Feral Knitter

Clothes That Rot

I truly believe the most subversive thing you can do today is spend as much of the day as possible nurturing what is not machine-like in you. ~ Austin Kleon

 

You know that at-loose-ends feeling you get after finishing a big project? Yeah, that's me. My book (The Joy of Color) took so much of my time and attention for so long, once it was launched into the world I felt sort of let down. Don't get me wrong: I love how it turned out! And I've certainly been busy getting the word out (did you see Franklin's review on the Mason-Dixon Knitting site? Made me so happy because you just know that Franklin is a straight shooter).

To get past this slump I began a Studio Journal, collecting ideas about what inspires me. I feel the old creative energy returning, but I'm nurturing it quietly and not pushing anything.

In the mean time, though, I haven't given up knitting! 

Confession: For many years I've just about lived in my fleece vests. Vests are so very useful in milder climates, and I love how unconstricting they feel. But I can no longer ignore the fact that polyester fleece—so soft, so light, so affordable—is a threat to the environment. We can purchase fleece made from plastic bottles, but even that fleece is problematic because every time we wash fleece we send micro bits of plastic into the water shed. (If you've ordered from my shop (Feral Knitter) you may have received your yarn in reused plastic bags—there's an amazing amount of plastic in the yarn industry, so every time we reuse what we've got it helps.)

So late last year I decided to knit myself several vests out of real, natural, biodegradable fibers so I could wean myself off of my fleece reliance. These are my Clothes That Rot!

 

1. The Lohman pullover by Julie Hoover in Brooklyn Tweed's Loft. (I do love Shelter and Loft....) I wasn't sure about this oversized shaping, but I find that I love it! I've worn this vest a lot over cotton turtlenecks. This is, I think, the first sweater I've knit in pieces (I know, wild, huh?). The pattern was well written, but it has some pretty involved shaping that required close attention--I'm not used to that! But all experience makes us stronger, and the result was worth it. 

2. The Less Is More Cardigan by Amy King in my handspun. I'm an enthusiastic collector of painted rovings, but I'm not the greatest spinner in the world. Still, I enjoy it and like to feel that there is space in the world for those of us who just enjoy things without needing to be perfect! At any rate, I spun up 8 different rovings using the fractal methods shown in Jillian Moreno's Yarnitecture (great book!). I was trying to make a larger yarn than I usually do—I managed this although not consistently. However, I ended up with a rather heavy semi-worsted yarn, so my vest could drown you if you fell in the lake. I love it anyway and think of it as my Dolly Parton vest (a "coat of many colors"). Looking forward to more experimentation and improving my woolen spinning technique.

 

3. And some Fair Isle: my own design, the Arrowhead County V-neck vest (at the top of this page) in more of my handspun, this time different shades of Shetland plus I dyed some white with indigo. I'm playing it loose, choosing a different traditional Fair Isle motif from Sheila McGregor's Traditional Fair Isle Knitting for each band. 

It's has felt right to spend time making these vests. I'm very happy to stop adding to the load of plastic our poor home, planet Earth, has to carry! 

Self-publishing: What to Do with the Books

So, you spend all this time and effort and money to create a book. And you've done it! You can feel proud, tell everyone you know, take your bestie out for a drink.... 

And then: you have to make a lot of decisions about dealing with the physical book. With any luck you thought about this before you ordered 5000 or 10000 copies! I talked about how I chose the size, cover type, and binding in my blog post Self-publishing: Books as Objects. But even at that point the book remained an idea, and the day eventually comes when you have to deal with the realities of ordering, storing, and selling the object itself. 

How many copies will you print?

Most of us are working in the dark when we come up with a figure. We don't have the historical publication figures that larger publishers have. We can see that there is a significant reduction in cost-per-volume the more you have printed, not to mention the possibility of amortizing the creation costs (designer, editor, photographer, printer proofs, etc) over more books. On the other hand, ordering too many leaves the possibility of being left with hundreds or thousands of unsold volumes.

So how do you come up with a figure? Most self-publishers offer a preorder deal (on their website, through a KickStarter, etc) to gauge interest and to help fund the up-front publication costs. I did this, and used the resulting information to set my publication quantity: I took my early preorders and multiplied that by 10. Only time will tell if I was right!

