Marimekko Rug - Status and Lessons Learned

My wacky arm is rising up in protest

My math is off! I finished less than a quarter of the marigold flowers and I have, of course, used half the yarn. How? I want to blame poor quality control for my miscalculations! So, here's what I learned so far:

• It is tedious! I need traction and I'm not even 1/5 done. Past Linda didn't consider Future Linda and wanted to get the 5' wide canvas in the 8' length (bought by the yard). I'd need to apprentice the next few generations if I had done this. Carpal tunnel is looking likely.

• 

  Inch by inch
  

  I was worried about the white flowers, and I never thought about kelly green not really being a big floral color outside of leaves. The colors looked juicy until I added the black center in the kelly flower and that cut the Zebra Stripe gum vibe somewhat. And the marigold could more accurately be called mac 'n cheese...
• Fuzz: we all know that new rugs shed. I can confirm. AND, the yarn isn't in its final, cut state. Oh, well, that's why I have the German vacuum cleaner.
• Right to left and bottom to top is the way to latch hook if you're a righty like me. In other words, exactly the opposite of my instinct and most likely how I did my Lucy rug. But then, I ride snowboard goofy, so find what works for you.
• Soothing. Maybe because I did it during the good old days of my childhood, maybe it's my female ancestors echoing in the wool that they spun and crocheted to make spending money, but it feels comforting to do this. It calls to me to do one more row.
• Yarn quality is mixed. I bought a Cascade 220 white to test and mixed it in with the Hobbii white and I cannot tell the difference. The thickness does seem to vary more with the Hobbii brand, but it holds its ply better than the Cascade, so I think it is better for latch hooking, IMO. When all the threads are shmushed together vertically, you cannot see that some strands are fraying, again, IMHO.

I will let you know how ordering more yarn from other color lots goes. Let me finish the two cheesy flowers I started and I will address this problem later. Maybe Jesus will perform a miracle and fish occurrence and it will all go to plan, tee hee hee!

Will I persevere and finish or will this languish in a closet while my arm recuperates? Stay tuned!

Transferring Large Designs Without a Projector

Almost convenient, the auto-
resizing by my video
editing software!

If you're looking for an answer, keep moving, because I haven't figured this out. First, I tried casting my screen to my television, but I cannot use my Chromecast because it's a long story. At first, as a work-around, I thought I'd load my image to YouTube and then find it on YouTubeTV. Except that putting an image into a movie means the screen puts the entire image into the frame, and I want the whole frame taken up. When I do that, it's too big and now I need to do math to figure out what percent my canvas makes up of the whole screen and reduce the size by that percent. Not tempting.

Vintage wool precut yarn in yellow 
on a 5 gauge canvas. The knots
are on top of each other and it is
nearly impossible to pull this
thickness of yarn through

Backup number two would be to transfer the design to paper using the computer, and then use the paper to copy it to the canvas. This would save my television screen from being covered in Sharpie. I do have a cable to directly connect an image to the tv screen. Should I try that? And, as a last, last resort, I guess the old grid-to-grid square copying will need to happen. I used to use this technique when teaching scale factor as an extra credit project. I made the assignment such that the students could choose the image that was used. I have never seen so many scale drawings of Mario from Donkey Kong. In any case...

After testing my yarn and lengths, I can report the following: 

• The precut yarn is too thick - if I use the bigger $8 hook, it rips the canvas, and forget about the little hooks: this yarn is just too thick.
• The Hobbii yarn is perfect for the smaller hook size and the canvas, but this leaves some canvas showing. Also, this yarn is holding its ply the best, but that may be because it came through the canvas most easily.
• The Cascade 220 yarn is not as easy as the Hobbii, but is a nice balance of slightly fuller yarn that is only slightly more difficult to pull through and coverage. 

