Category Archives: General Topics

Fibre related videos that I like

These are some instructional and documentary videos that I like.

Instructional
A Knitting Glossary – with Elizabeth Zimmermann and Meg Swansen
A really great compendium of knitting techniques by two of my favourite knitters.

Spin Art Video – with Jacey Boggs
I really like this video. Jacey gives very clear instructions on how to create these fun textured yarns.

Color and Yarn Design for Spinners – with Deb Menz
A good introduction to colour theory and using colour in spinning.

Respect the Spindle – with Abby Franquemont
A good introduction to spinning with spindles.

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This gives a really good overview of the major types of looms available and covers setup and maintenance of looms.

Documentaries
In Search of Lost Colour
A good overview of major natural dyes, including some history of the dyes, how synthetic dyes have displaced them and the resurgence dyers using natural dyes. It shows dyeing with natural dyes, but doesn’t go into much detail on the dyeing processes. Trailer.

Indigo: A World of Blue
A very good overview of indigo, its history and modern uses. It shows dyeing with indigo but doesn’t give instructions on creating or caring for indigo vats. Trailer.

BLUE ALCHEMY: Stories of Indigo
Another good overview of Indigo. This one shows more methods of how indigo is created and shows traditions from Africa, South America, India and Japan. Trailer.

Real Men Knit
This is a documentary I took part in that came out in 2006. A good overview of the then emerging knitting scene for men. One small confession – the shawl you can see me knitting on in the trailer is a long standing WIP that will likely be ripped out.

Rounding third and heading for home

This is the last week for the blogathon. It’s been a very interesting experience so far.

It has taught me a few things that will be valuable coming up and for continuing working on this blog.

A good tip my partner gave me was to plan an outline for the month and assign topics to each day. That way I wouldn’t be struggling to find something to talk about all the time.

Another useful tool was a calendar add-in for WordPress which allows me to enter in those topics and work on posts when I have time. It’s great being able to bank posts for days that I know I won’t be able to write something and for when I’m away.
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I was surprised by how long some of the posts took me to get done. I was thinking all the posts would be about an hour to do. Some took 3 and 4 hours to do in total. Part of that is getting research done, taking pictures, things like that.

Going forward I’m going to try shortening the time it takes to write a post, but I’ll leave it take as long as I think a post warrants. Some topics will need more work on them.

Right now I’m planning on blogging twice a week once the blogathon is over. I’m aiming for Tuesdays and Fridays. I’ll try that for a while and see if it needs changing.

Haiku Day

Flame red cabled socks
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brings joy to my soul.

And now for something completely different

It’s Sunday. I’m taking the day off. Here are some links to amuse and titilate.

The Knitted Elvis Wig Pattern!

Biology 101 – Knitted dissected frog!

Sheldon – the knitted turtle!

Knitted Fractals!

Mathematical Knitting!

Shaun the Sheep!

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Debbie New art cards!

The 12 days of weaving!

Yarn Harlot!

More Harlot!

and just because it makes me giggle – Tickling a baby penguin!

Have a great Sunday everyone!

Hands on creativity

falls_02c

Niagara Falls, Canadian side. 2003. Pinhole photograph.

A lot of my life has been doing things creatively with my hands that are visual in nature.

I love being able to create things that people can see and enjoy. I like being able to get right to the heart of a craft and learn it so I can use it to express myself.

During the late 90’s, early 00’s I did photography as a hobby and a small business. I was a member of a cooperative gallery in Toronto called Gallery 44 – Centre for Contemporary Photography. I took part in several group shows and had two solo exhibitions with them.

During that period I gained a love of old photographic and alternative processes.

One thing I really liked were pinhole cameras. I built myself one out of black foamcore. It was designed with a simple shutter mechanizm that I could control and it could be strapped onto a brace that had a screwmount on it to attach to a tripod. The back of the camera held a 4×5 film holder. I marked the sides of the box with guidemarks so I could compose the picture fairly well before making the exposure.

My last solo show was in 2002 and it was a mixed media show. I had six or seven pinhole photographs on the wall and a series of knitted articles that were featured in or related to to the photographs.

