Feral Knitter

Best Readers in the World!

That's you! I've read and re-read all your lovely, supportive comments with deep pleasure and gratitude. As the week went on I felt my energy and enthusiasm returning. I launched into a new stranded project AND got inspired to start swatching another design. To top it off I met a blog reader (hello, Jean!) at an event at A Verb for Keeping Warm. 

I apologize for not responding to each of you individually, but my thanks are sincere. I'm ready to get working again! The Joy of Color will not be out in February, but I'm hoping that it will be available in spring of 2016.

My new project is a shawl, tentatively called Smtarbright (now why did autocorrect turn starbright into smtarbright???). This is a much bolder motif than usual, and the colors are used in bigger blocks than I'm used to--a challenge! As I knit on this odd little cornucopia I realized that it resembles the work of Märta Stina Abrahamsdottor, an impoverished Swedish knitter from the late 1800s.  I've always loved her bold motifs and inventive use of materials at hand--go ahead and use Google to find out more.

Kristine Vejar's new book on natural dyeing, The Modern Natural Dyer, came out last week. It's a beauty! I've been dabbling in natural dyeing for decades, but I've already learned new refinements from leafing through this book. The book covers working with natural dye extracts, with foraged materials, and with indigo--and the photos are gorgeous. The projects themselves are lovely.

I'll post photos of Turkey and Greece soon! Here's a detail of a Turkish rug that caught my eye--perfect for a Fair Isle, wouldn't you say?

 

 

Book Chronicles, Part 1

Making a book is like buying a house. If you've never done it, you can't figure out why people aren't more excited when they move into their very own home! But the entire process seems designed to wring every bit of enjoyment and pride out of the result, leaving you with regrets and second thoughts that wake you up in the middle of the night.

Well, The Joy of Color: Fair Isle Design Your Way is wandering the same path. A few years ago I decided that I would like to translate my 3-day Design Your Own Fair Isle workshop into book form. I'll talk about what it took to go from "vague idea" to "book in nearly finished written form" in another post, because I know that many people have dreams of self-publishing. Let's just say that I was challenged on many fronts, mostly personal negative self-talk issues--the committee in my head was absolutely certain that such a book would be a major failure, opening me up to responses ranging from indifference to anger to laughter. Not to mention financial disaster. But I digress....

Despite all that, I wrote the text. The folks at Stitch Definition took some great photographs for the chapter opening pages. My first graphic designer didn't work out, so I taught myself how to produce a book using InDesign (thank you, Lynda.com!) And I came up with a nearly reasonable version of the book, but it didn't delight me--I don't have the skill and training to figure out how to lay out complex pages in any way other than the obvious. I found another designer to give it a spa treatment.

In August the designer came up with brilliant changes--less spa treatment, more major plastic surgery and pilates--and I felt so excited! I said, OK, let's go! Love it! 

Time passed.

I got quotations from printers, even got a dummy book--a blank book with the same paper and binding and cover choices that I specified--so I could feel it, turn the pages, imagine readers being inspired and empowered. 

And then, two days ago, a blow: the graphic designer, after months of just enough output to keep me hanging in there (but enough warning signs for me to ask her directly if she could complete the job a couple of weeks ago), told me that she had not spent the weekend working on my book, as promised, and had enjoyed a weekend with her husband instead. And when she admitted that the work wasn't done she also admitted that she wouldn't have time to do it in the next few months, either. 

Needless to say, I fired her.

And then went into a funk. 

I'm breathing deeply, taking this time to rework the text and photographs, gathering my energy to find a new designer. I am trying to embrace this gift of extra time to add some more pages, knit a few swatches, fine tune. Lemons into lemonade.

But I need some encouragement, people!!!

Getting Twisted

Spinzilla, the week-long spinning contest sponsored by TNNA, was last week. I signed up to be part of the Storey Publishing Team (partly because I like the team leaders, Beth Smith and Jillian Moreno, and partly because I was hoping to get one of the sponsor prizes--yes, I admit it). 

I know that the key to becoming a good spinner is regularly spinning. Duh. This contest gave me the spur I needed, and it did, indeed, work out as hoped (even if I didn't win a prize...). My long-set-aside goal of making a Fair Isle-from-scratch project is now significantly more likely to be met! I spun yards and yards of white, light gray, medium brown, and indigo-dyed Shetland rovings last week. I'd already spun the dark brown, so now on to the moorit. Soon I'll be ready to knit! If you want to monitor my progress on Ravelry, I've named this project Arrowhead County, after the mythical Alaskan home of Northern Exposure. 

I took breaks from my spinning efforts to read a fantastic new book: In the Footsteps of Sheep: Tales of a Journey Through Scotland, Walking, Spinning, and Knitting Socks, by Debbie Zawinski (Schoolhouse Press). The author's goal makes mine look puny: "a journey around Scotland spinning and knitting the fleece of the Scottish sheep breeds in their native haunts." She made her way by bus, ferry, and foot, camping wherever a spot made it possible, gathering fleece from fence lines and hedges to spin yarn for socks that would commemorate her travels and the people she met along the way. "Sock wifie" used primitive tools to spin on her travels, making an armchair spinner take a hard look at what is needed and what isn't. In the Footsteps of Sheep includes several sock patterns, but the main joy of the book is the text and the photos. Maybe your goals are less broad, maybe you feel yourself a little stuck in your life--if you need permission to get a little wild, read this book.