Where will you store them when they arrive at your doorstep? 

Significant quantities of books weigh a lot and take up a lot of space. There's no getting around these facts! So you'll need to have a place to store the books where they won't be damaged by damp or insects--and renting a storage area costs a fair amount of money that you'll have to add to your calculations. Major shippers aren't used to dealing with the small fry, either--I've hired an hourly worker to help me deal with 120+ cases of books being dropped off at the curb!

You might choose to let someone else handle the storage and processing side of things. Book distributors cost a lot (60% discount, on average) and are hard to find these days--the major craft book distributor went out of business last year, leaving us self-publishers in the lurch. The book industry as a whole is under a lot of pressure these days, and the old models are no longer a given. Still, if you don't want to have to deal with the hassles of handling each order, a distributor or fulfillment house is worth finding.

How will you sell them?

Are you ready to set up a website to sell your book? It takes a some money and a lot of time (or a lot of money to pay someone else) to set up a site with web-commerce, and you'll also need to set up an encrypted credit card processing account as well as PayPal to accept money. 

If you plan to sell a book of patterns, Ravelry offers some solutions--it's worth talking with them.

If you plan to sell your book at bookstores or through Amazon you will need an ISBN number and a bar code. Another cost to think about, although not difficult to obtain. 

Selling digital copies has its own set of difficulties: How will you handle distribution? How will you control the number of downloads? What if your book's files can't be reduced enough to be emailed? Do you need to set up an online sharing system through Google or DropBox? (And, of course, how will you set up your download? PDF? Kindle? other eBook format?) Many websites allow you to set up your own download system, but there are download distributors as well.

How will you market your book?

Without the support of a traditional publisher the entire load of marketing falls on your own shoulders. Many of us in this field are introverts, making it even harder to get the word out. 

My blog readers have been a major source of support for my book--for years I've been tossing words out into the wind, expressing my opinions about Fair Isle knitting, sharing techniques I've developed, and talking about anything that captures my attention. My readers have been my biggest cheerleaders, and they have helped spread the word about The Joy of Color.

Instagram is another excellent way to communicate your process and product to lots of people--I find that I'm able to post more frequently there because of its visual focus. Pinterest can be a good marketing tool as well.

Most authors build a mailing list and send out newsletters will updates on book development, etc. Mail Chimp, Constant Contact, and others make creating and sending newsletters quite easy--your biggest hurdle is building the mailing list (and you have to be scrupulous about not adding anyone who hasn't asked to be added). 

You can ask people who are well known in the field if they would be interested in reviewing your book on their blog, hosting a giveaway, interviewing you for their podcast--I find this enormously difficult to do, but I'm lucky enough to have many prominent knitters offer their help. A few magazines still review books and it's worth approaching them.

Don't forget to carry informational postcards with you at all times. 

Repetition and respect are the key words in all your marketing efforts!

How will you handle the tax side of things?

You will need to create a legal entity for your publishing efforts to account for the expenses, the profits (or losses--yikes!), and tax collecting. The requirements vary depending on where you are located: I had to go to the county office and apply for a business license, including a special license for an fictitious business name (strangely, this also requires that I advertise this name in a newspaper several weeks in a row). I also needed to get zoning permission from my city and apply for a city license. I collect California sales taxes on all in-state sales and have to report these taxes once a year. Your state and city will have different requirements--you can usually find out what they are on your state, county, and city websites. The city of Berkeley required me create a different business entity for publishing The Joy of Color, even though I have already set up Feral Knitter (my online yarn store). I used the name Willa Jane Press because 25 years ago I'd had a very vivid dream that I had another daughter named Willa Jane! But it's a reporting headache, and I've finally given in and will be paying a professional to prepare my taxes from now on. 

What packaging will you use?

As I say (perhaps way too often): You spend all your time getting the book, and then you spend all your time trying to get rid of your book! If you are smart you will think about this at the same time that you plan your book's size. Check out the USPS website to find the envelope and box sizes that qualify for flat rate shipping and regional rate shipping. Media mail costs a lot less, but is less reliable and careful according to people who've used this service.

