Yes, I am still here... just quietly contemplating my navel

It has been ages, I know. Well, sometimes we just get seriously sidetracked and lately i have had so many priorities that I just haven't kept up with the blog. In some sort of defense though, I have been journaling. It has been an ongoing project of mine to get back to mySELF. ...A continuance of a spiritual journey that I began many years ago. So, I started a journal about the same time I stopped blogging. Private stuff you know. Time has been precious, and so the blogging end of things seemed to be less important. I do want you to know that I have been making progress with my finding mySELF. I was actually right here, under my own nose. Just a little forgotten and very confused. Wouldn't anyone be if you forgot where you put yourSELF? I was hidden behind everyone else in my life, getting tarnished and dusty, and it felt like my own needs didn't matter a bit. A life of service is fine for Mother Theresa types, but I do have my limits. So, I have been asking questions like:

• What do I want to be when I grow up?
• What do I love to do and couldn't do without?
• What do I want in my life?

...well, you get the idea. I know for sure that I love being creative, and it makes my SELF feel really great when I am creating something. I will be sharing some of my process in the following blogs, but this is how I started out:

I am on course to figure out just who I am these days. …Maybe where I got lost along the way,and which way I want to go. I feel usurped. Everyone else came in and bumped me out. I am just hanging on by my itty bitty fingernails to my own shoulders.…And it doesn’t feel good.

The process started with listing 6 things that I love. And Guess what? They changed after a few days!

Bark & Vines

I am taking off into unknown areas now. Into the trees with my latest creation, which I am calling Bark & Vines. Probably #1. It took a lot of pondering before the first stitch. There are simply endless ways to represent bark in a knit fabric. Not only could it be a knitted barkground of scale-like patterns, in a solid tightly knit fabric, it can also be light and lace-like, with many irregular stitches laid down with absolutely no pattern or plan in mind other than to make certain that there is no particular patterning going on. So, I just started out with knit stitches, creating an irregular edge by adding on unevenly with each progressive row. As the rows built up, I randomly added in purl stitches, yarn overs and knitting 2 togethers. Because the yarn is a lightweight Silky Wool by Elsebeth Lavold, the stitches really control the fabric. The result is a very rumply, textural relief surface that does remind me of tree bark. Now, I am in the process of creating vines: ...I-cord ropes that will twine in and out of the holes, and twist about each other with elegant green leaves extending outward to frame the face.

Moss & Clay: a story of greens and terracotta

I have finally finished knitting a vest from a pattern by Jane Thornley, named the Riverstone Vest. Her version is an astonishing replication of river rocks in shades of blackish-grayish-creamy yarns that would get lost if you happened to lay it down on top of a river rock. I loved it at first sight. My own creation strayed a bit in color when I found a gorgeous ribbon, Sari by Louisa Harding. Shades of mossy green, rusts and browns, set off with a strip of copper gleam, it just had to come home with me. ...Along with a few other beauties that befriended it in the shop. It is a super fast knitting project, but I was held back by running out of yarns, having to order, and even over-dye a Patagonia Nature Cotton that was a bit too yellow to blend in with the first one.

Once I started, I forgot to count rows along the neck edge. (I do things like that occasionally.) As a solution for a barely discernible deviation of symmetry, I decided that some terracotta dangles and ribbons to give a bit more character to the neckline was exactly what it needed.

Several Internet searches came up with no terracotta beads. Perhaps for some reason I have yet to discover. However, I am the sort of person who won't take "No' for an answer, and made it a mission to find them. Ever eying some broken flower pots in the back yard, I finally came to the realization that if I were to have what I wanted, I would have to make them myself. Hammer and Dremel in hand, I did what I had to, and this is my result. Photo of the final result will be coming soon!

Faded Roses

Finished!!!! The Cloud Bolero by Ysolda Teague is done!!!! I wore it all afternoon yesterday, and love it! Didn't even block it. I am not sure what blocking does for a cotton and nylon knit (ouch!). I think it is mostly for wooly wonders. It is such a cute shrug, but I am not sure whether I will be doing Solstice gifts of it though. Maybe I could get the hang of it? Its amazing that I didn't go insane with all the knitting/frogging/knitting/frogging/knitting I had to do. Once I decided to use straight needles it was so much better. …But I really don’t like the straight aluminum needles. Way too slippery. Sure wish I could find a way to use the circs without losing track of the stitches because the markers slip though.

I am also about to finish the Riverstone Vest by Jane Thornley. It was love at first sight. I love my vests, and have several. This one will be a real fashion statement as it is long and drapey, in shades of rust and copper, alternated with dark brown and mossy green. I am calling it Moss and Clay. ...Can't wait to get it done and wear it!

I can no longer be trusted....

Of course, those of you who knit may have fallen prey to this affliction. I have joined the ranks of the yarn shopaholics. Just this morning, I visited my LYS in desperation to get a yarn I had run out of. As soon as I entered the door, I was bombarded with many lovelies that absolutely had to come home with me. ...In a huge shopping bag, no less!

How did this happen? Well, I am a sucker for a sale, and it just so happened that the owner was busy marking things down to get them out of the store. Noro Silk Garden for $2 a skein for Heaven's sake! ...And Elsabeth Lavold Silky Wool for the same price! Then, there were the lashies for only $1. That was in addition to the regular priced yarns that I needed.

I feel so satisfied!

Green Glop

I have been making green glops for years. ...Since my kids were little and I couldn't get them to eat spinach. So what can a mother do? Disguise it! With a little help from Doctor Seuss and the blender, my green eggs became a green glop. Actually a fritatta, which is something like a pancake with spinach and cheese, it has became a favorite that my grown sons eat even today with gusto!

Now, however, the blender is no longer a necessity, and this glop just has green "stuff' in it. Add a little salsa on top, and you've got a yummy, fast, and nutritious breakfast!

Rodarte ...high fashion grunge?

I have discovered a sister design team called Rodarte. They are amazing, young explorers in the field of fashion. Their designs are based on nature, and create more "wearable art" than wearable fashions, but they are so interesting to me. They appear to be complete opposites of what they design. The sisters are heavily influenced by string art of the German-American artist Eva Hesse, and create their knits to look like this art was draped onto the body.








The Rodarte duo looks at nature and determines to replicate it. I have to ask myself “if I were to do this, how would I create what I see?” …I have had some ideas about this to, you see. I have been wanting to do bark. Yeah, tree bark. …And vines.


 





My imagination stretches and awakens with Rodarte’s influence. They are organic designers, true California-style creations themselves. I feel as though there is a new definition for designing that I can achieve. It never felt right to me to use traditional shapes and try to make something new about them. Thus, I labeled myself “technical” rather than designer. One of the sisters said that she tries to create fashions that seem to have existed, and without structure. Yeah! ...ORGANIC!
I love the newness and sheer creativity.
I love the way they exonerate and recreate something perfect in itself.

 

I can see myself back "in the garden" doing something more organic than "Fairies..." was.
That was a lot of fun, and it flew off the needles. Now another creation is brewing and about to birth itself.