2017: Blog Reboot

Happy New Year! 2017! 

It's a new year, so why not reboot the blog. Rather than dwell on what went wrong last year I'm just going to look ahead and set my goals for the year ahead.

Slowing down and simplifying life is one thing that is pressing on my thoughts right now. I want to be able to enjoy the moments and the process rather than try to rush through to the finished object or the destination. I'm aiming to take the pressure of myself stop trying to achieve unrealistic goals or to make everything that catches my eye. So the goals will be less extensive and detailed this year and kinder to myself.

I've come to accept that "Stash Less" is just not for me. I know I really should but I can't especially since I started working at my LYS, Sunspun and I'm surrounded by such attractive yarns on a regular basis. I am a stash enhancer but maybe I should turn that into a strength and write more often about the spectacular skeins of yarn that cross my path and find their way into my stash. So you can look forward to some more yarny thoughts this year on the blog.

I want to spend more time on my sewing machine. The growing fabric stash will be a new area of attention for me. I have been collecting and dreaming of building my handmade wardrobe and I really need to just apply myself to making it a reality. I also want to make more items for my children so that they can wear at least one piece of handmade everyday.

Some knits that I definitely want to make this year:

Little Wave cardigan by Gudrun Johnston. I want to knit this for my husband for our 10 year anniversary this year. 

Isadora Lopapeysa by Kate Gagnon Osborn. This will be for my boy because I want to knit a stranded colourwork sweater and a kids sized one is the best place to start.

Pictured above is what I'm working through right now. It's Annie Rowden's Polka Dot Tunic for my girl but I'm considering changing the bottom of it because I predict that a white "skirt" bottom will definitely return from kinder very dirty. I'm knitting this with my last 200g skein of Tarndie 8ply and some lovely squishy Wool Days Scout and I think of it as my "All Australia" project because both these exquisitely woolly wools are traceable to two single farms in Australia. Both yarns have fabulous stories behind them; take a look through their websites if you want to know more or wait till I post up a yarn review.

For myself, there are too many jumpers, cardigans, shawls, cowls and etc. in my making dreams. I will probably just let the fibre speak to me and choose projects based on which yarns I want to play with next. Like that Blacker yarns Cornish Tin II that is pictured at the top of this post. I keep wanting to squish (and sniff) it and I'm thinking it will be a lovely yarn to use for a Rocquaine from Pom Pom 18.

Please share your making goals in the comments. Happy making in 2017. 

The Siren song of the Crafts

Lately the fabric has been calling to me and I've been daydreaming about sewing.

There are times when the craft supplies, whether they be the fabric stash or the yarns, call to you and pulls you in like a Siren song. This past couple of weeks I have been finding myself longingly staring at the fabric stash and dreaming of projects to turn those gorgeous pieces of cloth into. My skills are limited but my dreams are big.

The lure to craft is not unlike the effect of a Siren song upon a weary sailor. When the materials are special, the call is entrancing and irresistible like the mythical lullaby of the Sirens. When I feel the pull towards the fabric I find my brain is taken over by thoughts of projects and the colours and prints upon the cloth. It draws me in until I find myself working at my sewing station cutting and pressing and stitching away.

One of the Wiksten tanks that's I've made of late.

I feel like the pull to craft is not only something mystical it is some kind of subconscious push towards some tap out, therapeutic craft time. Like the weather-worn sailor I find myself in a season of busyness and stress and my ability to juggle everything is failing more often than I'd like. Mentally I'm feeling the strain and though I am tired and in a bit of a funk I cannot resist the urge to make something.

I've written before about how I find making and crafting very therapeutic; a path to mindfulness. Again I write here to reiterate it. Undeniably there are times when certain yarns or fabrics sing to you and you just know it is asking to be made into something beautiful. The process of making leads one to put aside the stresses and 'to do lists' of life for a while and the joy of a product made with love lifts the spirits.

A friend of mine was recently sharing of her struggle with depression and then excitedly took me down to her workshop where she has been making a table top with recycled wood. She spoke with such delight when she explained where each piece of wood originally came from and how she was almost finished with the varnish. Her work is beautiful and I marvel at her talent but more so her ability to find a positive mental space when she is feeling the blues.

More things cut out ready to sew up.

Sometimes we do not realise that we need to be involved in this process of making. Our heart and mind suddenly crave to make something and all stemming from a need to nourish the mind and soul with some positive energy. Initially, the pull may feel like a dangerous Siren song because of all those tasks that need to be ticked off and jobs to be done, but once we immerse ourselves into the making and take a breath we realise that craft time was exactly what we needed.

I believe it is alright to allow yourself a little bit of tap out time to do the thing that you love. The Siren song of Craft is not a bad thing, but instead a chance to experience a moment of mindful peace.

