this is a big, big (in size and scope) all-koigu project. i may as well go all out, because i'm not entirely sure what else i would do with this yarn aside from this. i'm more ambivalent about it than a lot of people (but as much as some.) and i've seen the new koigu book and know that everyone was all in a slather about it but honestly i like what i am making better. if i didn't, i'd be making something out of the koigu book.

this is, in fact, only a partial representation of "phase one" of this project. it has three phases, not including assembly. the other phases are not striped. the question is, will this blog still be here when this project is finished? and the answer is, maybe not. i've decided that shortly (in the next six months or so) i will give it up. the whole thing's kinda beat.

that is not to say you will not see what the finished piece here looks like. because you will, on flickr. flickr lets me post much, much higher quality photos than any blog template could handle, so where actual images are concerned, flickr has the upper hand.

and what about the rest of it? well, you can put quite a bit of text on flickr too. this is not to say i'm moving my "knitting blog" to flickr. but i find that in the last few months i use this space only to reiterate in short form something i've written or experienced elsewhere, and that's getting dull - like writing a readers' digest large print version of everything i do and write.

when i have big, big things to say about textiles and fiber, i have the NOSHI knitting monograph series. i have been interviewing textile and fiber artists, and authors, for korean quarterly, and now i also have a column there, which ought to soak up some pop culture overflow as well. and, as ever, when i need to process something personal and twist it up a bit, i write short stories. but i have more streamlined venues for every kind of writing i do now, as well as a better format for posting pictures - so why stay here? plus, i'm tired of documenting every damned stitch i make.

we are, as most here know, in the midst of an international adoption. i don't plan to be a baby zombie blogger with a screen name like "urbanmama" or "hipmommy" or every other freaking exactly the same thing i see every freaking day on the internet. as far as i can tell, the next year of my life is going to be mostly filled up with finishing the KNITTING TAROT (and the bookwork is now 3/4 finished, so the light IS officially at the end of the tunnel) and sometime hopefully after we've made it to the bindery without hitting a welch's grape juice truck and ruining everything, we're going to go to the airport and get our baby, and then i'm gonna do that. and i'll have short stories and NOSHI and korean quarterly, and flickr (although i expect that when the kid comes some of those sets will be made private), and it's likely that not every sock or hat or teddy bear will get its day in the sun anymore, but they are part of the bigger picture, and they and their kind have had their fifteen minutes of fame.

having done this for what, four or five years? i can honestly say that blogging is no substitute for writing. i'm sure there's someone out there with the idea that the Last Knitblog Standing somehow wins the kitty, but anyone who thinks like that lost a long time ago. i know this blog means a lot to some people, and that means a lot to me. truly - for anyone who wants it, there should be as much of my writing available as usual, if not more. you may have to go to the bookstore or open the mail to get it, but it's also likely that there will be capital letters where they belong. that's when you KNOW i'm serious.

it's not happening yet, mind you. but if it hasn't dwindled to zero by the time the KNITTING TAROT is getting bound, packed up and moved out for sale (HOLIDAY SEASON 2007), i'll shut this blog down at the same time that the KT blog comes to its logical end. i felt it was the best thing to do, to write something about this early in the process, as i start to pull up my landing gear. i've met so many great real-life people that ben and i hardly have time to fit everybody into the rotation, and somehow that happened without ever even leaving my comments field turned on! but having made this decision, it feels really happy and exciting, because so many great things are happening for us right now and there was finally just no question in my mind anymore that this was a format i had outgrown.

in the meantime i will continue to update as usual - including, word has it, the possibility of a floor loom coming to settle here this spring!