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Gallery show, Blue sweater in foreground with photographs behind.


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One piece in the show was a large skein of yarn, looped over a rod, that was being knitted into a scarf. I tried to come in each day at lunch or after work and do a few rows on the scarf. I also made the needles from wood dowels topped off with glass beads. I finished half of the scarf during the time of the show.

The two main knitted pieces were a sweater I had made for my ex partner and one I had made for myself. His sweater is the one you see as my banner image. You can see a picture of him wearing that sweater here.

The sweaters were hung from the ceiling, facing each other, like they were having a conversation. People could walk between them to get a closer look and to also maybe get a sense of what the conversation might have been.

All the photographs were taken around Toronto. Most of them were showing me knitting on an item that was displayed. An example was me knitting on the sleeve of my sweater sitting on the ledge of the stairs at Union Station. The picture of the other sweater was the one exception. The sweater was already finished and the picture was me wrapped up in it at my old house.

Most of the pictures took between 3 and 20 minutes to expose. I usually tried to time my knitting so I could finish at least one row during the exposure.

fountain1   whales1

In the first photograph I believe I was knitting on a shawl, sitting on the fountain in St. James Gardens, King Street East between Church and Jarvis Street. In the second photograph I was knitting on a scarf sitting on the whale statues at 121 King Street West.

A weekend in the country

pan2It’s summer here in Canada. Time to start heading to the cottage on the weekends and summer vacations and time for a little guide on fibre fun you can bring along.

General thoughts
Keep your projects small and light. Bring several! Have things you can do while traveling and ones for when you are at your destination. Variety is good! Pack things in sealable containers or ziplock bags to keep them from the elements, especially if you are camping.

Knitting
Small and simple knitting projects are great to bring along, like socks, hats, scarves and mittens. Travel time is a great time to work on your projects.

Spinning
Spindles are great for traveling with. Supported spindles, like a Russian spindle (or here) or a Takhli, can be used in the car during traveling.

If you are staying at a cottage or someplace indoors then a folding spinning wheel is also an option. Most should fit in the trunk or back seat.

Fibre prep is something you can also do. Hand cards and a dog brush are pretty portable. You can go through a bunch of fleece in no time on a relaxing evening.

Dyeing
Dyeing can be a fun activity for the whole family. Before going you can do research with the kids to find out what plants are available where you are going and figure out which ones you want to try. Once there you can get them to help gather and prepare the materials and help out with the dyeing.

My partner and I sometimes do natural dyeing when we are up at the cottage. We bring the dyepots, mordant, stir sticks and fibre/yarn with us. I would suggest using only Alum and cream of tarter, as these have the least impact on the environment. Also, make sure to only use as much mordant as needed for the amount of fibre you are working with. This will reduce the amount of left over mordant that will be disposed of.
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We use either lake water or spring water from up the road. We use the propane stove in the kitchen, but you could also use a campfire to do the dyeing. You have to watch closely with a campfire to make sure the dyepot doesn’t boil.

We usually collect our dye materials from the area. A good rule of thumb is to never collect more than 10% of a plant in any given area. For example, if using leaves, only take leaves from 1 or 2 branches of a tree and spread out your collection over a large area.

Used plant material can be used for compost or spread out in the bush to decompose. Left over mordant baths can be disposed of onto sandy areas, like a dirt road away from the house and septic system. Do not pour it down the drain into the septic system! Left over dyebath can usually be disposed of this way as well. Make sure to dilute both baths with a lot of water before getting rid of them.

Weaving
There are several very portable options for weaving and traveling

Weavettes and small weaving frames
These are very portable hand help frames. The small ones are great for working on while traveling! You can whip off a square in 15 – 30 minutes.

Backstrap looms and ground looms
These can be setup before you leave and used once you get to your destination.

Weighted warp loom
This is a very simple version of a weighted warp loom. All the material can be kept in a medium sized container.

Colour my world

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I love working with colour in my designs and in my projects. I’m such a magpie for beautifully hand dyed yarns and fibres.

