Worldwide Knit in Public Day + a little lace

~ handmade habit ~ 14 Comments
World Wide Knit in Public Day
Image source: wwkipday.com

Hello. I hope the start of June finds you well! This is probably old hat to the seasoned knitters, but first things first: this Saturday, June 9th is Worldwide Knit in Public Day (WWKiP). Started in 2005, this annual event is the largest knitter-run gathering on the globe. The idea is to join up and meet your local, fellow-knitters for some quality stitching time. Given the often solitary nature of a craft that is mostly performed in (and commonly relegated to) “private” spaces and spheres, WWKiP brings fiber arts into public space and gives crafters a chance to meet/reunite with like-minded folks, share some tips, and enjoy some community-building through the fiber arts.

WWKiP has been steadily growing over the years, with 1125 public knitting events around the world in 2017. That’s a lot of public knitting. If the prospect of some quality time with yarn, sunshine, WIPs, and nice people sounds good to you, the WWKiP website has a worldwide directory of events.

I can think of no better way to spend a Saturday afternoon.

Ok. Now for some lace…

I’ve been busy, this month, working my very first lace-knitting project: Reiko Kuwamura’s Leticia shawl.

© Reiko Kuwamura, Image source: Ravelry.com.

This induction into lace-knitting comes late, a little over a year into my return to knitting at the end of 2016. I can see the reasons for this. I was never a lace-wearer myself, and felt it easier to focus, at first, on the “hardy” practical knits – the mitts, the workhorse socks and scarves, a blanket here, a hat there. It has taken time to discover and appreciate this lighter side of knitting. My coming into lace, in other words, is quite like the process of lace-making itself: a little slow-going, and needing time and the right conditions to “open up” (as lace does, only after a good block).

Leticia

Folks, I love this pattern. It is worked in 2 parts: the lace border is worked first (it uses a 4-row repeat and includes a picot edge), and the body of the shawl proper is worked afterwards, by picking up border-stitches. The first step – still in progress – has been lots of fun: after about 30 repeats, I felt I had finally memorized the lace pattern and could safely turn it into TV & podcast knitting with the help of a counter (to track my place in the repeats) and good old paper and pen (to keep track of the number of repeats completed). Very analog.

leticia 1

I love completing the border’s repeats. I can never quite stop at just one – the mind wants another and another, and with that, the lace lengthens.

I love the spidery feeling of working something finer and more delicate than stockinette or garter under my fingers, having the fabric coax my hands into learning a new nimbleness.

And I love the fragile architecture of lace, the way it holds together while letting the light and the air in, as if lace were meant to convey the elements. In the photo above, I’m imagining what it would be to sit underneath a huge lace rooftop or canopy and be mottled by little pools of lace-worked light.

Lacework has captured my imagination!

I hope you are making up a storm this week. Until next time!

 

 

A short update

~ handmade habit ~ 30 Comments

Where has all the time gone? I was just posting about my little Afmaeli cape and before I knew it *poof* two weeks. Gone.

I’m happy to say that the capelet has worked a little bit of good magic. I don’t wear it for all my writing-times, but I keep it close by, on a stool. And something about having made it, and seeing it, has helped me continue to establish my good relationship to the writing work at hand. I think it reminds me that things are possible which I don’t and can’t always anticipate at the outset. It nudges me towards building up a liiiiiittle more tolerance each day for the unknowns. It reminds me to stay attuned to the thing in front of me, and to the process, which is like the weather: full of changes and differences and odd turns and more or less conducive days. The less conducive days don’t erase the good work done on the days before it; neither do they doom all efforts afterwards. Getting intentional about process, it turns out, can be a very good anti-dote to my tendency of getting sidelined by the hopes and horrors of product. Let the product be a document or artefact of process — all those individual, variegated days of commitment held together…. like stitches! (Knitting metaphors for the win!).

So. The cape has become my writing emblem. I recommend making a special garment or outfit to clothe and emblematize your maker-self!

And speaking of time. I celebrated a birthday last week and ushered in a new number. It was a sunny day. And sunshine and new numbers warrant an ample serving of sangria at the local watering hole, and some sheep-ish grinning.

2018 b-day.jpg

Ok. Enjoy your weekend!!!

The Writing Capelet, Part II: Colour work

~ handmade habit ~ 24 Comments

afmaeli composite png.pngafmaeli cape 1-1-1If you recall last week’s post, I recently tried (and failed) to design a DIY capelet. As you can see above, a new capelet has been designed and is done. It had its very first outdoor wear during a recent trek through the woods. The day’s ample sunlight also provided the perfect opportunity to capture some of the capelet’s colours. The next step is to don it during a proper indoor writing session; I hope this garment will help me to produce many words.

