granny squares with doc mason's edge

Four days and a long round trip drive to Chicago later.  It turns out that I only needed to bring this one project along, it held my attention and was a perfect companion.

Over the first seven hours of the trip, when I wasn't driving, I made the last five squares, to bring my total to 42. ThenI ripped out the first three squares and made them more interesting. Followed by having a stern talk with myself to prevent ripping out and re-doing any more.  Somewhere around Ohio, with just one painfully expensive speeding ticket in the glove compartment, and just as we finished the last chapter of S-Town *(recommend!), I grabbed the Doc Mason's yarn and started crocheting the outer edges, through to Indiana and then Illinois.

I seriously love this yarn. It's totally working to bring the squares together tonally. Some are relatively muted, like these two, some have, let's say, more punch than I really would like.

Yarn with that farm-y sheepy glow. Don't you want to huff the lanolin fumes? I'm dreaming a whole sweater of it now. I was lucky to get the last of the 2016 Doc Mason's but keep an eye out, Ellen is poised for  another trip to the mill, you can see the clip ready to roll from the link. 

My favorite sight from the trip was these three together again, if only for a few hours. Two of us drove out to Chicago, two flew. The four of us not in the Navy drove back together. Quality togetherness.

* We were completely absorbed by the S-Town podcast, to the point that Dave doesn't even remember seeing most of Pennsylvania, which  let me tell you, is a long long section of the trip. I found it the best kind of reporting and storytelling, and so brilliantly edited. We failed to latch on to any other podcast after it---but did discover that there's a Pandora station called Road Trippin' that was good for three hours of punchy-tired  singalong to mostly early 70's hits and got us home by 2am on Sunday.

november post 4: that granny square hat

In which I share two topics dear to my heart: granny squares and the virtue of having an ongoing series photo project (ha! You thought I was going to say Zoe and Bobo, two topics also dear tomy heart. OBVIOUSLY).

The usual suspects. She put the plastic rats, shown under her arm, on his head after the hat came off.

A while back I saw this granny square hat on Pinterest, called the Rainbow Beanie, which linked to a tutorial. I love me a granny square project on the side of the knitting, it is all about playing with scraps of color. I figured why not use leftover yarns from Zoe's blanket to make her one.The tutorial itself comes down on the super chatty side of things, but it'll get you going.  Sometimes less is more, in the instructions, if you know what I mean. The hat itself is a keeper- and gets pulled out of the  basket by the front door with some regularity.  Year round, whether she needs a hat or not (I am sure many would agree with her, that you always need a hat).  I am tempted to make a less Grateful Dead-ish one for myself, like Fiorella by Courtney Kelley. Though I suspect it'll still have that hippiechick look on me.(Even worse, aging stuck in time hippiechick. Not a pretty category).

This photo was  in my Instagram feed (I am @galezucker on Instagram), it's part of a series I started 18 months ago  #dailyzoe   Zoe, the easiest kid on earth has one thing she is particular about. It began as soon as she could point and grunt. She likes to put together her own clothing. She has opinions.  Since I care not at all what people think of her outfits, and she's been dressing herself since she 2, this works out well for us all.

It's more than a little overindulgent, I get that. But just as I always have a granny square project going on, I like to have a little photo series underway, something that I can keep adding to, that can be a signature of sorts, and a little bit of a challenge, trying to keep it from getting too repeititve . It's all shot on my phone cam,so it's short and sweet and easy to upload to Instagram and FB.It's a creative doodle, who doesn't love a creative doodle? You can see more at #dailyzoe  on Instagram.

gravity of color: lulu cowl

Happy 2014! Instead of  waiting for the  "start as you mean to go on" thing , I got a jump on my resolutions- if you insist on calling them that- in December.  Like, finishing projects.  It has been a march down FO Boulevard, a road that keeps on going.  My other intentions are to put things away as I use them, and keep the kitchen table clear. * Oh yeah , and keep moving** . And do more yoga.  .

One of the finished:  my sister Lulu's cowl, gifted to her last month.A a field trip to the New Britain Museum of American Art, to see the Maruice Sendak exhibit  gave us a chance to shoot it.

Also, gave us this perfect backdrop, an installation entitled The Gravity of Color made entirely of paper and plastic cups , by Lisa Hoke. It's breathtaking in person, so unexpected. I wouldn't normally choose an intensely colored and textured background but we both felt it the minute we saw it.

