Historic Fibers

Who's Counting?

Or more to the point, who is not counting? That would be me.

Contrary to popular belief, I have not stopped knitting. I have not forgotten how. I've just been indulging what I laughingly call my creative process by not working on a nearly-done pair of socks because in order to complete them, I would need to stop and count. I don't like counting. It involves numbers. Numbers are evil.

The pattern I was working on is Ann Budd's Diagonal Ribs socks, and I was knitting them in some lovely handspun, handdyed Corriedale:

The pattern is fairly easy, and the yarn looks gorgeous. Not to mention the fact that I need these socks, since of course I only wear handknit socks (insert disdainful toss of the head). The problem was that the pattern repeats are not easy to count, and I am fairly particular about making two socks that are the same size.

So there I was, getting to the point where I knew I was just about ready to start the toes, and realized this would mean stopping. And counting. The inner diva threw a hysterical fit.

This seems to be a regular feature of any creative project that I am engaged in. The drama queen has to balk at a crucial moment right before completion, and there is really nothing to be done but wait calmly and patiently while she storms around the house, railing at the gods about the unfairness of it all. This can take some time. She believes (and I have to admit I somewhat concur) that having finished a doctoral dissertation should mean I have fulfilled my lifetime quota on forcing myself to do things I don't want to do, and should therefore be forever exempt from bravely pushing forward. Usually, she wears herself out and swoons, exhausted, over the red satin fainting couch I keep just for this purpose. (Okay, I don't really have a fainting couch, but I've always wanted one).

Once the storm has passed and Drama Queen is sniffling morosely into a lace hankie, I can get on with it. And so I have.

The completion of this rather tardy pair of socks means that I have only one remaining work in progress before I can start something new. That's right, the Scotland Sweater. The sticking point - this time anyway, since there have been countless sticking points with this sweater - is that I have to rip back about 15 rows, and I resent that. I HUGELY resent that. Cue the tempestuous music, and let the wailing and rending of garments begin.

The one reason I haven't sacrificed this sweater in a ritual execution is that I truly believe it will be glorious when it is done. I know it will fit. I know I will wear it often. Hope springs eternal that I will ultimately finish it, after mumble mumble years of struggle. But who's counting?

Quiver

A new school semester has started, and I have two classes overenrolled with some very nervous students who seem to want a lot of my attention. Hopefully, they will settle down in a couple of weeks, but for now they are keeping me busy.

I did have time to work on another prototype design, this time for another spindle quiver. I decided to try nuno felting a bag that could be closed with a drawstring, and I had the perfect fabric for that.

Once upon a time, I had a favorite India cotton gauze skirt. The climate here is so hot in the summer that this skirt was the perfect thing for schlepping around town. One sad day, I was somewhat overcaffeinated, and was working in an office with a rolling chair. I like rolling chairs. But the combination of caffeine, rolling chair, a long, clear hallway, and a flowing skirt was not a happy one. I rolled the chair over the edge of the skirt, did not notice, and then stood up. Rrrrip - the tragic demise of a much beloved India cotton skirt.

Nevertheless, I kept the skirt, and I think I have given it a happy reincarnation as a spindle bag:

Notice how this bag, unlike its unfortunate predecessor, looks nothing like a giant wool condom. Persistence pays off.

Here it is closed, with the drawstring laced around the shaft of the spindle:

The drawstring is the one that came with the skirt, and it has little bells attached to the end. All in all, a satisfying resolution to an unhappy incident.

Warts and All

I have finished Maia's handwoven towels, and I want to like them. This was an ambitious project, which started with using natural dyes on cotton warps, something I had never done before:

Then I laboriously warped the loom. It still takes me a long time to get the loom threaded and tensioned, and in fact I had to tension the loom twice before it was acceptable:

I wove off the warp this past weekend. The most exciting part of weaving is when you can start to see the pattern emerging:

Finally, the towels were woven and I cut the warp off the loom. I knew there were mistakes, skips where the cotton strands had stuck together, producing a break in what should be a continuous pattern. But because the towels were cotton, I put them through a very hot wash, hoping that the shrinkage would hide the errors. To some extent, they did. Nevertheless, I know the exact location of every flaw, every imperfection. And I'll probably point them out to Maia, and she'll probably tell me it's fine.

I sewed the hems (yes, by hand) last night, and here are the finished towels:

The flaws speak of the human hands that made them, and like every endeavor, sometimes there is perfection in the imperfection. So at the end of the day, I think I do like these, warts and all.

Resistance

I'm having a serious case of the "don't want to's" lately. Sure, I got a ton of stuff done over the past couple of weeks, but my vacation is dwindling fast, and there are still plenty more items on my to-do list.

