A Gift

I came home to the most wonderful thing yesterday, an unexpected package from a friend. I was so excited that this friend of mine Katie sent me a package that I immediately opened it, and plunged my hand in to the most wonderful soft material to pull it out and discover a note and a beautiful pair of hand knit socks. Now Katie and I have been friends for 5 or 6 years at this point, we meet through knitting and we often buy knitting and spinning related gifts for each other.

When I was leaving for Graduate school Katie gave me the most beautiful hand knit lace shawl. While she was knitting the shawl several of us kept telling her we each would be a worthy recipient of such an object. So when Katie gave me this beautiful object I was honored, touched and overly emotional. I wore that shawl to the first exhibition reception that I had work at in Graduate school. It has been a treasured object for the last 4 years of my life. As a knitter I know the labor that went into the shawl, and for that alone I treasure it. 

So the socks that arrived yesterday came with a note, explaining the gift. Katie said that I had gifted her this yarn several years ago and that it had been in her stash since, that she found the pattern that the yarn wanted to become and she had knit these socks. The thing is she said that “EVERY SINGLE TIME I picked u these socks to knit on they SCREAMED your name at me. I am pretty sure they were telling me that they belong on your feet. Hope they fit.” Well Katie my dear friend they fit, they fit perfectly now I just need a big important event to wear them for.

I am a knitter and I have a drawer full of hand knit socks, but these are special because someone who loves me made them for me and felt I was deserving of them. I hope that the people who receive my hand knit object feel this special. And I will wear them after all that is what they were made for. So thanks Katie, for teaching me a bit more of what I preach, that hand made is always better. I hope you all enjoy the pictures of my new socks. 

Wonderful

So this weekend something wonderful happened. I have been trying hard to decide how to weave up a group of threads, and was not successful in any of my groups. So I just had the yarn sitting in my studio wishing for the answer. It came on Sunday, I had breakfast with a few friends and one came back to my studio to see what I have been working on, I excused myself to the restroom and came back to this. And it was the perfect solution, I was just making it far to complicated and this is the simple solution.

I have been bogged down lately with lots of stuff, I helped a friend move Friday, lots of stairs and really hot. It was not fun. But she is a great friend and she did help me move earlier this summer. So the weekend was spent knitting, and reading. I have spent the day today getting ready for school to start. School starts two weeks from today and last week I got a contract to teach one fibers curse at the University of Missouri Columbia. So today has been a day of decision making and planning, along with syllabi writing and this will continue into tomorrow. Things are coming together nicely in my plans lets hope the semester goes as smoothly. 

New Yarn

Short blog post today, I finished this yarn of last night and wound it off into skeins. I am in love with this yarn, it is a wonderful range of colors. I purchased a series of Baby Cakes from loop on etsy. I did ply it with a solid black. I hope you enjoy.

I will be posting more later but I got really good news about the scarf line I have been trying to get going today. I will share more when I can. 

This weekend I had the great pleasure of teaching a 9 year old girl to spin on my spinning wheel. While Emily loved plying yarn, she had a harder time spinning singles out of roving. So what follows are the photos of her first yarn, she plied it from singles I had.

These are the skeins that Emily made. 

These are the balls of yarn she wound. I started the balls and she then wound them herself. I have placed a AA battery next to them for scale. 

She was very proud of herself and was determined to understand the process and tried to fix the problems that came up on her own. She would try to fix the problem or try to understand what went wrong before she would ask for help. It was a joy to teach this one how to use the spinning wheel. Now she has dreams of spinning the yarn for her next knitting project, as she is learning how to knit this summer as well. 

Meanwhile I have been getting a bit of my own spinning done, I have several singles spun that I am planning to ply. This is what I have done. 

More Tools.

Trouble in blog land is making this post a day late I apologize.

I work in another artist studio as an assistant one day a week. Yesterday after posting the blog for the day I went to her studio to work, I always grab my own sewing bag, I realized that my scissors are a very important tool. I am attached to these simple embroidery scissors they have been used for years, the tiny screw sometimes loosens and I have to retighten it but then they are perfect again.

And today in my studio I realized that I have a mug that I am attached to, I actually have many mugs I am attached to, this is one of a few that are manufactured. I typically use a hand thrown or hand built clay mug. This manufactured mug is special, it was given to me as a birthday gift by a dear friend. I am a sentimental person about objects and their connection to people. She and I are great knitting friends we became friends through knitting, we have both moved away from where we met. I am in Missouri and she is in South Carolina, so some how this beautiful mug makes me feel closer to her. My morning coffee at the studio is always in this mug, the morning feels better with this mug and my coffee.

