Eleven Stitches

Indonesia

A few days ago, I got back from my trip to Indonesia! 

David and I, along with my MIL, step-MIL, and BIL went to visit David's sister, her husband, and my nephew.  They're currently living in Jakarta.  Pretty good excuse for a trip, right?

We arrived in Jakarta after a 25 hour flight through Frankfurt and Singapore.  Once we arrived, we went to a huge, shiny, overwhelming mall (keyword for this trip: overwhelming), and I forgot to take pictures.  Except for this line of ATMs, which kind of gives the vibe for the entire place.

The next day, my SIL took me fabric shopping, and for that I will be forever grateful.  I was too overwhelmed by it all to remember my camera, but I did remember after we finished the fabric stores and went to a crazy notions store.  Here's a glimpse at some of the buttons.

There will be a whole post about my fabric, but here's a quick view of it.  I spent less than $200 on this, and 4 of those fabrics are silks.  I bought a LOT.

That evening we went for drinks at Cafe Batavia, which is an old Dutch place.  It was mostly empty, and has this faded elegance to it. 

The walls were covered with old photgraphs, even in the bathroom.

The next day we flew to Bali.  We were a little worried about this, as we found out that the second day we would be there was nyepi.  It's a religious holiday that requires all the guests to stay in their hotels for an entire day.  We actually tried to change our plans so that we wouldn't waste a day of our trip, but it turns out that we couldn't.  In the end, it was just fine because our hotel grounds were huge (we took a 2 hour walk and still stayed on the grounds), and the place was beautiful.

We also got to witness the Ngrupuk parade, which they have the night before nyepi. The people make Ogoh-ogoh statues to represent evil spirits, and they are burned at the end of the parade.  On our taxi ride to Ubud we saw them being set up and constructed.

And we took a walk down to the closest village to see the start of the festivities.

And waited around (for quite a while) at our hotel for them to come by.  The statues were carried by groups of boys;  the bigger the statues, the older the boys.  I was particularly taken with the smallest statue, because the boys who carried it were about the same age as my children at school.

And the big ones were impressive.

The day after nyepi, my step-MIL and I took a class on how to make batik fabric.  (That's a whole other post, too.)

We went to the Ubud market, where I learned how to bargain, and then caught a traditional Legong dance at the Ubud palace that night.

The next day we did more sightseeing and shopping, and visited the Monkey Forest Sanctuary. We came back to Jakarta the day after that. 

We visited Barack Obama's childhood school and finally got a group picture.

And then went shopping along a street of "antique" stalls, where we got even better at bargaining :)

Later, we went to Indonesia's International Museum.

And in the evening we took a very long flight home.  What a great trip!

I'm still recovering from jet lag.  Uploading and processing pictures is a good low-energy activity to do while recoving! Here is my Flickr set, if you would like to see more pictures!

 

Twin Quilts

A month or two ago I got a baby shower invitation for a friend of mine that I hadn't seen in a while.  It was a little bit of a surprise, because I didn't know she was pregnant, although I knew that she was trying.  The catch was that it was a surprise baby shower, so I couldn't call her up and congratulate her!  Instead, I made arrangements to get together for dinner ASAP :)

In my head I was trying to think of what kind of baby quilt I wanted to make for her.  Dresden plates?  Stars?  I wasn't sure. 

We got together for dinner, and although I wasn't surprised she was pregnant, I was surprised to hear it was twins!  That means I needed to make TWO baby quilts.

In some slight way, this made it easier, because I could do one star quilt and one dresden plate quilt.  My friend showed me pictures of some gorgeous murals that she had painted on the nursery walls, in a red, orange, and yellow color scheme.  I love learning about color schemes, so then I can make something to match!

I decided to add a little pop of green to each quilt, and bind them with the same green fabric.  I like the little bit of contrast that it brings.  Both quilts use the same fabrics, and I cut out what I needed for both quilts at the same time.  This definitely made the job easier.

I'm very pleased with both of them, and I'm also glad they came together so quickly.  Congrats, K!

Larch

Here's another completed sweater.

Pattern: Larch Cardigan by Amy Christoffers
Yarn: Maple Creek Farm Laredo, 2.5 skeins
Needles: US 7

I had to knit this sweater in the same color as the pattern photo!  (This will become a small theme, as you shall see over the next few weeks.)  I started it in November, but but the sweater on hold to do Christmas crafting.  I then finished it up pretty quickly in the new year!

I never put the buttons and loops on the sweater, but I might go back and do it at some point.

I had a hard time getting gauge on this project, and in the end my row gauge was way off.  This meant I picked up much fewer stitches for the collar, and that affected the short row shaping.  I ended up over-compensating, so my collar is a few inches taller than it's written to be in the pattern.

That's fine with me.  This turned out to be a nice lightweight sweater in a cheery color! 

On Creativity

I don't know if I've told you or not, but I'm learning how to play the guitar.  I took two semesters of group lessons, and then I've been taking private lessons for about 4 months now.  It's been going well, and I've been steadily improving. I bring my guitar to school every week for "Music Mondays", and it's been a lot of fun.

One thing my teacher has been trying to get me to do is solo, or improvise a tune while another guitar plays chords.  I'm really uncomfortable with this, and really no good at it either.  It's made me think about my type of creativity, and improvising really isn't the way for me to do it. 

