On Heirlooms

I'm getting married in 2 months. I am so over talking about the wedding - no one wants to hear that shit, and I super-duper don't want to talk about it. It's tedious! But one thing I have learned in the wedding process is how huge a scam the wedding industry is. Oh, you want that for your wedding? Let me just add a zero to the price.



One thing that I've been encountering a lot of is the blatant abuse of the word "heirloom". I've been seeing a lot of "heirloom quality" and "future heirloom" bandied about, and it's pretty bullshit. The QUALITY of an item does not make it an heirloom, and I'm not even going to get started on the shoddy quality of the mass-produced items in question. Most of the keepsakes that my family holds on to are handmade, and not necessarily of any superior quality. In fact, many are falling apart. They are just nice things that I like. There is no specific sentiment behind them, and if there was, that sentiment belonged to SOMEONE ELSE.

As for "future heirloom" - well, I can't control what future generations are going to find precious and sweet. I've had to deal with a lot of my family's crap over the years, and I'm not holding on to things just because so-and-so loved it. My Aunt Virginia collected little porcelain bunny rabbits (her last name was Hare) - I have ZERO interest in little porcelain bunny rabbits, so I didn't take them. I don't want to impose what I find lovely and sentimental on anyone else. "Future Heirloom" - let's talk about that lovely macrame wall-hanging that your mother made in 1972 - I bet she thought THAT was a "future heirloom"! And guess what, I picked it up at a yard sale for 5 cents. One man's treasure and all that.

You can't impose an "heirloom" on anybody, nor should you be purchasing things for their potential heirloom-ability. It's the wedding equivalent of purchasing "Collector's Edition!" items. Which is bullshit.

Tour & More

My July was spent watching the Tour de France, and spinning for the Tour de Fleece. I really enjoy watching the TdF - it's a lovely snapshot of France, and I find the logistics and endurance of the cycling to be fascinating. And with the Tour de FLEECE, I actually get a ton of spinning done:



This year's goal was to tackle a lot of the long wools that have been piling up. I managed to get a few sweater lots of Romney and Wensleydale spun up, with some breaks for shorter wools and smaller quantities. I'm pleased as punch with my progress this year: 8 pounds, 1.5 ounces - 7889 yards total.

I've also been working on getting these things printed up and out of the house:



I picked up an L Letterpress for invitation printing. I don't have the floor space, money, or structural beams to have a true letterpress here, but this seemed to be just the right size for making up these invitations. I had some plates made through Boxcar Press (from paper cuts that I made) and read some of their reviews and hints for using the L Letterpress. The printing went fairly well - that little machine is pretty cool and I do see myself making more things with it. The plates from Boxcar were crisp and easy to clean. Registration was easy and smooth, and the imprint was fine on the 160gsm cotton rag I used.

Envelopes are addressed and these are heading out the door!

Busy-ness, assorted.

Things have been a hodge-podge of busy over here. We got a new couch, which involved getting rid of the old couch (and chairs), taking down a ton of shelves, and basically re-configuring the entire living room. Behold, comfort:

...and excessive shelf space:


It totally opens up the room and makes everything fabulous.

Of course, this was just one stage of numerous home-repair projects. A month or two ago we helped a friend move, and managed to score 6 new-to-us dining room chairs. They're comfortable, and fit wonderfully in our dining room, but the seats were a blase beige (and dirty!) microsuede. Not so much. Off to IKEA! A staple gun, some fabric, and a half hour later, and we've got stellar new chairs:



I love that they are each a little bit different from one another but all play well together.

There was also some smaller crafting going on (the quilt is on hold for a bit as it's been a bit too warm to work on the hand-quilting) - these shoes:



Someone pinned these a few months ago and I haven't stopped thinking about them. The originals were Marc Jacobs for Vans, but they seemed easy enough to replicate, no? Air-erase marker, fabric marker, and a half hour later.....I have awesome new summer shoes! Hooray!

There's also been some paper-cutting:


These were sent out to have plates made in order to letterpress invitations and miscellany. The plates came out WONDERFULLY and I can't wait to get printing. Oh! Also in paper-cutting news, the Ignite presentation I gave a few months ago is now up online. It's all those 80s papercuts.....

There's been some knitting too:

Saartje's Booties, HelloYarn Fat Sock leftovers.


Damask, handspun HY "Winter Storage" singles spun by the most delightful Sparkcrafted. I'm knitting this up for her.

And thinking about knitting a Stripe Study with these:

That's Malabrigo Lace on the left, and Spunky Eclectic "Orchard" Romney handspun singles on the right. The mal lace is....felty and pilly. ALREADY! Grumble.

Spiralling

Two months ago, The American Folk Art Museum held the "Infinite Variety" quilt show in New York for 4 days. Sadly, I did not get a chance to see it in person, but the pictures that were popping up all over the place were inspiring. I was especially intrigued by this one - the optical illusion effect, the simplicity of the design, the whole thing! I HAD TO FIGURE IT OUT.

So when I'm still thinking about it two months later? Yeah, that's a sign that I have to make it. I got out my handy protractor and started to chart the whole thing - I planned on using this lovely pile of colors that I picked up with Kelly in January:


We got a 1/2 yard of each of those 12 Kona Solids - the idea was to make a quilt using those solids and white. I had no ideas.

But then it all started to come together! There was some tweaking, some long division, some cursing, but with much perseverance......


And then the tough part, getting it ALL together.......


