make my day

Opened my mail this morning to find that Annica had given me this award in keeping with her custom of making my day!

"Give the award to up to 10 people whose blogs bring you happiness and inspiration and make you feel so happy about blogland! Let them know by posting a comment on their blog so that they can pass it on. Beware! You may get the award several times! :-)"

My turn to name the people that make my day in blogland for their cheerfulness, love of the craft and inspiration:
Elisabeth , Lynda , Jude, Susie Monday, Sharon B, Fiona and the lovely crowd out there at Fiberats mixed media ring


May the new year bring all of you a van load of creative energy.

neki desu

remains

The remains of our Christmas dinner. Notice the cutwork lace doily. Handmade in the Canary Islands i bought it a couple of years ago when we were there.
People here are still at the table, today being Boxing day's ( St. Stephen's) enormous lunch with all the family.
We chose a less traditional path and stopped after Xmas.

Peace to all,

neki desu

look ma, i'm knitting!!

the mess goes on and on

am i supposed to get these loops
or does it have to knit smoothly?

Grabbed a cone of awful wool to start practicing with the knitting machine. On my left hand i had the instruction book, like the good girl i am. Soon i learned i needed at least 4 more hands.
One right hand to hold the yarn, a left hand to hold down the cast on comb-forever until i finished knitting? Another right hand to grab the handle of the carriage and move it from left to right.Yet one more left hand to hold the left side of the knitting and one more hand, unspecified whether left or right for trouble shooting. Oh and i forgot the one needed for holding the book, that is unless you lay it down near the machine and you twist and shout with every pass.

i 'd like to be, under the sea, in an octopus's garden in the shade............

As i discovered instruction books are for people with previous knowledge because they are written full of assumptions. When it said hang the cast on comb there were at least 4 ways you could do it. But goes without saying only one of those was the right way. Trial and error until you get it.
Or try the Internet. Problem is that you type knitting machine and on the very first page, mind you, you click on a page link and all of a sudden you find yourself in a porno site and you're trapped there. No way out unless you download god-knows-what-that most likely will corrupt something literally and figuratively in your computer. The fact is that i've been getting spam with all sorts of promises ever since.

wool fetuccine

In the meantime i was producing cuttlefish fettuccine in heaps. The only thing clear was that the knitting was not growing and the comb was not hanging at the end as in the pictures. Back to trial and error.

The messy threads. That i could sort out was a tension problem. Fumbled until i got it right, no big deal being a weaver. But wait there was the closed needle issue, something that you were supposed to know. Closed needles???Oh that little thingie that sticks up! DUHH!
If you didn't only observation and more trial and error would indicate what was wrong-skipped stitches.

Then the loops. Sometimes the yarn would go smoothly on the needles and it just looked so right... Sometimes it would catch on the teeth forming loops. Loops are baad, baaad -almost always.
And all of a sudden SATORI
Those loops are needed to hang the cast on comb. My oh my, so that's where you hang it so that the knit grows!
Once that was out of the way it was swinging and swaying to the rhythm of the carriage, it's all about rhythm. This cha cha girl is now full of rhythm.

it keeps growing!!!

Now ambition is taking me along the path of wire knitting. Casting on for a coat of mail.
Come along and join me!

A few good tutes on the Internet to save you getting trapped in porno sites:
get knitting.com
ggcreations.com.au
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=j1VEuKGXoqY
the ultimate sweater machine


neki desu

cards, cards, more cards!

Two beautiful cards came in between last week and this week.
The first one is from Bina and she also included some hand spun yarns that i'm treasuring. i was in the process of getting cardiac arrest because she had not gotten my ATC, but fortunately in the end it worked out.

The second one is from Beate and i apologize for the crummy photo. It is so rich in textures and unfortunately the glare kills them.

i need to start thinking about a way to exhibit my growing collection.

neki desu

interesting links

No post without photos, i have illustrated today's post with a post card i finished last week. The top sequins are black, but do not show in the photo.The bottom ones are gold and echo the gold foil on tulle in the top part. There's also some red scrim on top of the tulle and two insets of digitally printed silk organza. BTW the waist on the right side is intentional. LOL!
This is my way of getting ready for Sharon b's challenge for next year- Take it further
a design challenge that promises to be loads of fun.

