So the big news of the day is that the much anticipated army-green Porter Bin is finally in the shop this morning! To everyone who snatched them up at Squam last week, thank you for your enthusiasm! To everyone who’s been emailing and asking and pleading to preorder, thank you for your patience! This is a limited batch but we do expect to have more in the not-too-distant future. I don’t have any more specifics than that at the moment, but for now what we do have is there for the ordering — further news when I have it!
UPDATE: It was a quick feeding frenzy on the army green stash but they’re NOT GONE! Remember our shopping cart expires after 10 minutes, so as long as there’s still an Army Green option in the dropdown, it’s not sold out and there’s a chance it will exprire out of some of those carts. So if you get the message that they’re all in somebody else’s cart, just check back after 10 minutes. They’re not gone as long as it’s still an option in the dropdown.
And with that, a bit of long-overdue Elsewhere—
– I failed to note that last Saturday was Knit in Public Day — you were doing it anyway, right?
– Knitting as wartime esionage tool (thx Leigh and Jess!)
– I love Felicia’s check-in on how Stash Less has changed her
– And tilework begging to be colorwork
– The Sewbots are coming! (so many mixed feelings about this)
– “Reknitting” gives me a lot to think about
– For anyone considering sewing their own bras
– Has anyone tried the Good On You app?
– Or pondered the deeper meaning of Mr. Rogers’ cardigan colors?
– Love this history of Rowan (and hence of the knitting world of today)
– Kate Davies’ open letter to the Shetland Islands Council makes me sad (Signed, future Heritage Tourist)
– A spot of craft-room organization inspiration
– Yes to crochet appliqué logowear
– Yes to one-of-a-kind dresses from scraps (and also to bespoke leftover quilts)
– AND … #growyourownmarl is my new favorite hashtag
Have an amazing weekend! Hope to see you on the #summerofbasics feed.
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PREVIOUSLY: New Field Bag + Elsewhere
Fabulous food for thought this week! Thanks, as always, for sharing.
Weren’t all of Mr. Rogers’ sweaters knitted by his mother? While he certainly had his pick of wonderful sweaters, her yarn/color choices over time surely influenced his.
For a minute, I couldn’t shake the feeling that the tiles were familiar in relation to knitting. Then I realized that they look an awful lot like a few Faroese pullovers I’ve been stalking over the years, and which have also popped up here on FA. I’m thinking: “Long Faroese Sweater” by Hanne Magnussen, “Stasis” by Leila Raabe, and (most recently) “Boheme sweater” by Randi Hjelm Debes! Geometrics — be still my heart!
Oddly, I had picked up some indigo dyed farm yarn and undyed of the same about 3 years ago to make a vest with a similar pattern on it. Thanks for the reminder! I should really get around to cataloguing all of my stash…
Fab Elsewhere this week. The Mister Rogers piece was marvellous – those colour charts made my brain feel good! Also, the quilt made from haberdashery scraps was gorgeous! I love the idea of wooly Prince of Wales and flannel log cabin blankets. And the make yer own bra post is timely for me – I’ve been thinking of dipping my toes into lingerie territory.
What a wonderful letter by Kate Davies. I have never been to Shetland (though I did visit Scotland 2 years ago and it was incredible), but I hope her compelling story and excellent argument make a difference.
Re: sewbots – I don’t like the idea of these machines putting people out of work, but when the sewing jobs in the textile industry are so horribly abusive (let’s call a spade a spade), maybe it’s not such a bad thing. It’s true that automation has eaten up a lot of American jobs, but a good number of those were pretty dangerous to begin with. I dunno. It will be interesting to see where that goes.
just downloaded the good on you app–anxious to test drive it! thanks for the suggestion.
Elsewhere posts are always good reading but this one is above and beyond!
My gut reaction to “sewbots” is negative – I know garment production is horribly exploitative work but the intent seems to be to speed the wasteful fast fashion cycle ever faster. I can’t get on board with “exploitative jobs are better than no jobs” but automating away what could be meaningful work doesn’t seem like a solution either.
The sewbots article is very timely for me. I’m just now mid-way through David Pye’s The Nature and Art of Workmanship. If you haven’t done so, I highly recommend reading it. He focuses on what he calls the workmanship of certainty, exemplified by the sewbot inventor’s claim that his machines have an error rate of 0.7%, and the workmanship of risk, which we who are so actively engaged in “crafting” or whatever know so well–work that entails risk and uncertainty at every step. Pye wrote in the ’70’s and seems to have been looking forward to a time when everything in our environment was made through automated manufacture, including clothes. He writes eloquently about how such a world would be unpleasant to humans and why workmanship of risk is still a necessity in our daily life.
I’m not inherently opposed to sewbots, but I can’t help but wonder how many economies would crash if these were suddenly to become widely used. We rail against sweatshops and child labor, but as cruddy as these jobs are, they are still livelihoods for millions of our brothers and sisters. I don’t share Rajan’s prediction that minimum-wage workers will disappear–what jobs are they disappearing to, exactly?
And then on the other hand, this seems like a development away from a reckoning of overconsumption and rampant, environmentally-damaging over production.
Always learn something new from your “Elsewhere’s”. Recently, a friend modeled her old t-shirt that she had ‘boro-ed’ in the Japanese patchwork “boro” method. She did that to cover up a stain on the shirt; the patchwork outcome made it fresh and contemporary. It seems the old ‘boro’ tradition is now being used in Japanese fashion. Pinterest also has some great photos.
https://www.heddels.com/2015/08/all-about-boro-story-japanese-patchwork/
The bespoke leftover quilts link makes me think of Nicky (clarapeggoty on Instagram) who weaves custom blankets from project leftovers: https://www.instagram.com/clarapeggoty/
She calls them “alchemy blankets”!
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