My friend Di started a Facebook group wherein members post a photo a day for the month of January. Today’s suggested topic: a depiction of goals for yourself.
I thought of an easy one! Finish this flipping February Lady sweater.
I started knitting this sweater a year ago. I chugged along nicely until May, when I set the sweater aside. I hate having a pile of wool worsted in my lap and in my hands when it’s 90 degrees out and it’s light until 9 pm. Just too much sweatiness. So I put it aside.
When I put it aside, I had all of it done but one sleeve.
In September, when the days got shorter, the sweater started to look at me, as if to say “hey, get over here and finish me.” But I was teaching a new class, Design Fundamentals. And it is such a big class! Not student-wise (there were only eleven students), but idea-wise. I knew they would need to know the importance of value and repetition and so forth. But I also wanted them to know about Paula Scher and Swiss Industrial Style and Polish Posters.
And I wanted my students to think about the difference between fashion and communication. So I had to think about that myself, and figure out a way to talk about it.
And along with my wonderful class, I had the the Fermentation Fest project. It is such a cool project, particularly with the Farm/Art DTour, and I’m so happy to be able to work on it. But it didn’t leave a lot of time for knitting.
So I didn’t even think about it until a few weeks ago, when I looked at the sweater and thought, “Oh my God, I’m knitting a giant baby sweater.”
It is, in fact, a GIANT BABY SWEATER, adapted from a lovely Elizabeth Zimmerman pattern meant for actual babies.
It’s designed for babies and their little baby selves. They can’t really do buttons and they are basically round: no boobs, no waist, no hips. Just smooth (though wiggly) ovals, who look cute in sweaters.
And what adult woman doesn’t find that amazing? I certainly must have. I bought $65 worth of yarn and knitted this sweater that clearly says “I am in my fifties and yet I am adorable!”
I do understand the rationale behind adapting the Elizabeth Zimmerman sweater for women.
For one thing, it’s easy to knit. The lace makes it look difficult, but its basically knitting a big square thing and a couple of tubes.
For another, it’s adorable. Adorability and cuteness are very huge in the DIY indie culture. Etsy and Ravelry are stuffed with cuteness. They’re not entirely filled with cuteness, but there’s a lot. Like this and this and this.
The combination of ease and trendiness hypnotized me, it would seem. But not quite long enough to remain amazed by the sweater. I’ll finish it anyway.
I signed up for the Art House Co-op Sketchbook Project 2012! It’s good for me to do these sorts of things, because it forces me into a discipline.
Discipline is good for me; it is a key to my happiness..
Back to the Sketchbook Project. It works like this: you send them some money and they send you a sketchbook and you fill it up and send it back to them and they send it on tour, along with everyone else’s sketchbook, at galleries and museums all over the world.
The Wall Street Journal has, for years, featured these neat, etching-style portraits. I worship them from afar. Click here to visit the source of the one above.
As a person who entered the graphic design business after computers took over everything, I always assumed that they were produced using a Photoshop filter like Andromeda Cutline. I have Cutline and go through periods when I use it a lot. I love the etched look. Here’s an illustration I made for a project using a photograph and Cutline:
The WSJ portraits are so cool, though, I assumed it was a kick-ass filter available only to that paper.
Turns out, the illos are actual, hand-drawn drawings drawn by people. The Journal has a team of graphic artists who create these portraits, called “hedcuts,” in pen and ink. This crazy activity has been going on since the 1970s. The video below explains the whole thing.
In addition, a couple of the illustrators have blogs: Kevin Sproule (who has been making hedcuts since the ’70s, and who developed the style) and Noli Novak.
My mom’s mother, Agnes Lauer, had a Christmas cactus and she gave a cutting to my mom. Probably in the seventies, I don’t know when, but I do remember my mom’s Christmas cactus in a yellow enameled seventies pot.
Mom’s cactus migrated around the house because Mom was always trying to find the right conditions to get it to bloom at Christmas. She heard this sort of cactus needs dark, cool conditions at certain specific times in order to bloom at other specific times. I’m not sure it ever worked out to her satisfaction.
But the cactus thrived and is huge now, and a couple of years ago she gave me a little cutting. And now it’s blooming! Just in time for Greek Independence Day. Oppa!
I’d like to bring your attention to Julia’s recent project.
Julia is an illustrator and blogger in Berlin. Her concern about the effects of the earthquake in Japan prompted her to implement an interesting fund-raising project.
She created the above series of four small greeting cards, and has made them available in pdf format on her blog, Lineanongrata. The pdf sells for $5. All the proceeds from the sale of these lovely cards go to relief efforts in Japan.
I bought a set, printed them out and trimmed them, and now they’re all ready to pop into small envelopes (I have tons of small envelopes left over from various social stationery projects). I can’t wait to send one to my Mom, and my sister!
Please consider buying a set of Julia’s cards. They’re very cute, and they support a worthy cause.
