K Is For… Knitting! Again!

Knoontime Knitting

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I know I did knitting today on the main blog, too, but it bears repeating.  ~grin~  Besides, what if you don’t, yet, knit?  How do you go from string to art?  It’s like anything else.  Practice.

Okay, so how do you know what to practice?

Well, there are plenty of books and websites out there purporting to be able to teach you how to knit.  If you’re reading this and nodding along, chances are that you’ve glanced at them and they meant about as much to you as they did to me – which means, nothing.  Zilch, zip, nada.  I tried to learn to knit from books for almost ten years.  I just couldn’t make sense of the stuff on the page as it related to the stuff in my hands.

If this is you, then I have two solutions for you:

First, find a teacher.  Local yarn shops and big-box stores like Michaels and JoAnns offer classes, as do park districts, senior centers, and adult learning centers.  There are Meetup groups, and knitters even put themselves out on sites like Craig’s List.  Don’t overlook your local university – fashion design programs feature knitting, because the designers need to know how to work with knit fabric.  I met my first teacher through my local yarn shop, and she is an adjunct professor at not one but two local universities.

Second, look online.  YouTube has a wealth of videos on how to do anything from cast on (which is how you get the yarn onto the needle so you can start knitting with it) to complicated stitch patterns, decreases, increases, lace, cables, and all the other foreign-sounding words that are the stock-in-trade of the knitter’s craft.

If you haven’t discovered it yet, Craftsy is a ton of fun to poke around.  They’ve even got a bunch of free classes, so you can see how you like the learning platform.  Their basics series are good, solid grounding in whatever craft you select; they’ve got a ton of intermediate (skill building) and advanced classes for you more experienced knitters out there.  You can select classes and add them to your wish-list, and keep your eyes peeled for their sales.  Might be just as addictive as doing the craft itself!

What about you, Dear Reader?
What suggestions do you have for folks who want to begin a new craft?

J Is For… Jewelry

Knoontime Knitting

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Jewelry.  It works as adornment, identification, religion, art… It fulfills many different purposes, depending on its creator’s intent.  Me, I like playing with sparkly stuff.  This lovely bead is from a local bead shop and it took me hours to find just the right one.  I wanted something to match the scarf I’d made, which is a lace pattern.  I’m using the beads on the ends, like tassels.

That’s what intrigues me: making ordinary objects, like scarves and bags, beautiful.  I love the idea of knitted bracelets with beads incorporated into the design.  I’ve even got an idea for a lace shawl in forest-green mohair with multi-colored iridescent beads.

What about you, Dear Reader?
What are your favorite kinds of jewelry?

 

I Is For… Inkle Weaving

Knoontime Knitting

IEver wonder where things like reins for bridles, belts, pet collars, and trim come from?  If they’re not leather, they’re most likely woven (though there are many other ways, for example, spool knitting, but I digress).  The type of loom used can vary, but here’s what I find interesting.

My weaving instructor, Natalie Boyett of the Chicago Weaving School, (and if you’re here in the city, or visiting, and have ever thought about maybe learning to weave, go there.  She’s hands-down one of the best instructors I’ve ever had), showed me that weaving is one of the oldest textile arts.  Here’s a brain-bender –  all looms are fundamentally the same:  they are designed to put tension on the warp (the length-wise threads) so that the craftsperson can put the weft (the cross-wise threads) in between them.  In this way, fabric is created.

So what’s an inkle loom?  It’s a small, usually portable, loom that allows you to wind on a continuous warp, which means it can be really, really long.  The weaving surface isn’t very wide, usually only a few inches, because the idea is to weave narrow fabric.  There’s an example of one here.

What about you, Dear Reader?
What would you want to make if you could wave a magic wand and know how to use an inkle loom?

 

H Is For… Hardanger!

