awayuq

thanks!

For all your nice comments on my studio. It was great fun to put together, and I spent most of the weekend there. Having a desk near the light makes so much difference! Having put up with makeshift arrangements for so long, it was fantastic to slip open a drawer, find a zipper; take a scrap of fabric over to another drawer, find matching thread; put my hands immediately on tape measures, rulers, and miscellaneous little tools. And put them back again, instead of leaving them out to get buried under scraps of cloth and balls of yarn. I also got a double layer of carpet padding and put my oriental rug over it, with the loom on top of the padding. I am hoping this will deaden any noise. The studio is actually a bedroom, and my downstairs neighbor sleeps right below. When things are going really well I sometimes weave early in the morning, but I don't know how much sound it makes... does anyone else have experience with this? Is two layers of carpet padding sufficient noise insulation for a 24" 8H loom?

The weekend's bounty is one and a half pairs of pants. The completed pair is pink and fuschia, I am wearing them today and enjoying them greatly. The half-done pair is lime green with white daisies, and I'm about even divided between thinking it's great and thinking it is hideous. It is, anyway, bright and cheerful.

High point of the sewing endeavors was attaching a patch pocket to the front of the pink pants. I matched the pattern so well that when I tried the pants on in the mirror I couldn't tell the pocket was there!

a wednesday odyssey

I love putting things together. In my next life I want to be an architect. Or a fine woodworker. For now, since I can't build additions onto my condo, I get thrills from putting furniture together. Besides the fact that one can get inexpensive things requiring assembly, it's about the only way anything larger than a breadbox will make its way into my rooms. I'm on the third floor and the stairs are a very narrow 29 inches, compounded by tight turns and all the s*** my second floor neighbor keeps in her landing.

My huge new year's present to myself is at once a chance to hammer and assemble and rearrange, and a chance to bring order to my studio. I bought lots of elfa drawers. Wednesday I stayed home from work and by 7:30 I was hopping with impatience, waiting for my downstairs neighbor to leave so I could start hammering and she wouldn't complain. Finally! I was free to wield whatever tools I liked. These drawers have metal frames and when hammering them together they sound like a not too mellifluous bell. Bong, bong, bong.... good thing I've been working out, my arms got plenty of exercise. Here's one of the first things I finished:

It's a little rolling unit with space for fiber, yarn, knitting projects, or whatever. That was about 10:30 am; I'd already put together something for the bedroom and four big frames visible at the edge of the photo. Shortly afterwards I tackled the immense task of taking things out of the studio to bring the drawers in. With the result:

Compare this photo to the first photo in the previous post. Nice, yes? I was so excited I couldn't stop to eat. I worked until three on cups of tea and a banana. Another happy addition to the family:

The desk is now situated near the window, and includes drawers. To fully appreciate this, consider that previously light from this windo was half blocked by an immense stack of large plastic storage bins. And the previous desk was only slightly more sophisticated than a door on sawhorses.

Then began the long, exhausting, messy work of reorganizing things. Taking stuff out of those plastic storage bins and reallocating it. I found things I'd forgotten I had. I'm quite ashamed to see how *many* things. Why do I have 50 zippers? Because I could never find one when I needed it, so I bought more. Howcome I have 8 spools of offwhite thread? Ditto. Why do I have two lengths of white handwoven twills? Must have forgotten the existence of one while planning the other. Why do I have six lengths of functional brown wool twill in different checks and textures? Geez. To my credit, I did throw a lot of stuff away (this scrap is roughly 2" x 3". What am I going to make out of that??) and gathered other stuff to donate. In the end, it turned out to be like this:

wall of color and texture! Wow! I am so happy. Here imagine me jumping up and down. I can't pass the room without going in to admire it. Being organized makes me feel so creative! Of course that wasn't the end; here's the desk

I am looking forward to working near the window. I now have places to put my french curves and rulers, which used to slide all over the place and get lost under piles of fabric. I can have notebooks close to hand, and patterns in the bottom drawers. Other reasons I love these new arrangements are

I can see what colors of thread I have! And I found more sock yarn. And laceweight yarn. Notice the drawer is not full. Room for more lace!

I can easily see the beautiful linen fabric I've collected over the years. May this be the year I finally sew some of it up!

And boy oh boy, I am thrilled to have a place for my zippers.

