Around The Traps #3 - Recycling Yarn

I spoke yesterday on Stash Less about how restrictions can make some projects sing. So today I thought I could post you to some inspiration around the same topic.

People using recycled yarn.

Grid Junky - Jerome Sevilla who is a super inspiring maker who I came across on etsy (I think?) some time ago. He exclusively uses recycled yarn for his projects and his knitting is gorgeous. He shows his process to harvest yarn on Tumblr. He documents his projects in a really inspiring and helpful way. Jerome's designs have a really unique feel to them which he talks about a little bit in last week's brand new Woolful podcast (which you should really have a listen too!) this week and was so interesting. 

The Better Sweater project - although this isn't updated that often, I love the outcomes of this project. I'm really hoping she continues to document her process as I find her garments so wearable. It makes me want to not be so lazy and go yarn harvesting.  

Here is a post about the How To Recycle Yarn and a second How To Recycle Yarn post and a third.

And after you have listened to last week's Woolful podcast you should have a listen to Jules of Woollen Flower, who is one of our super special teachers at The Craft Sessions (and Jacqui Fink of Little Dandelion) in this weeks episode. I haven't heard it yet - it will have to wait until tomorrow as it is ridiculous o'clock - but I can't wait. 

Felicia x

Stash Less - Why restrictions rock!

The series where we talk about having a thoughtful stash.

There is this art theory that goes something along the lines that creativity can be enhanced by actually giving yourself or your project a set of restrictions or rules.

(To read more about this idea: Why placing limitations on yourself is the key to creativity.)

And although this isn't the purpose of Stash Less, in many ways that is what it is. A set of restrictions that I am growing to totally love. Last week I talked about some of the negatives, some of the realisations. This week I want to share one of the enormous benefits. And that is that I am looking at what I have with totally fresh eyes. 

Reading Tom of Hollands blog last week I had a "ping" moment when I read the words of Felicity Ford in this blog post. She said

“when developing guidelines for a creative process there is usually some tension around rules. Rules can be extremely helpful and supportive, offering a framework for creativity or a set of criteria to which a brief can be fitted; but they can also sometimes seem restrictive. This tension between rules and openness was important to explore……….”

— http://tomofholland.com/2014/11/28/knitsonik-blogtour-pt2/

In my crafting past I haven't had that many restrictions. I find a project and pick some materials. If I don't have what I need, I reassess or I purchase it. Restrictions aren't something I have thought about much, and as a consequence I have generally played it safe and not taken risks. 

This passage from Felicity lead me to think of all the projects I have come up with as a result of stash less. And what is interesting to me is that these ideas have come about because of Stash Less, rather than in spite of. Because of Stash Less I am looking around my existing stash to see what I can come up with that will make my heart sing.

To explain what I mean I'm going to list you a couple just to get your juices going. There are many more. 

1. The silver kid sweater. 

Among my stash I have found about 250g of 5ply in different silvers. There is a single ball of Jo Sharp Alpaca Silk Georgette, a single ball of Milla Mia, a single ball of Debbie Bliss Cashmerino and about 1.5 balls of Blue Sky Metallico. I also have a smidge of Blue Sky Sport Weight. All of these could be knit at a gauge of between 22 and 25 stitches. Without Stash Less I wouldn't have gone through my stash with such a critical eye and I would have used these one by one for small projects like for hats. Instead I have been figuring out how to best combine them for my almost 7yr old. 250g of 5ply is enough for a whole cardy. 

So what am I thinking of making? I'm thinking a top-down pattern so I can knit until I run out of yarn. Body first and sleeves second so that I can 3/4 the sleeves if I need to.

The questions yet to be answered are;
a. Do I use another colour with all the silver - either to use as a break between the transitions from one silver to another, or as an accent, or just to get full length sleeves in case I run out of silver. I have yellow, or charcoal or duck egg in stash….
b. Do I colour block the cardy with the silvers, or because they are so similar will that look stupid. Do I do a four row, four row, four row thing where I switch randomly. Do I include a textured stripe to transition between colours - like a garter stripe or maybe some moss…..

This project is fun and will be ace. I just know it. Requires a little more thought. And I have to wait until Xmas craft is over to begin.

