Washing Handknits

I had a knitting scare yesterday. I was blocking the above glove in warm soapy water and the red color of Knitpicks' Palette started bleeding. With a white background this could have spelled disaster for the color pattern. I quickly grabbed the glove and immediately put it on a towel to block but I still think I can see a bit of bleeding on the white near the bottom of the glove.

It was so weird because I'd never had this happen with Palette before. I wonder if there are ever "rogue" skeins of yarn that bleed dye or are dyed differently?? This happened once before with Nature Spun sport weight and my Pablo Neruda socks. I'd used Nature Spun a zillion times but the purple color bled near the foot on one sock when I was washing them and ruined them. Here are the socks before that fateful moment.



I'm also not sure if this was a current skein of Palette or one from several years ago. I'm getting another batch of Palette soon and I'll do tests with it before I proceed. Anyway, the gloves above combine three of my favorite knitting things: 1) lots of colors, 2) knitted letters, and 3) those wonderful Norwegian charts of people holding hands. I plan to add some embroidery to them as well to add even more colors.

The object-driven touch: Robert Wechsler

What can we control?
What is the part of reality that is actually controllable?
Say, when we take things in our hands.

Applied Geometry (2004)

There is a point where reality simply will not be tampered with. It says only so much.
And the beautiful thing is when someone manages to feel this point and use it, changing the vectors, but keeping the power, the energy, the impulse that the world drives through us.
Does that sound esoteric?

Sanctuary (2005)

What is the fish doing in the church? What is the Holy water doing around the fish? Within the fish? It is all here, and the transgression is only a small part of the game. The name Sanctuary, to me, is not ironic. It is playful, yet strong.

Where do we go from here?

Zebra Print (2006) (H .75"x L 1.25")

Here?


Good work, Robert Wechsler.

(via)

Technorati: design, fine art, installation, art installation, photography, visual art, art, contemporary art, vvoi

In my continuing efforts to collect all the purple colors of Wool of the Andes and Peruvian Highland wool, here is the offering from Elann (along with some gray for DH's socks).






I just realized that Easter is next Sunday! So it is again time for my usual public service message. Rabbits are delicate creatures, they can live a long time, require as much care as dogs and cats (I consider them higher-maintenance actually), spaying/neutering them is not inexpensive, etc., etc, etc. Please pass the word along so the shelters aren't filled with discarded children's pet Easter rabbits again this year. Chocolate Easter bunnies are definitely the way to go!

Gracie's Quilt

I met my friend Gracie in college. We both lived in International House at Illinois State University and we soon realized we shared many classes because we were both French majors. We've kept in touch over the years via email and I know she is an excellent and addicted quilter.

Anyway, yesterday a box arrived from Gracie. I'm having trouble photographing the incredible and bright colors but this quilt is by far the most incredible handmade gift I've ever received.

The little patch says the quilt pattern is Flamenco and the fabrics are Kaffe Fassett. I don't think she could have chosen better for my tastes - I love touching it and staring at the colors and the stitching. DH wants to hang it in our living room so I'll get a better photo once we do so.

I think these latest thick hiking socks for DH are really ugly but a) I wanted to use up all the Cormo I had so I had to do two-tone, b) they won't look two-tone when he wears his hiking boots and c) DH likes them. Boy doing 9" of K2P2 ribbing for each sock is certainly fun. Not.



Spring has sprung. This photo shows the buds on the lilac bush.



Blogging may be sporadic this week as we will have visitors. I will have to keep an eye on the brown large-eared one to make sure she doesn't use this excuse to beg for extra food.

Using walls (p.2): the Splasher controversy

There are several excellent Polish sites about art. They focus mainly on Polish art and the Polish contemporary art milieu, and have a certain tendency toward a specialized and a high-brow discourse, but they have lots of good discoveries and insights and are a great reference point. And they're in Polish, which makes me one lucky bastard. Lucky for most of you, they also have lots of images of new Polish works. I recommend two: art.blox.pl and strasznasztuka ('terrible art')
From time to time, they also put on things happening outside of Poland. Below is a translation of one of the articles:

"Splasher" is now the hottest street-art name in New-York. Not because of what he makes, but because of what he destroys. Stencils, stickers and posters on the streets of Brooklyn and Manhattan have been for over a month the objects of the attack of the anonymous 'vandal'. Street art created by people as famous as Banksy or Swoon are destroyed in the same way - by a cruel splash of color paint.

