Knitting Muse

How sweet is this? While mooching around the Buxton Village Books in the Outer Banks NC last week I found this Knitting Muse. They had a large one but after last year I'm on a tight budget so when I found this one in a card I had to have her. She's made of metal, wire and beads with a ribbon around her waist. I'll hang her somewhere in my studio.
She's one of Laini's Ladies but they had other 'muses' too.

Also while there I, of course, went to the neighbourhood Bead Shop and as well as restringing a couple of bracelets, making a new one of some stones I had been given by my lovely friend Rose I picked up some beads for my sweaters. A bag of 'Bead Soup' (my husband asked where they floor sweepings) has offered up some lovely ones too, sometimes bags of beads really don't have much in that I want, like too many plastic beads, but these were glass and metal.

....and now back to work! Whew! Why are vacations so short!

Now to Pause...

My little booth at Just for Us

Well, I've three shows under my belt at this point, the One of a Kind in Toronto, Just for Us also in TO and Originals in Ottawa. After missing the Chicago show as I was still in chemo the Ottawa show was down so this year has sort of started off with whimper. Just for Us, however, was a nice bonus that I was able to do because of the three week stretch between the two big shows ... not usual, they're usually back to back with only time to sleep in your own bed for a couple of nights and rinse out your knickers! I said that to someone who then asked 'what, you only have five pairs of drawers?'



Anyway, now that Spring is here (or is it July?) and I'm on vacation I have a bit of time to post, though I brought so much stuff to do with me I may never see the sun.... just kidding! These lovely crocuses and snowdrops were along my walk month up against a warm wall in the Limestone City. I'm sure the old leaves around them are raked up by now.




I wanted to share a new tool I got with my colour changer and my yarn tree (which when not used for yarn is a great place to hang stuff which needs to go back into the house from the studio!). It's a long piece of wood with a groove in it that fits over the knitting needle heels on the machine and moves all the needles up and/or back at once, marvelous. It hung around my machine until one day while knitting a new design using lace I needed to move the work out from the bed to see if any stitches had caught on the sinker posts as they are wont to do.











You can see the lace knitting clear of the posts, that's the tool turned upside down to show the

groove, and then you can see when I find a stitch that has gone awry and hooked itself onto a sinker post. I do this every second row, quick and easy really, I only move the needles out a bit and back, better than trying to fix a hole in your lace after the piece is finished and off the machine. I love this tool but please don't ask what it's called, I had never seen one before.









Whew! I've had a real deal with business and I've had a chance to think about it while walking on the beach and keeping up my fitness and trying to destress. Over a hassle with a custom order I was told that, sick or not, I should not be taking orders that I cannot promise to deliver at the stated time. Then it came to me that in 26 years I've done that a lot really, I have no control over whether the yarn I order will be delivered, it mostly comes from afar and as the yarn business isn't the biggest I'm sure I have to wait until my supplier has a large enough order to put in to the manufacturer. There have been customs problems and so on.

Also, as has happened, I've come home from a show and placed an order only to find that that manufacturer has discontinued the colours I need! I once spent three days on the internet searching other knitters stashes for a certain colour. I told the client and she loved the story and had me write it out for her and send it along with the sweater!

I've had to refund only twice in twenty six years; one to a woman who ordered while in the throes of the up side of bi polar disorder, then came down and reneged, she was even introduced to me by another artisan as her friend. The other time was because I was sick and everything took a back seat to the big C. Oh well, if it's only been twice in twenty six years I'm not doing too badly... (I tell myself).

Label Example.

Aside from building web sites now, something I've always wanted to do, I took over label making from the woman from whom I've purchased my fibre content labels over the years. I've still to set up the computer and printer and I've a few thousand labels left but what's great is I can do a minimum of 5. I've always loved knowing I can get just a few labels for some unusual fibre that I've found. More on this in weeks to come once I've set it up.... I'm running out of 100% Wool labels myself. Might put this on Etsy.


BTW no date for the big double M... I'll keep you posted. Also on the lighter side, I've tried on my Summer hats and found that they're all too big for me with such short hair and they float around my ears!!!

Well, that's it for now, at least now you know I didn't fall off the edge off the earth!

Playing with Colour

I had client revisit me today for another cardi. This lovely lady has brought me something to work with before (a houndstooth fabric) and this time it is a piece of jewelry (pictured). It's a piece of art glass as a neck piece with the most iridescent colours of glass overlay.

The pendant shimmers and changes colour like taffeta, the photo just doesn't do it justice, so I pulled some cones off the shelves and even one that my client wasn't sure of, but it completed the grouping. I'm looking forward to putting them together.

Also my client came in looking for a black with colour...... then after chatting and looking at colours she decided to go with a colour for the main body of the garment and the black will be incorporated into it with the colours. Wheeeee!

As well as this bright spot in my day, this lady is also a breast cancer survivor! We exchanged our stories, which is always encouraging for me as I got through this. She told me that I would get my real hair back eventually ..... good, 'cause I've a closet full of bottles of 'stuff' for curly hair!!!

No appt with my surgeon yet so I still have no idea when I'll have surgery. Better go and call the office.

