I always have Elizabeth Zimmerman's words at the tip of my tongue - "Knit on, with confidence and hope, through all crises." Stitch by stitch, skein by skein, I know things will eventually be mended. Until then, I'll just keep dyeing and stitching. I'm looking forward to the changing leaves, and wearing hand-knit socks and sweaters. The photo below was taken at the Salem Willows. It definitely doesn't hurt to live in such a beautiful place.
This has been a busy season so far, with lots of dyeing, teaching, and events. I published the Northern Trail Wrap pattern for the Knit North Yarn Crawl last month, and dyed up a bunch of yarn for a 4-day trunk show. I also taught at Common Cod's Fiber Camp for the first time. Yesterday I hosted a trunk show and taught a couple of classes at Stitch House Dorchester. It was my first time there, and I loved the cozy shop and friendly community.
Last night I cast on this pair of socks in Toil & Trouble Imprint. New England Knitting and I are working on another collaboration in preparation for this year's Lakeside Fiber Retreat which is only a few weeks away!
I've got a sock heel to turn, but I've also been working on some new colorways I can't wait to share soon!
Rhinebeck is so much more than yarn and fiber - well, it is a lot of yarn and fiber, but for me, it's an opportunity to escape the frantic daily pace and reconnect with people I really care about but rarely get to see. We get to stay together, knit, reconnect, and generally be merry. I came home with only a handful of goodies, but lots of happy memories.
There's a very proud dad and a new 16 day old baby around here, so I did a little stash diving and need to quickly knit up a baby sweater with some creative striping. Time to whip up a little Baby Sophisticate! After that, maybe I'll have some time to play with these new beads. The bead store here in Salem is closing for good this week after a very sudden announcement, so I had to pay them a last visit. It's always sad to lose another small, creative business. I have no idea what I am going to do with acid green fish beads, but they just couldn't be left behind.
The last batches of limited edition Halloween yarn are going out this week, phew! Thank you everyone for the truly amazing response!
By the time I left the bookstore with a bag of new goodies for my overflowing shelves, I caught myself smiling. My phone buzzed, with a list of "14 Two-Sentence Horror Stories Guaranteed to Terrify Introverts." Number 5 said, "She bought a strange book from an old bookstore. When she opened it up to read it strangers came up to her thinking it was a conversation starter." I chuckled to myself and hugged my books. Now back to those dye pots, the yarn isn't going to dye itself! As for those socks, finishing and publishing that pattern is definitely on the to-do list.
I had two trunk shows, one at Mind's Eye Yarns, and one down on Cape Cod at Sage Yarn, where I also taught Portuguese Knitting. Now I am getting a little bit of a breather before the next big, and currently secret, project. I did also celebrate my birthday in the midst of the chaos of constant dyeing. After admiring Oh, Albatross' beautiful handsewn creatures for months, I treated myself to a gorgeous little fox.
I have been frantically dyeing yarn to bring to the retreat, so today I am packing it all up, along with my brand new socks. Yes, the never-ending socks are finally finished, and peeking out from underneath those fresh skeins in the photo. I can't bring myself to openly post how long it took me to knit these socks, but if you're really curious, the start date is posted in my Ravelry projects.
Off to pack my bags! Stay tuned for a post-retreat update.
Now on Christmas morning, I have a little time to reflect. A lot has happened this year, both good and bad. There are big changes on the horizon, really scary and exciting changes. Bad things did happen, but none irreparable, and the best Christmas gift I've received this year was the resolution of many of these things in the last few days. With 6 days left in 2014, I find myself incredibly thankful and blessed.
Thank you for all your wonderful support in 2014, and I can't wait to see where 2015 takes us!
This is a knitting blog after all, so here's my current holiday knitting. This is a toddler's Arlo sweater by Brooklyn Tweed, knit in Tara Tweed. I'm generally a big advocate for seamless knitting, but I was not immune to this sweater's charms. There's a young man with a birthday in a couple of months, and I just love a toddler in cabled sweaters.
Wishing all of you health, happiness, and the happiest of holidays!
Our holidays were filled with a lot of food, sleep, happiness, and time away from routine and the internet. We snuck off on a secret trip to Europe to meet up with lots of family, and had a wonderful time.
