Knitting Survey: The final days... 03/17/2009
The survey is wrapping up - final submissions MUST be made no later than Sunday, March 22, 2009! THANK YOU for all the people who have participated - we're at just over 900 (can you believe it?!) responses - all of them valued and appreciated! the link is HERE - click and take it if you haven't already - I'll be researching the data and developing the project further as time goes by - and last but not least.... any of you guys who are interested in participating in the project - check out www.knittingmeninamerica.com and get in touch - we're st More ceramics (and pseudo-knitting related!) 03/02/2009
 Saturday was an all day Ceramics day for me... I'm starting to work on forms for YARN BOWLS! - I am hoping to be able to offer a number of these for sale by the early summer. If you have particular wishes regarding sizing, color, etc. be sure to email me and let me know and I'll try to make one to fit your needs :)  I also started work on an organically shaped "knitted" vase - this piece stands about 14" tall and is highly textured on one side, less on the other (but the same pattern) - I like the feeling this is conveying; marriage of clay and knit.... we'll see where it goes from here. Any suggestions as to what color you might like to see this vase?  Here's my first attempt at a truely knitted "vase" - there are holes in this one where the stitches gap apart... but it should be a great holder for knitting needles! it's drying and waiting to be bisque fired...  And this... ladies and gentleman is a porcelain knitted swatch - it's about to be bisque fired as well - and may end up as a framed piece... it's a test for future projects... but I'm having a great time experimenting... I have 3 bowls being bisqued right now, and in addition to these pieces 6 more bowls waiting to be trimmed and to go to bisque firing... it was a fun Saturday class this time - quite productive! Ceramics Thursday - Trimming 02/27/2009
 I think the wheel is becoming my new friend - I made 3 bowls last night - 2 of them turned out pretty well (this is one of those) and the third one is OK enough to keep going forward with, but it was a little more wonky... I learned that the base of the bowl should be about 1/2" thick and the sides about 1/4" - I have a tendency to make the bottom too thin - but that makes it almost impossible to trim when it's leather hard...  This is the "first" pot I threw on day 1 of the class this semester... it's not perfect that's for sure - and too small for a "real" yarn bowl (it'd work good for sock yarn I guess) and the walls were too thin for me to cut the notch to the yarn feed hole... but it's still worth working on... someone may want it :) - I plan on making bigger yarn bowls once I know what I'm doing..  I like how this one turned out - you can't see the foot of the bowl but it's there - tucked nice and deep beneath the bowl... we learned the basics of trimming and what makes a good bowl - following the interior and exterior curves so they match each other is important... and it takes practice. I'm happy at this point getting what I set out to do... that's not happening yet but the series of "happy accidents" has been fun!  I got a little brave with the trimmer on this one... the foot turned out good but as I was carving the lines up the bowl's sides, I got VERY close to cutting the piece in half! You can see the mark pushing through on the inside of the pot... I don't know if it'll look good after it's first firing, but it's on the shelf, waiting to be loaded and fired! SURVEY - Knitting: Men in America 02/23/2009
Please take a moment to take this survey that will help us all understand the perceptions of other knitters towards guys who knit in the United States! Thanks!
IF you happen to have a blog or website or know of somewhere that I should email to get more participants, please let me know - feel free to link to this post or to the survey page itself and ask others to participate - the more information we have the better of our knitting society and the way male knitters are viewed [NOTE] I continue to update this list to reflect the remaining states still needing representation -The response has been overwhelming - thank you to everyone who has expressed interest! So far, we have over 40 men who have signed up to be a part of the project - I am still looking for guys from the following states: (I will remove the states if I have at least one participant for that location - but if your state is not included, and you want to participate, PLEASE EMAIL ME ANYWAY! I am glad to have more than one person for each state! - the project will possibly include more than one version of publication! Alaska If you or someone you know (a guy!) wants to participate in the project, please email me and let me know the name, email, blog (if you have one) and the state you claim - which could be your residence, hometown, birthstate, whatever... and I'll get you included in the project - as soon as I get most of the states included, we'll be sending out questionnaires, etc. On my website you can click on the Knitting Men Project tab and read more about the process. Thanks for helping me get the resources together to assemble this project - with any luck it will become a force to show publishers, designers, magazines and LYS's that there are guys all over the USA who are knitting (which might lead to an increase in male oriented projects!) After the Men’s Knitting Retreat, I have been thinking seriously about compiling a collection of stories and interviews featuring knitters and fiber artists from all 50 of the United States. While this is a very premature request, I wanted to find out among you who might be interested in sharing who they are, how they began to knit (where they learned), etc. etc. - I have started a webpage linked here - it's very much under construction, but everything has to start somewhere, right? |     ArchivesFebruary 2010  CategoriesAll  |
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