Stamp of the Day: knitted scarf

Just a gorgeous, old-fashioned knitted scarf on a stamp from Sweden (2011), and the whole set next to it.  I'd like to have one like this...this pattern is both so simple and complex.  This series of stamps is called 'Mönstrat', which means patterned.  

Bacon bits and pieces on the internet

Oh, hi again everybody!

Life is going on as usual, and some new and old things on the internet...

knit bacon (yes!) and hamburgers [Core 77]

others make fantastic art out of subway maps [Core 77]

or octopi out of sausages,

make food out of the throw-away parts (which reminds me of the one time my grandfather tried to make porridge out of potato peels, not a success, and I was retold the story as a little kid by my mom) [NY Times]

some whiskey needs special fungi... great science story [WIRED]

and as usual, Shorpy manages to find the best end photos.

PS.  This is post 2050 on this blog.  That is a good number too, as is 44 and 33. Right LA?

Fantastic artist.... Anu Tuominen

Anu Tuominen is a Finnish contemporary artist that uses everyday objects, often colorful ones, to create new assemblages, memories, and meaning.  She collects things from fleamarkets, often things that we consider useless now or just old and worthless, and put them together into new combinations. Anu also knits and crochets from colorful yarn as part of her art.

I saw her exhibit at the Nordic Watercolor Museum in Sweden and loved, loved, loved it.  To take worn, worthless things, from school project crocheted potholders, short, blunt pencils, old soapholders, and kitchen and tools from previous years and then make it into something more, that is something.

You look at her art and think - "WOW, that is so innovative.  So simple, why didn't I think about that.  Oh, look at how those colors are put together, look, look!"  It is innovative, simple, elegant and basic at the same time. When you see her art you are transported back in time to earlier years, back into memory lane and you think about all those worn erasers you dug into with your pencil because you were bored, the red and blue correction pencils the teachers had, and how the boys hated learning how to crochet in home economics class.  And then they gave their flawed potholder to their grandmother, and now it might be hanging on an wall as an art installation in Sweden.  And so on, and on...

Anu has a fantastic website with much better photos than I took, so go there for more beauty and thinking.  here below are some of the things we saw and loved in Sweden. Thanks, Anu!


'Early Morning by the Sea' [Tidig morgon vid havet]. Old soap holders (plastic boxes) with worn Arctic Sea stones inside them... so beautiful.  I think she noted that this art project was started 10 years ago or so, when she started to collect the soap holders.


'Grass' [gräs]. The grass is greener in the drawer. Plastic combs as grass in a drawer, making hard things into soft plants, of course!


'Mrs Albers Color Mixtures' [Fru Albers Färgmix]. All of these knitted squares are made from 3 colors, red, yellow, and blue, but they are still resulting in different colors - innovative, random and still so predictive.

 
 'Walk-in Wardrobe' [Klädrum]. I remember my grandmother had fancy handpainted hangers, some green and some red. I wonder where they are now. They would have fit right into this rainbow.

You wonder how she starts an art project and how it looks like in her studio... Boxes upon boxes of things, of course...


'Real colour circles' [äkta färgcirklar]. And here are the potholders. I stared at this for 10 minutes straight I am sure. Lovely, lovely, and it makes you reevaluate some of the old things that are hiding in drawers at home for sure.

2011, the year of the Dishcloth Knitting Frenzy

2011, soon over, was the year I discovered the Ballband pattern for dishcloths.  This is a pattern from the 1950s that was printed on the back of the band around the yarn balls. So, I started knitting some, then some more, then changed the patterns a bit, then knit, changed more, and so far I think I have made about 25-30 of these.  They are now spread out over the world, among families and friends, and maybe 8 are left here to be used in the house. As far as I know we are the only ones using them to wipe out old coffee and other things on the counter with, since most everybody else are using them as pot holders or hotpads in the kitchen.

If you make the dishcloths in cotton, then you can throw them in the laundry once a week, and I think the handmade cotton ones are a lot better than soggy, old-milk stinky Wettex wipes (that is a Swedish thing, for you Americans and other readers; OK, OK, I like them too, but these are much better). I bought a large box of the American-made Peaches and Cream cotton yarn, in many different colors, including some variegated ones and started knitting (while watching old Law and Order and other shows on Netflix and DVD...). And now I am out of yarn, so it is time for another project.  I am working now on two bathmats, also in cotton, but thicker, so we will see how they come out soon.

