13.9.08

Two (three) Quilts

Dear Mom,

I think we're probably all still getting caught up from last weekend. These are two of the little quilts I made for some of the birthday celebrants. There's a third, too, but no picture - I was finishing up the quilting and binding in the car on the way up, naturally.

This one was for our artist. I wanted to make something that was art-like.

Small Quilt 1

So I made a quilt of an apple in front of a river, in front of a hilly village. The round shapes of the applique'd apple and circles echo the swirling curves of the village print and the batik. We are located in front of the quilt, with the apple aloft, wondering if we have thrown the apple in the river or if we are merely in mid-toss, soon to catch the apple in our outstretched hand. The distinctive formal juxtapositions create a playful feeling that is contained and codified by the assymmetrical border and bias plaid binding; the optical suggestions of the spatial relationships suggest a participation in the critical dialogues of late. (It's an Art Critique Generator!)

This is E's quilt: I had a different goal - just to make something that would be a little weird, and interesting to look at if one were, say, sick in bed for a few days.

Small Quilt 2

All of these fabrics are vintage, except for the black square, and the striped backing/binding. The radish, village, and blue flowered fabric were given to me by my friend Mary. I found the block pattern in a quilting magazine, and liked how simple it was. Good for weird fabrics, those simple blocks. The third quilt "quotes" some of the fabrics used in both of these.

Keeping things small and weird,
Gwen


3.9.08

Some Smalls

Dear Mom,

These mittens were a bit of a disaster. Do you remember that reindeer hat I knit when I was first learning? The hat that had a circumference more suited to a sweater than a head? These mittens are a little like that.

Mittens

They look deceptively ok, just lying there like that. What you might not be able to tell from this picture is that each of these mittens is twice as long as my hand. I thought I was knitting at a nice firm gauge (these were going to be for afghans for Afghans, and I wanted them to be as warm as possible), and I knit these mittens fast and happily, threw them in some water to wash, pulled them out -- and then the yarn relaxed and they grew and became mittens that perhaps might have been suitable for Paganini, or those long-fingered aliens. The pattern (Spiral Ribbed mittens) is from Homespun, Handknit, and is my favorite pattern for mittens. Because of the construction of the thumb, the mittens can be worn on either hand, but the rib pattern makes this kind of design more comfortable than it often is on other mittens.

I'll keep them and use them as an outer layer for snow-shoveling, I guess. I cast on again right away for a second pair, but screwed those up, too, so I ripped and moved on to something small and gauge-less until I feel ready to come back to mittens.

I realized, at some point, that I'd been having an informal Knitter's Almanac-y summer. In June, I made the Ganomy hat. In July, I knit a simple shawl while traveling, although it wasn't a Pi shawl.
Christmas Fiddle Faddle

So I made some Christmas Fiddle-Faddle (August's project) with some odds and ends. I don't know if I'll keep going with the Almanac in September, as delicious as warm wool leggings sound.

Looking forward to seeing you this weekend!
Love,
Gwen