Friday, January 28, 2011

Another Liturgical Stole...

I've been commissioned by Kimiko Karpoff's family to create a stole celebrating her graduation as a deacon in May 2011. I met with Kimiko and her mother Lily last summer at Naramata to review the materials...a brown silk haori and a blue silk kimono which had both belonged to family members, and a selection of Lily's husband's neckties (reds and blues). I pulled these materials out of the bag last week and sorted them into their colour families.




These colours make me think of earth and water, or fire and water.




Given Kimiko's Japanese heritage it made sense to check Designer's Guide to Japanese Patterns, Book 2 by Jeanne Allen for wave and water patterns:








Getting my coloured pencils out, I then played around with some ideas...

Which one do you prefer? Double click any image to make it bigger!


Thursday, January 27, 2011

Okanagan Knitting Retreat 2011





Registration will soon be open for the 13th annual Okanagan Knitting Retreat scheduled for May 26 - 29 at Sorrento Centre on Shuswap Lake.



Celeste Culpepper will be leading the workshop "Toe-Up Socks using Circular Needles". She sent me some images of the socks she made for her family this past Christmas--she calls these socks Woolie Wellies because they're made from a lovely thick wool, suitable for wearing in your boots.





Explore knitting socks from the toe up using either two circular needles or one long
circular needle (Magic Loop Method).
How…Start with Judy’s Magic Cast On and learn when to start the increases for the heel. Create a gusset heel (no short rows), decide what type of leg pattern to create, and end with Jenny’s Surprising Stretchy Bind Off.
You will be working from a pattern so don’t worry, there won’t be any blanks to fill in. There will be hand outs for other types of cast ons, heel constructions, and bind offs. We will also discuss adapting top down sock patterns into a toe-up format.
Celeste Culpepper of Nelson has been knitting for decades and designing for the last one. Her designs have been published in Hemp for Knitting, the Page-a-Day Knitting calendars, Knit Scene magazine and the book No Sheep for You. Her Teardrop Scarves pattern will be appearing in the upcoming Interweave Press anthology The Best of Interweave Knitted Lace scheduled to be released in fall 2011. Please visit her website http://www.celesteknits.ca/






Another pair of fabulous toe-up socks from Celeste's needles are these ones that she knit for her daughter. The name of this pattern is Deathflake.