Tag Archives: cey

sequential

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i just wanted to knit.

something straight forward and nearly mindless,

in stockinette stitch and a stashed bulky weight yarn.IMG_1267+

but, the indian lake artisans needles that i wanted to use

were still in a hat that i’d started at vklive ny in january.

nothing, somedays it feels like

absolutely nothing, is a straight line in my life.

so, since the hat in classic elite yarns chateau was nearly done

i thought i’d just whip through the decreases lickety split

until i saw this:IMG_1266+

why didn’t i write down what i did as i went along?

huge designer no-no, unless you like to painstakingly stare at your knitting

trying to jump start your memory as you count

stitch by stitch to record what

 you think that you probably did when you were knitting it in the first place

and thought that you’d never forget – so why write it down?

deep sigh.

the thing is that it’s not that complicated of a hat,

i just didn’t want to take the time.

i wanted to be knitting with the richly red swan’s island bulky. IMG_0532+deep sigh again.

i did, for the record, figure out how i’d knit the chateau hat.

i wrote it all down and i finished the decreases.

it felt good

to have accomplished something

that i’m really happy with. i know that i’ll wear a lot in the fall.

patience is a virtue.  it’s true, especially when it doesn’t feel like it.

it’s probably most true then.

‘patience’ taken from 21:19 of luke.

some things about julia

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althoughFFC-8030_medium2

i had seen her work

here, there and everywhere,

i had never met julia until this year

when our paths crossed

as we both were working on

our new books

in collaboration with classic elite yarns.

you know those people who

always have

an interesting story to tell?

that’s julia.

and you know the ones whose infectious laughs

can fill a room with something that just wasn’t there

before they arrived? that’s her, too.

she’s also

a fabulous designer.

she has this way of throwing in a twist

that makes a pattern oh so much more than it would have been without her.

do you know what i mean?

i love patterns that teach me something new.

especially the ones where that ‘new’ is so cleverly done

that i’ve learned something before i even have time to be

concerned that maybe i won’t be able to master the technique.FFC-7676_medium2like how in the lanesville pullover she takes stripes,

then nonchalantly adds slipped stitches and i-cord,

so before you have time to trip over the idea of something new,

you’ve already done it and it looks great.

that’s clever.

julia’s mind works like that

because she’s clever in the very best kind of way.

‘from folly cove‘ is available in hardcopy form on-line at webs

and at local yarn stores just about everywhere.

use the code FFC10

on ravelry to get 10% off the individual pdfs

between now and this friday, the 6th of february.

leave a comment below for the chance to win a free copy of

FFC-8078_medium2the lanesville pullover pattern

before thursday the 5th,

and be sure to

check out

the other stops

on this blog tour

especially kristin nicolas’ blog

tomorrow afternoon.

pics courtesy of classic elite yarns.

‘paths’ taken from 3:17 of proverbs.

cey & i: blog tour, day ten

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i often have ideas

in the recesses of my head,

that i don’t have the means to make real.

either i don’t have the skills (yet), or the perfect yarn for the job doesn’t seem to exist (yet),

or (as was the case with the ‘tensity’ bags)

i need a little outside help.

my original sketches looked like this.

just at a glance you can see how much changed:

i replaced both the yarn and the colors,

and somewhere along the line i decided that the sling

was more rocker while the shoulder bag was more boho afterall.

IMG_2809urbafter searching all the nooks and crannies of the internet,

only to discover that the straps i had in mind

were available nowhere,

i got in touch with laura of jul designs.

i had worked with her closures before and so admired her pieces.

we decided that i would knit both bags and then

send them to her so she could design the handle kits

to fit perfectly.

the result

of our collaboration

is ‘tensity’, both as a sling sack

and as a more typically shaped shoulder bag.

one last little secret.  the two bags are knit identically

(except for the yarn colors).  they’re exactly the same.

this means if you invest in both sets of hardware,

you could be carrying it as a sling

or as a shoulder bag

to suit your

own mood at the time.

this would totally work for me,

as somedays i’m more ‘in your face’ rocker

and others i’m more ‘go with the flow’ bohemian.

check out the deal of the day and enter to win a free copy of the tensity pattern

over on the picnic knits blog today.

corrina also lets us in on

whether she’s more

rocker or

boho.

why don’t you check out her designs

and see if you can guess her style before you read it in her own words?

last blog tour stop tomorrow  stay tuned.

