Is that not the cutest picture of a baby checking out the action?

The March 24, 2011 Boston Globe Sunday magazize featured a terrific article on the resurgence of knitting, sewing and handcrafts. The photos of the shops were bright and vibrant. I misplaced my copy of the article and had to make due with this photo, which is not nearly as bright and colorful as the original, but the sweet baby makes up for the lack of intense color. The article reported on the growing trend of do-it-yourself handicraft boutiques and interest in all things hand-made and the shift of today's generation away from the 70's anti-hand-craft woman's work to the pride of home/hand made.

People are beginning to realize the importance of creating for yourself as our world becomes increasingly high-tech, digital and faster and faster and faster. The slow movement is a terrific counterpart to the fast-paced 24-7 world we live in today. I love the slow, methodical work of knitting and stitching; it is relaxing and satisfying. Hurrah for hand work. A fitting sentiment for earth day - getting back to basics - do it yourself kind of activities - slowing down - enjoying today as it is - keeping our world alive.

If you are in the Boston area, check out the knitting shops below.

J. P. Knit & Stitch - Jamaica Plain

Gather Here - Cambridge "stitch lounge"

Stitch House - Dorchester

Hipstitch - Newtonville

Craftland School of Craft - Providence

Post Script:

Here is part of an interesting interview with Lisa Borgnes Giramonti of A Bloomsbury Life - this excerpt dovetails with my comments on the hand-craft arts or "home-arts". I did a post on Lisa last year and featured her wonderful needlepoint tapestries that are very funny and creative - click here.

Full interview with Lisa Borgnes Giramonti on Yell Softly - here

You create modern, witty needlepoint art (a phrase many, who haven’t seen your work, may consider an oxymoron.) What drew you to this medium? I particularly love your piece “Perky Boobies;” do you think that we are returning to an appreciation of the “home arts” like entertaining, embroidery and gardening?

Oh, Sariah, I hope so. I think this recession has forced us all to turn inward and to realize that the It bag we all had to have five years ago is a hollow substitute for the pleasures of a meaningful life. In the last year, I have been much more conscious of living large on a small scale. Friends come over, we cook, we entertain, we talk, we laugh and we have a deep appreciation for each other’s company.

In terms of my textile work, my embroideries and postmodern samplers are a compulsion; I can’t not create them. My mother and grandmother both embroidered, and I grew up watching them, but they always worked from kits and that never appealed to me. When I saw the Bayeux Tapestry, I had a sudden epiphany that I needed to embroider MY life and my words instead of someone else’s. And that’s what I’ve done.

"Purly Wurly Takes a Picture," 1998

SPRING

Everything will be greening up soon.

Hooray!

I just discovered a wonderful new blog via design*sponge. It is called bbbcraft sisters: three sisters living in three cities who are all creative and have a very creative mother, who must have inspired them along the way.

Here, here to mothers.

I have so many glass jars in my laundry room.

I save them for Christmas presents:

to use as containers for spicy nuts and chocolate sauce.

But here is another idea.

Knit a decorative collar

&

a glass jar is transformed.

Photos from bbbcraft sisters via design*sponge

My fellow knit wit, Kris, found this fun and practical knitting bag on etsy.

Love the new take on the popular WWII poster from London:

from Keep Calm and Carry On to Keep Calm and Carry Yarn.

More projects "off the needles"

I carried my yarn to my home territory near Boston and was able to finish this blanket.

Two and one-half years in the making. Slow and steady wins the race - right?

My Father and I made a trip to see the college student so that I could hand deliver this treasure just in time for another snow storm.

Great picture of Grampa and Miss Is

on a cold and bright winter day.

Still have quite a stash of yarn and projects.

More off the needles later this week.

The momentum is great.

I may even finish putting together a sweater that I started more than 6 years ago!

Knitting is a wonderful way to pass the time during cold winter evenings.

Very relaxing too.

And I have so much more time to knit during my hibernation period.

Very exciting

close to finishing a project

close up

this is going to the dorm room in Massachusetts

so I better get cracking

I started this throw 2 1/2 years ago

with my knitting friends,

the knit wits.

We all decided to do the same project, click here,

but in our own colors of course.

Most everyone finished.

My progress has been slow and and not so steady.

I hope to finish by month end.

New Year's Resolutions

If I write them down

and

share with the world at large,

then just maybe I will succeed.

Get my projects finished.

One knitting project per month

Get through one magazine per week (I have stacks)

Read one book per month

Hard to read and knit and work and do chores...

but where there is a will there's a way.

Work on more happiness every day.

No more procrastination.

