Tuesday, July 29, 2008

Festivities

I went to the Spanish Festival in downtown Santa Fe on my one day off.



The visual culture here is just so different than the old protestent greenery of the north, it never fails to shock me a little bit.  I met this amazing woman selling beautiful weavings and yarn she had spun in a mill that she built herself in Mora, New Mexico.

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You can see the indigo dyed yarn I bought in the lower right.  She told me that I could work for her in the mill, picking alpaca fleeces apart, before they are spun.  Wouldn't that be amazing? Here's the website for her mill: http://www.tapetesdelana.com/ 

Who knows what the future holds.  But in the meanwhile, fibers! 


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Monday, July 28, 2008

Finished knitting projects

So here in New Mexico, I have no time off. My blog has suffered but my knitting has not. Every night, I run wardrobe for the prestigious Santa Fe Opera. Which is a glamorous way of saying, I sit around and do nothing. Here's the first scarf I finished.
It doesn't photograph all that well for some reason. I wrote about this scarf here and here Its funny I wrote so much about such a simple scarf.
My second Santa Fe project was this shrug from this book which I bought in a rare fit. I try never to buy books because they are heavy and I run around a lot, to places like New Mexico.
I really liked doing the lace pattern, miniature leaf or something like that. The part that was surprisingly tricky was at the end when I had to pick up all these stitches to make the
outside neck border thing. I had to keep taking
it out. I had to do it at least three times. In the end, I'm not especially pleased with how it came out. I still wear it, but working on this made me realized that I have to work at being a more patient knitter. I rush things so fast because I'm excited, and I only have one project at a time so I get bored and sloppy. Of course, I'm doing most of this while, you know, opera singers are putting on period costumes so some of my difficulty could stem from that. But I still think that it is time to join the ranks of multiple project knitters. Here's this amazing hand dyed bamboo yarn I bought here.
I'm going to make this with it. It will be complicated, but not too complicated, so I won't get bored but will still be able to work on it while running wardrobe. New careful knitting Nelly did a sample to check
the gauge. I really like the way this pattern looks, I'm super excited.






My unattainable goal is too have this and two other top secret projects finished by the time I go home to Mass, so my mumsy and I can go to Webs and get all new projects.

Tuesday, July 22, 2008

Oh, the places you'll go

It was a rainy day on Tatooine,
When I was attacked by a tusked beast.

Wednesday, July 16, 2008

Spot Removal

Removing stripes from a tiger.  Actually, a cow painted to look like a tiger, with rabbit all around.  So, removing stripes from cowgerabit.

Monday, July 7, 2008

Vintage Shopping in Santa Fe

I've been frequenting this one particular vintage shop in Santa Fe.  It's called Pegasus Antiques, and its within walking distance from my house.  It's also closing down, so everything is about sixty percent off.  This place is amazing, its so full of stuff, it reminds me a little of a store called Sophisticated Junk in my home town.   Pegasus has a huge collection of textiles- not just scarves, table clothes and aprons, but also fabric remnaments dating back to the 40s.
Here's one of the women who works there going through the fabric racks.
So much crazy stuff!
This is probably where Allison Smith's happy place is.  There are these insane "sampler jackets" made up all of little crazy embrodiered patches.
And an amazing hankie from World War I!
I've been really obsessed with old photographs lately.
And old west themed prints.
I bought this amazing purse for my self, so I can accesorize all south west-y.
I bought this amazing radish fabric remnant for my mom.
And also this table cloth.


And I bought these two 1950s fabrics for me! 

Wednesday, July 2, 2008

Foam Carving


I carved foam masks today!

And got foamy feet.