Finished Objects, Musical and Knitterly.

February is shaping up to be just as busy as January, but I was afforded a weekend off of work so we could all rest up from Vogue Knitting Live. Next week we ship 30 large boxes of yarn out to Santa Clara, CA, for Stitches West, and we start packing today.

On to finished objects and recent events:

February Lady DONE! Finished it the morning of the first official day of VKL.

 

A version of Kate in bulky wool, finished in time for my room mate's birthday party.

Other items that will have to be photographed later because they are at work, include: Lanesplitter, a cute skirt found at knitty.com; a shapeless ultra-comfy over-sized sweater knit on the bias that has yet to be named or made into a pattern; and a brioche rib scarf for my dad, a late Christmas gift (not at work, but I'm done taking photos today).

And...another finished object...

 Our friends' label, Burst & Bloom Records, is putting out four seasonal compilations this year, the first of which is currently being released. It's called "Seasonal Disorder: Winter", and if you visit the bandcamp site for this compilation, you can stream the tracks, as well as download the whole shebang for $5. If you prefer your albums in CD format, you'll be able to purchase a physical copy very very soon. Our track is the last one, called "The Big Hill". Upon listening to the song, all you knitters out there may hear a sound you recognize on the recording...

The amazing artwork and cover design is by Michael Winters.

 

This bundle of fun is what I've done so far on my Master Hand Knitter (Level 1) course. I cranked these babies out over the weekend, 8 out of the 16 swatches I'm to knit, block, and answer questions about. Then I'll be making the hat and writing up the blocking report, for which I've already done quite a bit of research. I may have to redo the last one, since I recently discovered that in a SKP, one should slip the first stitch knitwise, which I failed to do.


This weekend was crazy between shows, guests, and rehearsals...Friday morning, we had a mini-rehearsal with Audrey Ryan to prepare for her CD release show at the Nave Gallery in Somerville. South China, Brown Bird, and Cuddle Magic will open the show, and then we'll all join together to become her 10-piece backing band. We had fun playing through all the songs, quickly before I had to be at work! That night, we went to the Oak and the Ax in Biddeford to see Brown Bird, Skeleton Breath, and Brian Carpenter and the Confessions (members of Beat Circus). A packed and fun show. On Saturday, we had a South China show also at the Oak and the Ax, with Jakob Battick and Friends, and Gem Club. It was an amazing show: slow, gorgeous music served up by super nice and talented folks. We did our first live performance of "The Big Hill" (see "Seasonal Disorder: Winter" above...) and a new guitar/cello version of our song "Escape", from our album Washingtons (2009). It was a great time. On Sunday, we headed back into Biddeford for a third time, to rehearse with high school students from Coastal Tech Percussion at City Theater. This coming Thursday, February 3rd, we'll be the musical guest at a Poetry Out Loud event. These drummers will back us up on our first song, "Sun Sets on Washington Ave". Never sure how teenagers are going to react to anything, they seemed totally into it and blew us away with their ability to do exactly what was needed in the song without much direction from us.

After all that...we went home and I took the hardest nap I've taken in a very long time.

And...trying to catch up.

Well, I clearly need to keep on top of taking pictures. I was working so crazy hard at Vogue Knitting Live that I took not a one. It was a great time, though. I stood but a few feet away from Ysolda Teague, who designed Urchin (the super cute hat I made both for myself and for my sister for Christmas). The Yarn Harlot, my favorite knitting blogger and Canadian, walked right by me! I was trying to help people buy yarn and had to fight the urge to push them aside to introduce and make an idiot of myself. Also, on Sunday, my co-worker and I met Teva Durham, who has a new book coming out in May. So exciting. Can't wait for Stitches West!

Perhaps by now it's clear that I work for a yarn company. It is a small mother-daughter operation based here in Portland, called Tess' Designer Yarns. All the yarns are hand-dyed by one person, and if you've ever stepped into the retail store on Spring Street, you know just how amazing that is. There is so much yarn packed into that little space that it's almost hard to move around. No formulas are used, so each batch of yarn is totally unique. The retail shop is open on a semi-regular basis due to the number of trade shows they participate in.

I started with Tess' Yarns just as a sample knitter, and got my first assignment just as we were about to ship out for a stint of house- and cat-sitting in Raleigh, NC, this past August. When we came back just after Labor Day, I was asked to sit in at the shop on Saturdays, which worked out perfectly. Saturdays turned into Saturdays and Sundays, then Fridays were added, then Wednesday, and now, nearly 6 months later, I'm traveling with them to trade shows, doing a ton of sample knitting, learning about the fiber industry, and getting to meet some of my favorite designers. In short, I am working at my dream job.