More links. i found Traditions Mexico not only beautiful photos, but also some very interesting ideas on mordants for indigo and cochineal among others.

For those interested in transfer processes i came across this page with clear instructions on using acrylic gel medium for transfers.

And on a festive note make your own snowflake. Lots of Java fun and the flakes can be used as templates for fiber related projects.
Enjoy.

neki desu

it was about time i posted about food

We were in Madrid for the long weekend here just in search of some much needed r&r. HA!
The city was absolutely packed because everyone had the same idea. The cues at the Prado museum were 800mts plus and i am not exaggerating. Too bad i did not feel like standing in line for ages because the Velazquez exhibit and the new wing were worth it.
We went to the Reina Sofia Museum whose new wing we had not visited.
And the walks. We walked for endless hours, 5 at a shot. We could still enjoy the colors and the Christmas lights were inaugurated on the 5th of December drawing enormous crowds. Do check my Flikr for some photos of the trip.

Evidently after those walks we needed to replenish and Madrid is full of tascas where you can eat jam and cheese and drink fabulous wines.

But as with all things there is ham and ham. And ham means Joselito This half finished plate was at the Joselito place.They have updated the concept of tasca, a humble neighborhood eatery turning it into a sleek, modern place without altering the food element.



The ham is sublime, the wine list is impressive, desserts are memorable and we deserved this kind of gratification after being residents of Hades for weeks and weeks. By the way, the grey sleeves are mine.

neki desu

a fairy tale

Some weeks ago, before Hades set in my household i was musing and voiced out loud how cool it would be to have a knitting machine.
Times have surely changed and now fairy godmothers do not pop up in front of your eyes, too busy for that-LOL, or spurt from bottles or champagne glassess. The it thing now as you may all be aware of is the Internet.
So fairy godmother e-mailed me and said hush, hush child, I have a knitting machine for you. And in instant gratification time span i had a smartly uniformed man knocking on my
door with a professionally packed manila paper wrapped parcel that contained TAA DAAAA!!! a knitting machine!

Yesterday as peace was settling in my building i set the machine up and found a cone of terrible yarn to start practicing with.

i found an incredible number of tutes on you tube -yes, it's all out there-
especially one on casting on, something that i'm puzzled over. It's not the same machine, but i guess the principle stands and it's reasuring to know that all being out there you can play it over and over again. Therefore if i have to invoke my fairy godmother i won't sound like a total moron.
As i know not a thing about the knitting world i'm really excited about what i am going to learn and the possibilities that have opened in front of my eyes. How i'll be able to incorporate them to my textiles is another part of the journey.

Sounds like a fairy tale oi? Yet it actually happened to me.
Fairy godmother YOU ROCK!

neki desu

experiments -answering back with an attitude

As everything is getting back to normality, albeit slowly, my studio time is also coming back.
i needed to walk on the wild side and let myself go as all this domestic BS was driving me nuts.

Water soluble stabilizer, machine stitching and assorted backings were pulled out from the depths and i started feting, stitching, painting and layering.
Except for the water soluble stabilizer i really don't know what i was using as products change their names as soon as they hit Spanish soil.Wonder why, but you should only see the movie titles!
The top one might be vilene with an iron on glue so to speak.
One of the backings looked and acted as nappy liner, i think(what do i know?) :)
It didn't react to the heat gun but absorbed water like crazy and held paints well. Here is what i did with it

i also used poly organza as a backing for needlefelting. i left the edges raw and wild and didn't care if it became distorted.

i added some dimensional paint and zapped it with the heat gun, my favorite toy so far.The heat also distressed the tulle netting a bit which was fine as this was an experiment. And topping it there was this wonderful tangle of machine embroidery that had been sewn to the water soluble backing and eliminated.

It surely feels great to be back in the land of the living.

neki desu