By Amy, on August 31st, 2010
Do you ever have periods where all you do is think about working on projects but nothing gets made? Well, I’m on vacation, so I don’t have any deadline knitting, but since I made a swatch on the airplane, I haven’t picked up needles or hook. Of course, I have been dreaming up projects. The kids and I are at our little cottage in northern Wisconsin.
It’s peaceful and quiet (if you don’t count kid noises), but being a single parent even on vacation, I’m not getting much time to sit and relax, and by the end of the day when they’re in bed, somehow I don’t feel like doing anything but reading my book. (I’m on a mini-break from schoolwork too).
So during the day, even though I’m not crocheting or knitting, things filter in for later reflection. A scene or a pattern might catch my eye. Sometimes, if I’ve got my camera, I might take a picture. But I don’t go out to photograph stuff for designs. I’m happy to wait until they appear.
There are wonderful stones here, and I’ve had a habit of collecting them since I was a little girl. They’re always prettier when they are underwater, but I can’t help keeping them anyway. I love the ripples in the water caused by the stones and how the light catches them.
Sometimes, it’s just colors I see–like the pinks and yellows and greens on the crab apple tree on the lawn.
I thought about harvesting some crab apples–we’ve never been here so late in August before when they’re actually ripe. But since I’m traveling, I can’t really make jam or anything else. The kids have eaten a few, and say they’re tasty.
In my head, I’ve started knitting a scarf. I bought some pretty striped kitchen cotton (it’s hot here, I can”t think of wearing wool). I’m thinking of basing it on The Heidi Stitch. Or, maybe I won’t. I’d like a little cotton shawl to wear at the wedding I’m going to this weekend. Probably I won’t make anything. It’s been that kind of week.
So I’m taking the rest of the trip to recharge my creative batteries, and soon I’ll be surrounded by family at my cousin’s wedding. Then home for the start of school for kids and me. How are you enjoying the end of the summer?
By Amy, on August 18th, 2010
We’re having a rare sunny day, so I’m going to post quickly and get Outside! This Sunday I got to go to an open house held by members of a woodcut printmaking class here in Cordova. Artist Andrea Rich came to town to teach a week long workshop and I think 6 or 8 members of the community signed up. The results were beautiful and diverse. And as different as all the prints were, nearly all were inspired by Cordova’s beautiful scenery, flora, and fauna. Here’s one student, Michael putting the finishing touches on her final prints.
Each woodcut is truly a limited edition. As you make a pass with each color, you’re cutting away more wood from the print, changing the block permanently. So, you need to choose the length of the edition before you begin. The students made 12 prints of their woodcuts. They printed both by hand and with a press. Michael is using a hand-printing process above.
I’m always impressed by the variety of interests expressed by people here in Cordova. I don’t know if it’s my imagination, but it seems like Cordovans are more willing than folks elsewhere to make time for creative passions. It’s one of the things that makes this remote village such a nice place to live.
By Amy, on August 15th, 2010
 photo credit: spbutterworth
I’ve wanted to add this feature to my blog for a long time. I’ve just found a new Word Press plugin that creates a pop-up printer-friendly version of any of my posts. So–if you want to print one of my free patterns or recipes, or techniques, you don’t have to print all of the sidebar stuff… PrintFriendly also allows you to remove all images, and it also allows you to delete parts of the post you don’t need before you print (like intro text if all you want is a recipe or a pattern). To use it, just click on the green PrintFriendly button at the bottom of any of my posts. After you print, the plugin shows you some innocuous text ads before directing you back to the web page you were on. I think that’s totally worth the convenience of quickly printing off a recipe or pattern. PrintFriendly also has a browser button so you can apparently use the feature on any web page, even if the owner doesn’t have the plugin installed.
By Amy, on August 13th, 2010
photo credit: indi.ca
I’m writing this in my text editor because a Russian satellite has apparently drifted from its proper orbit and it’s messing with our Internet access here in the cloudy, rainy North. Sound like a conspiracy? Maybe. But usually this time of year there’s something interfering with our communications. Sun spots. Storms. Brown outs. This time, a wayward satellite. Nothing surprises me anymore.
Two books came in the mail yesterday, and I wanted to share them with you.
The first is Gifted: Lovely Little Things to Knit and Crochet, by Mags Kandis. Mags is co-owner and former creative director of Mission Falls yarns. Although the subtitle of says “lovely little things to knit and crochet,” the book also has small felting and sewing projects. In fact, half the projects involve some kind of felting or fulling. The designs are small—intended to be made quickly for gift giving. There are even a pair of upcycled arm warmers made from a thrifted sweater. The sleeves are felted, then trimmed and embroidered for a pretty chill-stopping gift. I love the “Weekend Socks,” They’re Norwegian sweater-inspired footwear in a light blue grey and white with bright contrasting red toes and heels.
