six and a half stitches

the grey dot

All week I've been trying to find the right 'opportunities' to photograph this properly: ie, on an actual child, preferably the one for whom it was intended. But it hasn't happened. Along with all those blog posts I write in my head each day ... the daily routine just hasn't allowed for concentrated writing.

I need to make the time.

I need to make the time to sew more, to transfer all the ideas cramming my head into reality, to experiment more, to let go more. I need to get out more. Engage with people more. Take my camera for walks more often. Set myself some new goals. I need to beat down the self doubts that are crowding me. I need ... to just Do It.

Back to the dots. Over the years I have collected a number of Oliver+S patterns, but never actually made any of them. I can't say why, I just haven't. Maybe the speed and quickness, the simplicity of japanese pattern books has made me lazy. I do like a quick instant result project! I am, though, quite aware of what my weaknesses are in sewing, and so in an effort to upskill - no, not upskilling, more polishing shall we say, I'm on a bit of a well crafted pattern head space at the moment. Which is where the Jump Rope Dress comes in. A gorgeous vintage style dress for Pia for next summer. With proper little collar, buttons and a beautiful full gathered skirt. It's easy to see why everyone who makes this ends up making 5 ... the results are so gorgeous [check out the flickr Jump Rope sew-along Group]

It was nice to take the time, spread out, and work through each component. Yes, there was lots of unpicking and some of the finer areas could be better - that's something I have to work on - but overall it's finished well, and looks so light and lovely hanging in the hallway. The grey spot fabric is from Tessuti, as are the little magenta shell buttons I used. I just hope it looks as lovely on Pia as it does hanging up.

 

 

 

floating

Allow me,

Briefly,

To indulge,

In the opportunities to make and craft

For small babies.

To indulge [] In the fine softness of charcoal grey cashmere teamed with Nani Iro double gauze for a simple cot or stroller quilt

To indulge [] in the soft thickness of a wool jumper, with a kitty, for when the baby is a little older. A wonderfully simple and well constructed pattern with very cute animal motifs.

I miss my children being this small, and in thinking about this post, and these simple items, I realise the amount I am making my children is getting less and less, and that's something I really do want to rectify.

 

It also means I absolutely cherish what I do make them, and what they do use and love.

peach sorbet

I had waited for yesterday for what seems like months and months. A beautiful warm spring day, sunshine pouring through windows and seeping into crevices. No immediate deadlines, and nothing pressing that I could do anything about at that particular time. A day, then, to feed my soul.

That sounds pithy, but the pure joy of having a day to 'make' purely for the sake of making because I wanted to [as opposed to what other people in the house wanted or expected out of me for the day] brings with it such an immense sense of satisfaction that it warrants note.

The day involved [] sewing up some piles of fabric which have been moving around the house - piles of uncut fabric, pattern drafting, to pattern pinning, to sitting on the kitchen table waiting for The Day. Each movement of the pile taking weeks, sometimes days, but reaching ever closer to a finished product, albeit slowly. Two little tops for Pia. She doesn't need them. They are 'what the hell' pretty tops. Made really because I loved the fabric and wanted to use it. And some baking and cooking which seems to go hand in hand with sewing for me.

[1] First up the beautiful pink top made with this Tas-ka fabric, and made using Pattern E from this japanese craft book. I've made this top before in Liberty print and I know Pia likes it. The fabric is something I fell in love with on sight, and ordered a few pieces from the collection. It's a beautiful light, almost peach sorbet, kind of pink, with lovely red dots sprinkled around. It is trimmed with a pink dot binding from Calico and Ivy.

[2] Second up is a very summery top that I've made numerous variations of over the years, Pattern D-i from this japanese pattern book. It's made with Nani Iro 'Melody Sketch' double gauze, in a rainbow of small dots which is fresh, light and very summery - the sprinkles on top of the ice cream. Finished with a light silver grey gross grain ribbon I got overseas last time I went to europe, and it's very sweet.

[3] Thirdly banana bread baked while I sewed and was ready for eating at about the half way point - perfect soul nourishment.

You know how sometimes you suddenly become hyper aware of choices you make that you think are completely unrelated and random, but then suddenly you have this massive realisation that...

You always choose dots and circles. Where fabric and fibre related items are concerned,

 

I always choose dots and circles.

 

 

 

 

0Oo.

 

Just over a year ago I came across and pinned this image, and my heart leapt. It's an image of an art installation by New York artist Jacob Hashimoto titled "Silence Still Gverns Our Consciousness". You can see more images of this amazing installation at his website.

