3KCBWDAY4 - A Knitter/Crocheter for All Seasons!

THAT'S ME!  It helps to be such a knitter when you sell your work!  Your product has to offer something for everyone.  So I am constantly developing new ideas, new designs, new styles of old designs.....and on and on and on!  The creative process never stops and doesn't depend on weather or season.  To some degree it does depend on color predictions for upcoming season, so I always check with Pantone and check the design blogs to know what's 'in!"  But basically, I knit what I like AND what I think my client base will most appreciate.  And I always keep in mind that accessory selection, in terms of color and design,  is very personal, so it behooves any designer of women's handcrafted accessories to include a variety of choices.

 My customers are from all over the world!  My local gallery, Port City Pottery & Fine Crafts, is in a wonderful location in beautiful downtown Wilmington NC, in an historic building (The Cotton Exchange), near the river, the Convention Center, the Hilton, and lots of other desirable interest areas for touring and shopping.  So seasons are not necessarily a factor for my work.  WHEW!!!  Happy for that, because I like to work with all manner of fibers no matter the season.

And then there is Facebook and Ravelry and flickr (where I inventory ALL my work!) that have drawn in people from around the world.  I am happy to say that social media has been very good for my business.  This is a business of LOVE first and foremost - a love of knitting, crocheting, and felting!  But it IS a business too!

KCBWDAY3 - Jane Thornley, One of My Knitting Heroes!

  

I've written about Jane Thornley before!  In fact, we've written about each other.  Here is an excerpt from the first of two blog postings I wrote about her this past January:

"Do you ever wonder how/where/when you’ve met someone?  After a while those recollections fade (and really don’t matter!), but when I asked my guest blogger to recall, she had the same response.  We just don’t remember how we “met!”  However, I can say that Jane Thornley has been my inspiration, my muse, my fierce Scrabble (on FB) competitor, and my “kindred spirit” for a number of years.

I am honored and humbled by her coining the term “Kindred Spirits” about our work.  We do think we discovered one another (not sure who!) on Ravelry where she manages several knitting groups.  Amazingly, our work is quite similar in its love of nature and natural materials, use of color and texture, and combining fibers and stitches to produce wearable knitwear.  She is far more skilled, inventive and innovative, published, adventurous, and recognized than I, but surprisingly, we share many of the same attributes.  I can always find her up EARLY to play several of our on-going Scrabble games! ;-o)" 

The second part of the interview with Jane is here.  And now I should add novelist, travel writer, knitalong developer, retreat and workshop planner and expediter, jewelry designer, AND most recently, buyer of MY work - to her auspicious list of talents!  Well, actually we traded!  She "bought" one of my Upcycle Scarves and then sent me this most delightful package of goodies from her stash!

Wild Thing Upcycle Scarf

A lovely trade, I would say!

Goodies from Jane!

    

I believe this is the design by Jane that I first saw that so reminded me of my own line of Bernadetta scarves.  Hers is a free pattern, so you are most welcome to read it and try your hand at it.  I had already been producing my own Bernadettas for several years, so it was astounding to me that someone else in the world thought about color and texture in ways so similar to my own.  These first two photos are Jane's Free range scarves; the last photo is one of mine! 

And this is one of mine: 

 More of mine can be seen here.

PLEASE VISIT JANE'S WEBSITE!

  

Knit & Crochet Blog Week - 3KCBWDAY1

Colour Lovers

"Colour is one of our greatest expressions of ourselves when we choose to knit or crochet, so how do you choose what colours you buy and crochet or knit with." 


Color (or colour, as our guide spells it) is the spice of my fiber arts life!  Along with texture, that is!  There is nothing that inspires me more than the rainbow of colors, tones, hues, intensity, spectrum, and other words used to describe color.  As one who has NEVER studied color theory, I often feel at a loss to explain to those who often ask me about my choices, decisions, combinations, etc. just HOW I buy, select, and utilize the colors in my stash.