‘invest’ taken from 11: 1-5 of ecclesiastes.

cey & i: blog tour, day nine

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osci rockerboho collagefresco is a yarn

that has oh so much going for it.

wool makes it warm, alpaca makes it so soft,

and there’s just enough

mohair

in the mix

to give a warm glow sort of halo

to the projects knit up in it.

i, like lee meredith,

like options.

this particular hat has load of them.

i actually went ahead and knit myself a version with no pleats,

just extra room and comfortable slouch to spare.

that’s a go-to kind of hat for me.

today on the blog tour, lee’s blog ‘do stuff’ is up.

be sure to comment for a chance to win a free copy of ‘osci’

and while you’re there, check out her ingenuity and creative-vibe.

as far as things knitting related, but not knitting exactly,

i love the old album yarn bowls.

so much.

‘glows’ taken from 24:11 of ezekiel.

cey & i: blog tour, day eight

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check out the moth heaven blog

for today’s tour stop.

funny,

i hadn’t told julia

the inspiration behind

the front detail of forte, she figured it out on her own

and she was spot on.

fact is, that all the patterns in ‘artistic differences’

are named after musical terms or

sound related words.

‘forte’ is the only full word that i used, the others are all shortened.

this way the reference is in there, but the origin doesn’t hit you over the head.AD-6754_medium2

i like things that you have to think about a little.

can you tell just by looking,

what the other patterns

names are shortened forms of:

terva, trume, chroma, silve (this one is a bit of a stretch, i admit),

setto, imp, cade, osci (having to do with sound waves)

and last, but not least, tensity?

have fun guessing

and have a good day. we’ll talk tomorrow.

‘stretch’ taken from 9:8 of job.

photo courtesy of classic elite yarns.

cey & i: blog tour, day seven

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oh, how i have longed for

a quiet space to be alone with the music in my head.

especially on a show night, there is no room to think.

i never did have the advantage of a fire escape to retreat to,

but i would have loved it out there.

the sounds of the city, the night’s lights, a slight breeze,7160intand ‘cade’ at my neck to pull up as a snood if the breeze turned stiff.

today for the blog tour, ruth (of rock + purl)

is featuring this cowl and taking comments for a giveaway.

…back to the fire escape of my dreams.

this particular fire escape

didn’t have quite the romance of the daydream.

to get this shot, we walked up to the sidewalk

(club passim is one level underground)

around the block to door # 26,

up three flights of stairs to the offices,

out the french doors of the conference room onto the fire escape itself,

and then two and a half flights down the actual fire escape

on the outside of the building.

i say ‘we’ because lindsay and i were up there together.

i’m just outside the camera’s lens to the left.

this is one of my favorite shots of the day.

it’s easy for me to look at her in my boots and my skirt,

playing my guitar in a cowl i knit

and feel like i was

really there.

but then again, i was.

‘think’ from 18:12 of matthew.

photo courtesy of classic elite yarns.

cey & i: blog tour, day six

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i love clogs.

i have for awhile now.

the weight of the shoe itself makes me feel substantial,

a force to be reckoned with.

another, more crazy, truth is that i am only recently

discovering the joy of wearing hand knit socks.

not sure what took me so longIMG_8333bt

(perhaps a lasting bout

of second sock syndrome)

but now i’m all in.

with hand knit socks in the drawers,

i wanted to pair them with clogs and slides.

alas, heels are functional

and not often the pretty part of the sock.

since what i wanted didn’t match up with what i found,

IMG_8326bti set out to fill the gap.

garter stitch runs

from the cuff

through the heel flap

with a back center column

of paired knit stitches.

these are

the rocker version of imp.

for contrast,

the remainder of the sock

is straight up stockinette.

its opposite is the boho version:

mainly reverse stockinette stitch with a column of garter stitch

dividing two wide vertical stripes of stockinette stitch up the back.

imp boho side and heeled heelmy friend lindsay pointed out

how all that reverse stockinette stitch gives these socks

a sort of ‘princess sole’.

all i know is that they feel good this way,

and that’s what i wanted.

the imp socks are featured today

on the blog of my favorite local yarn shop, ‘in the loop’.

if i could give you anything knit related, i’d give you a lys as supportive as they are.