... and what i'm referring to there is the carnival they put directly in front of our house for two weeks. and it's some carnival - this is no little moon-bounce-and-popcorn-stand deal. there are towering, grinding, shriek-inducing rides. (i am, by the way, REALLY proud of that photo i took last night, over there to the right. )

there is a man in a dunk tank who really, really knows how to rile the feelings of the average south philly six-year old to the point where he can reliably hit the target and dunk the asshole. there's funnel cake, and hot apple dumplings, and shishkebobs, and cotton candy, and glowsticks. there's gambling (this carnival is a fundraiser for annunciation blessed virgin mary on the corner, and interestingly, while the carnival itself only promotes games of skill, the catholic school tent is where you can play games of chance -- illegal games of chance).

there are goldfish and tiny turtles to win. i saw a little boy leaving with his turtle. it was in a clear plastic to-go container, like you'd put half a sandwich in if you couldn't finish it at lunch.

outside the carnival's entrance, last night, was a man with a giant boa constrictor. if you paid him, he'd take your photo with it wrapped around you. or maybe you'd take the photo. or maybe he'd just put the snake on you when you weren't looking and then take it off of you for money.

we have really been enjoying watching the carnival go up. with a little trepidation, of course - we're homeowners. but it seems to be going swimmingly. i am naturally very interested in the carnies who are SLEEPING in the field, in tents and trailers. i grilled a young woman about her general lifestyle a few days ago, and was very happy when she called out to me to say hi last night, from the onion ring booth she was working.

carnival folk.

this is all i've got to show now, and frankly, it is either going to be a long, slow summer on this blog, or it's going to be very tangential to knitting. i am knitting, but it's all so in-progress that i just don't think there's gonna be much to show. (and the fact is, i'm getting really into flickr, more than the whole blogging thing... with the NOSHI series, the KNITTING TAROT, and even KOREAN QUARTERLY, my venues for writing about knitting and fiber have really spread out.)

these little squares. i'm sure everyone is familiar with a project that begins as a way to use up scraps, and then suddenly more "scraps" are necessary, and there you are, buying them. that's what's happening here. it's all koigu kppm (did i say that right?) which is the stuff that everybody gets all orgasmic about. i think i've mentioned this before, my "eh" feeling about the stuff, and here i am purchasing it in rather generous amounts. let me fortify and amend my prior claim: the colors are GREAT. i particularly love the "semi solids", and even the rather multi-ones are, sometimes, okay with me. (i don't know all the nomenclature involved in koigu. i see that some are splattery and some are more traditional multi. but even the multis are not terrible, and i hate multis.) the color is so incredibly supersaturated. it's awesome.

the tradeoff for me is what it looks like knitted up. true to the truism, yarns that look pretty don't look as pretty knitted up, and yarns that look ugly as yarns look great as knitting. it's the case here. it doesn't look BAD knit up - else i wouldn't be doing it - but i think other things look better. however, for this piece, which will be a pillow - i'm all in it for the color. i really, really admire the colors. but there's no physiological and/or sexual component to the admiration.

although i'm dying to see a male knitter go into a store, pick up some koigu kppm and yell "my god, i'm experiencing priapism over this yarn!"

it still really surprises me how many projects i see made of the muliticolored koigu (and other yarns) worked into lace designs. i can NOT STAND lace done in multis. i think it screams "look i'm a crafty person who made it myself" the same way that googly eyes glued to walnuts does, and by that i mean the BAD way.

although rampant multicolored stripes and blocks is not everybody's cup of tea either, and as long as i've been in control of my living spaces, they do end up looking a bit like pee-wee's playhouse, and that's been long before the carnival got here (blink, twitch, convulse.)

bub is helping me block this new thing that i don't really know what it is yet. i assume it's going to be a pillow of some sort -- by process of elimination, i assume that.

it's shorter and wider than i expected (working with scraps and entirely mindless of gauge) and all i wanted to do was get to this stopping point before putting it aside for a few months, so here we are.



see the square dancers tripping the light fantastic. let's pretend they are john doe and exene cervenka!





the chart for the dancers came from this vintage pattern sent by a pal. pretty cool. the charts for the flames -- i don't even remember where i got them. flames are getting so ubiquitous-counterculture, like the "keep on truckin'" guy or a smiley face. but i liked the idea of having them here. this whole piece was worked in three panels, and all the black backgrounds are scraps, so they vary in weight and texture and tone. when the three panels were sewn up, not only do the black backgrounds not "match", but the look reminded me of that cheesy eighties rock-video effect where the screen was always divided like a triptych and the two side panels were always images of flames.

who's complaining?


in a way, i'm happy with it so far. but in another, more accurate way, i have no idea where the hell to go next with it. i hope that, whatever i figure out, my DEVIL BEADS can be a part of it (whoot!)...