Here are some facts about me:

• I LOVE color!
• When I travel, I always work around black and white....and maybe another color!  This most recent trip was an exception - it was all built around grey, white, and mauvy pink, colors I almost never wear.
• When I work at my gallery, I only wear black, and use that as the background on which to display my work.  It WORKS!!!  No one can sell my work as I can, and I'm sure that's very common.
• For many years, I was entirely committed to taupe.  That IS a good color, but when my students asked  if I had any colors besides "brown," I realized I had better think about my personal use of color.
• Now my wardrobe is quite varied, but I always gravitate to teals, hot pinks, black, gray, brown.  The only color I almost never wear is blue - except for jeans and whatever goes with them.

So....to finally get around to the topic of my stash and the accessories I create.....they are almost always in colors other than black, although I often use black as the accent color (or vice versa).  I have an almost unmentionable amount of yarn in my stash in every color, texture, and type.  It is mostly sorted by color and/or type.  I wish it were far more organized.  But I can usually find what I'm looking for and know what's in there - or somewhere!  LOL!  

I also have an huge amount of silk scarves and lingerie for use in my Upcycle Scarves - not knit or crochet but created entirely of recycled materials.  They start with t-shirts and from them as a base, I tie various silky materials, beads, yarn, ribbons, etc.  I now have a stash of men's tee-shirts in every color.  Those designs are VERY colorful and user-friendly!  Today I made two of them in colors that were inspired by recent acquisitions of some gorgeous, highly colored, silk scares.  I put their photos on Facebook, and they are now sold!

I LOVE yarn!  I hunger to see, touch, and even smell yarn in a yarn shop, but alas, my local ones are limited and pricey, so I have to resort to my favorite online, discount sellers.  So when I look at these website, I go crazy over color and texture.  Pinterest has piqued my interest for inspiration and the color I crave.  Ravelry has been another source of inspiration but also a wonderful place to find coveted yarns from other knitters who wish to stashbust.  Wish I could do that!  Flickr holds my inventory of completed work.  I think you'll find many examples there of my color sense.

Final thought for the day:  color is personal.  Beauty is in the eye of the beholder!  While I might like to concentrate on my personal favorites, this would be unwise for someone who sells her work.  I always have to remind myself that I HAVE to work with colors that I might personally dislike, because there is always someone out there who might love it!  

Knitting / Knotting with Batik

Back in the Fall, while visiting our daughter and family in Winston-Salem, NC, I stopped by an awesome yarn store and stumbled upon a new idea: a bag knitted with strips of fabric cut from gorgeous batik. Wanting to try something new, I bought a yard of batik (at great expense!) and thought I'd create my own version. Little did I know how laborious this task was going to be!

• First.....cut the batik on the bias into 3/4" (or so) strips.
• Then.....knot the hundreds of different sized strips together.
• Finally.....start knitting!

The idea is to leave the little knot tails showing. They are part of the design (even though they get a little shaggy and frayed!) THIS KNITTING IS NOT EASY!!! It is tight on the needles, hurts your hands, and requires frequent breaks. I ultimately decided NOT to knot all the pieces at once, thereby giving that needed break.

Well...as you can see, it's taken me many months and LOTS of very long breaks to complete this project. I am not the type to leave projects unfinished for long. This is probably the first abandoned project I've had in recent years, and I am rather pleased to say I finished it last night!

STASHING THE STASH!!!

Yesterday I finally decided it was time to reorganize the stash. If you're reading this and have no clue what stash is, you are definitely NOT a fiber fanatic!

Several months ago, I bought a clear, lucite cubby from a retail store that was going out of business. I imagined using it to display my own finished items and my husband's pottery pieces. In fact, I used it for our December in-home trunk show and thought it worked very attractively and effectively. I offered it to the PCPFC gallery, but they declined. So.....I decided to use it in my laundry/stash room to TRY to reorganize my stash!

First of all, the hanging of the cubby.....it required LARGE holes in the wall - not my husband's favorite thing to do to our non-plaster walls. My plan? To color-coordinate the "balls" of yarn wound on those small cardboard tubes. My rationale? They take up space because they are not crushable and squishable. As was suggested in a Knitters Review forum, stash is a collection of art! That was my own belief as well! (http://knittersreview.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=76640)

Well....I must not have the knack for color because the result is an ugly, chaotic, messy-looking wall of horror. It did free up some space in my cupboards, as I shifted spaces, but what I had hoped for was beauty in the laundry room, and I definitely failed at that.