six and a half stitches

PEACOCKS AND DRAGONFLIES

By all accounts, namely mine, it was a simple beginning. Delight turned into lust with fairly drammatic strides, until an entire morning had been spent sourcing a pattern and getting it ordered. I sat on the idea of the pattern for a little while, contemplating, then hit a ping! moment where the pattern and a yarn collided with mega force.

It was a beautiful tunic pattern made by Darktrico which started it. A simple A-Line tunic top in a base cotton and feature trim by Phildar. Not the easiest of patterns to get hold of - plenty on Ebay France for shipping only to France, and I don't speak french to ask nicely to have it sent overseas. So I hunted it down elsewhere, and it took a lot of money, and a lot of time for it to arrive. More time and money than it is worth, but that is totally beside the point. I'm sure given half a moment to think I'd have worked out a basic pattern anyway. I digress. [I digress even more because in getting the link for the Phildar site I had a look around....and found this - page 14, which at least is in english, and again is making me contemplate]

I had been thinking of doing the same thing in a natural cotton, but then I got waylaid by the STR Raven clan and in particular the deep blue blacks of Thraven - a wonderful wool split with slashes of peacock blue through it. Can you imagine the deliciousness of a tunic top, in reverse stocking stitch (I'm not keen on it in garter stitch) with intense dark colours and this little slash of peacock.......teamed with Liberty Print trousers, or hand dyed linen trousers, or, or, or. You can see how my mind raced. The colour. The texture. The utter deepness. Pond deep. With Koi carp floating around deep. Dragonflies above lillypads deep. It looks beautiful so far. My gauge is off so I'm adjusting as I go, and I need Pia around to measure against before I go much further. I should also lay it out against one of her sewn tunic tops and see how it compares. The reverse stocking stitch is really neat, playing the peacock slashes off perfectly. I've loved the tunic tops I've been sewing for her - so incredibly Pia - and to be able to take it into a knitted version will be just wonderful for autumn and winter. Quite likely by the time I'm finished it will look nothing like the original pattern.
But that is the joy of working with peacocks and dragonflies.

30:7

Thirty Seven things:
It is hot and warm and sunny and windy.
It is the start of a new week.
It is the start of a new year.
One in which I am one year older. I feel old[er]. Today is my birthday.
I have eaten very fine food. Too good. Enjoyed every bite.
I have read pieces of books given to me in the sun on my favourite chair as birds twittered nearby.
My mother bought me pieces from Cloth that I picked out. Linens and canvas in charcoal, black and deep mustards to match in with other pieces I already have.
I have almost finished the blurb book. Almost.
I need to paint my toes again. Perhaps this afternoon.
There are wonderful fresh flowers in the living room and I intend to buy fresh flowers every fortnight to colour and perfume. It is my gift to myself. I make this promise to myself every year and fail at it after the first week.
Making bread is soothing.
I wish we had a cleaner. There probably wouldn't be cheerios stuck beside the fridge if we had a cleaner.
Home made gnocchi is the best. Especially made by Mr 6.5st.
I have a hankering for new winter shoes already. Even though I am sticky and hot in the heat.
My favourite wine at the moment is The Willows Vineyard Bonesetter 2004 Shiraz. Damn fine tipple.
It is not the wine which made me hung over on Saturday. That was a NZ Gewürztraminer.
If I could be anywhere in the world right now.........it would be Antwerp.
The one thing I really want to go out and buy this week: new mascara and lipstick.
I sleep on the right hand side of the bed.
I have a little bit of a thing for circles and holes right now. It's been brewing for a while, and I intend to use it creatively somewhere soon.
I secretly love putting Lego together, especially really complex pieces. Max doesn't stand a chance.
I wish I could fly planes. Fighter planes. With big engines.
My current favourite song: Leona Lewis Bleeding Love. Love a good tortured love song.
I have coffee made for me every morning with fresh ground coffee beans.
I think afternoon naps on the couch with the back doors open is a wonderful idea.
So is walking barefoot in the sand.
And watching movies with good dark chocolate.
I would love to have space to paint, and etch, and weave.
I miss....Abeno Okonomyaki in London, walking through the streets of Paris, running through sprinklers during the summer, that first tingle of love, lying in.
I long for...a ticket to London, a massage, new magnolia and gardenia trees in my garden, quiet.
I have never made creme brulee. It is something I feel I should make.
I get a buzz out of winding wool.
I really don't like putting the fruit and vegetable shopping away in the fridge. It all just looks messy in there. I like my fruit in bowls where it can be seen and admired for it's colour.
You really can own too much linen fabric. I think.
This might be the year I organise my ribbon box. And button box. And my tax.
I don't like making knots in the ends of threads. It's just a task I would rather not do.
I like - the sound of sleep weaving across the mind.