This cowl is my own design--to the extent that I can say that --I mean,  it's basically granny square stripes in the round, with big picot edges. Lulu dropped by the day I was blocking the last Big Ass Granny blanket and  wanted something granny too, but to wear around her neck at work. Further, she wanted it to be very colorful, in her colors,  to make a conservative blue jacket she'd just bought more handcrafty and artsy/funky looking.

Specific enough?  Anyhoo, she loves it.   And I love when someone loves what I make for them, don't you?  It came out about 6 1/2 " wide (including the edging) and about 72" in circumference. Lulu is even shorter than I am--she's a bit over 5 feet-- if that gives you  some perspective for the photo on top.

I used mostly worsted weight yarns, partial skeins: Cascade 220, Cascade Eco wool,  Brown Sheep Lambs Pride,  Berroco Ultra Alpaca , Berroco Peruvia and  some Aruacania that I seem to never ever ever ever run out of. And finally some handspun that Rebecca Hatcher gave me in a yarn swap.  All told it weighs about 600 grams, which is (I think , I'm a little sketchy at this) is about 1000-1100 yards.

It totally does the job of de-preppifying the blue jacket. Goal met.

Next I hope I'll be show you my finished Shellseeker. I have been wearing it so much that it already looks like a legacy sweater,. You would think a  professional photographer would have someone to help her get a decent sweater shot, wouldn't you? 

Meanwhile will I see you at Vogue Knititng live in NYC on the 17th or 18th? My Friday morning class is getting pretty full (if not full up) but the noon lecture, which is a fun one hour romp through  tips & tricks to your photos, is still open ( unlimited in size).
...and now the footnotes>>>>>>>>>
*keeping my kitchen table clear sounds like a metaphor but I mean it literally. It is in the dead center of the first floor of our house, in an open space, and everyone including me drops stuff on it as they pass by. Drives me nuts.
** Fitbit. My little friend/tyrant.  Recommended.

I am going to start replying to comments in the comments--after all these years, a little change for the new year!

bigass granny square #2

alt title: it takes one to make one. Just kidding! You can make one, too. You should* !

How bigass, you ask? Approximately 5 feet square (60 inches x 60 inches), no idea how much yarn I used--it's mostly leftover partial skeins, you know how those accumulate. Along the way working on it I purchased three skeins when running low on orange and a certain shade of green, or else it looked like it 'd get muddy.

A gift to my sister Marla McLean, for a special birthday . She'd admired my last bigass granny square blanket and asked if I'd make her one...so it wasn't a total surprise...but then again it was...

 

since she didn't know that I really was working on it, or colors. Actually, I don't plan the color. Spontaneity, she is my middle name. More like: flying by the seat of my pants, she is my MO.  I started with the idea of using warm colors, pinks, purples and reds for the double crochets, and cooler  greens, blues and grays for the smaller single crochets. Until I was staring at some Josef Albers *** color studies in the YUAG , pondering the edge when a color, like , say, blue, shifts from warm to cool or vice versa..so I played with that a little.. Also, with only a couple exceptions, I chose colors that I had enough yardage to get fully around the square.

 

This isn't the traditional granny square, in which groups of three double crochets are offset from row to row, so there's a diagonal aspect. It's a version** I prefer, alternating rows of double crochet in groups of three , and single crochets with chain 3 between. If you don't speak crochet,that means the little tiles of color line up in rows below each other, instead of offset from row to row.

 

I'm especially happy with the scalloped edging--that's a new one for me. I had a large ball of Cascade Eco in aqua left over from this hat.  It makes a good ending, more fun than the plain single crochet rounds on BigAss Granny # 1.

I used an H crochet hook. Or four. Kept losing them! One disappeared in the house, just zzzzip, gone. The second ? When Kirsten Kapur picked me up to drive to Maine for Fiber College last month, we hadn't even pulled out of the parking lot  before I fumbled my hook.  It disappeared into mysterious nothingness under the seat. We had to stop at my LYS before we got on the highway. (she acquired some delish yarn so not all that tragic, really) Less than 24 hours later, that hook rolled between two planks of a boardwalk and was gone forever. Thankfully, a vendor at the Fiber College event sold me a nice wooden one, still in my possession.

Most of the yarns are 100% wool, or wool/alpaca blends. Berroco Ultra Alpaca, Cascade 220 and Brown Sheep Lambs Pride are all well represented.  By the way? Marla loves it. 

