Midweek Meditation - Warhol style

"I'm afraid that if you look at a thing long enough, it loses all of its meaning."     ~ Andy Warhol

I took this photo at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in August of 2007.

As a (very young) child of the 60's, I have long wanted to quote Mr Warhol in a blog post.  But each and every time I googled and then read "andy warhol quotes" nothing really worked for me.

"Isn't life a series of images that change as they repeat themselves?"

Late this evening, truly by accident, I learned that today is Andy Warhol's 86th birthday.  He was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, on August 6, 1928.  Sadly, he died at the age of 58 in 1987.

Though I did, some time ago, rightly decide that quoting Mr W might not work effortlessly for my blog, this photo could help to explain my post tonight.

A painting my son made at school when he was in third grade hangs above my desk.  I do love it!  I took this photo just minutes ago.  Not very far away is a similar painting made by my daughter (Ref: Georgia O'Keefe).  Love that, too!  I will share it on another day.

Some final words from Mr W...

"Sometimes you're invited to a big ball and for months you think about how glamorous and exciting it's going to be. Then you fly to Europe and you go to the ball and when you think back on it a couple of months later what you remember is maybe the car ride to the ball, you can't remember the ball at all. Sometimes the little times you don't think are anything while they're happening turn out to be what marks a whole period of your life. I should have been dreaming for months about the car ride to the ball and getting dressed for the car ride, and buying my ticket to Europe so I could take the car ride. Then, who knows, maybe I could have remembered the ball."

Something's Coming...

Something Good (is still in my cupboard)...

I will be spending a lot of time this weekend completing all of the remaining finishing touches on one (or two, or maybe all three) of my first indie designer knitting patterns in quite some time.  These have been in the works for just over a year now.  (God bless my test knitters for their patience!)

I have been lucky enough to have had a small handful of designs accepted for publication in magazines.  A couple of times I have won design contests.  And then there were even some designs picked up by yarn sellers.

Every one of those designs felt like a win (because there was a submissions call with some competition, and I did get selected).  And, every one of those designs was really so much easier to see through than these indie designs.

You see, all of those knitting pattern design "wins" were tech-edited, styled, modeled, photographed and formatted by others who were true professionals.  I just had to design and then knit (with free yarn).

With my indie design patterns...  It does take so much longer... I do not have to do it all, but I do have to actually hire and coordinate others...

Two different tech editors, one model/stylist, four test knitters (God bless you for your patience!) and one very special photography assistant... 

After all of that...

I am the designer, and I must still work on the final formatting.

My father's mother informed me when I was very young that I am a perfectionist...  Grandma S was right...  It always takes me a lot of time and effort to struggle to be not-quite-perfect, but as close as I can get.

This is finally about to happen.  I must get back to work.

Thanks for reading! 

The Color of Flowers

“I must have flowers, always, and always.”  ~ Claude Monet

I do love color.  My latest project has me wondering why I do not knit with this kind of color more often.

Just holding this knitting in my hands, makes me feel happy.  This is something I must remember once winter returns.

Project Name: The Color of Flowers

Pattern: Vine Street Tee by Amy Herzog

Yarn: The Fibre Company Canopy Fingering
Color Name: "Guava"

"I perhaps owe having become a painter to flowers." 
~ Claude Monet

  

Birthday Color

It was a good one.

Latest FO: On Me & On My Camera

My linen vest is now a FO.

These photos were shot by Mr K on Saturday, and edited (cropped) by me on Sunday.

I have a new camera that has a lot more options than my old little Cannon PowerShot SD600 with 6.0 megapixels.  My new camera is a Fujifilm X10 with 12.0 megapixels.  I will be learning more about all of its features as I go, but it does power on with a amazingly sharp 'auto' mode.  Doubling the number of pixels not only makes an incredible difference in the clarity of the images, but also allows for a major kind of cropping, which, in this case, made me feel like a professional photo editor.  (No, these are not perfect; but really, they were pretty effortless, and are already better than what my old camera would take.)

Anyway, back to the vest... I did work hard to finish this early enough in the season to be able to wear it often this summer.  My modifications were minor, mostly affecting the length, and are described on my Ravelry project page.  I went with the color 'ash', as was used by the designer, because it will go with every color that I normally wear.  The vest could be dressed up, but more often I will wear it dressed down and combined with other casual everyday clothing.  After I finished a last bit of steam pressing on Saturday morning, I put it on with what I was wearing for the day.  Unexpectedly, Mr K became an available photographer when an appointment of his was postponed by a half an hour.

And would you believe that I wore the vest all the day long?  I really do like it.  Must be because it is linen.

On the Blocking Board

(Most of) The knitting is now done on my linen Die Cut Vest.

This photo shows the right and left half laid out on my blocking board before I 'seamed' the center back with a three needle bind-off.

The vest now lies pinned-out and still damp on the very same blocking board.

This was an odd piece to block. There is no doubt that the lace needed to be 'pinned-out' to open it up and flatten it, but I did not want to use pins or wires on the straight edges.  Pins or wires would leave the edges looking a little jagged.

