Fiber Arts

Make’n’Tell Day 10: Pedi on My Piddies

~ Lola ~ Leave a comment

Spring has begun sprunging here in the Northeast, so I’m back to flipflops for the duration. Which means I need more than basic red on my toes. It’s been awhile since I did a fun design, so hey, there it is. It’s really subtle, which I’m not sure if I’m pleased with or not. But I’m not changing it now!

img_20160311_081725201.jpg

ALSO, I re-did the two rows I ripped yesterday plus a few more, and have now completed the first mosaic section. YAY ME! (I’m actually writing this before it’s done. Let’s see if I’m prescient or just indulging in some wishful thinking.)

And in other, non-makey news, I have a big hole in my mouth (no, you don’t get a picture of it). This one tooth has been a problem for YEARS. I’ve gone from fillings to root canal to post & core with crown…and the other day the crown popped off and I swallowed it. Ulp. To make matters worse, my beloved dentist (who did all the recent work on the tooth) hurt his back a few months ago and hasn’t returned to dentistry. So I went to his associate, who tells me the reason the crown fell out is because the tooth broke, and now there’s not enough tooth to mount a crown on. My options are: gaping hole, bridge, implant. Oh, and by the way, the remainder of the tooth needs to come out and it’ll have to be a surgical extraction because the root has fused to the jawbone. GOOD TIMES. Good, very expensive times.

Now, my aforementioned beloved dentist would totally cut me a deal on the implant (or bridge, but I’ll probably eventually go implant b/c it’s lower maintenance and only a couple hundred bucks difference which at that point isn’t worth quibbling over), because he’s awesome like that and even though it’s not his fault he always took responsibility for when his dentistry didn’t stand the test of time (seriously, though, it’s not him — it’s this tooth). But the new guy has no reason to do that, which I totally understand — it’s just irksome because I’d be going to my guy if he was available.

On the plus side, though, it’s not at all painful, so it could definitely be worse. I mean, it’s going to be painful when I have the extraction, so I have that to looks forward to, but at least it’s not an emergency type situation. Small favors and all that.

Make’n’Tell Day 9: The Little Things

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image

No post for yesterday. I swallowed a crown and, well, dealing with that took up most of my free time.

Today I just did a couple of rows on my shawl and a rough re-work of part of the tattoo I’m getting started Saturday. You can see a bit of the full rough under the tracing paper — the tat is going to be quite a bit different from my sketch, but I’d planned for that going in so that’s fine. I met with the artist last week, and I’m really excited to see how he reworks my ideas. We’re doing the line work Saturday, then we’ll fill in the color in a few weeks (I have to make sure I schedule for when I’m going to have a couple weeks off derby — don’t want to risk falling on it fresh!).

On the shawl, I screwed up the last two rows I did. It’s in the mosaic section, which really doesn’t read strongly with the yarns I chose, so I’m not sure it’s worth it to rip back. OTOH, if it does end up being more obvious, like maybe in the light where the solid is more gray than pink, it will always annoy the hell out of me. Sigh. Time to do some un-making.

Make’n’Tell Day 7: Too Tired to be Clever

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But I did get some knitting done. This is Emiliana by maliha designs. I’ve been working on it for awhile now, and I’m about halfway through. The slip stitch pattern is really simple but fun. Unfortunately, I think a lot of the mosaic pattern is getting lost because of the variegated yarn I’m using but we’ll see how it turns out. The best part is, I’m using two yarns from my stash! The variegated is Socks that Rock mediumweight in Tanzanite, and the “pink” is actually a color changing yarn that looks grey in some light. I got it at Rhinebeck a few years ago, and of course I can’t manage to put my hands on the label right now. Will update when I find it.

MnT Day 2: Midnight Run

~ Lola ~ 1 Comment

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You may notice that the time stamp on this post is a bit after midnight, so technically no longer “day 2” as such. But I haven’t retired for the evening yet, so I’m going to say it still counts. Edit: And then the damn thing didn’t post! But it was done and photo’ed and written. Thwarted by technology still counts.

That hot mess up there is a silk chiffon cowl. (I’ll update tomorrow with a pic of me wearing it — it’s actually really pretty. Updated!)

