cey & i: worth mentioning

this sort of thing is simply not done.

large yarn companies do not put their weight and resources

behind indie designers while simultaneously

giving those indies the freedom to express themselves through ‘doing their own thing’.

1101540778ArtisticDifferences-cover-dbi should say ‘it hadn’t been done’, but it has now.

classic elite yarns did just that,

took the path not taken,

in collaboration with both julia farwell-clay and myself.

now, you can call it what you want,

but588940896FromFollyCove-cover-db

in a day and age when ‘branding’ is king,

for a well established company

to go that far outside

their own comfort zone stylistically

is brave, and groundbreaking,

and maybe even a little bit fierce

(i mean ‘fierce’ here in the best possible sense).

so when you see ‘artistic differences‘ and ‘from folly cove

some afternoon (at tnna, vklive ny, or your lys)

let your mind consider for just a minute that it took

two designers and

a whole lot effort from a supportive yarn company

(run by a team of powerfully creative women)

to take these ideas from possibility to becoming real.

if that doesn’t make you smile,

a big old unexpected in the middle of an average day kind of smile,

in the midst of the dog eat dog kind of world that business tends to be,

i don’t know what will.

‘path’ taken from22:37 of 2nd samuel.

cey & i: variations

we are all different.

that’s the way it’s supposed to be.

a world of clones would be boring at best and dysfunctional at worst.

knitters are a good example of this.

no matter how much

i like a designer’s version of a pattern,

it’s inevitable that someone will make modifications

(lovingly called mods)

and the piece will take on a whole new personality;

a fresh life of its own.

in ‘artistic differences‘ i wanted to expand on that.

setting aside a knitter’s skills (which can be many),

how does a person’s personality affect their choices in knitting?

7272cropand does the end result ‘look’

more like them than

the designer’s

version

did ?

when an existing song

gets dolled up a bit

by a new band,

we label it ‘a cover’.

when the original artist

reworks the tune

it’s labeled ‘a remix’.

you seldom see remixes

by knitwear designers.

instead,

we decide what a thing will be

and then do our best to present it in that light.

maybe it’s my musical background showing, but i’ve always loved

the contrast of the textural similarities and differences

between song remixes and the originals.

the group of patterns in

artistic differences is my version of ‘knitting remixes’.

 i took two parts of who i am,

a little bit boho and another little bit rock & roll,

and allowed each pattern in the book to reflect those two sensibilities

(just for extra fun, there’s a third mod written in for each pattern as well).

here’s a band i love doing a musical thing that’s similar

with their song ‘gang of rhythm’

(be sure to check out their ‘powerful’ version

which starts in all its rock and roll vibe-ness at the 7:22 mark).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=p3MeWfYG-UI

now that you’ve heard it done musically,

check out the book to see me doing it knit-wise.

then the question becomes this:

what is it that makes you different?

and how in the world are you gonna knit that?

needles at the ready and

thinking caps on…

‘fresh’ taken from 92:14 in the psalms.

cey & i: so very close

this is

about as scary

as knitting gets for me

(if we don’t throw steeking into the equation,

but that is another story for a different day):

will there be enough yarn to finish?

IMG_4975sati almost never cut it close.

unlike my friend (and fellow contestant in ‘the fiber factor’), tracy

who if i remember right was left with only inches of yarn

remaining at the end of two different challenges.

i would have sweat myself into

a little puddle of goo.

i’m the knittah who buys an extra skein (or two)

over what the pattern calls for just to be exceedingly sure

that i could not possibly run out.

but, two nights ago

as i was working on one of the patterns

for my upcoming indie collection with classic elite yarns

i cut it close.  real close.  too close.

IMG_4977satfor the last 18 rounds my head spun

searching for options of what i might do if, or more likely when,

i ran clean out of yarn.

when i tied off the final stitches

with a whopping 98″ left,

i felt a little silly.

i mean over 2 yds remaining isn’t really cutting it that close, right?

i tried telling that to the butterflies in my stomach

and to the weak in the knees feeling between my ankles and my hip bones,

but they were having none of it.

irregardless, this piece is done and i’m moving

full steam ahead into the next new design

 which i’ll be sure to have just

one extra skein for.

smile.

‘enough’ taken from 36:7 in exodus.

(this is an ongoing series of posts chronicling

the process of my yet to be released collaboration with classic elite yarns.

to search, all post titles will include ‘cey & i:‘ and be tagged with ‘artistic differences‘.)