Take, for example, ripping the sleeve on Scotland. I know it is in my best interest. I know I have to do it. I really, really don't want to. I feel like I have knit this entire sweater about three times over already, and I'm really resenting having to reknit even a small part of it. I will do it (eventually), but I won't be happy about it. So there.

Writing this blog post has also been a bit of a struggle. I have a couple of prototypes that just need a few finishing details before I can go public with them. I also have one finished object to show, but I wanted to have more than one. Nevertheless, I'm trying to blast through this block, so I'll show the one I have.

I needed something to display my business cards, and I just happened to pick up some moldable wire mesh at the art supply store a few weeks ago. I had a crazy idea about felting the wire mesh, and I spent two whole days on that. First I had to accept the fact that working with wire mesh requires gloves or there will be copious amounts of bleeding. Secondly, I had to coax wool to bond with metal, and that was a bit of a task. Only after I pulled out the dreaded pool noodle as a rolling implement did I finally beat it into submission. Here is my finished wire-mesh/felt-moldable-business-card holder-thingie:

I like it. Were I to go into production on these, I would really have to come up with a better name for them. Suggestions are welcome, or at least suggestions not invoking the word "vessel" in any way, shape, or form. For some reason, the popularity of felt "vessels" right now kind of irritates me. Just the word, not the items themselves.

So there we have some small progress. I have blogged, therefore I am. After all, resistance is futile.

New Year's Dye 2010

One of my little rituals is to do some sort of dyeing over New Year. I prep the wool in the "old" year, generally start dyeing it on New Year's Eve, and then wash it out on New Year's Day. I kind of like the symbolic continuity. Plus I like starting the year with fresh colors.

This year I used natural dyes. Natural dyes are those that come from plants and insects (cochineal and lac). The other type of dye I use for wool is acid dye, which is synthetic. Many people prefer to use one or the other, but I like them both for different things.

I started dyeing with madder, which is one of my favorites. Davis has very hard water. No one here drinks the tap water, although it is technically supposedly safe to do so. Madder loves high mineral content, and usually gives me gorgeous garnets and brick reds. In soft water, it will yield orange. This year, I got orange, which tells me that the City Council members, who have been threatening to "improve" the water quality for some time, have probably done it. This is a sad state of affairs for the use of madder as a dye.

Everything else went pretty much as expected:

I dyed Bluefaced Leicester, merino/tencel, alpaca, alpaca/silk, baby alpaca, and some Gotland. The wools to the right are more green than the photo shows - it is an overcast day and some of the colors aren't photographing true.

A couple of people have asked questions about how I get such a range of colors when dyeing, and the simple answer is I put the dye and the wool in a jar, and then put several jars in one dye pot to heat, so I can do a wide range of different colors in just a few dye lots. I never really need to do volume production dyeing, and the jar method works really well for small quantities.

You may also notice the absence of blue here. One of the only known natural dyes to produce blue is indigo, and dyeing with indigo is a completely different process, and one that I generally avoid because of indigo's tendency to crock, or rub off the wool. I really prefer synthetic blues because they stay put, which is especially important when making felt hats. No one wants an indigo blue forehead.

New year, new colors. I'd say we're off to a good start.

Momentum

I've had an extremely productive couple of weeks, and have lots to talk about in the coming days. First, to start with a brief recap. I put a couple of new products into the Artery for the holiday season - the catnip strawberries, and some felt ornaments. You've seen the strawberries and have heard my tale of woe surrounding the product development on the ornaments. But here is how some of them turned out:

I added handspun silk and/or bamboo threads for hanging, and they sold extremely well, especially since I just considered them an experiment. I'll be working on refining them for next year.

The catnip also sold extraordinarily well, and in fact, I sold out. I've been working on a new shape for January/February, and came up with roses, which are bright, cheerful, and sculptural for dreary January days, and also work well with the whole Valentine's thing for February. I made a lot of flat felt, did a couple of prototypes, and then began production. Running around tracking down my supplies got tiresome, so I cleverly started putting all the necessary tools and implements into one bag:

Once I could stop spending my time chasing after the needed equipment, I actually managed to make some catnip roses:

I have already delivered the first load to the shop, and there are red and pink ones as well as the orange and yellow. The feline focus group approves.

In addition to the catnip kerfuffle, I also had to rework my labeling system for the hats. My hang tags were an inconvenient size, so I reformatted them. I'm usually finishing hats on a deadline, and typically I wait until the last moment to make the tags, then rush around in a frenzy trying to get it all together. No more, I decided, and made a lot of hang tags and strung them to avoid the last minute panic:

I have put my time to good use, replacing inefficient systems with better ones, and am hoping the momentum will carry over well into the New Year.

