Avoidance

Down to the crunch.  Today we set up the tables and display for a dry run (you don't get pictures, because simulating the contents of a 10'x10'tent in a condo that nowhere contains that amount of contiguous floor space meant that quite a lot of the consequences of 8-seconds-a-day housekeeping were visible.  In other words, if you saw the photos, you probably wouldn't respect me in the morning.)  I'll post photos of the actual Market set-up Sunday night.

The dry run was encouraging, in the sense that it actually looked quite nice, and the scarves made a satisfying swath of textile-ish colour, and I felt a small surge of pride at having created so much Stuff in 3 1/2 weeks.  Then I went around the tables and made notes on holes that needed filling in the product lines (so it doesn't look stupidly incomplete), and tags and labels, and coverings and informative signs that really must be done before the 17th.  And after constructing a tidy bulleted task list for the days between now and then, the glow of accomplishment duly faded and I feel overwhelmed once again.  Fortunately, I have some very cool knitting with which to engage in avoidant behaviour:

Remember this?

Details of how I pulled out a palette can be found here - suffice it to say, I went with shades of brown, steel grey, dark red, and purple.

I may have overshot on the amount of purple. 

I decided to play with optical mixing, painting the skein so that one row would be red graduating to purple (I'm not exactly sure how that bit after the nicely shaded pink got so suddenly bright purple - I guess I'm still getting the hang of the medium), and the alternate row would be the desaturated shades - brown graduating to grey.  Initially, I thought I would go for a vertically aligned format - red with brown, purple with grey.

But then I lined it up the other way, and that was awfully pretty too:

So I figured that by making the width of the scarf just a half stitch or so different than the width of the skein, the colour bands would stay together and slowly meander from side to side (as in the first iteration of the green scarf), reversing their orientation at intervals.  This is what happened (so far):

Closer:

The cool thing about seed stitch is that the adjacent stitches are at different heights, so the optical mix shifts as you view it from different angles, enhancing the luminous effect.

Now IF my tension were absolutely consistent, those lines would be zigging and zagging in perfect straight-edged precision.  Since they are not, I can only conclude that my tension must vary, though not to a degree that is visible in the actual stitch formation.  (It wouldn't take much of a difference, multiplied over twenty-some stitches, to shift the pattern a couple of stitches by the following row, though.)  And now I am fascinated with the notion of actually achieving that degree of control - not solely for the purpose of making perfectly straight lines, but to have the freedom to make.... whatever I want.  Like intersecting sine waves.  Or handpainted argyle.  The mind boggles. 

Comments

[Emilee]

The mind boggles, indeed.

That's stunning.

[naomi]

That is *beautiful*, despite the fact that I don't really like purple.

Handpainted argyle--or sine waves--would be mindboggling, indeed. Truly awesome.

[LaurieM]

Ye gods, but that is gorgeous! I like the organic shifting of the pattern that your irregular tension creates. It seems to me that if you want perfect tension for hand painted argyle, then you should get a knitting machine.

[Agnes]

That's absolutely gorgeous!

[Jeanne B.]

OOOoOOOoooooohhhhh! It reminds me of an Arizona mountain range at sunset. My GOD those colors are amazing on the scarf. Just amazing.

[Dave]

Very cool!

[Jen]

Wow that's really cool! I like the organic zigs and zags. Too much precision might seem machine made. Then again, it would be cool if you could pull it off.

[Arianne]

It's beautiful!

Two questions: What stitch pattern are you using? I think I missed when you mentioned it and also, where do you get your undyed silk?

Your handpainted yarn is gorgeous...and I am blown away by the beauty of it!

[Pat]

Beautiful hand painting and knitting plan! The scarf is gorgeous.

[elan]

Gorgeous, I knit & sold a scarf once that had a handpainted argyle going on & I've tried to reproduce it & never managed & always thought it was the way the skein was painted, I'll have to try dying & working on my tension to see what I can come up with.

[Kristy]

That is a stunning scarf! I know you wanted straight lines, but this way it looks more like a watercolor. Amazing :)

[Rebecca]

This is fabulous! It reminds me of a watercolor that's gotten wet and been allowed to run...I love that look!

[Lee Ann]

I think I'm in love. That scarf...sine waves...oh my oh my. Got to try that stitch with something handpainted and silky, because it's just brilliant. The result really reminds me of handpainted silk cloth--gorgeous!

[margene]

Exquisite! It has the look of mountain peaks, at least to my eye. Gorgeous!

[Anna Lee]

Oh wow, this scarf tops them all -- color wise and the effect of the color pattern in the scarf. I love mountains, so of course that is what I saw immediately. I'll bet it sells first! Thinking lots of you these last frantic days. It will be great, and looking forward to the picture of the whole set up and a close up of the table. Loved the "emergency" story, by the way. Quite a word for a 4 year old. I am sure Rob ran right to the scene, and resisted laughing -- at least until later!!

[Lucette]

I like the way the colours ebb and flow. It is stunning.

[Christene]

Ooh, what you've done -- ideas to play with, I won't even have 8 seconds of housekeeping time any longer... The colorplay is lovely!...

[Kim]

Wow. Absolutely stunning. When I saw your yarn, I let out a low moan of yarn appreciation/lust. My coworkers now think I'm wierd. :-)

[Judy G]

I love seed stitch, and the colours just glow! You pulled a great palette out of the soggy leaves. Who knew there was so much inspiration in decomposition? Those leaves had a higher purpose.

[Jan]

MY mind is boggling at your artistry! I loved the green one, and how you were able to make it behave as you wanted, but this new soggy leaves one is just gorgeous!

I obviously need to rethink the artistry of my works.

Thanks for being an inspiration!

[Lisa]

Incredible scarf!

I'm sure you would love to see Ikat weavers at work. I saw them in Bali -- the way Balinese Ikat is made the weaver lays out her weft in side-to-side lengths as it's going to be woven, and dyes it in little bunches before weaving. Then the weft gets re-wound onto spindles for the actual weaving. Finally the weaver adjusts each weft thread left and right as it goes on the loom, to make sure the pattern doesn't start to "travel" left or right too far.

Even more amazing is the "geringsing" or double-ikat where the weaver not only has to line up the weft left and right, she also has to make sure that the weft threads are not too close together or far apart, so that the weft-dyed design lines up with the warp-dyed design!

[Susan P]

That scarf is positively radiant. WOW!

I had more to say, but all I can think of is:

WOWOWOWOWOWOWOWOWOWOWOWOWOWWOWOWOWOWOWOWOWOW!

[tantej]

I'm breathless and drooling at the same time! Is that possible? The scarf is absolutely stunning!

[becky]

Your vision boggles- simply amazing.

[Ronni]

::boggle::

That scarf is gorgeous! I'm soooo unhappy that there is no way in heck I can make it to opening minute of your booth. I'd be completely capable of elbowing little old ladies out of the way (breaking hips right and left if need be despite the capper that would put on the "rude American" image) so that I could get my mitts on it first.

I love watching the way your mind works. I absolutely adore the idea of a sine-wave scarf and I totally hope you manage to pull that off someday.