almost there

I am pretty sure no one even reads this blog anymore. But maybe I will be back soon? On May 23rd I finally, finally, finally, finish grad school. Three years. One MFA. The future? Wide open.

I am headed back to Santa Fe for my third season. Just me, my wheel, and some fibery goodness.

Hello life, I'm almost there.

Tschuss,
Sarah

Happy New Year

Ta da! It is break time from the grad school grind so some knitting is getting accomplished. I actually have a number of things, none of which I had the presence of mind to photograph. That Guy's brother asked for and received a hat for Christmas. Not the one pictured here, but a more appropriate cap that is reversible. Red with a single cream stripe on one side, and the other side is red and charcoal alternating stripes. I used Brooklyn Tweed's Turn a Square pattern but upped the stitch count using sport weight.

The creation above is made from my own handspun! The pictures does no credit to the colors, and try to ignore the mess on my bed in the background. I was in the process of cleaning prior to going to Indiana to see family for the holidays. The fiber is BFL which I loooove. So squooshy. The pattern is the Honeycomb Beret from the holiday issue of IK.

I had a nice holiday with the fam. My friend's daughter, Lauryn, and I made a dress for her to wear. She did most of the cutting and sewing. I was very proud of her for sticking with the project. I think it's time to upgrade her from the little girl miniature sewing machine I got for her a couple of year back to a full size model. Partly because she clearly likes sewing enough to keep doing it, and partly because at 12 years old she is so tall. To big for that tiny machine. Luckily, I have two sewing machines, so I am going to pass one on to her.

It took me a while to recover from the past semester. There were three nights there at the end that drug on til the wee hours of the morning. I didn't even suffer the worst of it. My friends and colleagues, some of them stayed up all night, even for a couple of days. I am so glad that I only have one semester left - I graduate in May! Now, it's time to get focused on finishing my thesis!

Tschuss.

Words cannot express...

When I took this photo back in February here in Austin, Texas, I was moved at this rally to believe that this could truly happen.  But it wasn't real until tonight.  It wasn't real until I heard John McCain speak.  It wasn't real until our next President, Barack Obama, took to the stage in Grant Park to address the nation.  And it wasn't real until I saw my home state of Indiana in the most remarkable color - blue.  I am overwhelmed and overjoyed.

Yes, we did!

Now it's time to get work.  

I'm in- are you?

PS Will this be one of those moments in history when you remember where you were?  My oldest sister was in Grant Park tonight.  I was actually working in the shop at school, thinking that it would take longer for the returns to come in.  Not so.  She called me not 10 minutes after I'd checked the maps to tell me the numbers just went up in the park and I could here the people cheering.  Unbelievable!  Most of us working cleared out - I wanted to hear the speeches with Jeremy.  And now, frankly, I'm exhausted.  I can't imagine how Barack must feel!

Good night all, and god bless!

Mask making is wicked fun!

There are no real excuses for my absence from this blog. There are explanations. Lack of regular internet access throughout the summer, lack of focus due to the impending reality of my thesis year of grad school, the reality of entering said thesis year. There was also the colossal harddrive crash of my beloved Mackie. Ever since they put in his new harddrive he hasn't been quite the same. Not to mention, I got an iMac, and I think my Mackie has mixed feelings about it. On one hand, the new desktop lightens the load on the laptop. Apparantly, if you run your operating system, the Adobe Creative Suite, TurboCAD, and you partition your harddrive using Bootcamp to run Windows, it will eventually get the better of the laptop. Now the work load is more evenly distributed, but there may be some jealousy. They are like siblings.

Clearly working on my thesis is making me lose my mind just a little, since I am anthropomorphizing my computers!

I have been knitting and spinning, but I haven't been photographing it! I did however, photograph this.
For those of you who know me, you may recognize that this is my face. This semester I am in a mask making class. When it came time to demo the process of casting the head, neck, and shoulders in order to create a mother mold for a bust, my hand shot up in the air before our instructor even finished his sentence, "Do we have a model for tonight?"

If you are claustrophobic this is not for you. I am not, and I thought it would be a cool experience. It was. I think it is a little like what being in the womb must have been like. It's quiet and dark, and you can hear people when they are up close.

You can breathe just fine because the nostrils are not covered.

We will be building masks for a ballet to be performed next semester based on the Briar Wood stories. I will be sculpting and building the mask for the character of Ms. Meadows, a blue heron. The animal head is actually perched above the performers head.