I'm a learner and a planner.  When I started quilting, I spent probably a couple of years quilting from patterns before I started making up my own stuff.  And when I did, I drew it and charted it and figured out how to make what was in my head.  There are quilters who are awesome at improvising and making up things as they go along (hi chawne!), but I'm not one of them.  But when I plan, I'm really proud of the stuff I come up with.

 
My zebras quilt, which I made a very long time ago, and am still very proud of.

The same has gone for knitting and sewing.  I knitted from patterns for a long time, and now I make up my own thing when I see the need. I'm still learning how to sew clothing, and I suppose I'll make up my own patterns when I'm ready.  Maybe. But I can guarantee that it won't be something that I just cut out and stitched up without a real plan in mind.

I'm not saying that there cannot be creativity within following a pattern.  I do consider myself to be a creative person, and I particularly love matching a pattern with yarn or fabric and having it come out to be just as cool as I imagined it would. 

I was so excited the night I had the idea to pair the Venezia Pullover with Kauni yarn, and I love the results.

I also have to say I take great pleasure in following a good pattern and figuring out how it works as I go.  It's soothing and satisfying to have it work out like I hoped it would.  I love honing my skills and executing them simply because it is fun to do so.  My fingers and brain have learned to do something that they didn't know how to do yesterday.  I've recently been learning how to play "Blackbird" on the guitar, which has been a personal goal obsession of mine ever since I heard Kurt sing it on Glee.  This isn't really a creative endeavour per se; I don't want to do something new with this song.  But wow I really enjoyed figuring how that one of the chords I was using wasn't quite right and this is the right way to play it. 

Some kind of boring Koigu socks, but I enjoyed making them.

I think I'm most often creative when I'm by myself.  Knitting, sewing, and quilting can be social, but for the most part they're an individual pursuit for me.  And I sometimes have trouble figuring out how to be and what to say when I'm with other people.  Really, I know I'm getting better at this but it's still something I have to work on.  If I've ever met you at a fiber festival and I smile but don't say very much, it's because I don't really know WHAT to say and I'm probably a little panicky about it. (As a side note, I don't have to figure out how to be around children.  They're much easier to talk to.)  So as for guitar, improvising at a new skill while trying to be in time with another person I don't know all that well is VERY HARD for me.  But I bet you would be impressed with my scales because I worked on them a lot.  And maybe someday I'll be bursting out with a tune I made up, but it's probably something I wrote at home when David wasn't around to hear me figuring it out.  I'm just saying.

So that's my type of creativity as best as I can understand it.  I'm not saying that I'm not open to new things, but I also know how I work best.  How about you?  How are you creative? And what types of creativity make you so excited you'll wake up early on a Saturday morning just to GET STARTED? 

Again With That Pattern

I finished a dress with some of the fabric I bought in Berkeley over Christmas.

I got this fabric at Stone Mountain & Daugher.  The pattern is Simplicity 3775 (now out of print), again.  You might recognize it because I've sewn it several other times before.

It's funny, I tend not to repeat a knitting pattern, (unless it's the Side Slip Cloche) but I am happy to repeat sewing patterns multiple times.  It's probably for several reasons.  Sewing is much quicker than knitting, so I'm not spending the same amount of time with a pattern as I do with knitting.  Also, sewing is more difficult to try on as you go, in my opinion.  I've been tweaking this dress pattern almost every time I made it, and I think I got this one just right.  I think also, especially with knit fabrics, that I have a harder time finding a pattern that I like and fits my needs, so I just stick to the ones I know will work.

David wanted me to twirl when he was taking pictures, and there was one that came out.

I love this dress.  It's very comfortable, and the print on the fabric is so interesting.  I have enough fabric left over to probably make a tee.  Maybe I should branch out and NOT make my favorite tee pattern again?

 

Levenwick

I finished most of this sweater before Thanksgiving last year, but I wasn't quite happy with it when I wore it.  I finally made the changes I wanted to make, and now it's officially done!

Pattern: Levenwick, by Gudrun Johnston
Yarn: Tess Designer Yarns Mohair & Merino
Needles: US 7

This was a nice knit.  The worsted weight yarn works up fast!  I made it short sleeved so that I could wear it more often-- I've found that a long-sleeved worsted-weight sweater is too warm for work. 

When I "finished" it the first time, I put the buttons too close to the edge of the button band, so there were gaps where you could see my shirt when the fabric curved in.  Also, I was short a button, and I left the bottom button off.  I found both of those things to be annoying, so I finally snipped off the buttons and re-positioned them.  I added a white button to the bottom that doesn't match the ceraminc ones (from Jennie the Potter).  The top of the sweater (near my collarbone) was also gapping strangely, so I moved the top buttons over to the side a little bit to help fix that. 

I completely forgot about the pocket, too!  I finally knitted it while watching the Oscars, and sewed it on.  I originally sewed it on higher up (like the pattern photo), but I found that it wasn't flattering at all on me.  So I moved it down to the bottom of the sweater, and I like it much better there.

I like the lace pattern, and I think the buttons work really well with this sweater.

I'm glad that I went back and fixed all of the orignal problems with this sweater, because I think it's great now!