Cowl, worn by me
Please to enjoy my morning face. Also please note, because I feel this shows significant personal growth, there was a much better picture of me but the cowl didn’t look so great in that one.

This yarn (LB Collection Silk Chiffon) comes in one of a kind skeins, and I think this is my favorite so far (I’ve made 3. Or maybe 4.). It works up really quickly on size 50 needles, with a drop stitch row every 4th row. Also, it’s a good thing it works up quickly, because size 50 needles just suck. But! I’m happy it’s done, and I’m probably going to make more, too. They’re just so pretty!

Je suis Paris (et al)

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IMG_20151116_105015559Let’s get this out of the way first: I am sad also for those who died in Beirut, and in other terror attacks around the world. It is all senseless and terrifying. But the news from Paris touched me in a particular way, because what happened there reminded me so much of what happened on 9/11. Not just the attacks, but the aftermath and reactions of the others in and around the city. Although I have never been to Paris, it is familiar to me through books and movies, through friends’ recollections and shared stories. I can imagine vividly what the survivors are going through.

I first heard about the attacks when I got home from practice Friday night. I iced my knees and went to bed as usual, but when I woke up Saturday it really hit me. My mind was in a turmoil and I needed to do something, but I didn’t know what. I wandered out to my studio and caught site of a skein of red, white, and blue wool that had been sitting on the corner of a shelf for months, waiting to become something. I’d originally thought it would be something for Memorial Day or Veteran’s Day, but it didn’t. When it caught my eye Saturday, I knew this is what it had been waiting for.

This cowl is easy and repetitive, and it truly doesn’t matter a whole lot if you forget one of the plain knit rows or add an extra one — no one but you will ever notice. So it’s a good project to work on when you want to sit and contemplate what is going on in the world, or send good vibes out, or you just need something to do with your hands so that they’ll stop shaking from being so angry and sad all at once that this keeps happening.

Freedom Cowl

Materials:
  • Size 17 needles.
  • App. 80yds super bulky thick-thin yarn
Special Stitch:

k1w: Insert needle into stitch to be worked, wrap yarn around needle twice, pull through as normal to complete the knit st. On next row, work into only one of the wraps, dropping the other wrap as you work the stitch.

Pattern:

Cast on 13.

Row 1: k1, work 11sts k1w, k1

Row 2-4: knit

Rep rows 1-4 until desired length, ending on row 3.

BO and join short ends.

TBT: Sprung!

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Originally published on Tasteful Diversions May 2012.

Pretty!

To give my hands and arms a rest from the massive amounts of knitting I’ve been doing lately, I decided a little crochet was in order. Something quick and easy and fun and Spring-y was just what I needed. When I came across Veronica O’Neil’s Bird of Prey I knew I’d found my project.

Obviously for Spring I didn’t want to do it in plain black (though I am definitely going to in the future — I could use a plain black shawl and this one is so easy!) and I happened to have some Hometown USA in Dallas Grey handy. I really didn’t want just plain grey, though, so I thought I’d add some colorful fringe. One ball of Monterey Lime later, there were some pretty green accents around my shawl, and it was starting to feel downright vernal. It still wasn’t quite enough, though…those long green fringes seemed to evoke stems, so I hunted up an easy flower pattern and grabbed some random bright bits and bobs and set to.

I ended up alternating green and grey fringe — all green was just way too much — and the flowers are 8 different colors. I had originally thought to put some flowers in the middle of the shawl as well, but decided I was done making flowers like it just fine like this. A couple of notes on the flowers: I found it much easier to end up in the right spot if I joined the petal color somewhere other than the beginning/end of the flower center, and I only did a single petal on each flower rather than the double given in the pattern (I just didn’t do the second repeat).

If this doesn’t say Spring, I don’t know what does.

The flowers actually took two or three times longer than the shawl, which only took me about 3 hours. 3. Hours. I know, right?!?! Because I am super slow and this was superfast. Now you see why I’m going to make one in black, too. Heck, I might make one in every single color of Hometown USA.

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TBT: Easy Jersey Convertible Wrap

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Originally published as “Found It on the Internet #15” on Tasteful Diversions, August 09, 2012.

