Today is my 36th birthday! Come celebrate with me!
In celebration, I'm offering a weeklong birthday promotion on all my TanisKnits Ravelry patterns. Please note that TanisKnits and Tanis Gray patterns are 2 different things - go here to see what patterns are available for this promo.
All TanisKnits patterns will be 50% starting August 26th and running all week through September 2nd. Use the coupon code HAPPYBIRTHDAY at Ravelry checkout to receive your discount!
Happy birthday to me! :)
What happens when an artist leaves a dress under the Dead Sea for 2 years? Read on! Original article found here.
For her latest project, Israeli artist Sigalit Landau decided to submerge a black gown in the Dead Sea. The gown entered the salt-rich waters in 2014 and was recently removed for display, and as you can see from these stunning pictures, the end result is nothing short of magical.
The project is an eight-part photo series called Salt Bride and was inspired by S. Ansky’s 1916 play titled Dybbuk. The play is about a young Hasidic woman who becomes possessed by the spirit of her dead lover, and Landau’s salt-encrusted gown is a replica of the one worn in the dramatic production of the 1920s.
Landau checked on the black gown various times during three-month intervals in order to capture the gradual process of salt crystalisation that you can see in the pictures below. You can also see them at London’s Marlborough Contemporary, where they’ll be on display until September 3rd.
A day like today only comes around once every two years. It's a day we set aside the political unrest, the heartache a dose of the nightly news brings, the difficult things going on in our lives. We make the popcorn, grab the knitting, camp out in front of the TV and cheer as the world's greatest athletes take center stage.
The Olympics bring with them a wonderful sense of hope. Watching athletes from all walks of life, from every corner of the earth and every possible background reminds us that borders exist only on maps. We cheer for countries that our relatives came from, because after all, in America we are all immigrants. We rally behind the tiny nations where the number of athletes can be counted on one hand. We holler playfully at our competition and we chant and wave our flags as Team USA parades out.
I love the Olympics. The games are great and it's always wonderful to see the American flag hoisted up and our anthem blasted over the speakers, but what gets me is the dedication, the training these incredible people put their bodies through, the families of the athletes in the stands who have been there each step of the way, the sense of pride and the feeling that for a couple of weeks, we are all one. It doesn't matter who comes from where, who places first, second, or third. We are all citizens of this planet and we cheer each other on.
Started in 2006 by Stephanie Pearl-McPhee aka The Yarn Harlot (for the "rules" click here), we knitters embrace our own version of the Olympics. Formally called the "Knitting Olympics" before the brass at the Olympic committee freaked out and made us change it to the "Ravellenic Games," we commit to earning medals for ourselves. The rules are simple and I challenge you here and now to participate. Cast on a project once the Olympic cauldron is lit and finish it when the flame is extinguished by the end of the games a little over 2 weeks later. You should be knitting something you can finish in that time period, but it should also be something that you think is a bit above your skill level. No garter scarves here - get your lace shawl, your Fair Isle mitts, your cabled sweater or whatever you've been dreaming of casted on!
There are so many Olympic Games-inspired projects on Ravelry, but take a gander at your queue and make a quick trip out to your LYS before the Opening Ceremonies tonight. I'll be casting on for my mom's Christmas present (can't reveal any more than that since my mom reads my blog - Hi Mom!) and if there's time, a Fair Isle cowl I've been drooling over.
Print that pattern out, wind that yarn, pop that popcorn and settle in. Go world!
Ahoy! I've been buried in work for my upcoming Craftsy class! I am thrilled to be flying out next week to film a knitting class that will be available online soon. The prep work is intense and I hope you'll love it and learn a lot. I continue to cross things off my Teaching Bucket List and I'm honored to get to work with such a fantastic company that provides an exceptional educational platform for crafters worldwide. In the meantime, I keep stumbling across interesting articles that I want to share with you, so sit back and enjoy! We saw a lot of old yarn and ropes from Viking ships during our recent trip to Scandinavia so I found this discovery fascinating. Original article found here.
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By Sarah Laskow
The ball of yarn above is 3,000 years old. For much of its existence, it has been buried underground, in boggy land, along with the rest of the remains of three small houses built millennia ago, near what's now Cambridge, England.
Ever since archaeologists discovered Must Farm, which has been called Britain's Pompeii, they have been uncovering small clues as to what life was like for the families that lived here. This ball of yarn is one of the most delicate finds--extraordinary in its survival over all these years.
In the week since the yarn was first found, the team has carefully cleaned it up. "Excavating and cleaning artifact this fragile is not easy but seeing them up close like this really shows how remarkable these finds are," the team wrote on their Facebook page.
It's easy to imagine how one wrong touch could cause the small ball, just over 1 cm in size, to break apart into nothing.