This is the original pattern:

And here are some of my variants on the pattern:  

And this is how one of my new patterns looks up close:

Stamps of the Day: Knitted mittens

I was looking around on the internet for stamps with knitting, and there sure aren't many that I could find.  But there were two, and gorgeous knitting on them as well.  Latvia has issued two stamps with traditional knitted mittens in multi-color knit, very similar to traditional Scandinavian mittens.  I made one pair like these a long time ago, but I haven't seen them in years.  I have a feeling there were lost at some train maybe 20 years ago.  I love the design, except for that a lot of cold air comes in through the wide wrists, but you can make it tighter there if you like by changing the design (but then it isn't so authentic... so beware, if you care about such things). When I was a kid, if you were wearing mittens like these ones you were decidedly uncool, but these days they are a fashion statement, at least in some circles.  Or, rather, maybe not a fashion statement, but a political and life statement.  You can't make these mittens in machines, they have to be handmade.

No more stinky Wettex!

When you watch old episodes of the classic TV series Law and Order on instant Netflix I needed to have something to put my hands to work with. There is nothing better than mindless (well...) knitting so many cotton kitchen dishcloths being knitted up. You can make make about half of one during one evening, so pretty fast too. This is the old classic Ballband pattern (more examples here, not mine; pattern here).

They are made in 100% cotton, so throw them in the washing machine when they start to be dirty or smell bad. No more self-disintegrating, sour milk-smelling Wettex dishcloths in our kitchen. OK, I admit, I used to love Wettex, but not any longer. I hope I will never have to have a slimy Wettex cloth in my kitchen. The Wettex wipes kind of take on their own (microbial) life after a while, and these handmade knitted dishcloths works a lot better!

If you  blog reader know who I am and want one or two dish cloths, send me a note and they'll come in the mail (well, depends on how many of you that respond). Which color combination is your favorite?

More knitting graffiti...

Or, as they call it now - yarn bombing. I like the 'knitting graffiti' better, because there is no need for such as violent word as 'bombing'. Let's create beautiful things, not have a war.

“Street art and graffiti are usually so male dominated,” Ms. Hemmons said. “Yarn bombing is more feminine. It’s like graffiti with grandma sweaters.” Read the article in NY Times if you like. The NYT has a slideshow of some cool images, like the Rocky statue in a pink vest.


And here, a great photo of yarn bombing / knitting graffiti in Austin, TX, by Eric Cunningham on Flickr.

I made some new dishcloths for the kitchen

The pattern is called Ballband Dishcloth and is a classic knitting pattern.  Cotton of course, so you can throw them in the washer.

It has been a slow time here on the edge of the mountain...

... since the last post, because both PP and I got sick in the horrible cold-flu that is whisping around in these neighborhoods.  We have been coughing, sniffling, and headaching, and used up more cold medicines this past week than we usually use in a whole year.  Bad stuffy noses and sinuses...

Since there wasn't much else to do than to let the viruses run their course in our bodies we have also watched some movies and finished some projects.  Clint Eastwood has graced our TV screen with his face several times (the Gauntlet, not one of this best) as has Robert de Niro (New York cop with a son in trouble in City by the Sea). Gosford Park is an English 1920s murder mystery where everybody could have done it, and it portrays the servants in a the giant mansion in an unusual and interesting detail.  Maybe a bit too slow and long, but that could have been because of the medicines too. A Perfect World with Kevin Costner was great, about a prisoner on the run who kidnaps a boy and their developing relationship, probably 1940s - not the usual good vs. bad people movie, and of course Clint Eastwood directed and acted in it too.

Still, my current favorite is Ken Burn's Civil War series, a documentary in 9 episodes made for PBS.  It is great, and captures the history and people involved in the Civil War in US.  All interview, still-life photos and he lets the story take its time, and it is the opposite to the snippet-rush-fast-special effects-stress movies and documentaries that are more common today.  For me that never really learned much about American history in school, this is like a wonderful education and charting new historical territory.

While watching movies I knit and knit, mostly scarves and hats, but also other things.  My favorite online knitting site is a mecca for free patterns and ideas - check out Ravelry.com (it is free to sign up). Right now I am working on a gray 1940s WWII Watch cap, not sure for whom, and is just about to start a lacy scarf for myself in a color called neptune.  There will also be new knitted cotton dishcloths that can be thrown in the washer every week, instead of linen ones that are thin and fall apart, or wettex that turn slimy and gross.  Here are some hats I have knitted recently.

Fibers of the Earth (Tierra Wools)

In Northern New Mexico, not far from the Rockies and the Colorado border, is a small town that has seen more prosperous days, Los Ojos (it means 'the eyes').  The village is surrounded by the high-altitude plains and deserts of northern New Mexico, and is just a bit north of the area where Georgia O'Keefe used to spend a lot of her time (Abiquiu).  There isn't much to live on here, mostly cattle ranching, and it is old Indian country.

 

In this little village that now mostly consist of some older houses of varying upkeep and a strikingly white Catholic church is the cooperative Tierra Wools, a gorgeous place with gorgeous people.  