What do you like to make or do when you take the time to tap out from life's stresses? Does it nourish your mind and soul and feel like it was exactly what you needed to do? Share your thoughts.

The struggle to make for me

This whole week I have been buzzing with excitement as I see my little one wear her new lovingly handmade skirt and tunic. If you’re interested, my last post goes into further detail about those two recently finished garments. Now, after finishing these two projects I am back on my slow going adult garments. I am loving the adult knits but I do struggle to actually finish them and long to wear them.

Which leads me to ponder are there any tips for getting through the adult projects quicker?

Does anybody else struggle with making a handmade wardrobe for themselves but the kids are head to toe in mummy made items?

Making for the kids is the thing that got me back into knitting and it is the main drive for my making obsession. I love dressing my children in items that I have made and to be honest it is much more affordable buying a sweater lot of yarn for a little person than for me. Also the gratification is achieved so much quicker with children's projects.

I hope this yummy sweater lot of John Arbon Viola yarn  will become an actual sweater in the near future. Yes, HOPE.

However, I really want to build my own handmade wardrobe and this is motivated by more than the sweater envy I felt while on The Craft Sessions. I want to make my own clothes so that I can be excited about wearing my self made clothes as much as I am excited about dressing my kids in mummy made things.

I also want to engage less with consumerism and the desire to shop when I don’t need. I have become more conscious about how unethical the fashion industry is and self making is a small way that I can make a stand against it. I am also trying to be discerning about where my materials come from and how they have been processed. I am making myself question whether the source is ethical, sustainable and authentic. I want the fabric and the yarn that I use to be natural and that whatever processing it has undergone has maintained the integrity of the natural fibre. I also feel more comfortable knowing that what I’m wearing has been made under fair conditions for the workers.

I saw this saying posted on FB recently, “Why buy it for $7 when you can make it yourself for $92 of craft supplies.” Though the statement is a tongue in cheek jibe at how much makers spend on supplies I read it as a justification for why I make. In my humble opinion something that we can buy for $7 has probably been made by a poor child in a developing nation, who will barely receive a fraction of that money for their labour.

So, with all these thoughts in mind, why is my wardrobe still predominantly store bought? Lack of time obviously is a big factor but there is also a small element of guilt as I work on items for myself. A friend of mine recently confessed to me that she is a selfish maker, preferring to sew and knit for herself than for her kids. So I wonder, is it selfish to work on ‘me’ projects?

Something else I started pondering about was do makers make for fellow makers? Or are our own queues so long that we don’t have time to make for a friend who can make for themselves?

This winter I commiserated to my husband that I desperately wanted some handknit socks but I had too many WIPs already. I wanted someone else to knit some socks for me but to my woe I don’t have enough knitting friends and the ones I do have are probably working on too many of their own WIPs to be able to make socks for me. In the end I did cast on a pair of toe up socks for myself but I barely got beyond the toes because I knit too slowly and I had too many projects on the go already.

The whole making process is a great joy of mine. I am addicted to the authenticity of homemade items. Items where I have personally and lovingly selecting the materials and made by my own hand. There is something organic about the process as I see the beginnings of an item and I watch and feel it grow to completion. I’d just really love it a lot more if I could get through things much quicker.

I'd like to hear your thoughts so please comment and add to the conversation.

Back from The Craft Sessions

Women carrying baskets were everywhere at the retreat and I wasn't out of place for once.

I also couldn't help buying a few lovely items from the mini market. Clockwise from L: Home and Away pattern book by Hannah Fettig, Lilly Brush pill remover, Maze and Vale freeform patchwork kit by Leslie Keating and Recycled Harris Tweed project bag by Julia Billings of Woollenflower.

So, I got back from The Craft Sessions yesterday and I've got some big thoughts bouncing around in my head and I'm not sure if I am going to be able to coherently express them because I'm still processing. I guess I should start by saying how fantastic it was to be able to spend a whole weekend crafting in the beautiful setting of the Yarra Valley.

For those of you who are not familiar with The Craft Sessions it is basically a weekend craft retreat that is organised by Felicia Semple and her team. Felicia is known for her blog, also called The Craft Sessions and she is a passionate and creative maker and mother. And after this weekend I have come to think of her as the ultimate enabler because she is also passionate about giving others a space to create as well.

I first came across The Craft Sessions about a week before last year's retreat because I was hungry for a weekend of uninterrupted knitting. I had even ranted to a couple of friends about wanting to go on a "yarn weekend" where I could get heaps of knitting done and maybe even visit some interesting yarn and craft shops in regional Victoria. So, when The Craft Sessions came up in my internet searching I was so excited but though there were still openings for last year's retreat a week out from the event I couldn't possibly make it happen with a husband who works weekends and two young children to care for. 

Some of the gorgeous swag that we got in our lovely retreat bags.

