Volkstricken Industries
Lazy Sunday is day-drinking Dark & Stormies on the couch in the sunshine, with baseball on the TV, listening to the sound of lawnmowers throughout the neighborhood and putting off thinking about Monday.
It’s also an excuse to recycle Instagram photos instead of busting out the real camera. (You can follow me @volkstricken, btw, if you’re so inclined!)
I spent 12 hours of my weekend making three of these roman shades using this tutorial from ReadyMade. We just bought a new couch and the old curtains just weren’t doing it justice. The time spent making these was so very worth it, friends — and so much cheaper than custom. The ReadyMade tutorial is better than others I’ve found (no offense, Martha) but I have some ideas for improving upon it next time. We shall see.
My ultimate goal is for our living room to have the same feel as my favorite beach house ever in Stinson Beach, CA. After a new paint job, all we’ll be missing is the sound of waves crashing nearby… so if the ocean could just hurry on up and find its way to western Pennsylvania, things will be perfect.
The sound of lawnmowers isn’t such a bad substitute for now.
Here are a few other things I’m enjoying this week:
- This mod/pop-art influenced knitting pattern is one of the best uses of Noro yarns I’ve seen. Plus, I love modular knitting patterns that mimic the classic granny-square. This is on my Must Knit List!
- This great hanging branch notepad holder from design*sponge is fantastic, and I think it might fit perfectly on the wall between our kitchen and living room
- Anything and everything featuring pickled red onions – I need to make these. Here’s a great vegetarian asparagus taco recipe from Serious Eats which I’m dying to try.
- And, speaking of asparagus, here’s my favorite recipe for “ristotto-style” or “absorption” pasta, which has become a real staple around here in the last couple of years – perfect for any mix of spring vegetables you might have on hand. We just ate some leftovers for dinner!
I have some DIY posts up my sleeve here in the near future, but for now let’s be perfectly content to relax. What a perfect Sunday!
Last weekend while cleaning out our closets, I found one of my favorite photos of me ever, from a sixth grade academic games competition:
I could care less that we won second place that year; I was wearing my favorite shirt ever, handmade by my mom in rainbow cat fabric that I picked out myself.
You can’t see them here, but she even made matching cat-shaped buttons out of Sculpey. My mom is crafty and she is dedicated.
Thanks, Mom, for indulging my personal sense of style (and sense of humor). Thanks for always hand-making our Halloween costumes, whether I wanted to be Cleopatra or Cousin It. Thanks for trusting me enough to use your Prismacolor pencils, and I am truly sorry that I was always using your fabric scissors to cut up magazines and make collages.
Once I outgrew this shirt (and wearing stretch shorts to school), thanks for being OK with my skater shoes and wide-leg jeans. I still remember the two pairs of Doc Martens you found at a discount store in my size and surprised me with: mint green patent leather, and white netting with silver glitter.
I don’t know what my friends were more jealous of: my boots, or my awesome mom.
You should know that I have my own fancy fabric scissors now, which I keep in their own special case and never use to cut anything else.
You’re the best mom a creative lady could ask for.
Love,
Your Nerdy Daughter
Without getting into details, it’s been a stressful last few weeks. I’ve pulled a few late nights, have had lots of bad dreams, and I feel like I’ve been running on that anxious energy you get when things are uncertain. Coffee? No thanks – I have stress-adrenaline pumping through my system approximately 22 hours of the day.
Don’t worry, though, it’s over now. But I needed something really simple to work on here or there, to pick away at when I needed a few minutes to go brain quiet and just not think.
So I decided to knit some super on-trend chair socks.
I was inspired by all the great color dipped furniture DIYs out there in the world. I’ve definitely been mad crushing on this entry way table IKEA hack from my friend The Sweet Beast - but having just painted my kitchen table in the past few months, I wasn’t anxious to break out the sandpaper and paint again. I also enjoyed this wrapped and dipped method from The Brick House – but let’s face it, dismantling the living room console (which the giant flatscreen TV rests on, and which is filled with dishes and movies and photos and other miscellanea) is not the best way to relax and de-stress. Both of these posts have been featured in a round-up at Apartment Therapy though I am *just* pretentious enough to tell you that I saw them first, by subscribing to both of these blogs, both of which I recommend.