The street art works, once considered only as acts of vandalism, are now themselves victims of a vandal. But is Splasher really just a street hooligan? It seems not. He chooses his goals very carefully - they are always the works of known artists, who have also often entered into the regular gallery circuit, and their works are sold at auctions for big money.

The mysterious Splasher is being looked for on the internet. Bloggers are looking for the motive of his actions. Many believe Splasher simply protests against the commercialization of street-art and against putting it in the same pot with classic works of art.

But what are Splasher's actual motives? Next to many of the works there were manifestos glued to the wall (one of them is reproduced below). They have references to dadaism and expressions like 'True creativity is the joyful destruction of this [existing] hierarchy'. Is Splasher the conscience of contemporary street art? Or a conceptual artist, who as part of an adopted theory of 'destruction' creates a new work of art?

New Yorkers don't appreciate Splasher's "art". The destruction of the works of known artists, such as Banksy, results in disapproval, and even anger. Splasher is not seen as the "savior and renewer", but as a simple vandal. Vandal among vandals? Or could Splasher be the last real street artist, who sacrifices famous murals and stencils in the name of a fight for the purity of the art form? Because what is the difference between street art and gallery art, if we can't destroy someone else's work at will in either place? After all, street art is based on an idea of destroying and lawlessly occupying space. Always at the cost of someone else. After all, the street is not a museum - every street artist, even Banksy, is subject to the same rules and accept that his work can be removed at any moment.

The question remains - do Splaher's desperate gestures make sense? Is it better to fight for a pure street-art, or to cherish its highest achievements?

(text by strembol)

more on Splasher here
And here is the idea that Splasher is a marketing ploy by the very people who promote street art as a commercial art form - this way they get free publicity (with a street-art war twist to it, apparently?).
The very idea shows us something new: that these are real people, existing in a real society, and obeying its laws. Whether they are perpetrators or victims, they participate in a social context. And its a relief to see how clearly they are integrated in it through the Splasher affair.

Just in case you thought that was the only knitting I have clogging up the armoire, here's the growing pile of items to be given away next Christmas.



And here is the pile of items knit for booklets. I figure I should keep these although I have friends who are always trying to abscond with them. I have a vision of my next crafts room having a large corkboard so I can hang them up and enjoy the colors.



I'm amazed at how many of you save little bits of yarn. I already have quite a few tiny bits of yarn because of all the color knitting I do. I will have to come up with some new methods for storage because they always become tangled if I just toss them in a container or drawer.

I put a new post up on the Glove Knitting KAL on figuring out your hand size for knitting patterns. If any of you know your hand size for purchasing gloves will you check it out please? I'm trying to see if there are any others who have differences in their commercial glove size vs. knitting pattern hand size. Thanks!

Using walls (p.1)

Can emotions shape our morality? Not only they can, but according to the great Portuguese neuro-scientist António Damasio, they do. Damasio has recently published an article in Nature which further develops the idea that our moral choices are very closely related to our emotions - also on a neurological level.

Face2Face is a simple idea: make both sides of a conflict see each other in the most human way possible. Show faces. Show them up close. Show them together. Show them as similar and - make them look funny.
So, if emotions can shape our moral decisions, the laughter could make it just a little harder to see the other as barbaric - unknown, distant, too-different.

Can this work? Can it be that simple? And I don't mean to suggest peace will happen because of a few posters. But can anything change? And why would we not believe in it, other than out of bitter and failing experience?

Two small details. One: the use of a 28 mm macro lens. It is very hard not to look funny and cute seen from that angle. Two: the faces we see are combined in pairs of people with the same jobs (e.g. barbers, doctors, etc.).
See the video:

FACE 2 FACE trailer by JR and Marco
Uploaded by 28millimetres

Technorati: photography, art, contemporary art, vvoi

Does anyone else have trouble throwing away knitting mistakes? Here is a pile of various items I've knit, mostly unfinished, that I gave up on because I hated the colors or just hated knitting period. DH didn't like the blue and white Selbu glove. I don't really know why I have to hold on to this stuff (in sewing I guess they call similarly unloved items "wadders") but I guess it is because they all represent a piece of my life in some sense. Anyway, now that I have a photo I'm free to toss them.

Doesn't Jack look like he is contemplating his fat cat belly? I adore him but he is not the brightest bulb in the chandelier.

