Ankle Fracture 2010

I twisted my right ankle while playing golf on April 27th. I had to wear this boot until last Tuesday. It's healed well, but now my foot is rather unbendable!

The task for the next weeks is to regain my mobility - right now it's swelling again because of the renewed activity. Huh. Not fun. But I have exercises to do and remind myself to be grateful it was a simple fracture and the body does heal!

Pix from Split Rock

This is a display of our group's Samplers ...
We decided that we would rather learn MORE STUFF, more techniques, than to produce a
lovely finished product. We did plan at least one Yarnbombing project (look it up!), but liked
the idea of learning more. They do look strange, but we had a blast - and a few do-overs!

Here we are at our studio worktable

Pix from Split Rock

Below are some of the things we played with, and expanded our brains about, at the Split Rock workshop.

Here's an example of knitting a non-traditional "linear element" - strips of sheeting!

Here's another -- medical tubing (I did this one!)

More on Structural Knitting Workshop

Finally getting some time to show pix of the Workshop from last week! I'm still learning how to use the blog and it takes some time to figure it all out. Not a huge techie...!

Today at Split Rock

It's our third full day at the U of Minnesota at our workshop/seminar. (The U calls their summer art workshops Split Rock.)



We are learning not only some of the "mechanics" of structural knitting, but also how to think in knit, how to plan shapes, projects....



Our teacher is Adrienne Sloane, who is great at this! She keeps asking questions so we have to figure things out - no rote learning/knitting here!



It's so wonderful to be thinking of knitting in three dimensions - it opens up its myriad possibilities! The past two days we've been knitting samplers of various techniques that we can use to knit shapes and attachments, etc. We've had political discussions about knitting too!



We visited the studio of a structural knitter here in Minneapolis/St.Paul, Karen Searle. It was enlightening for me to see the studio of a "real" artist. At first it just looked chaotic. Then as she talked about her art and creating it and I just hung out in the space, I could get a glimpse of the artistic process. Very good.



She's written and published a book called "Knitting Art", which presents many structural knitters, with prose about their lives and approaches, and great photos of some of their pieces. I found several that are very inspiring - by which I mean that I could see trying to do something like that. But I noticed that each person has their own approach, techniques that they've developed as a result of their experiences and talents and likes. The idea would be for me to find that. But perhaps I can emulate them first, then find something personal.



Knitting a sock or a shawl is one thing. Being artistic, creating something new, and that makes a statement - that's different! This is great fun.

My Vacation!

On Sunday I leave for Minneapolis to take part in a knitting workshop - not just ANY knitting workshop. This one is "Quiet Revolution: Knitting and the Political Landscape". It's about sculptural knitting, knitting used as an art form.

I was looking for something interesting to do for a week's vacation - this came up - after much consideration, I decided to go for it! I leave early Sunday morning and return Saturday night.

I look forward to getting out of the pattern rut! Yikes!

Day One! June 11, 2010

Well, obviously,what I'm up to today is starting a blog! I really don't know what I'm doing.... but game for it.