Here are the details:
- Yarn: Cascade 220 leftovers (colors), and Patons Classic (white, less than 1 ball).
- Needles: US 4. You want a really tight gauge for these since they will be helping to protect your floor. I used circulars because I prefer to use Magic Loop, but you could just as easily use DPNs.
First, I knit a 1×1 rib swatch. Then, because I was lazy super stressed out, I didn’t even finish it – I just stretched it around a chair leg, pinched it together, and counted how many stitches I would need to cast on for my chair socks to be snug.
This turned out to be 22. I cast on, knit 25 rows, then ssk all the way around once, and k2tog all the way around once, then pulled my yarn through and called it a day.
Repeat a total of 16 times.
I knit the four colored socks first, but decided the look wasn’t unified enough. Giving each chair one bright sock and three white ones evens things out and looks about as sophisticated as handknit socks for your dining set can be.
I left my existing felt pads on and pulled the socks on top, for added protection. I don’t recommend using just knit socks to protect your hardwood floors, because let’s remember: knitting is full of holes. Your chair legs will find a way to bust out of there and scratch the floor whenever you least expect it.
Now we all have warm feet and we can relax.
One last small thing: Over on Ravelry, user Tintti finished a Neon Ski Bonnet! This is the first finished object I’ve seen from my free pattern and I’m over the moon excited about it. If you’ve been thinking about knitting the pattern but waiting to see some finished projects, head on over to the pattern page on Rav and check it out.
Today, I’m really excited to announce that I’ve actually been following through on a number of things on my personal to-do list lately. Including writing up my first ever knitting pattern!
Never you mind that it was 70 degrees and sunny today, and the pattern is for a warm and sassy winter bonnet-style hat. You need to start making Christmas presents, don’t you? Checking things off of your to-do list?
This hat was originally designed in December of 2010 as a gift for my awesome little sister, Carsyn. It was inspired by Elizabeth Zimmerman’s ski bonnet in The Opinionated Knitter, which is knit in the round and then steeked — but my version is knit flat then joined in the round instead. The band is double-thickness for warmth over the ears.
Also, it has a giant pom-pom.
In celebration of checking off to-do lists everywhere, this pattern is free. You can download it here: Neon Ski Bonnet PDF or by visiting the pattern page on Ravelry.
The name “Volkstricken” originated as my online knitting handle.
I learned to knit from the internet in 2001 or 2002, before the video library of knittinghelp.com existed, and only just as the venerable free knitting magazine knitty.com was publishing its first issues. A pre-ravelry.com era demanded that one share projects on Flickr and blogs because if you wanted to see how a knitting pattern had turned out for someone else, Googling the pattern name was the first thing you would try. (I would argue that Googling patterns to see what other people had done was far more important in building the knitting community than any number of stitch-and-bitch groups.)
I don’t know how long the original blog ran, but in 2009 I began to feel odd about it. I was weirded out that there were so many public photos of me modeling my knitting out there on the internet. I was embarrassed that despite my fancy-pants art school degree, I was working two part time jobs and knitting instead of developing a fine art practice and applying for residencies and grad school. I felt it was distracting me from real work/becoming an adult/whatever.
So one day, I deleted it.
Without backing it up.
Long story short: I sewed this top and I’m not at all embarrassed about it.
Please note hair flip is in full effect.
It’s the Sencha Top from Colette Patterns, view 2. Fabric was something purchased on clearance from Joann’s last year – I don’t normally wear red, but this was love at first sight.
What I love about this top are the details.
The darts around the neckline, for example. I love how the stripes (almost) line up across those seams. Maybe once my sewing skills improve, I can make that happen.
The back is my absolute favorite. Tops that button up the back have really been catching my eye lately. And I had an excuse to dig out some wonderful vintage buttons from my collection – these have a great shape, although the color has faded in some spots.
