Category: Knitting

thinking ahead, back then

3/9/2021

So you know what's cool?

Well, lots of things are cool:
spinning
and weaving
and looms
and friends
and solitude
and vaccinations
and sunshine
and rain
and baby plants
and one syllable four letter nouns...

Today, though
the thing that delights me
more than I can say,
is noticing--

that I no longer notice--

that I wear a hand spun/knit wool shirt
every single day
summer and winter.

Well-- truth to tell--
in the summer I occasionally wear
those handwoven linen
and linsey-woolsey shirts.
But still--
(and somewhat to my amazement),
I've made more than enough
next-to-the-skin-soft
wool shirts
to see me through.

And though I wasn't thinking at the time
about why it was possible,
one of my great daily pleases
these last months
has been dressing up for my loom every day.
And I think the loom appreciated my effort.

But I had forgotten--
until tidying up a stack of
"magazines with articles I wrote"--

that once upon a time
having enough such garments
was a deliberate plan--
my mid-life self
committing
to the sartorial comfort, pleasure
and general well-being
of me,
now,
at 60.

So golly thanks, former Sarah
for the serendipitous Magic Medium--
for the blissfully approachable Somewhat Slanted
(of which I now have five)--
for The Cloisters (pictured above)--
for Kestrals Alight back in 1996--
for all the unnamed others
(many of which I've given away)--

Notes to Self; hand woven tapestry; 25" x24"; wool/ natural dyes ©Sarah C. Swett 2015

--for all the glorious fleeces
(and the sheep that grew them)--
and for uncountable days and weeks and years
of pleasure--
past, present and future.

And yes, also for my Sarah-Dippity Skirts
which though they are not shirts
and were completely unplanned,
I nonetheless wear so often
that I'm now having to patch them.

So you know what's cool?
That the midst of one of the weirdest
and most unsettled
and oddly fascinating times of my life so far--
that even as I am taking a break from knitting
to rest and reset--
it is yarn, once again,
that is seeing me through.

the fragile, the lovely and the absurd

3/24/2020

Frankly,
I haven't the foggiest idea
what to write about today.

Not for lack of ideas --
Oh no!
I've been awash with those.
I mean,
a paper gansey dress?
a suit of Somewhat Slanted armor?
There is much to talk about
in the realm of my making existence.
Yet this is actually my third try
at trying to be coherent.

Part of the problem
may have been
that "somehow"
all sorts of non-blog things
have arisen to take over my Tuesdays,
and, deciding to be efficient
the first two blogging attempts
were made yesterday.

What a disaster!
Not a single coherent sentence
could I write,
and most of the photos
turned out badly lit
or poorly framed--
poorly framed, that is,
unless your hearts desire
is. to see a corner of my
Sarah-Dippity clad butt
and the bra/underwear pile
of my laundry-in-waiting?

Tuesdays, you see
are old lady (and gentleman) day at the Food Coop
(actually member over 55 gets a 10% discount),
and what with the layers of gloves
and careful spacing and all,
it seemed a good idea
to keep grocery-getting
and blog writing
separate too.

Tuesdays are also
my husband's new chemo day
(used to be Monday)
and since I usually try to do a little tidying
while he's off getting infused,
I figured if I wrote the blog on Monday
I could take my time
with the scrubbing,
the shopping
and the writing.

But Monday,
as I said,
refused to cooperate.
After a bunch of confusion and angst
it became clear
that while there are times
and places
when thinking ahead
and being practical
(wearing rubber gloves
out in the world etc etc)
is just the thing.

So Monday got to be
the thing it wanted to be,
full of tunes and pink coffee filters,
and I headed out to the Food Coop this morning
where,
be-gloved and bemused,
I had several magical moments of
distant socializing with dear friends--
our plastic coated hands waving madly
from one end of an aisle to another--
and also got to feel
a good solid sense of gratitude
for all the beautiful produce
and marvelous, helpful coop stuff
who are keeping us supplied
for our once-a-week excursions.