I love this installation - the sheer scale and geometry of shape and repetition of shape, the interludes of colour, and the fine strings of black line which tie it all together, literally. The perspective and scale of each installation is fabulous - immersion in views and vignettes which change with every slight angle change. To say that this image, and this piece of art, has had an impact on me, is doing it a great disservice. I have thought about this for over a year. I have lived and breathed it in my head. I have dissected it. I have worried about whether what I have done degrades the original in some way, trivialises it, or whether it becomes an insult to the original artist, and the time and bravado that oozes out of the artists soul. There is something wonderful about the abstracted landscape of paper and timber kites which flow and float through the air which I desperately wanted to incorporate into a quilt.

I wanted that free flowing spirit of white on white, whispered with discs of bright patterned colour and thin black and grey lines for a bed, for Pia's bed. I wanted that landscape to fill her dreams with ethereal fields of flowers, and for the light in the day to reflect off the whiteness and fill her world with pure light. I wanted something playful, yet deliberate and carefully constructed. I wanted lightness and I wanted depth, all at the same time.

I took that image, and I abstracted it down to a simple series of ellipses and circles connected with fine lines. I took that sketch, and I created a Cad drawing, which was then PDF'd and tiled into A4 sheets that I could print off and use as my pattern template. I gathered fabrics ... what started out as an excercise in using up stash, went a bit off the rails as I found more and more fabrics to add. The white backgrounds and the white cloud ellipses that float through the centre of the quilt [barely seen in the photographs] mainly came from Tessuti - a mixture of plain white cotton and textured cottons with small dots either printed or raised to give some visual and physical texture. Then there is an assortment of Liberty fabrics from my stash, japanese fabrics from stash, cottons from stash, and the same again for all three from Calico and Ivy. Both Colette at Tessuti and Sarah at Calico and Ivy have been involved in the quilt, watching its progress over the last year as circles were cut and sewn together, ellipses sewn, and finally the whole thing pieced together and hung up on a wall at craft camp to see how it all looked. It's been a lot of work - each of the circles is hand sewn to each other, the front base is pieced together in sections with vertical seamed piecework within each panel, then each row of circles and ellipses is hand sewn to the front. Fine black and dark grey sashiko embroidery lines pick up some of the vertical seams to anchor the circles, and give a small amount of quilting to the piece. The back is plain white cotton, and it is bound with the same white cotton.

She's been watching me, peering over my shoulder when I've been working on it, knowing it is for her, and knowing that means it's special. She has delighted in finding each circle, and there has been moans when sections didn't have enough pink, but on the whole, I think the colours are fresh and girly, without a need for obtuse girlishness, butterflies or fairies.This quilt is now dictating how I decorate her room, and I love the cohesion that brings to her space. I love the mini kewpie dolls. And the deer. And her beloved Le Train Fantome dolls. I love that her brother took his job of holding up one side of the quilt so seriously. And I love how she snuggles in it.

It also secretly feeds my love of circles.

yellow o dot

I'm not a one project kind of person - I like to have numerous projects on the go at any one time, to be picked up and worked on as time and desire takes hold. I like long term projects, and I like quick easy projects which only take a few hours. Currently I have on the go : painting the entire house inside and out [it's going slowly, with sometimes weeks inbetween being able to get enough stetches of time to paint, and I have a long way to go], a quilt for Pia which was started a year ago and worked on slowly and which is now having the binding hand sewn onto it so will be finished very, very soon, and a couple of quick pieces of clothing for Pia in various stages of being made/drafted/cut/sewn.

The other week a group of friends and I decided to do a tea towel swap. Who doesn't love a nice tea towel swap! They are quick and easy to do, look fabulous, and brighten up the kitchen instantly. The last lot of tea towels I printed were done at christmas time and were more like test samples for fabric printing, so our kitchen has been long overdue for some nice pretty linen.

I wanted these ones to be fresh, graphic, with a hint of colour, and to play on some of the dip dying I've done in the past without actually dip dying. Using the blunt end of a pencil diped in fabric paint, there's a series of gradated black to white dots,

 

and a highlight

 

 

simple

 

 

yellow dot.

 

 

Super simple, super effective, super graphic.

 

pop | !

It was obvious, as the first warmth of sprng air hit our lungs, that a summer dress was needed.

It was obvious, also, that a trip to the fabric store would be needed, to fulfill a burning need [mine] for Nani Iro summer florals.

And hence, a floaty bubble bottomed dress, in soft peaches and pinks, a hint of purple, and a splattering of crisp white was made. The pattern is from this japanese craft book [it's the one on the cover] minus the pockets and was simple and quick to make.

