A WordPress Site

Restingmotion

  • Look what came…

    Look what came in the mail today!!!

    First of all there were not one, but two boxes!  The first was from Artfibers and contained the eagerly awaited Tesla.  There was also a box from Elann which contained this lovely angora (shown next to Tesla)

    Teslaangoraninty

    The angora ninety was purchased to make this sweater from Anny Blatt Book 195.

    The box from Elann also contained this:

    Socka

    This is destined to become the cover sweater from the Summer 2005 InKnitters:

    Inknitters

    Pardon the glare on the lower left corner.  I desperately needed a picture and the late afternoon sun is not cooperating — everything is either too dark or too filled with glare.

    I know I am crazy for ordering this.  Wasn’t I just saying that I hate ribbed sweaters and here I am committing to another.   Not only is it ribbed but it is knit on tiny needles using sock yarn.  What is wrong with me???  I AM rather intrigued by the sweater, although I don’t really know if I will like it once I have knit it.  I am not sure the stripes will turn out as nicely as they do in the photo, my more pessimistic self suspects not, but I only know that I need to knit it, or at least make an attempt.  It certainly costs no more than a night at the symphony and will give me many more hours of entertainment and hopefully pleasure (as well as frustration).  If I don’t like it, well I haven’t yet had trouble finding someone willing to accept a hand-knit sweater.  Someone will want it.

    Last, but not least, two new knitting magazines: 

    Phildarfall

    I haven’t studied them in depth yet, but i have already noted a few things of interest, although not necessarily in their original form.  Further perusal is definitely warranted. 

    All told, a successful run to the Post Office.

  • True Confessions

    Perhaps I should just confess that this is really a fabric acquisition blog masquerading as a sewing blog. 

    Here I am looking at all the fabric I haven’t sewed this spring and summer, and what do I do?  I BUY MORE FABRIC.  Perhaps it is just frustration because I am not sewing.  I could be sewing, but I am doing other things such as digging in the garden.  When I come I am too tired to stand at the cutting table and cut anything out.  Well, that is probably just an excuse.  I am just too tired and lazy period.  However, have chair, computer, and mouse and the world of fabric shopping awaits; it is much easier to buy the fabric and dream of sewing it than actually make something.

    Actually, the most recent fabric purchase was prompted by the dreaded (at least by my husband), drumroll here, swatch in the mail.  Of course when I checked the mail and saw the thick package from Michael’s Fabrics, I could hardly contain myself.  I checked the mail thoroughly but quickly, saw that there were no pink slips, normally cause for sadness as it means “shucks no packages”, and with glee slipped out the door, thankful that I did not have to stand in line but could escape promptly to the sanctity of my car.  As soon as the door was closed and I could pretend that I was in my own little bubble world, I ripped that envelope open and started fondling fabric – gorgeous fabric.  I am unrepentant.

    Brocade_1Isn’t she lovely??

    I considered going right home to call Michael immediately.  However, I let my responsible side take over and I ran my errands first.    I needed to go the Home Depot to get more spikes and bolts for the garden bed I am building as all construction has halted until the right materials are procured.  Once in Home Depot of course, I was temporarily distracted from fabric.  Who ever knew bolts and screws and metal and all that STUFF could be so fascinating?  Still I knew my brain was slightly addled when I started looking at a display of wires and cables wondering what kind of FABRICS they would make if I knitted them up.  I was especially taken by some thin stainless steel cable…. 

    I managed to wrench myself away from the cables, get through the checkout line, and rush home and call Michael.  The fabric, or at least a piece of it, is mine, all mine.  I have no idea what it will become.  I think I can waste a lot of time dreaming of the possibilities.

    On the other hand, I had better not dream about it too much tonight as I have hours of office accounting ahead of me.  I spent the afternoon in the yard with the drill bolting landscape timbers together and now I must spend the evening working and earning my paycheck so that I can conintue dreaming of fabrics.

     

  • Posh

    I am waiting for the extra skeins of Tesla to arrive.  They should arrive Tuesday or Wednesday.  In the meantime I needed a knitting project. 

    The criteria were simple:
        1.    easy fairly mindless knitting as I would need to do it in the car in the dark.   
        2.    skeins that did not need to be wound first.

    I chose this project:
    Vogue26summer1

    The pattern is sweater number 26 from the Spring/Summer 2005 Vogue Knitting.  I am using Stacy Charles’s Posh for the body of the sweater but I am using the recommended yarn, "Cosmos" for the border.  This is knitting up very quickly in seed stitch on size 10.25 needles.

    Here is my weekend progress:

    Vogue26summer2

    Sorry, the light is not perfect in this shot and it looks a little greener than it appears in real life.   I really like the color and the way this is turning out.  I see that this will go with many things in my fall werdrobe and I am already looking forward to getting it finished.  Of course, even though this is a spring yarn, the weather has to cool off a bit before I can wear this.

    I don’t expect to make as fast of progress on the front as it is going to be a busy week.  Besides Tesla will be arriving soon to tempt me away from this project and I am making painfully slow progress on my socks.  So far I guess I am more of a sweater knitter than a sock knitter.

