So I commanded myself recently that I was not allowed to buy any new yarn until I’d used up at least half of the stash I already have. Seeing as I have roughly 50 different types of yarn in my stash, that’s a bit of a feat. That’s 50 different types, mind you, not skeins—quite a few of those I have multiple skeins of. However, with these mismatched myriad skeins and a need to use them, I now have the opportunity to make something I’ve been wanting to for a while.

Crocheted coral reefs.

I first saw my first of these a few years back—not really sure how many at this point, but it was while browsing online for patterns. I eventually was led to the Institute for Figuring, who run the Hyperbolic Crochet Coral Reef, a fascinating project combining crafting, mathematics, feminism, and… well, read it in their own words, as they phrase it far more intelligently than I can at the end of a long day.

Being a literature person, I could say that mathematics aren’t my strong point, and thus it’s odd that I’m attracted to this project. But that would be a lie—I enjoyed maths in school (to a certain point), and when I really started to get into knitting I wanted to revise my geometry (which I have yet to have time for). I just didn’t like it as much as reading. I have the feeling that, had I discovered knitting and crochet far earlier, I would have been far more interested in maths. (Small note: My mother loves maths, but to my surprise has only been casually interested in knitting and crochet so far, though she did once make me a fabulous scarf).

Anyway, the IFF had links to other reefs, both “satellites” of their projects and independent, which I browsed and browsed and browsed. Here and there, when I had a spare bit of yarn, I crocheted a small coral form; on one occasion of brief madness, I made an anemone out of plastic bags.

Cue moving! The instigation for the dalek has been the instigation for another item. One of our windows has a small but significant draft (as it doesn’t close properly), and I’m not one for stuffing tissues into cracks. Thus, I am knitting a draught dodger. Then, once it is finished and stuffed, it will become the base for…

…the Draught Reef.

If it goes well, I plan to make a jewel-toned reef that will conglomerate onto a ring… and be hung on my wall. Most of my walls have some sort of decoration on it (rather a lot, in some cases), but the one above my bed is surprisingly bare. As the rest of the room has batik prints, hanging jellyfish, postcards of sea otters and Hawaiian cards, a reef-garden wall sculpture would be fitting. Also, this will officially be part of the Hibernation Offensive, as it’s stash-busting AND gathering together knitted forms that have been useless until now.

So. Fibre art and wall sculptures. I think I’ve officially gone mad.

In short, once the Draft Reef is finished I’ll make the wall sculpture… After I knit a tea-cozy, because there’s nothing that makes crocheting slower than cold tea.

Coming soon: More bellydance articles, and a round-up of Festival!

Tags: art,crochet,knit,reef,the hibernation offensive
Categories: Arts, projects
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Long time no post! The middle of my June has, indeed, been crazy (a friend’s FABULOUS wedding, and running around North America with another friend!), but the last few weeks have been quiet. I’ve done some research, but mostly I’ve been rediscovering time for myself. One thing that I’ve lost in the past few years, in my desperation to keep up with both my arts and academics, is that I don’t really give myself much ME time. Yes, I spend (far too much) time on the internet, reading webcomics etc., but that’s not ME time. However, for two weeks in the middle of this month my computer was getting repaired (oops), and so I had to find other ways to entertain myself than the endless streaming of digitized information. So, gleefully, I’ve been reading children and young adult fantasy novels, a guilty pleasure that I feel absolutely NO guilt about. I discovered Rick Riordan, first via his new book “The Red Pyramid” and then via his “Percy Jackson and the Olympians” series (OMG I just finished book 4 and haven’t bought the last book yet NEED NOW), which despite what I’ve heard about its related rubbishy movie has been really quite entertaining. I also went to see Knight and Day with a friend, and to my surprise it was quite awesome. Not fourteen flavours of awesome, but at least five. And I’ve gone SWIMMING. If it weren’t for my dislike of public pools, I’d go swimming all the time. I find it calming and restorative, and I do some of my best thinking underwater.

Representative of this whole rediscovery, however, is a craft project I began years ago. The yarn, pattern, crochet hook and beads were a store-created kit given to me by my parents, but as I rarely worked on gifts for myself, it was often put off until I went on holidays (or at least plane flights), because crochet hooks are OK on planes (knitting needles aren’t). But on this trip home, I’ve finally finished it.

It’s lovely, soft, and light. And its structure reminds me that I shouldn’t over-structure my life — leave time for the ME-time, and the arts and academia will follow.

Tags: art vs. academia,crochet,life
Categories: Academia, Arts, crochet
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So I should be going and having dinner as a reward for actually writing part of a chapter (2700 words!!), but instead I’m rewarding myself by writing a blog post. Yes, I’m rewarding writing with…writing. My ability to reward myself with the same thing that was my task never ceases to astonish me (seriously, I do this a lot).

