Phaery Godmother

Graffiti Knitting Comes to Town

2008-03-14T09:05:00.000-07:00

A couple of posts ago, I linked to an article about graffiti knitting. On my most recent trip downtown, I was surprised to see that we have our very own graffiti knitter in town. The statue of Lincoln down by the federal courthouse is sporting a new scarf.

And I Thought I Was Taking Too Long...

2008-02-22T16:40:00.000-08:00

I felt sort of sheepish to admit (in my post Wednesday) that my log cabin quilt was taking so long. Then I read this story:

Quilt Whole After 72 Years

Makes me feel like I'm positively zipping right along.

In the News: Graffiti Knitters

2008-02-22T16:24:00.000-08:00

Watch out, folks... you never know when a renegade midnight guerilla graffiti knitter will strike near you.

My Log Cabin Quilt

2008-02-20T12:39:00.000-08:00

Vogue Knitting ran an interesting article many years ago about being process-oriented vs. being goal-oriented. The process-oriented people are those of us who knit or sew for the sake of knitting or sewing. We love the process, even if we seldom get around to finishing what we start. Goal-oriented people knit or sew for the sake of having a finished item they can actually use. What a concept, hey?

At this stage of life, I consider myself a recovering process-oriented needlecrafter. I'm digging old projects out of storage to either finish or officially discard. One of these is a log cabin quilt that I started, oh, I don't know, about fifteen years ago. I really started it in my mind a lot longer ago than that. When I was in my late teens, we visited a craft fair in West Virginia where I saw my first log cabin quilt. I fell in love with the combination of folksy tradition and geometric sophistication. Ever since then, I've wanted one for my own bed. Finally, I'm close!

The quilt top is partially assembled; if you look closely, you can see that the two halves haven't been seamed down the center. I need to add a row at each end (that's twenty squares, of which half are done). The finished size will be 110" square. That's pretty large, but it will go on a California King bed. I'm making it square instead of rectangular so we can rotate it regularly so it will wear evenly.

In the News: Serving the Community While Serving Time

2008-02-06T11:12:00.000-08:00

If you're in the Boulder area, and you're wondering what to do with your leftover washable (i.e., synthetic) yarns, here's a project that could use them.

Women inmates at the Boulder County Jail are learning to knit, crochet, and weave items for nursing home residents and the homeless.

Boulder County Jail Project: A knitting offshoot

Teardrop Scarf Errata

2008-01-29T10:14:00.000-08:00

I ran into some inconsistancies in the teardrop scarf pattern, so I emailed the author, Celeste Culpepper. It turns out that the magazine misprinted a couple of rows. Ms. Culpepper very kindly gave me permission to distribute the corrections, so I'm passing them on here.

Rows 8 and 24 end with last 11 stitches: k10, place bead on last stitch.
Row 16 ends with last 18 stitches: k17, place bead on last stitch.

Historical Dolls, Part 2

2008-01-28T13:02:00.000-08:00

Today I'll be sharing photos of antique china and parian fashion dolls from the Enchanted World Doll Museum in Mitchell, South Dakota. The first is a pink luster 1840's lady with a "covered wagon" hairstyle and a sweet face. Her striped dress has pagoda sleeves over lace-trimmed undersleeves.

This all-original doll dates from the 1870's. Her silk skirt has become shredded over time, a common occurence with antique silks due to the metallic salts that were often used to add body to the fabric.

This is one of many vignettes in the museum. Perhaps these ladies in their bustle gowns are getting all dressed up to go calling on friends.

The last doll is a mechanical doll with a music-box built in. Some little girl probably really treasured this doll, but I think, then as now, that it's more fun to play with a doll that doesn't do anything. That's when the imagination can take over.

Historical Dolls, Part 1

2008-01-24T12:25:00.001-08:00

From time to time, I'll post photos from my 2005 trip to the Enchanted World Doll Museum in Mitchell, South Dakota. Today's theme is black dolls. These dolls were photographed through glass, no flash allowed, so please pardon the occasional reflections or blurriness you see in the photos. Click on each photo to see a larger version.