Accounting

I've had a spectacular time in the studio over the past week or so, and I'm not done yet. I'll be back in a few days with updates and pictures, but right now, something is nagging me and I need to talk about that and ask for some help.

I've spent some time lately working with my business accounting, and things are looking reasonably fine at the moment. I hired a bookkeeping coach to teach me the rudiments of Quickbooks, and that was okay, although I don't think that particular person was the right fit for me. So I'm looking for the right fit now.

I've searched extensively online, and looked at dozens of accounting and bookkeeping business websites that feature sleek, polished photographs of people in suits sitting around conference tables looking smug, which do nothing for me but activate my gag reflex, especially since I'm reasonably convinced that the actual businesses represented by these websites are dingy little offices in strip malls somewhere. In any event, I'm pretty sure that the kind of people who would create these websites would not be impressed by me schlepping by in my blue jeans and Birkenstocks, wearing a funny hat and chirping about how I have a great new design for catnip toys. Again, not the right fit.

So here's what I need. I need someone to coach me on bookkeeping and more specifically, on Quickbooks, who gets that artists have multiple and oftentimes disparate revenue streams. In my case, it's making stuff and selling it, plus teaching and writing. I fully understand that the accounting for each of these different areas can be complicated, and I need help to do this right, because no one wants to invite individual attention from the IRS. I am NOT looking for someone to do the bookkeeping for me, because I think it is important that I understand what is going on with the money stuff at this point. I AM looking for someone to teach me what I need to know to keep clear and accurate books, and also to perform a yearly audit to make sure that I am not screwing myself over in some completely avoidable way.

Here's what I have to offer. I am teachable. I am reasonably intelligent. I am punctual and well prepared for appointments. I will pay you promptly for your work (I have a stellar FICO score, and I even know what that means). I learn better by someone telling me what to do, watching me do it, and then correcting any mistakes. I don't learn well by watching someone do things for me. If you are my Right Person for this work, I will praise and adore you, and maybe even knit you a pair of socks.

Do you know this person? Are YOU this person? Leave me your contact information in the comments or email me at historicfibersATgmailDOTcom.

And if this person doesn't actually exist yet, my question is why not? Accountants and bookkeepers, this is a niche market waiting to happen. Creative people need translators to understand the financials. They also need people who aren't freaked out by unconventional business models. So let's work on that, shall we? Thanks!

Immersion

The finals are graded, the grades are submitted, and I am so ready for some dedicated studio time. I've been waiting for this for ages, and now is my chance. So today, just a quick note to say I'm going offline for a few days. I'll be in the studio if anyone really needs to find me, but it had better be a serious emergency. I will be taking occasional breaks for food and bike rides if I think about it. Other than that, have a happy whatever-it-is-you-celebrate!

Elements

I've finished a few hats, which are going off to the Artery today. I started a season based on the theme, the Four Elements. It turned out that the most inspiring element was fire, and I had no trouble at all coming up with ideas. The only issue with these hats is that the colors do not work on me at all. I'm sure they will look great on someone else, but they make me look pale, and not in a romantic, ethereal way. Oh well. The hats are the point, not me.

Here we have Flame, which is a really great shape:

 
Next, we have Ember, which is a nice hat that I truly cannot do justice:

I love orange. I wish I could wear it. The last of the fire hats is Torch, and it is an incredibly beautiful hat. The felt is topped with a piece of hand dyed silk, which gives it an amazing texture:

Another shot of Torch: The Hat:

I also dabbled a bit with Earth and here we have Moss:

One more shot of Moss:

And finally, we have Sunlight on Water:

Now off to get these tagged and out the door. Have a great weekend!

Bailing as Fast as I Can

I'm in the midst of the typical end-of-semester gradefest. I'm finishing up the last batch of term papers in preparation for receiving final exams tomorrow and the next day. The goal is to have the finals graded and overall grades submitted by Friday so I can have a clear conscience to enjoy some spinning with the crew on Friday night. And all of this means that other, more interesting projects are on hold.

But I did manage to spare a few minutes to check out the latest Knitty, which was up yesterday. I was pleased to see that two of my friends are featured. Tactile's glorious alpaca/tussah silk blend got a glowing review in Knittyspin, and my friend, Marlowe Crawford, one of my partners in crime from the Deep Color days, has a wonderful new sock pattern.

I was taken with a couple of sweater patterns as well, especially the King of Confidence cardigan that uses odd bits and pieces of handspun mixed with commercial yarns. It just so happens that I have a whole basket full of appropriate handspun odds and ends:

Some of these are finer, but I could have a good time cable plying the sport and fingering to make it work. I think that will be my next project, after the Scotland sweater of course. But until then, I'll be focused on grading, and bailing as fast as I can to get to the point where I can forget about school for a few weeks!