A Turn for Craft!

Things have gotten crafty over here!

I spent my weekend making a few holiday gifts, a great reason to abandon my everyday knitting routine to work on something with a totally different feel.  These are packages of handmade dishcloths, made from 4-ply 100% cotton yarn in a variety of colors.  Each dishcloth has a different hand-stitched red motif in the center of the lowest stripe.  I like the idea of making something pretty and sweet to be dunked in a sink full of dishwater or run over a counter full of coffee grounds.  These dishcloths remind me a lot of little things my mother and grandmother would have in their houses when I was growing up, like floursack towels with hand-stitched pastoral scenes and sweet motifs in the corners.

Working on this was really fun.  I wouldn't say I'm in this type of craft-based business at all, but it was nice thinking over the weekend that if I was, this is how I would like to do it.

New Land News

For those who have not read the brochure and are curious about what the New Land of Milk and Honey is, here is a brief explanation.  Please email me with your mailing address if you would like to receive our informational brochure!

NLMH is a collaborative art installation and fashion performance exposing the life and culture of a future thinking, back-to-the-land, uptopian, artist commune residing in rural Wisconsin.  The opening performance will be an exploration into this community's spiritual rituals, relationship with the soil and stars, and the necessary tasks for sustainable life.  Pioneers of gyroscopic technology, the New Land of Milk and Honey will elaborate on the everyday practical applications of the Segway.  NLMH will open at the Soap Factory in Minneapolis on February 20th, 2010 and will feature artists Brett Smith, Erin Smith, Adrian Freeman, Ann Marie Delathouder Freeman and myself.


The following excerpts are from NLMH informational texts.

"We are a group of forward thinking people dedicated to building a sustainable, self-sufficient society where the realization of creative projects is every members right..."


"Our community, based on the solar and lunar principles of universal harmony and genesis will radiate out to change the course of the human race.  We elevate consciousness to divine levels of perfection and efficiency.  This new land flows from our minds into the Earth, a bloom in Wisconsin that spreads the fruit of cosmic joy to the region and the world..."


"Yes!  The answer is you!"

"We are seeking artists, designers, cooks, engineers, earthdogs, sundogs, moondogs, weird beards, scientists, farmers, knitters, woodworkers, Magicians, witches, gurus, survivalists, space cadets, green wo/men, potters, physical phitness phreaks, lovers, dreamers, and anyone else who has a need to CREATE WITHOUT DESTROYING..."

ALL OVER ALL

Fletcher's overalls are done!  They're too big for me, I really am pulling them up in the second image.  I feel like I need a version of these with sleeves just to wear around home, to stay cozy at all times.  This piece introduced me to some new and unfamiliar shapes in sweater garment making, something more like a unitard than a pair of pants.  It's funny how familiar garment shapes have become over the years of cutting, patterning, sewing, and now knitting.  I'm figuring out very very slowly how to account for some of the nuances in shape that are so much easier to execute in cut-and-sew and flat pattern drafting.

All of my pieces are fully fashioned which means they are shaped on the machine in panels by transferring stitches to increase or decrease the garment in certain areas.  All of the stitch transfers are done by hand with pronged tools.  All of those tiny little stitch irregularities you see along the armhole, neck, and shoulder of your sweaters are called fashion marks, which is the visual evidence that your garment has been fully fashioned. 

I also learned how to do a new kind of button-hole which turns out to be much easier than the first method I learned.  And about the color...I'm happy I toughed it out and stayed true to my original color selection.  This piece feels very different than most of the other pieces I've made, which is perfect.  I would want nothing less than one of a kind for Fletcher Barnhill.

For Fletcher

I spent two days coming up with this pattern sequence, trying to make these colors work together.  I have been hooked on red and blue for awhile now and wanted to try to use two colors that have been neglected, purple and peach.  I looked at my garment rack recently and noticed that nearly everything I've knit has this certain blue in it, often as a main color.  This made me think about how I select colors and deliberate for so long, but probably know all along that the decision has been more than half made because I have mentally divided my yarns into colors I use and colors I don't.  So, in honor of Fletcher, I set out to combat those colors that have dominated me, and this is what happened.



These will be Fletcher's overalls for New Land of Milk and Honey.  Fletcher's role in NLMH is very important.  He is an expert baker/gardener and specializes in handicrafts such as macrame and dream catcher assembly.  In addition to all of that, he is some of the best company you could ever ask for and will throw down on a game of dice or dominos at the drop of a hat. 

Studio Monday

Emily J. Snyder has been here all day, and it's been great.
She worked on her website for Queen Quills while I finished her sweater.

When I started doing drawings for New Land of Milk and Honey a year ago, I had a lot of different ideas in mind as we hadn't completely fleshed out our concept yet.  This was one of the sketches I did, which was intended to be a combination of sweater knits and neoprene.  Since NLMH has had a full year to percolate, a lot of things have changed and some of the original fabrication choices and aesthetics don't sound quite right to me anymore.  So here is the full knit outfit loosely inspired by the original illustration.  There are still a few final touches that need to be made, and more things will change I'm sure, they always do. 


Multi-Color Variegated Stripe Leggings + Raglan Fairisle and Stripe Sweater, Modeled by Emily Snyder

Costing Nightmare

As I was knitting these pants, I couldn't help but think about what a costing nightmare they would have been at Target.  I learned all sorts of things about stripes while designing classic mens knits and sweaters.  These stripes are engineered, as in they have a specialized placement that is non-repeatable, which in a mass market retailer means a lot of extra cost in the garment.  There are also feeder stripes which usually have a repeat that is less than two inches, and auto stripes that have repeats larger than two inches (these specifications vary with vendor and manufacturer). 

Color minimums would be another cost issue with these leggings.  The manufacturer making these would have to order all of the yarn colors, no matter how little a certain color is used.  We all know that buying in bulk is cheaper, and this garment would provide little opportunity for leveraging a main yarn color.  Other things like stripe matching, pattern grading with size, and labor would also increase cost.  It's a good thing I'm not trying to design these leggings for Target, because if a reasonable price can't be negotiated the style gets dropped and will never be put into production. 

I think I avoided stripes while learning to machine knit because of the long history I had with them at Target.  But, I like stripes.  A lot.  So I will make them and not worry as much as I used to.

KNITTY CITY

Minneapolis is getting cold, cold, cold.

It was bound to happen sooner or later.  I finished this sweater just in time to greet the first nights of below freezing weather, and to cheer me up after watching The Road.  Things are rather rosy and cozy in our workspace these days with lots of coffee and homemade soup.  Yum!

This sweater is a combo platter of multi-color fairisle patterns with raglan sleeves and 2x2 rib cuff and hem.  The neckline is rolled jersey with little yellow v-notch for a sporty touch.  This piece was a test in pattern matching, specifically along the raglan seams.  Matching the patterns while hand-linking all of the panels together is very time consuming, but theraputic in a way.  It's also very quiet because it doesn't require moving the carriage on the machine, which I'm sure is a real treat for anybody that is used to enduring the constant grind of cams, levers, needles, and yarn.  My mother told me to start wearing earplugs.  She is a smart lady.