pni
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blog
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more yarns
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to browse and drool |
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Asymmetrical Reds jacket Socks for Chris in autumnal colours 
Unexpected knitting in greens 
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Lime cashcotton sweater Amethyst cashcotton sweater Lacy hemp shawl Banana fibre scarf Baby socks for Sue's newly adopted baby (9 months old) 2005 2004 2003 2002 |
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Knitty Threadbear Ozeyarn Martina for sock yarn Kangaroo House of Hemp Ford Barton Laughing Hens Hip Knits |
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Maybe, just maybe. |
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I've done a shed-load of training in the last few years, some in new areas, some pretty advanced. These are the training establishments I recommend for outstanding integrity, professionalism and allround excellence: Brain Gym Jean-Pierre Barral Visceral Osteopathy John F Barnes Myofascial Release Human Givens A new approach to emotional health and clear thinking Upledger Institute Craniosacral Therapy Jing Advanced Massage Advanced Clinical Bodywork Remedial Massage Myofascial Release (I also teach with these guys) Pilates Training Solutions |
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| ATPNI reunion Am hoping to make it to another reunion, rumoured amongst the 'discorde', of the last 2 groups who did ATPNI level 1 training. We swap stories, skills, approaches and generally have a good time, and there are some *very* good therapists and practitioners amongst us, who have taken the material, some of which is really very good, and developed it in their own way incorporating a rather broader approach and perspective. We may also be meeting with others who went before us, some of whom I've not met yet. Should be good fun. The Literature Map I'd forgotten about The literature map by gnod, and bumped into it today on one of my travels. It's so much fun! Type in a favourite author and see which other authors are liked by readers. The idea is that the closer two writers are on the map (the names dance around), the more likely someone will like both of them. Or type the names of your three favourite authors and it will give you suggestions for further reading. It's some kind of a database that feeds off our enquiries. I've just spent a good half hour playing. August 27th | No Free Lunch No Free Lunch. This is incredibly impressive. It's a movement started by doctors in the US and in the UK who are "opposed to the overt and covert inducements offered by the pharmaceutical industry to 'encourage' doctors to prescribe their wares". From their website: "We are the British arm of a international organisation seeking to change the current relationship between the health professions and the pharmaceutical industry. This relationship is based on hospitality and patronage which is unknown and undeclared to the general public. ... In the UK we are campaigning for complete transparency through a public register of all contact, hospitality and payments received by health professionals from the industry." Yes, yes, yes. Spinning I've finally given in and dabbled in a little drop spindle spinning. Years and years ago I acquired this drop spindle from somewhere, with a fair bit of woolly stuff, secure in the knowledge that it would come in handy one day. Looks a bit odd to me, having two whorls, but I've wound the 'yarn' inbetween them... maybe I should have would it below the lower one. Bizarre, isn't it? Is that a mix between high and low whorl? Huh?   My first efforts have produced something that can indeed be termed 'yarn' and will be made into a cat blanket or mice to be felted and stuffed with catnip. Cleo not impressed.  I have three publications to help me on my way, a leaflet which came with the spindle, Lee Raven's Hands on Spinning and Spin-Off's A Handspindle Treasury. Between the three of them I have managed to cobble together an understanding of the process, albeit with a few detours. For instance, I started holding the drafting fibres in my right hand and spinning the spindle in my left, not realising that I would then be doing most of the fiddly work with my left. I am right-handed, and although I use my left a lot, for something new and fiddly, I would want to use my right. I also found that I spin the spindle clockwise (is that Z-twist?). So, before I got into odd habits (moi?!) I swapped hands. Awkward, given that I'd started the other way round, but OK. For about three twists of the spindle, that is. Then it all went horribly wrong. The damned 'yarn' suddenly unyarned itself, went fluffy and soppy and the spindle went crashing to the floor. I learned how to make joins. I practised several times. I got better at drafting, I spun the spindle more evenly, my language became evermore creative. But each time, as soon as I started spinning, the yarn broke. Until it dawned on me... I