A big thanks to Andrew for the photo help and company on the hike, and a big thank you to Donna at Yarnify! (my not-so-local LYS) who helped me choose the green you see here (Cascade 220 in the Lake Chelan colourway).

If you feel inclined, I’ve included some sections on the capelet’s making and design process below (a few more details can be found on the project’s Ravelry page).

The Idea: A Garment Mashup

After frogging my first try at this garment, I took to Ravelry for ideas. I came across the classic Afmaeli sweater and knew that I had to use this yoke pattern (I have been swooning over it for more than a year). Not long after, I came across the Boden and Sweetie Pie capelets, respectively.  Working from the reference pictures, I decided to combine the three garments’ different design elements: the Afmaeli yoke, the hemline and fit of the Sweetie Pie, and Boden’s loose and flattering neckline.

capelet composite
Left: Afmaeli © Istex;   Top right: Boden © Nice and Knit;   Bottom right: Sweetie Pie © Loop Knitting Ltd.  Image Source: Ravelry.

Adapting the Afmaeli Yoke 

To adapt the Afmaeli yoke for capelet purposes, I started by noting that the yoke’s colourwork chart uses a pattern that repeats over 16 stitches. I made sure, then, to choose a stitch-count that was a multiple of 16 (a trick I picked up while reading Andrea Rangel’s Alterknit Stitch Dictionary). I was knitting with worsted weight at a gauge of 19 sts over 4″ / 10 cm. At my gauge, my magic number was 192 sts. This would produce a cape-width of around 40″ around the hemline.

Modifying the Yoke Decreases

I first assumed that I could work the Afmaeli yoke exactly as the pattern directs to produce a capelet, but I came to learn that these aren’t interchangeable! Because I was working fewer stitches than the actual sweater-pattern called for (16 sts fewer, to be exact), working the original pattern ended up producing a triangular, funnel-like, neckline, rather than one that fell neatly on the shoulders. “Icelandic funnel” was not quite the look I was going for.

I frogged the latter half of the yoke and found that it worked best to perform the cape’s decreases at 2 critical points: a) 1 row of evenly spaced decreases, a few rows into the stranded yoke (as directed by the pattern), and b) successive rows of decreases over, roughly, the last 7 rows of the yoke before the neckline. This produced a much better shape: the cape begins to ‘taper in’ only where it’s needed, on the shoulders (no funnel!).

With 84 sts remaining, I finished off the neckline by working 2 rows of purl, then ~5 rows of k1 p1 ribbing. Regular bind off in-pattern.

Modifying the Colourwork Chart

Because I decided to bypass some of the original pattern’s yoke decreases (to keep the width of the capelet more or less constant until the shoulder decreases, as described above), I ended up with more stitches on my needles than the pattern called for on the last few rows of the yoke. This is the area of the yoke where the tiny ‘tulips’ are. The original tulip-pattern called for a 12-stitch repeat; at that point, my stitch-count was still a multiple of 16.

My stitch-surplus required a little bit of tinkering with the chart. Using Stitch Fiddle, I adapted Afmaeli’s original 12-stitch tulip-repeat by adding 4 extra stitches to make a 16-stitch repeat. This little bit of problem-solving was lots of fun.

Afmaeli chartI did have a blunder (or two) working my tulip pattern, however. Two tulips at the beginning of the round, in particular, had some trouble making the transition into the new version of things.

afmaeli cape 6 closeup.jpg

The one on the left seems to have started melting, and the tulip on the right has decided to break into full on Pacman mode. It’s ok. They’ll stay that way.

A final thought on blocking 

Recall that a common source of stranded knitting trepidation comes from the very real potential for puckering. As I was working, this anxiety seemed all but confirmed. There was plenty of pucker apparent on the WIP, especially at the transition where the colour work led to a section of regular knitting. Stranded knitting does tend to knit up tighter than straight stockinette:

afmaeli poncho WIP.jpg
This looks like smocking.

I charged ahead, however. I am glad for it: a lot of that apparent pucker came out after blocking! I performed a light steam block with a coloursafe cloth over the steam iron (and some light, low-heat pressing on the colour work). It was eye-opening to see just how much steam alone relaxes stitches and evens out the fabric. Until blocking happens, apparently, what you see is not quite what you get in the realm of stranded knitting (I imagine that a full wet block might have evened out the fabric even more).

