"Just add knitting"

 

My friend Rosie

(we collaborated on a fiber arts project together, photos to come eventually...)

sent me a link to this clever fiber artist, Sonya Philip.

It's fascinating the innovative ways fellow fiber artists push the medium.

I really love the tea bag!

Check out her blog Ordinary Objects.

On a related note, progress for my senior art show is coming along!

More on that soon.

xx

Images by Sonya Philip via Ordianry Objects

a m y / h a l l

some of my favorites from her new spring collection.

support handmade and local!

images amy-hall.co.uk

The beginning-ish: Yarn

Finally!

I present the first installment of my project
Made in America: From Fiber to Fabric

Yarn
The Beginning-ish

All textiles knitted, woven or felted begin with one thing: yarn.

This first part of my project is to learn about yarn.

Over the course of four days I traveled through New Hampshire, Massachusetts and Vermont to visit and talk with people who know all about yarn.

Let me tell you a little bit more about my project:

While sitting in my Systems Ecology lecture about Globalization my ADD caught up with me. As my mind wandered off to the world of lace, hounds-tooth, cashmere and sleeping on clouds of fluffy skeins of yarn, it dawned on me to consider where exactly all the bags and drawers of yarn my hoarding genes have led me to accumulate over the measly four years I have been knitting come from. How far do my fiberful indulgences travel before I can whip something up on my needles and mail it off to a friend. And at what (the environment?) and who's (child labors in China?) expense am I able to indulge in this warming hobby?

After class I proceeded to race home and read some yarn labels. I discovered this: majority of the yarns in my stash hail from two places, Italy and Peru. (But, as of late I learned that labels only list where the yarn is spun not necessarily where the raw fiber is from).


With the booming movement for local foods and the push to move away from factory farms and mono-cultured agribusiness this got me thinking about domestic sheep farms. Which led to one big question, with the countries ever growing demand for meat, what is happening to all the wool?

Hopefully most people understand that wool is a nautral bi/waste product from sheep. (And I should note that not all sheep meant for eating produce good wool for spinning...) But granted, there are millions of sheep slaughtered in the country each year producing thousands of kilos of wool, yet there are only a handful of mills and American sourced knitting and weaving yarns available.

Why?

A bunch of forms and paperwork later, this project was born. As I continue my research there are many different pieces to this project both from the production of textiles (agriculture, spinning, milling) and social/economical/environmental concerns. I hope to continue this project for the rest of my life working with producers and consumers alike to bring economic and environmental sustainable practices to an industry with so much potential.

.........well.......

Well, aparently I am a terribly blogger.

Though I'm not sure how many people there are out there

who really read this to disappoint...

Needless to say my trip was absolutely phenomenal!

I met some of the most amazing, hardworking and dedicated people.

Each place I visited continued to awe and enrich me.

I have about a zillion and a half pictures to share.

Not to mention so many cool things I learned about wool, yarn and mills.

More to come! Very soon I promise!

(really, I swear I will post pictures.... Right after I make this whole lemon tart...)

Weaving

~ 14 feet of purple heaven
12 hours
5400 yards of Harrisville Shetland
Purple Haze & Blackberry

8 thread herringbone, 15 e.p.i.
woven on a Harrisville Designs 36" four harness loom

Garment in progress.

UPDATE!!!

Well, it's been quite a long time since I've had time to update this darn thing!

These next few posts will be a compilation of my semester
and all the exciting, cool and colorful things I've been working on!

But here's the really exciting news:

Thanks to the Oberlin College Winter Term Office
I will be trekking up north to visit wool mills and
research for my project:

Made in America: From Fiber to Fabric

Wooot!

It's a pretty exciting trip.
What's more exciting is Oberlin actually gave me $$!

I just firmed up my plans a few days ago
and will be hitting the road in a week or so.

I'm going to make three stops:
Harrisville, NH to visit Harrisville Designs
North Hampton, Mass. to visit Webs
and
Putney, VT to visit Green Mountain Spinnery

More on everything soon.

Oh right, a Belated Happy Hanukkah and Merry Christmas!

Warp

My yarn arrived on Friday afternoon! It's gorgeous, beautiful heathered colors (above).

Though I am having second thoughts about the purple.
However the yarn is bought and the money spent!
Here goes!

I started my warp today for my cape. It's actually quite a lengthy process.
First, (after many careful calculations-- thanks Betsy!)
I have to measure out all of my warp strings on a warping board.
Pictured below.

Sorry the photos aren't the best. I can't stop using my iPhone!

Work In Progress

Phew! Almost ready to begin! Here are the sketches of my cape.
I still haven't decided on the colors I'm thinking either two heathered grays or
a gray and purple mix.

It was really hard to sketch out my ideas,
drawing just doesn't come naturally or easily to me.
I think with more practice I will get better and it will become easier.

The last few sketches are from my friend Sheye. Aren't they fab?

Here are some swatches of the colors I'm thinking of using.

From top down Purple Haze, Charcoal, Ebony ans Silver Haze.

Images Jane Stafford Textiles, Halcyon Yarn