Dasi's bootees

When I signed up to get on Ravelry, a great beta website for knitters, wool dyers, crocheters and any other aspect of yarn you can think of, I had no idea it would be such a great resource. You can document projects you knit, see what others are knitting, look for yarns for patterns, patterns for yarns and more. Everyone on Ravelry, it seemed, had knit a pair of the cutest, tiniest Mary Jane bootees with buttoned crossing straps. After I knit my first pair of socks (and only, so far) I had enough hand-painted merino sock yarn left over to knit baby bootees! I sewed the first one up to see just how cute it was when the second bootee was in progress----



Until I sewed up the second one I had no idea how much they differed in size. Same needles, but different tension? I knitted a third bootee---and came up with a matching pair. Pphew!

These were for Dasi who arrived last week. Congratulations to my friends Deborah and Andrew!



If you need to knit a pair or three of Saartje's bootees, the pattern is available online.

Dyeing day

I love hand-painted-, kettle-dyed-, hand spun-, multi-colored yarns, however it happens. Inspired by these yarns I wanted to dye my own palette of ribbons and yarns, so I've looked for a workshop in the Northeast. And...

I drove from Long Island to Massachusetts early Sunday morning to take a class in dyeing yarn with acid dyes at Webs in Northampton. Gail Callahan aka Kangaroo Dyer, Webs resident dyer, was our instructor. Gail shared her dyeing history with us and we made our introductions/confessions. She gave us a lesson in the use of the niddy noddy and we started skeining our base yarnlets.



Everyone seemed to master that process, yarnlets were then dunked into our buckets of water and vinegar solution and we ventured out into the retail sales area of Webs to clip samples of various fibers from cones to test along with our yarnlets.



As if that wasn’t enough, to be in the store unfettered by April sale shoppers, we moved into the warehouse to clip more yarns and gather stray skeins! My head was swimming with too many fiber options or lack of latte, I don’t know which.



Fibers gathered… we measured 3 “primary” Cushing dyes into our quart containers, made pastes with tepid water and added boiling water to create our 3 primary dyestocks.


From the dyestock bases we then measured “transitioning” combinations into 12 smaller containers.

The alchemy began when our yarnlets were submerged into the multitude of cups that obscured the tables. One by one, the yarnlets were removed from the cups, wrapped in plastic wrap and popped in the microwave. They emerged as shrink-wrapped spring rolls and rinsed in the sink to ohs! and ahs! We had 3 different base Shetland yarns to choose from for our test mini-skeins and the differing results were evident as we spread them out to compare.





Everyone had chosen full skeins and hanks of additional yarns to experiment with until the class was over. What a variety! I was so busy with my own that I didn’t get a chance to shoot anybody’s creations. Mine are hanging in the motel bathroom until tomorrow’s return home.

Gail wrangled the group through the different steps of the process throughout the day and removed the intimidation that some of us/me felt about the chemistry of the procedures and empowered a roomful of novices and inspired the more experienced dyers. I would recommend a trip to Webs, of course to see and buy yarns (Kangaroo dyer’s creations among ‘em) and most certainly to take a dyeing class from patient Gail.

Tomorrow, with the class out of the way, I will be more able to focus on shopping at Webs!

Zipper = headache = no logs

I've been avoiding making logs lately, because I have yet to solve the zipper issue that I think exists. I've had lots of interest in the log bolster, but I have been procastinating going into production, even if it's only a small edition until I resolve the no zipper/yes zipper issue. Once the fabric is constructed it's not easy to seam accurately due to the thickness of the fabric, so thinking about installing a zipper just becomes a headache. Zipper = headache = no logs.

Instead I chase the marauding guinea hens out of my yard and into the neighbors with a camera which stops my dogs from barking. A win win situation all around.

Pictureless on Long Island

I had such a great week of fiber activities to blog about last week…but didn’t take any pictures. What was I thinking? I had the camera with me but neglected to use it. Not on the fiberarts field trip to Manhattan with my very pregnant friend Deborah---Sullivan Street tour of Purl Patchwork and Purl Soho yarns, Global Table, or on to lunch at Le pain Quotidian, or up to City Quilter for a very interesting talk by Donna Wilder, Free Spirit fabrics founder. Great! No pictures! People talking about making things all day long. No pictures!