That said, I thought I’d write a few notes on teaching. I received a couple e-mails from last semester’s students over the weekend (mostly panics about “will I violate exam rules if I do XYZ?” to which I tend to reply “better safe than sorry, so try not to do XYZ”), and I was surprised at how much this made me miss my students.

I really like teaching.

And I’ve started to have a few worries about whether I’m actually good at teaching. I haven’t looked at last semester’s student comments yet (I’m waiting until I rework my syllabus over the summer—I’d like some distance on the semester before I destroy my soul), but student comment sheets can only go so far. Mostly because people don’t know what makes a good teacher until either a) they’re teaching themselves, or b) they’ve been taught explicitly to do or learn something new. Unfortunately, most of the teaching I do is ephemeral critical thinking skills (that don’t involve a workbook like mine did in elementary school), which is a bit harder to measure. I remember the teachers that TOLD me that I needed to start using my brain (yes, this happened…twice), but I don’t remember how they TAUGHT me to. It just happened as we went along.

Which was why this weekend was really nice, because I got to teach something where both student and teacher could see results. A bunch of my country dance friends organized a knitting afternoon, and one friend asked me to teach her how to knit at said afternoon. By the end of the afternoon she was casting on exceptionally well (I wish my tension had been that good when I’d started!) and have several rows of knit-stitch finished. I kept having flashbacks when I taught a friend from home how to knit, and that she’d been successful in learning, too (I should ask her if she’s still knitting). And tonight, I’m going over to a third friend’s to watch Glee (DON’T JUDGE ME), and as she’s just recently gotten into knitting, I’ve been asked to show her how to increase and decrease stitches. And I’m really looking forward to it.

Goodness, knitting, teaching and friends—since when did I have a social life? You’re not supposed to have one of those when you’re writing chapters!

Ah well. Off to have that reward-dinner now. Lysse out!

Tags: academic,art vs. academia,knit,life
Categories: Academia, Arts, knit
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No proper Friday Focus this week, as I will only be properly posting those when I have thoughts on something that moves me. And I don’t think I made that clear… oops.

But moving onward: as promised, updates on my chess set!

I’ve mostly written and tested the pattern.

I’ve finished typing up the edits, but need to knit a few pieces again to test the changes. The knights need to be given manes and ears, and as I retest pieces I need to photograph the process for the pattern.

And, of course, I need to finish the set, which means another knight, and couple more bishops and rooks, and about a baker’s dozen of pawns. Current, this is more-or-less what I have:

But at least they’re all standing!

Also, I need to finish the chessboard.

This is my first-ever intarsia piece. I’m writing the pattern as I go, and it’s pretty simple. Really, it’s the best place I could start for intarsia, as it’s simply big blocks of colour.

Finally, I’ve decided to work out a checkers piece as well—might as well make the board multi-functional! So… how many checkers are in a set?

Tags: chess set,knit,projects
Categories: knit, projects
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Apologies for the radio silence, as I was away for a week-ish and had limited internet access. To make up for it, this week’s Friday Focus will be a double feature (as soon as I finish writing it, eep!). However, on my week away, I managed to finish a TON of knitting in the Hibernation Offensive! First up is a flower which will be eventually turned into a fluffy brooch (once I get a backing):

Next, I FINISHED the chess set!

There’s still a few things I need to fiddle with – for example, the pawn is way too short, and I still need to find a base that will get the pieces to stand up. Still, I’m very pleased with the overall result, particularly when it comes to the knight:

Finally, because I had a bunch of leftover yarn and nothing left to knit, I used an old pattern (whose leaves were adapted for the above brooch) and made myself a much-needed tea cozy:

And that’s about it! Lysse out (until tomorrow).

Tags: chess set,knit,the hibernation offensive
Categories: knit, projects
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Phase one of the finishing hibernating fibre projects is complete; I have finished the chocolate bunny!

I’m mostly pleased with this, though it has some flaws. My ssk’s are not as good as my k2tog’s, which means that any left-handed shaping is bumpy on the left, and has gaps in the fabric on the right. I fixed some of these by manipulating the already-knitted strands with needles, but that only can help so much—it’s definitely something to be worked on in the future. After everything else is finished, of course!

Also, a quick update FYI: I’m going to be running around for the next week / away from the computer. I’m hoping to at least have the Friday Focus put up automatically, and maybe another entry or two, but it might fail. If so, I’ll run a double-Focus next week.

Tags: knit,projects,the hibernation offensive
Categories: knit, maintenance, projects
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Welcome to a new feature: the Friday Focus! These will be blog posts focusing on people who have inspired me in either my artistic or academic lives. These will usually be people I have met, who have had an in-person impact on me.