LITTLE STEPS

In amongst all the sewing and Christmas and New Year goings on, there has been knitting done. It's been small things, pieces which have been picked up every so often, a few rows knit, no real time spent on them, except left over bits of time, and so not a huge amount of progress has been made on items which really should have been finished long ago. I got to a point a few weeks ago where all I really wanted to do was just tuck myself away and have a quiet knit and make headway on a few things. I've also wanted to show things, but am never sure where 'peeks of details' become 'indecipherable abstracts'. So I decided to wait till I could give each piece a bit more detail in photograph and description.

Over the last few months, I've been showing little snippet pieces of some knitting - a deep dark luscious wool that has quickly become my favourite of the moment. I really love this wool. I really love the colours, the feel, and the way it knits up. And I really love this sock pattern: Jeweled Steps by Cat Bordhi from her New Pathways book. I've thoroughly enjoyed, and connected with, the way she has constructed her socks. I love the insert panels, the gentle twisting of pattern around the leg, the attention to absolute fit, and the elegant simple detail of the patterning on this particular sock. These socks feel nice on, they have a snugness I haven't found with other sock patterns, and that really makes a difference. I do have some problems with the way the book is set out and some of the pattern instructions and the way they are worded, but I understand why it's been done that way and that with the next pair of socks it will be easier and quicker.

And the other things being knitted? Another post. But there's something for Pia, and something which has been a long time coming, and is nearing completion having been out with test knitters for the last few months. It will all come in good time.

AN AWFUL LOT OF ITALICS

Typepad very kindly ate a very long nice post about nice knitting projects including nice finished pieces and a whole lot of very nice links to very nice things and very nice people. And it's late and there's no way I am going to recreate it tonight. Especially when I should be cleaning this room for my parent's. So instead:

When your 4 year old son comes in and tells you "Pia is doing something she really shouldn't be doing mummy", it generally means she is doing something she really shouldn't be doing. The rustling I could hear as I walked down the corridor, well that was NOT paper.

It was in fact an entire box of breakfast cereal tipped over the floor and she was spreading the cereal in ever increasing circles around her like snow angels. With a very big grin on her face.

And then she did it again as I was making dinner with the cat food. She tipped the cat food all over the floor, I wasn't making dinner with the cat food. Just to be clear.

[I shed some tears as I walked out of the office. I never felt like it was goodbye, just a side step away for a bit, but it still felt very weird. There were even more tears as I picked Max up from daycare and thanked his teachers. I believe my 8 day training programme for next Thursday's First Day Of School is going really well, and we're on track for the 9.00am 'complete blubbering mess event'. There will be coffee afterwards. And probably some shopping. There may even be a repeat performance of food throwing all over the kitchen floor again].

A LITTLE EDGE

Deep sigh.
Deep sigh.

Deep sigh deep sigh deep sigh.
If I stare long enough at the screen, the blog post might just write itself, and then I wouldn't be so fidgety about needing to find the right words to explain this tight little edge I stand on tonight. It's as if tomorrow the whole world tilts across another axis, to resettle on Thursday in a new order.

I'm over drammatising things. But it's kind of really weird this 'thing' of stopping work. Tomorrow is my last day. And then it stops. No more security key. No more lattes made by Eddie. No more walks to and from the car across a park watching people play cricket and walking their dogs. One less tug of the balance scales. In the last few months I've talked to many people about why I'm doing this and what I hope to get out of stopping work for another 12 months. The response has overwhelmingly been one of sincerity that this is absolutely a good thing to do. And that's been so nice. While my decision took a long time to make, I am completely comfortable with it. I really do think I hit upon a way of having it all, and that makes me very happy. It takes a lot to admit this is not an ideal way of working/living, and strength to turn around and walk away from it. But in doing so I am opening up to so many more possibilities.

Tomorrow is another ending as well, and this one makes me really emotional. It's Max's last day at daycare. I think there's a certain symmetry in mother and son completing one section of their lives and moving into another. I am very proud to be there by his side in this. Max's little life at daycare has echoed my time in my office. He's as much a deep part of his place as I am a part of mine. He's been there since they opened. In that time he has had the most wonderful kind passionate teachers who have nurtured all the children, taught respect, engaged them and befriended them. It will be sad watching him walk back out the doors tomorrow evening, but I know he does so happy, full of charm and wit, and with an eagerness to leap into school life.

Deep down, I'm not ready for my little boy to grow up, and here he is, bounding around, so excited to be starting school that he wore his school shoes all evening along with his school hat. He's so keen to start learning, to be a 'big' boy and be part of this grown up world. I share his excitement totally - I am there with him every moment of this. I will be bursting just as much as he on his first day of school next week. And having spent the last 5 years saying I wouldn't cry on his first day [of course I wouldn't cry! I'll be excited for him, thrilled and happy and I'll never cry! Oh no, not me!], I know I will. It was all I could do to not cry during every single parent information session, sitting on those little chairs. The enormity of what he is embarking on, just gets me every time.

