This is a mood shot of the studio, with my latest shawl on the blocking board.  This is hand spun Shetland (breed of sheep) from a sheep of my acquaintance who lives with my friend Beatrice Gilbert.  This moody gray is the actual color of the sheep, the wool has been washed, carded, spun and knit but not otherwise interfered with.  I will be posting the pattern in the next couple of weeks.  But the studio looked so nice this morning after I pinned it out that I wanted to show you.  See the spinning wheel, with the blue wool/alpaca blend that I am spinning up for the next project.  You can glimpse a Hawaiian pillow in the seat beside the spinning wheel, which provoked me to add the orchid on top of the shawl.  It seemed unbalanced to have only one Hawaiian touch in the frame and this orchid reminds me of the wild ones that grew beside the roads in Orchidland where we once had our little homestead on the Big Island.

I love that my work spans influences from Hawaii's orchids to Maine's wool and that both ends of this spectrum are anchored in the natural world that surrounded me in each place.  

This is a detail shot of the lace on the corner of the shawl, which is a  Shetland Hap Shawl.  These were everyday shawls that Shetland women actually wore, not the fancy delicate ones that they sold.  I thought about doing a cable pattern with this yarn, but it seemed to want to be a shawl, so I went with it.  I now have seven shawls, which may seem excessive to anyone who is not me.  That is one for every day of the week.  A friend suggested that I should stop now, since one for every day of the month might seem like overdoing it.  But one for every month of the year perhaps???

Sometimes I throw practicality to the winds and just make something for fun.  This is most apt to happen in the summer months because I have fewer knitting students.  They're all in the garden in Maine -- summers are really short here.  And it is months before the Christmas rush so I have time to be self indulgent.  This is the Crown Prince Square Shawl from Nancy Bush's book Knitted Lace of Estonia.  I did not spin or dye the yarn.  I did not personally develop the design.  This project is made from Alpaca Cloud lace yarn from Knitpicks and you can order either by just clicking on the highlighted titles, although it looks like this particular red is a discontinued color.

I am showing you the glam shots first.  I have been waiting to find the chance to get a picture on a person but Devan is away at college and it is just too ridiculous to try to take a picture of myself in the mirror.  So these shots are intended to give you the feeling that you would love to pick up this lovely bit of russet loveliness and wrap yourself in its soft lacey alpaca layers.  It has been a very warm early fall here and I am waiting for it to chill up a bit so that I can toss this across my shoulders and channel my inner French Lieutenant's Woman.  Do get your hands on Nancy Bush's book if you want to try a piece of knitting that is a bit of a challenge.  This is definitely what I call Thinking Woman's Knitting.  And get yourself some Addi lace circulars before you begin.  You really need the sharp points for doing the nupps and this project is nupp intensive.

Here is a close up of the nupps with the shawl on the blocking board.  Note the blocking wires, also available through Knitpicks.  This particular shawl you could pin out a point at a time, but the blocking wires were extremely useful for really stretching this project.  Lace in general is really enhanced by stretching, but a lace shawl in particular really needs to have the bejeesus stretched out of it in order to come into its own.  So here is this summer's project of indulgence.  I made it for me, it took all summer, I had to ignore my family while I was working on it (although you can see in the picture below that I didn't always manage that...there are "inconsistencies" in the pattern repeats).  I really, really love it.

I posted some more of the vintage clothes today on my ETSY site.  But I couldn't resist showing my blog followers this picture of Devan flirting in a Civil War Era bonnet.  You see this face?  That is all the explanation you need for why our family line has not died out.  This bonnet is one of the many vintage clothes I got from my Learning to Weave friend.  It is made of silk, lined with linen and I would swear that there is nothing but hand stitching in it.  It is also in perfect shape.    It is the kind of bonnet that would be worn in the house to cover your hair and then, when you went outside, you would just pop your heavy felted bonnet over it (in winter) or your straw wide brimmed sun shading bonnet (in summer).

Devan is looking more serious and demure in this photo, but don't be fooled.  The one above is far more typical.  She took these photos herself, somehow mysteriously knowing how she will look from in front of the camera.  

I have really loved having her go through and photograph these clothes.  It reminds me of when she was a little girl in Hawaii and used to dive into my huge straw stash basket many times a day and emerge swathed in lace, old clothes, scarves and random lengths of lace and fabric to be a Lady!, a Pirate!, a Scarey Ghost!, a Gypsy!  She is grown up now and does complex and responsible work (i.e., the picture taking, modeling, editing, internet posting) but I can see still that little girl peeking out of her eyes.