... but i don't think my JESUS BEADS (whoot!) fit the whole theme nearly as well. but i expect you all covet them, in your shrivelled little souls.

sometimes i get "leads" on knitting blogs with which i have been previously unfamiliar. there is a restlessness. restlessness relaxes me.

i've talked about the "sea change" before -- the creeping backlash of dislike for cutsey hip knitting books with crappy patterns and stupid writing. and that's just from the people i'm friendly with. lately i get tipped to blogs where this kind of anger has been brewing like a strong pot of prince of wales tea left out all afternoon in the sun.

interestingly, a lot of these blogs are not in "the ring". in fact, of the few blogs i have regularly read over the last few years, bloggers seem to be leaving the ring -- with an awareness, of course, that it will lower their hits-per-day and make them harder for the average knitter-on-the-street to "find".

isn't that interesting?

i've even heard tell of some folks who privatized their k-blogs, going from a once-public platform to a password-only one. keeps out the riff raff. these marlene dietrich moves are conducted in the public forum -- people often KNOW that people are bowing out and going members-only.

but do people ALWAYS know? are knitbloggers "faking their own deaths" -- posting final messages such as, "knitting. eh. i guess it's not really for me. bye!" and then resurfacing...underground? ringless? gated? so sick of "buttons" and blogrolls dangling from every page like a bunch of stinky old friendship bracelets, that they now move only in the shadows, passing each other with only a knowing -- and undetectable -- look of understanding? because the party has gotten just that big and ungainly and ugly? full of hangers-on and "me-too"'s, and old-timers who stand around inflating their neck flaps in the hope that it is mistaken for some kind of wisdom, wryness?

what if new bloggers aren't joining the ring at all? what if previous knit blog ring members are leaving the ring as though they are actually leaving k-blogging -- and starting new, unmapped blogs? and what if these blogs are different from the ones they had before -- as different as though they were by entirely new people?

if you knew it was happening, who would you tell?

yeah baby! it's finished. after two and a half years of being just a piece of wrapping paper, we have a little footstool. grosgrain ribbon finishing keeps the stress off the knitted fabric. here it is, in a favorite corner (photo taken from ludovine's backside).

for any who wonder, "fake manos" (i feel it is rather insulting to call EVERYTHING made in uruguay that isn't manos "fake manos") that you can buy on ebay is really, really nice. softer than manos. and cheaper. and really, really nice.

and for any who wonder, yes, the unevenness of the striping is on purpose. just like in the wrapping paper. it takes the museum of modern art to make uneven striping okay for the public. they say it's okay. i take their lead.

remember this wrapping paper?

little pieces of it have stayed in my view now, somewhere in my office, for the past two years. i liked it that much when i bought it. i wanted a way to make it more permanent. i thought, there is something about this wrapping paper that aspires.



it aspired to be a piece of knitting, and now it is. blocking on the kitchen table. the difference in lighting circumstances in photographing these two items, months apart, does not do justice to how well the colors are matched. they are as close to identical as i could possibly have hoped. i'm thrilled!

ben stained a wooden footstool months ago, for which this will be the cover. i think this one's going to be puffier and fuller than my dad's footstool. now, for the sewing part. ugh.

in january, ben complained that, while he liked to sit at his spot at the kitchen table to use his laptop, the chair wasn't comfortable. (ben likes to sit in the farthest corner out in any room, where he can see everything, and where nothing is happening behind him. i'm not the only OCD person in this house.)

i knew right away what his valentine gift would be -- cushions for our kitchen chairs!!

i got ben's finished in time. mine, which is not quite identical but does match, is almost finished. it will be much easier now that i don't have to hide it. (this project has been watching a lot of court TV and VH-1's bands reunited. ) these are made of the same kitchen cotton as ben's teatowels. in fact, when it comes right down to it, these cushions contain the best elements of two really shitty recent-years' projects: the mind-numbing shroud of turin is where i first started using this cotton, and the ill-fated cat bed is where i first did this "pie wedge" type bottom. so everything really is worth something! believe it!

these cushions look like starlight mints! i had the inserts custom made, and they are fully machine washable, as are the knitted covers. the buttons are antler, and are very smooth and warm and, i am told, indestructable.

when i presented this last night, i had ben sit on the couch with a blanket over his head while i went to get it. i put the cushion on the chair in the kitchen and then said to him, "keep your eyes closed and i am going to lead you to your seat at the table." whereupon Mr. Usability immediately snapped, "why couldn't you have just had me sitting in the kitchen to start with?"

shut up, honey. put your ass down right here.