I was determined to make it happen this year and though I had 12 months to plan for it I almost missed out again because I missed the sign up when registrations opened and this year's event sold out incredibly quickly. I signed up for the wait list and later when my friend Jenny of JCL Created Cuddles dropped out I think I got her spot at the retreat. I am eternally grateful for Jenny's spot.

Now, to actually talk about the weekend. I signed up for two day long workshops: natural dyeing on day one and hand weaving. I also wanted to all the knitting ones and though I barely know how to sew I really wanted to do the sew a kids wardrobe class too. Actually who am I kidding I wanted to do all of them because they all sounded great but my skills are limiting at this stage; I would have been a bit of a waste of space in things like the embroidery classes.

I fell in love with Belinda's basketful of naturally hand dyed yarn.

All my samples were dyed with Cootamundra Wattle leaves.

It was hard to capture all the samples that the four groups in the workshop created.

In the natural dyeing class we learnt how to extract dye from native Australian plants and how to dye yarn, linen and silk with those dyes. We did some cool experiments with adding different mordants post dyeing to change the colours of the original dyes. It was all a bit like "alchemy" which is what our teacher Belinda Evans likes to call it. She loves the term so much that she uses it as her creative business name/ identity. You can find her on instagram as 'iamalchemy' and her blog is also titled 'Alchemy'.

I had read a few things about dyeing since I started obsessing about yarn colours. I am interested in trying it out and now I feel a lot more confidence for it because Belinda was such a good teacher. It was so exciting to see how the dye was taken on differently by the different fibres and how they changed when different minerals or chemicals were added to the pot. We definitely had some pleasant surprises when we pulled out our bits and pieces.

On Sunday I took the weaving workshop that was also taught by Belinda. She again inspired all of us in the class with her "organic" approach to her creative process. The other exciting thing about her weaving is all the beautiful naturally dyed yarns that she has at her disposal. She generously supplied some of that beautiful yarn and there were a lot of "ooohs and aaahs" over the colours before we all settled down with our colour schemes. To my surprise Belinda really liked my colour choices. I have been really challenged with colour work lately and picking good colour combos seems like a massive puzzle to me. I think since realising Sir S's colour blindness I have been doubting my own colour perception because colour blindness is inherited through the maternal side of the family.

My palette of pretty naturally dyed colours.

I'm taking Belinda's weaving approach, being "organic" and letting the weaving flow without too much planning.

Overall the whole weekend was fantastic. It was so nice to be able to sit down with my knitting and knit uninterrupted for a solid block of time. I also really enjoyed meeting other crafters and oohing over their projects and their yarns. I had serious sweater envy all weekend and I desperately want to improve my sewing and stitching skills. I have also come away from the retreat with a whole lot more instagram crafters who I can stalk because crafters love looking at what other people are making and instragram enables that.

Finally, here on my humble little blog I want to publicly acknowledge what a fantastic job that Felicia and her team have done and I am so so so thankful to her for taking the initiative to create this retreat for crafters.

We are all creative

One of my latest finished objects: a second sunbonnet but in 0-3mo size.

"You must be very creative.", commented a playgroup mum this week while she was admiring Miss L's bonnet. This led to a conversation about making and crafting and creativity.

I told this mum that when I was little I never thought of myself as creative because I was a typical Asian nerd who just studied and my hobby would have been watching TV. Though my mum taught me to knit when I was about 10 years old all I ever managed to learn and all she had time to teach me was to knit garter stitch scarfs. With lack of motivation and no nice yarn to play with I lost interest in knitting after my first scarf was finished.

I remember when I was little I wasn't into craft and I didn't do much drawing in my spare time. Later at high school Art was the only subject that I got bad grades in. When my mum saw my report card and asked about the poor grade I told her, "I can't draw for crap."  End of story. I stopped trying to be creative after that.

During my teaching degree I ended up in this "Art" stream for one of the prerequisite subjects that I don't even recall the name of. The class was given a project to create an piece of work that would be displayed as a sort of exhibition at the end of the semester. The piece could be any medium and was to respond to the concept of 'assessment and reporting' in the Education world. I was distraught about being placed in this class and I was freaking out about having to make something for this exhibition. However, the teacher gave us this inspiring speech saying, "Everyone can create and it's just a matter of finding your own area of creativity."

After this conversation at playgroup I was thinking back to that teacher's comment and I realised that she was right in the end. Everyone does have the skills to create and each will create in their own way. I grew up putting creativity into the box with artistic talent and my journey has shown me that I was so wrong.

I believe in a creator God and I believe I was made in His image. As His creation I think I can share in His desire to create and God has also blessed us with His beautiful world to inspire us. Creating should be a natural desire in every human being and we do it every day without even knowing it. We create meals for ourselves and our family, we create memories with our time and we create and nurture little people and help them to be little creators too through our hugs and words of encouragement. 

