Chipping Away at the Quilt

This is what the quilt looks like right now. There's a system, trust me.

I've laid out the quilt top and am getting started sewing all of the squares together. Once the top is put together, I'll start thinking about backing and batting and whatnot.

I think the colors look more garish in these pictures than they do in real life. They're really a bit deeper and richer than what you get here.

Mongo approves!

Have I mentioned that I hate sewing? As I suspected, this isn't as bad as sewing frequently is, when I'm involved. Straight lines. I can do that. My sewing machine, however...I can't believe I haven't thrown it through the window yet. That's all I'm going to say about it right now.

In a fit of procrastination, I went and priced similarly-sized quilts online to see if I'm actually saving money in this little endeavor. Based on what I've spent so far (got the fabric on sale), and what I estimate I might spend on backing and batting, the grand total will come to about the same price as a similarly-sized quilt on clearance at places like Bed Bath and Beyond or Linens 'N Things. Meh. I guess that's not so bad. Clearance quilts are kinda ugly, and mine will be glorious. I'm keeping a mental list as I go, however, of ways I can cut down on the cost next time around.

I feel the need to have a knitting love fest here before long, so I'm gathering pictures of FOs and WIPs and yarn and will revel in those here once I have what I want. I have several projects to show off, several that I can't show you yet (sniff), and some really yummy yarns to rave about. So stay tuned!

Oh yes. There will be a quilt.

LOOKIT I HAVE FABRIC!!!

I obviously went with cotton over silk or velvet because I am rather fond of my kidneys, thank you very much. I'm also aware that cotton is quite a bit easier to work with than silk or velvet, and given that I suck at sewing, I thought I'd spare myself the angst.

My boyfriend, who shall remain nameless, was very helpful in picking out these fabrics. Having someone whose taste I trust to bounce ideas and possibilities off of helps me overcome the paralyzing indecision that tends to strike me in fabric stores. Also, he helped with the math.

I am nearing the point of project-saturation. Right now, I have 3 knitting projects, two of which have deadlines (albeit not for a while), one of which is not my design (so it's very much at the bottom of my knitting basket). Then I have another very simple sewing project (also with a deadline), and this quilt. Meanwhile, school must continue to come first. Knitting is portable - I can get knitting done on the bus, or sitting around waiting for class to start (I tend not to knit during class. Only when we're derailed on particularly inane tangents will I knit surreptitiously under my desk). Quilting will have to stay at home, obviously, and I really just need to bang through this other sewing project...maybe today.

Right, so deadlines. I've decided to submit some of my designs to publications to see what happens. So obviously, I'm not going to tell you about them for a while. :-D I have two designs to submit at the beginning of March and two to complete by June. If nothing comes of the March designs, I'll post them here, but my fingers are crossed.

I'm going to make a quilt! I swear!

I mentioned earlier that I thought I'd make a quilt. I still think I'll make a quilt. I've always been interested in quilts - they're nice, they're cozy, they're homey, they can be quite beautiful, and they seem like they have the potential to be a staggeringly creative undertaking.

Until recently, I had never even considered making one. Not because quilts are something that "little old ladies" make (although I still find myself stifling a defensive response to that imagined objection whenever my intention to quilt comes up). Rather, quilts have always struck me as impossibly intricate. As a child, the mother of my best friend was a quilter, and I remember seeing her...quilting apparatus. She had this...rack of some sort with her quilt arranged in a certain way stretched out over it. There are...patterns to understand, construction methods to discern, ways of doing things to divine, traditions to bear in mind...add to all of this the fact that sewing has never been my forte. I can sew a garment, but there will be much yelling and flinging of fabric before all is said and done (I've stopped short of flinging the scissors...for now).

Quilting is one of the topics discussed in Jane Brocket's The Gentle Art of Domesticity. She doesn't offer patterns or step-by-step guides, but she presents it as something that's accessible. She makes it seem simple, she lays out the theory behind it, and she encourages you to just go out and try it. I have to tell you, I got really jazzed and excited when I read through this. I've worked out in my head what I need to do, what materials I'll need, how I'll construct and assemble my quilt. I haven't gotten started yet, but I'm no longer intimidated by the mechanics of quilting! I can do this!

So the other day, I went fabric shopping. I didn't get anything - it was more of a reconnaissance mission. Now I'm intimidated again. Jane Brocket is an avowed color person. She likes bright, contrasting colors, that's what gets her aesthetic juices flowing. I like color as much as the next girl, but I'm much more of a texture person. When I knit, I'll go with cables over stripes. Give me one, rich, lovely color and then let me drown in the subtle variations that texture creates.

So, of course, quilting is all about color. Go to the quilting section of your local fabric store, and you'll see bolts upon bolts of bright, loud, colorful cotton prints waiting to be sliced up and jumbled together in a cacophony of comfort. It makes my head spin. I love color - I love what people do with color, but it's just not how my brain works.

What about a velvet quilt? Or a silk quilt? Can I find enough complimentary solid colors of silk in one place to make a quilt? And can I then acquire enough of said silk to make a quilt without selling a kidney?

Things to think about before I begin. I'd like to get started soon, as I'd love to have a nice, new quilt on my bed in lieu of my comforter when the weather starts to warm up. I just...need to get better at fabric shopping.

*(The images in this post were created by my boyfriend, who shall remain nameless, based on images I chose that represent colors I like. It is his talent you see, and my awesome taste in individual colors).

The Economics of Knitting Part 1

Why I Knit
I knit for 4 main reasons, at least...4 that I've been able to think of just now.