Using colours and choosing colours is a skill that I have built up over the years. It has taken me a long time to learn what works and how to “see” what a colour is.

I’m more confident now in my colour sense then I was even just five years ago. I’ve done a fair bit of dyeing and colour sampling in that period and I’m finally at a stage where I can look at an object and start figuring out what components the colour is made of.

These days, I love just playing with colour, seeing what I can come up with, rather than getting stressed out and all technical about it.

Back in the late 90’s, early 00’s I did photography as a hobby. I worked mostly in black and white, as I understood that more. I did print  in colour, but it was more difficult and more expensive.

One tool from colour photo printing that can help dyers is a Color Print Viewing Filter Kit. These are cards with gels in cyan, magenta, yellow, red, green and blue, with three different densities of colour on each card. You use these filters by holding them in front of you eyes and viewing the object you are working on. You can then compare what you are seeing to the colour you want to replicate. I found these very useful when I was printing colour photographs because I didn’t yet have enough of a colour sense to be able to figure out what I needed to do to get to the colour I wanted.

I work with both chemical dyes and natural dyes. I like natural dyes more. They give more complex colours and they often impart distinct aromas to the yarn. I also enjoy being able to go out and gather many plant materials to do my own dyeing.

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These are some samples of things I have dyed over the years.

hankies_group1
Silk hankies dyed in weak acid dyes. I dyed these last year for classes I was teaching on spindle spinning silk. These were dyed in mason jars filled with dye and steamed in a large canning jar for 45 minutes.

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These were dyed as part of a natural dyeing class taught by Harriet Boon. The three primaries were Cochineal (red), Osage orange (yellow) and Saxon blue (blue), which is derived from indigo.

The secondary colours were made by dyeing in one colour and then over dyeing in a second colour. The secondary colours are arranged so that the colour they were overdyed with is the one they are closer to. For example – in the greens, the one closest to the blue was first dyed in Osage orange then in the Saxon blue, the one closest to the yellow was first dyed in Saxon blue then in Osage orange. We did it this way so we could see the difference that the order of dyeing would have on the final colour.

fortissima_sock  lake_fletcher_sock_full
These are socks made from a batch of yarns that my partner and I dyed up at the cabin on Lake Fletcher. The yarn was pre-mordanted in tin. The light colour is from Black Locust seed pods and the dark colour is from Mountain Ash leaves with a copper mordant added to the dye pot. The skein was treated with an ammonia after bath.

The skein was dyed by putting a little over half the skein in the first dye pot and then doing the same on the other end in the other dye pot. There is an overlap of about two inches that has both colours.

Blogathon Guest Post Exchange Day – Post by Joe Wilcox (QueerJoe)

DO QueerJoe

Today’s post is a guest post by Joe Wilcox – Queerjoe.

Most of his postings are knitting and craft related, but he also says a lot about his life in there as well.

I first met Joe back in 2008 for the first Men’s Spring Knitting Retreat, held at Easton Mountain in New York state. He is a kind gentlemen, a big extrovert and all around just fun person to be with.

I hope you enjoy his post! Please go check out his blog – there are lots of interesting things to read and look at there.

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An American’s View of Canadian Knitters
About 28 years I’ve been knitting, blogging about knitting for over 10 years and organizing a men’s knitting retreat for over 6 years, and working in the lovely Province of Alberta for about 2 years, I have had the opportunity to come into contact with many Canadian knitters and have gotten to see firsthand how they differ from their American counterparts.

Disclaimer
Lumping all of the Canadian knitters and American knitters into two distinct groupings will obviously have some shortcomings. And I’m sure Danny’s readers, both American and Canadian will be able to come up with a number of exceptions to my conclusions. Make sure you leave plenty of comments to let Danny and I know.

Top 10 Differences Between Canadian and American Knitters:
1. Canadian knitters turn to knitting as a return to a simpler way of life whereas Americans take it on as another frantic pet obsession they can spend money on.
DO 1

2. Canadians are much more technical knitters and want to understand the exact structure, torque and slant of various cables, or will try out multiple variations on decreases for a knee sock until the shaping of the calf is perfect or will take great pains to calculate the exact number of stitches required to decrease to get a perfect circle using all their college-level math, while the Americans will get it “close enough.”
DO Hat Top
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3. Canadians elevate crafting to an academic pursuit and even have colleges where you can get a degree in spinning. Tell a non-knitting American that you knit, and they’ll picture a crochet toilet paper cover and reply, “How quaint.”
DO 3

4. Canadian knitters tend to either be extremely well-known and popular, like Stephanie-who-no-longer-needs-a-last-name (mostly because of their folksy wisdom…see number 1) or fly under the radar and are visible only to those that search them out.
DO 4

5. Canadians knitters that fly under the radar are well worth searching out.
DO Canadian Knitters

Going clockwise from top left: Barb Brown, Danny Ouellette, Veronik Avery and Ted Myatt.

6. Canadian knitters are not afraid to travel to attend a knitting event. Canadians are generally not afraid to travel.

7. Canadians have little control over taking on all aspects of knitting once they’ve started…I’m convinced that eventually, every Canadian knitter will eventually be raising sheep so they can be involved in all aspects of the craft.
DO 7

8. Canadian knitters are content to sit in a group of knitters knitting without anyone talking. Americans, not so much.

9. Canadians are more literal, straight-forward and earnest than American knitters and Canadian knitters get uncomfortable when pattern instructions are vague or missing things. Having an instruction in a sweater pattern such as “Reverse all shapings for the left side” or “keep knitting until it looks good” irritates them, even though their politeness would prevent them from saying anything about it.

10. Finally, Canadians resent having to use U.S. size knitting needles. Telling a Canadian to use a US8 needle and worsted weight yarn is like nails on a chalkboard. Like Quebecois who pretend not to understand English when it’s spoken to them, many Canadian knitters will ask the needle size in millimeters (or is it millimetres?) even though they know full well what size to use.
DO 10

An Alphabet of spinning

spindleYou can thank Peter Greenaway for inspiring today’s post. His works tend to have a lot of lists and games and humour (twisted though it may be) in them.

This came about from watching The Pillow Book on Saturday. Amung other things, it is a movie about a woman writing a book of lists inspired by a 1000 year old book by a woman who made a book of lists. The other direct influence would be 26 Bathrooms.

A is for Angora rabbit, Alpaca and Ashland Bay
Angora rabbits make angora fibre. There are several types of Angoras, each with their own characteristics. In general, the best fibre is plucked from the rabbit, rather than being sheared. Unfortunately for me, these are one of the animals that I’m allergic to.

Alpaca fibre is one of my favourites to work with. It comes in a wide range of shades of white, greys, browns, fauns and a true black. Plus the animals are just so cute!

Ashland Bay is the seller of many lovely fibre lines.

Continue reading →

I feel an idea coming on…..

Where do the ideas come from?

Sometimes they have very specific inspirations and references, others just seem to come out of nowhere.

A lot of times I work with a musical approach – theme and variation.

I’ll have an idea / inspiration – it may be a stitch or a construction or maybe colours.

I’ll use that for an initial pattern, then I’ll try out a variation on it. Something that was an idea for a hat may morph into a sweater. A cable that was on a scarf becomes the inspiration for a hat and the finishing of that hat inspires a sock!

Sometimes the variation will work, sometimes not. But I learn something from each step and that helps me with other designs.
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I come from a mathematical background, and a lot of my patterns reflect that and a certain amount of structuring. I find it very difficult to make things that are more free-form and fanciful.

That being said, part of my work really is just play. Seeing what a new yarn is like by making some swatches, trying out different needles and patterns. Taking some new fibre and trying different spinning methods and final yarn sizes, then knitting with it. There is a structure to what I’m doing, but a lot of it is just playing with what is there and seeing where it takes me.

I’m  coming through a long period of not having a lot time or inspiration for new designs. I’m currently working through a backlog of older ideas that are being test knitted, and I’m starting to get some newer ideas that I’m working on.

Its amazing having the time and energy again to be creative and to come up with new ideas.

I’m hoping to talk about a couple patterns in more detail in future post.