I'm hoping a few more mothers join me in crying too, just so I don't feel quite so alone...because there's nothing worse than being the only one crying at the school gates. Even if it is with joy.

BECAUSE THEY TOLD ME TO

First one. Then another. And then finally a third person said I HAD to go look at Linnet because I may just possibly swoon. I followed when the first person told me to. And had a little peek around the linen tapes. I followed again when the second person told me to, this time around all the linen yarns. I had a little longer peek around, finger hovering over 'Buy' buttons. But when a third person says I really must buy, who am I to argue really. It would be rude, No?

Add one more person to the list of people who love Linnet. Just bathe me in soft linens in greyed out colours, twist strands of linen yarns around my fingers, and draw me in close with linen tapes. I got soft gauze linen, lightweight grey linen, mulberry striped grainbag linen, linen tapes, and linen yarns. All of which look so beautiful it will be hard to actually use them. So I'll just sit and look, for a little while longer.

WITH TOOTHPASTE ON HER FEET

Pia has had toothpaste on her feet all day. I'm not even going to ask how that happened.
There is a pitter-patter of toothpaste footprints in the corridor.
I know it involved Max.

He's denying all knowledge.

It has been a day of 3's. Everything repeated 3 times.
Don't. No. Stop It. Look where you're walking. Get off her. Tidy up those toys or they're going out in the bin. Enough. What are you doing to her. Come on. Now.
All repeated 3 times. And then again, and again. 3 times each, every time.

The lesson in this? Staying up till after midnight when you're tired after a long day at work (not quite finished the work thing, but soon) makes you very grumpy the next day and very short tempered. And nobody enjoys their day. Not even Portuguese Tarts made me happy. I think I wore the death stare all day. No wonder I look haggard.

I stayed up because I thought I might just download the Booksmart software from Blurb. Just to have a look. Maybe I'd just have a little try at working the book in my head into reality. I'd just familiarise myself with the software. I'd need some photos in there first. So I'd just add a few. And I'd just add a little text. 4 hours of the Blurb time vortex later, and I'm happily creating a book. Just to see. And then I wanted to play some more, and then I realised it was way past my bedtime. I'm still playing with it. I need to tinker with the text a little more, but I'm happy with the result so far, and the software is easy to use. I read eagerly as Simply Photo compiled her book about breakfasts, and I've been waiting for a little time to sit and do it. Like the midnight hours. I looked up some other books in the bookshop and these all looked good: Fiber Addict, A Vision Of Maine Through Photography, Some Harvard Bathrooms, and the very beautiful I Spy.

I've been wanting to do something with some of the detail processes I go through for a long time. A little document of time and detail - of a year of work through snippets and peaks into what I love, the things I take away from projects and ideas - the stripped back essences of it all. A photographic record as well as a record of thoughts and paths. Sparse and clean in format and text, I'm not sure it would appeal to a broad audience, but I will get one print done, and see if I like it enough to make a limited run more available. The Blurb site has a bookshop associated with it, which I think is a brilliant way of executing a small book run. I could sit down and plan out at least 4 other books. The possibilities are endless.
I guess the trick is though, to know when to stop tinkering, and when to hit publish.........

GREAT TRAIN JOURNEYS OF OUR TIME

All great train journeys end up as epics. There aren’t many notable Great Train Journey’s which only lasted 5 minutes. Most wind their way through countries, across terrains, through valleys, mountains, plains, across rivers and have a definite start and end point, even if prone to numerous stops along the way. The journey is usually very enjoyable.

So we come to the story of this great train journey. This marvelous epic of idea, germination, collaboration, and destination. For at times, the amount of thought and thinking and planning and general idea procurement involved in this was trully epic, even if the final result shows none of that to the naked eye. Most of it was daydreaming ideas, perfect for long afternoons in front of a computer, or walks up to the park, or lying awake at night.

The travelogue reads as thus:
August - material procured.
September - dye procured.
October-November - a lot of thinking, not a lot of time to actually do, so lots more thinking takes place.
Early December - Fabric dyed. Patterns drafted and cut. Max does a drawing for his grandmother of a train with many, many wheels all connected with intricate axles. The collaboration seed is planted - how wonderful to bring my sons art to life through sewing!
Late December - pieces started to be sewn together.
January - final sewing, screenprint mastered and screened onto fabric.