1) Relaxation: If you've read Marion Zimmer Bradley's The Mists of Avalon, you may remember that when Morgaine spins, she enters into a sort of trance state. I'm not saying I have visions when I knit, but it is definitely a meditative experience. When I knit, it gives my mind a chance to wander, to passively mull over things that are on it, rather than actively stressing about them. As my mind wanders undirected, it often finds paths that wouldn't have occurred to me in a more deliberate, active frame of mind.

2) Luxury: Leaving aside, for a moment, the delicious things you can get as a result of knitting, knitting is a pleasing sensual activity. Yarn is nice. It comes in pretty colors, yummy textures, it feels good in your hands and it looks luscious as the fabric you're creating grows like some living thing into whatever shape and pattern you've chosen for it. Yarn is soft and pretty and good.

3) Creativity and control: Once you get the hang of it, making things for yourself ensures that what you end up with is exactly what you want. I don't have to spend lots of money on a beautiful scarf that's kind of itchy, or a wonderful sweater that fits not quite just right. Fine, shaping and fit is something I'm still in the process of mastering, but in a materialistic sense, knitting and making things makes you the master of your own fate. This is where my reasons for knitting really intersect with my reasons for making things in general. If I want legwarmers to match my hat perfectly, then I shall have them! If I want carbonara that won't kill my boyfriend, who shall remain nameless, with cholesterol, then I shall leave out the egg yolks! If I want a pot-holder that matches both the mustard yellow of the kitchen counter and the avocado green of the stove top, I shall make it so! Creativity is liberating.

4) Saving money: As you may have deduced elsewhere on this blog, I am a broke-ass graduate student. Saving money is, for me, a necessity, but that doesn't mean I can't still have nice things in my life. I can knit myself a matching hat and scarf pair that's nicer and cheaper than one I'd find at, say, The Gap. I can make really great shirts and skirts out of old t-shirts that I never wear (more on that when it warms up outside). I can't afford to eat out much, but that doesn't mean I can't afford to eat well at home.

I know that I won't always be a broke-ass graduate student. At some point, I'll have the degree and the job and the house and the disposable income. At this point, I expect my first two reasons for knitting to really start conflicting with the last two - actually, more just #2 with #4. I think, however, that even then I'll value knitting as a means of saving money, and not just out of habit.

As much as I like pretty things, I have a definite anti-consumerist streak in me. I like showing "The Man," "The Powers That Be," "The Gods of Capitalism," or whomever that I am not a slave to the market, that I don't need what they're selling, that I can do perfectly well for myself. There are, of course, limits to this. I'm not about to run off and start homesteading. But I take pride and a subversive glee in not being a predictable consumer. If a company wants my money, they're going to have to put some effort into it, and not treat me like a non-existent generic member of my demographic. Give me real options, or I will make my own!

The next two installments of this series on the economics of knitting will deal with being a responsible consumer within this framework - because even as an independent, unpredictable consumer, I am still a consumer of yarn, of materials, of patterns, of ideas. But it will always boil down to why I knit.

Mending

Not the most exciting thing in the world, mending, and I've been putting it off for a few weeks, to be honest. Taking something that's broken and fixing it - not as fun and creative as making something shiny and new. But it needs to be done all the same.

I think we waste too much in our culture anyway. We've become so consumer driven that we throw things out as soon as something breaks, even if we could fix it. My briefcase, for instance. If I still had a 9-5 job, I'd have thrown it out and bought a new one by now. I don't have a 9-5 job anymore, and I need to save my leftover money for things I really value.

The fake-leather covering on the handles had started coming off, exposing the mesh padding underneath. This more than anything made it look torn and shabby, and of course the mesh would start to go soon as well. So I rigged this up. I don't really crochet, but a basic chain-stitch is a useful thing to know. I had some leftover black wool lying around, so I crocheted it around the handles of my briefcase - a lot like you might do to a clothes hanger, or a provisional cast-on in knitting. It's not exactly chic, but it's functional, innocuous and not falling apart.

Our culture has become so consumerist that things aren't made to last - I don't think the makers of my briefcase expected me to keep it this long. I'm not sure I did, when I bought it. Shoes aren't meant to be worn more than 6 months. You're supposed to keep throwing things out and buying new things. I kind of resent that. Even if I had money to throw around, I'd like to have the option of buying something nice, well-made, lasting, of not buying trash, if I'm going to buy anything. And that's aside from the environmental implications of a culture based on producing and throwing away trash at the quickest affordable rate.

I guess you get what you pay for. I also sewed 3 buttons onto my winter coat this weekend. My coat has five buttons going up the front, three of which have come flying off since I bought it in November. I'll probably have to replace the bottom two before next winter, but for now, it fastens fine. I had a really hard time finding a coat this winter (having just moved to Wisconsin from Texas), and I finally found one at the mall for much cheaper than I'd expected. I got what I paid for, though. A nice, wool coat that's warm and fits me with buttons that fling themselves from the fabric when you look at them funny. I'm actually still quite satisfied with my purchase, all things considered.

Then there are the things you make yourself. I made myself a neck-warmer last year based on John Brinegar's "Fourteen" (pictured at top because it's the prettiest). I think the yarn stretched out somewhat with use, but I also think that the length the pattern calls for, while perfect for a man's neck, is a bit much for my skinny little girl-neck. It was loose enough to let the wind in easier than I preferred. Discarding it was, of course, not an option not only because I went to the trouble of making it but because I love it and the hat and leg-warmers that now go with it! So this weekend, I finally fixed it - frogged back until it felt tight around my neck, then re-knit the button-hole rows. Fits like a charm now. I'm currently knitting a scarf on the needles I needed for this mending, so I just shoved the scarf down to the bottom of the needles while I fixed the neck-warmer. It wound up looking like flags or banners while I worked. I dig it.