I consider myself very blessed to have a family full of wonderfully talented creative folks. One of my aunts has been hand-painting ceramics for years, and I had no idea! I found out when we unwrapped this beautiful gift. It was great to spend time with family and get to bring home this handmade treasure, which I'm absolutely in love with.
Now it's back to the routine, and I'm diving back into fiber full force! The dye pots are back up and running, and I have some knitting projects to share soon. Here's to a 2014 full of surprise and opportunity!
Many of you knew I was managing a new studio community on the North Shore. As of two weeks ago, I am no longer involved with this project. After ongoing immoral and illegal behavior by the landlord, I left, along with about half of the artists. I wish those who stayed behind the best of luck, as they are great people. This has been a painful and heartbreaking process. I put in 5 months of very hard work, as a volunteer, to bring a community to life, and walked away in less than ideal circumstances. I have no intention of airing grievances publicly, so this is all I will say on the matter. I am happy to answer any questions you may have privately.
I've allowed myself time to grieve over what happened, and now I'm dusting myself off and moving on. For the time being, I'll be working out of my home studio. I am teaching a variety of classes at Seed Stitch Fine Yarn, so I can still be found out and about.
Thank you to those of you who have been supporting me during this difficult time.
We also played a game of Koob. Nate found this at a toy store in Falmouth while I was doing a trunk show at Sage Yarn last year. Apparently it might be a game of Viking origin, which is pretty interesting, if it is in fact true.
My first impulse is to apologize for not having more action shots, but as I sat writing this post and getting way too introspective, I realized there is a struggle in being a person who processes memory visually. Some people have strong associations with music or smells, but for me it's images. This means I want to take my camera everywhere and document everything, but it can sometimes get in the way of actually being in the moment. I get caught up in documenting, and forget to participate. So I've been working on taking fewer pictures - enough that I satisfy my constant photographic cravings, but also trying to be more present. If you're also attached to your camera at the hip, do you struggle with this too?
And of course, there's always some yarn-making going on.
I took two classes, both about knitting. It let me pretend that Squam was at least in part about "expanding my work skills" rather than just pure indulgence.
One of my classes was on the basics of Shetland lace, taught by the absolutely adorable Gudrun Johnston. She is amazingly sweet, and I seriously have the biggest crush on her.
I admit I don't know if I am sold on garter stitch lace patterns, but I learned a lot about traditional Shetland shawl construction and it gave me some new ideas about how to develop patterns. I really enjoyed this class, and find myself lamenting the lack of more hours in the day because there is so much I want to experiment with.
My other class was a shawl design class with Stephen West. While I am pretty familiar with shawl design using standard shapes, I was hoping to learn a bit about how to approach more unconventional design. By the way, Stephen is almost a foot and a half taller than me. He was crouching for this photo.
For the first half of the class, he went through how to set up a basic, top-down triangular shawl, which I was already very familiar with. But, to my delight, he asked us what we wanted to do for the second half of the class, so I asked him to talk about unconventional shapes.
He brought out a suitcase packed with several of his own designs, and went over some of the design concepts. We talked about ways to distort some of the more basic shapes, and the idea of knitting in multiple directions to achieve different shapes. I definitely came out of it with a new appreciation for being fearless in design and breaking the rules after understanding them.
And that was Squam, in a very tiny nutshell. I procrastinated on writing this final post because it meant accepting that it really is over and I have to wait a full year before going again.
Have you ever gone to Squam, or any other creative retreats?
Last fall, I went to my first Squam retreat and absolutely loved it. I loved the environment and the creativity, and knew I had found something special. So I went back this year for the spring retreat. I loved it even more. As much as the fall retreat was amazing, it wasn't quite as "niche" as the spring, with a mixed-media focus. The spring retreat is fiber oriented, with a heavy focus on knitting. This time, I wasn't the only one walking around with a couple of knitting projects in my bag at all times. This time I truly felt surrounded by my people.
If you told me, in my daily life, that you were going to put me in a cabin with 9 other women I had never met, I would panic. The thought sounds truly terrifying. But at Squam, it's a wonderful thing. My cabin mates were amazing woman, each one so different and bringing something unique to the group. Friends for life.
