Fall update

I keep starting to update this blog and get half way when something distracts me and I've ended up with 4 or 5 "draft" postings. Here is one of them and this time I'm posting whatever I have and not obsess about it's perfection.

The summer went by so fast now winter is just around the corner. As the old saying goes where does the time go? There are not enough hours in the day for me to finish all that I would like to do. I do keep busy sometimes with great rewards and other times just had a great time.

One of the highlights this fall was teaching at Newton's 25th Annual Fall Festival Seminar. September 28-30 2012 

(The class was sold out but we've already talked about me teaching at the next seminar at Newton's.)

 "Design Your Own Shawl: Shape, Color, Texture and Lace"

I love to teach and always enjoy the experience. I especially love it when I get positive feedback. I put a lot of work and thought into the classes I teach and I always learn so much in the process. 

I just saw this graphic on Facebook and loved it.

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Spring Update

I have had a busy busy spring and it looks like the summer is off to a "busy" start. Because I still have a day job. For those of you who may not know I am a classic car dealer for a living. My husband and I own a shop in Venice, CA and we are a mom and pop shop. My husband is a master mechanic and I am the licensed car dealer. We deal in classic EnglishCars.com.

But my relaxation and hobby is my fiber arts. Knitting is my number one because I've done it for so long it's the most comfortable "comfort" zone. When I feel stressed I just sit down and start knitting, soon my brain goes in the "zone" and the world seems to calm down. I often refer to Mihaly Csikszentmihaly who coined the being in the "zone" or "flow".

......."the mental state of operation in which a person in an activity is fully immersed in a feeling of energized focus, full involvement, and success in the process of the activity. Proposed by Mihály Csíkszentmihályi, the positive psychology concept has been widely referenced across a variety of fields.

According to Csikszentmihalyi, flow is completely focused motivation. It is a single-minded immersion and represents perhaps the ultimate in harnessing the emotions in the service of performing and learning. In flow, the emotions are not just contained and channeled, but positive, energized, and aligned with the task at hand. To be caught in the ennui of depression or the agitation of anxiety is to be barred from flow. The hallmark of flow is a feeling of spontaneous joy, even rapture, while performing a task ........"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flow_(psychology)

Not that I've been uptight although if truth be told I do get uptight at times but thank goodness I have my hobbies to relax by. I was thinking and meaning to update my blog to catch you up on my Dyeing as if the Earth Mattered. Such a great time on Shaw Island! Michelle was terrific and the ladies that I met were also so very interesting people. We stayed at a guest house because Shaw Island is a private island in the Pacific Northwest. Which means that there are no hotels, restaurants or stores.

There is one little general store at the ferry landing but that is it! Green lush and beautiful is how I would describe the island. And my favorite flower the lilac was in bloom everywhere! Here are a few pictures of the many I took. We used "Natural Dyes" and dyed wool, silk and cotton hanks. As you can see the colors were amazing.

Some of the ladies I met and here is a link to Marie's blog with pictures. Thanks Marie for the kind words and back at you! Had some wonderful conversations with Marie a very interesting and talented lady.

http://mzjohansen.blogspot.com/2012/05/agony-and-ecstasy-dyeing-as-if-earth.html

http://mzjohansen.blogspot.com/2012/05/dyeing-as-if-earth-mattered-with.html

Dyeing As if the Earth Mattered.

I am going to this workshop on Shaw Island, WA. and I can hardly wait. Since I've started to dye and spin my own fiber, it has expanded my yarn choices beyond those I could find commercially. It used to take me months and sometimes years to find the exact color weight & content fiber for a particular project I had in mind.



I love the title of this workshop:


"Dyeing As If the Earth Mattered"
Dyeing As If The Earth Mattered with Michelle Wipplinger
Thursday to Saturday, May 10-12, 2012
Shaw Island Community Center

Michele will host a 3 day workshop entitled, "Dyeing As If the Earth Mattered".  The workshop will serves as an introduction to dyeing with natural dye extracts on silk, cotton and wool yarn. Two different colors will be obtained from a single dyebath and then a reserved sample of each color will be overdyed in indigo. Participants get 20+ different colors on each fiber type.

Michelle Wipplinger is an author, educator, photographer and master dyer and designer with over thirty years experience in natural dyes. Michelle trained in France and Switzerland with noted natural master dyes, and developed her style of dyeing that yields beautiful, repeatable hues using only non-toxic alum mordants. In 1992 she introduced the concept of natural dye extracts that yielded brilliant, consistent, lightfast hues that were safe and easy to useMichele is founder and president of Earthues.  

Just because it's so darn funny.

Another Swirly Swirl

I've written the pattern now it's being tested. It's only fair that I test and retest the pattern over and over. This one I call #55

YouTube Video I made

This is a crochet picot bind off that I use often. It's easy, I think it looks good and it's stretchy.