  • Akris is selling some tailored jackets,simple in style, shoulder princess with inseam pockets on the front.  The jackets are lined but the edges of the jacket are entirely finished by serging outer fabric and facing together.
    Akris1Akris2

    I can’t decide if I would actually do this, I might, the finish is light and kind of modern.  But I am undecided.  I am convinced I would not pay $3800.00 for this jacket though.

  • Bard Weekend 2 — Copeland

    As usual, I am too overwhelmed by Bard Music to keep up with everything.  I obviously have a long road before I get up to journal-keeping-par.

    Saturday is already fading from my mind, of course it was fading before it began as I was very tired that day and was not impressed with the offerings.  Whether that is a statement on the quality of the program or the depth of my exhaustion, I haven’t a clue.

    Mike Seeger was interesting and enjoyable but by the end of the hour it was all sounding a little monotonous to me.  Peggy Seeger was a little too cute and folksy and I would have appreciated an intermission between after the first hour.  On the other hand the fact that there was none was probably good as I might have left.

    The afternoon concert was more interesting.  The high points were Walter Piston’s "Three Pieces, for flute, clarinet, and bassoon" and Stravinsky’s "Suite from L’Histoire du Soldat".  The Irving Fine and Eliot Carter woodwind quintets were marred only by the performance, which I found to be rather pedestrian, surprising since Marc Goldberg and Randolph Bowman are both such excellent musicians who seemed to work well in other groups.   Perhaps I was too tired, I cannot put my finger on the exact problem, but the Bard Woodwind Quintet did not seem to work well as a group.

    The evening program did less for me.  For the most part I could have skipped the entire first part of the concert.  I enjoyed Samuel Barber’s “First Essay, Op 12" but otherwise thought the rest of the program was a waste of time.  George liked the Chavez though.

    The second half of the concert more than made up for the first however.  In an all-Copeland program, the orchestra played, Statements, Quiet City, and Billy the Kid.  All three were excellent.

    This morning I was mentally more awake, and if I had not been, the absolutely wonderfully stimulating and charming panel discussion by contemporary composers would have woken me up completely.

    The afternoon program was wonderful:
        Lukas Foss    Capriccio, for cello and piano (1948)     beautiful
            Arthur Berger  Duo, for cello and piano (1951)            a little boring but well played
            Benjamin Britten    Folk Song Arrangemenets, "The British Isles"  neither George nor I liked the                                     tenor, Philippe Castagner but the songs were nice.
            Ned Rorem    Echo’s Songs, Stopping by woods on a Snowy Evening     same as above
            David Del Tredici    I Hear an Army (1964)    Awesome, specatuclar, beautifully sung.  Frightening.
            John Cage and Lou Harrison    Double Music (1941)    What a great piece, really cool.
            Pierre Boulez    Flute Sonatine (1946)   Outstanding performance of a difficult piece.                Unfortunately   Boulez leaves me cold every time.
            Aaron Copland    Piano Quartet       lovely, well done.

    The evening concert was also a rousing success and great conclusion to the festival.  Botstein played the original version of Copland’s Third Symphony and it seemed perfect to me.  I am not familiar enough with the work to remember the fourth movement without the 10 bars that have been eliminated.  I think it must be a shame.  Too much is never enough, after all.

  • Bard Program 6

    No chance of recovering my thoughts on Bard Weekend one.  I have notes but my thoughts are lost forever.  Music, lectures and bed pretty much summed up my weekend.

    Weekend 2 has begun and Friday night’s concert was wonderful. The concert opened with Copland’s El Salon Mexico, as scored for two pianos by Leonard Bernstein, played by Richard Wilson who is a good pianist, and Blanca Uribe who is an excellent pianist.  Wonderful, wonderful work.

    The remainder of the first half of the concert did not do as much for me, the performances were excellent for the most part, the works less than inspiring.  The content is already sliding into oblivion.

    The intermission served as a much needed stretching-break and wake-up-call for the second half, which was spectacular and well worth waiting for.

    Mario Davidovsky’s Syunchronisms #9 was wonderful and fascinating even if the computer generated portion was a tape and therefore dictated the pace of the concert — George’s main objection.  Something always dictates the pace;, in a purely human concert it might vary more, but the interaction of man and machine generated music is still fascinating and the work was melodic, complex and interesting.  This was a tour de force and Curtis Macomber was spectacular.

    He was followed by more spectacular playing by  Blanca Uribe, who performed the Danzas Argentinas by Ginastera.  The audience was on its feet. 

    Villa-Lobos string quartet #17 was incredibly beautiful and the closing Ginastera songs were wonderfully performed by Lauren Skuce, whom we heard last year at Shostakovich, and who still strikes me as excellent, although her facial expressions somehow seem to be not in concert with the music she is singing some of the time. 

    Odd thing to notice.

  • Tesla

    It’s time to start a new project.  I have been itching to start this:

    Tesla

    The yarn is Tesla from Artfibers.  It is a really neat stainless steal cable with cotton nubs throughout.  I have been wanting to knit it since I got it in May, except that I just couldn’t get my mind around it…I didn’t know what I wanted to knit…it was to hot… it required too much thought… other inspiration hit…and so on.  You know how it is.