The Joy of Color weighs ~1.5 pounds (!) and costs nearly $12 to mail USPS First Class--not including the cost of the envelope, label printing, or the money-processing fees. The book fits into the flat-rate envelope, however, so it costs me $6.10 to mail it in the US--still more than I charge for shipping & handling. Media mail would cost approximately $3.30. What are you willing to do for your customers? The flat-rate envelope is plastic--but it will protect the book and the post office gives it for free; with media mail I could have used a recycled package solution for $0.75 - $1. But customers want their orders now.

And the cost of mailing overseas, even in flat-rate envelopes, is shocking. These are the things you have to think about!

Getting Help

You really can't do this alone. Luckily there are lots of people out there who can support you through this seemingly endless morass of details! I've found that my membership in the Craft Industry Alliance has been very helpful. Meighan O'Toole, Andreea Ayers, and Tara Swiger are three respected independent business advisers you should check out--they all offer an amazing amount of free content in addition to useful paid courses. 

However, nothing beats having a small group of trusted compatriots who are also putting creative work out into the world. Do what you can to build just such a group.

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There. Thank you all for hanging in there through this huge number of words!!! I've been trying to get this written for weeks now! The summer has sped by with lots of teaching, lots of vacationing, and lots of work preparing to sell the book. Right now the word is that my cases of The Joy of Color are in a container that was randomly chosen for a physical review by US Customs, and it is now waiting its turn in the Port of Los Angeles. Luckily it was not caught in the Hanjin shipping company bankruptcy!!! 

Self-publishing: Books as Objects

 

I love books! I like the feel of them, the paper, the heft, artful layouts and fonts... 

And I've liked making them, too, since I was quite young. There's something so satisfying about it, even when I'm not trying to be fancy. I have a row of handwritten cookbooks, starting with one dated 1976--standard blank notebooks filled with recipes I've made and liked, a few pictures pasted in here and there (I used rubber cement in this one, which is discoloring in a very artistic way!). Leafing through this is as evocative as an artful scrapbook--here's the recipe for Carrot Cake from a restaurant in Seattle that my friend Fred coaxed from the owner as a birthday present for me. Here's the scone recipe I made throughout high school (the best! from an article in Woman's Day magazine). Here's Dave & Barb's Excellent Ragu Bolognese, a memory of shared meals with friends. And a slew of recipes highly influenced by A Diet for a Small Planet coupled with the needs of a poor graduate student.  

So the part of self-publishing that I felt most confident about was choosing the physical shape and feel for The Joy of Color. To start with, I went to the cookbook section of my local book store--I intended The Joy of Color to be an inspirational workbook, and cookbook design is among the most innovative and modern out there. I picked up book after book, asking myself how I felt about the binding, how the book opened (and stayed open, or not), how the pages reflected color, how the cover behaved--and more importantly how my hands enjoyed touching the cover.

I landed upon Eating Up the West Coast and had the immediate sense that This Is It! The book felt FUN and accessible--the size of the pages, the give--and yet sturdiness--of the cover, the brightness of the images. When I contacted Asia Pacific Offset for a quote, the representative knew what I was talking about. She sent me 6 different books that they published, with full specifications for each one so I could see how each decision worked out. 

Ultimately I stuck quite closely to the book I was drawn to, changing the width slightly to fit standard mailing envelopes (so many things to keep in mind!). The cover is paper, but reinforced; I chose a Flexibinding--this is a sewn binding and is attached to a flexible support, so the pages can be opened fully without breaking the spine or falling out (you will love this!). Most of my choices are more expensive than standard, glued, perfect-bound paperbacks, but I think it is worth it for a book that I hope you will return to over and over again. The printer worked up a blank book for me that used all my specifications so I could hold it in my hands, get a feel for the weight of it, see how the pages fell open--wondrous. 

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AND--I just learned that I will have my shipment of The Joy of Color and be able to mail them out by September 15th!!! I can hardly wait....

Knitted Journeys

Well, I had roughed in a blog post about finding the right support people when you self-publish, but time got away from me! I'm off for two weeks in Wisconsin: Meg Swansen's Knitting Camp, Sievers School of Fiber Arts (where I'm teaching my Design Your Own Fair Isle workshop), and Fiddlehead Yarns in Kenosha, where I'm offering two days of choosing color classes. I enjoy my yearly forays into the lovely green of Wisconsin, where I feel so at home.