All in all we cast 15 busts.

Below is a maquette I made of the heron mask. This is about 3 inches tall and made out of Sculpey. I have some modifications to make, but I will probably do them in Photoshop. I have been working more with Photoshop and Illustrator, finding ways to use them as visualization tools for the work I do. It's fun. The final project won't be this boring, single color. The designer made a beautiful rendering, but I should ask her for permission to post it. More to come!
Tschussi!

Back in Santa Fe

Actually, I've been back in Santa Fe for about 5 out of 8 weeks of my contract. We've been working a lot to get to this, the opening weekend. There has been hiking, biking, and shopping as well.












Best of all, I was asked to knit a scarf for the character of Falstaff in the opera of the same name. And, I GOT PAID! Yes, paid. It was fun and very free form and textural. I may never get this type of opportunity again as knitting for live theatre is not an affordable option for most costume budgets.

Anyway, things are going really well out here but at the moment I'm kind of tired! I hope everyone out there is good and having a fun summer.

Tschussi!

Pathetic...

That's me. Pathetic. For being off-blog for so long. My apologies to anyone who might actually check this blog. I have been very absent. I try to tell myself that one day, after grad school, I post regularly and be quite witty. We will see. There is still one more year of grad school, but at least the end of this semester is in sight! On to the good stuff though.

I bought a wheel. I am super psyched. I told myself I would get one after graduation, when I would have time. Last month though, during Spring Break, That Guy was working in Boerne, Texas, outside of San Antonio so I went down to visit and found Rosewood Yarns online. I noticed on their website that they carried a couple of wheels so I decided I would stop by just to try them out. Ha. Granted, had I not liked the Ashford Kiwi so much I might not have purchased it, but the unfinished model was priced quite affordable so I caved. I have already found that it is very helpful when I hit little writing blocks. Spinning slows my mind down and helps me refocus my thoughts.
Naturally, spinning requires fiber. On the spindle above is a superwash merino from Allspunup at Etsy. I haven't spun enough to tell you how it's going, but it feels right so far.

A couple of weekends ago That Guy and I wanted to get out of town, so we drove out to Wimberly for a while and then stopped in at Old Oaks Ranch. This is a splendid fiber arts shop with alpacas and a sculpture garden. If you are ever in the Texas Hill Country I highly recommend it. This was my first visit, but I will definitely make the trip again in the future.

The owner and staff are very friendly and if you want to buy a fleece, like I did, they will probably let you get a little closer to the alpacas. The owner, Sue, led me into the pen and talked to me about the animals and let me decide which fleece I'd like.





I liked the coloring of this little one, Isabella. Charcoal grey and a little sienna. Plus, I figured the two pounds of fiber would be plenty. The larger animals are up to three pounds. She had just been shorn the week before.

The shop is lovely with a nice selection of quality yarns and fiber. I was able to pick up a niddy noddy and two more Ashford bobbins also. All in all it is a great place.

Okay, I've got to go finish a costume rendering for design studio class in the morning. The character of Violetta from the opera La Traviata in the painting style of Toulouse-Lautrec. No prob.

Koolhaas

Look, a Koolhaas! I actually finished this hat several weeks ago, but I was so excited with how it turned out that I gave it to the recipient without photographing it. Here she is, kind enough to model it for me.

There was one big thing that I had to take in to consideration when I chose the yarn for this hat. The recipient is one of those hot-blooded people that are so mysterious to me, being a perpetually cold person. For example, I actually take pleasure in the heat of central Texas in the summer. The air conditioning is sooooo cold that I actually feel like I am defrosting when I hit the heat outside. My friend on the other hand does not share this joy. It makes her very, very hot and maybe just a little bit angry. Okay, a lot angry.

My friend will be moving to Seattle once she graduates, a climate she considers quite temperate with bits of cold. The yarn I chose is Debbie Bliss Cathay, a cotton/rayon/silk blend, so hopefully she will be able to wear it without overheating.

So far, she hasn't had any issues with it stretching out to much, besides which it can be washed and dried to shrink up if that occurs. What really pleases me is the stitch definition! I was concerned that the pattern may lose some of the architectural quality that is so lovely about the design by not using something with wool content, but check it out!

I have to credit the staff at my LYS, Hill Country Weavers, for helping me decide on using the Cathay. I asked if they had seen anything knit out of it and how the stitch definition was, and after some discussion the consensus was that it would be perfect. Happy happy.

Tschuss!