Mags doesn’t shy away from bright colors, and her choices shine in projects like “Baby’s First Felted Feet,” tiny felted slippers with needle-felted polkadot embellishments. I was surprised to discover that there are recipes like “Ginger Syrup,” “Tomato Jam,” and Mexican Hot Chocolate Mix sprinkled throughout the book as well. If Gifted is a nice collection for the versitile crafter who loves little felting projects. I were simply a crocheter who did not knit, I would pass on this book because there are only 6 crochet projects—one is a show stopper: a lovely patchwork felted granny bag. Instead I would buy Kim Werker’s Crocheted Gifts, also from Interweave which is a beautiful collection of crochet accessories and home projects to make and give.
Perhaps this is the time of year to be releasing “gifty” books.The other craft book in my mail box today is from Potter Craft, titled, Simply Sublime Gifts: High-Style, Low-Sew Projects to Make in a Snap, by Jodi Kahn. One of the practical fun things about this book is the “Supply Closet.” A list at the beginning of the book that tells you the basics you’ll need for completing projects. Of course, there are specific materials for some projects not listed here, but it’s a great way to make sure you’ve got the essentials.
These are “low-sew” and “no-sew” projects using iron on transfers glue and other fun crafty materials to embellish things you buy at the store. The first project is a set of pretty linen towels made by using ink-jet iron on transfers and a repeating design you create with wrapping paper. There are some tricky substitutes for sewing like a little pouch made with washcloths, duct tape and staples.
Jodi loves unusual materials, like the shammies she used to make baby jammies, and the notebooks made out of cereal boxes. Some of them verge on the ridiculous, like the “fabric cans” with screen printed Campbell’s soup labels. My favorite project might just be the shopping bag upcycled from a pillow case. Not only does Simply Sublime Gifts have some fun-to-make project ideas, it also provides some creative inspiration—once you’ve learned how to transfer images from your computer onto fabric, and “sew” with duct tape and staples, you could go on to invent your own gift ideas.
By Amy, on August 11th, 2010
I’m heading to Wisconsin and Kansas in a couple of weeks for a little vacation with the kids, and for my cousin Johanna‘s wedding to her fiancé Ryan. (Aren’t they cute?)
It is still quite hot, I understand, “down south,” (i.e. anywhere south of Alaska), so I’ll be bringing my Hemp Shawlette:
It’s soft, but not warm, like even a lacy shawl made in wool would be, and it covers the shoulders well. The shawl is crocheted top down in “raglan” style–meaning that there are four increase points. The shaping means that the shawl fits nicely on your shoulders.
I designed this shawl for Lana Knits using their lovely Allhemp6, a lightweight, soft hemp designed for garments. It works up quickly with treble v-stitches and a simple edging. I haven’t decided what I’m wearing at the wedding yet… but I do know I’ll wear the shawl. And now you can make one too, I’ve just listed the pattern for sale.
$6.00
 
By Amy, on August 9th, 2010
I’ve been dreaming up squares lately for a blanket for the book. I want something solid probably just two colors. When you’re crocheting a traditional granny square, you’re working completely in chain spaces, not stitches:
 I wanted a solid square, it’s not quite as simple as filling in the chain spaces with stitches. You have to back up and think of what the granny square is, essentially. It’s a circle (with corners). When working a flat circle in crochet, you begin with a certain number of stitches, and increase evenly that same number of stitches each round. Hats and other flat circles often begin with 6 or eight stitches. A granny square begins with 12. Each round is an increase of 12 stitches (i.e. 12, 24, 36, etc).
So, in a solid granny, you can get that 12 stitches in a number of ways. One would be to reduce the number of stitches at the corners to 3 instead of the traditional 6 plus the chain space. This works, but I found it didn’t look “corner-y” enough for my taste. Better, it turned out, to work 5 stitches in the corner, and skip the two stitches on either side of the corner when working around. Or, as I did below–keep the corners “normal” and decrease elsewhere in the square to even things out.
In my swatches, I was playing with the idea of taking a square and tipping it 45 degrees. I wanted to make sure I didn’t flatten out the corner of the inner square so I used decreases at those points instead of “rounding out” the square by adding fewer stitches. Here’s a more complete version of that idea:
I like this square a lot, but it’s not what I needed for the blanket, so I’ll keep it for future use, or maybe just write up the pattern for the square itself.
My mind has also been on spirals lately. I’ll post again soon about my spiral-square (or square-spiral) experiments.
By Amy, on July 30th, 2010
This is where I spent the last two weeks. I was in Anchorage hanging with fellow students and faculty in the MFA program at the University of Alaska. We had twelve-hour days of classes learning about the craft of creative writing. In the evenings, instructors gave readings–we heard from poets, fiction and non fiction writers. One poet played the harmonica during her reading (Kim Addonizio, who just today was featured in the Writer’s Almanac); one poet read translations and original poems in Urdu and French. Novelist Carolyn Turgeon read from her upcoming novel Mermaid, and author Craig Childs took us on a journey through deserts, rivers, and islands in his treks tracing water all over the world.
I was living in a dorm–something I haven’t done in, oh, 16 years. And because it was Anchorage, we were visited by moose: a mother and her baby decided to snack right outside the back door of the residence hall.
