Where were you in '92?

Last week, Stacie and I were talking about how odd it was that Chloe Sevigny had a clothing line when she always seems to look like she got dressed in the dark or from a discarded pile of little boys clothes (did I just say that?) But I do recall a time when she actaully was best-dressed and appeared in Sassy magazine as their 17-year-old intern! Thank god I never threw out my November 1992 issue so that I could scan it now for reference! Just look how cute, fresh-faced and stylish she is!

You can sure see how my 11-year-old scissored-hands took to the pages of this magazine that I was waaay to young to appreciate. Flipping through the vintage issues I still have tucked away in my bookshelf, I am currently fascinated by all the DIY clothing ideas, feminist book reviews and 90210 bashing that I exposed myself to. Oh, Sassy, if only you were still in publication, or if it were 1992 again. Would young girls today even care?

The Beauty of Handmade.

So I finished knitting this baby hat last weekend when I was crafting with my friends, and I expressed some sincere disappointment in how it came out. It just didn't look right to me, fresh off the needles and full of odd bumps where I had miscounted sts and decreased too soon or slightly loopier sts where I changed yarn color. These imperfections seemed visible only to my eyes, but they bothered me none the less and I hid the hat away so I wouldn't have to look at it for the rest of the night. It's hard when you work on something so tediously and get this image in your head of what the final project will be. Well, it's going to be perfect! Flawless, not a stitch out of place, a thread too loose or a smidgen off. Especially when it's a gift or when someone else will wear it, you want every detail to be right! of course, but....


Sometimes I forget what marks the beauty of handmade items. The slight imperfections that, well, make them more perfect.


A handmade item should not look like it was made by a machine, but by a simple human being. That is not to compensate for sloppy work or mistakes of course, if you know how to fix it, do. A dropped stitch can be put back in place, a loose button made tighter. You don't want your garments to fall apart or fit incorrectly, but they can reflect some character and personal charm. I thought about all this and started to ease up a little. I was being way to hard in this teeny baby hat! People wear, buy and enjoy handmade items because they reflect the person's touch, the time they took and the uniqueness of the work. Plus I want the item to be worn, loved, touched and know it can't stay pure and pristine forever. So favor the flaws of your handmade items, embrace the imperfections! Know each stitch was made with love, even if it's a bit smaller than the one knit before it.

Buy Handmade this Holiday Season!

why?

Oh, You Pretty Things!

Today I had fun adding some embellishment to felted bags that I made last spring. A little hand-embroidery and carefully selected buttons never hurt anything!

I'll be adding them to the store soon.

A Vineyard Visit.

Almost as good as living on the Island, is going back to visit. This past weekend I headed down to Martha's Vineyard for a little quality relaxation, a chance to see some good friends and an afternoon of knitting with the cats by the fire.

rosie preparing her fabric to sew.

briana's embroidery.

midge looking smug.

What's better than crafting and cats? Oh, a delicious roasted chicken and pea risotto dinner made by Rosemary and meeting all our friends at the Art Cliff Diner for breakfast. Anytime you have to take a ferry to get breakfast it has to be good.

our similarities.

But mostly it was just fun to be back on the Island and see a lot of the people that make that place so significant to me. I had several serendipitous moments where I ran into people who I really wanted to see but hadn't planned to. I love that magic of a small island.


Thank you again, Rosie, for sharing your Grandma's beautiful house with us! It's a very special place. It was fun to see you and let the craft night tradition live on.

oh, baby baby

I found this pattern in the book Knitting for Baby and it's exactly what I was looking for! (I mentioned last week that I wanted to make a baby hat as a gift for a friend) This one has little ear flaps with ties and is just toooo cute! Here are some in-progress shots.

The ear flaps are knit first and supposed to be sewn on later, but I didn't really like that idea, so I left the flaps on their own double pointed needles and cast on the sts in between to join in the round. Make sense? It was actually wasn't as tricky as I thought it would be to do, and I like the seamless, continuous look of knitting directly from the flaps.


Working with this organic cotton yarn from Lion Brand is a dream. It is sooo soft and will wash easily, which will be good for baby stuff. I had trouble choosing the colors so I decided to add a baby blue stripe to accent the light, oatmeal brown. mmmm, I sound like a commercial. Lion Brand should be paying me to write this! Too bad they aren't.

This Old Hat.

I made this hat about a year and a half ago, or sometime long ago. I feel like it was before this type of slouchy, oversized beret became very stylish (but then again I wasn't really paying attention to when that happened either.) I knew this artist who showed at the Gallery where I worked and always wore a loooong slouchy black beret. Very 'artist'. It suited her though. I only got to meet her a few times before she passed away in 2006. When I started working on this hat, making up the pattern and shaping it to be a wide, drooping beret, I thought of her.


The finished hat's not all that big and droopy. It has a perfect fit. It's just a little large for my small head. If anyone has a head that's a little bit bigger than mine (or a bit more hair!) than it will fit them correctly. So I have decided to add it to my online store!

Coming Soon.