Oh, Pinterest. The delights you lead me to. This one was so easy…a rectangle of jersey fabric with a couple yards of t-shirt yarn sewn on to opposite corners. You can wear it as a skirt, as a wrap, as a top.

Grey/green wrap
So comfy on a sweltering day.
red wrap
This one is a bit longer and makes a great lightweight skirt — it can even be worn as a mini-dress.

You’ll need some jersey fabric, wide enough to wrap around your waist (or chest) about 1 1/2 times. The length of the fabric will determine the length of the skirt/top. The grey piece in the top pic is about 30″, and I flip it over at the top before I criss-cross and tie it when I wear it as a shirt. The red piece on the bottom is about 36″ and is a great longer skirt. Both pieces are 45″ wide.

Toe Pick!

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Okay, we don’t really have toe picks on roller skates. But we do use/end up on our toes a lot (well, the girls who know how to skate do, and I assume I’ll be doing those moves soon-ish), which can really wear down the boot. So much so that there are all kinds of toe guards out there, from plain strips of leather to super fancy custom caps (because even the fancy ones are much cheaper to replace than the skate boot). And while I was busy going through every single roller derby related Pinterest board, I came across a pattern for crocheted ones.

skate with crocheted toe guard

So now I have crocheted ones. I started with the basic pattern found here, but used a thicker, wool yarn and thus a slightly larger hook than she used (I used an F with a heavy worsted/light bulky because I still wanted it to be a really dense fabric). Because of this, of course my round count and stitch count changed slightly. I also found that I needed to make the toe stop opening on the same round as the first set of eyelets. And I think I should have/will go back and add a round or two above the second set of eyelets, because I’m afraid they’re going to rip.

They work up super fast (you could do a pair in an evening-ish), and I used scrap yarn (hence the not matching even a little bit) so they were essentially free. And they make me happy to look at. Win!

skates with crocheted toe guards
These in no way match, even a little bit. I think that just makes me love them more (and also not care so much if one of them gets destroyed).

In Which I Go All Fangirl

~ Lola ~ 1 Comment

You know how sometimes you read a bunch of stuff by someone and you agree with pretty much all of it and think they’re totally awesome-sauce and then you get a chance to not just meet them but take a class (or two) from them and you try not to build it up too much because how could they possibly live up to that but then you can’t help but build it up and you’re totally prepared to be disappointed and then they somehow WILDLY exceed even your ridiculously high expectations?

Amy Herzog is just that amazing (and very gracious about posing for a selfie with me):

amy herzog and me
Amy with her very professional and friendly smile, me with my OMGSQUEEE fangirl face.

I took two classes with her this weekend at the 1st annual Kent Needle Arts Retreat: Knit to Flatter and Mastering Mindful Modifications. I learned a TON, especially in the first class. (The second class was math-ier, which because of my job I actually have a pretty good handle on. But if you don’t spend all day playing with pattern numbers, she will walk you through what you need to know very gently and painlessly. Highly recommended. Also, it was nice to have my methods confirmed. 🙂 )

Knit to Flatter was all about how to choose the right shapes for your body, and how to emphasize (or not) the body parts you choose. This was 3 hours of listening to someone talk about bodies and body image and fit and how clothes work…all things that can be very uncomfortable to think about, much less talk about. But Amy manages to come at these topics in such a way that it feels really good to think about your body and what it is you expect from it and how to live with it and in it.

It’s not about camouflage, and it’s not about trying to make yourself look like someone you’re not. It’s about how to choose clothes and shapes that show off the parts of you that you like, and visually reshape the parts of you that maybe you’re not so fond of. It’s about looking at yourself honestly and not hating what you see, because we all have things we like and don’t like and want others to see differently. It’s incredible and eye-opening, is what it is. I walked out of that class feeling better about my body than I have in a very long time, maybe ever.

Thank you, Amy, for sharing your insights and techniques, and for letting me go all fangirl there at the end.

Amy Herzog has a website here — check out her books and also the awesome CustomFit site, where you can skip the math-y bits of customizing sweaters for your body’s needs. Have I mentioned that Amy is super amazing?