And the final pieces. A gentle nudge was the catalyst for an experiment in boys clothes. I know many of you ask for it repeatedly, and I've been wanting to do it for a long time, but, well, boys clothes seem so fiddly, so detailed, so conscious. I've fought against that in my head a bit, because I don't necessarily believe they have to be, but I just couldn't find the right thing to start the process rolling to not be all that. The gathered tie pants have been so wonderful to make, and look so great on the girls, that I thought this could be the best jump into boys things. Add some wonderful dyed dark linen into the mix, and the worn, faded, slouchy style of boys clothes I was aiming for starts to form. The dye work is technically crap. Really. It's uneven, and patchy, and a bit splodgy too. But it has a wonderful lived in feel, tussled, sun bleached - perfect for linen. Perfect for casual gathered pants. Childish even. Very Boy. I actually like it's uneveness, and if I had perhaps intentionally set out to achieve it, it would have looked contrived. As soon as it had been dyed, I wanted to make a variation on the tunic tops I have been making Pia as well. I've had an idea in my head for about a year waiting for the right fabric to bring it to life. So pants, and a tunic top. Lots of gathers. Little details. Simple. Unconscious.

Max had been doing some drawings for my mother for christmas cards early in December, and kept on drawing (this rarely happens.....we took the moment completely) and added a very large intricate train to the days portfolio. The train had a lot of wheels on it, with axles connecting all the wheels to make them turn and go fast. There was a running commentary to go with this, as you can imagine. Max looked at his artwork and saw an all mighty engine! with whooshing noises! and smoke billowing out of the funnel! and axles turning really fast!! and engines being useful wherever you looked. I looked at it and saw **Screenprint!!!** written all over it. It's taken a month to bring all the pieces together, sit down and make them come to life. The final piece was the screenprints, and I am so happy with these. The print is simple, and energised, childish yet with a real elegance to it. Max would say I have ruined his drawing - he is a purist and would hate the idea of only part of the drawing being used - it is nothing if not the whole. I saw details and connections, the start of conversations with people I've never  met and their children wearing these trousers. I saw train drawings for boys, and I see abstract flowers on girl's clothes, all the same print. I see small buttons and large buttons made from each wheel and added as detailing.

I saw a train journey.

[These are just test samples. I would love to do more]

CREATING THE CLEAR

Clarity.

How often does the head swing between absolute clarity, and muddled chaos? How often do we get a sense of being able to enjoy the simple clear lines of clarity? Is it possible, somehow, to achieve that in a physical way, through the lines and materials we touch and manipulate each day? I know some people have an urgent need to find crisp stillness in projects when all around chaos reigns - it's part of that nesting or withdrawing we do. Curl up on a couch and lavish the soul with knitting, or sewing, or reading. Or eating and drinking. And in the same way, there is exactness to be had in indulging perfection of task during moments of calm serenity.

This is my project of clarity. I have made this numerous times, in different fabrics, but my favourite outcomes have always been in white. It has evolved as my New Year project, purely by coincidence. It is a project of birth, creation, enjoyment, newness, usually made for babies who are very special for their own reasons, and not always for my own. Crispness. Clarity of line and form. I like that idea. Clarity of form. [I've just re-red that post and it's one of the few times I have actually swore on the blog. Clarity of thought. Exactness.] Last christmas I spoke about The Making Of Simple - simplicity of form - the same theme running through looking for form and presence by way of stripping away, or gathering close. I took at the time, the image from that post as my banner image. I think it's time for a new banner. Not an overhaul completely, or redesign of the blog, just some subtle tweaking of images and buttons. A little how I work. Subtly changing and manipulating as I go. Finding strength in the stripping away, and the piecing back together.

Simple clean white cotton lines. Neat folds. Two mother of pearl buttons.  Natural cotton ties. A hand printed linen tag.

THINGS GONE OUT

Did you want to see the quilt set that got given away?
Pure and crisp in it's fresh colour scheme - white cotton sheets with button closures, linen quilt cover with little red french knots (I think this might be my favourite part of both quilts)

A simple white pillowcase with feature green button, and a waffle weave blanket with pear and red dot fabrics.

And the finished quilt with linen top, mustard thread sashiko embroidery picking up the Florence Broadhurst fabric in the trim band, pear fabric from Superbuzzy, and red dot fabric by Nani Iro. A citrus green velvet ribbon tag, and a hand printed linen 6.5st tag. The bottom is vintage chenille from Sarah London.

And while I am 'showing and telling', I shall also now reveal the final shot of the muslin tote swap bag I did in October which is way long overdue. This was sent to Caterine - a simple linen bag, with a contrast inside pocket for a concealed sewn tie both made from Aunty Cookie fabric, which pulls the whole thing closed. Simple, neat and generous in size.

 

It appears every now and then I have a thing for crisp fresh green colours. I also think I have asurged any guilt I feel for not having posted these earlier, and can now move on and start going through some of the things which have been sent my way. And then, finally I can start with new things to show.