Wednesday, March 30, 2011
Monday, March 28, 2011
Redwork
The American Folk Art Museum has an amazing exhibit of Redwork quilts right now through Wednesday. This show is up for less than a week, as if that could possibly be enough time to absorb all that loveliness. Molly and I spent our Friday afternoon getting lost amongst the quilts. As I doubt people who live in NYC will have a chance to make it to the show let alone those of you outside the city, I thought I would show you all some of the photos. Enjoy!
Tuesday, March 22, 2011
The Nick of Time
In the nick of time I finished the last swirl. Baby Finn was born last week and I am happy to report that the swirl blanket is currently being blocked into submission. I have never been a big fan of blocking, partially because I don’t knit a lot of lace but it also always seems like an extra step that I can skip. Well I am here to report that this project might make me a convert. The blocking has done so much for this blanket: 1) it increased the size thus decreasing my need to knit more swirls; 2) it opened up the pattern so you can really see how lovely the swirls are; 3) it helps hide the heptagon in the middle.
What’s that you say? You have forgotten your geometry, don’t fret clearly so have I. Each swirl is actually a hexagon with 60 stitches- 10 stitches per side. Each swirl except one that is, yup smack in the middle of everything is one seven sided monster that made the count come out all weird. As I was nearing the end of this blanket I couldn’t figure out why it was so hard to make it an even shape, so my guy and I laid it out to have a good look. There in the center mocking me was the heptagon (mind you I only know that a seven sided object is called a heptagon because my guy was a total math geek way back when). A friend’s husband tried to convince me to cut it open and fix it. Amazingly he is still alive, unharmed even. And I am chalking the heptagon up to the beauty of imperfection…rest assured it has plenty of company in the rest of the blanket.
For those not convinced of blocking consider this photo.
I had to block the blanket in two parts (cause it was big and I was planning on using my bed to sleep). The top half of the blanket has been blocked, the bottom hasn’t. Cool huh?
What’s that you say? You have forgotten your geometry, don’t fret clearly so have I. Each swirl is actually a hexagon with 60 stitches- 10 stitches per side. Each swirl except one that is, yup smack in the middle of everything is one seven sided monster that made the count come out all weird. As I was nearing the end of this blanket I couldn’t figure out why it was so hard to make it an even shape, so my guy and I laid it out to have a good look. There in the center mocking me was the heptagon (mind you I only know that a seven sided object is called a heptagon because my guy was a total math geek way back when). A friend’s husband tried to convince me to cut it open and fix it. Amazingly he is still alive, unharmed even. And I am chalking the heptagon up to the beauty of imperfection…rest assured it has plenty of company in the rest of the blanket.
For those not convinced of blocking consider this photo.
I had to block the blanket in two parts (cause it was big and I was planning on using my bed to sleep). The top half of the blanket has been blocked, the bottom hasn’t. Cool huh?
Tuesday, March 15, 2011
Snowflakes
Depending on how you look at it I have either missed the boat or am tempting fate with this blog post. I was going to post this a few weeks back but we hit a warm spell in New York that turned into a warming trend and the rest is history. But this is far too cool not to post and I am sure it is snowing somewhere in the world and there is a darn good chance it will snow here again.
Sarah over at Quince and Quire figured out how to photograph snowflakes. (Come on admit it you’re so impressed by the photo that you forgive me for tempting the snow gods.)
You can view here tutorial here (check out her great blog while you’re at it). And let’s face it, if it is going to snow more this session don’t we all need a snow project to help get us through?
Sarah over at Quince and Quire figured out how to photograph snowflakes. (Come on admit it you’re so impressed by the photo that you forgive me for tempting the snow gods.)
photos by Quince and Quire
Tuesday, March 8, 2011
Letterpress Love
Do you love letterpress? Really how could you not.
There is a great project up on Kickstarter right now which is to help create an app for the iPad (and other products) that will let you print in letterpress type set. You can arrange and change type the way you would with old letterpress printing.
My father, who is a bigger tech geek than your 7 year old nephew and avid lover of old letterpress insisted that I should post something about this project. You can check it out here on Kickstarter. Go ahead give him a few bucks and help keep letterpress alive!
There is a great project up on Kickstarter right now which is to help create an app for the iPad (and other products) that will let you print in letterpress type set. You can arrange and change type the way you would with old letterpress printing.
My father, who is a bigger tech geek than your 7 year old nephew and avid lover of old letterpress insisted that I should post something about this project. You can check it out here on Kickstarter. Go ahead give him a few bucks and help keep letterpress alive!
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