Over ten years ago I started
a knitting club with some of my work friends and their spouses. Once a month we
would meet at someone’s house for dinner, drinks, and knitting. We had a lot of
fun knitting, talking, gossiping. We made lasting friendships over knitted
works and wine. But, as life is wont to do, our lives got busier and busier,
kids came along and people moved in and out of the group as some moved away and
others moved to the area. It was harder to carve out the time to spend an
entire evening at someone’s house especially because we all started having kids
at a staggered rate.
So, we devised a plan to
just have dessert after dinner and kids were put to bed, we would have a little
grown-up time to knit. That worked for a few years until even that became
hard to coordinate. So, last year I decided to make the knitting
club a lunchtime affair for anyone who wanted to knit once a week at work. So
far, this has worked splendidly. So much so that we are trying to knit a little
and eat a little together every day if we can. Besides, research shows that we
definitely need to stop eating alone at our desks, which is what we were used
to doing.
This long-winded explanation
of my knitting club history is all to say that because we have started knitting
at work, I wanted to create a project that could stay at work. One that was
interesting enough to knit but mindless enough to be able to eat and talk and
knit all at the same time. It needed to be large enough to last several months
so I wouldn’t have to keep schlepping yarn to work. I also wanted it to have
some meaning for my Museum, after all that is where we all work and knit.
Cue an epic project that is
inspired by my favorite work at the Museum, Jasmine Sidewinder by Gene Davis. I
have loved this minimalist work since I first started working 20 years ago. It
is large and interesting and STRIPES!
The picture above doesn't really give you an idea of how tall it is. It is almost 10 feet tall!. I decided to replicate the
artwork in a smaller version as a stole. Garter stitch would make up the
stripes and I would follow Gene Davis’ color scheme. After spending a lot of
time browsing at my LYS, I decided to use Shepherd’s Wool from Stonehedge Fiber
Mill, a) because it is incredibly soft wool, and b) because it had the wide
range of colors that I needed.
After a lot of swatching and
math, I created a pattern and cast on last November. Over the last several months,
I have knit row after row and seen it grow.
A month ago I finally came
to the colored stripes and freaked out over the weird colors. They looked very
odd together and definitely not the combination or order of colors that I would
ever put together. But, I trusted Gene Davis and his mastery of color and kept
going.
Now I am nearing the finish
line and am almost ready to finish this stole. It has been a fun companion at
work and has fulfilled all of my requirements of being interesting but easy,
large enough to take a few months, and definitely inspired by our collection of
art.
So stay tuned in the next
week or so for a finished stole, a pattern, and pictures.