And the cleaning?
Well, I shook out a few rugs
but mostly skipped it entirely,
save for washing
and blocking
the coffee filter Gansey dress
because my imaginary elf self
wanted to wear it
and anyway
I can mop things tomorrow.

But that, the elf comment, reminds me
of what I really wanted to say today,
and why I was trying to take selfies yesterday--

which is that is that my friend Vicki
has designed the coolest hood
for the Somewhat Slanted sweater
and I finally get to tell you about it.
Somehow she managed to combine
both the utterly practical
(cozy, easy, protective, snuggly),
and the utterly "im"--
(I get to be a wood elf
and a Monty Python Knight
at the same time),
while making something that is
totally in the "make it as you go" spirit
of the sweater itself.

And now,
on these cool spring mornings
and uncertain days,
(and despite my previous conviction
that I am absolutely not a hoody person),
it is my favorite thing to wear.

Such a favorite, indeed,
that I'm giving you a second opportunity
to critique my slovenly laundry ways,
my pink Sarah-Dippity butt,
and the polka-dotted apron I forgot I had on,
so you can see the whole thing,
backlit and all.

Remember, The Hood part of the pattern
is Vicki's so is only available on her Ravelry page
and she's sharing it for free.
(are those underarm stripes glorious or what????),
so if you already have the Somewhat Slanted,
you can just hop over there
and check out the instructions.
If you don't have it
and suddenly need a suit of armor--
or a wood elf outfit,
or even a great big collar to hide behind.
I'm having a Somewhat Slanted Sale
both on my Ravelry Page
and on this website:
from $11 down $7
(the next prime number
cuz -- all my prices are prime ;-)

Though the Somewhat Slanted
works at any gauge,
this Monty Python look
seems particularly effective with bulky yarn,
so I'm already half way through
another one for my husband Dan
for whom a new suit of armor,
and especially a super warm merino one
seems just the thing right now.

And speaking of Dan
(though he'd probably rather I didn't)
I do want to say
how VERY much I appreciate
all your wondrous words and hopes and thoughts
in the comments in last week's post.
I was going to try to answer them all,
but it only made me cry,
and also feel so very grateful
that you are all there,
that we're all in this together
in many different
and many of the same ways,
and that I get to write to you--
even going on and on
despite thinking I had nothing to say--
and that we can madly wave,
our carefully gloved hands
at one another
from across the world,
and the other side of town,
and feel connected
with our yarn
and our thoughts
and the joy
of the fragile,
the lovely,
and the absurd.
So, ah,
thanks.

And, onward we go.

the sublime and the ridiculous--our new best friends

3/17/2020

Gee Whiz --
is this wild or what?

Everything shifting so much
that it is hard to know
from moment to moment
what to think--
or even how I feel.

Sometimes,
happily,
it is all perfectly clear:
when in doubt
make stuff.

Then five seconds later,
my brain has gone racing off
on unhelpful imaginary voyages of its own--
and in an effort to calm it down
all I can do
(short of panicking about toilet paper),
is to remember how useful it can be

to notice how everything changes
when I shift my point of view
just a tiny bit.

In some ways
I've been in training for this time
all my life.

Decades of making stuff
makes it seem obvious
to turn to the work of my hands
when things are less than ideal--
as well, of course
as when they are bloody marvelous.

And spending my early twenties
on a ranch in the middle of the Idaho wilderness
where solitude was my daily companion
and I grocery shopped twice a year
(cuz, no road...or store...or people
or internet for that matter
since it hadn't been invented),
makes social isolation
still feel pretty normal.

And then there is the last six months (and counting)
filled with the extra special uncertainty
of my husband's pancreatic cancer diagnoses,
and the subsequent,
ongoing
extremely intense,
and astonishingly effective
(if seriously immune system compromising),
treatment.

