But recently I decided to take up knitting, and I've gone hog-wild (in terms of enthusiasm, not productivity). I even joined Ravelry, where I've enthusiastically made up a list of projects that are still way out of my (enthusiastic) league. In any case, today I finished my first knitted thing, a purple scarf. I forget the brand of wool, but it's a pretty basic not-too-chunky kind of thing. I promise to read the labels more in the future. Anyway, because I still have no digital camera I took some photos with my Macbook. They're not going to win any Pulitzers, but since this is ostensibly a blog that's mostly for my own records, that should be okay.
Here it is. It turned out pretty evenly, the only holes, mistakes and general wonkiness came toward the beginning when I was still learning. I did a few accidental yarnovers and added two stitches (I originally intended to have only twenty, but that changed after only a few rows!), but really I'm very pleased. The only thing left is to add fringe, although I'm out of the yarn.
Interesting note: I taught myself the basic using the videos on knittinghelp.com, where I chose continental over English because it was the easiest for me to follow. This amazed both my grandmothers and my friend, who all knit English. I've gone through the English style quickly now, and it's hard! One of my grandmothers is adamant that I won't be able to follow patterns knitting continental, but I haven't quite reached that point yet.
In other knitting related news, my mom dug out this garbage bag full of yarn that was sitting in the attic. The highlights are several balls of these colours, which don't look so crazy on my Macbook camera, but let me assure you, they are of the most DayGlo-ingly neon persuasion. Like the colours we used to wear before we cared about clothes. I'm not sure yet what to do with it... I might use one of the colours for the fringe on my purple scarf... but I have to wait for the perfect idea. These colours are too incredible to be wasted.
The other thing I have to show off is this. Apologies for the reflection. It's an ink drawing that I started last summer while in Gaspe, but put off for awhile. I finally finished it a few weeks ago. I took an art class a couple of semesters ago and a girl there was doing these drawings, really intricate, lots of little shapes and designs, and she just sort of did it and let the final shape form itself. This is inspired by her stuff. The photo is reversed, but if you look closely you might see the words "Must not sleep, must warn others", taken from Commencement at the Obedience Academy by Aesop Rock. The letters formed a sort of framework and I went from there. It was fun, very soothing. Plus, it looks really neat. I hope I can post a nicer photo sometime.
Coming soon, maybe: I really want to get into screen printing. The build-it-yourself tutorials seems pretty daunting, though, and I'm the type of person who really likes to get a preassembled kit for the first time I try something, just so I can get a feel for it. Problem is, screen printing kits run about $60 and I've heard that they're not such good quality anyway. I might make a foray into Omer Deserres and see what they have, but I may end up attempting to build my own screen. Either way, I'll be documenting the results, for better or for worse.
