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?

Dust From A Distant Sun

What a lovely day. The postman brought me the April issue of UK knitting magazine Let's Knit in which I appear. Elaine from the editorial team contacted me back in January and after my busy few months I had actually forgotten I was going to be featured. A nice surprise. I spent an hour in bed looking through the magazine. I particularly liked the editorial on how to tie knitting into the key fashion trends of the season. Sometimes I think knitting likes to live in its own little fashion-bubble so it was nice to see how knitters can relate to, ahem, the normal world.

The postman also brought me some clearance-priced yarn from Kemps (that place is responsible for about half my yarn stash, I swear). I stocked up on RYC Cotton Jeans for some forth-coming baby-knitting projects as well as some RYC Natural Silk Aran which is earmarked for a stashbusting project. Lovely textures and colours at a good price. I was chuffed.

I continue to be chuffed about my Fancy jumper too. The combination of an Estonian lace stitch and Kidsilk Haze = heady stuff.

The stitch pattern is now so intuitive that I can knit it on my commute, at knitting group and in front of the TV. Madness. I'm really enjoying working on it.

I am still worried about the sizing though. I have gone down a clothes size but it still looks very wide. As a result I'm changing the garment a tiny bit: the jumper is supposed to hit you around the lower hip-area, but I'm going to make it shorter so it has an almost cropped appearance and I'm going to shorten the sleeves too. Hopefully it'll sort out the dimensions. I still wonder if it weren't meant to be knitted on 3.5mm needles instead of the recommended 4.5mm?

I want to share a project made by a friend from my knitting group. I was lucky enough to see this crochet blanket in person earlier this week and I was blown away.

It really makes me want to sit down and make my own crochet blanket .. but that way madness and stash-enhancement lies.

Plus I'd go slightly nuts after the first twenty motifs.

My main knitting group is actually so big that it has several divisions: I met the blanket maker when I happened upon the South Side division at the Tramway. I was only there to take down my knitted sculpture but was very, very pleased to see so many familiar and lovely faces. My partner was on hand to help me and was so amused by what he called "a tribal encounter" that he had to take a photo..

.. I have no idea what he means!

Finally, get yourself ready for Knitting & Crochet Blog Week 2011! I participated last year and found some new favourite blog reads. I'm in two minds whether I will participate this year (time constraints plus I feel like I have already written about some of these topics) but I know I'll be reading a tonne of fabulous new blog posts as a result of K&CBW.

Homebound: Who We Are

Homebound: Who We Are is my knitted artwork currently on show at Glasgow's Tramway Arts Centre. Using site-specific materials I have created a piece asking how we understand ourselves, how we become who we are, and how big a part gender & geography play.

I was inspired to make this piece by my own journey as a knitter, as a woman, and as an immigrant. I am myself but I am also previous generations of ordinary women crafters. My mother, my grandmother, my great-grandmother and my great-great-grandmother are all represented by this piece.

It was important to me that I only used yarn I already owned and which was tied to specific geographical areas. I used yarn from a farm just a few miles from where my great-great-grandmother lived. I used yarn from the Faroe Islands because my paternal grandmother is Faroese. I used yarn spun locally to Glasgow because I live here now.

I used undyed Aberdeenshire yarn for the hand. I have family living in Aberdeenshire now and I wanted to include them in the piece.

The hand is very significant to me - and my partner helped me construct the hand, so he is included in this piece too - as it is the giver and holder of identity. Not only does it hold all the strands together but the strands also spring from the hand. As a crafter I make things with my hands; my hands turn ideas in my head into reality. People much cleverer than I would be able to tell you about the notion of creation. The hand holds that concept for me.

As you can see, photos are included. I have found photos of all five generations.

As I was looking through the photo albums I was struck by how gender-segregated my family seemed. The women were all pictured holding babies or wearing nice dresses or cooking. The men were all pictured sitting at tables drinking beers or playing football or standing next to cars. I rarely found pictures of women and men together - except wedding photos or pictures of couples dancing.

I found several photos of both women and men wearing knitwear. I could only find two photos of anyone knitting. One of them was of me.

Finally, the title. I chose Homebound because while it means two mutually exclusive things (travelling//constriction) my project suggests there is an additional meaning lurking within the word, a meaning linked to the notion of creating. Home-bound – to bind or to tie or to make within the home.

I am really excited about this piece and I want to thank the people behind Loop: Garterstitch100 for giving me the opportunity to be a part of their amazing event. It has been an incredible journey for everyone concerned - me included.

Made

After several weeks and a marathon day today, I have weaved in the last ends of Homebound - Who We Are which I am exhibiting at Tramway (artistic nudity - possibly NSFW - them - not me!) next week. I will write more about my actual piece and take plenty of photos once the exhibition opens, but right now I'm just rather happy to have finished making it. Today has been a ten-hour odyssey of adding-editing-adding-editing and some more editing (I'm a big fan of less is more).

Leisure knitting, sewing, and blogging are all on the agenda for the next few days. I have signed up for a quilting course alongside some familiar faces which should be fun (although the quilting tutor might not agree after being subjected to us!). I have been practising the lace pattern for Fancy and I think I have cracked the secret code. I also have a halfway-done muslin for my Simplicity 2501 top which I am itching to finish..

.. maybe I shall start by having a quiet night off from making things.

First Signs of Spring

I went out for a walk in the sunshine today. Along the way I passed one of my favourite pieces of street art. Seeing this little happy seal never fails to cheer me up. Look at his wibble face!

Usually any graffiti or street art gets removed rather swiftly, but this little fellow has graced the side of the bridge for as long as I can remember. Maybe he cheers up the park wardens too?

Leaving the footpath running through the arboretum, I entered the actual Botanical Gardens. Snowdrops, croci and this almost-in-bloom tree. The sun continued to shine. I saw students curling up on benches trying to focus on their books (and failing miserably).

I honestly felt tempted to buy myself some coffee and a croissant, and join the students on the benches but I've been down this road before and know the Sore Throat and Blocked Nose consequences far too well.

Besides, I had errands to run like a proper grown-up. Well, if you saw my errands you'd refuse to believe I'm a grown-up but I'll save that for a later post..

Needless to say, I was also cheered by my lovely sunshine-yellow beret that I am wearing a lot at the moment.  My beret matches the yellow crocus flowers, I discovered, which pleases me no end.

Then I came home to find my postie had left a parcel for me. I had ordered some African wax print cotton off eBay and it arrived today! Hooray!

My fabric is lovely and I had a very, very pleasant transaction with the eBay seller (who I recommend wholeheartedly - how often can you say that about eBay sellers?). The fabric is earmarked for the Crepe dress which I have a notion to make many, many times. I just need to find fabric for the sash (maybe do the sash out of the same fabric? It is so busy it doesn't need to be broken up by a solid colour) and, of course, find the time..

.. because right now I'm really, really busy trying to make my piece for the Tramway exhibition work. Right now I have a bucket wallpaper paste and a bag of old newspapers lurking in my bathroom. No prizes for guessing what we've been up to tonight.

Knit Like Fury

Get involved. There is still time for you to knit a square and send it in to Janssen & Jetson. If you are in Glasgow, why not volunteer? You can help stitch the blanket together, you can donate your time and ushering skills, or you can help spread the good word.