    After going to the Cooper Hewitt to see the Extreme Textiles exhibit I was reminded that I wanted to knit this by a really neat swatch of knitted stainless steel which we were allowed to touch and fondle.  This experience re-kindled my fingers’ need to be knitting Tesla and they have been eagerly awaiting the opportunity.

    Remembering Claudia’s comments on her sweater knitted out of this same yarn last spring, I started playing around with guage and decided to go much smaller in guage than that recommended on the yarn label.   I ended up knitting on size 7 needles and as the guage got tighter, I kept thinking I would knit the Adrienne Vittadini sweater shown next to the yarn swatch above, from the Summer 2005 book.  It is knit in garter stitch and I like the firmness of the Tesla yarn in garter stitch.  The simplicity of the shape should be nice with this yarn, at least I hope it will.  The biggest advantage is that the bottom of the sweater is knit in the round (yeah no seams) and then the sleeves are knit (flat unfortunately) up to the yoke, at which everything is picked up and knit together in the round to the neckline.  I am hoping this will work really well with this yarn, and if not, well, life is an experiment, right?

    Of course, life is not problem free, and I woke up at 3 AM suddenly thinking I might not have enough yarn.  I managed to lure myself back to sleep, but first thing this morning I was in the sewing/knitting room, looking at how much yarn I had and how much yarn I would need.  The nice people at Artfibers tell you right on the label how many yards it takes to knit 1 sq foot in the recommended guage.  Given that information it is easy enough to extrapolate how much yarn I would need in my guage — bad news.  I have just slightly more than half the yarn I need.    Of course they were getting 12 stitches and 19 rows to 4" whereas I am getting 19 stitches and 33 rows to 4".  It was too early then to call California so I had to wait.

    Meanwhile I fretted.  Should I start the sweater anyway, what if the new yarn is too far off in color, if the dye-lots are totally different?  It does have a good bit of hand-dyed variegation in the yarn.  Will the new yarn blend in?  I started looking for a new project.

    I did call, more yarn is on the way!  Hoorah!  They think it will not be a problem and now I am back to decisions.  Should I blithely forge ahead with Tesla or should I start something else.  I have decided that Tesla on size 7 needles is not a knit in the dark project, or a knit when not paying attention project either, the little thin strands of steel are too easy to drop.  So another project it is.  Tesla for home and "pay-attention" time.  and another more mindless project for other times.  Project to be announced.

  • McCarthy and McEwan

    Simultaneously reading Saturday  by Ian McEwan and No Country for Old Men  by Cormac Mccarthy is proving to be an apt comparison.  I did not intend to read them at the same time but when the Mccarthy arrived today I couldn’t help but dip in.  Soon I was hooked.  Mccarthy’s prose is almost the opposite of McEwans, spare, harsh almost as opposed to McEwans gorgeous lines.  But both writers write beautifully and evocatively, drawing you into their worlds.

    These worlds are quite opposite, but yet…..

    The novels are not as different as they might seem. 

    More to come.

  • A little bit of fluff

    A simple scarf in anticipation of the winter which is yet to come, and we know it will.

    Scarf2

    Gedifra Barocco, 2 skeins.  Scarf is approximately 7" by 42". Knit on size 15 needles.  Very Fast; no thought required. 

    Sometimes that is the best kind of project.

  • Phildar Shell Finished

    It’s Done!!! And it looks wonderful. I love the way the ribbed shaping works as well as the sewn-on armbands, although more about that later. 

    Matilda is modeling here, so you can get a better view of the side and arm shaping, she is far less modest about pointing cameras at her underarms.

    Phildara12

    The overall ribbing of the back holds the body nicely (of course it may also show off any asymmetricalities, but it is not as bad as a feared):

    Phildara13

    Just ignore the sun over my shoulder, you actually get a better view of that shoulder below:

    Phildara14

    The join at the arm band is not perfect, but I am not going to be that fanatic about the whole thing.  I love the fit of this sweater.  The fit around the arms did not work out as well, for me at least as I had hoped from the pattern.  The two ends of the arm bands were definitely shaped and when they were joined together at the underarm and the shoulder seam the arm band had a definite longer side, to be attached to the sweater, and a shorter side.  Unfortunately on me, it was not quite short enough on the short side and the the arm openings gaped a little lot.  Since most of the gaping was at the bottom and the back I disconnected the bands and reknit the bottom bits using short rows to make the outer edge even shorter than in the original pattern.  I really didn’t measure this, I just kind of knit it on Matilda. 

    The right shoulder, the one shown above came out very well.  The left actually needs more work, there is still a good bit of gaping at the lower back and upper front of that shoulder, but I was having trouble putting in even more shaping without distorting the lines of the ribbing.  This would need to be completely reknitted.  I have made a note in the pattern for future reference, but it really isn’t that bad now.  I am going to see how it goes, wear it a couple of times and see if it bothers me.  My inclination at this point is that it fits pretty well and I am just fretting over details that no one else will notice.

    If you take a look at the front and back photos you can see a bit of wobbling in the left armhole edge that indicates where it doesn’t lie quite right.