Rhinebeck 2007 Sweater WIP

I thought it might be fun to design and execute a sweater to wear to Rhinebeck this year. I had purchased 10 skeins of Claudia's Hand Painted Merino in a blue-green colorway that spoke to me and was aptly named "Caribbean Blue". This yarn sat in my stash for a while, until August when it was time to knit it.

An amalgam of many influences;I have been knitting a cardigan with cabled front, triangular upper back and shoulders, short row modular engineered to raglan form. Begun during a very long car ride to Vienna, Virginia for a Phideaux concert August 11, 2007 when I needed to start something fast. I began with a short stretch of the cable, then turned and started a triangular shape. I thought this might work, but decided to short-row it into a raglan shape so I could knit the body and sleeves on the straight of grain instead of bias. I liked how it was coming out, but I decided to use cables to nip in the waist and wrists a bit, and to see if I could make it flare at the hem by using some of the cable ideas in Debbie Bliss's Silver Belle sweater ( in VK 25th anniversary issue). I'm hoping to finish by Rhinebeck Weekend, and also hoping it will be wearable. Knitting is always exciting that way for me, as I kind of make it up as I go along! I plan to add a button band or zipper to the front, but I only have 6 nights of knitting left to do it! Wish me luck!

Leaf Lace Vest

After having a fun time knitting the Leaf Lace Shawl by Evelyn Clark from Fibertrends, I wondered if I could adapt the lace to a vest. I was enjoying knitting with the yarn, Schaefer's Laurel, a worsted weight cotton in interesting variegated colors, on size 9 needles, and now that I had the tension numbers, I could use that info to make a raglan vest. The result took one skein of Laurel ( 400 yards), and I knitted it entirely during the week I spent flying to Los Angeles and touring around Southern California to deliver my son Michael to his freshman year at Caltech. Lots of good memories are encoded in every stitch.

Folk Art Gala

The Folk Art Museum gave a lovely reception last night, despite the rain, which was well attended and gave some of us an opportunity to view the works created and meet some of the artists. it was a fun event, with lots of wine, yummy shrimp and wraps, and a docent-led tour of the amazing exhibit in the Museum. It is worth seeing, to appreciate the artistry and the history of the wood carvers and the papercutters who immigrated here and created the Coney Island Carousel among other works. I wasn't allowed to take photos in the Museum itself, and so I only obtained shots of the cases in the front hall and some of our works on display in the Lobby. A fully illustrated catalogue of the 32 works is being produced, however, and Ethan Gold, egould@folkartmuseum.org , who coordinated the event, promised that each artist would receive one at the end of the month. The actual auction is later this month, details at http://www.folkartmuseum.org/

Here is a photo of me next to the case holding my Lion.

Carousel Lion

The Lion has landed! He is done, in all his glittery beaded splendor. I painted the sides and back with orange acrylic paint, and gave the beads a final coat of glue. I'm pleased with the result, and I hope the patrons at the Museum of Folk Art enjoy him. I still need to affix a hanging apparatus i the back, but as this is a holiday, the stores are closed. He was fun to make, and I enjoyed the result a lot, despite using messy glue and paint. Will I do this again? Maybe...but I'd rather knit.

Lion in Summer part 2

Today the cats helped me finish the main beading of the lion. They were a great help, and stayed with me the whole afternoon. I decided to go with my idea of a fanciful carousel animal, and put a green and blue "blanket" under the saddle. I had some orange beads already strung, so used them for the front shoulders, but then came to the end of my stash of pre-strung orange beads. I thought it might be a nice idea to do the rest of the body in a random texture of orange irridescent beads, and so covered the rest with those. The feet needed some booties, and some yellow socks, so those were glued on also. I like the whole effect, literal and pretty as it is. As I was glueing, I thought of the many other possibilities for decoration, political statements and other directions I could have gone, but an orange lion seemed right for this rainy day, so here he is. Laying the beads in a uniform fashion took a huge amount of time,but it is fun to see how the patterns develop. I'm thinking I might paint the edges with black paint to give the piece a frame of sorts. Beading the edges seems impractical, and besides I used up all of the bead colors for the mane and the front quarters. Next time I'm going to work on the mouth and fill in the gaps. here is a detail of the piece:

Carousel Lion-first day

The Museum of Folk Art ( http://www.folkartmuseum.org ) in New York City has a fundraiser auction each year. Last year, they sent interested artists a blank doll and asked us to decorate it however we wished. I had fun creating a mermaid in a knitted skin, which was auctioned off. The event is a lot of fun; some of the artwork is quite elaborate and clever. This year the theme is "Carousel" and each artist was sent a wooden animal to decorate however we wish; the deadline however is in one month, so there isn't a lot of time to play around! I got the idea to bead my lion from my husband, who brainstormed with me about it when I opened the giant box. The piece is 21 X 15 inches, and about an inch thick. I was inspired by seeing the amazing work of Liza Lou, who covered ordinary settings in beads ( a kitchen, a back yard, a tool closet...). As I have a lot of beads, I though this would be interesting to do...as I don't usually work with it was a challenge to find a non-toxic glue which would be relatively easy to use. I thought hotmelt glue would be dangerous for my fingers, and was elated to find several glues at the craftstore which will work. Hopefully! I'm using Weldbond, which is a white glue made for glass, wood, etc. So far, the beads are sticking! I spent 5 hours today working on this part, and I'm enjoying the process, although it is painstaking and somewhat messy.
Here is my beginning, though, and I'm having a lot of fun laying out the beads. I hope they will stick! More in a few days...

Triangular Shawl Edgings

I've been fooling around with edgings other than garter stitch,on a triangular shawl, thinking that garter would not stretch as much as the stockinette-based fabric of the rest of the shawl.( Although sometimes perhaps you want this to happen so the thing stays on, but that is a different question...) I found that a 5 stitch edging of ribbing, e.g. PKPKP would have the same vertical stretch as the rest of the shawl, but not curl as a stockinette border would.. I started a shawl using this edge but haven't finished it yet, sorry. But so far, the edge is really nice.The ribbing kind of contracts like I-cord, but has the correct number of rows. And you can start it the way you do the usual 3 stitch garter-edged shawl, e.g.: provisionally cast on 5 sts, PKPKP, turn, KPKPK, etc, until you've done twice the rows needed for picking up on the edge, ( usually around 14 rows,) then pick up 7 sts along the edge of the strip you just knit, then undo the provisional cast on and pick up the 5 live sts. Now you'll have 17 sts on your needle, and you can start your shawl pattern. There is going to be a slight jog where the sts are 1/2 stitch off, but it isn't very noticeable and gets buried in the ribbing ( and is at the back of the neck anyway). Then you can start the pattern of the triangular shawl as usual, marking the 5 edge sts on both ends of the row as you would if doing a garter edge . See photos, and try it!