Well, I am flattered! A wonderful knitter, Miss Agnes, has invited me to join in a blog hop (in French: saute blog). The idea of a hop is to discover great new blogs. Each of us muses on knitting in response to a few questions and recommends three other blogs they love. Speaking of which, you can find Miss Agnes’ blog written in French and English here:
I titled this post, The Row not Knitted, because just like the poem, The Road not Taken, I think as knitters we make certain choices that determine the fate of the things we make. More about this below...
Question One: What am I working on?
La Boheme by Marie Wallin
http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/la-boheme-2
My version of La Boheme will become a fabulous short-sleeved top using these yarns:
Rowan kidsilk haze & Anchor metallic, Classic Elite Silky Alpace Lace
I am preparing for La Boheme by making this practice square:
Whenever I start a fair isle project or want to practice a technique, I use my scrap yarn to knit a square. Once I have completed nine squares, I assemble them into a baby blanket. It is a great way to motivate yourself to prepare thoroughly to make a successful sweater, because you are not wasting your practice square. Instead, you will get a great end result in a few years when you collect your finished sections into an afghan. This will be my ninth square, so as soon as it's finished, it will become the name section of a blanket for a lovely little two year old girl. Here are a few of the other squares:
Once I feel confident of my grasp of the design through my practice square, I knit a tension swatch in the required yarn. In the case of La Boheme, kidsilk haze is almost impossible to unravel so it pays to practice with another yarn first. Because of all this practice, I have identified the important areas for me to track for accuracy as I knit, such as the curlique ends of the damask pattern and the center point of the snowflake-like motif. Identifying the “anchor points” of a lace or fair isle pattern in advance helps to avoid making mistakes as one works up the chart.
Question Two: How does my work differ from others of its genre?
My blog explores the goal of knitting wearable garments that can be treasured as heirlooms. I started this blog to perform a knitting makeover that would transform my knits from craft projects into clothes. You can read about the knitting makeover here:
http://yarnstylist.com/2009/09/time-for-a-knitting-makeover.html
If you are interested in your own knitting makeover, here is how you determine wearability in advance. Just answer the following three questions:
< 1. What are the strengths of your figure?
(yarnstylist example: “hourglass” or “cello” shape)
extra waist shaping emphasizes an hourglass
2. What weaknesses would you like your clothes to hide?
(yarnstylist example: broad upper arms)
broad cap sleeves make upper arms look smaller by comparison
3. What colors flatter you the most?
(yarnstylist example: An “exotic winter” is most flattered by high contrast colors combined together)
Combined Black and white emphasize dark hair & light skin
To ensure the wearability of your knitting, start with a clear sense of your physical attributes and evaluate designs accordingly. If they don’t fulfill all of my criteria, I pass them by. That is why I titled this post, “The Row Not Knitted”. Ravelry is filled with temptations, but we have to stay strong and walk away from them! Do you remember the makeover show, “What Not to Wear”? Great style is all about the things we do NOT choose to knit. True, one does not see a ton of hoochy mamas on Ravelry like the infamous ladies on "What not to Wear", but there are plenty of dowdy sweaters, and plenty of unsuitable designs as well. If you just have to have that insanely intricate cable pattern or color work design that will add twenty pounds visually to you, don’t make yourself into a walking tapestry, knit a blanket or pillow instead!
Why do I write/create what I do?
Craft work is often undervalued in our society. As a result, I think some knitters do not appreciate their own skills and discernment. Although collecting paintings as a response to the beauty of color and design is admired, collecting yarn is not, and most knitters seem to feel guilty about it. There are entire groups on Ravelry devoted to getting rid of one’s stash as if it were some sort of plague. Some of these knitters obsessively track how many yards of their yarn they have “used up” per month. I guilted myself into measuring my yardage usage for a year until I felt as if I were working on an assembly line. Posts like, "I broke down and bought a ball of yarn. Hangs head in shame", or “I used up 1,000 yards of green merino, hah hah!" in the forums began to strike me as a bit odd. Do painters brag about the number of ounces of water color used? The very idea is absurd!
Imagine this letter from Van Gogh to his brother about Starry Night over the Rhone: “Ha ha, I depleted five ounces of blue, three of yellow and two of white. Oh, by the way, it was a painting of the night sky.” !!!!!!!!!!
Just like a painter strives to capture the quality of light or the heart of a subject, we knitters use our materials to capture a beautiful, elusive quality that means something important to us. I spent three months knitting my Gabrielle because the white, pink and silver hues conveyed an angelic feeling to me:
Although it is all too tempting to crank out knitting projects like packaged kits on an assembly line, we are not being paid for this. We are knitting for our own pleasure. And an heirloom knitting approach allows us to value ourselves as artists, indulging our creativity with color, texture and design to our heart’s content.
Question Four: How does my writing/creative process work?
I taught writing to non-native speakers of English for ten years, and of course drafting was an important tool for my students to improve their writing and grammar, so I got in the habit of doing it too. I tend to start with a very rough draft or a few images and build from there. With my historical novel which I plan to self-publish, since my literary agent was not able to sell it to a conventional publisher, I think I went through about 10 drafts. Blogging is much easier. It is quite liberating from the constraints of normal composition, since one can rely more on images to convey emotions and thoughts. Here is an image that inspired my historical novel about the thefts of Ancient Egyptian artefacts —it is a gold coin imprinted with Queen Cleopatra’s profile.
Let’s keep the Blog Hop going! Here are three other wonderful blogs:
1. Ravelry’s Kellydawn has a wonderful regular feature called “Wearability Wednesdays” on her blog, in which she describes her adventures wearing her knits in real life:
http://knitigatingcircumstances.wordpress.com/
2. Ravelry’s Kristenlynnea wears her knits almost daily, and blogs about knitting, gardening and entertaining here:
http://www.knitionary.blogspot.com/
< 3. Ravelry’s Dayana takes a true heirloom approach to knitting advanced projects and shares all her tips and tricks here: