Design Workshop: Seaweed
I knitted seaweed and coral last night. Now I have a much better idea of what I will need to complete the sample. I will re-knit the bright green seaweed. It was supposed to look more like the dull green, but I made the center rib too wide and the other sts too narrow.
The orange pieces didn’t turn out the way I expected. The dull orange is too close to beige, so I’m going to look for another orange. Luckily, the knitting on these goes really fast. Just cast on 4 on the Ultimate Sweater Machine, hang a claw weight on the four sts, and knit for a few minutes. The narrow stockinette st band rolls in on itself for a faux i-cord. (Design workshop participants, here’s another opportunity to get a little ahead in the workshop!)
The holey piece is for squat, sponge-like objects. I knitted a piece with the top background colors so I could make some ‘pebbles’ and other raised elements. See the magenta rows in these two pieces? After I secure the sts on either side of the magenta, I will cut along the magenta row to separate pieces. This saves time casting on for each little piece of knitting.
When I make wall-hangings, I do just like this: knit or crochet a few of the embellishments, just to get going. Once I see how they look on the background, I have a much better idea how to proceed. I rarely get it right the first time.
On Sunday, I’ll post newly-knitted seaweeds, and other embellishments, and I hope to have started composing with the pieces I already made.
Lovely Artyarns
I knitted with Art Yarns’ luxury hand-painted Supermerino for the first time ever and I hope it won’t be the last. Wow. ‘Luxury’ sums up the feel of this smooth and soft yarn. And I love this color combination…
The sample is for my next INKnitters article. I spend a lot of time knitting samples. They’re great for taking outside to knit while I watch my two-year-old play, but I really want to get back to making wall-hangings and clothing for myself and my kids.
Design Workshop: Quilted and Bound
Here’s the sample from the last post, all stabilized, trimmed, quilted, and bound.
We got out the button jar today, and I pulled out a bunch of buttons to embellish the piece. We have a great button collection, thanks mostly to people who clean out their stashes and give them to us! Siegi, do you recognize any of your buttons here?
Some buttons will represent sea creatures and plants. The ones that closely match the background add a lot of interest to I like to include buttons that closely match the background. They don’t stand out visually, so you tend to discover them one by one as you return to a piece like this.
I probably won’t use all of them, but a woman likes to have choices.
In preparation for knitting the seaweed, coral, and other parts of the foreground, I chose the several colors you see here. I like to have a bright, dull, and dark version of most colors. For instance, can you see the pale peach, dull peach, and darker orange yarns in one corner? I’ll knit them all the same pattern (probably long, skinny stockinette st strips). Then I’ll appliqué the darker and dull colors in the background, and the pale peach on top, to give the illusion of depth. With any luck it will look like some kind of coral.
In the workshop, we will do just as I have done here: knit a background, and quilt it whole. We won’t cut it up and piece it back together, because we don’t have enough time. If you want to see a wall-hanging in the process of being pieced, have a look back at the very first post on the TextileFusion blog. 😊
Design Workshop: Almost Done
Whoa. This barely comes in under my Tuesday night deadline, as long as you live in Central Standard Time or points west. The Design Workshop sample is almost done. It needs a few highlights, which I will add with some dots of acrylic paint. The fish needs a shadow, which will be a weak wash of charcoal gray acrylic paint. I’ll save that for the Design Workshop, so people can see that you really can paint your knitting.
There’s still room in the Design Workshop at Camp Iwannaknit, in Indiana, June 2, 2005. If you don’t use an Ultimate Sweater Machine, I will be teaching a hand-knitting/crochet version of this workshop in Taos this fall.
On to the next project: new button samples for my Button Medley class. We’ll make polymer clay buttons, felt buttons, and buttons using Create-A-Button bases. I’ll try to post them on the weekend.
Design Workshop: Knitted Background and Fabric Cutting
Here’s the background of the Design Workshop sample, knitted on the Ultimate Sweater Machine, with keyplate 2-dot. The class sample begins above the dark row about three inches from the bottom.
I made a tuck in the side, to see if I could mimic the shape of the rock in the photo. The problem with making tucks is that you have to add more rows to make up for the ones you lose through tucking. A knitter needs to experiment!
In the next couple of days, I’ll quilt and bind this piece, and show the colors I chose for plants and other reef scenery.
You can save time in class by pre-cutting your fabric. This is what you need:
- Backing for sample: a square, 15.5 inches on each side
- Short binding strips: 15 inches x 3.5 inches (cut 2). After cutting, fold in half, lengthwise, and press.
- Long binding strips: 17 inches x 3.5 inches (cut 2). After cutting, fold in half, lengthwise, and press.
- Optional: a hanging sleeve if you would like to hang your finished piece: 15.5 inches x 6 inches. If you have time, make a very narrow hem on each short side.
Design Workshop: Choosing Yarn
On June 2, 2005, I’m teaching a design workshop in Indiana for Camp Iwannaknit 2005. We will design, knit, and embellish an underwater scene, using marine life photographs as inspiration. With only six hours to do all this, we will design on the fly (no gauge swatches, minimal notes) and work fast.
I’m knitting a new class sample, and I will be documenting the basic steps of the process here, so the people who signed up can get an idea of how we will go about this business. I’ll be talking to them in these Design Workshop posts.
For homework, I asked you to look at photos of marine life. Reef photos are good, because the plant and animal life is varied and colorful. My favorite reef picture books are Reef Fish Identification, Reef Coral Identification, and Reef Creature Identification, by Paul Humann and Ned DeLoach (published by New World Publications). The library should have books of ocean life photography.
We can mix and match fish, plants, coral, and backgrounds from different photos. Pay particular attention to the backgrounds in the photos and choose one you like. I chose a rocky, sandy background as shown here. The book is Reef Fish Identification, mentioned above.
I saw three major color groups in the background of the photo: white, gray, and light blue at the bottom; very dark in the middle; grayish browns with a little red on top. I chose yarns from my collection that were fairly close to the ones in the picture, then added different shades of the major colors. My favorite touch is the variegated yarn. It has been in my stash for over 20 years.
If you bring as many colors as are in my photo, you will have way more than enough to knit the background. (But choose your own colors!) I used each one of the colors shown, and most of the yarn is still here for me to use another day.
Does your chosen background include black? Did you get out some black yarn and put it with your other yarns, only to be shocked at how stark and unnatural it looks? Try substituting dark brown, dark purple, or navy (or all three) for black.
You will also need yarn for fish, plant life, corals, sponges, and so on. Use your homework research to guide your color choices.
Tomorrow I’ll post the background I knitted with these colors.
The Machine for Handknitters
I’ve been a hand knitter for over 35 years, and I know that a lot of hand knitters don’t like knitting machines. That is why I need to let everyone know how much and why I love my Ultimate Sweater Machine, sold by Bond America. Here it is, set up out on the carport today. I wanted to knit where I could see my two-year-old playing outside, my husband working in the garden, and the flowers and the lovely spring day.
Anyway, the USM turns out stockinette stitch in a hurry. Any fancy stitch, like cables or stranded knitting or intarsia or lace, has to be hand-manipulated, and therefore takes longer. You can knit many hand-knitting yarns on the USM, directly from the skein. I have even used hand-spun yarns on the USM.
I have often knitted the stockinette stitch part of a sweater on the machine, then taken it off to do the fancy knitting by hand. I find knitting stockinette stitch to be dull, so the USM does that for me whenever possible. My knitting time is so limited that any hand-knitting better be stimulating and fun.
If you have hand pain or suffer from carpal tunnel, a machine like the USM lets you make the most of your hand-knitting time. The machine is also great if you’re designing or teaching, and you need to do a lot of stockinette-based swatches. Have a look at my post of April 3, 2005, where all the Fair Isle swatches are USM-knit.
The USM’s strength is stockinette, so I use it almost exclusively for stockinette-based sts. I find cable knitting on the USM to be a bit of a strain, and since cables are fun to knit anyway, prefer to do those by hand. Lace is possible, but I like knitting lace by hand, too.
I have used the USM since the early 1980’s, when it was called the Bond Knitting Frame. It’s a simple machine, and easy to learn (comes with a video these days), but you do have to spend some time training yourself. So there you have my testimonial for the Ultimate Sweater Machine.
How did it go, knitting outside today? I didn’t get very far. My little Ella didn’t like the machine hogging my attention. She wanted to sit in my chair. After she went to sleep, I took our floor lamp outside and knitted under its light, to the tune of crickets, night birds, and the occasional flapping of sleepy swallows.
Design Workshop: Composition
The knitted embellishments are done, with a few alterations from last post’s plan. You’ll see I made two new orange coral pieces. The lighter one just didn’t look right. Sometimes you can’t tell until you knit it and put the pieces together. I decided against knitting more of the sponge-like balls.
For me, the details of a piece often don’t become clear until I’m composing.
With the pieces done, I made two different arrangements. In the second one, I included the ‘rocks’ made from the background colors. I haven’t made the fish yet, so I cut a fish from paper to help me visualize it.
Tuesday night, I’ll post the finished sample. Then it goes up to Indiana for Lea-Ann’s trunk show.
Sneak Preview
Here’s a tantalizing preview of one of the samples I’m knitting for INKnitters. The yarn is Berroco Lullaby. It looks like unspun nylon filaments worked into a tape. Thank goodness, the tape does not unravel from the cut end.
I like the colors, but the tiny fibers catch on every little rough spot on the hands, during and after knitting.
My friend Hazel Stansfield from the Hallamshire Guild of Weavers, Spinners, and Dyers in Sheffield, UK, gave me this hint or something very like it to get rid of rough spots: Mix sugar and olive oil. Scrub your hands with the mixture. Rinse, dry, and knit!
Taxes Done, Back to Knitting
For the first time in many years, I finished our tax return by the first deadline! I’m very proud of myself, and will reward myself with unbridled knitting, if I can stay awake. The Salt and Pepper Jacket is just a couple of hours away from being finished.
I did get some knitting done during these fine spring days. My little one and I sit in the shade under the carport. She plays and I knit. I got a good sample done for my next INKnitters article. Only several more to go. I like to illustrate with lots of samples.
As I said, we are having beautiful spring days here in Texas. The sun is warm, the breezes light, and wildflowers are everywhere. Texans are proud of their wildflowers. I’m no exception, so here are some photos. In this one, the white earth to the left is our driveway. When you back out, you have to watch out for that barbed wire fence, or as some of us say around here, “bob wahr fence.”
These are pink evening primroses, aka showy primroses. They’re my favorite.