‘princess’ taken from 45:13 in the psalms.

cey & i: blog tour, day five

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imagine with me for a moment.

it’s 2am.

you had dinner

before sound check began,

which means you haven’t eaten for at least 8 hours,

but it’s 2am.

did i mention that it’s cold out?  yup, it is.

it’s making the cold backstage

before the show seem7365bt

like a better place

to be.

so,

the best

nearby spot

for good food

is chinese.

thing is,

you have to

stand outside to eat.

nothing personal,

it’s a takeout window

and everyone

enjoying the dumplings and crab rangoon at 2am is

standing outside in the cold with you.

6674btnow,

you have to eat.

you will never sleep well,

as hungry as you are,

without food

in your belly

and nothing

sounds

nearly as good

as piping hot

chinese food

in this very moment.

i didn’t have a sweater

like setto at the time.

if i had, i would have brought it to every cold weather gig.

the squishy cables would have stretched over whatever else i had worn onstage

and the cozy neck would have made my neck feel, well, cozy.

the cables stretch and hug

fitting your particular curves to a ‘t’,

both before, and after, all that chinese food…yum.

head on over to mari chiba’s blog today.  be sure to leave a comment

because you could win your own copy of the pattern for setto

from my book ‘artistic differences’.

tomorrow is another day,

with another tour stop.  you know i’ll have all the info

right over here

just waiting for you.

‘food’ taken from 17:4 of first kings.

both photos courtesy of classic elite yarns.

cey & i: blog tour, day 4

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it is a given, that the area ‘backstage’

pretty much any backstage

at nearly every venue anywhere is

going to feel somewhere between cold and not at all warm.

‘on stage’, however,

at the exact same club,

is going to be “wow, it’s getting really hot and the temp is rising”.

you’ve got lights (lots of ’em), the warm generated

by multiple pieces of electric amplifying equipment,

and the body heat of the crowd.

for me, the silve mitts

are at least a partial answer to this phenomenon.7347btthese fingerless gloves are fitted.

i like things to fit snug on my wrists

and guitar playing would be impossible with any positive ease.

the yarn is classic elite’s mountain top vail,

which is a sweet, luxurious mixture of

the ‘ooh so soft’ of baby alpaca

and the sheen of bamboo.

this makes them

just right for warding off the backstage (or early morning) chill,

while fine enough to fit in your back pocket (or jacket pocket)

when things start to warm up.7365bt

for today only,

buy the pattern

through ravelry,

and you’ll automatically

get 10% off in your cart

(no code required).

be sure to check back

tomorrow

and i’ll direct you

to the next stop

on this blog tour

for ‘artistic differences‘.

while it is still called today, hop on over and read the knitter’s pride blog tour post.

at this very moment in time i am so very

ready to start packing for vklive next weekend in nyc.

‘warm’ taken from 2:16 of james.

photos courtesy of classic elite yarns.

cey & i: blog tour day 3

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when i design,

i live with the pieces.

they spend time with me on the couch,

at the kitchen island, shrouding the to-do list on my desk.

since i was being really particular about the fit of chroma,

it spend a lot of time

in pieces

on the dress form, which i moved room to room.

the kids are so used to this kind of behavior from me

that they hardly notice anymore,IMG_6567 3but it struck me as i took this quick shot one summer afternoon

(as my son and his friend from down the street were building)

that my working form,

clothed in a bias cut dress and the dark teal rocker shrug,

does not do a good job of blending into the background

of the front hallway.

c’est la vie.

today for day 3 of the tour,

check out tabetha hedrick’s blog as she features this shrug

(and just so you know for in the future

tabetha’s always got gorgeous photos of knit things up

for ooh-ing and ahh-ing over).

‘summer’ taken from 26:1-2 of proverbs.