For the SEFAA Square Foot Fiber Pin-Up Show, I knit up an entrelac square. The rules for the show were simply that the entry should be 12" square in a fiber art. It was a wonderful opportunity to play around. After all, a single square foot is hardly too much effort in either time or materials. And it was a great opportunity to play around and try something new.
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| "Residue of 2011" obverse |
In this case, I already knew how to do entrelac. After all, I took a class with Gwen Bortner, the Queen of Entrelac herself. But this was a chance for me to try out the techniques I learned from Jay Petersen. Jay writes the Fuzzy Logic blog that has been in my blog links for quite some time. You'll recall that I met Jay in person last summer in Portland, Oregon. Jay and I both share an interest in reversible (both sides the same) and double-faced (both sides good but different) knit fabrics. Jay spent a great deal of time exploring entrelac construction. He was interested in making entrelac that looks good from both sides. Regular entrelac technique has a clear right and wrong side. Jay was able to adapt Rick Mondragon's modular intarsia loop technique to instead join entrelac modules. Because he bypassed the usual method of working two stitches together, Jay's technique results in flatter joins as well as a fabric that is pretty good from either side.
The yarn for my block came from the 2011 Knit In at The Mannings. I won a skein of discontinued Noro Aurora yarn for being the knitter who came the farthest to the party. This is an interesting yarn, as it is Noro but with a sparkly yarn plied along. Every now and then the metallic yarn is bunched up in the twist, so that it almost looks like a bead on the yarn. Since I only had one skein, I wasn't quite sure what to do with it until the pin-up show came along.
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| "Residue of 2011" reverse |
I was trying to knit a sort of faux plaid. I wasn't entirely successful, but it was an interesting experiment. I also used my scale to plan carefully. In the end, I had only a couple feet of yarn leftover. And while the block was less than a foot when it came off the needles, it dressed out to the correct size quite easily with water and blocking wires.
For those of you in the area, the show is at the SEFAA Center, 1705 Commerce Dr. NW, Atlanta GA 30318. It will be on view for the remainder of March. The center is open on Tuesdays from 10 AM to 2 PM, on Wednesdays from 5 to 8 PM, and on Sundays this month from 2 to 4 PM (except 11 March, when the center will be closed). There are about 40 squares in a wide variety of techniques. If you are looking for inspiration, it is well worth taking some time to check it out. There is also hope that this will be an annual event. So, if you have an idea for a square-foot fiber experiment, be sure to make it happen in time for next year!
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