But there is something I've wanted to share with you and this seems like the right moment. A few months ago I got this email from a customer, Robyn, about Dolly Donhauser's Walking Tour Scarf pattern (published by Feral Knitter). I so enjoyed her story, and she gave me permission to share her exuberant Fair Isle journey with you.

Hi Janine,

 

I emailed you at the end of last year as I was leaving Canada to get permission for a stationery firm to print out a copy of the Travellers Scarf pattern … bought previously from Revelry.  They were being ultra careful of copyright ownership - even a copy of my receipt wasn’t sufficient …  I was in a major rush because we were taking off for a very discursive trip between our homes on Prince Edward Island and Canberra Australia, via Iceland, Europe, UK, Oman, Malaysia, Perth - and the Travelling Scarf was to be my travelling entertainment. I had never tackled two colour knitting before but I bought a large quantity of gorgeous coloured wool from online and off I went.

 

 

I knitted my way through Airbnbs, planes, and airports, and by the time I arrived back in Canberra the knitting was virtually done.   I haven’t actually measured it by you can see by the pics that it got about as long as a scarf should functionally be - but it was a struggle to stop.  I enjoyed the project enormously.  At the beginning it was a struggle - my tongue was tied into knots, my technique was awkward, I dropped lots of stitches and made heaps of mistakes, but I wasn’t even confident enough to go back and unpick the mistakes … so the end is much better than the beginning.  It took me a while to realize that if the number of stitches falls out of sync in a row, you have to get it sorted asap …. it generally means a dropped stitch … or a pattern mix up which is not going to sort itself out ...

 

 

 

Sorting out and tidying all the ends took quite a few days … It took quite a while before I was up to handling that as I went along, as you recommended … just too clumsy …

 

 

Choice of colours was also a learning experience.  When I chose my wools, my colour ranges were a bit too subtle - as were some of my early choices.  One star pattern in particular was very disappointing - colours looked okay as the balls were sitting side by side, but tonally, they were just too similar for the star to stand out. 

 

 

While I more or less followed your pattern, the colour choices were my own, and I missed the sequence you intended - so I just ploughed on through the order of patterns as they appeared.  Occasionally I added in touches of my own.  I don’t think my colour choices or structure would pass the Fairislers test.  the tassels were added after I had been reading a book about South American knitting!

 

 

Still, in the end I was really really happy with it  and entered it in the annual Canberra Agricultural Show … “Exhibition" in Canada.  It achieved a range of awards.  The knitting section awarded it a Second, no doubt noting the earlier imperfections in technique in particular.  It was moved out of the knitting section however, into the Great Scarf Competetion where it received First place and a few other awards.

 

 

In the last photo, with the tassels, the end showing is where I started ….

 

So - thank you for your pattern [Note: Dolly's design!].  I cannot really express just how much I enjoyed knitting it!!!

 

Robyn

 

Thank YOU, Robyn, for sharing your journey! 

Self-Publishing: Getting Started

And sometimes you just know: It is time to start something new and trust the magic of beginnings. 
        ~ Meister Eckhardt

I'm sitting at the table, fondling the rough proofs of The Joy of Color. Such an incredible feeling, seeing the nearly end result of so many years of effort (still on track for a September delivery). 

When you come close to completion of a major project it's easy to think that each step that got you there was planned and inevitable, but an honest backwards look confirms that the process is anything but linear. And when you are looking in from the outside the process can feel intimidating, like something unobtainable to a mere mortal, but I made a lot of mistakes along the way, wasting time, effort, and money and I had to confront a number of emotional sticking points as well.

In class I often say, "Your sweater will not change the world, but the process of creating it will change you." That's how I feel about creating The Joy of Color.

I'm going to spend the next few blog entries talking about self-publishing: Why did I choose this route? What are the advantages and disadvantages? How do you get started? How long does it take? What support to you need? What would I do differently? What does it cost? How do you market your book? 

Why a book?

I had developed a step-by-step method for designing very personal and complex (or simple!) Fair Isle garments, and I'd been teaching workshops for several years based on this method. After each workshop I would refine and expand my handout until it was the size of a small book. At the same time people were asking me if I would come and teach on the east coast (I'm in California) or in England or New Zealand, but the costs of having a teacher with tons of materials travel are difficult to absorb. 

