She did it!

 

Sally came in yesterday to put the finishing touches on her Fair Isle sweater. The pattern is from Ann Feitelson, The Art of Fair Isle Knitting. Sally started her Fair Isle odyssey in last fall’s Focus on Fair Isle class and is the first of the group to finish. This hasn’t been blocked yet, so it will look even nicer once that is done. The biggest thing that Sally learned is that she became a much better FI knitter as the project progressed. Her tension evened out and is now just about perfect. She knit the sweater over a 3 month time period whilst knitting several other “quickie” projects.

 

Inspired? Sign up for the next Focus on Fair Isle class that starts in the fall.

Stranded

 

I think Mariah and I were initiated to true-island-living the last couple days. We were scheduled to leaveBois Blanc Island yesterday afternoon, but nothing was moving – not the ferry, nor the airplanes, just wildlife to the bird feeder and corn pile. So, we hunkered down and enjoyed the majesty of winter . . . even if it was the middle of April!

 

One thing we did was take advantage of the light and the snow to get some photos for the patterns I have been working on. My lead-in photo is from the end of the shoot when Christa and I were playing. Notice that she has no shoes on! Neither did I, which will not surprise my mother, but most of the rest of the world thinks the two of us are a bit touched. If walks on green grass make your toes feel alive, just think how alive you feel from snow! Christa is wearing a knitted garment of her own design (I hesitate to give it a name!), the hat we teach as our beginning knitting project and a pair of felted mittens from Stonehedge Shepherd’s Wool. The latter two items will soon be available for purchase.

 

 

When I say we were socked in, check out this photo. Usually you can see all the way across the lake to Cheboygan. Yesterday you could barely see the lake at all!

 

 

Actually, it was a good thing we couldn’t leave yesterday because the night before I spent most of the night knitting and I needed to recover! I had started the baby blanket, but did something I tell my customers never to do: I didn’t familiarize myself with the stitch pattern well enough before beginning to knit. I’d made more than one mistake in the first eight rows, so I ripped and decided to swatch it more so I could understand exactly what was happening with the pattern. Boy, am I glad I did. Turns out, the diagonal crepe stitch skews because of all the right twists and YOs. I hadn’t knit enough the first time around to see it. Back to the drawing board: Barbara Walker’s first two books. I knew it before, but I really know it now – stitch photos in books only get you in the ballpark. There is no replacement for knitting them yourself and seeing what happens to the pattern and the selvedges. After many false starts, I decided upon a cross stitch knit pattern from Book 2. It is thick and fluffy, doesn’t skew (ssk and k2togs are balanced), eats up yarn and has a stitch count of 32 stitches in 4 inches on size 5 needles. Boy do I have some knitting ahead of me!

 

It’s cloudy but clear today. Now that it is light out, I can see Cheboygan. I only hope we aren’t too far down in Great Lakes Air’s flying queue!

I’m going to be a Grandma!!!

 

That was the BIG NEWS over the weekend. Peter, my oldest who married Jeannine last May, called on Good Friday as Mariah and I were on our way north for a week and shared their wonderful news. So, of course, almost the first thing I think of is “I don’t have any yarn.” Or needles. Or a pattern. After fretting for a few minutes, I realized that my next stop already was Stonehedge Fiber Mill and Deb has some lovely superwash fingering weight wool that I knew would be perfect for the task at hand. Once I got to mom and dad’s I surfed the ‘net trying to find a pattern, but nothing with a free pattern jumped out at me, so then I went to mom’s old knitting pattern stash. I found a pattern that I could modify for these Aran booties. I was happy and they certainly were a quick knit. But, I picked up way more yarn that that needed for booties from the mill, so when I arrived at Bois Blanc Island (where we’ve been since Easter Sunday), Christa and I started sampling from the Barbara Walker treasuries. Finally we found a crepe stitch that is almost a brioche stitch in that it is thick and cushy, but not too holey for a babies little fingers. So I swatched. Worked out the pattern and cast on last night. There’s not enough to show of it yet, but I’ll post its progress. They have decided not to learn the sex of the baby, so the blanket is also natural in color. I think it will be quite elegant.

 

As many of you know, a week on the island is always productive for me. This is the first time I’ve brought Mariah for an extended stay. We’ve played Monopoly twice (we’re one-one) and taken some nice walks. This morning she asked me how come I was working on the computer, “wasn’t I on vacation?” Christa educated her, or at least tried to, that what I am doing here is fun! These photos are from our walk Easter Monday. I do believe there is something inherently wrong about temperatures in the 20s in April!