2. The quilt.

I have started making my first king sized quilt. About 230 x 230cm. It's big which feels a little scary because what if I screw it up. That is a lot of fabric. Without Stash Less I would have been tempted to stay safe and use the dirty blue with the hatched cotton (like what you see in my mock up). And it would have been boring. BORING and safe!! Instead because I didn't have enough of the dirty blue, I had to use some denim along with the dirty blue, and I am so very very happy I did. You should see how pretty it is. I would show you but sadly I have had to put it down for a moment to get onto Christmas and birthday crafting. So I will show you in the New Year when I have basted it. Until then there is a small picture on instagram. 

3. Frocks. 

This is not one project but many. As I mentioned in a previous post I don't use scraps. A terribly wasteful fact I am not proud of. I don't use them because I haven't had to, because there is other pretty stuff in the cupboard. I want to change this and this dress on pinterest is part of my obsession with this idea. I see myself creating so many versions of this as a combination of yardage from my stash and my scrap basket. I feel like I will learn so much from trying this idea out; I will be practicing colour choice and bravery all at once. I see grownup frocks and kid frocks and shirts and tanks. I'm excited and I love the fact that this is not the easy option.

Also inspiring along the same lines are this and this and this and this.

So the point I want to make is that without this restriction I would choose safe over tricky. Safe to make sure I got something I like and didn't waste the materials by mucking it up. But safety doesn't necessarily achieve projects that sing. There is more risk in all of these three options. All of them could fail. All of them could look rubbish. But I have the feeling that all of them will sing louder and much prouder than if I chose the safe option. 

I'd love to hear about your projects that fit into this category. Do you ever restrict yourself creatively? 

Felicia x

Previously Stash Less: A Realisation!

I made this - Elizabeth Barnett

I Made This is a weekly blog series that features makers from around the world and aims to talk about the things we are proud of; of the objects we make that have meaning to us and the journey we take to make them.

This week's I Made This is by the amazing Elizabeth Barnett - a visual artist and maker from Melbourne who I met randomly many years ago at a sewing class. When we met she was making these beautiful textile collages - some of which you can see on her website. Normally I include the person's logo (if they have one) below - but I really wanted to include one of her paintings - just to give you a taste of her work. 

I made this Lisa dress from a pattern that I bought at Tessuti fabrics in Melbourne on the Cup weekend recently. Bel aka dyeingtrade (who I met at the Craft Sessions in September!) and I have been talking a lot recently about planning our summer wardrobes and so when I saw this pattern I was pretty sure it would be the centerpiece of my summer wardrobe. Bel and I met up on the weekend and madly sewed our dresses (Bel made the wiksten tank but as a longer dress version).

I bought the fabric at Treehouse Textiles in Mornington and the mother of pearl buttons are vintage ones from the beautiful L’uccello in the Nicholas Building. I spent quite a bit on these items but I am glad I did because I now have a dress that I love every element of and will wear often, rather than a garment that I sort of like but it isn’t quite right and I have a pattern that I will definitely use again and again. (and in light of Felicia's recent post on Materials... it confirms that one should use good materials that you know you will love to wear)

I had seen the pattern on pinterest and it instantly reminded me of a dress that I used to own that no longer fits me after I had my baby last year. I thought, YES! I can recreate the dress to my own shape and size in a fabric of my choosing. I like the way it is floaty and light for summer wearing.

I went through my stash to see if I could make this dress out of something I already had but none of the fabrics that I have were big enough (as the pattern required about 2m of fabric) so I decided to buy something new (going against the stash-less ideas that Felicia has been posting about recently and which has really got me thinking) But this project was special and I don’t have a huge fabric stash in large pieces so I felt justified in buying the Nani Iro fabric which I totally adore.

I am a pretty confident sewer these days after years of hacking away and fudging garments together. I have always been a maker/crafter (Craft has always been a part of my family) but my finishing of garments had always left me feeling unsatisfied with the things I made and they always ended up falling apart or I hated how “handmade” and dodgy they looked. I did a class a few years ago (where I first met Felicia actually!) at Amitie textiles when it was in Bentleigh. Our teacher Gwen has years of experience and she taught me things that I will never forget! Eg. button holes, hemming, inserting a zip, setting a sleeve, and the importance of pinning and tacking! These classes have been invaluable and have taught me not to hack at fabric or brazenly sew without pinning (which has its place for some projects but in most cases for me would end up in me unpicking and ruining beautiful pieces of fabric).