 

 

And then, there was much twirling. As one might expect with a newly turned 6 year old.

[BIG]rubble

...finally....FINALLY I can share [BIG]rubble with you all...the adult version of my children's pattern 'rubble'. So, so so so SO many of you asked for it, and it was always my intention to have had it done before now, but, well, Life gets in the way sometimes. It's here now, and that's the important part!

Knit in the same vein as the childen's pattern, but with altered shaping for an adult body and contemporary style, this has a wide body which sits at the hips, and shorter wider sleeves perfect for layering. Paired with skinny jeans and thick winter boots, it's a great rugged everyday piece. It's quick and easy to knit, and uses the wonderful Brooklyn Tweed Shelter yarn.

 

You can purchase [BIG]rubble now at Ravelry.

 

 

Membrane

membranes....

wrapped around fences, construction sites

bodies

thick and warm, an outer layer, a jacket, a wrap

a deep fold in the middle, a gentle stretch and twist, a generous oversized shape

a delicious mix of fibres [alpaca and wool]

 

 

My new pattern released through Shibui Knits

Further details at Ravelry

And if you Share the link on the Shibui Knits Facebook page you could win the full collection of Mix patterns! That's your whole winter wardrobe started....

 

 

 

 

after a while

Ok, so you've finished your project - and as you cast off you've planned the blog post, planned the photos, your excitement growing for showing this project off, the comments come in with your castoffblogpost and you are literally flush with the joy of having finished something...and then somewhere down the track, a day, a week, you realise you're not so in love with it, and then the guilt sets in. Hands up - we've all had those projects. I have them in my drawers and wardrobe.

But that's NOT what this post is about.

This is about a project which was finished a little while ago - Madeline Tosh's Mara scarf. One I intended to write the blog post for straight away, intended to photograph properly straight away, intended to get out there into the world, and I didn't. This was the 'fill in' project - one I felt quite ambivalent about making while I was making it, designed to fill in time between more important projects, to fill in spare spots of time when I could pick up and put down quickly, take with me on holidays etc. It took a long time to finish, and there were points in it that I thought it might never actually get finished [the first half took forever, the second half went by in a flash despite there being twice as many stitches]. It got finished. It looked lovely.

And I have worn it every single day since finishing it.

Sometimes all day, sometimes only part of the day when I'm out, but every single day it has been worn. And the comments from people have been so lovely, and there's been lots of them. Possibly the most I've ever received for something I've knitted [outside of the online knitting community]. And that totally warms my heart - that makes everything so much nicer about this. It is so deliciously warm and snuggly, structured without obtuse decoration, and the perfect silvery grey. All of that somewhat surprises me - it didn't start out as that kind of project, but sometimes these things do surprise, and you end up loving them.

I should do fill in projects more often!

[Details including amendments and more photos at Ravelry - and there's a sneek peek of the BIGrubble I'm wearing as well]

 

 

*as an aside: today is for reflecting back, not only on a project which has turned out so unexpectedly wonderfully, but also to look back 3 years, to the day my bother in law died, and our world spun too quickly in the wrong direction. 3 years on - the sun is warm and bright today, the trees have started with their spring blossom, and some their new spring leaves, and life moves on, grief eases and memories shine. It's a good day.

wanderings

I've been wandering. [For quiet a while it seems]

In and out of laneways.

In and out of peoples houses, some I know, some unknown; me, a mere guest within their walls, enjoying the breathless beauty of rolling hills, hidden beaches, and rough seas.

In and out of conversations - so many conversations about wonderful things, about careers and my continued place in a profession I still hold dear and close, about intense personal things, some good, some bad, not always about me, but a chance to offer an ear and a shoulder when needed by others.

In and out of meals, shared with beautiful, loving, generous greek women on sunny afternoons full of laughter, shared with friends around open fires and a bottle of good red wine, catching up with friends I haven't seen for a long time and the joy of 'filling in the blanks'.

In and out of projects, from simple house plans being drawn and presented, to small pieces of fabric cut and hand sewn as a very personal and beautiful project comes to life, to a larger adult version of Rubble now on the needles slowly, slowly being knitted, to finally some pieces for ShibuiKnits soon to be released.

In and out of musical interludes, new music keeping me company on runs and long car trips: we dont eat [] blank maps [] run boy run

Along the way, I sometimes took my camera, and my phone, and occasionally I stopped to record the moment.

 

I'll try not to wander so far this time.