Category Archives: Notions

needles at the ready?

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IMG_4325cropi used up

one and a half skeins

of yotta to make

‘water under the sky‘,

braids and all.

now i have

one and a half skeins

left to giveaway

for someone else

to enjoy.

you have from now until this saturday night

to leave a comment (which includes your rav name

or some other way for me to reach you if your name gets chosen).

IMG_4317cropi’ll draw a name this monday, the 21st.

take a look at julie’s yarns

and tell me which one

 you’d most like to knit with.

you can include why if you feel so moved.

then check back monday to see the results.

ready? … set … comment …

‘half’ taken from 44:15-17 in isaiah.

‘water under the sky’

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the summer i was fourteen years old,

i spent two weeks immersed at language camp.

IMG_4170cropthis meant only french

spoken, all the time.

the thing is,

most of us campers

knew very little french.

we’d whisper

in english

in our bunks at night

or behind

the counselors’ backs

trying to stave off

the deep feelings of homesickness

that were only intensified by the language gap.

in an effort to connect IMG_4158

(and to calm us down),

our cabin leader ingrid

would quietly sit

humming

while she brushed

our hair until it shined.

she would then

do different

braids each day.

french braids (of course),

dutch braids, pigtail braids and my favorite, fishtail braids.

four of us had long hair then and became known for our daily locks.

we loved our matching braids and we ate up the attention.

IMG_4173shadewe were so far

from home and from

our own sweet mamas.

even now,

braids

make me feel hugged.

this piece

of my history

is the inspiration

for today’s

new pattern.

‘water under the sky’ feels to me like a warm hug around the neck

and the fishtail braids are like emotional comfort food.IMG_4165sat

don’t you dare let

the braids scare you.

there are clear

step by step directions.

if you want more,

fishtail braiding

is easy to find

on youtube,

and tomorrow you can

to enter to win

enough yarn to knit and braid, your own ’emotional comfort’.

see you then…

1st and 3rd pics: julie asselin’s ‘yotta’.

‘water under the sky’ taken from 1:9 in genesis.

2nd and 4th pics: camaj fiber arts ‘boheme sari ribbon yarn’.

‘corner of the roof’

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this is a favorite proverb of mine:

“better to live on a corner of the roof than share a house with a quarrelsome wife”.

you better believe it.

when i start to feel all snarly and discontent

i remind myself of this.

no man of mine is gonna wish he was on the roof.

when i think of a roof,

i think of a pagoda.  no idea why.

the new england roofs of my childhood are nothing like them.

i’ve never even seen one in real life.

still, that’s what comes to mind at the mention of the word.

amazingly intricate and interesting.

442-5247B-B-R18Ai was aiming to capture

both of these things in this new cuff design.

the way the increasing creates a textural ‘x’

across the top of the square is pagoda-like to me.

IMG_4373crop27do you see it?

now that roofy-ness on my arm

is a good reminder to take a deep breath and be grateful

no matter what.  and always.

pagoda pic from www.novaexperience.net.

‘corner of the roof’ taken from 25:24 in proverbs.

things coming this week

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you’ve been patient.

so patient, as my designing has taken every detour in sight lately.

this week, finally, i can share some new patterns.

three new patterns to be exact.

it’s april, right?

so when it rains, it pours.

now i don’t have ‘sneak peeks’ per se.

instead, i have a ‘behind the scenes’ shot from during

the photo taking for each new pattern.  ready?

for tomorrow’s pattern, this is my youngest testing out

the remote attached to the camera to see if the set-up is working.

and yup, he pressed the button to take this picture all by himself.

IMG_4392cropthe photographer for wednesday’s pattern

was my 14 year old.

she said she just ‘couldn’t resist’ taking pictures of the yard

in between taking pictures of the knitting.

IMG_4333crop2last, but in no way least,

is friday’s pattern.

picture this, i’m making

some slapped together kind of dinner

when i look out the window and the light is gorgeous.

the ground is wet from rain and i’m in my slippers and the food’s on the stove,

but i’m running out (zig zagging to find dry spots) to the kid’s clubhouse to take pics.

a designer’s gotta do what a designer’s gotta do.

i didn’t even burn dinner

too badly.

so this last shot is me balancing on the base of the clubhouse

trying to keep my feet dry long enough

to catch some of the light.

IMG_4280cropthree patterns in four days, starting tomorrow…

‘least’ taken from 14:7 of job.

changing trains

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the thing about blogging as i go,

is that i very seldom go in a straight line.

it’s full steam ahead for a few miles (or days) and then something catches my eye.

maybe the drape of the yarn gets me thinking,

maybe the colorway starts to pull me in another direction,

maybe a certain series of stitches does something i didn’t expect..

whatever the reason, i don’t end up where i said i was headed.

took me four different colleges in two different states to get my degree

so it’s not just in knitting.  my overall life seems to go like this.

and i’m ok with that.

actually, i’m more than ok.  i’m good with it.

i’ve learned to enjoy the scenery out whichever window i’m sitting in front of.

you know?

but i feel a little like

i’ve pulled you all this way and that,

right along with me, as i’ve talked about

working with julie asselin‘s super bulky ‘yotta’.

i was glad to have you along for the trip.

hopefully my distractible mind didn’t wear on you too much.

and (drumroll please) i’ve finished the piece.

probably hard to believe

after all the

twists and turns, but it’s 100% true.

here’s a sneak peek:

IMG_4194sati plan to release the pattern early next week

and you will absolutely be the first to know.

thanks for keeping me company

during the whole process.

i really liked that.

‘company’ taken from 15:24 of romans.

about yesterday

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my ‘nearly wordless wednesday’ photo

from yesterday caused lots of questions to come my way.

most of them along the lines of ‘what in the world is going on there?’.

many times in need of a zipper to be shorter

than what i had on hand, i have shortened.

when you’re dealing with a metal zipper, it’s quite simple.

use needle nosed pliers to remove

the little metal stopper that halts the zipper pull from pulling all the way off.

make desired length by using scissors to cut the fabric backing in spaces between

the close-set metal teeth (that’s the hardest part),

then reattach the little metal stopper at the new end of the zipper.

takes maybe 10 minutes and you’re good to go.

but the zipper i was tussling with

is molded electric blue plastic.

2adcd3520c4d80cbde620cdec37b5f5negsatwit wasn’t key to any project (since i found a replacement)

so i thought i’d see what was possible.

turns out what is possible is to make a huge mess,

pretty quickly and with very little effort.

huh.

IMG_4120negsatthen i got an idea.  an ‘awful’ idea.  i got a wonderful, ‘awful’ idea!

(a la the ‘grinch who stole Christmas’)

and it has to do with julie’s super bulky

and with the reason i wanted a zipper in the first place.

and i frogged back (that’s the only ‘awful’ part about it)

to ‘no knitting done at all’ once again.

sound familiar?

47af87a250e09fd4e17f0f335d80118bigtoday i didn’t knit much.

i started feeling all inspired by the above pic,

so i drove and i did paperwork (not simultaneously).

i walked by the fjord colored yotta, in the bowl on the kitchen island,

as i tried to slow down the chatter in my head and hear it tell me

exactly what it wants to become … and it did.

might even be finished by tomorrow.

definitely making headway.

until then, remember that brave (wo)men don’t slay their dragons

(or their unproductive tendencies and quirky character traits),

they ride them.

the view from up here, by the way, is stellar.

‘effort’ taken from 36:19 of job.