For the final-final blocking, I will iron the edges flat and smooth, and maybe even steam the lace a bit more.  As I laid it out quite wet, I had to question myself for not hiding the yarn ends on the front edges and at the center back, but I guess that it will not matter too much in the end.  It also occurred to me (right around the same time) that it really would not have been too difficult to have added a little neckline shaping at the back neck... hum, if I make another... (Did you know that, in spite of how I pinned the shoulders in a way to create some curvature at the neck, there is zero neckline shaping on the front or the back of this vest?  I like to think that I will love it anyway, but... hum...)

After the piece dries, I can seam the shoulders.  Then comes the last bit of knitting... I will pick-up stitches around the armholes and work a couple of rows before binding-off.  After that I will hide the yarn ends wherever they may be.

  I will steam it as needed,

and I will try it on,    

and I will find out if I like it.   

So, this is me now, "On the Blocking Board".

Midweek Meditation

The part about knitting a sweater in the lyrics of "When I'm Sixty-Four":

"I could be handy, mending a fuse
When your lights have gone
You can knit a sweater by the fireside
Sunday mornings go for a ride
Doing the garden, digging the weeds
Who could ask for more?
Will you still need me, will you still feed me
When I'm sixty-four?"

"When I'm Sixty-Four" is track #9 off The Beatles' eighth studio album "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band".  It was written by Paul McCartney and John Lennon.

I love that album.  I miss album cover art.  St Pepper's was released on June 1, 1967, when I was very young.  Paul McCartney was born on June 18, 1942.  Today is his 72nd birthday.

Photo credit: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_images_on_the_cover_of_Sgt._Pepper%27s_Lonely_Hearts_Club_Band#mediaviewer/File:Sgt._Pepper%27s_Lonely_Hearts_Club_Band.jpg

On the Blog

Today is the third anniversary of this blog.  Here is the very first photo from my very first post three years ago.

I took the photo while on a special vacation trip to Bermuda in 2007.  It shows a flowerbed at the pink "Princess Hotel" (the Fairmont Southampton).

On the first anniversary of this blog, I was vacationing at St Thomas, USVI, and I was proud to have posted about my first Blogiversary while being so far from home.  (I was anxious to keep up with the blog while one of my first knit designs was just out out in a magazine.)

Here is a photo from that trip in 2012.

The photo is of a tree branch at Lindquist Beach.  I was happy that I caught just enough of the sun through the branch in my photo.  I was laying on a chair on the beach under the tree.  Loved that. 

Last year I forgot about it being my Blogiversary (or, I think that I remembered it, but I also thought that self-congratulations would be a boring topic).  I did post a Colorwork Meditation (#7, no less, my favorite number) on the day.  That post contained this photo (not by me) of Josef Albers, Homage to Square, collection.  Love it.

Photo credit: http://igetitart.com/tag/josef-albers/

Today, then, begins the fourth year of the blog.

I was thinking that I might briefly share some of my blogging experience.

There are spammers, and worse, "referer" spammers, who have caused me grief... but that has mostly died down.

I (once, not long ago) had a vacation post with a good number of links that I believe was being used by someone for advertising purposes.  It was getting a crazily growing number of page views each hour over several days.  It made me nervous.  I deleted it, but then I re-posted it without the links.  I was not able to preserve the comments or page view numbers, but at least what I wrote and all of the photos are there.  (Last I checked, it still had zero views.)

I do enjoy going to my blogger stats page.  I like to see all the page views that my tutorials (especially my colorwork one) get everyday and from all around the world.

Is it funny that I have no worries about readers (who I imagine to be knitters) from India or Argentina or Korea viewing my blog in good number, but I do worry about unknowns (who seemed to be "storming" the old there)?

Lastly, thanks to my new blogging friends!  You know who you are.  You blog.  I blog.  You comment.  I comment.  I love that you are there! 

On the Needles

Linen.  Linen.  Linen.  I do love to knit with linen this time of the year.

An earlier detail photo of my current linen project... a project that I have become quite obsessed with finishing...

 This is where I was about a week ago...

   Project page (Ravelry):  ckknit's Die Cut Vest
            Pattern:  Die Cut Vest
        Designer:  Sara Morris
    Yarn:  Shibui Linen, four 50g skeins in "ash"

A week ago, I was in a perfect place:  The second half of my vest was started and the first half not quite done.  I had lace knitting to work on whenever I wanted (knitting lace is fun), and plain stockinette for the times when mindless knitting was better for whatever reason.

But now, with the first half completed, all that is left is about 5" of straight stockinette.  At about 10 rows to the inch (well, if I actually can take the boredom of it all) I could finish the knitting in about a week.  And I think that I might.  I would love to see this piece completed.  Blocked and finished and ready to wear.  (Do you realize that this being a knitted piece, and with an odd kind of non-shaped front neckline, I may actually find that I do not like wearing the thing at all?  I always say, you have to have a certain amount of faith when you knit.  This project requires all the faith that I can muster.  I am determined.)

So, this is me now, "On the Needles".