So I thought: Why not expand my handout to include all the stuff I talk about in the workshop, and try to give people who can't come the experience of being there? For better or worse, "How hard can it be?" is my default position. 

Why self-publish?

• In high school I was the assistant editor of the yearbook; after Gingko was born I returned to the University of Washington to earn a certificate in Technical Writing and Editing from the School of Engineering and began a 20-year career in technical and production editing (I am the world's worst proofreader, though--sigh). Plus, I'm a major reader, as anyone who has been to my home can attest. So the world of creating books wasn't foreign to me. Plus I had some of the page layout skills needed.
• I'm a rather diffident and shy person--I'm not good at marketing myself--and deep down I thought that if any publisher had been interested they would have approached me, as I knew they had approached any number of my colleagues in the fiber world. 
• I envisioned a book for the kind of knitter who is obsessed with manipulating color and pattern, who is fascinated by a discussion of how to make, say, an easy no-flare vest arm band, who wants to explore something new. Who welcomes creative challenges. I didn't want to have a collection of patterns--I wanted a book for the person who appreciates patterns but feels driven to make their own. Few publishing houses would be likely to gamble on such a work (I guessed--I never contacted any publishers).
• I wanted to write a book that would have lasting value and not be relegated to the remainder table after a year or two.
• Modern publication methods make it easier than ever to create, print, and distribute your own book. It's a natural evolution from "Sure, I can design my own complex sweaters" to "Sure, I can create my own book!"  
• I enjoy a challenge and love to learn new things, so self-publishing seemed like it would be fun. Trust me: there's lots to learn in this process.
• I wanted to earn money from my work. Traditional publication methods do not result in much payback for the author.
• Most importantly, I had a very strong vision of what I wanted The Joy of Color to include and how I wanted it to feel: fun, accessible, detailed, encouraging. I didn't want to compromise my vision.

Arguments for Going the Traditional Route

• Although the author does not earn much from each sale, the publisher carries the financial and practical burdens of editing, photography, design, printing, storage, distribution, and marketing. This is HUGE and can't be underrated overrated [a good editor would have caught this before I hit Publish! It's hard to edit your own work.]
• Many of us need the external deadlines imposed by the traditional publication route.
• The editorial compromises in the traditional process often result in a much better book.
• Although self-publishing is easier than ever, the details of the process can be murky and difficult to puzzle out.

Next week: How I Started

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P.S. I've decided to start responding to comments in the comment section rather than privately as I've been doing--please check back!  

Pulling Out the Sewing Machine

Buying = Thing
Making = Thing + Learning + Story

~David Lang

When I was growing up it was normal for girls to take a sewing class for one semester. Half the class had electric sewing machines and the other half had old-fashioned treadle machines (yes, I am that old, and yes, the school didn't have enough money to update all the machines at once)--I was assigned a treadle machine and I remember my first project being an brown checked gingham apron.

 

By the time I was in high school it was fashionable for us to make our own clothes--we would pore over the new sewing pattern collections at the fabric store, carefully crafting our first-day-of-school outfits (I loved this shirt dress!). 

College was a series of dresses made from printed cotton sheets from India (I did a lot of folk dancing back then).

A new generation is making clothing ourselves more accessible than ever, and I could not be happier. Great patterns are coming from independent designers--A Verb for Keeping Warm, 100 Acts of Sewing, Liesel + Co, Merchant & Mills, Colette, and Grainline Studio. And blogs like Fringe Association and Hodge Podge Farm inspire. 

In the final chapter of The Joy of Color I wrote:

Wear your sweater whenever you can--don't save it for special occasions. Let it become your signature in the world, a quiet symbol of intelligence, skill, persistence, and the power of individual beauty in an over-commodified world.

I've decided to expand this countercultural manifesto to the rest of my wardrobe. Working on the old Singer that my grandmother won for selling the most magazine subscriptions in a Depression-era contest, I've happily taken control over my clothing again. I've just finished another Dress No. 2, a versatile pattern by Sonya Philip (read about her 100 Acts of Sewing project). Two of my versions are blouse length; the third is a dress (with pockets!!! who doesn't love pockets?). I also sewed up the Esme top from Lotta Jonsdotter's Everyday Style--another good source of patterns--but the sleeves were too tight. I'll need to get into the habit of making muslins and testing for fit before using my good fabric!