So, I’d like to start us off with Ysolda Teague. Although I learned to knit before I met her, Ysolda was my first knitting teacher. I took a class with her at K1, where we learned to knit her popular hat pattern urchin. She fixed my twisted stitches (so that’s what I was doing wrong!), and through her guidance in a pattern that uses simple shaping techniques, managed to cure me of my fear of knitting experimentation. I could only knit (twisted) and purl before her class; afterwards was when I started exploring shaping, colour, and felting with such projects as Mister Fuzzybottom and the Stackable Cats.

But, on top of being a fabulous teacher, she’s an amazing pattern writer and blogger. I especially love her blog: with its clean layout and its excellent discussion of the creative process it’s my favourite blog for knitting. Her assistant has recently started posting as well to the blog, and has continued the trend of high-quality and interesting posts on the subject. The blog’s absolutely gorgeous photographs are particularly inspiring, as Ysolda has a wonderful eye for both detail and composition (something that this blog could take a lesson or two from!). Also, her lovely insights into and documentation of the crafty side of life in Edinburgh makes me happy (and gives me new things to explore!).

So if you’re a knitter, a photography buff, or just like to read about Scotland, head on over to her blog, and see if you can find the picture of me post-successful-knitting. I wore that hat today!

Tags: Friday Focus,knit,Scotland
Categories: Arts, knit
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I am really bad at finishing things. This is particularly true if I don’t have a deadline. If I have a deadline—say, costuming needs finishing for a performance, or paper needs written for a conference—then I’m usually quite good at getting it (mostly) done. But things that don’t have a deadline languish. Some things I simply forget to do—like drawing. Others get procrastinated on—blogging is one of these.

That’s why I have a spreadsheet that I call “life schedule”. This is a bit hyperbolic, but roughly true. It sprang from my original outlines for my PhD, which it still contains—including a month-by-month breakdown and a week-by-week. But then this past January I expanded it. Knitting, writing, dance, etc.: if it was a creative or academic project, it was put on there (and that sums up pretty much my whole life). Each received a monthly goal, such as writing one-shots, blogging once a week, or filling two sketchbook pages. However, I made the mistake of thinking of NEW projects for knitting / crochet.

You see, by my bed I have a bag that I knitted and felted. Originally, it was to be my project bag, and filled with anything I was working on. Over the last year or so, however, it’s turned into the languishing bag. Unfinished projects were shoved into there to be promptly forgotten, and on a recent review of the contents (when I was procrastinating on something else), I found eight unfinished projects. This might not seem like much, but I don’t know how long some of these have been ignored. Some may pre-date my move across the pond.

So, instead of picking up the needles then and there and haphazardly trying to work my way through the chaos, I turned to my computer. Everything under “knitting” for my life schedule was promptly deleted, and each month was assigned an unfinished project until August. Hopefully by then I’ll have everything finished, and can turn to working through my lovely skeins in a desperate de-stashing attempt.

On the needles first, hopefully finished by Easter?

A stuffed “chocolate” bunny.

Yum!

Tags: crochet,knit,projects,the hibernation offensive
Categories: Arts, crochet, knit, projects
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First, apologies for the radio silence—my last two weekends have been full of dancing, and thus I have been too exhausted to blog. I’ll be updating on these soon enough, but first I’ll fulfill my promise and finish chatting on my tribal fusion belt!

Even though I wanted my tribal fusion belt to be as multifunctional as possible, I still made a few permanent additions to the belt base. I decided, as I was planning the belt, that a tribal belt shouldn’t just be another dance accessory. Tribal fusion costuming is incredibly unique: every costume piece, whether it’s a bangle, a hairflower, a ring, or a belt, has a story behind it. Thus I decided that there should be some permanent pieces on my belt, never to be removed, and that the permanent pieces should serve the same purpose as a charm bracelet—it should have meaning and memories. Luckily, there were a couple spots that I wanted to cover on the belt (seams and wearing bits), so I had the perfect place to put these “charms”. The first permanent piece added to my belt was cut from an old inexpensive necklace from Hawai`i:

A turtle, or "honu"

The next was a relatively new item. This past Valentine’s Day my mum sent me a package which had a lovely card with four charms on it. She knew I’d find something to do with them, and as I was in the middle of making the belt at the time, I chose to use the “love” charm on it. This made it on for very simple reasons: I’d like a symbol of my mother’s love with me when I dance. I don’t have a photo of this, as it was added so recently.