...and i really liked it. it's not even from this christmas that just ended -- it's from last year. i've been saving it all this time.

earlier this year, i started collecting yarns that matched the colors of the wrapping paper. the darker green is manos del uruguay. the rest of it is from another womens' collective in uruguay, but it isn't manos. it's softer. it's got completely different textures going.

tape the wrapping paper and some knitting graph paper to the window, and let the light shine in. then get busy with crayons. it's time to immortalize this wrapping paper once and for all!

check back for updates.

my dad is becoming dangerous on the internet. that is to say, he is starting to do it on his own. dad -- please hit the back button.

okay! i am tempting fate by posting the finished product a whole six days before christmas morning, but here it is: the footstool that i have made for my father (with help from a few special people, as usual.) this footstool has a long and storied past, starting with the yarn: soy silk that i spun and dyed, and dog hair from our dead family dog that i also spun. it also features a photographic image of my father as a toddler, along with some of my aunts, which i transferred with the use of a large halftone negative onto a piece of fabric treated with photographic chemicals.

we bought a footstool frame, and ben stained it. brett and lisa at rosie's yarn cellar helped me figure out how to make my piece of knitting frame the photo correctly (i worked from the outside-in.) then grace was very patient helping me to put a fabric backing on the piece, and dorlynn suggested the grosgrain ribbon edging -- and helped hammer the furniture tacks into it! the whole thing went from being a very floppy and doubtful-looking project to a very solid one, over a course of weeks. believe me, i worried i'd be going to borders on christmas eve for a booby-prize gift cert! but it seems we've made it. lots of people have seen the work-in-progress and it has spawned my brief and testy

footstool FAQ

Q: wow! that's really neat! do you think your dad is going to APPRECIATE IT?

A: (pitying snarl)

Q: isn't it a little WEIRD and DEMEANING to put a picture of your FATHER on something people are going to put their FEET on?

A: (disbelieving perplexed snarl)

erm, i'm starting to feel a little holiday stress building. this came together the way i wanted it to, and i think it will have a very happy recipient. it doesn't speak to me being such a great knitter or spinner, that's for sure -- but i dare anybody to have a better dad.

dad, i said get the fuck off my page.

remember this?

ten months and fourteen skeins of manos later, it's finished. it's beyond "pillow". it's definitely a tuffet. we also refer to it as "the ravioli".

if the idea is to make it look easy, i've said too much already. so i'll go on:

i descended into carpal tunnel territory with this one. cryo-gel packs and advil. the glamour of excess. feeling very satisfied to see it finished. serious afterglow.

here is the very beginning of a large pillow sham -- to fit a 26-inch square pillowform. it's a manos multi, and usually, i do not like multicolored yarn (self-striping, yes, and tweedy, yes, but not multi). however, i discovered that by using linen stitch, a multi yarn will not do any of the things that i think make multis look ugly. watching this unfold is rather exciting -- ben and i both really like the way it's coming along.

my dad is not so great at using the internet, so i'm not real worried that he will see this pillow here on this page before christmas day. but here it is. not unlike the one i made for tim for "christmas" last year (try july of this year), it is part of a fassett sweater pattern. for this, i used noro "iro" yarn, separated into "solid" colors. then, i felted it (more or less -- there are some bits, which must have had more silk in them, i think, where stitches are still separate and visible.) the back is in a chocolate brown cordoroy which picks up purple sheens nicely.

this is from a few years ago, maybe three. a first attempt at using a fassett design. (the raggedy doll is one i made, and the feet are made of an old vest of tim's.)

first, it was going to be a vest for christmas. then, for a while, it was never going to happen at all. finally, at the end of july it became a beautiful pillow for tim's leather chair. here is a close-up.