I'm not abandoning knitting--but I've got to say that I'm loving the speed at which I can get a finished object at the sewing table! And fabric stores!!! An Aladdin's cave of treasures....

What is your sewing story? Did you grow up with a mother who made your clothes? Did you learn to sew early? Or are you just now exploring the world of woven fabric? Or--perhaps--totally uninterested! 

 

 

Breathing Deeply

My dears! The files for The Joy of Color: Fair Isle Knitting Your Way went to the printer yesterday!!! I've been working on this project for so very long that I can hardly believe it is about to be a THING. A real object that you can hold in your hands. I've petted the dummy version of the book (this is a totally blank book built to my specifications so I could check whether I really liked the book size and paper and cover and binding choices), and I've reviewed the proofs printed on my trusty HP InkJet printer, but it's not the same.

So now I will have to exercise patience until the start of September.... 

Because I felt so worded out by the writing and editing process I've neglected this blog shamefully. Honestly, I didn't realize that it had been so long! In reaction to the writing process I started using Instagram (@janinebajus), with its emphasis on visuals, but I look forward to posting here regularly again. I thought I'd write a series of posts about the process of self-publishing: many people have asked me why I chose this route and what's involved. 

What other things would you like me to write about in this space? I've got time now!

It's absolutely fair to say that without this blog there wouldn't be a book today. Thank you for sticking around.

Return from Madrona

 

Ah, the Madrona Fiber Arts Winter Retreat, in Tacoma, Washington--every Presidents' Day weekend you can count on this "retreat," a word that probably doesn't conjure an event held in an upscale hotel decorated with glass created by some 20 designers, attended by some 900 people (not including those who come just to spend time in the marketplace and the demonstration area of the Rotunda). It didn't start out this way, but Suzanne and Cornie, Madrona organizers, work hard to keep the family feeling.

Suzanne asked me to give the Friday night talk at Teachers' Night in addition to teaching two new classes and an old favorite. Well, it seemed like a reasonable thing to do many months ago, but as the time approached I became more and more worried. I put off event after event for weeks beforehand, saying, "I've got to work on THE TALK" in ominous tones. John wanted to hear it, but I felt embarrassed giving it to just one person. However, I was able to practice on the Snohomish Knitters' Guild the night before Madrona began (thank you, Marion and the board members for the invitation and the wonderful meal at The Cabbage Patch in Snohomish), so although I was nervous I also felt confident when I looked out at the room where 400 people filled the chairs—an odd combination of feelings!

Friends in the audience.

And the room begins to fill! You can see the teacher display tables in the background—on Friday night teachers can display their work and answer questions about their classes.

Dale handles all the audio/visual technical issues that arise—I walked up to the podium to the tune of Day to Feel Alive by Jack Reese, and walked off to Two Little Feet by Greg Brown (I'd requested the former, but he located the latter when he saw that I used some lyrics in my talk!).

My online chat group friends, and my Knitting Camp friends, and my students, and my teachers and co-teachers, and the members of the Seattle knitting community, and the many people I've seen in Madronas past—it felt like a large, supportive family. My talk was entitled "My Life in Technicolor OR Learning to Say Yes OR It Takes a Village," and it was a privilege to share the story of my evolution as a designer: the desires, the support, the successes (and failures), and the ongoing challenges are universal.

Afterwards I was overwhelmed by people thanking me for articulating the feelings they'd been having. Did I say it was a privilege? Yes, indeed, a privilege and I don't regret for one minute the time I put into preparing for it.

I used many slides in my talk—many of these contained inspirational quotations, and I promised Lisa and Cari that I would share them here (thank you for the gentle reminder!):

How do I define a creative life? Any life that is guided more strongly by curiosity than by fear. ~Elizabeth Gilbert

Your sweater should be an expression of you. It’s a self-empowerment deal and it spills over into the rest of your life. ~Meg Swansen

Why should we all use our creative power? . . . Because there is nothing that makes people as generous, joyful, lively, bold and compassionate, as indifferent to fighting and accumulation of objects and money. ~Brenda Ueland

John Muir walked away into the mountains,
in an old overcoat, a crust of bread in his pockets.
We have no knowledge and so we have stuff.
Stuff without knowledge is never enough to get you there.
It just won’t get you there.
    ~Greg Brown, from the song “Two Feet”