Cleaning up from this orgy of construction and reconstruction was not so fun! I must have made 15 or 20 trips up and down the stairs carrying box carcasses and packing paper out to the curb. First of course I had to excavate a place in the snow bank for the trash bags. But it was worth it. It's not something I want to do every week, but I am so happy! I love my new space! I love having a bookshelf just for textile books, and little clear stackable boxes in which to keep cotton fiber. I love being able to see my notions. Just as good is not having to see my warping sticks (they are in a corner between a bookshelf and the wall and the drawers). Everything fits, and I have so much fiber to spin and yarn to play with and fabric to sew I don't have to acquire anything for another 10 years. Having everything all clean and orderly makes me itch to get down to work and mess it all up again. I'm ready to PLAY!!

ENORMOUS self present!

Here is my studio:

Here is my living room, after invasion by 20 large UPS pacakages:

Here's the living room after most of those boxes were unpacked:

Can you guess what's coming? I stayed home while it was snowing and worked *all* day. More pictures soon...

what ho!

This new year started with good new things. May the trend continue. I just got back from a trip to Lima. It was great! It was sunny! I wore tank tops and short sleeveless dresses; I lay in the sun in my bikini. You can still see the line though it's fading fast. I worked hard, got montones of good data that I'm very excited about. Just before coming home I indulged in a few alpaca items for myself, including a casual turquoise cardigan with zipper and kangaroo pockets, a soft yellow scarf, and a turquoise stole with pompoms on the ends in various colors of blue. Lest you think I am selfish, all this was after I got gifts for my family-- a scarf for Mom, but most notably a large alpaca throw with a multitude of cable patterns for my brother and his wife. I shipped it the day after I got home; I do so hope they like it! They are difficult to buy for, because not only do they live on an opposite coast, and I've never seen their condo, but they claim to want nothing, and in truth their disposable income probably eclipses mine by several orders of magnitude. I hope they'll enjoy it at the very least because it comes from Peru, where I've spent a fair bit of time.

In an unusual spate of packing rationality, I made the radical decision to leave some of my knitting in the hotel storage in Peru. As I was putting together my things to go home, and looking at the balls of yarn scattered on the bed, I realized that the same balls of yarn have been carried back and forth to Peru at least three times. Three times! This is nonsense. It's not as if there's not more at home. Into the deposito with you. Ah, that felt good. I also left a shawl in progress, not because I don't want to finish it, but because I think I may only finish it in a period of enforcement when there is no other project available. It's the color that irks me, a sort of lavender. I'm intending to give it away, but still, given the choice, I'll always put some other color in my hands.

While I was away I made one green alpaca sock that will be forever lonely because I didn't like the way it turned out and I'm not going to make another one. I made one blue wool cabled sock, whose partner is down to the heel. A turquoise (funny how that keeps popping up) lace foot item is also on the needles. It is done with some of the wool crepe yarn of recent WEBS sale fame, and #0 needles. The crepe yarn has some elastine or lycra in it, so it is very bouncy. I am not sure that I love the nubbly texture with the lace stitches, but I don't really dislike it either.

I got home just in time for a blizzard. It is being compared to "the one in '78". I remember an Ohio blizzard in '78, in which my brother and I went out bundled to the eyebrows in ski suits and scarves (and of course once I got outside I immediately had to pee). We made tunnels in the drifts and pretended to be animals. We had a whole complex of caves constructed by the time everything melted. Some of the most fun I've ever had. Presently the snow on my back patio is up to my nose. Trust me on this, because I shoveled through it. There would be plenty of room in there to make a cave or two...

Be that as it may, I'm hoping to get back into Projects and have some pictures or interesting things soon. One significant treat was waiting for me at the office today: four books I ordered before I left. Barbara Abbey's "Knitting Lace", Speiser's book on old english pattern books for loop braiding, and Janet Arnold's "Patterns of Fashion", two volumes, 1560 - 1620 and 1660 - 1860. I *love* these books-- if you have any interest in clothing construction, they are absolutely thrilling. All the garments are deconstructed into their various pieces, the drawings are meticulous, the details about ornamention are fantastic. Oh happy additions to my textile library.

There's another treat coming soon, a pretty big one, and I'm so anxious for it I can't describe it until it actually gets here in case it gets jinxed in some way. But of course you will know all about it when it comes.

leaps

Socks are finished! Just in time. It is nice to finish a project at the new year, and they won't languish while I'm away. The twisted stitches were fiddly in parts, but I love the finished effect. This pair has sent me back to the trilogy of German stitch books (Bauerliches Stricken? I can't spell!) to look for more twisted stitch designs. And there are plenty. Many years of pleasureable December sock knitting lie ahead. A pattern down the center back is especially nice

Now with clear conscience I can address the problem of what knitting to bring on my trip. Quite likely more socks. I'll be away until the 20th, happy January everyone!