And last but not least,

develop more MRR Design business.

~~~

Remember to be grateful.

Trust in my faith.

Trust in myself.

Another snowstorm

about 18 or 20"

shoveled the driveway

& off to the office I went

I really wanted to stay home by the fire

and finish my knitting projects

here are a few that are waiting, waiting, waiting to come off the needles

well some haven't even been started yet

fingerless gloves

just lost my pair this weekend

lime green cashmere mittens for my goddaughter

never finished them last year

color much better in person

scarf started in October...

Sweater that has been almost finished for years

gotta make this a priority

lots of yarn for socks

lime green cotton for dish cloths

ends of cashmere for neck warmers

left over from my mother's stash

I think this will make a nice small scarf

reminds me of shoelaces

still not sure what to do with it

made this suede-like wrap

and then tried to take it apart for a long scarf

just figured out I can double it and

it makes a nice neck warmer.

Miss Is will take this back to school

and speaking of Miss Is

here is the baby sweater I started 20 years ago.

I have a thing about not finishing???

I will get this done and save for the grandbabies.

The first thing I see when I get out of bed in the morning

baskets of my stash.

That ought to motivate me.

prada

knitted leather handbag

could it be a knit wits project?

Slow life continued...

the garden

Giant sunflowers at the local grange fair, August 2010

Inside the exhibition hall

Hand knit: slow life.

Not first place, but a ribbon nonetheless.

It was the grange fair that motivated me to finally finish this sweater

which has been on my needles for, dare I admit, four years.

Reading outside on a summer day: slow life

stopping all chores and plans

devouring a book in an afternoon

That is just how I enjoyed Dominque Brownings's new book,

Slow Love.

I absolutely loved it. It is a great follow-up to Eat, Pray, Love.

Browning continues writing about slow life on her blog,

Slow Love Life ,

of which I am devotee.

This idea of slow life brings me back to yesterday's Swan's Island post. The Swan Island newsletter reports on Dominique Brownings's visit to their studio. I encourage you to read the newsletter. click here.

The owners of the Swan Island Studio say this:

"Our approach for the past 20 years has been the same:

do things right, slowly and with love,

and the rest will somehow fall into place."

I tried to slow down these past two weeks. I was on vacation from the day job. The plan was to get my daughter off to college and then to work in the studio to prepare for the autumn MRR Design season. Sometimes things just do not happen the way you expect; life intervenes.

My true passion for creating things has nothing to do with what I do daily to make a living. MRR Design is my escape from my daily work routine. I create one object at a time, by hand. Nothing high tech about it. I am trying to build the business but it is hard to do 2 days a week. But I will persevere. I am good at that.

I will continue to pursue my passion at night, and on the weekends. Especially now that Miss Is is off to college, my days of daily, active mothering are over. Sad indeed, but exciting too. Life is evolving. It is thrilling and rewarding to watch Miss Is grow. I tried to do things right, slowly and with love as I raised Miss Is. I think it worked; Miss Is is blossoming into a young woman. Everything is falling into place. So now I have to work on myself, to do things right, slowly and with love. And hope it all falls into place.

I am trying to find balance. I am looking for answers. I am trying to rejuvenate my spirit because my happy demeanor has taken a few hits lately. So I scrapped the idea to work hard in the studio during my two-week break from the day job. I wanted to relax. To sit quietly. To think. Often my reverie was interrupted. But I kept trying. I simply sat down and decided to finish knitting a sweater that I started years ago. The goal was to finish by the grange fair. And I did. Slow life in motion. I started with skeins of yarn and two needles. Steady and slow like the turtle, then voila - a beautiful, cozy sweater. It is a bit short, but I am pleased. Every time I wear it, I will feel happy and accomplished. So now on to sweater #2, on the needles for 6 years or more. I am determined - it will be done by Labor Day.

Note the pink and white blanket pictured in the middle of this post; it looks like a Swan Island blanket. I found the blanket on Martha Stewart's now-defunct shopping site years ago. Maybe Martha was inspired by the originial Swan Island blankets.

In memory of my mother

JSR

19 August 1929 -

4 January 1986

I was going to publish this a month ago

but something intervened and it just did not seem to be the right time.

My mother loved Sister Parish's work.

Pictured above is SP's NYC apt.

This decorating scheme looks so current,

yet it dates back to the 70's or 80's

watercolor by Mita Corsini Bland

in the new book

Did you know

that Sister Parish made it into 2010 decorating trends

according to Mrs. Blandings?

Read some excerpts from the Kansas City Star via Mrs. Blandings:

“More craft and things that have been touched by hand,” said Keith Johnson, buyer-at-large for Anthropologie stores and the subject of the Sundance Channel’s “Man Shops Globe.” This trend is good news for my business, mrr design and my products: new fangled pictures frames and memento boards made by hand in the USA - the entrepreneurial spirit lives on.

We’ve heard “this ain’t your grandma’s …” A new buzz phrase just might be “that’s so granny.” Patricia Shackelford thinks we’ll see more patchwork quilts, hooked rugs, needlepoint and chintz.

