Chart Happy

My favorite meditation practice is to create a new chart (using that fabulous software program, Knit Visualizer) from one of the lace stitch patterns in the first two Treasuries by Barbara Walker. It's just so cool how symbols turn into beautiful knitwear, and how graphing out dots and dashes allows one to manipulate lace for one's own ends. I need the restfulness of a purl row or knit round when knitting lace stitches, so I took this Shower Stitch pattern from the first Treasury, and eliminated the purl-side patterning by adding a purl-only row. I like the way it looks as well as the original, plus the double strand between yarnovers created by the purl row adds strength and dimension to the holes. This is going to be a half hex shawl in black Rowan Kidsilk Haze. Someday. (I have so many project ideas already charted out I should hire China to manifest them all.) I love laceweight, and have two skeins from Dyeabolical Yarns begging to be cast on (not to mention the Leafy Lace Capelet begging to be finished!), but I have a big problem with attention span after the first week or so on a project. And laceweight projects always take me more than a week or so to finish! That's where hats come in: one day and you're done. This hat is the Black Forest Hat made Blacker with Kureyon #233. I lost the first one I knit up almost immediately after completing it. I might as well give away everything I make, since I'm sure to lose it anyway!

Button Glory

My favorite holiday, Groundhog's Day, is a little more than a week away. If I make it through the threatened Winter Storm these next two days without spiraling out of the realm of intense anxiety and right into a coma, I'm going to plan a very special party for all the groundhogs around here. We have a lot of them, and they're about as cute as a rodent can be. I'm going to get them all so drunk, they won't be the least bit afraid of their shadows, and Spring will then come out and play! Yeah! In the meantime I'll sort through my beautiful buttons and dream of magical garments enhanced by their vintage charisma. Also included in this post: (Spiraling Out Of) Control Mitts to go with the Vestigial Fin Cardigan.

Triumph!

Oh boy, am I proud of this Vestigial Fin Cardigan. I thought it all up myself, and applied tricks I've learned in the two years I've been knitting — such as applied I-Cord, lace insertions, Magic Loop sleeves, back increases, top-down construction, waste yarn pocket placement, etc. I couldn't be happier with the result. It's so wearable and flattering. This is the first thing I've made that makes me feel like a "real" knitter. Good show!

Yarn Rampage

When the power goes out in the most frigid air of the year, like it did last night, I get mad. Then I pray to Reddy Kilowatt to send some heroic linemen, fast. "Servant of the Century?" More like "Master of the Universe." Electricity = civilization. I wouldn't mind not having power if we were set up for that in a cozy log cabin chinked tight against drafts, stacks of cord wood for the stove, a pump for water... But when the e goes out here, not only does our heat dissipate, but we have no water or stove. I hate when that happens. The only way I can get my belief in the magical fluffiness of life back after such a cold sleepless night is to buy a ton of yarn I don't need. Which I did today. See? LED lights be damned!

Vestigial Fin Cardigan

All right, I admit I haven't upholstered a single salvaged piece of furniture this past week. So what have I been doing, that I don't even have time to blog? K-N-I-T-T-I-N-G, yup. No one ever sticks to their New Year's Resolutions, right? "I hereby resolve to give up knitting and stick to upholstering," oh yeah, tell me another. I gave up caving one year because I no longer had the desire to get muddy in the dark, but so far my yearn for yarn is here to stay. Though when I think of upholstery I think of hugs. So I will get around to it, but my knitting UFOs must first be dealt with. This is the third (and a half, counting the late, lamented Mushroom) sweater I've made and It's definitely the best. I made it up, thanks to top-down pattern autonomy, and there won't be a pattern on ravelry, because I have no will to figure multiple sizes. This yarn is Cascade 220 in Bronzed Green. (Great for ruddy complexions!) The sleeves are beautifully belled and make me feel like yodeling "Rhiannon". The applied I-Cord is in Noro Kureyon #236. Applied I-Cord is the bomb. The back has center increases every inch after the armholes, to make the fit more comfortable. Lace is a great way to keep track of rows. The lace on the sleeves here is a paneled version of Oriel (from Barbara Walker #2.) I can't wait to finish this!