Phew. Between the mods, the frogging, the work on tensioning, and experimenting with different yarn holds, this capelet-mashup was a knitting workout! There was a lot of trial and error (and more error). And, it helped to treat the mistakes with a light touch. Knitting, after all, is partly the business of providing others and oneself with a little warmth and comfort; the process ought to mirror the product, no?

I hope that this week, however the weather, finds you enjoying something fun – project or otherwise!

Do you have a favourite DIY design garment? I’d love to hear about your design adventures in the comments!

cropped-header-test-627.png

 

The Writing Capelet, Part I

~ handmade habit ~ 28 Comments

Hello! I hope your May-month is off to a beautiful and prolific start — that new ideas are slowly pushing up violets and greens from the soil like so many spring-time crocuses.

The more I craft, the more I realize that I turn to making to help me solve various kinds of practical problems. I’m learning that very good things can come from the quandaries. Let me explain how I mean this.

A Writing Problem

After my writing trickled to a near and painful stand-still last year, 2018 brought a very good and welcome change: that homecoming-feeling of slowly finding comfort and ease with words again. More than ever, I’m willing and able to regularly sit for the repeated roll-up-your-shirtsleeves sessions that will lead (hopefully) to a completed first thesis draft. The work of writing is still slow-going; first drafts are always the most painful and embarassing. But, I’m learning that self-forgiveness can soften the process, and curiosity about what’s next is enough to keep me tethered to the pages. This is a project that I have been working on, in some fashion, for several years; it’s refreshing to know that the renewal of curiosity is still (always) possible.

BUT. It seems, my physiology has something to say about this. Specifically, my natural tendency to coldness. An hour of work in the wrong conditions can leave me feeling bone-chilly, energy-sapped, and in dire need of tea followed by a pulse-quickening run. The usual writerly haunts — the cool, air-conditioned interiors of libraries and coffee shops — are great for quick visits. But the temperature needed to preserve coffee beans, open-faced lox sandwiches, and the spines and fibers of books is getting hard to tolerate for sustained reading and writing. Just too cold.

So, what’s a writer to do?

Knit for the Writing

I decided to address this issue by knitting myself something warm to wear. It would, preferably, be snug, non-lacy, shoulder-warming, and thick enough to keep out A/C drafts. It wouldn’t need to be a full sweater, maybe just a cowl or capelet. I noticed that felt bear, bedecked in a snug and cozy poncho-thing, had the right idea. And so I took my fashion cue from, yes, a toy.

After some Ravelry-time, and some tinkering with other capelet-pattern stitch-counts, I decided to design the thing myself. Having knit clothing for dolls in the past, I could surely design something simple at my own scale, right?

Inspired by the abundant crocus beds on my school campus, I imagined a bold violet capelet with bright stripes running all around the yoke. I committed to this vision, and even saw myself wearing it, being writerly and productive and tea-drinking and all that. On April 20th, I cast on, working in the round, bottom up. After a week, I had this:

capelet that never was1.jpg

Sadly, this very inspired capelet got about 60% of the way through (a few rows shy of the yoke decreases) when I lost the nerve and verve to continue on. At first, I feared that my former writer’s block had somehow crept onto the needles, morphing into knitter’s block (oh no!). I stepped away from the work for a few days and reflected on how an inspired idea could so quickly careen into a case of the blahs. I found my reason: the colours felt static and separate, ‘trapped’ in stripes. I wanted them to move and do a little more footwork. This dance metaphor led me to discover that what I wanted was some stranded colourwork on that yoke. Light bulbs pinged.

At first, the thought of taking up stranded knitting struck a note of fear in my heart: so far, my stranded projects have been plagued by tension problems and wonkiness of all sorts. Why would I commit to wearing the wonkiness out in public? But, I also knew that a project like this would, for all of its imperfections, help me build the very skills I had so long admired in others’ stranded work. I took a note from my little Creative Block Survival Guide (i.e. last year’s lessons) and I made the decision to forgive myself, in advance, for all of the knitting wonkiness that I was about to produce: all the bad tension, all upcoming puckerings of fabric, all loose or slipped stitches, all awkward fitting, the whole gamut of potential, catastrophic-feeling errors. It was all going to happen in some form, and that was okay. “Mistakes” could be undone, re-worked. New information and skills would come from all of it (*deeeep breeaath*).