Today I spent part of my day helping a friend put bookcases together and moving furniture around at her house and the rest of the day weaving and getting some more work prepared for hand stitching at home. But I think that tonight I will spin some at home tonight, feeling like I need some time at the wheel. 

Tools

So while working yesterday I began to reflect as all artist do on my tools and materials. Yesterday I was ironing cloth for a project, and I thought about the new ironing board cover that I have it was new when it came to the studio and I do enjoy it, it is bright and cheerful, but it is the actual ironing board that I use that is under all the layers of covers and to most people looks like a plain old ironing board. The ironing board was my grandmothers, and the idea of having her ironing board that saw hours and hours of ironing now in me studio getting the same daily use, it made me smile and think about the new and old in the tools I have. I for instance could not live without my new iron, it shuts itself off, which is a good thing for me the sometimes forgetful one. I can lose track of time and all of my responsibilities while in the studio. So an iron that shuts itself off is a good thing. So here are some of the photos I took while ironing yesterday, I am constantly taking photos while I work. 

I am also someone who wants to see my materials. I am including some photos of my yarns and threads in my space. It makes me happy every morning to come into my space and see all of the colors and textures of yarn. I can dream up my next project while weaving as the loom is right next to the yarn.

So do you have a favorite tool that you use everyday? An object that you appreciate and use everyday, I am trying to slow down and appreciate these things and notice them I encourage you to do so as well. I will continue to share objects and tools with you that I use and appreciate daily. 

So it has been a while but I have been a busy girl. I have been trying to better understand the process of posting a blog and of how I want to construct the post. I am going to try to post at least one image with a bit of text every day.

I learned to crochet a few months ago, I am in the still learning phase but I am understanding it more and more. So for the first project I grabbed some yarn from the stash shelf, yarn that had been there only a short time. One of my best friends and former boss, Andy, gave it to me as a bouquet for my thesis show in November of last year. It is Cascade Yarn Pima Tencel 50% Pima cotton 50% Tencel. So there were many beautiful colors and I made a bunch of circles out of it. 

So I went to the same store she purchased the yarn from, it is not my usual knitting store, and they were discontinuing the yarn, so I got several skeins of the same brand in a wonderful green color at a great price $2.10 each. I am now crocheting around each circle with green to attach them to each other. I am quite happy with how this is working out. And some day I will have a scarf to remember this both Andy’s motherly love for me and the wonderful exhibition reception that she shared with me.

I am still weaving away as well. I have completed two of the three towels that I have been working on at the loom. I am dreaming of what will go on the loom next. It could be one of a million things but I am thinking organically colored cotton scarves as transition pieces into the fall. 

So off to the studio now, I have a full day ahead of me. 

So this is the first blog post, I have been thinking about doing this for a while. I finished a MFA (Masters of Fine Art) in Fibers about 1 month ago, and I have decided to document the journey that comes after graduate school. I am a textile artist, a weaver, stitcher, dyer, surface designer, I knit, crochet, spin and really I work with all things fiber. Life has changed a lot in the last month, the biggest has been renting a studio for myself at Orr Street studios. I have only begun to move in and most everything is in or set up the exact way I want it but I have been getting a lot of work done. In the first week I finished off a warp that has been on my loom for at least a year. I am already threading a new warp on, working through a lot of thoughts and ideas. I am really going back to the basics and thinking more about the interplay of threads.

So the first project off the loom is 6 kitchen towels I purchased a kit a few years ago to make these and I am in love with this yarn. The kit is from The Lunatic Fringe, and it is Fox Fiber cotton. The yarn was a dream to work with at the loom and the finished cloth is so soft. The fun thing about this yarn is how much the color changes in the wash. The colors deepen, and bloom out.

So now I have to iron, sew and cut apart the towels and stitch the hems. Then I will have 6 towels, I am thinking these first ones may be gifts, I am not sure yet.

The next kit I am weaving up is bath towels again from The Lunatic Fringe. I wound off the warp Monday day and yesterday I slayed the reed and began threading the heddles.

Hopefully today I will finish threading the loom and winding the warp on, I am looking forward to the weaving part. I am just trying to find my way however I can exploring new ideas and just working away. My best thoughts come when I have been working away.