Went to a meeting of the Spinning Study Group of Long Island in Smithtown, in an historic barn--- 50 or so people, all ages, arrived to set up their spinning apparatus, roving, yarn and projects! Everyone was so willing to share information about their wheels and fibers---I’m joining that bunch! Can’t wait for the next meeting---but once again, no camera.



April will be better. I won't forget to feed the blog!

log cabin or cabin fever?

I'm accustomed to sending pictures from my window to my family on the opposite coast to confirm or deny our weather as reported on the national news. So here's the grey and drippy weather report from the windows overlooking the Peconic River.




That monochromatic stuff going on outside inspired me to work on this multi-colored chenille piece. Based on the traditional quilt block, Log Cabin, I thought it would be a witty topping for a handmade twig stool, get it? Log Cabin---twig stool! Humor aside, it's another multi-color, technicolor, no colorway approach so I can use up all my commercially dyed flannel. What remains are the centers of the log cabin block, a red square to symbolize a chimney, at least that's what I remember about it. Spiraling strip or back and forth strip? I'll throw it in the washer and see how the red centers look and then finish it up on this grey, drippy day!

Log Jam

Some might be aware that one of my other obsessions is logs and/or twigs. A few years back I purchased a number of ebay footstools and one of my favorite finds was a stool made from a log. I envisioned it with a chenille bark cushion, taffeta ribbons...



More log items followed... bolsters, more stool covers. Who doesn't love their logs soft and huggable?



So when I was contemplating an entry for Lark Book's 500 Tables last month, I turned to logs for inspiration, naturally. I started two tables about 2 weeks before the submission was due (good planning). I was felled by the flu for about a week, I rallyed and completed one of the tables for the photo and got the entry in the mail. Pphew! (Table #2 is in a dormant state, as yet unfinished.)

This is how Table #1 log table happened! I laminated layers of 2 inch think dense foam for the logs and then I whacked away at them with one of my favorite tools, the electric carving knife. I stitched together the bark fabric by layering flannel fabric, stitching on the bias, slashing through all layers, then stitching the stacked bias strips onto a backing, then finally washing and drying it. I wrapped the bark fabric around the whacked foam logs and hand stitch them closed or secured them with velcro. (The pictures below are the ones I take along the way just to record the process for myself and to get a different view of the piece through the camera lens).





Table #1 was tentatively put together the night before I had to photograph it. The next morning I couldn't balance it when I tried to position it in front of the seamless paper. A few hours later, sanity restored, I solved the problem by flipping the base log upside down!



We'll see how Lark responds to this soft log table.

Ta Da!

There's a category of my ongoing work that I haven't exposed on my limited posts so far. Time for my shirred surface/chenille textile work.

Many years ago I saw an article in Sew...???? on making a chenille vest from layered voile, stitched in channels, slashed and washed, probably authored by Nannette Holmberg. I haven't been able to find the article since, but I liked the idea of the technique. I didn't have any voile fabrics to work with but I did have brightly colored flannels. So I stacked them up, stitched in channels, cut and washed the sample and was instantly hooked on the raucus results.





I made piles of pillow-size squares from assorted flannel solids, prints and plaids. I loved the density of the surface and the complexity of the colors. The pillow size samples grew to bed size pieces to footstool covers to chair covers and stand alone soft sculpture. I have a large body of this work, due in part to it's bulk, but also to my obsessiveness.

In January I received a notice from Lark Books that a chenille piece I had submitted last spring was accepted for the soon-to-be-published, 500 Chairs. (Yay! Insert Cuba Gooding Jr dance here.) Previews of that as May approaches. Within days of that notice, emails from Lark reminded me to submit work for possible inclusion in next years' 500 series---what else but, 500 Tables. I worked myself into a tizzy to complete a table and came down with the flu, but I got it submitted. More about this later too.

The flannel is flying, flannel is taking over everything...so it's time to post the evidence. How about a rug I started last year? I resigned myself to the obvious colors that flannel is merchandised in the stores in (I can't make myself use too many pastels---you'll see that). My strategy is use all colors so the piece doesn't have an obvious "colorway". It's not complete yet, maybe a few more bands of color and then back into the washing machine and dryer for a final fluff up.