Today is work-on-patterns-day. I spent the last two days a) recovering from the “real” world, b) getting Knit Michigan paperwork ready for 2008 and c) discussing Christa’s new love: double knitting and the design possibilities. The Spring Fiber Retreaters will have an opportunity to see her experiments and the double knit vest for Shelby that she is working on. Of course, all the work is in alpaca and it is drop-dead gorgeous. We will be scheduling a double knitting design workshop at Heritage in the new year for those of you that would like to experience this fun way to think about and experience knitting.

 

Tomorrow Mariah and I fly off the island and head to northern Illinois to see Peter and Jeannine. We’re driving “over the top” so have quite a long drive ahead of us – hopefully we’ll find a few knit, antique and yarn shops along the way.

Like Ducks to Water

What a weekend we had. Becca and I spent the weekend learning about weaving on Jacquard looms. If you aren’t familiar with this type of loom, they are considered the earliest computer (c. 1801) and are commonly used to weave images and complex patterns. They wove many of the old coverlets – those with eagles and flowers on them. Nowadays they are often used for “art” weaving and for creating short-run specialty fabrics for designers. The looms are powerful, complex beyond comprehension for most of us, expensive, and totally FUN!

 

What’s really interesting is that I went to the class because I thought Becca was interested and she went because she thought I wanted to go. Either we are way too polite or we know each other better than we know ourselves! Neither of us had an inkling what we were getting ourselves in for or how we would feel at the end of this experience.

 

Turns out we both took to it like, well, ducks to water! My background set me up perfectly for it: two years at the Center for Creative Studies studying photography, 20 years of graphic design, and my love of weaving. Becca’s love of weaving and her natural curiosity suited her just fine, too. Jacquard weaving is all about the computer. Throwing the shuttle is nearly an afterthought. In fact, there are several companies that will take your digital file, weave it and send back a piece of fabric.

 

The process (much simplified) we followed is this: 1) select an appropriate image or create a small design that will be repeated to create on overall design, 2) prepare the image in Photoshop by sizing it to the correct image area (each pixel = one thread intersection) and putting it in the proper color mode and file format, 3) open the image in JacqCAD and reducing colors via the posterizing feature until up to 12 colors remain 4) assign an eight shaft weave structure to each of the colors based on the value of the weave structure and your artistic desires 5) cut the weave structure into the image to make it permanent and ready for weaving – at this point it is a purely black and white image, with black representing lifted warp threads and white the visible weft 6) take the file to the loom’s computer and weave.

 

Here’s a short photo story about our weekend:

 

 

Becca weaving on the TC-1. Check out her bare feet! Isn’t there something inherently out of place about weaving on a $50,000 loom in your bare feet?!

 

This is a view of the loom from the side. How would you like to thread all those heddles? Actually, this loom is only threaded about once per year with 30 to 40 yards of warp, generally one warm and one cool color, every other thread. When the warp is changed, the threads are knotted together and pulled through the heddles so that threading doesn’t have to begin “from scratch.” The sett of this loom is 45 epi.

 

Here’s my weaving coming around the front beam. I wove a picture of my daughter, Mariah (from a photograph taken by Scott Orser, Orser Photography – it’s Mariah’s favorite photo from a sitting we did last fall), a “blanket” showing blocks of different possible weave structures, and stones in Lake Superior at White Fish Point (not visible here). The weaving following mine is a landscape – the bottom is at the right, it is tall and narrow – belonging to Urban, from Wayne State’s fiber department.

 

Here’s what they look like hanging on the wall after we cut them off the loom. A total of six different image areas measuring 1320 ends by 280 picks. Sizes vary depending on how hard you beat and the diameter of the thread used.

 

Here’s a close up of one side of Becca’s. That’s her mom and brother. She was a big heavy-armed, giving the images a big of a squish from top to bottom. The Jacquard-circus-mirror trick!

 

 

Here’s a close up of Mariah interpreted in fabric.

 

So, now Becca and I are trying to figure out how and when we can take the next step in our Jacquard education. At EMU this is a nine-day course held in the summer. There are three levels to achieve. After we take the next class, we will be able to rent the loom. Until then, we can practice getting files ready for weaving in Photoshop and doing lots of studying, reading and color work.

Quack, quack!