I recently became the slightly overwhelmed recipient of a treasure trove of vintage fiber.  There is clothing for infants through adults.  There are dozens and dozens of linen napkins, tablecloths, hand towels, pillowcases....  I am busily washing, drying, ironing, sorting and trying, basically, to get my head and hands around what I have and what I should do with it.  Some of it I will just keep for the household, although I think any sane woman would agree that 3 dozen linen napkins is probably more than enough.  I am going to have to do something useful and productive with the rest and, after consulting with my advisory board (Joe, my sister Peg and most especially my daughter Devan) I have decided to peddle some of it on Etsy.  If you click HERE you will go directly to my Etsy site.  Today I posted two articles of clothing.  This one is a cotton lace blouse from approximatley 1910.  It is from the era when women had just begun to have office jobs outside of the home, farm or factory.  Devan took the photographs of the clothing herself, and often of herself.  It is a wonderment to me how she can be in front of the camera and behind the camera at the same time.

This photo is of a beautiful cobalt blue lace gown with satin facings.  We decided to replace the missing buttons, which originally were almost certainly blue satin covered ones to match the dress facings.  We though the dress had a European/Asian feeling that would be perfectly complimented with some of the red enameled Russian buttons that I had gotten from Peacefleece.  They do look brilliant on the dress and Devan looks brilliant IN the dress and very calm for a photographer who had to set up the shot and then go around and get into position before the camera went off.

This is where I have been having afternoon tea lately, and I have also been doing quite a bit of knitting out here.  If I sit on the settee I can see my garden, which is small and glorious.  And if I sit on the chair in the corner I can see Deering Avenue and all the people passing by.  As you can see I hung lace curtains in the screened windows (on both sides, although you can only see one in this picture).  I love the look of blowing lace curtains, it's so old fashioned and summery.  But I am not so crazy about curtains blowing in my face while I'm trying to drink coffee so this is what i did.  I made lace curtains that are flat, not gathered.  And I fastened them on the top and both sides.  So now they blow and belly in the wind without flapping.  The rug is one I bought 10 years ago, of no particular value and without a single natural fiber in it.  Therefore perfect for a screened porch where it will occasionally experience rain.  The curtains are nylon lace and you could literally bury them in the ground for years without any trace of rot.  Beautiful and indestructible.  I love my natural fibers with great and unswerving loyalty, but there is a time and a place for polyester.

Joe and I have started renting out our spare room on Airbnb and the most wonderful thing has happened.  I now get to have breakfast with interesting company several mornings a week.  It's amazing who shows up.
The lady on the left is Chandlee Bryan and she and her friend Ken actually arrived shortly before their e-mail asking for a reservation for that night.  Fortunately we had a cancellation and could accommodate them.  She just wrote a book on using Twitter to find your new job, and was interviewed on CNN where, in my opinion, she did a much better job of presenting herself than Tony Harris did.  Click through on her name and see what you think.
I make scones for breakfast, and you can find my recipe in my blog under patterns....which seemed like the least nonsensical place to put it.  Maybe I need Joe to make me a recipe section??

Last time Salem came to the studio it was just too hot to mess around with wool.  So we went outside and cut some flowers and then watered the garden.  Salem is one of the best people I know for combining interesting tastes and colors and, as you can see from the salad that she's holding there, her intuition once again did not lead us astray.  We pulled up carrots and used scissors to cut beet green tips, onion shoots, deer tongue lettuce and red lettuce.  We also carefully pinched off basil, Johnny Jump Ups and Nasturtiums.  And then we headed back inside to the kitchen to wash and assemble.  We tore up lettuce, cut the baby carrots into small golden circles of deliciousness (after taste testing of course) and cut the basil into long shreads.

Salem also wanted to chop up the nasturtiums in order to have many orange sprinkles so we did that.  The results were very beautiful and the colors were very Salem.  She packed it up and took it home for her mother as a Happy Birthday Salad.  I was so inspired that I went out the next day and made myself one just like it for supper.  My garden is only two 4x4 beds...although I can guarantee next year it will be a bit bigger.  But it has been a wonderful addition around here.  I have been making plans....maybe grapes, blueberry  bushes, strawberry beds???  I'll ask Salem about it the next time she comes.  She has a head positively teeming with good ideas.

