Piece in progress: Part 2, the trees continue

So, I'm just a little ahead of where I was when I unraveled the background.  The first tree is pretty much back to normal and I've started leafing out tree number 2.  For those who were dying to know, this is how you leaf a tree in knitting.

I started with creating some branches for the background and adding some leaf patterns on the side of them.  These leaves are pretty subtle, but it doesn't matter, because they're background.

Then, you knit all these little leaves.  These are going to sit on top of the branches.  The tails are left on so that one can attach them to the branches and the background.

little leaves, looking for a home

One then arranges leaves on the branches until it looks right.  Looking at it, I still need to make some more leaves.

leaves sitting on branches, but not yet attached

Piece in progress

This is a description of the piece in progress.  I probably won't do a separate post for this piece, just add on to this post randomly as I see fit.  This is for the friends and relatives who say "I'm not sure how that comes out of your head."  Well, it's kind of hard to describe, but here you go.


So it started with playing with wave shapes. And then you need to make the decision on whether this is going anywhere.

So then I decided that the river needed a bank and of course, there should be trees. The trees would also need some leaves, so I decided to make some leaf colored yarn, because it's easy to become distracted.

This is spun out of wool in the 2 different colors of green and silk in the lightest green.

Voila!  Leaf colored yarn.





Much of the background was knitted at NAVC during sessions. This is a perfect time to do stockinette because one really doesn't need to look at the work much. Just knit, knit, knit. I was going for a feeling of a bank of a stream and a vanishing background. But it was difficult to get the trees to lay flat on the ripples of the background.

So I let that problem stew for a bit and stared working on leaves for the trees

Then I decided that I didn't think the background was working so this happened:

After an interminable amount of stockinette redo, I ended up with a background that felt right. Sometimes simpler is better.  Now the trees need to be reattached.

Overly Honest Artist Statement

ooooh, pretty colors.  oooh, soft.    must play with the yarn.  Ooooh,  I like yarn.  and knitting.  and soft fuzzy yarn.  oooh.  sheep good.

Artist Statement

I've been expressing myself through knitting since I was 4 years old. The colors and peacefulness of the natural world are themes in my art, work, and life. Themes from nature flow through my fiber art. Knitting is an expressive art form and the fibers are created from natural and organic materials.  Knitting as an art provides comfort on many levels both to those who knit and to those who are draped in the fabrics that are created.  This is an art that engages in both a practical or purely artistic manner.  Learning new fiber techniques to express my ideas has allowed me to grow and expand my capacity as a artist. I am inspired by Kaffe Fasset's book "Glorious Color" by Debbie New's book "Unexpected Knitting."  I love the ability to integrate multiple colors and natural shapes into a piece.  This allows the creation of organic compositions which more fully express my ideas about relationships with nature through fiber.

This was knitted from the point at the bottom up.  The flowers and leaves were knitted in as the work progressed.  This is also made from an Uruguayan hand spun/hand dyed yarn.  The back ground color is Rhodesian Ridgeback Red, which matches my dogs.  This color came out of a joke email conversation, as in, I was looking for a color that wouldn't show the dog hair.  This is what came out.  It pretty closely matches the dogs.

This is a scarf I knit for my friend Paula Schoen.  It matches some of her paintings.

This is a baby blanket that I knitted for my friend Jennifer and her baby Evelyn.  The yellow yarn in the background is handspun and dyed with spanish moss.  The leaves, flowers and butterflies were knitted in as I knit the blanket.

This I did just for fun.  I wanted to riff on a picture of a horse that I found in a knitting book.  Each horse is in a different position.  It's knitted in Uruguayan hand spun/hand dyed yarns.

This was a commission piece, there was a request that I knit a scarf based on the leaves of the Seasons blanket.  This is what came out.  There is a brown knit alpaca branch that holds the leaves together.

This is a very personal piece.  I started knitting it when my first husband was dying of lung cancer.  It just came off my needles.  There are 2 things about this piece that are not sad.  1.  It made my friends laugh because the pattern for it was a squiggle of a river on graph paper, that was the only pattern.  2.  After completing the basket weave border, I haven't done basket weave since.  Rounding the corners was so traumatic, I now have an aversion to basket weave.  I hope I get over it.  I like the way the basket weave sits.

This is another riff on the leaves in the seasons blanket.  I was going for a forest floor feeling.  These leaves are held together by having the long tails of each leaf woven into the other leaves.  Additional structure is given to the piece by the crocheted twigs that sit on top of and between the leaves.  There is also a backing of 2 or 3 knit alpaca branches behind the leaves.  This piece has beautiful flow and drape.

This is a huge piece that was knitted in 4 panels.  The panels were then joined together by the bars with the leaves crawling upward, which gives a looking through a window at a view feeling.  The size of this piece is a classic demonstration of what happens when you don't swatch.  This piece is also made of Uruguayan handspun and hand dyed yarns and a lot of commercial yarns I had lying around.  I loved the intensity of the colors.  It was a joy to play with them.

Side by Side: Arts Alliance of Clear Lake and Houston Area fiber Artists (2006) Gallery Show and Merit Award Winner

This blanket won 1st place at the 2006 Taos Wool Festival. All the yarn in it was sourced from the 2005 Taos Wool Festival.