All the main bits and pieces are done for the Central Park Hoodie… so I’m just blocking the pieces before I seam the shoulders and pick up for the hood.
Now, I have to decide on buttons or zipper for the closure… I’m leaning towards buttons.
Liberty’s in London finally broke me down… and I bought a ton of Rowan Bamboo Tape yarn to knit Erika Knight’s design, “Granite” from one of the newest Rowan mags.
I had brought the Central Park Hoodie to work on, but after finishing the sleeves, I was at a bit of a loss… my hands craved plain o’ mindless knitting. Knitting for the bus, knitting for the tube, knitting for the afternoon coffee at the cafe, knitting for the plane. So, here’s a whole lotta stockinette to knit up in fettucine-like bamboo yarn.
Travelling to London has kept my interest partly because their designers, artists and craftsmen are so well supported and encouraged by the local councils that they appear to be able to innovate and create more. So for me, it’s not just yarn tourism… it’s the search for signs of future growth and the pushing forward of an entire textile and craft industry. I’m looking for something more than just the mechanical workings of a traditional hand loom or traditional fair isle designs updated in contemporary colours. I don’t know what it is, but I’m looking.
On the way, I get distracted by shiny, pretty things and some of the most vibrantly coloured, interesting and luxurious woven items I have found in London are designed by Wallace+Sewell, a pair of weavers who graduated from the Royal College of Art almost twenty years ago.
Located at the corner of Amwell and Lloyd Baker Streets just south of the Angel tube stop, the shop is seriously tiny, but stacked from floor to ceiling with silk, cashmere and wool blankets and scarves. Last time I visited, they had a “pillow” event, so the centre of the shop was piled high with pillows made from their woven designs in all different colours and textures. This time, I think the silk organza scarves were new… and these plasticized fabrics too. This was some of the most intriguing work I saw… very contemporary and very topical. Selvedges from handwoven fabric was compressed with vinyl plastic in order to create a new “fabric” which was then made into handbags.
I love love loved these. Scraps of woven silk fabric laid in quite a thick chunk of plastic making some really interesting bracelets, earrings and brooches. Just some very inventive ways of using up the little bits of extra fabric.
And of course, perfectly sheer and delicately coloured woven silk organza scarves. Not entirely innovative, but still beautiful to see and touch.
Where else in the world is really, truely new textile design and innovation happening? And I don’t mean textile art. I mean functional textile design for use in fashion or interiors. Emphasis on functional. Where do we stop just making pretty things and start making things that improve people’s lives in tangible ways? For a while now, I have been following the work and research being done at Central St. Martin’s in their MA Design for Textile Futures, mainly because I was interested in possibly studying there (but can you say “hello, life long student loan debt”?), but also because there is no program like it anywhere. Where else do students create interactive wallpaper, light-reactive window shades, and “architectural textiles for localised urban food production and environmental monitoring”. I don’t even know what that means. But when you pair creative and innovative textile designers with Nobel prize-winning scientists… well, we can just be optimistic that our future lives will be benefitted by their new discoveries.
Sarah’s counterbalance loom is here in photos too:
I took pictures of the loom and warping mill. Just so you know, I will be asking $500 for the loom (including the bench, extra heddles, and a weaving book) and $200 for the warping mill (the mill would be about $400 new).
What else can you live on besides cereal? Eggs and toast! I know that I do have some strange fixations on certain things… cereal being one, and eggs, dumplings and za jian mein as some others. But anyway. Welcome to my “Eggs on Toast” Tour of London…
My absolute, hands down, favourite breakfast place of all was The Breakfast Club in Angel. It was ridiculously good. I don’t know how many eggs were in that pile of scrambled eggs, but I ate every single last bit. It was so ridiculously good, I went back the next day and ordered the exact same thing.
Then there were the eggs and soldiers at a bakery near Kings Cross… I think it was called Le Pain. There looks to be an over abundance of bread in that photo.
The most hilarious plating was at some random cafe on Cross Street (I don’t remember the name). I forgot to ask for the eggs scrambled, as you can see.
Cheesy eggs on toast at a tiny outdoor cafe in Blackheath near Greenwich.
I realize breakfast menus in the UK quite commonly have things like baked beans, black or white pudding, chips, and so on… but I keep things quite simple. Two eggs, scrambled + two slices of toast = perfection.
Driven by an obsessive, passionate and often tumultuous relationship with colour, Felicia Lo is the owner of SweetGeorgia Yarns, a handpainted yarn company based in Vancouver. Founded in 2005, SweetGeorgia Yarns is about intense, relentless and unapologetic colour.
I wanna make a sweater... pouts
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