When I looked at the pattern I wasn’t that keen on putting in all the fabric stiffner and the shops weren’t open on the Sunday to get some so instead I did without and I decided to add a full lining for the bodice of the dress (with some leftover fabric from one of Mum’s quilting projects). I am really pleased I did as the Nani Iro fabric is really sheer and I am not that keen on see through garments for myself! I love the bias binding that finishes the neck and sleeves and helps them to sit nicely. I had never done that technique before but it worked amazingly and I starting thinking about other patterns that I could alter to achieve that look. I could even make different fabric bias bindings from my stashed fabrics for a nice bit of interest on the garment…. the possibilities!

I LOVE this dress and have not really taken it off since I made it. I will definitely the pattern again and maybe even in two fabrics, one for the top and one of the skirt (perhaps something in my stash will work for this).

In pursuit of stillness…..(or not?)

I was out with some lovely crafty women on Friday night for dinner, and one of the topics we covered was whether or not crafting makes you less able to sit with stillness. As I get older I become more and more convinced that ideas around stillness, have real relevance and usefulness in my pursuit of the most happy and content life I can have. Another of those ideas is of course mindfulness. And then there is the usefulness of meditation. For the purposes of this post I am kind of rolling them all into one. 

A few years ago I was on a train into the city and I clearly remember seeing that it was going to be a 22minute train ride. Once on the train I realised that I didn't have a single thing to do. No knitting. Of any kind. No paper, no book. I wasn't yet on instagram, and there wasn't even any advertisements to read in the carriage. I felt a small amount of panic. Actually the amount of panic I felt wasn't really small. It was kind of big and kind of shocking. And I felt a little bit horrified to realise just how unsettled I had let myself get. So unsettled that the idea of 22minutes of sitting on a train looking out the window made me feel stressed. I decided in that moment it wasn't that healthy, and booked myself into my first basic meditation course. After that I began to think about some of these concepts regularly. And  after my meditation course, I've have found a way to incorporate simple small moments of mindfulness into my days as a way of making me a better parent and better human. Super useful.

Lately however, I have noticed that small moments are not enough, and the hypothesis suggested to me on Friday is that my making is making it worse.  While I am incredibly grateful for the role a creative outlet has played on my general mental health and well-being during the intensity of early parenting, life has started to feel a little chaotic. I've been thinking about it since Friday's conversation and I think I might agree with my friend. I'm laying much of the blame squarely on my craft. 

These days when I sit down for a cup of tea I don't want to "waste" the time so I sit down like this. Materials or a project and a book and a tea and a notebook and a …. You get the picture. I sit down with a cacophony of ideas, possibilities, futures, fun. I sit down with the buzz of creativity. 

There is no stillness. 

The increase in my making over the last ten years has created a time pressure that I didn't have in my pre-craft life. As well conducting normal daily life with three kids, I'm trying to fit making in. As making is one of my great joys in life then I find I desire to do more and more of it. Which means multitasking wherever possible. I don't sit in the car or at the school gate or in the park, without a project. If I am knitting on a couch then I may also be blog surfing or listening to a podcast. I sometimes sew a dress with the background of a movie on my computer. Multitasking while crafting has become a bit of an art form.

So yes - making in my household isn't always the calm picture one might expect. Not all the time but a fair bit….

Of course, the thing that goes missing in this situation is clarity. Without stillness through meditation or yoga or something, there isn't the space to sort your thoughts and prioritise what is meaningful. The ideas come one on top of each other without the clarity created through the not-thinking of stillness. I recognise that maybe I need to look for stillness in other places and at other times, but I am finding that I almost don't want to. The time poverty of early parenting* means that I resist the idea of finding stillness knowing that the opportunity cost of stillness is less making. 

Part of this thought process for me includes the acceptance of the type of brain I have. I have an "ideas" brain, a "get it done" kinda brain that means that the stillness achieved by others may not necessarily be as achievable or even desirable for me. I am not a calm fella. I am an excitable fella and I'm totally OK with that as it has other benefits, like that I make a lot of stuff. Other personality types might not find it so hard to accept there isn't time to make every little thing they dream up. They might not engage in so much dreaming? …..