Inspiration 2007

Whew! Just back from Cleveland, Ohio, where the first Inspiration machine knitting seminar happened this weekend. Fabulous!

I guess I'm saying Whew because I taught two days worth off classes one week after my third chemo treatment and was so energized I flew through until I ran out of fumes somewhere during the last class. However I got that energy and enthusiasm back in spades from the women in those classes and I had a ball!

I had wonderful help and support from my dear friends and traveling companions Sonja and Rose who took care of and watched out for me.

Here are a couple of photos of the Button Making classes which ran two hours each day and eventually got just about everyone absorbed and many being amazingly creative when I had heard ' I can't do this!'

My teaching room eventually looked like my studio, a total tip! But that's when your mind runs free and you just go to town with whatever creativity you have .... or might have had back when you ten and were not afraid of mixing weird colours and making odd shapes.

I was also pleased to be able to visit with a woman I admire, Susan Lazear, who runs Cochenille.com where I get my Garment Designer software. She's well travelled and brought to the seminar the world of colour, design in knitting, and (though I couldn't attend) fashion trends forecasting from her trip to Italy.

Here we have an after fashion show shot late on Friday night. Rachelle Moffat is examining one of my cardis as she wants to make her own buttons, her knitting is so beautiful and different from mine I cannot wait see what she creates. Then there is Carol Scott, Susan Lazear and my friend Judith and Rose with her back to the camera. My friend Sonja is behind but I have this super picture of us. Sonja knit me a hat using soft thick yarn and some needle felting. It is my first really warm hat and with a little cotton cap with keep me cozy through the Winter. I even wore it during the seminar when the AC in the hotel got to be too much!


Sonja also took a bunch of picture which I will post when I get them.

I was told to eat, sleep, nap and my bunk mate Rose put up with my gorging myself on healthy snacks late in the evening in bed while we watched What Not to Wear!!! I find that during my chemo if I feel like eating and can find something healthy to pig out on I just go ahead as I know there will be endless days of no appetite, so thanks Rose with putting up with my munching.... even though we had had a good dinner!!!

I also thank the girls for packing light as I had to cram a lot of stuff into my little car.... but we did it... including a couple of bottles of wine though we were just too pooped to do them any justice!

Here are Sonja and Rose in front of our baggage!!!!! just before we squeezed it into my car. I thank them and my friend Judith soooo much for their help and support. I thank Sue Jalowiec for putting on this great conference, I thank the other instructors for being their own wonderful selves though I only got to chat them briefly.

I also thank the great women who stretched themselves to create and to listen to me in my classes, who came up to me with words of encouragement for both my teaching and my health.

Now I feel great about coming back and holing up in my studio to knuckle down work!

Wooly Dragon

I just remembered I shared a booth with my friend Georgia at the recent Dragon Boat races here in K'town and it made me focus on knitting a dragon on a pink jacket as we were there to in support of Breast Cancer Action Kingston. Their boat was powered by a great team of survivors.

I fished around for ages and asked knitter friends for ideas about a Dragon design. Boy! did I find some crazy and wild ones on the 'net!!!!

After filling my head with dragons this is what I came up with and knit it as an asymmetrical back waist patch. The rest of the cardi is pretty nice and I'll shortly be loading it on to the gallery page of my web site.......

Belated Happy Birthday.....

.......to my business!

June 2nd just came and went and I totally for got to celebrate. June 2nd 1982 was the day I went downtown Toronto and registered Carolyn M. Barnett Designs and started the mad knitting career with hand knitting.

I'm still kicking! (albeit slowly just now).




This charming bit of knitting was what I knit for Janet Morton's knitted squares exhibition at the Textile Museum in Toronto a few years ago. Anyone was welcome to submit a knitted square from 3" x 3" up to 18" x 18" (I chose the larger) with a date knit in. The date had to be significant and the piece had to be accompanied by a letter explaining the significance. It was an amazing exhibition. I went with my Mum.

Well, my Dad turned 82 on Monday the 4th, I'll count that lelftover piece of cake as my celebratory piece.

Pink Ribbon.

My good, but distant, friend Judith had a project last year, to make one of my designs (one she had made in a workshop in my studio, in a style to wear to a Breast Cancer fundraiser. She was working in Black Cannele mercerised cotton with 'Sugar' (pink) accents. She needed some pink and asked if I had any odd bits on a cone, she intended to use it on the undercollar and to make pink 'ribbons' and bead them. I had about a third of a cone and took it with me to the Bonnie Triola weekend seminar and said, though small, consider it a donation to the cause (I guess a very round about way).

Judith made me a pink ribbon but we hadn't got together so it arrived in the post last week and was a lovely surprise, it's beautifully beaded, you can see the size up against a quarter.

Now it's my turn, I'm sharing a booth at the local Dragon Boat day here in Kingston on June 9th and I got all fired up to knit a stunning (a girl can dream) jacket in pink with a dragon motif of sorts on the back. I've ordered enough 'Sugar' to make it in cotton but too late and it won't be here in time so I ransacked my shelves and found lovely array of wool in different shades. I'm now looking at doing it in colour blocking and stylizing a dragon for the back.. it was my friend Judith who found me a dragon design already graphed and my mind is chewing it over as to what I want to do.

As they say...... watch this space!