Figuratively speaking

Finding the human form is easy. If you know where you're coming from. In some of Meinbert Gozewijn van Soest's recent work the head becomes just an apparently chaotic mash-up of lines and stains. One is tempted to think this is a head. One is tempted to empathize. But if we don't know anything else, what have we really got here? What is apparent? What remains?
The beauty of lineage is that it tells you more than you should know. The figures entangled in their own lines, buried in a mass of accidents, undefined by the very form that describes them, tell us the story. The narrative, the line, the hermeneutic* identity of what would-have-been, all this appears to us if we go beyond the simple drawing of havoc. But can we actually defend this as a principle? Maybe not, but in pragmatic terms, if even the site invites us to a general, overall lecture, to a combining of various phases of Research, then I say, hey, go for it, beyond the Pandorra's box of a depressing painting, into the line that completes it, giving it an entire universe to refer to.

*I can't believe I'm actually using this creepy word...

I finally found a use for those bags you get when you order Victoria's Secret flannel PJs. I like to keep the colors for each knitting project separate and each of these bags holds the content of one glove project. One bag contains 10 skeins of yarn and one contains 20. (BTW, never pay full price for VS flannel PJs. The discontinued patterns go on sale for under $20 every few months.)




This is what I saw every time I looked down from the desk while working hard on the glove booklet.



Like any self-respecting rabbit, she begged for food shamelessly while I was preoccupied with the booklet. Plus DH & I are noticing she double teams us more frequently. I'll feed her and then she'll immediately go to DH and beg for something to eat. I'm definitely going to have to work harder to enforce the bunny diet.

Artsing human-scale design

The Tea Bag garden is a landscape made of stacked bags of garden soil. The bags, padded like a bench, are essentially soft plant containers. There were holes in it for planting herbs. Bey had planted mint at Z33 and left a boiler and tea set so that visitors can sit and make their own tea. Whenever a bag is empty, it is easily removed and replaced by another bag/plant pot. The bag garden can thus be peeled off, layer by layer.

The Vacuum Bag Furniture gives a real and surprising value to dust. The chair-shaped refuse bags can be connected to vacuum cleaners. Once filled with dust, they provide comfortable seating.

Different seats are packed in an elastic synthetic fibre to shape Family Cocoon.

Regina over at WMMNA recently wrote about an exhibition by Jurgen Bey where these wonderful objects appeared (all descriptions are by her).
My favorite is the Family Cocoon, because it doesn't pretend to be practical. The Tea Garden could be considered as practical (although there seems to be something very not-real about it)(then again, I didn't drink the tea, did I), so it comes in a close second.

Jason Young's Curling Stones

The thing that fascinates me about the Geostationary Banana Project, beyond the craziness and the scale, is the fact that it is a constant work-in-progress and is already functioning in the art world as a model of a work-to-be. This way of working is very inspiring.
There is something about taking away the edge of the Art Work that makes it, well, easier on the digestive system. When the experience of the work can be dissolved, so we don't just get it in one big lump, it can sometimes give a much-needed space of habituation. By that, I don't necessarily mean a context, an explanation, but more like a creative play between various aspects, levels, possibilities of something that otherwise risks being seen as, well, just a thing.
For instance, showcasing works on New Art is, for me, a way of seeing them in that space. Of seeing their possible links, connections (and readings as well...).
But in some artworks the dialog between various areas is what gives them a very rare power.

I probably wouldn't have noticed Jason Young's work.
This type of work is something I would probably like to make - playing with resin has been a
personal fixation for a while. But I rarely actually stop to appreciate abstract plastic work, if it doesn't have a twist to it - some sort of a hidden agenda, so to speak. Of course, you might say if it's a good piece of work it only takes time and some effort to discover all the hidden agendas. Well, let's just consider that this can be ineffective.
On the other hand, I probably would have missed out on the fresh and creative video director Pascal Franchot. There is something about both of them that seems too slick, too cool...
Now, join them.




The above are stills from a film called The Curling Stones (or here in Quicktime). A film about creating a work of art. A film that is a documentary, because it documents the process of creating a work. But it is not a documentary (compare it to this), in that it clearly stages the whole thing. And doesn't even aspire to seem objective. It is a quasi-fiction. More: it looks, feels, moves like a commercial. The difference being - the result is a work of art. And maybe because the play stopped being about the pure material, the resin, the touch, or, on the other hand, the issue, the goal, the punchline, there is an artistic dialog here that gives value both to film and installation/performance. Brilliant.

Technorati: painting, performance, visual art, movies, art, contemporary art, vvoi

I 'm currently unable to get a photo of the glove booklet cover into my sidebar. I actually had an artsy photo for the booklet cover of the glove on an Adirondack chair with the mountains in the background but Lulu said it was the wrong size. So instead I just stuffed everything in the scanner as I've done with the other booklets.