Shackelford said it’s the return of Sister Parish design, using heirlooms or pieces with history. “It’s a way to bring comfort to formality,” she said. Susan Bartlett Crater, granddaughter of Sister Parish, said using family pieces can be stylish. “My grandmother always said houses should be receptacles of memories,” Crater said. “What better way than using grandmother’s things?”

Looking around my own house I see Sister Parish's influence... I love her style and use lots of objects and pieces from my family...in fact, I see my heritage everywhere in furniture and objects. Each piece brings back memories and is a touchstone for a story to tell my daughter.

Not only furniture but clothes. My mother died a long time ago. She was too young. We did not dismantle her closet for a few years. I have five siblings. I think we all stopped at the closet and gazed and thought about her - it wasn't morbid. It made me think she wasn't gone. She was still with us somehow - it was something real we could touch. She is still with us - in thoughts, in conversation, in a random memories sparked to life by a word, an action, an image, a color, a flower... I talk to her often. I miss her terribly. Somehow we all managed to have our babies and to raise our families without her. There were so many questions we wanted to ask but never got the chance.

But back to the clothes. We finally did dismantle the closet years later when my father sold the house. We saved the very special things. My sister P just mentioned to me that she wore Mom's Bonnie Cashin coat a few days ago when she was walking the dog on a frigid morning in Vermont. Now it is hard to picture my mother walking a dog, but she did love that coat in the winter and she looked beautiful in the warm salmon color with raccoon fur.

My mother was a great knitter. I have lots of her sweaters. They have been stored away and just the other day my daughter and I explored the cache. So many hand knit treasures and so beautiful and they fit Miss Is to a tee so she started wearing them. When Miss Is is complimented she proudly says they were her grandmother's. Some other 17 year olds might think that is bizarre but I think it is wonderful.

My mother influenced me in so many ways; she had great style and a great eye. Years after she died I found magazine articles about the Isabel O'Neil School of Decorative Painting in NYC that she had saved.. and what is stranger still is that I had taken a dozen decorative painting classes in nyc years after she died ... talk about being in sync... I never knew she was interested in painting...she was artistic...she would have loved all that my sisters and I have done...and my brother too...more on my sisters' talents in upcoming posts...and so in a tribute to my mother and to all mothers, especially one new mother, sarah and her beautiful baby Huck...and for my dear friend d as she moves through these dark days, I toast mothers and their children and leave you a few special photos of my daughter and me.

happy and cozy mother & daughter

This is the kind of business I love to support; a business that gives back. The founder is an artist and an educator. All her knitters are from Peru. Read more here. It is a wonderful story of building a business an helping others.

mollygoggles was at the recent Church of the Redeemer Christmas Market in Chestnut Hill. I was there too and could not resist the beautiful scarf below.

I love my new blue scarf and I have been wearing it every day. It has been very cold in my neck of the woods and we just got a lot of snow. It looks beautiful.

i am back

our college tour was a whirlwind

from north carolina to new hampshire

and then to the "cod"

loads of fun with cousins and round two of "the aunts"

ie: my sisters & me

this was a funny sight

old cadillac with bicycle and fishing rods jumbled in the back seat

crazy parking spot

the guy jumped out of the car and started cleaning the hood

a seagull...

i worked on a lot of small projects

one was knitted wash cloths.

some of my family members thought i was nuts

to spend so much time on a washcloth.

zoom in to read the wash cloth pattern.

i use them all the time instead of a sponge.

just pop into the washer at the end of the day

and use a fresh one in the morning.

here is another lady doing the same thing.

she was set up on the street in woods hole.

zoom in and read her sign.

she had great sweaters and hats for children.

if you need a perfect baby present and you don't have the time

nor inclination to knit

send sarah graham mann an e-mail

she doesn't have a website yet

DiscoverNE@aol.com

funny looking sight

that is the drawbridge in the up position

with brother, daughter, niece, nephews watching the activity

the temperature was high

and the water was perfect

Anyone who reads this blogs knows that I knit.

I bought this needle case 

from Martha By Mail years ago. 

(by the way, I miss that catalogue; it had great products.)

I love the needle case - I would never know what needles I owned without it.

Regular readers also know how I like to use up everything.

I made a few needle cases a couple of years ago

with some of my extra fabric

and sold them at Sea Beans Studio.

The needle cases sold quickly each time I brought them to the shop.

I kept meaning to make more, but not being a speedy seamstress...

I procrastinated.

Out of the blue, I was inspired to make more needle cases

for the upcoming Sis Boom show.

I guess I wanted to change it up a bit.

I patched a lot of my scraps together...

and used this great ribbon that I bought a few seasons ago;

one ribbon illustrates how to knit in 3 easy steps

and another has the words:

I wonder who is knitting for me? 

How much fun to use this ribbon for the ties.

So here are the knitting needle cases.

Each one is one of a kind.

I sewed in the studio all weekend long 

listening to my book on tape.

It was a perfect weekend.

I hated to stop.

These will all be for sale at the Sis Boom show

on June 11th, 12th and 13th

A created a few more goodies. 

Come back tomorrow to see those...