luxe

whilst sitting on the beach, in our chairs on the edge of the water….knitting(!!!) i said to jake how disconnected i felt not being able to check email regularly and not being able to blog whenever i wanted to. i used to write in my journal all the time, but now i blog, instead, and it fills a huge need for interaction in me. bigger than i realized. i learned to make a sock on one circular, using the cat bordhi(sp?) book, which probably would have been a bit easier had i ever made a sock before at all. and i couldn’t go onto knitting help or anything else, so that was frustrating, and then the local knitting shop are dpn users, and i don’t want to mess with them. anyway, i think i have figured it out, the second one will hopefully go a bit more smoothly. i got sportweight cotton/nylon sock yarn that is really pretty and am knitting on size 4 addi naturals, which pointier than turbos. my big gripe with turbos is that they aren’t pointy. i hate that. why addi? why? so, as i was saying, i think i have figured out the basics, and like anything else, once i have knitted something, i don’t tend to use a pattern. will i make crazy patterned socks? leaves and vines? i dunno. maybe not. but this was pretty fun, amazing to see the three dimensional heel developing and i felt like an engineer. even jake thought it was cool. i have pics of knitting on the beach, don’t you worry. and i was able to buy a new cable to load the photos, although at the camera store they told me that card readers are cheap and work well, and i don’t have to constantly try to find where i buried my cable. my guess is that it is under a pile of fiber in the studio. so, does anyone use a card reader for their camera? and how do you like it?

we are going to savannah to-morrow. everyone is very excited to go to the lady and sons, which is pretty near to wild fibres. i always get nervous, as you know, about selling myself. not my yarns, but myself. it is easier for me to pack stuff up and let them speak for their fuzzy selves. the store is gorgeous, i will take photos, and the owners are really hip, for lack of a better word. really unusual things that you don’t see anywhere else. sadly, their website sucks. ah well.

ooh! i got the new issue of knit1 and it rocks! i know people mock the magazine, but i think they are really trying to show people new stuff. and despite the fact that everything in it is made from the same brand stuff, they still manage to make some really unusual things, like the chandelier…but i think it would be cooler to knit a cover for an actual one, rather than a fake one. but loads of amazing things in there, if not things i would make. and they talk about lots of people i know, like knitgrrl herself, or the knitting taggers, or lexi of pluckyfluff fame. and there are some really funny art references, like the girl made up to look like a heroine in a roy lichtenstein painting, or frida! woot!

what else? one of my favorite authors ever, peter carey, has a new book out, that i didn’t even know about (shame on you amy!) an really pissy painter, and so far, it rocks. i have actually been READING a lot here, due to the lack of computer or tivo. so. it happens.

spinning, you ask? yeah, a bit. i feel funny being out of my studio. i am not sure why. i don’t even spin outside at home on the porch or anything because i feel strange. i had some wool/linen (i think) that i had dyed this strange smokey tealy blue and spun it into a single to make a bag or something out of and i wanted to barf the whole time i was spinning it. i have a horrible time with fiber that is not soft. i also spun a two ply out of the same pastelly colors using this sherino roving i got from frenecreek farm. it is very lumpy and textural, it will look gorgeous knitted up. that might be all.

i skeined a bunch of yarn i had from sheep and wool last year, noticing that the one single i had bought that was handspun had been spun not very well. needless to say, last year i had no idea. i just thought it was pretty. whilst winding it, the ball popped off of the winder and went shooting across the room. i realized though, that when you put the ball winder and swift on the table at the same height it works much much much better. jake suggested it to me before and a month later i actually tried it and was blown away. i am slow on the uptake sometimes. most of the time.

we need to get going to meet for dinner at the thai place, but first, i will comment on the dude that called my yarn cat puke…i hope no one thinks that he hurt my feelings. my years at art school gave me a very thick skin when it comes to my work. i feel that it is its own entity once i put it out in the world, whether it be art or crafty stuff, and a miserable little man such as that one, that has no understanding of anything that comes from the heart will certainly not squash this fuzzy soul. i just wanted to point it out to everyone so that he could get a bit of his own back. i tried to send him a nice email to just say that we all have different views and it doesn’t matter. why should it? what makes him happy, unless it is rape and murder, has no bearing on me whatesoever, and vice versa. but thanks so much for all of the sweet comments! especially the hedgehog and the yarn wench, who is not a wench at all, but a master of all things fuzzy and then some…crack me up! oh, and elizabeth from alaska…cracked me up! ha! i love the fact that you guys have got my back. where were you when i was kid? we could have been a force to reckon with. weeeeee!!

ok, off i go. i may not be in touch till saturday. i will try though. i miss you so! i really do. i will be doing a nice big update on the luxe shop when i get home. i can’t wait!

smooooooooooooooooooooooooooooch!
xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo,
n.