Also, I'm getting way better and faster at knitting.

I have some finished objects to show off, but as usual, I have a fire under my butt to complete something today, so I'll have to post the photos tomorrow.

Another quickie, sans photos

Well, I'll be headed back up to Maine today from CT, where we had a bridal shower for my sister. Hence all the baking. Unfortunately, I came down with a stomach flu on the ride down, and couldn't finish preparations on the food OR eat any of it! I did rally yesterday and actually made it to the shower, which was a great time. Photos are hopefully forthcoming. Got into bed as soon as we got home. I found "Coal Miner's Daughter" on the TV Guide channel, which I hadn't seen before. Ah, if only you could just drive around visiting radio stations you've sent your album to and see if they're actually playing it. Just show up at the Grand Old Opry and get invited up on stage. Things seem a bit more complicated these days.

On Friday I went to see "Blood Wedding" at SPACE Gallery, which was directed by the lovely Tess Van Horn. My friend and band mate Aren Sprinkle was the music director, and she composed a gorgeous original score. Many good friends we play music with helped write the music and performed in the pit ensemble, and they sounded wonderful. Everything about the play was great. The musicians made a recording of the score, and as of yesterday there were still a few CDs left. The recording is also available as a digital download and here's the link:
http://teafirstrecords.blogspot.com

Since I've been sick, there hasn't been much knitting going on. I'd do a row, fall asleep, do another half a row, fall asleep, etc. Too bad because I have two projects in the works for this weekend's trade show AND I still have just the cuff of the February Lady sleeve left to do before it's ready to be finished and blocked. Bad time to be ill. Perhaps it's a sign that I put too much on my plate this weekend...

Anyway, hope to have some knitting photos tomorrow.

The snow's over, now here comes the storm...

Just a quickie today. After 3 rounds of Scrabble, lots of shoveling and vacuuming up pine needles, watching a movie with subtitles, there's not much more to report on my current crafty projects. And...for reasons that I can not reveal at the moment, I am going to be doing some crazy baking and traveling, plus some songwriting and work-related knitting over the next few days. So...hopefully I'll be able to keep my head above water. Also hopefully I'll keep remembering to take photos to share.

Snow Day

The snow (mostly from plowing I guess) is now over the rims of our tires. Jeremy and I are the only ones of our household that have to park our vehicle on the street...So we must buck up, dig out, and find a place to park somewhere else so that the city can "clean" our street.

Well last night we had craft night at our house--a small and mighty group with which to share a meal and some inspiration. One of our group had brought balsam branches to strip the needles from for sachets that she makes. This is but one of her many beautiful projects (visit lillianka.etsy.com to check them out). We will be disposing of our Christmas tree this Friday, so we offered it up to her venture. It's been very entertaining to see the tree kind of get eaten up before our very eyes, and of course now there are pine needles EVERYWHERE...

Today our tree continues to be stripped as Lillian is staying with us through the storm. We've already had one rousing game of Scrabble and plan another after we've digested our lunches. Obviously, I did not get called into work today. Last night I finished one sleeve of February Lady and got a couple of inches in on the other one. At the end of the night, I could no longer keep away from starting a cross-stitch project from this super cool (and old) book I got out of the library. That is what I worked on this morning at breakfast and throughout round one of Scrabble:

 

Clearly, the one on the left is mine, and the one on the left is a photo of what it will look like when it's done.

Well gotta run, round two of Scrabble is in effect.

Tuesday morning

This weekend was a busy and fun-filled weekend for sure. Friday night we went down to Newburyport for our room mate's paper cutting exhibit at the Carry Out Cafe. Jeremy and I were the entertainment, so we played our little hearts out for the crowd happily mingling and eating the superbly delicious food that Carry Out had made for the event. Here are some pictures of the show:

 Dylan has a new website for his work: Dylan Metrano Papercutting

 Much of his work is done out on Monhegan Island, where he spends his summers.

 Our set-up--Paula, the owner, gave us the chalkboard to advertise ourselves. Didn't we do a good job?

 The man of the hour, the artist himself, on the far right, avoiding the camera.

Delicious and artfully presented dainties provided by the Carry Out Cafe.