I totally enjoyed this project--it's a good switchup from knitting, especially if you're working on an attention-requiring project, like a sweater with shaping or a lace shawl. It's so simple-you don't need special skills to start a granny square.  Easy stuff.  All that and the satisfying mmm of using up leftover yarns from other projects--like visiting old friends. Or single skeins of stash, if you are of that persuasion. I may just need to do another. Of some sort. Checkout my Pinterest board when granny squares take over the world  if you don't think I'm serious......

______________________________________________

* Ongoing appreciation for crochet queen Ellen Bloom's insistence that I sit down and make me a granny square  when I was photographing her for CraftActivism. What a gift she gave me!

** in Jan Eaton's 200 Crochet Blocks she calls it the Chocolate Box, you may see instructions elsewhere..but it's worth owning the book, it's an amazing resource 

*** whoa, check out that link to an app based on Albers color studies, and looking at your own designs compared to them. so. cool.

warm welcome webinar wayfarers!

Yesterday Interweave announced my upcoming June 5th webinar :  Photographing Your Knits. poof ! walla ! and ta-da!, I have never had so many visitors here.

Not even that time I was giving away 4 pounds of Starbucks coffee! (Though that was pretty cool,  right?)

Not even right after Shear Spirit came out, and all the sheepy/goat/alpaca folk I'd met in my farm visits and travels came to call.

crias at Victory Ranch in Mora New Mexico

Not even the times my work with the Red Scarf Project /Foster Care to Success got all linked  (you know about the Red Scarf project? If not please take a peek )
The blog's been here for eight years, so browse around and welcome to my world.

a rare appearance by Dave, who appreciates the handknits but models reluctantl

I hope you sign up for the webinar. I got hip to webinars last year.  A webinar is essentially watching a live (or, recorded live) slide talk presentation, with me chatting but your monitor filled with images (photos!). You can type in questions that the moderator , the Knitting Daily Empress Kathleen Cubley,  will ask me, and I'll answer, either during the slide talk or immediately after. I won't rush off, and the scheduling is flexible. The cool thing is you can watch as little or as much as you wish, and then come back and watch the rest--or watch it again. I cram in a lot of helpful tips, so the ability to re-visit is awesome.

an image from Craft Activism, a good example of a simple way to shoot handmade..and a favorite of mine, shot at granny square goddess Ellen Bloom's house in LA. I heart granny squares, and Ellen is to blame.
• • • • • • • • • •• • • • •• • • • •• • • • •• • • • •
My commercial website is Gale Zucker Photography. Plenty of sheep shots there, too. 

1 FO, 2 wip, 13MO

Some kind of weird alphabet soup.
 
The FO, a birthday present for sister Lulu, who collects pincushions. Improvised from scrap yarns-- they may all be Cascade 220. She loved it, though I decided it was exactly halfway between hackysack and decorative toiletpaper cover.  Not sure I want to slip down that slope.

wip #1: another Bigass Granny square blankie underway, (Marla, you better look away if reading this) .  I like to think working on this is the intersection where deep winter meets cabin fever.  So many colors! Such a fine way to use up started skeins and play around with how colors interact. Plus, once it starts to grow? Warm lap.
wip #2: I cast on for this Shellseeker sweater for myself in..October? Not sure why it is not done yet. In Malabrigo Rios Pearl Ten, that queen of all the Malabrigo colors. Is it gray, is it eggplant, is it brownish blackish purple? No stripes for me, though. I tipped the neck with mostly red handspun, because you can do that when you knit your own sweaters. I'd like to stick with this sweater and get 'er done soon.  March is the month of our sweater discontent around here, as the winter seems like it will never end.

13 MO. Can't resist.

we are what we make?

Head up, lenses up SoCal , there're Photography for Knitter workshops heading your way mid March. If you're a member of the El Segundo Slipt Stitchers Knitting Guild, I am honored to be your March program and hope you'll sign up for the workshop (march 17/18). If you're not a member , find me at Wildfiber in Santa Monica on march 18th (call them to register) and at Loop & Leaf in Santa Barbara  for a Photo Safari on March 20. We're working on some Craft Activism booksignings, too, stay tuned

•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

About a year ago, under the influence of Ellen, Maryse  and a massive quantity of partial skeins, I started crocheting my Big Ass Granny Square afghan.

 

Little did I know that by the time I finally finished the last long round of edging last week....

 

I would actually BE one.

