Oregon-grape

Oregon-grape

Originally uploaded by fireflowerknits

These are growing right outside my door. They are called Oregon Grape or Oregon-grape to differentiate from true grapes. They are the berries of the Oregon state flower. A book I have says that the berries are edible, but tart. Apparently they can be used for making jelly or homemade wine. I don’t think I’m going to try it this year.

In other news, I have finished spinning the roving from before and now I need to set the twist before I find out how I am doing as far as making knitable yarn. Hopefully I’ll find time for that soon. It has to be in the early morning, though, because otherwise it is just to hot to do anything that involves simmering in hot water. I am also working on a lace motif for an anniversary shawl for my parents. I am cobbling together a couple of patterns from Barbara Walker’s stitch treasuries to come up with a border containing thirty roses in honor of their thirty years together. Hopefully the light and the children will cooperate so I can post a picture later of my prototype motif. Right now I am thinking of a 60″ diameter round shawl with a center motif, a simple ground, a rose border, and then a beaded edging. I haven’t decided whether I want a Pi-style shawl or one with evenly distributed increases every few rounds. Anyway, it’s nice to get into the creative design side of things, in the midst of working through the Liesel chart where I am merely following someone else’s design.

Uncooperative

I have attempted to photograph my Liesel scarf, but it is not cooperating. Quite honestly, it is not a terribly cooperative project in general. It gets a certain amount of credit for being pretty. It gets credit for using up some green Plymouth Baby Alpaca DK which Bear* gave me for my birthday a couple years ago. But I like projects worked from charts to allow me to attain a sort of flow state after a while when I have memorized the chart. This lace pattern has patterning on both sides. It has knit stitches on wrong side rows which move around from row to row. It is not symmetrical, so I cannot simply look at the first half of the chart, then match it in reverse for the second half. I have to look attentively at the chart on every row, count stitches, use my row counter, and honestly, all that to make an alpaca scarf in the middle of summer when we are having near record heat. I am not terribly motivated but I refuse to be defeated. Besides, it is pretty, and I know that come fall when my husband, Bear, wants to go on long walks through the woods in what for my desert-raised self is freezing cold weather, it will look terribly fetching to have a length of soft, elegant, green leaves wrapped around my neck. However I take issue with this, which suggests that this is a four hour knit. 200 yards or so that it may be, I am expecting this to take at least three weeks of knitting time, because of the time it takes to stop and check the chart and count stitches and double check that I am on the right row of the pattern. I will commend it to you as a nicely done free pattern complete with chart which is great for stretching one’s lace-knitting and chart-following skills. I will also confess that my knitting time adds up to about one interrupted hour each day. Your mileage may vary.

* Web alias used to protect the privacy of the innocent .

Learning the spindle, trying to find a balance

New Toys

Originally uploaded by fireflowerknits

I love my new spindle. It came from Black Sheep Gathering, it’s a Spinner’s Choice purpleheart top whorl spindle and it weighs 1.9 ounces. It is great fun to play with. I feel like I did as a child spinning a top. I love the idea of being able to make yarn from fiber myself. I am nervous about the details at this point, although Priscilla Gibson-Roberts’ book is very helpful. My initial efforts are amazingly kinky and overspun, but I have faith that I will get the hang of it with time.

Right now I am really struggling with the amount of time and attention required by my amazingly energetic eight-month-old son. He is beautiful, charming, and sweet, but he is slow to settle down for naps and wakes easily. He doesn’t always let me get as much sleep at night as I would like, and he makes it hard to have time for the handwork I love during the daytime. The laundry and dishes would be neglected to an appalling degree if not for my husband’s diligence.

I was raised in a very traditional family, with very traditional standards for what women should do, and what made a woman valuable. This article from Abby about her childhood in Peru really resonated with me in a way that surprised me. I am often very torn between feeling lazy for not being focused or consistent about housekeeping, and needing to be free of the constraints of traditional homemaking in order to be creative, and in order to stay sane. The same perfectionism comes through when I approach something new in the fiber world. It’s hard for me to allow myself time to make mistakes while learning a new skill. My yen for perfection pushes me to learn better ways of doing things, but it can also stop me in my tracks. Sometimes if I can’t do something perfectly, I’d rather not do it at all. I’m still learning when to let go, and when to push myself to work harder, learn better, and at least approach my ideal.

Honestly I like the feeling of a more relaxed household, of a place where the children are more important than keeping everything spotless, where creativity is held in higher regard than constant perfection. When I’m feeling relaxed about things I finish a lot more knitting than when I want everything to be just so. Sometimes finished but imperfect is ok with me. Sometimes I go back weeks or months later, rip it all out, and start all over rather than keep something around our tiny apartment that I’m not happy enough with to wear or use or give away. Maybe eventually I will come to find a balance. I hope so.

E-mail from Meg Swansen, and the Campaign for the Reprinting of “Knitting Lace”

This morning I recieved this e-mail from Meg Swansen. Very exciting.

Dear Saralyn,

The copyright holder is the Brooklyn Museum and I have had a number of interactions with them (alas, the author has no influence at all)

There have been several promises to discuss my offer … but there has never been a follow-up.

I last heard from them at the end of 2006 (they were going to see if the film was available from Taunton press) — but since then and my notes have been unanswered.

Meg
Meg Swansen

www.schoolhousepress.com

The occasion for this e-mail was an inquiry I sent to Schoolhouse Press about the book “Knitting Lace” by Susanna Lewis. This is a highly sought-after knitting lace reference which is sadly out-of-print and goes for upwards of $140 on Amazon.com and similar book selling websites. Meg informed me that the copyright for “Knitting Lace” is held by the Brooklyn Museum. Apparently Susanna Lewis has no say in the matter, and permission to reprint must be obtained from the Brooklyn Museum. I propose to start a letter writing campaign to persuade the Brooklyn Museum to permit Meg and Schoolhouse Press to reprint “Knitting Lace”. I have sent an e-mail requesting more information from the Brooklyn Museum, and I will post more when I receive their response. In the mean time, anyone who is interested in helping to persuade them to allow Susanna Lewis’ “Knitting Lace” to be reprinted by Schoolhouse Press, should e-mail me at fireflowerknitsATgmailDOTcom. Clearly, please replace “AT” with @ and “DOT” with .

Hello world!

This is a test post.