thought I was twisting the spindle clockwise, but when I changed hands, I somehow started twisting it anti-clockwise, thus unspinning the yarn I'd spun. How stupid can one be????? Despite the frustrating adventures, I'm hooked. I've ordered a 'traditional' low whorle spindle from Scottish Fibres (can't wait!!!) and I'm looking at wooly stuff. Anyone got any ideas where to get the best woolly stuff I don't have to do too much to to make it spinnable (spelling? or is it 'spinable'?) for someone *very* new to the game? Stump sock I take my knitting with me to the local pub when we go out for a meal. Socks are portable and mindless, so fit the bill perfectly. Yesterday evening we went to the Bull at Newick, where DD Toria works in the vac. I took Chris' sock with me for some dogged 'must get this done and I haven't even started the second one' knitting. One of the chaps working there has had a very gammy leg since being involved in a car accident, and is going to have to have it amputated below the knee. I don't know the details. However, he's watched me knit socks for some while now, and sent Toz out to ask if I could knit him a stump sock for when the deed is done. Can I refuse? Certainly not. I'll only get the measurements when it's actually... er... measurable, and then I'll do him one stump sock and one foot sock. He's taking the whole dreadful scenario in very good heart, and maybe a stump sock will lend some cheer. Personally, I think he'll need fascial release rather more than socks, and I can provide that too, but we'll wait and see how things proceed. Tetrahedron tensegrity model Have spent a happy couple of days trying to make a tensegrity model... and these are the results. We got some very vague instructions from Tom Myer's Anatomy Trains book, and DS Chris remembered doing something similar at maths A-level, so he made a diagram, and we worked out our first model with metal rods, dowels, hooks and black elastic. It took several hands each to afix all the ends, but we got there... The next morning it had totally collapsed - "kerpoiiiing" - before I could take picis, so I headed off to the hardware emporium for some wooden dowel, uphostery tacks, and, later, to the university for rubber bands (it's a long story, I won't bore you). And here is tensegrity model Mark II:  If you're wondering what it is for, apart from delighting something in us that... er... delights in mathematical things... it does rather handily demonstrate how the bones in the body are kept in place by the balance between elastic tensioners, i.e. the fascia. Note how they float? The rods are not actually touching each other, and only three touch the ground at their ends. Well, how did you think bones and muscles and organs and all that STUFF kept upright in gravity? August 22nd I want to go to Morocco! At Woolfest this year I met Ingrid Wagner, writer, painter, photographer, designer and fibre artist who organizes amazing cultural breaks to Morocco, just for women. Her current themes are either Moroccan rug weaving and knotting techniques, or painting - and I so want to go on a weaving one. I am hoping she is going to be able to do one in 2007. August 21st Finished Rachie's sweater! Here it is:   If you think you've seen it before, you're right. I made one for myself earlier on in the year. Asymmetrical Reds This means I've been able to get on with the Asymmetrical Reds jacket. The back is finished (on the right) and here is the left front. The stripes are far more subtle in reality than in the pici. You can only see them if the light shines just right or if the texture catches your eye. Another stash-buster, I was hoping, but it's taking far less yarn than I imagined. You can't see the shaping, as the sides are curling in, but it's going to be yummy.  Writing Oh yes, I'm writing again. And I can recommend Gabriele Lusser Rico's 'Writing the Natural Way' for getting going without having to write at least an A4 page of analytical drivel before tapping into the juicy stuff. She talks about a 'shift' from 'I don't know what to write' to 'aha!'. I don't get that. I always know what to write. I just can't persuade myself to do it. Clustering (her technique) lulls me into a false sense of security that I'm not really writing, just doodling, then I suddenly write, neatly bypassing the analytical stage. Before I know it, I've written something from the heart. Voilà! I'm using this method with all the usual prompts, inspirations and writing exercises I have gathered over the years. August 16th EOY Have spent the last two days preparing End Of Year accounts with the marvelous Hattie, wo rummaged through all my various sources of income, my receipts, my diary and my bank accounts and has arranged a small miracle on the pages of an excel sheet. I even know how to update this from now on. I feel strangely clean, but desouled. As in not quite so much soul left. I shall miss scribing by hand, but the excel thingy is really too fast and easy to be sneezed at. So does that mean that there was soul in the inking? I think not. I'll get over it. Knitting Am