Tag Archives: The Design Notebook

Makers Monday – Ojos de Dios and the Chakras – What Is a Chakra?

Knoontime Knitting

I thought I’d take a moment and discuss Chakras, so this project makes a little more sense.

Chakras are an ancient concept from India that were developed 1500 to 500 BCE (Before Current Era). They are conceived as wheels, and are seen to be located in the human body. In general, there are seven chakras in the body:

  • The Root Chakra  – grounding, connection to the earth
  • The Sacral Chakra – primal relationships, sexuality, creativity
  • The Solar Plexus Chakra – will, intent, personal power
  • The Heart Chakra – relationships, love, friendship
  • The Throat Chakra – speaking our truth
  • The Third Eye Chakra – clear sight, vision, intuition
  • The Crown Chakra – connection to the divine, collective consciousness

The seven chakras have all sorts of things that are representative – sounds, colors, concepts, etc. For our purposes, the colors are the most relevant:

  • The Root Chakra – reds
  • The Sacral Chakra – oranges
  • The Solar Plexus Chakra – yellows
  • The Heart Chakra – greens
  • The Throat Chakra – light blues
  • The Third Eye Chakra – indigos
  • The Crown Chakra – violets, whites, silvers

I’ll show you next week how some of these are coming together in practice, and how they look on the wall with each other.

Saturday Craft Circle

Knoontime Knitting

I got some new yarn from KnitPIcks called “Oceana” in the “Spirulina” colorway. It’s worsted weight, 54% superfine alpaca and a new fiber, 46% SEAQUAL (R) YARN, which is reclaimed plastic from the ocean. It’s got a nice loft and halo. I tried several needle sizes (4 was way too small and 9 was way too big); size 7 seems to do the trick.

Here’s the detail of the “Vertical Lace Trellis” stitch from Barbara Walker’s stitch guide, volume 1 (the one with the blue cover). I really like how it is coming out. It’s got a great drape, and the halo makes it soften.

Here’s the completed swatch. I’m thinking of making a top-down cape or poncho, haven’t decided yet. We shall see.

Friday Night Musings

Knoontime Knitting

I was chatting with a friend online this evening and shared a picture of my pin loom weaving box and realized I hadn’t shared it on here. I haven’t shared much on here recently at all, really.

As we collectively learn to navigate our catastrophically changed reality with COVID, it’s important I think to realize the collective stress we are under. It’s attractive to fantasize about all the “things” we’ll get done in this new in-between-time, but the reality is that stress seeps into everything like poison into a creek. Particularly for us here in the States, that new reality is horrific: as of this writing, over 150,000 dead and 5 million infected.

I find it hard to focus. I am, though, keeping up with crafts. Oddly, I haven’t been pin loom weaving this month but knitting – I’ll post some pics of that at another time. What I wanted to share for now is a glimpse into my pin loom weaving because it’s something I can do when my body is too stressed, my hands too sore from stress, and my brain unable to count for lace repeats.

As I shared the pics with my friend today, I remembered that I’d started weaving for a purse to replace one that my mother crocheted. It’s a project bag and it got so ratty and falling apart but I didn’t want to get rid of it. It wasn’t out of a pleasant sentimentality, since my mother was a horrible child abuser, but I still held onto it out of emotional attachment. I finally decided that’s goofy, I don’t want to drag around such negativity with me – particularly with my art.

And thus the idea for a knitting bag was born. The weavies are done, and next up is to sew the pieces together.

On the rigid heddle weaving front, we’re getting ready to start our weavealong in the Yarnworker School of Rigid Heddle Weaving. (If you’re a weaver, why not join us? More info here.) I’m so excited because I’m experimenting with some endangered wool called Churro. I’ll post pics of that at another time. But I was noodling about my weaving tonight and recalled reading about Morse code weaving in the Inventive Weaving on a Little Loom by Syne Mitchell. I decided to look it up again and there’s a Morse code translator! Check it out, here.

I thought it might be fun to try weaving a poem, and I even have one picked out to play with. I’ll keep noodling it and if it comes about, I’ll share pictures with you.

What are you up to these days, Dear Reader?

Work In Progress Wednesday

Knoontime Knitting
Attempt the First

It’s Wednesday.  I figured I’d share what I’ve been crafting around with.

My first item to share is the Emerald Keep Scarf, which will be a giveaway in the forthcoming Keepsake Tour starting March 8th, to celebrate the release of Book 2 in the Persis Chronicles, Emerald Keep.