Knoontime Knitting
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Creative Commons Photo Used from The Butterfly Jungle Blog; click on photo to visit

I haven’t tried Hardanger embroidery myself, but it’s lovely stuff.  A textile art from Norway, it’s traditionally done on white fabric with pulled threads (that’s what makes the little holes) and raised, textural stitches.  Expert artists can work on fabric with tiny threads and high thread counts (meaning, very dense, tiny work).

In researching for this post, I found two resources.  One is from my favorite store that I’ve not yet visited, but hope to this summer:  The Nordic Needle, in Fargo, North Dakota.  I subscribe to their free email newsletter and if you like textile arts, I suggest you check them out.  They have articles on all sorts of artists, their textile arts, and work to keep some of the less well-known arts from dying out.  Here’s a link to their page on Hardanger resources.  The second is a new-to-me website that seems to be full of lots of good stuff – including a free class on beginner Hardanger.  The blog is called Needlework Tips & Techniques.  Check it out!

A new trend is to include color as part of the designs.  There’s a neat assortment of photos that came up when I searched Google for images, here.

What about you, Dear Reader?
Do you prefer traditional white, or modern color?

G Is For… Gardening

Knoontime Knitting

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Gardening.

I love to garden.  I adore the smell of loam, the feel of the plants in their new home, and to play with flowers.  I love getting the fruits of my labor: coming outside to pick peppers and tomatoes with chives and basil for dinner.

Gardening is one of those humbling tasks, because it doesn’t take a bunch of smarts.  It doesn’t even really take books (though I think I have every gardening book known to womankind).  It takes consistency.

Uh-oh.

It’s kind of like writing, in that sense.

What about you, Dear Reader?
What color is your thumb?  Green, like the farmers and gardeners of old?  Or you an armchair gardener, content to look at other peoples’ gardens?  Or somewhere in between?

F Is For… Fancywork

Knoontime Knitting

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Fancywork.  It means fancy needlework or crochet, even tatting, that is decorative.  It was popular during the Victorian era and brought us all sorts of neat things like tatted lace edgings and crochet doilies and such.  For anyone interested in textile arts, fancywork comes up in the lineage of our art even if what we do now is ultra-modern.

Interweave Press, the popular publisher of many different kinds of textile arts books, magazines, DVDs, and sites (Knitting Daily is inspiring even if you’re an occasional knitter), re-released the historic needlework collection, Weldon’s Practical Needlework.  What I found fascinating about the collection is its emphasis on figuring it out oneself.  There’s a lot of knowledge that’s assumed, that for modern craftspersons isn’t necessarily part of the repertoire.

And then came Jane Sowerby, with Victorian Lace Today.  She looks at several historical sources, including Weldon’s, and reinterprets them for modern artists.  While the book focuses on knitting, it gives a fascinating look into historical craft and gives modern interpretations that are sure to have you reaching for your needles.

What about you, Dear Reader?
What historical craft speaks to you, even if its skill isn’t within reach right at the present moment?

E Is For… Embroidery

Knoontime Knitting
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Piece from a kit; original company unknown. Embroidered by A. Catherine Noon. Photo copyright A. Catherine Noon, All Rights Reserved.

Embroidery.  It was the first textile art I ever learned.  Crewel embroidery is an art with a long history.  The Bayeux Tapestry, in fact, is not a Tapestry, nor woven:  it was, in fact, embroidered.  The Victoria and Albert Museum in England has a fantastic page on the history of English embroidery, here.  Embroidery has a wide history, not just in Europe, with some of the oldest references dating back to China 500 B.C.E.

I find it relaxing.  I have started to work on my own designs, usually modifying an existing one as from a kit, like the one from the left (which is one of my oldest pieces, and I did not modify it; I think I made it around 1987).  Embroidery artists are able to translate their graphic ideas into needle, thread, and fabric, and do so either from their own original designs or by adapting from paintings and other art.  I find that pretty darned amazing, to be honest.