Part one and part two will be how to add beads.

Walk for the Cure of Breast Cancer.

ThinkCure! we participated in NPN LA Marathon 5K

The NPN LA 5K Run/Walk starts at Dodger Stadium on Saturday, March 20 

We did it! "Slipt Stitchers" knitting guild gals. 

"Think Cure" and walk.

"You can walk or run the 5k at your leisure as a member of the ThinkCure! team," said President of ThinkCure! Janet Clayton. "This can be a great family outing that encourages fitness, helps a great cause and raises funding for institutions that serve the people of greater Los Angeles and for some, can serve as an act of remembrance and support of a loved one."

Fun was had by all. By the time we got home I was exhausted.

Walk done in record time by 10:30 am we were eating a Phillipe. Yum Yum.

Great fun day.

Short Term Memory Problems

I find this terribly funny and practical. I recently switched our cable connection from Times Warner to Verizon. It's a so called "package" so my land line telephone was involved. I have been bombarded with "spam" phone calls and was terribly mad at this phone number we had at the house. It seemed every shady contractor would call on a daily basis asking if we had any repairs we were planning to do at our house. Because they were in our area and they would come to our house for free and give us an estimate. Sure I'll invite some total stranger into my house to look around! But each day the phone would ring and I would try many different creative ways to stop it. Oh yes I was on the do not call list but it did not matter. I would sometimes engage in conversation with them, sometimes silly and other times asking them nicely to remove me from your list because I will NEVER let them in my house. But the calls kept on coming especially during dinner.

Change the phone number and this problem will be solved! So I thought. I now was getting a new set of calls but once I put the phone number up at the do not call list, it seemed to stop. There was another problem! This new phone number we got even though it was the easiest number of the choices I had, I could not remember. I tried to write it several times, post it on the refrigerator, repeat it etc. Nope it would not stick in my old brain. It seems that my capacity of storing phone numbers has exceeded it's storage space. But I can remember this old phone number I used to have about 40 years ago. I can recite that number with no problem at all.

So just for fun I thought I would dial that number and see who had it. It was not in service! Does that mean that it's up for grabs? I called Verizon and asked if I could change my new phone number to this old phone number I used to have? Success! I now have a new old phone number I can remember.

Swing Knitting

What is Swing Knitting? It's new to me, but of course there is nothing new in knitting but I've never seen this technique before. I just got back from Phoenix from TNNA (The National Needle Arts Association) a trade show for fiber and yarn etc. I think they are missing an A in their acronym but maybe I'm being a bit picky.

The Skacel booth offered a "mini class" in this technique. Brigitte Elliott was teaching it and Skacel very generously gave us an Addi Turbo Lace needle (beautiful to knit with), yarn & pattern to knit a little hat.

Here is what it supposed to look like and below is my version. But a wonderfully fun knit either if you follow the exact pattern or swing on your own as a free form project.

Here is the wonderful project Brigitte knit with Kauni yarn. The colors and the dance was wonderful!

And of course I'm trying to master this and adapt it to my style and here is my little "wrist cuff" I designed.

ps.

I very carefully wrote down this pattern and will publish it I promise.

Found just the perfect addition to my new shawl.

The accessories are so very important a button poorly chosen can make a piece "wonderful" or "why did you choose that?" or even "fugly". I'm always on the hunt for good buttons and good closures and last year I found this wonderful "Closure" by Jul Designs.

I've tried it on different shawls a few times but it did not have the right fit, it's kind of heavy and makes a strong statement. I did not want the closure to take over the shawl. I knew I loved it but did not know how or where to use it. So I put it in a very special spot and forgot about it. All this searching I've been doing looking for things I rediscovered the closure and it's perfect for my "Stash Buster Square Shawl".

Finished Ready to Wear.

$300 dollar socks?

I confess most of the time when I visit blogs I really only look at the pictures. If something catches my eye I may read a few paragraphs. I try and post lots of pictures in this blog because I really don't think people read the stuff I write. Only look at the pictures and maybe read a head line or two.

I sometimes amuse myself with some blogs, a couple of my favorites are the "The Panopticon" by Franklin Habit and of course the Yarnharlot by Stephanie Pearl-McPhee. Both are funny and good writers and great knitters. I was just reading Franklin's latest blog post reminds me of that always puzzling question: "You should sell your knitting" or "If I pay you can you make me one?"

I never know quite what to say either. I usually say that I don't sell my work I only give it away to someone who is a "knit appreciator". Stephanie wrote about "knit appreciators" people who really appreciate the amount of work that went into this garment and the expense of the fiber etc. Like Franklin says below, a pair of socks hand knit $300 dollars. So if I knit a pair of socks for someone they really need to appreciate it.