We found it by following little signs from the highway for the weaving shop, and since I have a soft spot for hand spun, natural yarn, it was a natural detour. Tierra Wools is a women-owned cooperative that keeps ancient Indian traditions alive by making handmade wool rugs from local and hand dyed yarns.  We spent maybe an hour in there, looking in the weaving room, hearing stories about when Robert Redford came by, and I bought yarn of course.  

 

It reminded me of my grandmother's, aunts' and mom's weaving, and I was thinking it is sad nobody in my generation in our family is weaving anymore.  At least we knit and embroider and sew and keep some of the handbased traditions alive.

The fantastic rugs were too expensive for us, but I walked out with two skeins of hand dyed New Mexico sheep wool dyed with the plant mullein ('kungsljus') and iron.  Recently I started to make a scarf for PP with this yarn in a pattern called kelp forest and after a while realized I wouldn't have enough for a whole scarf... so I called up Tierra Wools hoping they would have at least one skein left of that particular batch (hand dyed wool varies between batches so you need to get the same days batch if you want exactly the same color).  

 

And they did!  Incredible. See this photo?  The yarn is the gray-green yarn next to the yellow. This photo was taken before I bought what I wanted, so in August there was only one skein left, and it was still left now.  Boy, I am a lucky person.  That much-needed skein of yarn is now on its way across the United States, from one old store in New Mexico to a small house in New Jersey.  See the bottom left red skein?  That is made from cochineal-bugs that live on cacti.  All these yarns are dyed from natural dyes and are therefore more subdued in their colors than synthetic dyed ones.

 

I hope more people find this oasis of artisan work and fantastic women that carry traditional knowledge into the future.  If you can't get there, check out their website and call them. They have gorgeous hats, scarves, and mittens too. 

(There just is something special about New Mexico skies, something that just makes me melt inside...)

Saturday thoughts on wool, pancakes, and frost

Things I have learned today (and yesterday):

"One surefire method to tell the difference between wool (and cotton) and synthetic fabrics is to test them against an open flame. Wool will burn to ash, while synthetics will melt." (link) Wool smells like burning hair, cotton like burning leaves... Now I can sort my yarn better, if I spend some time tomorrow outside over a bucket of water burning little things up! Here is the whole story on burning fibers.

If you first fry up some portobella mushrooms in olive oil, then add a little balsamic vinegar, then put it on buttered bread, with some fried up thinly sliced onion with thyme and parmesan cheese on top, and then have Jarlsberg cheese on top of that and then put it under the broiler in the oven for 5 min, you have the best smorrebrod sandwich in the world for breakfast.

A Skeppshult pancake frying pan will work the best if you soak the top with canola oil before you try to use it. The last couple of times my pancakes got stuck.  This time, not one pancake got stuck and they tasted fantastic. I made a large batch yesterday morning, and many are now in the freezer for mornings to come.  When I was a kid, my grandparents (KE and RE) used to make pancaked, freeze them, and then refry them up in little pieces when we came and visited.  Served with their homemade rhubarb and strawberry jam it was one of my favorite foods in the world. (Thanks for the pancake pan, EH!)

And, a frosty night will not kill off the habanero chili peppers.  Maybe the capsaicin is some kind of anti-freeze too? But now all tomates, carrots, and peppers are inside. I also harvested tarragon branches, but we still have lots of colorful swiss chard outside.

Furry Wheel for Fall

Furry Wheel for Fall
Originally uploaded by Shandeh

I couldn´t resist to blog this, such a fun steering wheel cover! Mine is just a fake sheep wool cover in grey. Wouldn´t it be wonderful to have this instead?

Clear messages

Most of you readers probably remember our previous blogpost about the WWII era British posters Keep Calm and Carry On, and their recent modifications (Now Panic and Freak Out).  Here are some new variants, for knitters, doglovers, bikers, teadrinkers, bloggers, writers, teachers, bakers, photographers, sailors, and sushi lovers, etc., all for sale over on Etsy.  I love them - clean and clear. How about this one? (That one really should have used an old model, not the current model in the image, but things are rarely perfect.)

They have knitting guerillas in England too!

Knit the City - Phonebox side, originally uploaded by Deadly Knitshade.

Just look at this craft graffiti!

OK snapshot: Kulen höst (Cold fall)

LS comment: The knitting mafia has left some traces again.

Something unique, handmade and beautiful

marvelous blue handmade blue buttons, originally uploaded by knitalatte11.

Knitalatte has a blog (Resurrection Fern) with gorgeous handmade things, see here. How about these handmade buttons?

They are here! Midnight knitters in NJ

A very Swedish phenomenon have arrived in NJ, and the police is on the look-out for the perpretrators... see news story here.

Soon to a city near you? Here are some Swedish examples.