So, I guess in the end I can admit that I am creative. I enjoy expressing it through knitting and that is one of the ways I am consciously creating. However, I now realise our lives are imbued with creativity and it's time for me to accept it and take joy in it.

Why yarn is not just wool.

When I speak to people about knitting I come across some common misconceptions about the craft and today's the post may be the start of a series that will explain some of the basic elements of knitting and crocheting.

To start with you may have noticed that I always speak about "yarn" rather than use the term "wool" to describe the material that I work with. The simple explanation for this is that wool only comes from sheep and it is only one of the kinds of fibre that a crafter can work with. Basically, anything that can be made into a fibre can be used to produce yarn for knitting and other crafts. Other types of common animal fibres that are spun to make yarn are alpaca fur, angora from rabbits and mohair and cashmere from goats. Beyond those more commonly known fibres there has also been a growing interest in spinning yarn from  animals such as camels, possums, llamas and even bison.

Debbie Bliss Como is a super bulky Merino Cashmere blend

Also, let's not narrow our thinking to just animal fibres. Yarns have also been made with plant fibres such as cotton, linen, hemp and bamboo. Silk is also a common component in yarns but as it is a protein based fibre that is excreted by the silkworm after consuming mulberry leaves doesn't quite fall into being an animal fibre nor a plant fibre.

Scientific advancements during the early 20th century also produced a number of synthetic fibres. Acrylic, Rayon, Microfiber and Nylon can be cheaper, more durable and often machine washable. When I was little and forced to wear an itchy jumper that my mum had knit with acrylic yarn I hated anything "woolen". To be honest I would still hate to wear anything that is knit with balls of 100% synthetic yarn, but, synthetics do have their merits. Because of it's durability a small percentage of it is often spun together with lusher fibres to give the yarn strength. If you're knitting socks it is common to find a sock yarn what has a small percentage of nylon to make those hard wearing items more durable. So, don't fear a yarn that has a little bit of synthetic in it, it can still be comfortable to wear against the skin if the bulk of the yarn is made of something else.

Shibui Sock yarn in Peony colourway

So, you might ask what is the softest yarn out there? Well, there is no easy answer to that. Other than personal preference making it an extremely subjective topic, there is also the complicated matter of how the fibre is produced or grown, how it is harvested or shorn, how it is processed into a fibre and how it is spun together. Even which animal it comes from plays a factor. For example, the fur of a lamb or baby alpaca is beautifully softer than older animals of their species.

Cephalopod Merino DK in Gallifrey colourway

What I like working with the most is merino wool. This wool is buttery soft, dyes up beautifully and though not cheap, it is worth it's price tag because it is easy to knit with and comfortable to wear against the skin.

Carefully reading yarn labels is an important thing when choosing yarns. I also highly recommend taking a close look at clothing labels before buying a mass produced knitted garment. 

If you want to understand yarn fibres a lot more a good book to read is 'The knitter's book of yarn' by Clara Parkes. I had it out from Camberwell Library over Christmas and learnt a lot about fibre from it.

Do you have a favourite yarn to work with? Do you stay away from wool because it itches? What experiences have you had with "woolen" garments? 

"Uh oh, now she's sewing too..."

Yep, that's right I've picked up sewing and finished my first project.

While recently researching on The Purl Bee blog for a cute baby knitting pattern I came across this super cute bonnet, but I had one problem, I'm a knitter not a sew-er. However, I just couldn't resist because I just love bonnets - I think it's the Jane Austen-ness about bonnets that draws me to them. 

To solve my problem of being only a novice on the sewing machine I did a call out on FB for some help and very kindly one of my friends stepped up. I would not have succeeded in making this bonnet without her invaluable help. Being part of my church community has blessed me with the opportunity to learn from the many experienced crafters in our midst. I have plans to join the craft group this year with hopes that I can learn more as well as get to know some of the lovely ladies at church better.

I felt so lucky when I found this piece of Liberty of London fabric in the remnants box at Tessuti. I've got enough of the remnant left over for a couple more bonnets, so that's definitely a great score.

This first time project is a little rough around the edges. I struggled to sew the seams straight particularly on the bias strips and the finishing hand sewn seam is very rudimentary but I still love how it has come together. 

When I finally convinced Miss L to put it on for me to take some photos I squealed with delight at the cuteness overload. The bonnet fits perfectly and she looks so cute with it on - though of course I may be biased.

Now that I've conquered my first sewing project I look forward to making more clothing for my kids in the future. Although I think the husband will truly soon be saying, "Uh Oh, now she's sewing too.", as he sees our home slowly being taken over by my crafting.

If you have suggestions for other easy to make sewing projects feel free to link to their patterns in a comment.