I kind of know that when people who do not knit are complimenting me when they suggest that I sell my stuff but.......

Franklin's answers:

• "I don't sell my work" sounds snotty (even if you don't mean to be).
  
  
• "You couldn't afford it" sounds presumptuous (because it is).
  
  
• "For a pair of socks like this, at least three hundred bucks" will bring a gasp of disbelief followed by a minor cardiac event. And once the paramedics have left and the spilled drink is mopped up, you have to talk to the innocent victim about fair trade, and the rights of artisans to earn a living wage, and the number of stitches in a sock, and Wal-Mart, and how actually, no, good yarn doesn't cost about a buck a ball.

So far so good

The eat less part is "iffy" but I did not buy anything! (Groceries don't count!) So far so good for my "new years resolution". I heard on the radio that today was the day that people stop doing their new years resolutions. I'm going to write it and tape it on my mirror to remind myself.

Thank goodness I'm not looking for anything at the moment and am very careful to put things in some sort of order so I can find it when I need it. Like my car keys and my purse etc.

Here is a project I'm almost finished with. The "Stash Buster Square Shawl" has turned out well. Originally I was just going to make a little swatch for an example for my upcoming class I'm teaching. Then I just fell in love with it and kept on knitting. My new most favorite project, but I'm fickle.

The edge did not look great and I did not want to sew in all the ends so I solved the problem by sewing a felted edge to give it a finished look. The felted scarf that I cut up and sacrificed happened to be the perfect color match and I have lots of scarfs so I won't miss it.

"Design Your Own Shawl" will be the class.

Buy Less and Eat Less.

I swear I spend half of my life looking for things. I can't remember where I put anything, then I get obsessed with finding it. I know sooner or later it will turn up but I want it now!

I started this sweater last winter and then the weather turned hot so I had to put it down. Knitting a large project resting in my lap made of wool can get uncomfortable when the weather is warm. This is a winter project, although we are pushing 80 degrees here in L.A. but it's a winter 80 so not the same. I need a nice warm wool sweater in case it does get cold so I wanted to finish this project.

It was 80% complete so I set out over the holidays to finish this sweater. Showed my husband and he really liked it and somehow took interest in the project. He would ask me how I was progressing almost daily. Besides feeling like "leave me alone" this is my hobby what do you care, I would give him an update. Sort of like I just have the sleeves to complete then I'm done. Or I made a huge mistake and I'm frogging the sleeves and starting over.

Then I ran out of the red yarn, but I know I had extra skeins of this but where did I stash it? I somehow have collected yarn, not just a couple of bins but many. What was I thinking? Will there be a shortage of yarn? Before you laugh too much about this I am a product of my childhood. We did run out of yarn, there was a war and nice wool was really hard to come by. I know the world is different now intellectually but somehow there is a residual and one never forgets.

Now for my New Years resolution: Buy less and Eat Less in 2012

On the needles

Sort of like "mindless" knitting. It started out as a little swatch for my upcoming class on design your own shawl class. But I just liked what was developing so I kept on knitting. This is a great project for a "stash buster". For all those little balls of yarn you have left over and don't know what to do with.

When I first started spinning I was not sure how much yarn I would get out of maybe 2 or 3 ounces of fiber. Then making it a 2 ply I would end up with these small amounts of wonderful yarn but did not know what to make.

Here is one solution:

Just as I suspected.

The Rose Parade was just not as exciting as it would have been if it was held on January 1st. I'm just saying and having a bit of a rant. I have since found out why, which this enquiring mind wanted to know. Because if the 1st falls on a Sunday it is not held so the good people could go to church and not be distracted with the parade. "Never on Sunday" protocol was instituted in 1893! I think it's time to change this policy! (If I ruled the world this would certainly change!) I want the Rose Parade on January 1st rain or shine. Of course we all know that it NEVER rains on the Rose Parade so that is why I would put in rain or shine.

According to one of the articles I read

sort of to do with religion, but perhaps not in the way you might first think. It's all very practical and logistical: The policy was put in place"to avoid frightening horses tethered outside local churches and thus interfering with worship services." And, to ensure there's no competition with the National Football League, the Rose Bowl game is also held over to January 2.

I have no idea how the parade looked because I did not watch it. Maybe this would be a good year to go down and look at the floats in person. After the parade they usually display the floats and I've always wanted to go see them and never got around to it. This is sort of on my "bucket list" along with going to get tickets one year and actually go to the Rose Parade. I figure by Wednesday everybody would have gone back to work and too busy to go look at floats so it would not be as crowded. Will let you know how it goes.

Happy New Year....

New Years Day is just not the same without the Rose Parade. Just pretend that they are saying 2012 and 123rd Rose Parade. We all know that once you've seen one you've seen it but it's somehow very comforting and lovely to watch.