Inspiration of a Turnip…

Well, once again I have failed to donate to the Red Cross. This time I had a unit of blood being spun down for platelets and my arm sprung a leak. The phlebotomist noticed my subtle signal (I chose a single, loud, clear ‘Ow’, which worked very well), said something about ‘burning’ to which I replied in the affirmative, glanced at my arm and said something I don’t recall clearly, but was probably rude-but-called-for.

I was unhooked, thanked, offered the chance to finish the movie (”Frequency” which looks to be very good), and sent on my way with my complementary umbrella and snacks. I was told that since they couldn’t return the red blood cells to my body I shouldn’t try to donate again for 56 days, which left me feeling a bit bummed. I spent years as a turnip (”everyone knows you can’t get blood from a turnip”) due to hemoglobin levels, and have been able to donate blood once and platelets twice in the last twelve months, so I found today to be particularly discouraging.

So, now I’m thinking about starting a knitting project based on the optimistic premise that I’m going to get a whole bunch of those Red Cross lapel pins to collect and display. I’ll knit up a super skinny scarf with red cross motifs on it, and use it as a foundation to show off…. (So far I’ve got one pin which I can lay my hands on, and one or two more I think must be around somewhere). When I’ve got a good start on it I’ll post the pattern.

The Firing Log - just thought I’d share

I am really lucky, in that the Art Center is (literally) right across the street from me.   ‘Real Life’ issues have kept me from taking classes for the last year or so, and I’ve missed them very much.   There’s something about centering, which connects you with the piece you’re working on and with the world spinning around both you and the piece.  There’s something about glaze-firing, where you do just about everything you’re going to do, and then let go completely, which are so organic, and so visceral, which I just haven’t found in any other craft.

I’ve just listened to an episode of The Firing Log, a potter/ceramicist interview podcast.   It really does make me miss potting even more, but it’s also nice to have contact with the craft again.    There are few audio podcasts dealing with it, many more video ‘how to’ casts, which are nice as well, but I like being able to put them on my player and listen while doing dishes or knitting.

Well, maybe this fall I’ll be able to take classes again.

Obligatory Process Post

Just a few random thoughts about the process of creativity.

It seems to me that the ‘basic’ model is a three step process:

1. (begin) the artist finds ‘inspiration’
2. the artist labors to create a piece
3. the artist releases the work to the audience (end)

I don’t think that the actual creative process ends there.  Once the work is ‘released into the wild’ it is transformed and reinvented by each and every viewer.   There are many layers of meaning in any work, and only a few were ‘put’ there by the artist.

I think, for me, that’s why it’s so hard to write for other people.  When I build a ceramic sculpture or knit a hat, the piece really is the message, and any other meaning which the viewer might find…  well, the viewer and I both know that I didn’t put it there.

When I write fiction, I know what I say, and I know what’s behind it, but the reader  only knows what sie finds there.  Not the same at all.  It’s very exciting, but it’s scary as well.

What’s on the needles - the secret frequency scarf

My husband almost never asks me to knit for him. He isn’t a ’sweater’ sort of guy, he doesn’t generally go for hand knitted hats (though he might be convinced to wear a nice, simple tam), and the entire household loses mittens and gloves. So, when he brought my attention to knitty’s binary scarf as posted in boing-boing. I knew I had to knit it for him some day. He knew from the beginning he didn’t want random code, he wanted binary code generated from the ascii for some particular phrase. Eventually he decided on the phrase he wanted, and I started the scarf in late December.

As much as I enjoy knitting in the round, I just couldn’t see knitting a tube and then squashing it down in a precise location - too much room to mess up, and it’s entirely unneccessary. There was never any doubt in my mind that this piece had to be what I called double knit (though Stitchdiva considers something else double knitting, so I need to learn the common term). I didn’t invent the technique, I ‘ve seen it used in a number of places, but I don’t know the technical term for it. It’s like double knitting but with only one skein of working yarn for both sides.

I cast on the thirty-three stitches which comprise one side and, for my first row, I knit the front and back of each stitch (kf&b). From there it was a matter of knitting a stitch, then slipping the next stitch with yarn in front (swyif) throughout the piece. After the second row I joined the second color, and held it together with the first for the swyif, and knit whichever color the pattern called for.

I’ve just finished the first repeat of the code. The fabric is super dense and warm, if a little heavy. Good for winter wear, not so much for a fashion statement. It’s also about half as long as the finished scarf should be. Easy enough, since Knitty instructs you to use a second chart for numbers after the midway point, but I decided I wanted a buffer between the two halves, so I’m going to put in a few rows of 1×1 ribbing (which begins and ends each side on a knit stitch, sort of a built in faux selvedge). I’ve discovered that when you purl you hold the unused color behind the work, not in front, but that’s not too hard.

I’m planning to put in a stripe of the contrast color in the purl stitches of rows 3 and 4 of the ‘bridge’ between the two halves, then two more rows of ribbing in the MC, then two in stockinette of the MC, then back to half two.

(Yes, I’ve posted this to ravelry too).