Oh no! My new gloves don't fit. No really these are just another pair of thick boring hiking socks for DH. He insists upon 9" of K2P2 ribbing for every pair which is torture. I'm knitting them simultaneously because I am going to run out of one of the shades of undyed Cormo yarn. The feet will be a lighter color.

Glove Knitting Booklet

The glove booklet is finished and for sale at my Lulu store. Catchy title, eh? It is 36 pages, all-color, with over 50 photos, diagrams and charts including a gallery of gloves that don't fit. The price is $18.38 for print or $8.75 for a .PDF file. You can also email me at nanetteblanchard (at) earthlink (dot) net if you would prefer to pay by check - Lulu takes both credit cards and Paypal.

I originally wanted to add more glove patterns but I had to work to keep the price down (all-color booklets are more expensive to print). I plan to add more glove patterns (including one with individual finger gussets) to the store individually at a later date.

HERE is the book's info page and HERE is the KAL page for either of the glove patterns from the booklet. Please let me know if you'd like to sign up for the KAL - one thing I thought we could do is get KAL members to upload photos of their hands so we could talk about modifications to make their hand-knit gloves fit better.

Texas Space Banana

At this stage, the blue-prints for the construction of the bamboo structure were finalized. The whole structure was developed with 3D software. As a result of this development, we know the amount of bamboo poles needed, we can zoom in to conflicting joints and see the details, we know the weight of the structure, the volume of gas needed, and so on. Also at this stage, we built and tested the gasbags that will be sandwiched between the bamboo rings that compose the structure. Finally, as a structural test, we built the smallest ring of the final banana - 16 meters in diameter.
Getting a 300-meter banana to float over 30 km up in the air, somewhere in the stratosphere. To be seen from all around Texas for a month.
The work, Geostationary Banana Over Texas, is by a known Canadian artist, Cesar Saetz. Its budget is about 1 million dollars. So far, they have a little more than 1/8, but the work keeps developing.
Comparable to... what? Cattelan's Hollywood? Christo and Jeanne-Claude? Smits' Cloud? Art-in-space programs? Surrealist games? Dada?

Geometric Gloves

The world's largest caterpillar stopped by to say hello while I was photographing the second glove I'm doing for the booklet.


These gloves have a sore thumb gusset and tapered fingertips and the fingers are worked in the opposite direction as the gloves with the colorwork cuffs from a few days ago. This is a woman's medium and you'll need 2 (50 g) skeins of black in Knitpicks Palette and small amounts of white and 6 other contrast colors.



This is the men's medium version of the same glove knit in Elann's Devon sport weight wool which is nice and soft and stretchy but a bit finer than most sport weight yarns. To knit the men's glove you need one skein mineral green and two skein of Cape Cod blue. Unfortunately neither of these colors is currently available at Elann but there are some other fun Devon colors.



The colorwork cuff gloves with the peasant thumb require 2 (50 g) skeins of Knitpicks' Palette in the main color and small amounts of 9 other colors for the cuff for both the small and large woman's sizes.

For those who plan to knit these gloves on dpns (instructions will also be given for 2 circs), I highly recommend you buy some glove needles from 4" to 6" long. I am amazed at how much faster I can knit glove fingers when using shorter needles. There will be more sources in the booklet but Spin Blessing and Patternworks have the largest selections of glove needles in various materials. My glove needles of choice are the extremely inexpensive Inox/Prym dpns from Spin Blessing - not too slick and not too sticky and unbreakable so far. If you can, get glove needles in all sizes from 2.5mm to 3.5 mm as you'll find you need the variations. Many knitters use a different size dpn for the fingers because of tension differences in knitting small tubes.

I still want to knit another version of each glove but I hope to have the glove booklet for sale by this weekend.

Light the pong

Marlene Dumas: taking sex seriously

Marlene Dumas, whose watercolor painting was featured here a few days ago, is worth going back to.
Not because she is the most expensive living female artist. And not because she "embraces the totality of the human experience" (wow, people still actually write this sort of stuff...).

Oh, bloody hell.
Oh, bloody hell.
I am as filthy as I am pure.
I think things, imagine things, crave for them or despise them.
This explicitness, this seeing more, or need to see more, is what brings me here.
To this site, to this artist. To this constant search for a name, a form, a way of channeling thirst.
Is it about sex? Is it about the blatancy of exposition?
Is it about humanity? About the loss of innocence? The search for meaning?
Is it about who we are? About our place in the order?
It certainly is about where the technique takes us. Yes, the technique. The way of putting things, of joining the clay.






