Partially finished

The blue velvet dress is finished and the little lady of the house looks precious in it. Because the skirt is very wide there is place enough to move, jump and play and it is still nice and warm.  It is the first time that I sew something that comes out as I actually wanted it and it turned out to be something I would do again blindly (almost).  I just love this dress.  If anybody wants to lend the pattern well...just say so.

And the Cashmere-Tweed sweater for Noah (we actually call him the calf, because he drinks about 3 liters of milk per day, that is if I get to stop him) is finished. It came out a bit big but he will grow (with so much milk I can't be worried about that) in it I guess.  I'm lucky that he wants to put it on in the first place an even likes it!  Yes, as Mason&Dixson in "Knitting outside the lines" would say:  "Kids grow up. Somewhere in the range of 8 to 10, Johnny and Dylan get the idea that what Auntie Knitty is making for them is flat-out the fugliest stuff they have ever seen.  They dig in their heels, and their heels are not wearing handknit slipper socks."  This article and in fact the whole book is absolutely worth the money.  It is tough work to knit for teens, believe me it is!

After all the work came Eliane and friendly asked if he could help me with preparing the big trip to the south so I wished a real american apple pie for dinner and she took this very seriously.  The most delicious help I have ever had.

All things queuing up

There is lots of things I should get to finish soon, some are queuing up for a long time now.

There is the scarf I started knitting with a pattern from Spin off Magazine Number 28.  It is a nice pattern but I'm not a friend of knitting scarfs, so after about 20 cm I decided to make an other piece just like the first (everything with Noro sock-yarn) and let it be turned into the lower part of a round yoke cardi for the little lady of the house.

Then we have the cardi for Noah in Tweedlux from from Schulana, which I must say is a very nice wool but it seams to be an endless source of straw. Most expensive straw I have ever bought!  The basic Model, Bronson comes from last Rowan Magazine an its downloadable for free.  I Could not just leave it and added some little extras to get the fun in the knitting. The photos in general are not soo good, because I did them all at night.  The color is much darker.  I'll make nice photos when finished.

The little lady of the house wants a special dress for the  coming holidays and I found this blue velvet cut and also the perfect pattern as I put some order in my sewing things.  I can show you now the upper part.  I'm very proud to say that the borders in light blue are made from a shirt belonging to my husband that I could not throw away without cutting the best parts of the nice fabric.  Lucky me to have kept the trims for more than two years now.

And when talking about sewing I can say that there is one thing I actually have finished.  I found a long time ago in a flea market an overlock machine.  The name Bambinalock reminds me of the good Baby-lock series.  This must be a copy.  It is 20 years old and comes from a sewing studio.  It is extremely easy to use and very sturdy.  There is no hundreds of extras and it does not make coffee either.  But it does its job perfectly.  Only the electrician part with the cables had to be done first and it took me some time to figure out how.  Now I don't know how could I sew before without an overlock.  It makes the sewing much more fun.  OK, but I would never pay a big sum for one of these. Recycle.

At at last I have to show you what I found in a salvation army shop lately.  You must know first that I'm fascinated by fish figures, pictures, anything.  Well there was this beautiful and complete set of German porcelain to serve fish, all hand painted and just one of a kind.  Every image is different and there is also a big serving platte.  Recycle once again...

Lawyer's Heart

Do lawyers have a heart?  Yes, please, they do.  This humble lawyer here has one that does not exactly know which way to go, or... does this desk look like the desk of a lawyer?

After lots of thinking I'm convinced of being more than a lawyer, a general social sciences person.  I also found the right thing for me in the Master of Advanced Studies in Diversitiy Management from the Lucerne University.  Sounds very good to me if only the financial part was not so...say..difficult (about 25´000 USD of difficulty?).

I did not expect anything better this days.  It has been a quite difficult month.  Many things have gone wrong so I'm seeing my life at the moment through a quite disappointing lens.  And to top all of it our young kitty Nube just disapered!

