Art Appreciation
Well, because PBS did NOT ask me to do a guest post on their
blog for Civilizations, I am just going to have to do one here 😊
The first 2 episodes have aired and are available at http://www.pbs.org/civilizations/home/.
I thought they were fantastic. As promised, the show delivers a global perspective from Mesoamerica Mexico to Prehistoric Spain to Ancient Greece, Italy, Egypt, Jordan, and China. The photography, both of the close-up details
and the landscape with the help of drones, is breathtaking. Just from my
traveling experiences, it may be better than actually being there meaning to watch these remote, historic places from the comforts of home so that you
can focus on the actual objects of interest without having to worry about
anything else is kind of a treat.
The “big” pieces of art, no matter how early in time they were
created, are beautiful and represent the awe-inspiring potential of human
achievement in my mind. Other pieces are more haunting such as the feature on
Greco-Roman mummy portraits in Egypt, which were painted with both a portrait
of the deceased and symbols of the Egyptian gods; the mummy coffins resided
on-end as part of the home décor. Another mesmerizing group of pieces contains the
masks of Sanxingdui, discovered in China in the mid-1980s as the only remnant
of a previously unknown civilization. Then there is the explanation of the Ancient Greek origins of our still present obsession with youth and beauty. Lastly, you can never go wrong with the ancient wonders of Petra Jordan and Luxor Egypt.
The episodes often link the far past with artists of the present such as
Kehinde Wiley and Antony Gormley and of the recent past such as Pablo Picasso.
I am looking forward to continued inspiration.
The book Luxury Yarn One-Skein Wonders edited by Judith
Durant is great because it divides the sections in the book based on the yarn weight. Because I have never knitted before with a multi-ply yarn (the
variegated cashmere is 6-ply!), do not know exactly how much yarn I have, and I was out of the knitting groove, I went conservative and chose a pattern for a neck warmer designed by Sarah Keller which in the book’s
photo and pattern information also used a multi-ply cashmere.
So, I started knitting the neck warmer on size 8 needles and
discovered that it was eating up yarn like crazy and did not look like the
picture at all. The good part of knitting is that you can just tear out your
stitches and start over. So, I did….many a time. The first set :-o of tear outs
were due to my technique. The pattern did not look like the picture because I
was not careful enough about yarn-overs and I think I forgot to slip some
stitches over which disrupted the rib-like pattern. The second set of tear
outs, I was having trouble with the gauge in pattern. The neck warmer was
significantly wider than what was estimated in the pattern and the limited yarn
supply was being used very quickly.
The good thing about the numerous tear outs and after
consulting a knitting guide, my technique improved so it started looking like
it was supposed to. The gauge I wasn’t so sure what to do so just to
experiment, I used size 2 needles which have a smaller diameter and therefore
produce a tighter stitch. This was the result.
It looks absolutely fantastic, right? Amazingly with the
size 2 needles, the gauge was spot on both horizontally and vertically, but it was
taking up so much yarn that I may have ended up only with a cashmere coaster. A
cashmere coaster is not that practical so to give this project the best chance
to create something that can be used, I switched back to the size 8 needles,
reduced the number of stitches width-wise from 31 to 25, and have been there
ever since. This is a really good example of the effect of different sized needles on a pattern, the first inch with size 8:
It is a testament to the yarn that it withstood so many tear
outs/manipulations and still remained completely intact. It does say on the label that with
handling, the cashmere gets softer – I think we have this covered. I am now on my way to get past the coaster stage (4.5"):
I still have yarn but no idea how much so I can’t really
estimate how long this is going to be, I have my fingers crossed for at least 15”, hopefully more?
This is another reason why I picked this project for the first skein of
cashmere – I am hoping that I will be able to better estimate the amount I have
of the other two colors and then pick suitable projects accordingly.
That is all I have for today – phew…I made my bimonthly post
goal. Keep in good spirits and I will see you in May.
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