Perhaps like many makers, I struggle with true beginnings. But little gestures like this — intentionally giving imperfections a ‘space’ and wide margin before embarking — can act like myofascial release for creativity muscles, working into the knots and areas of tension to loosen up tissues and allow things to get moving again. Acceptance frees me back up to enter into the curiosity: my favourite place.

So, with some reluctance, I unraveled the purple poncho and sent it, with love, into the frogged knits afterlife. Maybe it will come back another time.

In the next post, I share what became of all those yards of frogged yarn. Until then, I hope you are enjoying this first flush of Spring!

What helps you overcome creative block? Any go-to strategies? I’d love to hear about it in the comments!

Fashion Revolution Week: April 23 – 29

~ handmade habit ~ 11 Comments

Just a quick, mid-week post and reminder that it’s the 5th annual Fashion Revolution Week.

If you’ve ever been saddened and horrified by the workings of the modern fashion industry, then you know that the human and environmental costs of what has come to be known as ‘fast fashion’ are huge. By fast fashion, I refer to the high-turnaround cycles of seasonal clothing production that mass-produce largely disposable — but also ‘higher priced’ — clothes. The costs of fast fashion include environmental degradation (a result of both the chemically-intensive production of textile fibers as well as the fallout of having countless t-shirts and stretchy jeans wind up in landfills or sent back to countries in the global south); inequitable and exploitative international trade arrangements; and, perhaps already best publicized, forms of worker-exploitation (low wages or unremunerated work, disregard of labor laws, physical attacks on workers who attempt to unionize, unsafe/unsanitary conditions, etc.). It is no secret that the working conditions of the textile workers whose labour creates the brands and goods for sale on our fast fashion marketplace are, to put it simply, dismal. The 2013 Rana Plaza tragedy in Bangladesh was the deadliest structural failure accident in recent history (wiki): after structural instabilities in their building were found, garment-labourers were ordered to return to work. 1,138 workers died in the building’s subsequent collapse. To call this, and events like it, ‘tragedies’ — and the workings of the global fast fashion industry that produced it ‘unethical’ — is an understatement. And, this is not new. Textile-production and social inequality have a very long history.

Clothing and textiles are central not only because they’re necessities, but because they reflect the ways we are compelled to be in the world. We have all known the need and pressure to find economical ways to clothe ourselves, for instance, in a world that often requires us not only to wear ‘many hats’ (garment-pun intended) but in which all kinds of social judgments are made about the hats we do wear. Unless one has access to all the right resources, it’s understandable to be compelled to reconcile our ethical vision of how textiles should be made and sourced with life’s very real demands and constraints (I may choose not to wear a handmade outfit for a job interview…. but, now, I’m thinking that the place that would hire me in handmade garb would kind of be awesome?).

Because of its importance, clothing is also transformative. As so many great bloggers have taught me (and as my grandma taught me, as she happily sewed clothing on her Singer while listening to the greatest hits of Julio Iglesias), how we source, approach, handle, create and care for the things we wear makes us, in turn. I don’t think the spirit of Fashion Revolution Week is to become an exemplar, or an ethically spotless consumer. Nor is it to say that we should all be makers (though, that could be a nice thing to aim for!). And, the point is not to take the fun out of clothes and replace it with the wagging finger of moral rectitude.

I see its spirit as bringing greater awareness, first, of the actual people and the supply chains by which most of us must already source our clothing and textiles so that we can generate better, more just, more humane, and human-centered practices (and, with that, more environmentally sustainable textile practices as well). And, to the extent that a kind of consumer-driven ‘desire’ and overconsumption are both the engines as well as the manufactured by-products of the fashion industry (I’m not above this!), I also think the spirit of Fashion Revolution Week is to examine my own motives and desires when it comes to clothing. This led me to ask myself a series of questions:

If it is true that I ‘vote with my dollar,’ how can I vote more ethically and sustainably? Where and when can I replace the shorter-term gratification of that ‘perfect steal’ with a longer-term, but richer gratification that comes with, say, making a garment, loving it, and wearing it (down) over time?

How can I develop a sense of style that feels right and timeless and enduring to me in a way that makes me a bit more autonomous from the pressure, generated by the logics of fast fashion, to run out and buy each seasonal must-have? 

Finally, how can I more creatively use what I do have — what is already on hand: materials, talents, resources — to meet my needs, not only for “clothing” in the bare sense but also for a sense of identity, justice, and also community?

Just some thoughts on where I stand. Thank you for reading. Read more about this worldwide week-long event at fashionrevolution.org

 

What is your view on fashion and its ethics? Does FRW inspire any new ideas or directions for you? I would love to hear about it in the comments!