Slipcover Smartness

Evidently, upholstery is a very hot subject in the blogosphere, even more so than amateur knitting, because yesterday my readership jumped from 30 to 300! Wha? I feel like one of the Three Bears: who's been looking at my blog? And for God's sake, why? It's gotta be the new upholstery angle, so for all you porridge-hungry Goldilock eyes, here ya go. The thing about trying to learn any skill from a book, is that the words, if you can decipher them, always make the tasks seem so easy. The instructions never address the slog and hand-eye coordination that goes into mastering anything manual. This Home Sewing book, for instance, makes slip-covering sound like breezy slam-dunk fun, when I know for a fact how hard it is not to make a lumpy mess of things. Sewing, like knitting, is one of those crafts that requires 10,000 hours of practice before the hands and eyes shake on it and make up. But I am committed. I even bought a smelly pink cutting mat and a cool wheely-type cutter. True bias strips? A snap!

Ottoman Empire

This is going to be my first upholstery project for the New Year. I bought this footstool at the Salvation Army. It was covered in gold naugahyde, which was pockmarked with cigarette burns. The foam inside, of which you can still see a small piece in the first photo (with Bigfoot looking deeply thoughtful), was mostly brown and disintegrating. I plan to paint the frame two shades of off-white, sanding the last coat away from the first in spots for that agèd look. The most fun part about starting my first upholstery project so far? Trolling through reams of vintage fabric, accumulated through years of dedicated thrifting. I decided on this weird early 60s print whose theme I have yet to completely identify. Victorian Early Americana? Bed-warmers, nautical lanterns, clipper ships, love seats, coffee grinders, whiskey jugs and gas sconces: what do all of these items have in common, besides the splatter grey background? I'll use the love seat as the central motif. The cording is already made, which is cheating if I want to learn how to be an upholsterer — the hard thing is to cut your own true bias strips of fabric, and then sew that cotton filler cord cleanly and straightly into the middle! The sewing challenge here will be to follow the inverted scallop dictated by the plywood base. Materials not shown: new clean foam and staple gun.

Adventures In Recovering

I've given a lot of thought lately to what I want to do with the rest of my life. The Life could go one of two ways: I could either A.) sit around eating potato chips, knitting, and whining to my blog or B.) get the hell out and learn how to upholster furniture. I've always wanted to learn how to upholster, one of the ultimate transformative crafts. "Upholstery" is one of my all time favorite words. (It sounds like corseted women in Merry Widow hats, or an arcane law.) Fabric makes me happy, especially when it's beautiful. I'm a good seamstress, crackerjack when I have cording and zipper feet that actually work. My years as a nurse have made me adept at both problem solving and cussing. (Because I know there will be cussing, when I sew over a finger, or hit my thumb with a tack hammer, or make a big, dumb mistake.) Yes, I will post about the odd item of junk here and there, and about knits only a mother could love, but this is the beginning of a new, revitalized blog. An Upholstery Blog. Are there any other Upholstery Bloggers out there? This coming year I will chronicle my successes and failures in this new field of endeavor. I have four cat-scratched chairs to work on. O! If I only had pictures to post of the love seat I once slip-covered for my folks. The fabric was yellow, and looked like the exploded love child of Pee Wee Herman and Cyndi Lauper. Very 80s squiggle! But it only cost 54¢ a yard. I hereby vow to only use fabrics I love on my upcoming experiments. I am going to pursue all angles to learn this craft: books, schools, apprenticeships, what-ever-it takes. I even have a name picked out for my eventual business: The Armchair Upholsterer™. (Nobody can steal that name now, because I put a "™" on it! To say nothing of the wrongeful use curse.) Stay tuned for this exciting new chapter!