I'm finally getting this one to a point where it's nearly wearable. As in, might be done by winter.
A few days ago I finished the button bands and wove in the ends. I decided to add more buttons because I didn't want it pulling at the chest, not a flattering look. Seven down the front, plus the one on the shoulder for a total of eight.
I got lucky and a friend had exactly eight of these fabulous silver flowers in her button bin. I promise modeled photos when I sew them on.
I finally finished my first spindle full of Sheep Shed Studio roving. It's the stuff I Kool-Aid dyed forever ago and never got around to spinning because I broke the hook off my spindle. Only took a little Super Glue to fix, but sometimes I get stubborn. And lazy.
That only used up half the roving, and I'd planned to make it a two-ply, but it's pretty balanced as is and might work well as a single. I like that it's thick/thin and rustic and think plying would even it out too much.
I have 238 yards so far, out of about 4 oz.
Next up is this fabulous green/yellow/black stuff that I got in a RAK. I don't know what the fiber or brand is, but it's some kind of wool. It's combed, so the resulting yarn is super-smooth. It's also really dense and needs a LOT of pre-drafting to get it spinnable. It's not felted, the fibers just seem like they're packed really close together and need a little encouragement to seperate. Maybe it sat in a tight braid for too long.
My cousins are in town from South Florida, and were really impressed that I can actually MAKE YARN. Dan goes to antique shows all the time (he's a military history nut) and promised to be on the lookout for an affordable wheel for me.
I'm moving to Georgia for a few months.
Here is my bag of clothing.
Here is my bag of yarn.
Guess which is bigger?
(It's the clothing, but just barely, and if I took the handknits out of the "clothing" bag it would be in trouble.)
I've heard so many people say that they "aren't creative enough" to design things, or that they "don't have ideas".
Bullshit.
-Dictionary.com
If you've ever had a thought, if you're aware of your surroundings, and if your brain works even in the slightest you have ideas. They might not be good ideas, but they're ideas.
How do you come up with good ideas? You practice by coming up with bad ones! When I was a kid I read that we all have a million bad ideas inside of us, and the sooner we can get them all out the better. So even if something seems stupid, go for it. We learn by doing, and you'll soon find that working with one idea will cause you to come up with another.
For some reason, knitters suffer from the delusion that you have to be a capital-D Designer to come up with an idea or make an original garment.
Again, bullshit.
Designers (even the famous ones) are human just like the rest of us. They sketch, they write, they knit, and I'm sure they occasionally forget to put in a lifeline and have to rip back a lot farther than they should have. What seperates a designer from a garden-variety knitter is a willingness to try new things, to experiment, and even to fail. A designer looks at a simple idea and sees potential.
I'm going to help you learn to see potentail, starting with a simple concept.
This is my sketch, just a series of rectangles I doodled. As they get bigger, the space between them gets smaller.
You could have come up with that, right? Exactly! Ideas are everywhere, and sometimes the simple ones are the most effective.
When you look at your concept, think about what it could be. I could take this as it is and make a Modernist painting. I could line up appropriately-sized objects and create a still life composition to draw, paint, or photograph.
I started out with a simple, literal interpretation: I made it into a three-dimensional form, it could be an entranceway into a building. The empty spaces gradually get smaller, transitioning a person from "outside" to "inside".
As I was drawing that, the angles made me wonder what it would look like if I took two of my concept sketch and rotated one 90 degrees. I sketched it out quickly and got a pattern that reminded me of tartan.
To refine it a little more, I made a more finalized drawing in Photoshop. I could print this out as digital art, paint it (which might be interesting with some really texturized paint), turn it into a woven or knitted fabric, or use it as a layout grid for a graphic design.
As I was thinking about how I could knit that (I know nothing near enough about colorwork to puzzle that one out, but maybe something reminiscent of the
Ball Band Dishcloth), I had another brainstorm: Lace!
This is just a quick, sketched chart I drew that alternates solid stockinette rectangles with rectangles of yarn-overs, the simplest type of lace. The rectangles change in size and frequency, just like the original concept sketch. The next step here would be to swatch this and see if the proportions work out, and to alter it if they don't.
Ideas are everywhere. And design is just a methodical approach to "playing" with ideas, moving them around and changing the color and seeing what concrete things you can make of an abstract concept.
A great way to get visual ideas into a workable format is to take a photo of something (a line of trees, spokes in a wheel, the shape of a building) and trace the important lines and forms. Then you can work with that and see what comes of it. It takes practice, but you'll find that the more you do, the easier things get.
I have been incredibly bad about blogging lately, and I know it.
I worked multiple gigs every weekend in May (thank God that's over), had Y in town for a week, and graduated from college. Not much time left for knitting, and to top it off I'm in the middle of mostly long-term projects that haven't been good for photographing or writing about. I'm sure you don't care that I completed another inch on the damn sweater.
Soon I'm going to have the button band placed on Surface, and there will be photos of that. I'm so glad I did the shaping because it fits perfectly. Now I just have to make sure I don't change sizes between now and winter.
Now back to my regularly scheduled not-posting-unless-there's-something-interesting-to-say.
That's all of it. Yup, all of it. Except the balls that are currently attached to projects.
Technically "Flash Your Stash Day" is April 1, but have you ever seen me do anything like the rest of the world? I like to think of myself as 11 months early, not one month late.
Just thought it seemed like a good time to talk a little bit about what it is I "do".
I'm currently working as a portrait photographer. I won't name the company, but suffices to say that it's a national chain that specializes in school events. Basically, I go to graduation or award ceremonies and take 200-500 pictures 2 seconds apart with the constant knowledge that if I miss someone, the boss and the people who have to match photos to names will have my head. Sounds glamorous, huh?
It's funny that when most people think of a photographer, they think of either National Geographic or fashion. And sure, there are people who get to travel to exotic places, meet African tribesmen, or do conceptual shoots with beautiful women and 50 pounds of fake hair and makeup. But for every Nigel Barker there's probably a thousand people like me who travel to the middle of Cow Country, Florida, meet biology teachers, and shoot 17-year-old boys in khaikis against an American flag backdrop.
That may sound like I'm complaining, but I'm definitely not. I love my job, it's just not "as seen on TV". I love that my team changes every event, so I get to meet and work with new people all the time. And sometimes the happy is infectuous.
I went to a ceremony today at a primarily-Black, Christian university. They had fantastic music. I'm a jazz lover, and was really impressed by the jazz combo. As they were playing, I happened to catch a glimpse of the monitor, and when I saw the saxophonist playing his heart out with a background of gospel singers dancing and waving their arms? I'm a complete sap, and I lost it. I was grinning like a maniac and tearing up at the same time. Something about gospel music just does it to me (but that's a story for another time). You've heard of "making a joyful noise"? Well they made it.
Things like that make it impossible for me to not love my job. Although there are definitely things that try. Next time I'll tell you about being eight deep in the weeds.