We are all very sad because of this and have been looking for him everywhere with absolute no success.  We miss him a lot and I realize I miss him most.  He was my everyday companion.  And this just when I made the most beautiful housing for the little furry guy.  Stefanie theached me everything I need to know about felting a house in a very personal felting class.  Now I only need the cat to get everything right.

 And so I somehow always get people to lighten me up.  This time Elise and her big buddy Jacke (dog) came to our door to give us the first reminder of Halloween festivities.  This Dracula fingers are absolutely real.  We were actually scared to eat them, but they tasted delicious.  Elise, get me the recipie here right now!!!

And about the Knitting:  I'll be getting you some images soon of my new cardigan invention for noah and the little sweet cardi made out of sock wool (Noro please) for Isabelle.

Hope the next weeks will be getting sunnier.

Pure Love

My son Noah worked yesteday 5 hours on this washing cloth.  He was very chalenged knowing what his mom can do with thread and decided to do also a fancy colour-changeing thing. Everything was neatly sewed up so no threads show.  We used it straight away to clean the mess he made while eating nachos with avocado. 

His little piece of work remeinds me of the love we put in all things handmade and it brings me to vodoo.  Yo know the dolls used for voodoo have hairs of the person in question and so on.  The principle of vodoo is putting your thoughts into this doll as so to believe you had the person itself in front of you.  Well, I supouse that handmade things have got the same magical powers voodoo dolls have (in positive).  They are filled with love and positive thoughts from the maker.  But should the maker get to be in a hard situation, for example beacause of bad working conditions, you would also get this bad feelings into the things that are being made by the hands that are suffering. So poor working conditions would be like poisson for the consumers?  I let you think about it...

Fundación chol-chol and other

Finally I could make friends with youtube and now I beleive to know how to embed the video from the mapuche women.



Funny about this organisation ist that first they tryed to aid the mapuche families by teaching the men and generating jobs for them.  After a few years work, they wanted to know how the families life standard had progressed with the proyect and dicovered that the men were earning more but this was not at all reflected in a better life for the family (i let you guess why).  So, they took up the work with the women and started by offering a knitting course and saw that there were much more people interested as expected.  Now with the old knowledge of the women and some new techniques learned in the courses, the families are getting by much better than before and the women do not have to spend hours and day in the markets selling their textiles for ridiculous prices.

Help women, change the world.

And so I leave again to paint a table for my doughters room, cook, clean and do administration all in an our before the kids come back from school.  Bye!

Impulsiv

Sometimes, in the middle of the night the ideas assault me and next day I suddenly have a new project going on. This time I decided that my daughter had to have an kid mohair little bolero jacket for the fall. I'm experimenting with drop stitches. Will see how it all comes out. I have been knitting by 27°, my hands warm and moist, but what should I do, this is my obsession and little cute girls just must have a fluffy bolero!


And, Noah my eldest decided to take the production of football T-Shirts in his own hands for the school championship and is doing very well without any help. I teached the basics and he is doing pretty well alone. The numbers on the back are made of an old white linen sheet. He zigzags everything. The T's have a very cool grungy look.


This week, as impulsive as I'm I wrote to Elaine Lipson from the Red Thread Studio to just tell her how I very much love her blog, and I was lucky to gain a friend. Her blog is a treasure for all who share the slow cloth passion. She explores the web and other places to find her textile treasures. Elaine is absolutely worth visiting.

What's coming

This week I have been writting my plans, putting them to paper helps me think and get some stuff clear.

In november I'll be going to Chile for 6 weeks, Noah, Elias and Isabelle will be going to school there and I expecto to be able to get some research done about chilean slow clothes development.

I will be visiting Araucania Yarns (http://www.araucaniayarns.com). They are doing an amazing slow work. They produce yarns with row materials of mostly local provenience and dye it all by hand with local labor in socialy responsable maner.

Also will be visiting the women of Fundación Chol-Chol http://www.cholchol.org. Mapuche people from Chile working with self produced and self processed wool. The beauty of their work lies in simplicity and in the natural dyes they use.

Will be posting a very nice video about fundacion chol-chol (that is when I find out how to embed it, anybody there to help?)