I made this sweater for Blythe about six years ago.  Last Friday, when she showed up for her weekly knitting/spinning/making of scones class (Just another day with Great Auntie Martha) she was wearing it.  When I made it for her the sleeves went all the way past her wrists and had to be rolled up, which is why I put a color work design on both the inside and outside of the cuff.  Also the length was generous and hung all the way to the top of her legs.  I designed this pattern to work for 2-3 years, what with the rolling sleeves and the lovely tendency of children to get longer and longer without getting wider and wider.

But Blythe is not one to let a favorite sweater go.  The sleeves are now about halfway between elbow and wrist and, as you can see here, the length is now high hip.  I believe, with determination and a resolute intention to ignore reality, Blythe can keep this sweater going for another 2 years which will make it an 8 year sweater!  At that point the sleeves will be elbow length and the sweater waist length and Blythe herself will be about 10 years old.  If you are interested in knitting up this sweater for a loved child the pattern is available and actually a fairly easy knit.  There's lots of garter stitch and just enough color work to stimulate your mind.  Go to Patterns and look for the Hooded Jacket for Everybody.

Here is the latest quilt, Rae's Sun on Mary's Iris, freshly laundered and photographed this morning.  This one is on the smaller side...about 45 inches square. I made it for the above named Rae.  She inherited a bolt of muslin from Mary, who was her much loved, much older friend and neighbor.  Mary was a seamstress, a gardener, a cook, and an inspiration to the young girl who lived next door during the summers.   Rae was by Mary's bedside during her last long illness and Mary gave her some of the things that symbolized the time that they had spent together.  Among these things was a bolt of muslin originally intended, I believe, for lining curtains.  It was of no particular value but Rae wanted me to use it in a quilt -- maybe on the back we thought.  

This beautiful saturated yellow was the result.  The muslin took up the dye with an almost grateful intensity.  Also the texture of the muslin was transformed into a beautiful almost papery feel.  Rae and I had a design in mind, involving Cherry Trees I believe, but this yellow wasn't going to work with that.  On the other hand we loved the yellow so much that it seemed easier to change our minds than to change the color -- so we waited.  Last spring I visited Rae at her summer cottage and this is what I saw.

This is one of the many irises that were growing in the 3 foot wide strip of garden between Rae's house and Mary's.  They used to weed and plant that garden together, one on each side, and then break for lemonade when the sun got too intense.  And the day that I visited was one of the first really hot days when the intense sunlight just beats down.  This is the time of year when Mainer's get sunburns because we just can't believe how warm, how bright, how wonderful the sun feels to the people, the plants and the animals who were buried in snow just 6 weeks earlier.  That's how the Irises came into the picture -- that day.

I'm showing you the back of the quilt in this picture so you can see the yellow without the Iris design.  I also wanted to show you how I make the sleeves (one on each side of the quilt for this one) and bind the edge at the same time.  You can slip a rod through the green sleeve on any side of this piece and hang it.  But I also wanted to show you that this quilt is one where it is really all about the background....the flowers are just there to call attention to it really.  This is a quilt about sunlight and growing things, and the old woman and young girl who got together in the side yard to celebrate that.  And as a consequence something incredibly valuable grew between the two of them -- a friendship.

And just for fun here is another close up of the Iris.  As you can see it doesn't really look that much like the iris in the picture, but that is the get out of jail free card of the artist -- it doesn't have to look like what you are depicting.  It just has to communicate the essence and the feeling of what you are seeing.  This is a very happy, sunny quilt.  You can feel the love.

I don't know if you had gathered this from my blog by inference but I really love working in my house.  The reasons?  My studio is in my house so I can always put my hands on exactly what I need, or go down to the basement and use my dye pots and tables to create exactly what I need.  But this picture gives you hints of some of the other reasons.  These are scones.  Sometimes I make pies, or cookies, or bread, or even soup for my knitting, quilting or doll making classes depending on the time of day and my inclination.  But if I am pressed for time I can whip up scones in my sleep.  Do you see the pages of the book in the background there?  That is my scone recipe, which I actually no longer refer to.  I have had this book since I was 23 years old and living in Boston and even there it was quite an old book.  I bought it in a second hand book store and started cooking up scones right away.  Given that I am now 56 my estimate is that I have made scones now at least 1,196 times (once a week for 23 years).  Lately I have been making them much more often that once a week, but there was that awful year when I had no oven --  let's not think about that.  What I do like to think about is that 23 year old girl in Boston buying a second hand book and flipping through it and saying...."Hmmmm, scones.  I've always wondered about scones."  And I like to think about how she would have felt if she had known all the times, all the people, and all the places that those scones where going to show up in her life.  Due to popular demand I have put the Scone Recipe up on the Pattern Page, which seemed like the least illogical place to put it.