   

The Big Ass Granny Square afghan is one continuous square of worsted weight, natural fiber yarn -mostly wool with some alpaca and silk blends in there. It's the Chocolate Box Square in Jan Eaton's 200 Crochet Blocks . Awesome resource. It's an alternative to your basic granny square--I like that the little tiles of color line up instead of being  staggered.

There's no sequence or repeats or plan - I chose colors  by contrast or by varying warms and colds. I ended up buying 3 skeins, when I ran out of their colors but thought I'd miss having them in the mix: orange,  grey and a green. Other than that, I love that I can see bits of sweaters and hats I knit,  yarns from gifts for loved ones, yarn for test knitting projects for both Shear Spirit and Craft Activism, yarn I dyed myself , and yarn my dear knitting friends enabler, Mary Lou,  sent me when I worried I might be running low.

I've already put Bobo on notice that he is NOT allowed to cozy up on this one. And I'm  plotting another, for a gift request.

Credit to my friend & colleague Edwina Stevensonhttp://www.edwinastevenson.com, she photographed me in my afghan  at The Inn at Montpelier, where we stayed while working on a photo shoot for a client up in Vermont last week. I wonder if the inn staff thought we were crazy, dancing around in an afghan on a chilly VT back porch?

 

rhinebeck: better late than....

Photo Heavy Monday would be Photo Heavier today if the new cheapo card reader hadn't immediately broken and corrupted a 2 gig card full images from Rhinebeck. Luckily I had a few on another card from the NY Sheep & Wool Fest last month.

 

This year's hats on my friends from New Haven- LOVE the fat sequins.

 

Nanney Kennedy's Seacolors yarns from her Meadowcroft Farm. 

 

None of the setting's beauty but all of the fun I had with Ann & Kay of Mason Dixon Knitting.

 

Sister Lulu and I found this amazing B&B at the last minute, right on the Hudson in Tivoli. 

(from the Lulucam) It was less a fawncy B&B, more a visit to an eccentric auntie who last left the premises in 1942. In a word, fabulous. Although unconventional: I had a direct view of the Hudson- and a jar of home canned pickles as a bookend.

I spent a great deal of my time at the Craft Activism table in the author's area.

with great company like Craft Activism contributors Kirsten Karpur

and Ann Weaver, helping me show the Fussy Cuts blanket while I continue to flap my hands

Happily I was right next to Anna Hrachovec who shares my hand skillz. I LOVE her MochiMochi work.

Gnomes vs Snowmen!

 

I finally met Laura Nelkin (in her Iota capelet) ! She is so tiny- she seemed so much larger on Twitter, where we've become friends. This photo also demonstrates that restraint in color and a natural palette is a better choice than...what was I thinking? An explosion of color in my attire.  Note to self: please knit some solid headbands. Please.
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
thanks to my sister, Linda Hali Zucker , for documenting the action in these photos in the authors area or this would be a Photo Slim post!

in which we revisit the big ass granny square

It's wip it wednesday,  crochet edition. Remember my bigass granny square from last winter,  put aside when working on it's enormous woolly/alpaca self was suffocating?

 

It's almost done. I stalled on the edging.  Did I want a kind of fancier crochet stitch for the final round? Shells ? Fringe? Corkscrews? A ruffle maybe? What about colors? Too light will get dirty and frame it too much. Too dark will be too dark.  Overthink much? 

 

When I spread it out on the old picnic table, I'd forgotten it's Bobo's perch for Keeping The Yard Squirrel Free. He was on it in a split second, scanning the treetops.

 

  I decided this didn't need anything fancier than a round of double crochet in every stitch followed by a round of single crochet, same way. For colors, I went to my fallback position of local colors.

 

The orangey/rust round was almost done when I noticed I'd done the first two sides in double crochet, then absent mindedly continued 1.5 more sides in single crochet. Glad crochet unzips out fast. 

 

I don't mind this not being done yet, it's just plain old fun & so quickly gratifying . And it's already been put to work for warmth. When camping up at Fiber College, I woke up the first night FREEZING. I didn't have warm enough bedding in my tent.  I did have an almost finished BigAss Granny Square. Slept with it on me, nice and toasty, crochet hook and all for the following 2 nights. 

• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • 

You can find more wip wednesdays over on this blog.  Oooh, I almost forgot. Need an idea for some wips, yerself?

LOVE Anna Kuo Lukito's new design, Anacortes (Ravelry) or from her site, Crafty Diversions.