I'm very excited. I've been working on setting up an etsy store for my hand knit goods and during a test spin I sold my first item! I have spent the last two sunny days photographing the other items I have to sell and will be editing those images today to add to the shop by the end of the week. Then next week it is back to knitting because the projects are piling up! It's about time to get started on Holiday gifts. If you are having trouble thinking of gifts to buy or make, then give etsy a look. They will have tons of ideas for your shopping list and wish list!

Stormy Weather.

I didn't take these, but I am equally excited about them.

Grant Hamilton shoots sx70's in a very unique style. I like his site, too. As simple, clean and bold as his work.

Well, lots of projects getting started here, but nothing getting finished! I'll post pictures of what I am working on soon. As soon as I am done watching The Breakfast Club for the seventy millionth time on tv! Oh, stormy, rainy saturdays....


If anyone is looking for a birthday present for your favorite, polaroid freak friend, here's an idea.


It's a 'plusharoid' from etsy.com!

Oh, Halloween!

Very rarely do I get to say "oh no, I have go out and buy some candy!!"

Today is the day.

stuffed up.

I am really giving in to this whole being-sick-with-a-head-cold thing. Mostly because it's an excuse to be lazy, but also because I will do anything to get better so I can go see Jens on Monday even if that means staying cooped up on the couch getting my body as much rest as possible. In the process I am also reading knitting books and scouring the web for baby hat patterns. Not because I am expecting... no, no. I want to make one for someone else. I really like this pattern (also on a 'knit2', though a different project and person) as an alternative to a classic stockingette stitch hat with an umbilical chord on top, like every pattern book seems to host. Maybe this weekend I will head down to the yarn store to look at fibers and get some ideas from real live humans instead of the web. In the meantime, if anyone has any cute baby hat pattern to show + share please send them my way!

sick day / photographs

I'm back in New England and have found myself with quite a cold! Between sniffles, coughs and cups of tea I have been knitting cables, and scanning polaroid images to add to flickr. Mostly all pictures I took in New Mexico, though a few from the Vineyard that I took the day that I moved out.



I've been cropping the white borders off of all the Martha's Vineyard images, but I think that for the New Mexico pictures I may leave them on. Mainly because it requires less editing and the drowsy cold medicine is kicking in, but also because I want to separate these new images from the Martha's Vineyard ones. They are two very different series, one that I took when I was living in a place, another when I was visiting. Not to mention two very different places... one surrounded by the ocean, the other by mountains and sky.

you can click on the tree above to take a look at what I am talking about, or just to see more images from NM!

Continuous cables: an update.

I am getting the hang of the this busy cable stitch and it's becoming less and less like complicated math homework. (Or maybe that's just because I have been watching Nick do some real complicated math homework.) Here's what I completed in the week I have been in New Mexico. I must say it's looking quite good!


I've still got a ways to go. This is a photo of the project (completed) as it comes with the pattern.


The pattern is from Michaels if you want to try it out. I am using Lamb's Pride bulky in pastashio and knitting with just one strand as opposed to the double strand of thinner wool that the pattern calls for. And, not to get too far ahead of myself, but I have already picked out the cutest wooden handles. More updates (and more yarn! I've run out!) when I get home.

A Walk in the Desert.

Today was sunny but with a breeze, which made it a bit cooler to be out in the middle of the day. So Nick and I decided to go for a hike at Soledad Canyon.


After walking a little ways, Nick asked if I was going to have to stop and take a picture of everything. The answer is yes, I pretty much have to. There is just so much to look at in the desert that I can't normally see at home. Lots of rocks and dirt, bugs, bushes, round things, pointy things and tons and tons of bright open sky.


My favorite thing is seeing things on the ground in the desert that look like they could also be on the ocean floor. It is neat to think that a long time ago there was water right here in the dryness where I am now standing.

If you listen to the wind blowing through the canyon it sounds an awful lot like the ocean. This is amazing to me. I grew up and have always lived by the ocean, so the idea of being landlocked is strange. But in a place like this you cannot doubt its beauty.

Power Cables.

I decided on a challenging project to take with me on the flight to New Mexico. Too challenging, perhaps. The instructions read like a complicated math problem.

Numerous times on the flight I had the urge to throw my knitting out the window, had the windows been able to open. Still I worked away intensely and, like trying to solve a difficult math problem, eventualy finding the answer felt like a huge accomplishment. Still, I think I took out more stitches between Boston and Chicago than I put in. Here's what I accomplished on the first flight.


By the time I changed planes I had a better sense of how the instructions read and how the cables were supposed to look. Chicago to El Paso bought me a few more rows.


What's this going to be when it's done?
you'll see....

Mom's Knitting.

Since I've been home I've slowly been going through my mom's things. Some of them I am using and enjoying, as I know she would want me to, other things I am leaving as they are. Some things I just cannot touch. The other day I sorted through her yarn and made sense of the many baskets and bundles of fiber she had collected over the years. I found some beautiful scarves, blankets and other special projects that I remember sitting with her while she worked on in years past. This scarf was amongst the projects I found, though I never remember seeing her work on it. The stitch is a fading triangle pattern (made up of knits and purls) that she worked in often. I really like how she added the detail of folding up one end and adding buttons for decoration. Details were always important to her.