At the same time
none of it is easy,
as you know,
and can't tell you how helpful
it has been
these many months
to draw that freaking out person
I sometimes am
(hard to believe, I know, but true ;-)
and to have a place
from which I can look back at myself,
and laugh, or commiserate, or whatever,
even while whatever it is
is still happening.
(Some day, maybe, I'll even share
a few chemo side effect comics...
but not today).

Today,
I want to thank you
for your company along the way --
and to say how much I appreciate
you coming here
and hanging out,
and giving me reasons
to keep sharing
the light in the shadows.

And I hope we can keep doing it--
today and in the weeks and months of uncertainty
that most certainly lie ahead.
For while it can be crazy hard
to be in the middle of something
with no idea
how it is going to turn out,
(as we all are now),

it is also wildly wonderful
to have companions along the way
who are also turning
their prodigious attention
to the making of things
that are perfectly ridiculous.

And really,
was there ever a better time?

ps. And now that I'm about to close
I suddenly remember how much
I also want to thank you
for all the marvelous comments
in last week's post,
and say that there is not much to
these curled wire hangers
beyond that they are made
from 16 gauge wire
I found in the basement,
that I gently unroll
then twist about with my hands
(and sometimes a cheezy pair of pliers for the tight curves),
until the thing balances--
which sometimes takes a while.

pps. and one more quick more thought
on perfectly ridiculous projects --
weaving a bag on box is a prime example --
and also terrific
if you want to try your hand at weaving
and don't have a loom--
but do have a cardboard box!

cloth with the cracks built in

3/10/2020

They are not usually
the point of cloth --

cracks, I mean--

places that light
shines through.

Certainly tapestry weavers
generally work very hard
to make elegant and subtle joins
between shapes
and areas of color.

At the very least
we focus on warp/weft relationships
to make sure
that our slits are not too wide
and the weft is fully packed.

And at all cost
we avoid hanging the works
anywhere near direct sun.
Until, ahem,
we do.

Yesterday I warped a loom--
and began to weave a watery landscape
(complete with lots of hatching and color blending
cuz -- you know-- so many great colors of paper).

Then several inches in
I stopped,
unwove the entire thing
and began again.

The landscape,
lovely though it was,
had no interest in
(or, it seemed, capacity for)
playing with the light--
or, apparently, with me--
too anxious to be done
to enjoy actually weaving.

And who wants to feel like that
about a work in progress?

Yet those plain little squares--
and the slits between them--
are seemingly just the thing.

As fun, just now---
as very plain knitting.

I've been, indeed, a bit bemused
by my equal opportunity entrancement.

On the one hand--
the unpredictable energy
of knitted paper.
(Sweater Somewhat Slanted as promised).

On the other,
the tranquility
of geometric tapestries.

And then I notice,
(yet again),
that what I am embracing
is paper and light.

So what can I do
but go with it?

containers of light: paper yarn and knitting

3/3/2020

My sister has left, alas,
and our lunchtime knitting-and-gab-fests
are no longer a thing.
But as she headed home through the skies,
a slew of unstoppable ideas
for the coffee filter yarn I made during her visit
flew into my brain.
So naturally, I had to try them.

First up was a little vessel.
At least that is what I keep calling it,
though when I look up the word
in the two nearest dictionaries
(as I did a moment ago)
I find that vessel
may not quite suit.

One definition begins like this:
ves.sel n. 1. a. any large boat or ship
esp. one larger than a canoe or rowboat,
designed or equipped for
conveying passengers, cargo, etc
b. Law. any floating structure.
2. an airship

and the other:

ves.sel n. 1 a hollow receptacle
esp, for liquid,
e.g., a cask, cup, pot, bottle or dish
2 a ship or boat, esp, a large one.

Both go on to talk about canals,
blood vessels, and woody ducts in trees,
none of which quite apply
to this little object
since transportation of liquids in any form
is not something I foresee
in its future.