I confess, though, that I adore kits.  I find ones that I like, and then it’s like coloring in designs in a coloring book.  My mind relaxes while my hands are kept busy, and I get to play with color and texture.  While embroidery seems intimidating to the beginner, needlepoint and cross-stitch are both needle arts that similarly have kits and can be done with little to no experience.  If you’ve a mind to try embroidery, though, give it a shot – I made this piece before I learned anything from another textile artist, and was able to follow the instructions.  Most of the stitches are fairly simple ones; the only more complex bit the French knots (which, in the spirit of full disclosure, I found horridly difficult – so after this kit, I made sure to pick ones that didn’t require them).

But for the adventurous artist, and for those of you who are able to translate flat, written instructions and graphics to the three-dimensional world of canvas and thread, the world is your oyster.  There’s a burgeoning interest in needlework and some amazing books that have come out recently that are sure to delight both the novice and experience needleworker.  My favorite of the new artists is Jane Nicholas, but beware: viewing her site may consume many hours of your time because her art is captivating.  You have been warned.  🙂

What about you, Dear Reader?
What classical art catches your fancy?

D Is For… Decoupage!

Knoontime Knitting
From Alterknits by Leigh Radford, photography by John Rizzo

From Alterknits by Leigh Radford, photography by John Rizzo

One of my favorite knitting books is by Leigh Radford, called Alterknits:  Imaginative Projects and Creativity Exercises.  She has a ton of really great ideas.  One of the last of them is the best use of yarn ball bands ever.  She covered a dress form with them.  I think the effect is surprising in its simple beauty.

Until I read her suggestions, I didn’t know what decoupage meant.  There’s a whole artform out there surrounding it and you can get special glues and papers for it.  Basically, it’s covering objects with glued paper, then applying something that gives it a high gloss.  There’s a great tutorial at WikiHow and a bunch of other links that I didn’t take the time to delve into, but if you google “decoupage” you’ll find them.

What I find particularly exciting about this particular type of art is that you can use ephemera and found objects from around the house.  This can create unique artwork that is also a snapshot in time – catalogs, magazines, newsletters, those circulars that come from big box stores each week – anything can become grist for the mill.  In today’s day and age, finding art that we can make that’s in line with the idea of “Reduce, Reuse, Recycle” is a positive thing.

What about you, Dear Reader?
What kinds of things might you memorialize like this?

C Is For… Crochet!

Knoontime Knitting

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Crochet.  All it takes is a hook.  The textile world seems divided into Knitters and Crocheters; I’ve rarely met a Switch.  I decided to try learning and this scarf is my swatch that, well, grew.  The teacher provided us with a ball of bulky yarn and a hook, and I had a ball learning single crochet, half-double crochet, and double crochet (which really should be triple, since there are 3 chains, but treble is something else, and…)

Yeah, I’m a Knitter.

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I mean, for one thing, I have a heck of a time keeping my stitches in order.  I somehow end up with more, or less, depending on where I am in the project.  I know it’s a matter of practice, but my knitting seduces me.  I’ll say this: I’m really glad that I know some crochet now, because there’s this sweater I knit that has 4 crocheted medallions up the center, and I really want to finish it.

What about you, Dear Reader?
What craft have you begun that you want to practice more?

 

B Is For… Bargello!

Knoontime Knitting

Today’s letter, B, can mean many things. My favorite in terms of crafts is Bargello, the Italian needle art that resembles flames and waves. The image to the left is a common style, with the colors undulating back and forth across the canvas but all relating to each other in their pattern.

It’s a simple pattern to work, because it’s essentially vertical or horizontal. There’s no fancy stitchwork involved, just carefully placing the stitches neatly one beside the next, offset in order to create the characteristic wave or flame effect.

A quick search of Google images reveals many, many modern interpretations of this relaxing art; I recommend wandering around or, if you’re ready to take the plunge, grab a kit and try it for yourself. For the brave at heart, you don’t even really need a kit. Just select some colors and play with the wave effect across a swath of mesh fabric.

What about you, Dear Reader?
What’s your favorite craft that starts with the letter “B”?