I do have a handful of fit issues – it looks great with a belt, but terrible without. It sort of rides up in front and pulls down in the back. Although I think my general sewing skills are pretty solid, I am terrible at diagnosing fit issues and making adjustments – a skill I need to work on. I might start by making a new test top one size smaller than this and attempting to modify the neckline, as it’s just too high for my taste for everyday wear.
It’s also worth noting that this top has a decent amount of handsewing. The button band facings and sleeve hems are all handsewn. That might have scared me away if I had know this before purchasing – but all told, it was very simple and actually quite relaxing.
As for the blog, I’m glad it’s back.
Suburban PA roadside flowers.
I’m not entirely sure how two weeks have passed without an update here.
And what do we have to show for ourselves?
We carted five overflowing truckloads of dead shrubs, overgrown azaleas, and pine branches to the local wood waste recycling place…
…revealing that the hillside behind the grassy area of our backyard once had a stone staircase down to the bottom, now covered in a half-foot of decomposed pine needles and various weeds…
…prompting an impromptu weed-pulling, hillside-clearing, and attempts to dig up the old rusted staircase railing…
…resulting in a nasty case of poison ivy rash (more likely caused by poison sumac, which we didn’t know how to identify) for the two of us.
Needless to say, that’s served to stunt our motivation for a little while.
In recovery, we’ve been enjoying:
- A memorable and long birthday dinner where we enjoyed deep-fried cockscombs, and a white chocolate and goat’s milk ice cream dessert that tasted different with every bite.
- A bouquet gathered from the weedy plants that have overgrown the sidewalks nearby, and learning that the succulent-like plant popping up in our driveway and front yard is edible purslane — although I can’t say I have a taste for it, I do love the way it looks.
- Listening to Tame Impala’s “InnerSpeaker
“, and finding a copy of the Black Angels’ “Phosgene Nightmare” – a Record Store Day release of b-sides from “Phosphene Dream
” on 10″ white vinyl.
- Making rough plans for the backyard and trying to figure out the right place for a hammock. Right now, I’m in love with these colorful fair-trade Mayan hammocks.
Our now shrub-less blank slate backyard, begging for us to be relaxing in the shade.
I’m (re) starting a blog and I don’t have a monologue.
I don’t really have anything specific in mind. This isn’t a challenge-style “photo a day” type blog. It isn’t professional, since I don’t yet work for myself – although I would very much like to. And I wouldn’t say this blog is exactly personal, although it’s bound to be at least a little bit revealing of the (undoubtedly fascinating) tediums of my life.
The question that I’ve asked myself, since the decision to delete my last blog several years ago, is: “Why? Why blog? You’re not really, well, doing enough of anything to blog about. You’re niche-less and unfocused. What’s the point?”
And so, because I feel that it’s somehow wrong to start a blog without some kind of manifesto – this is why I’ve gone and made this space:
I used to write, and I used to write a lot. Essays, artist statements, poetry and other sentiments. I carried tiny pre-Moleskine notebooks around and spent my idle time half filling them with doodles and fragmented language. This is a habit I never should have lost, and I want it back. I think more clearly through the written word than from my mouth.
And, I used to make things. To be fair, I still do – but its relegated now to more practical arts. Remodeling, gardening, cooking, knitting… I just finished my first quilt. Do I love domesticity? Yes, absolutely. But I’m nostalgic for a time when I could hide away in my room for an entire day at a time, headphones on, drawing pictures of my shoes for no other reason than I enjoyed it. This kind of activity led to a degree in making things, which for the past few years has been laying dormant. It needs to start waking up again.
I’m tired of documenting my life through Facebook and Twitter. Sharing photos and exchanging brief messages with old friends is great, don’t get me wrong. But here, here I want to sit back and reflect on a few things. I’ve been losing some perspective and I’d like to formally have a place to collect it again.
I can’t say yet what this blog will and will not be, but I’m happy to be finding some time and space to pursue it.
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