It's GIGANTIC! It's about 78" or so across. The center seams are incredibly, um, unseemly - there are 48 seams all converging on one point, making for a LOT of bulk, and a bit of a mess. I appliqued a little quarter-sized circle over the whole mess, and I think it's fine. But the center circles are still all quite thick - it's 3-4 fabric thicknesses for the center foot or so. I'm sure the quilting will be a BEAST - I'll be hand quilting this, as it's just too big to think about running through a machine, and it will gain me a bit more control over the lines and colors. Hoping to begin to tackle the quilting this weekend!

ROADTRIP!!!!!

We went everywhere - and here you have it mostly in pictures:


This is bullshit on the Interstate in Cleveland. A 90 degree turn? REALLY?

We stayed with the wonderful melseyknits and her husband. It was fantastic, they were wonderful host/esses and lovely, fabulous people. Until we had to leave......


...After defeating Melinda, I revisited my Robot Army:

I am SO fascinated by the windfarms that are cropping up in Iowa, and - having not grown up there - it is wonderful to see them on the horizon and integrated in the landscape. I think they're beautiful.

We visited Inga on her farm to see these Baby Burgers:

...and all the pigs and sheeps and goats and chickens too. In fact, there was some chicken farming involved.

I can't even talk about Milwaukee - we did too much! It's such an awesome city! That will have to be a later post.

BUT! Then we went to Ann Arbor, and went to Zingerman's:


Ohmigod I can't even. It's all too much.

But then we saw Stacey in her latest handknit:


And all was awesome again! Really, this lady is spot-on. If you are in Ann Arbor, I highly recommend getting coffee or scotch with her!

We had our portraits done in Canadia:

I knit these socks on the road:

And we picked up this awesome toolbox:


And so much more! Milwaukee will have to be it's own post - it was all too much.

A lot of people have expressed interest/concern for our tolerance of one another through these road trips. Honestly, we travel REALLY well together. Dale does most of the driving because I can knit and talk (if he is a passenger, he is usually reading, which precluded conversation). We rock out a lot. We listen to a LOT of NPR, when we can get it (we have the NPR map, but there are a bunch of dead zones/shared channels/&c...) We get a little bit crazy, but it is usually mutual. We pack a lot of healthy-ish snacks, we take frequent breaks. We've done this a few times, but every time, I manage to find more awesome roadside attractions - I'm already planning where we can (potentially) stop next year.

Topflappen Swappen!

The end of April means potholder swap! This past Saturday was swap day - which included a drive out to snowy western MA - and many many potholders:



Maryse, Cheryl, and I were hosted by Adrian to sort and divvy ~500 potholders. And eat delicious food and laugh, of course.



I managed to come home with lots of great potholders, but also a vicious sinus infection/cold, which left me pretty useless and crabby for a few days. I only had enough energy and concentration to work on mindless things, which was perfect for getting a few more (loooong) rows in on this giant granny square afghan:



This is all sorts of odds and ends of handspun yarn and assorted worsted weight bundles. There's a lot of Cascade 220 leftovers, ends of handspun projects (some are fingering-weight or so, I've been using them doubled up), and things that I've picked up and collected along the way. It's slow going, but I figure it's a great way to deal with some of the ends and miscellany that accumulates around here.

I also finally - FINALLY! - cleared off all of the bobbins. My final bobbin was about 1/4 full of a sweater lot of SCF "Alexandria" in Cheviot wool:



I filled up 4 bobbins and managed to get about 1100 yards of 2-ply out of it. It's quite plump, and has a great drape. I'm debating sweater patterns currently, but I hope to have something completed with this by this next autumn. We'll see. I still need to finish this:



...my "Coventry" sweater. I'm on the second sleeve, but not very far into it. I'm hoping to finish up the sleeve in the next week or two and join up for the yoke portion. This sweater also features a keyhole scarf neck, which is REALLY going to be the pits. My tolerance for scarf knitting is very very very low!!!

I'm trying to stay focused and not wildly cast-on for 264362 projects (which is what I really want to do) - MUST. FINISH. SWEATER! And work on giant granny afghan a bit, too.

Spring Cleaning

Well, some bobbin spring cleaning. I've had a bunch of bobbins with little bits of projects on them and they've been haunting me. For various reasons I hadn't finished the yarn and cleared them off (not in the mood for lace, wasn't spinning up as planned, etc.) but I figured it best just to sit down and tackle them and clear them off. As of this post, I've only got 1 bobbin left with anything on it, and it's the first of a sweater lot! Here's what we've got so far:



"Botanical Extracts" from FatCatKnits, Merino/Mohair/Nylon, about 520 yards (gift from Weetsie!)



"Speckled" (split up and carded) from HelloYarn, Merino.


"Uluru" from SCF, in Superwash BFL. Also a gift from weetsie!

There's a bit more of the fiber, but that isn't all that I've been doing! There has been a TON of sewing going on.



I finally got around to making up one of these origami quilts I had been thinking about AGES ago - this is the Maine Lobster. The reverse side is red with white stitching. This went fairly smoothly, and I definitely think I'll be making more of these in the future.



I made this skirt! Every year I buy one or two lengths of fabric with the intention of making skirts, and every year I DO NOT MAKE SKIRTS. I finally got around to making some skirts and really got on a roll - I made 4 so far. All o the skirts are reverse-engineered from favorite (store-bought) skirts that I wear constantly through the warmer months. I put pockets in all of them as well (REAL pockets, not dinky girl-clothes "pockets"), and I've been wearing them all a ton/ Geez, why did this take me so long?!?!?



There's been a little bit of knitting......


.......and even some weaving. I'm obsessed with Houndstooth these days :)

Ooh, AND I finished my Topflappen!