Summer Knitting and Sewing

I had this old pair of trausers from my husband and made some pokets out of the sturdy fabric for the apron of my little one. After that I thought that the pockets of the trausers are actually something very difficult to do and dicided to recycle them into my wash hanging, pegs apron.

I also wanted to knit a hat from some Noro beauty I had but Iended up making a bag. Used some old piece of silk with a stitched fish I made for the insides. Yes...you can say I was very busy...

Summer

Yes, I was absent for a long time now, but... I was working hard too. The summer has brought me to many and very nice ideas. First of course all the preserving hat to be done, and of course the yummy eating of the many fruits from our garden. and then there was the kniting and new the sewing of course.

Reading was also in the list. I wanted to know more about textile arts in africa and found for ex. that the most apreciated wax printed fabrics whi

ch decorate the bodys of african women who look very gracious and beautiful in their traditional garments are MADE IN HOLLAND???!! Why? Because the Dutch have been a long time now in the african market. They send their peolple many times a year to the african countrys to search for trends. Why wax fabrics?

"In the mid-eighteenth century the Dutch recruited troops from the Gold coast to fight their colonial wars in Java. The troops returned to Africa with a taste for Javanese wax-resist textiles, which subsequetly were introduced into the region...By the 1920s, firms in Switzerland, France and Japan had adopted the process and fierce competition ensued to develop designs that would appeal to local tastes and reflect topical concerns" (The Poetics of Cloth/Alisa LaGamma). Now the predominant industry is Vlisco followed by Akosobo Limited Textiles in Accra, whose designers are trained in schools such as the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology in Kumasi, Ghana

And the textile traditions that have existed for at least a millenium and continue to be practiced in west africa today? They have a hard time competing with the industrialy produced staff, many workshops must close as the big producers get bigger and bigger.

I wanted to try and see this wax prints and bought some at the very nice and recomendable site of Rosa Pomar http://www.rosapomar.com, and did as you see just some cute experiments with it.

Chullos and the right price

When it takes 6 weeks to make a hat of this kind how can you convince the buyer, that he is paying for 6 weeks work from the last few people knowing this knitting technique? How do you make the price.

I will be selling this hats and I'm trying to figure out what the right price is. I know what they cost in the making of course, but what will be the buyers be paying? I need to pay the transport of course and the import and earn something but most important, I would like to earn enough to be able to give the money back to the producers in the form of help for the school of textile art, to get electric light in their homes so they can knit at night and so on. Am I an utopist?

I admire the work of Maiwa Textiles in Canada very much. They say: "You may think that slow clothes would be prohibitively expensive to make. It is not true. The fact is that mass produced clothes (jeans for example) have production costs of a few dollars per item, yet consumers pay high prices for designer wear. What is missing is an understanding of the real costs of clothing and an appreciation of their value"

Anybody for suggestions?

Kaffe Fassett but with a different touch

It took me ages to finish this Pullunder but then my housband's B-day was coming around and this was suposed to be his B-day present! I had to work every fee minute of my day (and that is not a lot really) and I took the whole thing and needles just about everywhere I went, but in the end I made it.

This is as you know a modell from Kaffe Fassetts new book but I decided that the back would look much better stiped, but I made the stripes so that the colors from the front would follow the line exactly on the back.

The shirt is from Paul Smith and I think it does match perfectly.

Got already a lot of compliments, my husband wants to wear the pullunder everyday but it is too hot now for it. That makes up for all the work.

Flusi and the lost socks!

Do you know why the socks keep on getting lost in my washing? Everybody has this problem. Now in our home we have a big bag full of one-leged socks waiting to find their beloved one. Some socks have been there for four years already but as it is in life, not everybody can find the perfect couple ans so some stay single forever.

Well, we know what is happening here: it's Flusi, the Sockmonster.

We got the book about Flusi some years ago from a friend that knows our unsolved problem with the socks, now there is a new one: "Flusi and the Sockwool" (only in German I think).

Coats celebrates its 60th anniversary with it and made also nice sockwool for children. I say...just great to motivate children and families to knit. The book is given for free with the wool by the Coats retailers. Good idea, well done!

