I Have Not Forgotten You

Oh, dear. It has been awhile since I posted on my blog. I have been knitting furiously and anyone who follows my Instagram or even Ravelry will know what I have been up to. But here I wanted to give a little more information on all the work that I have been doing to get ready for the exhibition with Black Rock Desert this fall.

I have 15 pieces planned for the exhibit (but they probably don’t have room for them all so maybe not all will be shown). I have completed nine of them and have another six on needles in various stages. I am hoping to not only sell all the patterns individually but to figure out a way to put them all in an e-book to sell. That is a project for later. Now is the time to knit!

So I thought I would highlight one work each blog post over the next month and maybe by then I will have the other six completed. Most of the pieces I have finished I have shown on Instagram so you might have already seen them if you follow that as well.

If you remember, all the pieces for my Artist-in-Residency center around wrapping myself in Black Rock Desert. With that in mind, the first piece I want to talk about is my Indian Paintbrush Hap.  

In the spring and summer the Black Rock Desert is dotted with brilliant Indian paintbrush wildflowers. This native plant has bright red bracts that are often confused for their flowers, which are small and inconspicuous. I saw a lot of this wildflower in May when I was there and maybe even more than normal because of the abundance of rain they had.

When walking the desert, I felt surrounded by the spiky red plants as if I was wrapped in paintbrushes. So, I wrapped myself in the color and shape of the flower with this hap.

A hap is a traditional Shetland shawl that in the center is a basic garter stitch square (or triangle if it is a half hap like my shawl). Stitches are picked up on the outside for a lace border and then a lace edging is usually applied to the live stitches so that there are no bound off edges on the lace to stop it from being stretched.

I really tried to capture the spiky red bracts and individual leafed stems with the design. This piece surprised me in two ways. First, it took so much longer than I thought it would to knit up, but it was a joy to knit and see grow. And second, it is more beautiful than I imagined it would be when I designed it (which doesn't always happen).

With my beautiful niece-in-law modeling it, it really does look like it wraps you in Indian paintbrush.