Not that coffee filter yarn,
(cellulose fiber that is),
isn't perfectly capable
of sucking up water.
That is, after all, what it was designed to do.
But wet paper, even spun and knit,
is exceptionally tender,
and once immersed,
the perky little structure
will simply collapse
into a sodden heap of loops.

So not, I think, a boat.

She is, however,
extremely willing
to hold light and air,
and is perfectly capable of transporting me
(with a little help from the sun),
into a world of luminous,
shadow-rich
rapture.

So perhaps a kind of bird?

At any rate,
whatever she is called,
once the little vessel-bird
showed me a little of what she was capable of,
light-wise,
I had to cast on again
for something larger,
and with bigger holes.

Here she is.

And since I know you're going to ask,
here are a few technical tidbits:

Vessel-bird 1 (left, below)
-Melita filters from my kitchen,
-some dyed with indigo,
-cut with scissors into strips approx 1/4" wide
-spun Z, plied S
-Knit on size 5 (3,75mm) needles

knitted cofffee filter yarn

Vessel-bird 2 (above, right and below)
-Commercial Coffee filters
-collected, unearthed, washed and dried
by my sister Evelyn R. Swett,
-cut with scissors into strips approx 1/8" wide
-spun Z, plied S
-some dyed with indigo
-Knit on size 5 (3,75mm) needles

Here is a link to a post
from two weeks ago
which includes a brief comparison
of three coffee filter brands/styles,
Stay tuned for more experimentation--
though of what sort, I cannot, alas, predict.

Both Vessel-Birds were stiffened
by immersion/manipulation
in a solution of Xanthan Gum
(1/2 t in a cup of water--
available in bulk a my local food coop
though I had some on hand
from long ago warp sizing experiments),
and then dried to shape over a couple of
makeshift, but adequate forms.
Other stiffening agents that might work:
gelatin, diluted pva glue, hide glue-
or????
(ideas?)

And that, my friend,
is all I know so far.

But happily,
these light-filled objects,
speak for themselves--

as, indeed,
can we all--
given time,
attention
and a moment in the sun.

ps. And speaking of moments in the sun,
my recent coffee filter experiments,
received a lovely mention in Episode 18
of the marvelous podcast
Mrs. M's Curiosity Cabinet.
Meg's experiments with nylon-free sock yarn,
growing her own luffa gourds
and more, are always a treat.
I highly recommend a listen --
to all the episodes

familial filter focus

2/25/2020

What a treat it has been--

indigo dyed coffee filters, oxidizing

my sister here for ten days--
a lovely time-out-of-time--
almost a retreat for us both--
each immersed in her own obsession.

Every day
Lyn went to a local coffee shop
to write about compost,
while I focused my research
on the pile of coffee filters
she had collected from said compost,
washed and brought with her.

What could be better than new material?

On my end, I found that
the commercial filters
are bigger in diameter
and ever so slightly thicker
than those I'd been using,
and that they required careful handling while cutting
lest the layers get off-kilter in my hand.
The extra diameter, of course
added yardage:
approx. 10 yards vs 7 yards
for every filter cut.

twisting coffee filters into yarn on an Ashford Charkha

They are also a different color:
evenly brown from center to edge
which leads to an evenly hued yarn,
in contrast to the heathery variegation
I get from Jodi's domestic filters
which shift from brown at the center
to creamy white at the edges
(unless they have been filtering pigments of course,
in which case they are every color of the rainbow).

That Jodi washes her filters indivudally
as they are used
and the commercial filters
are dumped in a bucket
to absorb the color from the
rest of that day's spent filters and grounds,
as they wait for Lyn to collect them for her compost,
probably accounts for this difference.

Needless to say,
my work will happily accommodate--
indeed is better for--
having both.

2 ply coffee filter yarn; indigo

Anyway,
after a morning of immersion
in our respective explorations,
Lyn and I met for lunch:
needles clicking
as we chewed on ideas,
raw carrots,
my husband's fresh sourdough bread,
and other such delights.