What's the hurry? The satisfaction of one good thing thoroughly made and enjoyed for decades is immeasurable. It's what counts.  ~Sarah Swett

To create a world beyond fashion is to summon an emotion or a cherished memory. ~Ralph Lauren

Usually when we say we can’t do something, what we mean is that we won’t do something unless we can guarantee that we’ll do it perfectly. ~Julia Cameron, The Artist’s Way

... Beyond this, it’s advisable
to have a skill. Learn how to make something:
food, a shoe box, a good day.
Remember, finally, there are few pleasures
that aren’t as local as your fingertips.
           ~Stephen Dunn, from “How to Be Happy: Another Memo to Myself”

I took a break to take a class (I LOVE taking classes!): Cowichan Spinning from Judith MacKenzie. This iconic knitwear has fascinated me since I was a child, so I appreciated the chance to explore how the spinners create bulky but light yarn. I also (ahem) found time to purchase 4.5 pounds (wait, that can't be right) of painted roving. I was also give 8 ounces of painted roving. I plead the Fifth.

Some other images:

This is Michelle of Toots Le Blanc, purveyor of beautiful natural yarns—she had recolored the Starry Night sweater into natural shades and she moved the motifs to suit her. Such a beautiful sweater—there's something about it that makes me want to steal it from her!

A lovely student in my Fair Isle yoke class (and I apologize for not remembering her name!!!) wore the Dicentra Sweater perfectly!

The plane home flew between two cloud layers...

 

 

 

Mason and Muttville

 

Handsome fellow in his new, hand knit sweater

Two years ago today we added Mason to our family, thanks to the lovely folks at Muttville in San Francisco. We'd visited their adoption center the weekend before, where we had hoped to find a dog who could join our beloved Shadow in our hearts--we'd waited 6 months from when Shadow passed away and felt ready to add another heartbeat to our home. 

At the shelter John sat down on a long sofa bed, and Mason trotted over and plopped down on his lap. Those big brown eyes and furrowed brow haunted us for days, even though a dachshund with severe back issues causing incontinence wasn't what we had envisaged! (We have since learned that Mason will trot over and plop down on ANYONE who sits on the sofa. Ahem.) 

He has a pretty cushy life now!

And of course now we can envisage our lives without him. Thanks to Muttville for rescuing older dogs, offering foster and hospice services when needed. So often these older dogs are in shelters because their guardians have passed away, and the loved pets are heartbroken and confused. Or, like Mason a medical issue has become a deal breaker and the owners give the dog up for adoption. A few of them are strays, found wandering the streets. 

If you love seeing photos of Mason (and who doesn't?) I've become active on Instagram--follow me (@janinebajus) to see more. Knitting, too, of course. 

Gift Knitting

I'm listening to the fabulous podcast Dear Sugar right now while Cheryl Strayed and Steve Almond discuss the emotional pitfalls of major family holidays (such a great podcast series--do yourself a favor and subscribe on iTunes). Our family is, at this time, very small, so much holiday drama is not an issue.

This year Gingko flew down for a few days and we celebrated Christmas in our very entrenched style: a nearly unvarying menu, decorations made or acquired decades ago, a pile of rectangular presents (books, my friends, books are the key to Christmas in our house). So relaxing, so evocative. 

I took a risk, though: knitting for Christmas. We all know the drill--you spend hours and hours working on these secret projects, anticipating the excitement and pleasure of the recipient when the box is opened. Sometimes this works, and sometimes, well, disaster. At the best of times I'm not a fan of deadline knitting, and Christmas carries such weighted emotional demands that I usually don't participate in the exercise. 

This Christmas, however? SO satisfying! Here's the Embrace Octopus sweater that I knit for Gingko:

(Note how Gingko is checking to see whether our mandarin orange crop is ready to harvest!) A knitting challenge, but the sweater was received with all appropriate enthusiasm and fits perfectly!

Gingko wasn't the only one to get a knitted sweater--here's Mason:

He's not sure about this whole sweater thing--you win some, you lose some!--but I think it looks great on him. It's a little short--I didn't measure correctly or try it on while knitting to make sure the fit was right, as the excellent pattern (Wurstwärmer by Pamela Wynne) suggested. At any rate, we are set to romp in the snow. Not!