Tuesday, April 07, 2009

maker faire, family style

The Maker Faire celebrates the risk takers, the doers, and the makers of things. So does our family.

A couple of posts of the past week have shared some of Leah's projects, but the rest of us have been happily working, learning, exploring, and making things too.

Scott's still enjoying working with borosilicate glass to make these tiny rings that we've dubbed fruit loops. We're not sure exactly what they'll be yet, except that they're pretty and they feel irresistably good rolling around in your hands.

They might be jewelry components, Pandora/Troll bracelet beads, stitch markers, or ______? The picture makes them look larger than life. The smallest loops fit up to a size 5 needle, with only a 1 cm outside diameter! Multiple recent commenters mentioned that they use bigger needles and sometimes have difficulty finding pretty stitch markers that will fit, so Scott has also made some in larger sizes, up to 17 mm outside diameter with a 10 mm hole. Keeping their size in mind, please feel free to leave a comment if you have ideas about how they could be used.

Jesse has been honing his skills in the renovation of his bedroom. He helped with all of the sheetrocking and mudding, installed most of the wood floor (all done now), did his fair share of the painting (sage green, all done), most recently helped carry some of his new furniture upstairs, and chose the rugs and all-important lava lamp. Many details still to be completed, but he's sleeping in there again and is happy with how it's all taking shape.

He also has a new rocket in the works, this one a three-phase blaster that will go half a mile up. Finishing work (paint, decals, launch rings, etc.) in progress. Wanna hear an otherwise stoic young man squeal with delight and do a happy Snoopy dance? Big rockets. :-)
And then there's my work in progress, Scott's silly Terror Fish sweater. Only one more row until I start the lettering!

(Sorry for the bleh pic on this dreary day.) This Intarsia is definitely a slow and fiddly process, but once I got used to all of that, I didn't really mind. I read a tip on Ravelry about not using bobbins for each color section, but just using a few yards of each yarn, letting the strands dangle and tangle in the back. When they get too twisted to use, just pull a strand out of the tangle, from the top, and then do another strand until all are untangled. Lather, rinse, repeat. I'm doing some crazy mash-up of that technique, bobbins for colors that I use a lot of, and two-handed fair isle/stranded knitting for the striped body areas. I'm sure I'm breaking every rule in the book, but it seems to be working well enough for me. I'll pick up the provisional cast-on stitches at the bottom and knit down for length and ribbing later.

I was bummed for a moment when I realized that some of those lowermost red spot had been knit with the yellow yarn, so at that point I just continued knitting the "red" stitches in the gray background color. This morning I threaded a needle with the red yarn and duplicate stitched over the yellow boo-boo stitches and then continued duplicate stitching over the gray stitches that should have been red. I left the gray stitches underneath, but picked out the underlying yellow stitches. The red stitches are holding the fabric together as the yellow had done and the duplicate stitched red stitches in the top portion were much easier to add in afterward than while knitting. I love how many solutions there are for knitting problems as you progress along the skills and knowledge continuum.

Scott has had some big disappointment this week, upon learning that two of the original fishing buddy tribe aren't able to do the traditional opening day of trout season weekend camping/fishing trip because of work/family/economic problems, but he still plans to have a blast with the remaining fisherpals and it looks like he'll be wearing a fish sweater that is just goofy enough to match the weekend's fun.

Also fun? Having cupcakes and sheep and other beads selling almost as fast as he's making them! Since we're also trying to gear up for wool festival season and the farmers' market, and my seasonal clients are emerging from their winter lull, so there's an extra lot going on here lately, but it's all good, so yay!
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Sunday, January 03, 2010

on my desk

glass fruit loops

lampworker's meditation
knitters' markers
earrings' danglers
jewelrymaker's toys
bracelet's sliders

and an incredibly pretty start to a snowy Sunday
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Friday, April 16, 2010

galore

Work galore this week, so I'll keep this short.

Fruit loops galore! So pretty.

I Spy fiber arts galore using camel fur
in The Story of the Weeping Camel.

Blooms galore.
I wish the blog could do smellavision.
The fragrance from this tree was intoxicating.

Tears galore.
My Gram had a massive stroke on Tues.
She's stable right now, but in pretty bad shape.
There are no words, just waiting and lots of tears.


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Thursday, April 23, 2009

convergence

The fruit loops are a convergence of art glass, jewelry, and knitting tools. Somehow, I'm still not really sure what they are. But now there are a couple of sets on Etsy.

Connecticut Sheep and Wool this Saturday will be a convergence of work, fun, friends, spring, food, learning, color, and temptation. Come and visit our booth in the Gold building, shared with our friends from The Farm on Grindle Brook!

This little video is not us, but it certainly is a convergence of our family's interests. You can imagine the wild cackling as the Inventor Boy went scurrying off to his contraption lab. I hear small motors being tested as we speak. ;-)


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Wednesday, March 10, 2010

then and now

Among the countless amazing things we saw at the American Museum of Natural History and Metropolitan Museum of Art in NYC last Saturday were, of course, some textile-related exhibits that caught my attention.

Weaving loom from Africa. Jesse tells me the loops at the bottom would go over the weaver's big toes and tilting the feet up or down would raise and lower the...heddles? shed? (Oh, I'm so not a weaver. Need to go ask my guys, but they're busy working outside.) So cool.

Woven spider silk from Madagascar. I kid you not. Natural color. There's a video here to tell more about it. 96 strands to make a single thread. Mind-boggling.

Then, Sunday included a visit to the USS Nautilus/Submarine Force Museum (where it was clear that submarines are not built for the likes of my 6'3" son) and historic Avery Copp Museum, which is basically a 19th century time capsule. Some of the beauties that caught my eye there were a full-size crazy quilt,

scads of knitted, crocheted, tatted, and Hardanger lace,

and an old set of wooden sock blockers resting on top of a wringer washing machine that's similar to the one I remember my Gram having in her basement when I was a kid!

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Yup, I Spy 3 is a pic from All About Eve. It's funny how those connections keep popping up in movies we watch.

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I'm hoping to get those fruit loop necklaces up on Etsy soon. Thanks for your patience and interest, everybody!
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