That Lyn was knitting
was particularly thrilling for me
as, though she had not picked up needles for years,
she decided to break her fast
with my Somewhat Slanted Sweater pattern--
which she later said
had a particularly easy point of entry.

Well, those may not be exactly the words she used
but since the pattern starts with a single stitch
and forms a pointed triangle to begin,
I couldn't resist the pun.

At any rate,
it was a huge treat
to walk into the Yarn Underground (my LYS)
and say,
"Pick some yarn,
any yarn, any weight
(lace to super bulky),
in a color you want to wear,
no gauge swatch necessary,"
and watch her go almost instantly
to a warm reddish pink
reminiscent of sweaters knit for her
by our mother and grandmother
when she was a little girl,
and watch her take off.

Indeed, her hands remembered
so well that by the second day she was
knitting and reading at the same time-
one of my favorite things to do
and the opportunity for which
I build into everything I design,
just in case.

And such was the pleasure of this
(and knitting lunches with me, of course),
that in the week she was here,
while still writing for hours every day,
she finished both front and back,
joined them with the shoulder straps,
and started the first sleeve,
which she knit all the way home.

What more could a designer/sister ask for?

And now I'm all agog with ideas
so might have to use some of the yarn
from the coffee filters she delivered
to knit a paper Somewhat Slanted
for myself --just because.
Think it'll work?

magic medium pullover -- revised!

2/11/2020

That about says it all, doesn't it?

magic medium version 1; 3-ply hand spun cormo x -- a brown fleece overdyed with indigo-- sport(ish) weight

Did I really need to take all these selfies?

Much more fun to draw my butt--

magic medium version 1; Palouse Yarn Company Merino Fine singles;

and natter on about the joys
of a shirt-like sweater
that can be tried on
at most stages
of the proceedings
so a gal can make
a garment that actually fits --
which means she'll actually wear it--
than try to smile at a camera you're holding yourself.

Because wearable, these are.
I think I made three
before Shelley of The Yarn Underground
and The Palouse Yarn Company
nudged me to write up the pattern
so others could enjoy it too--
and then she hosted it on her Ravelry page
until I got around to making my own a few weeks ago.

magic medium version 3; 3 ply hand spun targhee/debouillet--lace weight

After that I knit another three or four more
in different yarns/gauges
and these (eventually) led to the changes in this revision --
but not before I'd thoroughly tested each one.
(note: these are my clothes you're looking at,
not pattern samples
so please pardon their imperfections).

And really, what is not to love
about a lightweight wool shirt?
Cool when warm, warm when cool,
hypoallergenic, carbon-positive,
renewable, non-stinky,
and endlessly stretchy without
the saggy spots of dead lycra --
such a garment is
(unless you are vegan),
a freakin miracle.

Indeed, apparently a bunch of big outdoor companies
have finally figured this out and are using it for lots of stuff.
Wool is the technical fabric of the future!
Who knew?

Well they they act like they just invented it if they have to,
as long as they keep working with it.

magic medium version 2; 5 ply handspun targhee/debouillet--sport(ish) weight

In the meantime,
we can go ahead and make
whatever we want for ourselves.
Because we already know how.
And living as we do
on the cutting edge of technical achievement,
the right garment has always been a thing.
Nothing says focus and physical accomplishment
like weaving, spinning, knitting, reading
and hanging out with dogs,

magic medium version 1; Quince & Co Finch (fingering)

But gosh,
for all my messing about
with paper and linen,
I don't need to extoll
the virtues of wool to you.
What I really want to do
is go on and on
about one of the most important features of this garment
which is that (assuming you are so inclined),
since most of it is knit in stockinette in the round,
the literarily-inclined knitter
can scale the heights
of two of these massively important activities
at the same time.

