Tuesday, April 25, 2006

Friends.. Precious Friends!

My friends are turning me mushy. Let me explain. First, someone whose name translates to 'Beauty' in Sanskrit (and many other Indian languages). She lives in Europe. Besides being a brilliant engineer, a licensed micro-plane pilot, a 'thinker' and a 'shocker', she is into paints - oils and acrylics. It's her birthday in May. I designed and knit a simple tube for her in a funky green and shipped it as a birthday gift for her. Here is the tube:
And look now - birthday gal in zany green. Happy Birthday dear!!

And the best part: She's declared it the best birthday gift ever. That's HUGE!! I'm overwhelmed and that's an understatement.

Then there is my friend who I met up with recently. She is in the Bay Area on business travel. This is what she gifted me: wall art designed and created by her sister-in-law, a professional artist in Bangalore, India.
So thoughtful, so beautiful!

And today, yet another friend
surprised me. She has been labouring over 2 needlework pieces for months. I got to see them all finished today! Sadly, no pictures. One, the smaller one, was the image of a young Chinese girl - perhaps 8 years old - done in very fine beadwork. The second one, an overwhelmingly huge and intricate cross-stitch piece, with the 3 Chinese Gods of longevity, prosperity and good health.

It is a wonderful feeling to share and appreciate art - especially with friends as lovely as these! Don't tell me I hadn't warned - bring up the subject of friends and I'm all mush!!

Monday, April 24, 2006

The Knit and Crochet Show experience


Brace! Many snapshots coming up. This first one tries to capture the bustling at the convention marketplace. Hanks of yarn, knitted samples, buttons and knitters everywhere.



And here comes glorious koigu. I had no inkling of what the hype was about until I laid my eyes on this treasure:


I promise you, I've not touched up the colours in this photo. Just some sharpening to show through the strands. Resplendence, this!! I could not take my eyes off of this and finally mustered the nerve to ask 'Twisted Sisters' who graciously let me click a photo for keepsake.


And now, the great reveal - my stash of yarn purchased from the knit and crochet show in Oakland.
The 2 mags to the right and the 3 wound balls of peachish coloured yarn came as freebies at the show. The rest took painstaking selection to end up here. The grey and red will be felted, and the taupe mohair-merino blend will be turned into a vest for dad. The blue, pink and variegated are all hand-dyed cotton. I have selected patterns for the former two. The variegated one is a wildcard yarn - to keep my excitement going.

Oh, oh oh and did you notice the little sheep sitting snug on the wagtail yarn? That's my cutie p'tootie inch tape!! Yank the tail and tape comes out. Give a tiny squeeze at the tummy and the tape retracts. Nothing new in the engineering of it - it's old wine in a new bottle. But what a woolly bottle this!! :)

I went against my grain and splurged - on a pattern!! See that little booklet to the far left? That's a pattern from 'just one more row'.

Some obligatory wise words will follow. What came to my aid at the market was the homework I'd done weeks in advance. I'd selected patterns and decided on the generic category of yarn-type. Well, for this to work out, I had to first figure out the different kinds of yarn-types! But anyway, I started out knowing that I needed cotton or cotton blends. I also had a fair idea of a range of different colours that can be applicable to each project I had selected.

So anyway, I first scanned each booth and made mental notes on which booth had what kind of yarn. This show being so much smaller than Stitches West helped - I was positively bewildered at Stitches!! :) During my second round, I selectively shopped at the stalls I'd seen promising yarn. And then, for the final selection, sought help from the kind souls running the stalls - what would I do without their timely advice!!

It's now time to sit back and enjoy the yarn!

Saturday, April 22, 2006

Hot Stuff! (c)


A stamp in the hand - and an ink pad, and some stamp cleaner. Well, that's what I've returned with from the Stamping expo at San Jose convention center today.

Check this out - I found an ink that can be used on fabric. I have some plans for this. Plans are highly confidential. They will be revealed once lab tests have cleared.

The demos were pretty neat. What was a knitster doing at a stamping fair one might ask. Well, I was there looking for knitster stamps - duh!! And maybe some nice buttons. A few demos on polymer clay buttons would've been a bonus too. But bonuses are scarce these days anywhere you look. Sadly though, I didn't even find any knit-related stamp art.

Techniques I learnt:
a. how to use masking tape to create fx
b. how to use different kinds of brushes to create backgrounds
c. how to use shrink plastic to make teeny stamped/coloured tiles and pinwheels
d. how to use embossing agents
e. how to emboss paper itself using stencils
f. how to use diamond glaze to create fx
g. how to use water colour pencils (well, I come from a background of using watercolour bricks!)

Products I saw and thought hmmmm.. (apart from the ones listed in the techniques above)
a. templates to create different paper-folded art and even chinese takeout boxes
b. tile masks (for want of a better word) to mask out different regions

I have no clue what to do with so much information!! I am not so much into paper for the sake of paper - I am a tree hugger. Good news: I am into yarn for the sake of yarn!!! And that affirmation makes me secretly smile!

Tuesday, April 18, 2006

Something about engineers and changing light bulbs

This is my attempt to answer the perennial question: how many engineers.. (aah, you know the rest). A recent incident shed some light on the answer - if you know what I mean ;). Well anyway, the rear right stop light of my car hadn't been glowing for quite a while now. Equipped with screw drivers and the user manual, and an inordinate amount of determination to complete the pesky task, I headed to my parking lot to figure out what the (beep) was wrong with (beep) bulb!

After some fumbling in the boot (aargh - get those images out of your head), I discovered that the bulb had twisted itself out of its socket and had dropped into the casing!! The silliness of it! This is what I call a twist to the story. Get it?? Never mind!!

I now have a clue to the answer to *the* question. My best bet is: one grrrl engineer with long fingers - to reach into the casing and fish out the misbehaving bulb! :D

Monday, April 10, 2006

Cherry Picking


Inspired by the Knitty cherry design, (http://www.knitty.com/ISSUEspring03/PATTcherries.html) I knit a much smaller off-shoulder tank for my 5 yr old niece. To the right is the first version. Instead of a k1p1 rib at the bottom, I used the seed stitch. Looked neat but too matter-of-factly I thought. Gave the tank a boxy look.

Frogged the band of seeds mercilessly and knit a scalloped lace instead, using a variegated yarn with shades of the beige, rust and some yellow. I just love how it turned out in the end:

Hoorah! My first with lace.

Friends out on a nature stroll


Sis sent me this picture of cross-stitch work we'd made as kids during Summer holidays. How little things can take us whoooosh down memory lane!