It didn’t work.

I mean, yeah, it’s fabric, and it’s knitted.  But that’s about it. For one thing, the stitch said WS (wrong side) for both pieces, but either I misread it or it’s a typo because clearly, it’s incorrect – the edge stitches clearly are backward from the main lace stitches.

Attempt the First, Backside

This is a view where you can see the edge stitches are right-side up, while the lace is wrong side.

Grr.

Attempt the Second, Front and Frustration Both Start with F.
So does my favorite swear word.
Jus’ sayin’.

Started over.

And… I don’t like my idea of the border.  You can’t really see it well in this shot, but the edges pull in too much and make it look sloppy.  The reason I wanted a border to begin with is that this stitch has quite a bit of bias curl; however, the edging I picked (mistake-stitch rib) isn’t working.

I think either I’ll throw an extra yarn over in to create a sort of gutter, or eliminate the edges entirely.

Mancooking.
Why move stuff outta the way when you can stand over it?

I mentioned to a friend that we made candles last weekend and realized I neglected to take photos.  I planned to take pics of the cold pots, but we have to cook in our kitchen so they had to come off the stove.

And, apparently, my kid thinks it’s no big deal to stand over them rather than move them out of the way.  He’s cooking a very lovely taco salad at the moment, (well, cooking the sausage that will go in the taco salad).  Yum.

Soap! Curing!

Our batch of soap that we made a couple weeks ago is curing very well.  It’s a lovely creamy ivory color now.  We cut it this weekend to allow each of the bars exposure to air, so they can continue the curing process.

In case you’re wondering, curing is letting the chemical reaction between the fat and lye to finish.

This is raw soap and not milled soap, so it’s not made in a mold.  You can use it as is, once it’s cured, or mill it again and then pour it into pretty molds for a nice appearance.

Candles, Dipped 2015

I only made a half-dozen this year so far; I may fire up the pots once more before I put everything away.  I like the way these came out; they are nice and uniform.  They’re also really long, which is my favorite (I have four different heights I can make).

Basket-o-Candles, Bad Lighting.

This isn’t a very good shot, but it’s of my candle stock.  I’ll see if I can get a better one for you one of these days – but for now, it’s off to eat dinnah.

Yum.

What are you making?

Make Something Monday – Bryce Canyon Hat I

Knoontime Knitting
Bryce Canyon Hat, all done!

I finished the hat late Sunday night.  I used a sewing needle bind off so that the edge is nice and loose.  It’s very warm; reflects heat back against my head.

Top View

I love the way the top came out with swirls.  One thought I had is to continue the swirls down the body of the hat using decreases after each yarn over.

Bryce Canyon Hat, Almost There

Here’s a shot of the rib stitch.  My next one, I want to do something more interesting on the body of the hat.  The ribbing is boring; I’d like to try something more fun – maybe even patterned.

In process, large enough to go on the double-pointed needles.

It looks like a little bag at this stage.

Top View, in process

Here’s the top before drawing all the stitches up.  A pom pom might look cute here, or even a bauble.

Stash Sunday: Introducing Aubergine

Knoontime Knitting
She has a name now!

I’m so excited – I settled on a name, and I’m nearly done with the scarf!  This picture is a little too heavily slanted toward blue, but you get the idea.  I’ve decided the name is Aubergine.  I should be done in another day or two.

This is a fun project because the stitch is much simpler than it looks.  It’s just a four row repeat, and two of those rows is to Purl across.  What could be easier?  This would be suitable for a beginner, as long as they know how to cast on and bind off, knit, purl, and do yarn overs.

Pro-tip – keep your yarn untangled by moving the working skein around the waiting yarn on each color change.  Otherwise you’ll have a wadded up mess before you go five or ten repeats.  No fun.

Work-In-Progress Wednesday

Knoontime Knitting
The Beginning

I received my first commission as Knoontime Knitting!  I am making a scarf for a friend in two colors of purple, Royal Purple and Lavender.  Here is the beginning as it sits on my design pad after the starting swatch.

The Middle

 Here it is after a bit of knitting.  It knits up quickly.  I am using 30 sts cast on for width.

Still the Middle

This is how far I got before I called it a night.

I’m looking forward to seeing how this shapes up.

Make Something Monday

Knoontime Knitting
What’s In YOUR Wallet? or Bag?