And no commercially made garment
will ever provide a pleasure
to equal that.

square bag (hat?) that looks round; 2 ply used coffee filter paper yarn

Oh yes --OOPS.
One more thing.
The Pattern for the magic medium pullover
can be found both on my Ravelry site
and my web store
depending on your preference.

(Alas, the two are not linked, so the choice is up to you
but if you have already downloaded the pattern
from The Palouse Yarn Company site on Ravelry,
you should, by now, have already received the pattern revision
so need to worry about any of it).

square bag that looks round (an enlarged variation of the pattern in the all new Homespun Handknit by amy clarke moore), knit with 2 ply used coffee filter paper yarn

Now, what was I doing?

a knitting holiday

2/4/2020

Coffee Filter yarn.

Again.

Well yes--
again.

But different.

This time
a knitting experiment--
something I wanted to try
while waiting for the soy milk to cure.

And so far,
I kind of like it.

Truth to tell
I spent half the afternoon
waxing verbose about the delights
of this stiff, fragile paper yarn--

madly protesting too much--

carefully pointing out
the myriad flaws--

so you know
that I know
how absurd
is my affection.

Then I deleted it all.

Much better to simply share the photos,

and get back to it.

today at my house

12/10/2019

there is coffee filter yarn.

The sun is shining.

And the narcissus--

almost blooming--

are casting shadows on the wall.

Just In Time Spinning

12/3/2019

After the weaving/knitting confusion
of last week's post
I was pretty sure that today
I could stick to the point.

The trouble began
when I began to gather
photos--

for no sooner had I found a few decent pictures
--of fleece prep and spindle choice,
--of knitting and ripping out and knitting again,
--of the three-needle-side-and-sleeve-seam-bind-off,
--and of the joys of putting a mock turtleneck
on what I had previously considered
a square-necked garment
(making it a square neck that looks round,
to riff off of Roald Dahl),*
*see chapter 23, Square Candies that Look Round

than I got completely distracted
by the other three (or is it four now?)
sweaters I've knit from this same fleece
(a Targhee/Debouillet from Nancy Ortmann).

What caught me up
was thinking about how,
though I used the same Hepty Spindles
and spun virtually identical singles
I treated the final yarn making process quite differently:

--dyeing and carding the fleece, spinning all the singles, then plying and knitting
vs
--chain plying each spindle full of singles, then dyeing and knitting then all
vs
--chain plying each spindle full and knitting it right away.

Before long I was all bogged down
with gathering pictures,
covering my computer desk top
with images to explain my choices,
and trying to describe why each approach
suited the mood and project of the moment
(and also getting sucked into inspecting old projects
with the wisdom of hindsight)--

and soon I'd totally forgotten
that your patience for such nonsense
(at least all in one blog post)
would soon be exhausted--
especially when what I REALLY wanted to do
was talk about the third choice,
the one I used for the most recent two:
-the Somewhat Slanted I'm wearing as I type
-and a Magic Medium
that I've worn like crazy since July
but don't think I've blogged about
because I hope to revise the magic Medium pattern
and figure it'd be better to talk about it
when I've got the new, more versatile version done
(though of course anyone who has bought it on Ravelry
will get a revised version if/when I get
a round tooit).

So in the name of sticking to the point
I deleted all that historic nonsense
so that I could say
that
though potentially filled with imperfections
(each skein slightly different
due to my spinning mood
and the weight of the spindle
from one end of the cop to the other)
just-in-time spinning
with a plying stick/wand
is my current absolute favorite.

And here's why:

A gal can even lounge on her bed
and pretend to take a nap
while chaining
if she really needs a break
but can't quite bring herself
to put down the yarn.

And what's not to love about that?

ps . For more about using a plying stick,
check out this blog post:
Cool Tools

pps And sigh.
I still feel compelled
to tuck a few photos of those other two methods
at the bottom
because there they are on my desktop
and I want to tidy it up
but will dispense with the descriptions
as I think I'm almost out of words.