On Saturday, after 4 hours of sitting on the couch at work, knitting furiously to finish a sweater for Vogue Knitting Live, Jeremy and I headed over to SPACE Gallery to load in and await our sound check. We had some time to kill, and this is never a problem. I just sat there and worked on February Lady. Peter, our sound guy for the evening, was playing some lovely music on his iPod--I See the Sign, by Sam Amidon. I get overwhelmed pretty easily when searching for new music and just let it come to me in the form of friends and acquaintances saying, "Here, listen to this." 

Anyway, the show went well. We are still working with our new set-up to find the best way to do everything, so that we get a big sound on stage for ourselves and the audience gets a big sound in the house, and everyone avoids feedback. Megan Jo Wilson played, and Sara Cox--two ladies we've never shared a stage with before (except Sara, but that was with Brown Bird), and everything was great. Sara's new songs from her upcoming album are so good!! We had only seen Megan sing in other bands, so it was cool to see her perform her own songs. And...just before we went up on stage for our set...I cast off the bottom of February Lady!

This is not really a good photo of me OR the sweater, but don't I look cool in front of the wall? It's part of the show that just went up at SPACE Gallery, check it out because it is gorgeously math-y.

Well now, I must really talk about February Lady. On Sunday, I went out and bought some US 7 dpns for the sleeves. I chose dpns over 12" circular needles because I wouldn't choose the latter for things like gloves, and decided the dpns would be more versatile. I was thinking of my needle collection as a whole. Furthermore, I chose bamboo dpns, because the metal ones slip off easily and make a lot of noise. The drawback is, when using dpns, and WOODEN dpns at that, the knitting goes very slowly. So, I thought I might be done with the sweater by now, but it was not meant to be. I still think I'll get it done before Vogue Knitting Live, but I can not claim to be a fast sweater knitter. Yet.

Another reason why February Lady is not done? Well, I do have other projects. I'm working on a pair of seed-stitch fingerless gloves and a hat for a friend, and I am also trying to fit in some swatches for my Master Hand Knitter Course. So there. Tonight is craft night at my house!!!! Can't wait.

Chowder Day

This morning I knitted on the February Lady Sweater and took another photo:

 Then I started making corn chowder. I'm no vegetarian, so there's some tasty bacon in this batch. The Joy of Cooking asks for the cobs to be submerged in the milk to grab some of that corny sweetness...but since I'm using frozen corn I will not be doing that. Furthermore, I have lots of carrots I need to use up, so I've grated one and have thrown it into the pot. Perhaps the sweetness of the carrot will make up for my lack of cobs. We'll see.

I (actually, my husband did) named this blog Bow and Bind, because someone already snagged Sticks and Strings as well as Stick and String, which as a knitter AND a cellist, aptly describes my greatest passions. Well, bow is obvious, and bind is listed as a synonym for knit. I thought it fit because I also do other needle arts and have been known to make blank journals out of old covers and repair books.
My husband is the slower, more deliberate one, and as he was helping me to come up with alternatives to Sticks and Strings, as soon as he blurted out Bow and Bind, I was already entering it as my blog name. The way we came up with our band name, South China, is similar. If I did other things as arbitrarily as I name things (and dress myself) I would be in some seriously dire straits.

There we are.

Happy new year. I've been writing in a journal since I got my first diary in fourth grade. I love, love, love writing. However, now that I'm practically in my mid-30s, I feel as though I don't want to just be talking to myself. Somehow I believe that talking about my projects where folks can read and respond to what I'm saying will hold me to a new standard of getting things done, of staying the course. Will it work?

OK. Today, I am knitting on the February Lady Sweater, which I've coveted ever since I saw the Yarn Harlot make one out of her very own hand-spun and -dyed wool, clever lady. My baby sister (not a baby actually, she's in her first year at UNH) gave me a copy of the commemorative edition of EZ's Knitter's Almanac for Christmas, and I was delighted to find not only an introduction written by my favorite knitting blogger, but also the February Lady Sweater pattern in the back of the book.

I had to wait for four agonizing days before going back to work at the shop so I could pick out the perfect color for this project. Though I have a "summer" complexion, I picked forest green. My goal is to finish it in time to wear it at Vogue Knitting Live in just two weeks. Wow. I have a bridal shower to cook for and two shows between now and then...and some other projects for friends...I'd better go.

But not without leaving you with some sense of where I'm at with the sweater:

Starting slowly in 2011. Because blogger is not letting me write a post.