Although we were always very different knitters, favoring different yarns and accomplishing varied projects, crafting and creating was a past time we shared and a valuable skill that she taught me. When I found this scarf it was still on the needles, as were several other projects. She never got the chance to complete them. I decided to finish this scarf for her. I completed the last row and simply bound off the stitches so I can wear it this winter and have her style and warmth wrapped around me. Its just one of the many beautiful things she created in her lifetime.

New Music Today: Jens Lekman!

I don't know what your agenda is for today, but somewhere in there give a listen to the new Jens Lekman album, Night Falls Over Kortedala, which comes out in the US on Secretly Canadian.

Jens is a 26 year old Swede who sings quirky pop songs about girls he kissed, the city he lives in and his yearning for love. About a month ago Pitchfork gave the record a rave review (9.0!!) and Jens has begun gaining popularity stateside. Thanks to a very special friend (I don't know if I should put her name here, is it ok?) I received an advance copy of the disc and have been enjoying it non-stop for the past few weeks, as I have with his other releases. His lyrics are nostalgic like Jonathan Richman's and the new melodies are driven by layers of samples and strings from 1960's ballads. If this description is not enough to make you go buy it, just take one more look at that album cover! swooon!

putting all the pieces together

Yesterday I sewed together all five pieces of my sweater! Boy, sewing knits are tough, but getting this close to completion feels good.


I have already begun knitting a ribbed trim to go up the front of the cardigan, to keep the opening from rolling in the way the stockingette likes to. I put button holes on one side of the trim and will obviously sew buttons on the other. Then I just have to add some sort of collar. I don't know yet what that should look like...


I began this sweater sooo long ago - in the summer of 2006 - and its first incarnation was to be a knit camisole with little i-cord straps. very simple. Somehow I decided that I wanted to knit a cardigan and this (with the back halfway through with completion) became it. Looking at this sweater as it literally comes together, I have to say that I doubt this is something I will be wearing. Several things I learned from making my first sweater:

1) choose a yarn + color that will make a nice sweater, not something that looks pretty in the craft store when it's wrapped up in a ball. The colors I tend to wear and like are not green and pink with gold sparkles, but grey, taupe, brown and BLACK! If this were a black sweater it would not have taken me a year and a half to make. I would have been racing to complete it so I could pair it with every single item in my closet!

2) don't alter the pattern unless neccessary. I don't know why I decided to alter this pattern in so many places. The finished sweater is nothing like the one that Lion Brand originally directed me to make. And now, looking at the instruction sheet, I realize that I like the one in the photo a lot better. It's a lot more like a swing coat and calls for a single button at the neck. cute!! Why didn't I just make that sweater as directed? Also, the sleeves would be real sleeves rather than 3/4 sleeves had I used the correct gauge. (let's pretend that was intentional!) I guess now that I know how it's done, I can knit the real sweater next.

sew pizza.

I went downtown today to visit the sewing/quilting shop I had seen on Main St. in Plymouth called Sew Crazy, so I could get lining for my dress. I parked across the street and didn't notice until I got out of the car (which I did an amazing job parellel parking!) that the sign on the window no longer said Sew Crazy, but instead read Coming Soon: Domino's Pizza. This just about made me want to run for the boat. I almost took a picture but it was too sad.

look!

I've changed the background a little bit. Do you like? I am also still in the process of moving, unpacking mostly. And I am getting used to living on the mainland and figuring out what to do at stop lights and such. Anyone from the Vineyard, I am sure you can relate...

I've done such a tiny bit of crafting in the last few months. So many reasons, so many excuses. I am getting ready to pick up my needles again. At the moment, my main project is to get all of my stuff (oh and I mean all my stuff) out of the boxes on the porch and the backseat of my car, and into my room. but FIRST, there will be some renovations! stay tuned...

take me away!

another thing to divert you from this page and the lack of crafting i have to show, is my new flickr page. right now it consists of many polaroids i shot this summer and scanned into my computer. i might put something else there someday, too, but who knows. now take a look at my polaroid project! thanks.

aly at aquinnah beach, july 2007.

getting crafty again.

September here is just lovely! Hints of summer still linger in the air, but all the tourists have gone home and you can actually get a parking space when you go out to dinner. I finally have some extra time to myself, both for crafting and for blogging! I kind of fell out of the blogging thing for a while. I don't like wasting time talking about doing things, I just want to do them. So now I'll go shut up and let you know when my dress (see cut fabric above) is done.

like mother, like daughter.

A few years ago, I found this picture of my mom, at age 20, hanging out with a couple of her friends in college. I love finding pictures like this from the past! It's just fun to get a glimpse of my mom before i knew her, and to see what styles she was wearing. I also like seeing what sorts of ridiculous haircuts her friends were sporting.


I cannot help and compare this photo to a similar one of myself, also at age 20, hanging out with my college friends.

wonder who inspired those ridiculous haircuts?

so proud to be my mothers daughter, always!

on hiatus

til when??

who knows....