Bird of Paradise

A couple of years ago, we were visiting my brother Phideaux (www.bloodfish.com ) in California, and were excited to see how the little plants I grew in my greenhouse were giant hedges and trees in the yards of Hollywood. My brother had a hedge of Jade along his house, where I had a few foot-high plants. We saw Bird-of-Paradise plants all over the neighborhood, as well as waist-high ferns and banana trees. Later, back in New York, we happened upon some BoP seeds for sale in the Bronx Botanical Garden shop, and wondered if we could grow them in our greenhouse. There were two inch long seeds with orange fuzz on them, and we planted them, kept them moist, and waited. And waited. After a few weeks, nothing happened. We googled, and found that the tough outer coating of the seeds had to be cut to allow them to germinate, so Peter made a few cuts with a razor blade, and we waited some more. After a month, success! Both seeds germinated, and threw up shoots, which turned into foot-long leaves on long slender stalks. We transplanted them into ever-larger containers, and a few years later had our own big leafy plants.
As we were moving, we had to decide what to do with them,and as we were going to be temporarily in a small condo, we could not take them.The new owners agreed to let us leave some plants, so we left them in the greenhouse.

Apparently, after the closing, the new owners discovered that one of the plants had finally bloomed! And he was gracious enough to share some photos of the marvelous flowers! We are so thrilled to see them! So, with permission, I share them. Maybe some day we will grow some more! But in the meantime I am so glad the new owners will enjoy the plants! And clearly the plants are happy, too!

Binding off

We found a buyer for our amazing house, which, now that I'm leaving and trying to find a new place to set down roots, taunts me with all the advantages it has. Lovely wide open spaces, yet plenty of closets and a huge and comfortable kitchen,close to train, town and parkways.. It will be difficult to duplicate this set-up elsewhere! Close to shops and my friends, yet private and leafy. I know the new owners will enjoy many years of fun here!
So, binding off is an odd phrase, isn't it? In knitting, it is where you finish the edge of the knitting by slipping one loop over another, and marks the end of a journey of creating a piece of cloth. Because most of my projects tend to be big and all in one piece, the binding off comes after a long acquaintance with a project and many hours spent knitting, designing, tweaking and sometimes ripping out and starting over! But if you consider the phrase itself, "binding off!" can also imply releasing the shackles and gaining freedom! So, in a way we are doing that also.
Here is my latest project: a vest knitted from a pattern by Brooke Nico in Vogue Knitting Fall 2010, #13 Lace Jacket. I left off the sleeves and made it a vest.

Onward to the next adventure!

Spring into summer

Our fickle weather has gone from spring right into summer, and back to spring several times already, so it is a challenge to know what to knit next! I have been finishing up two linen sideways cardigans, working on some infinitely boring stockinette pullovers, and playing around with some  fingering weight yarn that I got from the Eileen Fisher Lab store, which is selling some of the excess yarn ( on cones!) from their production. I fell in love with a grey linen and have been enjoying making a lace pentagon cardigan by Brooke Nico from Vogue Knitting Fall 2010 issue. As I am not using the yarn specified, I had to make some changes to the pattern, but it is a lot of fun and I think it will be interesting. The blue yarn is holding the space for the sleeves, which will be inserted when the body is done.
I also heard from a volunteer at Woodland Public Library who has been teaching crafts to students and ran across my website in a search for quilting information. She writes:

One of the girls in my group, Emily, found a great quilting resource during computer time that I thought I'd share with you, http://www.bedroomfurniturespot.com/bedroom-comforters-guide-to-quilting. 

So, I'm passing it along, and I am really proud to share my love of making great things with the next generation! Thanks, Heather and Emily!

Enjoy the weather...

Jelly Roll Quilt Racing

There is nothing like the deadline of a show to spur one on to making new work, and with it the attendant anxiety I have about that very process. I think for me, immersion into the particular way of thinking that I need for making art has been in short supply for several years, mainly because of the anxiety of selling the house and giving up my studio, which has been my refuge and my solace for the last 18 years. I have really enjoyed knitting, which is portable and procedural and unfolds very slowly, incrementally, in time. The timescale of knitting is different from quilting, because it is almost fixed. You can't really hurry knitting. It is always one stitch at a time, regardless of the complexity of the pattern or the color . Quilting, however, can be manipulated and you can vastly simplify and streamline and use shortcuts. I think I gave up knitting in the first place a long time ago because to arrive at a garment, it takes a lot longer if you create the fabric too. Why knit if you can buy fabric, cut it up and sew it together? But that digression will move in a different direction from my point today, which is: how fast can you make a quilt that is simple, fun and interesting to look at?