Unfortunately, most of the dolls at the museum are not identified. My only complaint about this lovely museum is that there's so little in the way of interpretive material. Perhaps some of you who are knowledgeable about this topic will be able to comment.

Above, two small babies. The one on the left is labeled as a "Sun Babe" by the Sun Rubber Company, an Ohio manufacturer that produced dolls from the 20's to the 50's. Notice that she's holding a tiny doll of her own.

This doll has a beautifully molded face and an exquisite outfit, complete with earrings. However, the unrealistic shade of pink used on the lips is somewhat distracting. Too-pink or too-red lips were a frequent feature of black dolls from this period. Below is another view of the same doll, this time with her baby in its pram. Sorry about all those reflections in the window!

Here is a 12" vinyl (Barbie scale) Hattie MacDaniel as Mammy from Gone With the Wind, a role for which she won an Oscar in 1940. Recently, she was honored with a postage stamp bearing a likeness of McDaniel in the dress she wore to the Academy Awards.

Starting the Teardrop Scarf

2008-01-21T13:43:00.000-08:00

I cast on this weekend for the Knitscene teardrop scarf, which my husband refers to as a "spider web scarf" because of its lacy pointed ends. I didn't do a gauge swatch because finished size wasn't all that important for me. The pattern seems pretty straighforward, but I made a couple of mistakes early on before I caught the rhythm of the yarnovers. I've decided to treat my first efforts as a combined trial run/gauge swatch. Here are my observations:

The design, which is knit sideways, is very well thought out.

For one thing, it's garter stitch. No purling involved.
For another, all yarnovers are worked at the beginning of the row so you don't have to worry about where to start the pattern on the far end of the scarf.
Beads are attached as you go, by using a bit of thin flexible wire to hook an existing stitch into the bead hole. This certainly beats stringing them in advance and pushing a hundred beads, more or less, along several hundred yards of yarn as you work.
The pattern won't suffer from accidently casting on a stitch more or less than called for. Since all the fancywork happens at the beginning of a row, you can easily adapt the total length however you want by adding or subtracting stitches. Ideally you'll cast on an even number, but if you cast on an odd number, you can correct for this on the first all-yarnover row by substituing a simple k1 for one of the k2tog's. In fact, by switching yarns and needles, and by changing the total number of rows or stitches, you could easily miniaturize this pattern into a doll stole with lace-weight yarn, or enlarge it into a stole for yourself with a worsted-weight mohair and large needles.

On the down side, each row begins with a yarnover. If you don't form the yarnover correctly, it will combine with the next stitch you knit, messing up both your lace pattern and your stitch count. Be very careful that the beginning yarnover is a distinct, separate stitch! This has the potential to cause a lot of grief to a knitter who isn't being careful.

I did a long-tail cast-on with needles a size larger than I used for knitting. The cast-on still seemed too tight, so next time around I'll go up two sizes for that part.

By the way, my copy of The Principles of Knitting is now on eBay, with an opening bid of $170 (no reserve). If you've been wanting this book but were put off by the super-high ending bids it used to bring, here's your chance to own it for under $200.

In Case Knitting Isn't Exciting Enough By Itself...

2008-01-19T20:48:00.000-08:00

...you can try Sock Wars. The object of the game is to finish knitting a pair of socks before you get "assasinated", which occurs via the arrival of a pair of socks from a rival knitter... or something like that. I'm not sure I understand the rules. But you can read about it here:

Killer Knitting

Vent

2008-01-18T17:29:00.001-08:00

Someone has said, with great accuracy, that the Internet is the world's largest copy machine. So I guess I shouldn't have been surprised to see one of my photographs on someone else's site--but I was surprised anyway.

I've discovered this photograph from my Tiny Sewing Notions Page on a couple of different websites. One was a list of links (and at least they included a link to my site). Another was in the index of a French Barbie pattern site. If they had bothered to ask first, I probably would've been so flattered that I'd have granted any reasonable request. As it is, I end up feeling annoyed. Whatever happened to old-fashioned courtesy? Or am I being naive to expect that on the Internet?

