Sometimes I find knitting a bit of a slog. I know as spinners and knitters, we laugh at time, but really sometimes knitting just feels arduous and interminable. It can take a long time to get any where useful. But when I knit lace, something curious happens. It always starts awkwardly with counting and recounting, stops and starts and many readings and checkings of the pattern. Then slowly, I start to predict the stitches required from the pattern emerging on the needles. I start to see the relationships between the different parts of the pattern. A knit stitch section reduces by t ..read more

Just like all material artifacts, yarn can be read as a text. We read the landscape that has given rise to the wool fibre when we encounter bits of grass and other vegetable matter trapped in our yarn. We read the creature who grew the fibre when the sheep breed is identified on the ball band. And underneath this, we can read the rise of global mass production and the demise of local manufacturing in the changing place of origin on our yarn labels. But what I want to share with you today is something different…yarns deliberately designed and constructed to tell stories. These yarns a ..read more

Thank you for your comments on my last post (in)visible mending. I read them all but did not manage to reply…the last couple of weeks have been rather fulsome and I’ve been needing to rest more. Normally, I am a utilitarian maker, I make things to be worn or used, I make practical, durable things. If I experiment, it to make something more durable such as the Tuff Socks Naturally project or to find out something I don’t know such as in the Waysides: Local Colour in Our Home Grounds project. I don’t often just play…for fun or whimsy or curiousity. Yes, I am a little on the earnest, liter ..read more

Some projects seem to take forever. This one I began in January 2018 as a summer make. Two summers past before it was finished and a third is on its way as I am just sharing it with you now. This linen and wool blend top is knit from Yoko Johnston’s Ginga Top design in the smallest size. The pattern is quite a complex one, Johnston’s design is architectural in its approach. There are many sections which join in curious ways with short rows shaping an elongated back and clever sleeve caps. Despite its complexity, the knitting was the easiest, most straightforward part of the project as I ..read more

Follow my blog with Bloglovin A couple of months ago, a friend at knitting group brought me a bag of local alpaca fibre. Alpacas make very large fleeces and even after sharing it with other spinners, I still had a generous amount of fibre. It was a fine, black fleece that wanted to become lace weight yarn but my wheel was occupied with bulky art yarn project and I was keen to get started. So I got out my spindles. I had not used my spindles since I got sick as it was just too tiring to lift my arms up, even with the supported spindle. But time and a lot of active healing work has reope ..read more

Oh, there are so many things we should be doing…but sometimes things happen that are not procrastinations to be overcome or distractions to be ignored but digressions to be followed. I am practicing identifying and following the digressions, the little trickles of enthusiasm that lead ultimately to the sea of creativity, inspiration and life flow. Here are a couple of my wanderings amidst the lists and directed activities. About a month ago, our family visited the Ballarat Show and had the great fortunate to be just in time for a marvellous shearing display. The sheep were Corriedales, but Co ..read more