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June 08, 2007
Epic Projects
I have a fatal attraction to epic projects. When I saw the 15 foot, 19th century, knitted lace sampler in Knitting Lace by Susanna E. Lewis, I was doomed. DOOMED!
Unlike the Dear Jane quilt and the Civil War Diary quilt, patterns and fabric bought and untouched, I’ve worked on the knitted sampler everyday since I opened the book. While the project is still young, I’m on Pattern 6 of 91, I find myself reaching for it all the time.
Partly because I want to teach lace again, this time with my own patterns and my own instructions. Partly because I'm learning so much. This project is perfect because I can try out a variety of patterns, gauge their difficulty and applicability, and make adjustments as I go. I just can’t do that from a picture. I need to knit the pattern before I can design with it. It's a trait that used to drive my bosses crazy when I developed software. I always had to develop a piece before I could plan the whole.
I’m not the least bit interested in changing! It wasn’t until I started knitting seriously that I began to finish things. Not just knitted things, but work things and home things and school things. I don’t know if it’s
1) the portability
2) the acceptance that projects need a break from you as much as you need a break from them
3) the stockpiling of projects
4) the balance between easy and difficult, short and long, classic and new fangled
but when I approach life like I knit, I get loads of stuff done.
This project scores two out of three on the frugality scale. I borrowed the book from the library, used KnitPicks yarn from my stash BUT I just had to try the new addi Turbo Lace needles. Toni just go them in. The points are great The cable is so fantastic you forget it's there. They're very lightweight. The only thing is a slight ringing in my ears when I use them. ???
Posted by Jacqueline at 02:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)June 03, 2007
Catching Up!
I can’t believe it’s been so long since I posted, especially since the “garden” looks worse now than it did when I cleaned it in March. Oh well, that’s what summers are for. Grad school is over, I survived my first middle school field trip and there are only two more school days left. Near the top of my to do list is a massive purge, stock and store of all things fiber and fabric related. I expect to have a huge list of things for sale. Since I’ve never sold anything on eBay before, I need to add this to my list of things to learn.
Compared to other stashes I’ve heard and read about, I never thought I had much of a problem. However, the recent combination of the blues, a non existent budget, and the persistent notion that I can save money by making everything I need has turned a few fiber/fabric related excursions into piles, piles, piles of interesting projects; so many piles in fact that I have officially exceeded the capacity of my sewing room. The priciest ones are of course my well intentioned attempts at frugality.
Frugal Attempt #1 - How about purchasing raw fiber and processing it myself? What a great idea! First purchase 3 ½ pounds of raw Shetland fiber at the bargain price of $5 a pound. Then a carder, used, because hand carding is too hard on my hands. And an electronic scale, 20% off at Bed & Beyond, to measure, and later dye, TAH DAH 8 1/8 ounces of clean smelling wool, still sprinkled with vegetable matter.
Lessons Learned – Raw fiber is gross. It smells and requires many baths. The smell is so off putting that I was perhaps too vigorous in my cleansing efforts. After drying, I ended up with wads, yes wads and wads of wool that was sometimes soft and easy to comb, most times rough and full of non woolly bits. I had to comb it first with Claire’s wire dog brush before I could feed it into the carder. I must admit the combing was strangely soothing. I suspect that the fleece needed serious skirting first. And more determination on my part, hence the measly 14% return on raw weight. I refuse to calculate the price per ounce, it’s too embarrassing. Suffice to say that I need to process about a dozen shetlands before I can call the frugal aspect of the project a success.
Posted by Jacqueline at 05:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)