In the News: Mama Bears

2008-01-15T07:23:00.000-08:00

Amy Tyler, of Katy TX, honors her grandmother's memory by spearheading a drive to knit teddy bears for Alzheimer's patients. The article is here:

Business Calling on All Mama Bears

And Amy's blog entry on the subject is here:

Charity Knitting - Peggy's Bear

Spring Cleaning

2008-01-14T08:55:00.001-08:00

Spring cleaning has started early at the Phaery Godmother household. I'm thinning out my doll collection so I can keep my favorites better organized. As I weed through them, I'm putting them on my Rummage Sale page. Right now I've listed Jakks-Pacific Elle and G.I.R.L. Force dolls as well as an Alex or two.

I need to weed out my personal library, too. One book I'm sort of sorry to part with is Principles of Knitting by June Hiatt, which is going for a pretty penny on eBay these days. Yesterday an auction for Principles of Knitting ended at $300 + $15 shipping. I could really use the money for some home maintenance projects, so I'm going to be brave and put my copy up for sale. I'm offering it at $299, insured shipping within the continental US included. It has slight wear to the dust jacket, and some staining along the top edge which doesn't penetrate to the pages, but the book is otherwise mint. Drop a line to phaery_godmother (at) yahoo.com if you're interested. It will help get your message past my spam filters if you put "phaerydolls" in the subject line, but I'll be checking my Bulk folder carefully just in case.

As part of spring cleaning, I'm sorting and organizing my stash. My goodness, there's enough yarn here to keep a knitter busy for quite a long time.

My stash includes a large amount of ivory wool worsted, plus a huge collection of needlwork yarn leftovers in every possible color. It would be perfect for duplicating a cabled cardigan I saw once, where the diamond patterns were filled in with floral embroidery.

I love these tomato red mohair blends that I bought ages ago at Quelle in Germany. The solid and the flecked were purchased at separate times, so it's sheer serendipity that they happened to match. Now I need to find or design a pattern that shows off the yarns (and my overweight self) to their best advantage. If I can incorporate the red eyelash yarn, so much the better.

I tried to make this fringed shawl with some Trellis yarn. Finished dimensions (without fringe) on Size 15 needles should be 75" wide by 13" deep. So how did I end up with something 100" wide and 30" deep? And that horrid run up the center, besides! How can I do so many complicated projects so well, then mess up on something as utterly simple as a garter stitch triangle?

At this point I haven't decided what to do. I don't want to rip out and start over, because knitting on those jumbo needles isn't all that comfortable. Could I leave off the fringe and call it a scarf? Unravel and use the yarn in a different project? It would probably be really beautiful combined with the camel-colored worsted, but there isn't enough of the camel to complete a sweater. I could buy more yarn that would coordinate with both the Trellis and the camel worsted, but that sort of defeats the purpose of using up my stash, doesn't it? Help!

Winter '08 Projects

2008-01-08T20:28:00.000-08:00

Right now I'm working on a bias-knit sweater, which I'll explain in Bias Knitting, Part 2. I hope to be done with that in a couple of weeks.

When it's finished, I'm looking forward to knitting Celeste Culpepper's Teardrop Scarf from the Fall 07 issue of Knitscene. I don't care for any of the other patterns in that issue (too young and strange for me) but that scarf is a must-have. I'll make one for myself, and one to put away for DD's next birthday.

First step was choosing yarn and beads. For DD, who limits most of her wardrobe to black or dark blue, I've chosen "Fino" lace-weight baby alpaca and silk in a dark denim-y blue. So soft! The beads are navy with an iridescent finish that this photo doesn't do justice to. The beads are left over from an earlier project, but they just happen to match this yarn beautifully. I love it when my stash cooperates with my new plans that way.

For my own scarf, I'm using lavendar silk from Kaalund Yarns. I haven't bought beads yet, but I'll probably go with white teardrops with a frosted finish. The blue Bernat Baby yarn next to it is for a doll project.