World Wide Knit in Public Day

World Wide Knit in Public Day

June 13th 2009

Join us as we knit with hundreds of other knitters around the world on the same day!

Where: Ennetbaden, Switzerland, right next to the Catholic Church St. Michael in the house of the day care center (Tagesstrukturen)

When: On June 13th 2009 from 16:00

Bring: Your Knitting and the best piece you have ever made.

World Wide Knit in Public

Welttag des Strickens

Samstag 13. * Juni * 2009

Wir stricken mit tausenden von StrickerInnen überall auf der Welt!

Wo: Ennetbaden, gelber Pavillon (Tagesstrukturen) neben der katholischen Kirche St. Michael

Wann: am 13. Juni ab 16:00 Uhr

Bring: Dein Strickzeug und vielleicht dein Lieblingsstrickstück

Catwalk

Today it was model day...



Isabelle showed us her cache cour or gilet or pullunder made of Araucania handdyed yarns and some rests. All cotton...

and the cute little Livio showed us his little cardi made of merino superwash with little dragonfly buttons simbols of reincarnation and of the soul itself. Both are own designs. If somebody wants the instructions I will try and write them.

Stefetui very fast

Aaaaaaaaaaaaand...there you go.

The STEFETUI is born.

A while ago I asked my friend Stefanie, queen of the felting art, if she would make for me a kind of pencil case but for knitting needles (she is also a very inventive designer).


With three children, a perfectily managed houshold (yes, I'm envious) and a beauty of a little garden plus a big felting education project I thought she would get back to me in a couple of years, which is something I would understand. Well, I was totally wrong...

After two months since the first conversation THE STEFETUI is here, all made by hand. Stefanie you are amazing!

Foggi fogg very grey and sad but crochetting

I promise I did not tell the guy to do this. He just decided himself it was time for taking on serious crochetting. The problem is he does not want to stop anymore, won't let me turn the lights of. Jet another yarnaddict in my home.

Better yarnaddict than depressed...and don't you ask me about the weather hier.

Waiting for the Monsoon (clic to hear the podcast)

Maiwa Textiles is doing a lot for the preservation of textile crafts being forgotten through the fast industrialisation of the textile work. They have made a few videos and many podcasts that are worth seeing. I only hope the slowclothes community keeps on growing so that we one day have the possibility to influence decisions and to get our oppinion to be heard and shared by a large ammount of people. See also http://www.maiwa.com/

Save the Children

The girls of the knitting club have been working hard on this hats for the babies of Save the Children. I want to hope there is other knitting clubs around here doing this job too. Thogh in Switzerland ist knitting to this point I think still thoght of being something for oldies and hippies. There is no many who belive there is this other kind of knitter who loves fashion and natural fibers.
When I was a child sometimes I saw old men walking around in beautifully made cossy sweaters and always thoght: This man is fortunate, he must have someone who loves him. This is what I really love about the knitting (ok, just looking at woll and its colours and textures makes quite nervous too)

Crazy knitting or "The last Knit"

Absolultly crazy and fantastic video. The worst part is that I feel I'm not far from this!

I do not read Cosmopolitan or else for going to bed no! I look at knitting books! When I have a minute free I knit or spinn and can't think of anything else. If I have the time to go shopping I think first of the wollyshop near in the next village. When I'm watching a bad movie and one of the actors wears a cable sweater I start to wonder how was it done and afterwords I actually do find the film was alright even if it was James Bond himself who was wearing the sweater! What is happening to me...

Kidsknitting

For the ones thinking a five year old is too young to knit! I was in the textile work class of my eight year old son and heard one or the other child saying they can’t learn knitting, it is much too difficult. To all of them and to all of us who may sometimes think something could be too difficult for us to knit, I dedicate this photo.

Knitting teaches us not to give up and to trust ourselves and what is in us. As the Buddhism says:

What is in our past and what is in our future is nothing compared to what is in us!

I found this photo in the very precious book by Marcia Lewandowski

Folk Knits