I ran across a jellyroll of batik fabrics which I had purchased a while ago at a show and thought I should make something out of that. In searching the internet for ideas, I ran across this : Jelly Roll Race Quilts http://blog.heirloomcreations.net/?tag=jelly-roll-races and  this:http://craftygardenmom.blogspot.com/2011/12/jelly-roll-race-quilt-tutorial.html I thought that was a fun idea. Then I thought it might be good to use up some of my collection of Kaffe Fasset and Jane Sassaman fabrics which I have collected over the years, in case I didn't like the quilt, so as not to use the actual jelly roll. LOL. I also didn't like the diagonals created by mitering the strips, though, so I pieced them on end and added blue squares between strips.So, here is my "Racing with Kaffe and Jane" quilt: 49inX 67in. which took me about 3 days including quilting. I used a pillowcase method to finish the edges so I could avoid binding it. It needs blocking, but I love how it turned out.

I also completed a quilt for my mother who is studying astronomy and loves to discuss galaxies and black holes. I thought she needed a new quilt! But this one took a lot more time due to the piecing and cutting of triangles.Now I still have to decide what to do with my jellyroll. And I have a whole box of Kaffe and Jane fabrics left, of course. ...

Gerald at 48

My brother Phideaux Xavier ( www.bloodfish.com ) sent me a link to a marvelous interview with Ian Anderson here: http://www.classicrockrevisited.com/interviewiananderson2012.htm. As a young person, I adored Jethro Tull and followed their music over the years. I made a few friends around my love of Ian Anderson's music, and recently was saddened to find one of them had passed away, as I went to share this article with her.It is always a shock to find yourself face to face with mortality and the possibility that our time is limited. We really never know what will happen to us, and how much time is left to finish all of our projects, complete our brainstorms and finally work on that magnum opus. Telling folks you love them is always big on the list, and as we never know, it is a reminder to make each day count. Goodbye, Pamela, and may you rest in peace.

Spring in February?

The weather today is a balmy 55 degrees F, and crocuses and hyacinths are coming up in my yard.

Certainly this has been the warmest weather I can remember for this time of year. I am glad for this, as our heating bills have been less! Leaving more money for yarn I suppose. Speaking of which, I wrote up and posted on Ravelry my pattern for Garter Stitch Circular Shrug, http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/garter-stitch-circular-shrug
which is a stash-busting pattern. I decided to offer it for free and see how many variations folks would make of it. Also I didn't do all the calculations , so I felt it was a bit of work for folks to figure out, thus, free..

I'm still working on patterns for a few other sweaters, but somehow writing them up is not as much fun as knitting them! I love the figuring-out-on-the-fly part but not the spreadsheet part...
In other news, I am still looking for the right buyer for my marvelous house, and will be on the RiverArts Artist Studio Tour this year. That should be fun.It is April 28th and 29th, 2012.  I plan to hang as many of my quilts as I can and have a kind of retrospective for myself. Perhaps I will make a few small new pieces also.

New Year Blues!

 For a change, I decided to work up some cowls and infinity scarves as the year came to a close. This first one is one skein of Misty Alpaca Chunky, which I overdyed with BlueGum dye. I love the bright blue color, and this one skein project is very easy. On a size 10.5 needle, Cast on 30 sts using a provisional cast on, and knit 30 sts. Turn and knit 30, then turn,* knit 15, wrap and turn, knit 15. Turn, knit 30 sts  4 times, repeat from * . When you have approx a yard of yarn left,and yarn is coming out at opposite end from beginning tail yarn,  remove provisional sts and place live sts on a needle. Here you can either do a 3 needle bind off, or graft by Kitchener stitch for Garter: which is as follows:( set up leave P front, P back), then work across row as follows:
Front needle:K off, P leave
Back needle:K off, P leave.

 Now, this seed stitch cowl was done with size 19 needles and 2 skeins of "Baby", a kind of big wool. A nice warm merino!

 This infinity scarf was made with 3 skeins of Bocciolo, which was a birthday gift from my friend Cara. I love how the yarn's bobbles of bright blue popped out! I used double moss stitch, which was loosely followed, as this was my knit-in-public knitting for a while, and some wine may have been involved. But I love this scarf!

My final project for December, shown here still in progress, was done with "Crazy Sexy Wool" by Wool and the Gang ( www.woolandthegang.com ), which also made the size 19 needles.Talk about instant gratification! This scarf took about 6 hours to knit, and was a lot of fun to watch grow. I have been having fun learning how to graft in seed stitch, and that formula is approximately thus:
front needle: opposite off, same on
back needle: opposite off, same on
with "opposite" meaning the reverse of how the stitch looks to you ( either K or P), and "same" meaning how it appears ( k or P).
So, Happy New Year to all of my faithful readers, and I hope 2012 brings you all health, peace and prosperity, but also joy and delight!