There is a way forward. I know that finding space for stillness somewhere in my life means life is better, for me and the rest of my family. Getting back to some kind of semi regular yoga practice and running regularly works well even if it isn't technically stillness. Any kind of activity where I'm not multitasking for me is a good halfway house to stillness. And maybe that is where it is at for now.

My other friend last Friday suggested a good initial challenge for me, to pull things back, might be just to sit and knit. No podcast. No tele. No book. Just knitting and sitting. A controversial suggestion if ever I've heard one. 

I guess I'm wondering if you guys had any thoughts about this topic and/or had achieved any kind of balance with your own making. Do you find that making and "going with the flow of creativity" is sometimes a negative in your life? Is stillness part of the process for you or do you find you don't need it? Does crafting make you crazy ;)?

This one is a total work in progress for me…. 

Felicia x

*Maybe the fact I am actually writing this post means that I am heading out of the early parenting stage. The baby just turned 4.

Stash Less - A Realisation

The series where we talk about having a thoughtful stash.

So I went shopping this week - a rare moment in the city without kids. My friend and I popped into Tessuti and L'uccello, as you do. So many pretty shiny sparkly things. And I may have purchased some more of the Liberty fabric that I used for the Scout tee (that looks a little like a pretty sack) and the gorgeous quilted star (that is sitting on my pinboard till i figure out what to do with it). In fact I may have just purchased every little bit they had left on the roll - all $67 dollars worth. A combination of time poverty, FOMA and wanting the pretty things…..all rolled up into a moment of purchasing joy. 

So let's go through the justification process. Now the thing is, it wasn't really impulse purchasing. Ever since I made the star I have been ruminating on how beautiful a queen sized quilt would be with that simple combination. Liberty print on denim coloured cotton linen. I've become a little obsessed with the idea even, the colours, the quilting, the slidyness of the Liberty combined with the rusticness of the slubby linen cotton blend. And I've been scared that I won't be able to find the print again. I purchased it in London and hadn't seen it here ever. Until…. L'uccello had a 1.45m piece sitting there (with my name on it?) for sale. 

But there is a problem - I know that there is no way I will get to it for at least six months, and if we are being totally truthful, probably for a year. But I also know that beautiful seasonal liberty is something that once it is gone it is gone. But then I also know that sometimes if you don't touch something for a year then the sparkle slides right off it. It looks flat and kinda just okish. But "loss-of-sparkle" isn't something that happens so much with Nani Iro or Liberty, as they aren't following worldwide trends so much as their own aesthetic. 

So the point of the post. Stash Less is hard. Stash Less requires behavioural change over time. That is what I signed up for. I know I just need to practice my new behaviour in light of knowing my triggers - but it is hard none the less. That said, knowing it is hard means I am more committed to the project as it means that I am attached to the idea of buying things, and having things - which I don't like.

Even with a budget I'm not sure whether I was right to purchase, or wrong to purchase, according to my own set of rules. I'm doing OK with not purchasing general fabric and yarn and patterns - but the special stuff?? I don't know what the rules should be. Should I only purchase if I know of the project in great detail. But isn't that kinda what got me into this in the first place? Too many special pieces that I can't use because I'm worried that I will use them up?

And I've had one more (somewhat heartbreaking) realisation on top of that. For day-to-day yarn and day-to-day kid clothes, and even quilts, I probably have enough stuff to last me at least two years of making, at my current rate of usage*. And the idea of not being able to purchase for that long just for fun, makes me twitchy. A fantastic realisation to have (to know how much I really have) but also truly horrifying (as being self-disciplined about it sounds like less fun). How I feel about it really depends on the day - sometimes excited, inspired, virtuous and self-disciplined AND other times grumbly and childish in an "I want" kinda way.** A realisation and not a nice one.

I'd love your thoughts wise women.

Tally - Eight weeks in I'm up to $205 - that is $105 over budget.
I was up to $130. 
I spent $8 on Brooklyn Tweed Wool People 8 Keel pattern that I began straight away.
I spent $67 on Liberty for a distant far off future project. 

Felicia x

Previously Stash Less - An Update

*By unravelling sweaters I am making the stash go up not down?
**Not an attractive look….