The next step is to wait patiently for my Knitscene to show up in the mail. This will be a problem, seeing as how all the mailboxes in my neighborhood were stolen this weekend, and the ground is frozen too solid to put in a new one. (Yes, I've reported the theft to the postmaster, the county sheriff, and the local recycling network.) The roads are too snowy to drive into town to get the mail right now.

I won't be buying yarn for any more new projects till I finish these. I most emphatically don't believe that, "She who dies with the biggest stash, wins."

A Mystery

2008-01-08T08:03:00.000-08:00

My parents gave me this reproduction bisque Bye-Lo Baby for Christmas when I was about thirteen. It's one of the childhood dolls I've managed to hang on to all these years.

After I bought a loveseat for my bedroom, I added a row of pillows across the back, and then nestled the doll into the pillows for a final decorative accent.

From time to time, though, I'd come into the room and find the doll folded over in half, face down. I always assumed that it was toppling over from its own weight. I would straighten it back up again, making sure it was firmly in place each time. But it never stayed up. Mysterious.

Then one day I saw my cat (who shall be known on this blog as Sauron) come into the room and jump up on the loveseat to take a nap. Sauron started to settle down, but then noticed the doll staring, unblinkingly, right at him. He reached out a wary paw to the doll, as if to ward off an attack. That's when I realized that it was Sauron who'd been flipping the doll face down so he could snooze without being stared at!

Mystery solved. Sometimes I still find my doll face-down. It has never yet attacked Sauron, but Sauron isn't taking any chances.

Knitting on the Bias, Part 1

2008-01-06T20:56:00.001-08:00

I love knitting on the bias, mostly because you don't have to worry about gauge. Start with one stitch, add a stitch on the next row, and another stitch on the next row, and just keep going till you've got the width you want. Then increase at one edge and decrease at the other till you've got the length you want, and finally decrease at both edges till you're back down to a single stitch. At which point, you're done!

The first bias project I ever made was a purple baby blanket, which I ended up donating to Romanian relief efforts. This was followed up by a bias-knit cotton dish cloth. (Note to self: handknit dishcloths aren't durable enough for use on pots and pans.)

Next I made a bias-knit garter-stitch pillow out of Lion Brand Fun Fur for the loveseat in my bedroom.

I knit the front only, since the back will never show, and sewed it onto a muslin pillowcase. It adds just the right contrasting texture to all the lacy pillows surrounding it.

There's a story about the Bye-Lo Baby that I'll share with you next time around.

Welcome

2008-01-06T20:09:00.000-08:00

Welcome to my blog. I created this blog so I'd have a convenient place to post what I've been doing in the world of crafts and fashion dolls. It's a spin-off of my Fashion Doll Dreams website.

These days, I'm more interested in creating people clothes than doll clothes. It's still fun to create the occasional doll outfit, though. My latest doll creation was the dress for Furga Simona that I knit back in December '06.

It was partly inspired by the famous Yves St. Laurent "Mondrian" colorblock dress, partly by Francie's vintage "Quick Shift" pink-and-green jumper, and partly by the wonderful Kool Wool merino blend yarn I found on clearance at JoAnn's. I remember the days when fuschia, olive, and cream were considered a delightfully shocking combination of colors, so daring, so untraditional, so innovative--so totally mod.

At the same time, I was knitting this little three-quarter sleeve sweater from the same yarn, for the same doll:

I decorated it freehand with scraps of needlepoint wool. I also have purple wool fabric to make the matching skirt, if I ever get around to it.

Kool Wool is an amazingly soft, vivid wool blend with a ropey look, sort of like thick chenille. On closer inspection, however, it's a six-ply yarn, which I painstakingly untwisted down to a single fine strand of fingering weight to make my doll clothes. Unfortunately, Lion has discontinued Kool Wool. Bummer. I'd love to make myself a sweater out of it. It's chunky enough to knit up quickly, but very lightweight in proportion to its bulk.

The doll dress and sweater are my original knitting patterns, and sorry, they're not available right now. If there's enough interest, I'll consider transcribing them and offering them for sale.