Happy Monday, Dear Reader!  I’ve gotten some of my design mojo back and have been playing with some different knitting designs.  This morning, as I waited for the bus, I checked the Bus Tracker tool.  It said the next bus wouldn’t be there for 27 minutes.  Aside from making me late for work, that meant I had time to get some knitting done.

Then, mid-row, what do I see but a bus? Holy crap.  Try stuffing size 10 needles in an already over-stuffed knitting bag and grabbing everything to get onto the bus.

MONDAY!

WIP

This is what I’m making with my size 10 needles.  One of my books has an afghan on the cover that’s made out of triangles.  I decided to take a twist on that idea and using a base of 35 stitches, make a sampler with leftover yarns and different textures.

This is a Turkish Stitch done in Lion Brand Homespun.  It’s a boucle-type of yarn and difficult to see stitch definition; however, I like the less dense look of the fabric.  I find the juxtaposition of the bias pull of the stitch with the decreased edge for the triangle to be an interesting opposition.

What are you working on?

A Journey Into 3-D Notebook – Hats!

Knoontime Knitting

So I’ve been playing with knitting from the top down.  I started a sweater and have been wrestling with it (which I’ll share later), but for now I want to share my newest creation:  a hat!

My first hat was almost a decade ago.  A friend asked me to make a hat for her friend.  I did so.  It was large enough to fit her, her friend, AND me – and not just our heads.  It was not, shall we say, a success.

Since then, I’ve successfully mastered all kinds of things in knitting:  sweaters, sleeves, socks, lace, design…  So why not hats?

I asked myself that and then gave it a shot.

This one is fun because the increases are one-off from each other so that they swirl around the head.  I did the crown with a merino wool, then the sides with an alpaca and mohair blend that’s fuzzy and whisper-soft.

I even like how it looks on me.

And you can see it from the back.

I want to try making another hat that’s a little smaller, so it stays tighter on the head. In fact, I started one, but that’s a post for another day! 🙂

A Journey Into 3D Notebook – What I’m Working On

Knoontime Knitting

November is coming, and with it, NaNoWriMo, or National Novel Writing Month.  During the month of November, NaNo-ers write 50,000 words on a draft of a novel – some more, some less, and the madness that ensues is infectious.

I wish we had a NaKnitMo, National Knitting Month.  Wouldn’t that be awesome?

I was lamenting recently to Rachel Wilder, my partner in writing crime, that my stash is reaching epic proportions.  I typed up what’s under the bed in bins and showed her pictures of my shelves in my office, which overflowed from the huge apparatus over there to the top of the filing cabinet over here.

Unperturbed, she said, “Just think of it as hours of pre-paid entertainment.”

Blink.

LOFF!

In celebration of that, I figured I’d share a few of the things I’m working on or have recently finished.

This is an Ojo de Dios, or “Eye of God.”  Made by the Huichol peoples of South America, they are prayers of blessing and good fortune.  Ojos are made and placed in the central village temple for blessings on a child, a new business venture, a marriage, and many other occasions.

This one was fun to make since I usually make much smaller ones.  This one is about 12 inches on 1/2 inch dowel rods.  I sanded the dowels and then stained them using a combination of varnish and stain.  I skipped the recommended steel wool sanding in between the two coats and I think, in hindsight, I wish I had done it; on the next project I will use that as part of the preparation.  Overall, though, I like how the dowels came out.

I used a large, bulky yarn with an overdye pattern, which is what accounts for the color variations.  I also varied the weave in making the ojo itself, which is what accounts for the visibility of the dowel in the middle of the design in parts.

At the October Nightweavers meeting, a chapter of the Weavers Guild of the North Shore, we made snowflakes for the upcoming Fine Art of Fiber taking place at the Chicago Botanic Gardens November 8-10, 2013.  The designs are surprisingly easy to put together and look quite pretty in white paper.  I am across some colored origami paper that’s white on the back, so I decided to try the design using six sheets of that, instead.

The white added a depth to the snowflake that I didn’t anticipate and like very much.  I think it would look pretty, and very different, when done on paper that has designs on both sides, especially if the designs aren’t identical.

I nipped its ear when I was punching a hole to hang it with; you can see it on the tip of the red ear here.

If you’re curious, the location where it hangs is the Pumping Station: One, a hackerspace here in Chicago.  This is the art room and the view in the background is to one of the consoles for one of our 3-D printers.