specific print and had picked co-ordinating fabrics based upon that print. Another woman were making the quilt with her god-daughter in mind: pretty, pale pastel colours and tiny prints. We were all using the same layout but the feel of the patchwork blocks were so very, very different. So cool.

Meanwhile I have started a new knitting project - a really easy, mindless little thing that's also a great stash-buster (as long as you don't go out to buy two balls of yarn to match stash yarn like I did..). More on that anon.

Finally, a few random links: + Old love never really dies ..  but the dog is a bonus. Also, Scots don't really look like this. Trust me. + I'm interested in neurology for a number of reasons and this little article answers something that has been nagging me since childhood: why do I see certain shapes if I rub my eyes? + The blog name really bugs me, but the post touches upon things that played a small, but very significant part in me leaving Denmark. + Sound advice for any blogger (not just food blogging).

Fundraiser for Japan

Just a quick update today but what an update. The amazing, AMAZING Tokyo Subway Quilt is being given away by Oh! Fransson as a Japan fundraising effort.

Crafters care.

Loop Needs You

You may remember me mentioning Loop: The Centenary of International Women's Day - an exhibition (and celebration) taking place at Glasgow's Tramway art gallery. You may even have knitted a square or two for the event. The event takes place on Tuesday and the Tramway is heaving with activity. I spent most of Friday at the Tramway stitching together blanket squares. It was a hugely inspirational day.

One old lady was busy stitching together crochet squares but found time to sing us old Glasgow songs from her childhood - songs about the old Govan cinema and "oor baldy heided maister". Women from a choir sang us Matt McGinn songs. Women from a local immigrant group came by to watch us stitch and some ended up wanting to join in despite initial shyness. Later a cellist started playing Bach.

Generations of women showed up - grandmothers with their grandchildren; mothers with their children. Many different nationalities were there. Many different parts of Scotland were represented. Even a few brave men showed up to stitch - my partner was one of them and he proved very adept with a needle and thread! I was rather proud..

However, help is still needed.

You do not have to be greatly skilled with a needle of thread. You do not even have to know how to thread a needle as plenty of of volunteers will be on hand to show you the ropes.

If you can spare thirty minutes of your day (or more!), please come down to the Tramway tomorrow between 10am and 11pm.

You won't regret it. You will meet some truly inspirational people with wonderful stories to tell, you'll be surrounded by beautiful art, and your help will be hugely appreciated.

I will continue to be busy these next few days, but thankfully I have a few blog posts in hand so stay tuned..