One thing that irritates me is the often-repeated idea that Dumas is an artist "who knows no taboos". This is not only silly and sensationalist - it takes away the pleasure of discovering the exact lines of her taboo, her notions of decency, quite present and rich. Look at the above pictures as at a map of impossibilities, of what is not said. The form as subtraction.

See more Marlene Dumas here, here and here.

Technorati: painting, erotic art, sex, erotic art, art, contemporary art, vvoi

Favorite Online Glove Patterns

I've posted a few of these before but here is the complete list of my favorite online glove patterns:

Cigar Gloves - This thick pair of men’s gloves knit with two circular needles has two open fingers for cigar smoking.

Floral Fair Isle Gloves - This attractive pair of gloves from Interweave Knits is knit with many colors of fingering weight Shetland wool.

Gansey Gloves - These incredibly beautiful gloves are perfect for knitters who love texture. Must. Make. These. Gloves.

Gloves in Karisma - A pretty Drops design using I think DK weight yarn for gloves with 2 cables and a seed stitch border.

Guatemalan Gloves Free Knitting Pattern - This gorgeous pair of 14 color gloves comes in five sizes depending on what weight yarn you use.

House Gloves - This simple pattern with striped fingers uses worsted weight yarn. The pattern includes instructions for using dpns, 2 circs, and the Magic Loop method to knit gloves.

I-Cord Gloves - This serial pattern from Nonaknits features I-cord fingers, top-down construction and Joyce William's fun technique for in between the fingers.

Ken Gloves - This Berroco pattern is sized for men and knit with a thick yarn.

Sanquhar Gloves - These traditional Scottish Gloves using lace weight yarn are considered the pinnacle of glove making. This incredible pattern is from a Japanese knitting web site and is error-free.

Sideways Gloves - If you can't decide whether to knit your gloves cuff-up or top-down, try making them sideways.

Starlight Evening Gloves - These long gloves use an eyelet pattern and a decorative seam.

Opera Glove - This pattern for elbow length pair of gloves has good photos on how to pick up stitches from a peasant thumb.

Wedding Day Lace Gloves - This beautiful lacy pair of long gloves is perfect for a bride.

Women's Lace Gloves - Nifty vintage pattern for gloves. I made these a long time ago (I have the vintage pattern booklet) and they turned out beautifully.

And if you prefer to design your own gloves:

Hand Knit Glove Pattern Generator - Simply plug in your hand measurements at this web site and you’ll get a pattern written for your size.

Lynn’s Gloves - This valuable web site is a template that shows you how to design your own knitted gloves similar to using Elizabeth Zimmermann's Percentage System for sweaters.

Top Down Gloves

I probably shouldn't have used dark brown yarn for the photos of the Joyce Williams' glove technique from her book Latvian Dreams. Oh well. Above is a photo taken after the fingers are joined.

To begin you knit the fingers top-down on two circs. Leave the bottom stitches live on waste yarn and mark each finger so you don't get them mixed up.



Next you transfer the front half of the stitches of each finger to one circ and the back half of the stitches of each finger to the other circ. (This differs from the usual method of knitting top-down gloves where you would leave the stitches in between each finger on waste yarn and use kitchener stitch to join the fingers together later.) Make sure the fingers are in the right order as it is pretty easy to get them mixed up.

Now here comes the interesting part. You knit across all three fingers but when you get to the area where two fingers meet on the inner edge of each finger, you put one stitch on a coilless safety pin to be knit on the other side and continue knitting across. On the second half of the stitches (the other circ) you pick up and knit those stitches on the coilless safety pin and put more stitches on the coilless safety pins to be picked up on the other side. Essentially what you are doing is transferring stitches from the front of the glove to the back and vice versa where the fingers meet.

Initially I thought this would mean that the circumference around the base of the fingers would end up really tight but the fingers felt fine to me. It really is a clever way of omitting potential holes (from large or loose stitches) between the fingers for top-down glove knitters. Thanks to Jennifer from the comments for her enthusiastic recommendation of this method.

The two glove patterns are done and now I'm just re-knitting them to try to avoid any errors and to add some sizes. I'll have a photo of the second glove tomorrow or Tuesday. The technique section of the booklet is finished except for a final edit and my big project for this week is to try to get as many photos and scans as possible.