still ploughing away womanfully on Rachel's sleeves. Won't be long now. I am really proud of myself for not having sidetracked onto asymmetric reds or Chris' socks. Given the way the weather has changed, cotton with cashmere will be coming in handy very soon. There's no point in a photo update, it's just sleeves a bit longer. Knitting is character-building: there is always a point in every knitting project where it is just a little tedious, and one has to just knit on to get to the end. So much like most interesting projects in life, don't you think? Kittens' birthday The Kittens were two on Monday and celebrated the day by skitting around, hunting, eating, sleeping and having their tummies tickled. We reckon they have progressed happily from 'kittens' to 'juvenile delinquents'. Happy days. August 10th Another photo-story: One day Phoebe went to visit Mike in the studio. He was busy up one end at his easel. Phoebe was bored so she climbed onto one of the beams... then another... and from there she jumped up... up... up... all the way to the apex of the barn. It was worth it for the view.  But having regarded the view at length, from all angles...     ...it dawned on Phoebe that getting down again was a different matter altogether.  This is where photo-stories lack the wherewithall to communicate the heart-rending cries, screams and yowls that felines with Siamese blood emit when faced with something that's... well... not quite right. Like not being able to get down from the beam right at the top of Mike's studio. Fortunately, Phoebe has trained her humans well and Mike, Chris and Toria came to the rescue with a watercolour backing board and lots of sweet-talking. Apparently it took a while for the Phoebster to gather enough courage to jump onto the board, by which time Mike wasn't smiling quite so much, as his arms were about to drop off. Flight chaos DD Toria is off on her hols this evening and has marched off clutching her suitcase and a transparent plastic bag containing nought but wallet and passport, prepared for a lengthy wait at Gatwick, the second London airport. This reminds me of the mid-seventies in London, when we were forever being hastily evacuated because of the IRA bomb threats. I've been unceremoniously bundled out of Heathrow terminal 4, Harrods (a schoolfriend was trying on ballgowns with her dad at the time and he grabbed her and her stuff out of the changing room and they legged it. He put a cheque in the post the next day), and the underground. In fact these days again I'm slightly reluctant to use the underground in rush-hour. Ah. Have just heard that BA have cancelled all European flights. Hmmm. We might have Toria back, or she might spend the night at the terminal... oh to be 19 again :) August 6th Brain Gym Yup, I've been on a nuv-va course, Brain Gym. Working out the ways in which one can get the left side of the brain (apparently in 80% of us that's the logical side) to communicate with the right side (the creative or gestalt side, usually). And finding that in a little group of six there are wonderful variations in who had their logic on which side, which side was dominant for eye, which for ear, which for foot / hand etc., how well the old corpus callosum was working, or even developed, and so on. Thrilling. No, really, I find that totally fascinating. I found that I am almost totally gestalt / creative-brain dominant, but switch into strong logical dominance (er... some would call it domineeringnance) when threatened. A survival trait I recognize from a loooooong time back. I probably learned it the millisecond I discovered a logical braincell lurking in my as yet forming brain. Or earlier. Who would have thought? Street Art I found this wonderful traffic pole embelishment at Anticraft. This is right up my street, appeals to me in some perverse way. Why on earth? Haven't a clue. I'm going to ask Knitta whether this is a movement one can join, is there an initiation photo to be made, or is this a closed shop. Hope they are nice. As in not hostile. Particularly given my wont to dive into logicality when perceiving threat. I'll let you know. Hemp yarn update I'm going to say it straight up: the skeins are incredibly difficult to wind from. Somehow they do not lend themselves to the usual gentle shake to free looped loopy bits, neither do they seem to have been skeined following a conventional round and round method. In fact, it seems as if I spent most of my time watching my little ball growing achingly slowly as I followed it in and out of interminable loops and changes of direction in the skein. A couple of hours got me enough to start swatching, but I'd had enough by then and did something else instead.  Phoebe was most interested in my progress, yarn not looped around my feet this time, but over the arms of a convenient staging post for feline matters, providing cover where needed. And here she is helpfully holding down errant strands for me 
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Myofascial Release and the 100th Monkey 
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