WES Group meetings are always interesting and last week’s particularly so. One of our members talked about the Underlying Principles of her textile work over 40 years. She brought along examples. What few of us knew was that she had built up a career as a textile artist and costume designer, based on her domestic dressmaking skill and her training as a pharmacist, asking herself questions about purpose and the nature of materials and people.
Shy and reticent, she has works in both the National Gallery of Australia and the ART gallery of SA. I’m so grateful another member, who knows her well, pressured and supported her to talk to us. Later in the year she’s going to tell us about her collaborative work.
I was home in time to get myself to Louca’s for lunch with an old uni friend’s son who is returning to Sydney after finishing an 18 month work contract in Adelaide. Good food and good company.
The temperature returned to 30+C for Pilates on Thursday and has remained there all week. The Bougainvillea is in full bloom at the studio, dropping blossom as well as overhanging the street. It’s such a fabulous colour.
At the end of last week’s post I mentioned I was playing with graph paper and a knitting design. This has consumed most of my time this week, hence a fairly focused post.
I’ve been working on an idea to knit beanies for a work team taking part in a fund-raising walk for charity in mid-May. I began with some left-over wool from a Shetland hat and sketched up a chart. I realised pretty quickly (fortunately!) that working in 4 ply was not practical for multiple items. I rarely work in chunky wool, but did have some Aran 10ply in my stash, so adjusted my thinking around that.
I’m not in a position to show the results, but I have evolved the design to something the team is happy to use and I can now knit in 5-6 hours. At the time of writing I have finished 9 hats and 60% of the 10th. These will be completed from he 600gm of Aran I had. I am aiming for 25.
I ordered more 10ply yarn once it was evident the idea would fly. A phone call to Bendigo Woollen Mill yesterday resulted in a switch to Express delivery and 600 grams of 10 ply wool and the same of cotton arrived today, thanks to a helpful sales assistant.
I’m delighted to have put my Design Online skills to use and will eventually document the pattern. For the moment, however, I’m mostly just knitting!
I’ve also assembled the ingredients for my mother’s Easter birds nests (the copha is in the fridge). I had trouble finding the speckled eggs in my usual supermarket and Sam, the on-duty finder, raced all over the shop looking for them. I plan to deliver a nest to him when he is working on Easter Saturday.
My hands are standing up reasonably well to the hours of knitting. I alternate between the bespoke original moulded support I have for my left hand - the one that suffers most because ot its more stationary position - and the more recent off-the shelf supports for both hands. I take stretching, massaging breaks in between. That seems to work. Time to put the supports back on.