Finally, I sewed on what once was a keychain of an elephant opposite the honu. This piece has the greatest significance for several reasons. First, when I was little I grew up on stories about elephants, as my mum was one of the children who donated a penny to the San Francisco Zoo to help them by one of their Asian elephants, appropriately named Pennie.* The keychain itself is from India and a gift from my friend from undergrad, Dia, who taught herself Hindi and amusingly forgot to give me the keychain until I came to visit after I’d graduated. By this point, I’d been taking bellydance for only a few months; however, it’s Dia who introduced me to bellydance. Sometime in my final years of undergrad we ended up in her room and, though Dia does mostly ATS/ITS, she showed me a video of Rachel Brice (not that video, but I don’t remember which…). I thought it was pretty cool and went back to my life. Little did I know a few years later… Anyway, there’s a final significance to the elephant (told you it was important). A couple weeks ago I went on a charity shop trawl with my friend Laurie, who is also performing the choreography. We ended up in an Indian important store and saw a long dangle with several small stuffed elephants on it. Half-serious, half-joking, Laurie suggested that we get it and break it up, and each of the tribal fusion dancers in the choreo put an elephant somewhere on their costume. This has yet to happen, but in case it doesn’t ever, I’ve got a back-up elephant.

Not on my belt but continuing the “charm bracelet” concept: this past week I found that my newly-ordered headpiece was missing one of its dangles! To replace this, instead of searching for a new dangle I used a charm found amonsgt some maille rings I bought off a medieval reenactor. An eagle, it’s shaped in the style of Insular manuscript illuminations.** Also, it’s always nice for an American to stick an eagle somewhere!

And that’s it. I’d still like to find a small cross to sew on somewhere, but these things take time. Anyway, if I keep treating the belt like the tribal fusion version of a charm bracelet, it will never be fully finished! Until I find something new, then, Lysse-bird out.

* Sadly, Pennie died in 1995, and in 2005 the San Francisco Zoo gave the rest of their elephants to the Performing Animal Welfare Society when the San Francisco government banned elephants in the city (no, seriously—they banned elephants). The San Francisco Zoo, however, noted that this move was an improvement for the elephants’ lives, as they have more room now than they ever could have at the zoo.

** Insular manuscripts are from the British Isles during the early medieval period. Examples include the Book of Kells and the Lindisfarne Gospels.

Tags: bellydance,projects,tribal fusion
Categories: projects, uncategorized
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Warning: Image heavy post to follow, for as promised – my tribal fusion bellydance belt!

TA-DA!

Now, as to how I made it, it wouldn’t have been possible without a belt base I got from my friend Tamsin. I have a tendency to be very matchy-matchy-monochrome, while Tribal Fusion’s ethos tends to let a plethora of colours coexist—and somehow, they don’t end up clashing. Problem is, I can’t do this without it being forced upon me. Starting with the belt base from Tamsin helped greatly. The base itself is the multi-coloured band with a stretch velvet backing; it already had the little knobbly bits and the coins at the bottom.

The colours within it are some I would never have used/put together, but it also has several of my “dance colours”: specific pinks, blues, and greens.

Next on the belt came danglies! I was very methodical about these, spacing them evenly. Out of the six specific danglies on my belt, two are pendants from Tamsin (she’s my tribal costuming guru) and the other four are diamonds of steel chainmail (what, you thought something I touched would get away without maille on it?). I’m hoping the steel gets dull and/or rusts eventually, because that’ll give it an additional texture.

A “traditional” tribal fusion belt (as traditional as they get) wouldn’t be complete without yarn swag. I used a combination of thick/thin yarn that was frogged from a charity shop scarf and a dark pink wavy yarn that I’d previously used for a hat. I put two just-past-kneelength swags in the front, and then a bustly-type puff at the back. I also stuck some chain scraps in with the front swags.

Here’s the secret about my danglies and yarn, though—as a Poor Postgrad, I wanted my belt to be as multi-functional as possible. As yarn swags’ colours can dominate a costume (particularly if you choose ridiculously bright like me), I didn’t want my swags to be permanent. Thus multifunctional here means being able to switch things out. I did this by putting keyrings on the inside of the belt! However, I didn’t sew the keyrings directly to the belt – I was worried that would be too weak. Instead, I placed a piece of felt over them and  sewed around the outside and inside upper half of the rings, then put a few large “holding” stitches that looped all the way around the keyrings. Then, every swag and dangly was put on a small ring and hooked onto the keyring, like so:

Instachange!

Another common item on tribal fusion belts are medallions, usually at the front and placed over the hipbones to accentuate movement. For this reason, it’s especially good for them to be big and bright. On my belt, the placement wasn’t difficult to find—the base ends and stretch velvet begins exactly where my hipbones are. I was actually spoiled for choice, as I’d received two lovely and large beaded medallions from Tamsin—but I’d also been talked into making prototype chainmail medallions by my lovely tribal fusion teacher, Laura Monteith of Sarasvati.

It took me about two and a half hours for one, plus the time sewing it onto the base (felt covered in green stretch velvet), and I really wanted to use the final pair! Thus, I took a page out of Mardi Love of The Indigo’s book and put my maille medallions over my hipbones—and then put the ones from Tamsin on the back! These were all safety-pinned in, so I can move them about and switch them up at my leisure.

Next time, permanent additions to the belt base!

Tags: bellydance,maille,tribal fusion
Categories: projects
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