I brought lots of UFOs with me thinking I would be quite virtuous and not start any new projects. I only finished one UFO, this hat, for my friend Alyssa:
I crocheted the hat with Blue Sky Skinny Cotton and I used Kim Werker’s three-color spiral technique. I love this technique because of the great design you get at the crown of the hat.
It’s a little fiddly because you have “live” unworked rounds of color as you go. I found that I could just kind of tie the live loops together to keep them from coming unraveled. I stuck to Kim’s plan of one row in double crochet, one row in half-double and one row in single crochet (in other hats I’ve varied that scheme). I like the way the stripes of varying width look in these three colors. I made the crown oversized so the hat would be a little slouchy (my preferred style these days), and I worked the hat loosely to start, then changed to a small needle for the final rows so it would stay on the head easily.
By Amy, on July 1st, 2010
If I’d been living anywhere else, I think this hat would have been lost for good. I was almost done the night I lost it. I got home from Selma’s softball game, where I’d been working on the hat and I was changing to go to out to dinner when I realized I didn’t have it anymore. I scoured the house, and when I left, I had enough time to retrace my steps and ask around: the ball field, the Baja Taco where I’d picked up dinner for the kids. Nothing. I hate losing things, and I stewed about it most of the night.
In the morning, I went out and tore the car apart but it wasn’t there. I had gone out the back door, and when I went to go in the front door, I found my little project bag hanging on the front door. Special delivery–the bag had been found, recognized and dropped off by fellow knitters!
Jay had commissioned the hat and picked the colors himself. I didn’t have a color-work pattern in mind, I just started playing with color and the little circles evolved. This intuitive way of creating pattern is my favorite because you don’t have to “get it right,” you just do what seems like fun in the next round and watch it grow.
The hat is worked in back loop single crochet in Brown Sheep Cotton Fleece (thanks, Becca!) and three different sizes of hook–4.5mm for the crown 5mm for the color work and 3.5mm for the ribbing.
By Amy, on June 29th, 2010
I know. It’s been quiet here, eh? Don’t you hate posts where folks talk about how they wish they had been posting more? I promise not to do that.
So. In May I started graduate school, and I’ve been writing. A lot. I’ve been swimming along learning how to balance school and the rest of life, and getting ready for my 10-day residency in July when I go to Anchorage with my fellow students and we do nothing but talk about writing. I’m both terrified and really looking forward to it.
Since I have little time for designing and making big projects, I declared recently on Twitter and Facebook that for me, this would be the summer of finishing up unfinished projects. So far so good. I’m making headway on a couple, and I *haven’t* cast on for anything new since I set that intention. Yet. I’m finishing up a pair of socks right now, then it’s on to a shawl and a scarf. Want to join me? if you finish something tweet using the #summerofufos tag so we all can see it.
I’ve been done editing Inside Crochet for a month or so now, but issues with my design in them will be coming out for a while. There are two out–issue 7 and 8 that I haven’t had a chance to mention yet. Issue 8 was the last full issue that Julie and I edited (but we commissioned designs up through issue 11, so I’m curious to see how the magazine ultimately evolves). In issue 7 I have a Slouchy Hat made from super-soft baby llama yarn:
The color work pattern was adapted from Barbara Walker’s Mosaic Knitting book. I love how her mosaic patterns look in crochet.
Issue 8 has just come out as well! I created what I’m calling a “Modern Spencer.” I was inspired by all the Jane Austen movies I’ve been watching where the young women wear these little cropped jackets over their dresses. The Spencer features a fun to crochet little peekaboo ruffle edging that makes it look like you’re wearing a bit of lace under your sweater.
Summer has been super-busy with camps and hikes and swimming and music and all of the usual Cordova craziness, except that the ship, and James with it has been in Seattle for training. In the middle of it all, we found out that the ship has been ordered to go to the Gulf of Mexico to aid in oil spill clean up. The trip down there takes weeks, and then they’ll be working on spill recovery for the foreseeable future. Argh. So we’re all learning to adjust to the idea of an extended separation. With the magic of satellite internet, the kids get a phone call every few evenings and James reads them a bed time story. We’re staying connected as best we can, and we’re hoping to meet up later in the summer in the Midwest.
By Amy, on June 9th, 2010
We wear “winter” hats here year round–they just get a little lighter in the spring and summer. Today, I’m wearing Winkin. (In the winter, I wear these lighter hats in the house to keep warm inside).
Last winter I made a tweedy black hat for my friend Pam, and with spring coming she asked if I might make her a springier version and even bought a beautiful skein of Galenas from Three Irish Girls in a custom colorway dyed for The Net Loft called Boswell Bay Strawberry. She wanted a slouchy basic hat, so I worked in the back loop only to keep the fabric flexible, and made a slightly oversized crown. The skein was so generous that even after I’d made the big slouchy hat, there was enough left over to make a wee baby hat for Pam’s baby Isla. It was so satisfying to use up every inch of the yarn, too!
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