So, in the end, I am glad I went with uncut yarn and the smaller hook for the 5 gauge canvas. It seems like precut yarn is designed for the more common 3.5 gauge, and the Susan Bates latch hook commonly found in craft stores does not work on the smaller 5 holes. It tears the 5 gauge canvas apart, her hooks do, so watch out! Not sufficient information on their packaging! Now I'm stuck with an $8 hook I can't use, and free precut yarn to go with it; a mix of yellows and materials. 

The white in this picture is the two different brands of continuous yarn that I bought, on the left in the back is the Cascade 220, and in the front, the less plush Hobbii yarn. As you can see from the picture, the Hobbii yarn is holding up the best, but compared to the Cascade product, and the two yarns being of comparable price, I'd go with Cascade completely if the colors I wanted were a better match. So, now I get to hope that the difference between the two brands I will be using for my rug are not a hodge podge of uneven thicknesses. As if I needed any more incentive to trip!

And, as for the transfer, I ended up scaling the image and copying it to chart paper. I also decided to switch the canvas from Dimensions, which was breaking, to Color Crazy's better quality item, because I don't want to hook 54,000 bits and then find out that the base is crumbling. So my price will go up, but long term, this is worth the extra $30. Until it gets here, I get to wrap and cut, wrap and cut. Good times!

The Holdovers - The Perfect Film

Up until now, I reviewed one movie, Inside Out, which is perfect, and one most unlikely franchise, the "Before" triology. And here is another film made just for me: The Holdovers. If you don't like this film, then you should turn in your humanity card because you're a droid. It is lovely.

What can I say? Da'Vine Joy Randolf won the award, yes, and even if they rolled the credits after her introductory eyeroll, she deserved it. That eyeroll said the whole story AND I was on the edge of my seat waiting to find out the story! Oh, this movie will punch you, leave you for dead, and it will make you laugh alone like a crazy person. Which is part of the story, but I don't want to give it away.

Skinny boys with hidey hair are not new.

No, this movie is a discovery and I would never take that from someone. See it. Now. Paul Giamatti is a national treasure and just when you think he couldn't make you fall for him more, he goes and makes you fall for him more. Did you feel that kiss his coworker gave her boyfriend? But...I thought...wasn't she?...didn't they?... And, the eye! He is pitiful and raw and sad and full of wasted potential, his character, and if that sounds just like Miles in Sideways, it's because it's exactly like Miles in Sideways. He is such a prickly asshole, and then you find out why. It is heartbreaking. He even drinks his best bottle of booze at rock bottom, and it is again breath-takingly beautiful when he spits it out. Thank you, Paul!

Every teacher's nightmare: losing control

And, I feel like I'm giving an acceptance speech of my own, thanks to the director, Alexander Payne. I'm not an actor and I need to work with him! The boy in this film was a first-time actor, so there's hope! 

So now let me tell you about the film - not! I will tell you how applicable it is to me and my life, because, it's all about me here. So, it is set in December 1970-January 1971 in a snowy New England prep school over Christmas break. A tumultuous time, for certain, and it's the time and place where I came into awareness. I was born in, gasp!, 1968, before the moon landing which is referenced in the film. It also shows Mary, the recently widowed black mother whose son died in Vietnam, watching the average television program full of white people. The Jeffersons and Good Times are still in the future here. There is obviously still a hierarchy, and this movie explores in part the inequity of our culture. In some ways it has changed and frustratingly it has not changed in far too many others. And, yes, three oddball leftovers with fraught lives form an unlikely alliance and see each other as people, just like themselves, and that is tired territory, or is it universal? It doesn't matter, because this is art, and even if one million people sing the same tune or paint the same picture, the results will always be unique, just like us.

Looking back on my life, I feel it is these very differences and misunderstandings that keep us from knowing that underneath, all those individuals feel exactly the same as we do. As a former teacher in Queens, NY, in a time of great migration, it was pandemonium, yes. Absolute and utter chaos. So is our world. Embrace it and stop silo-ing yourself with only like-minded folk. Society is crumbling, yes, but the world's always been on fire, and I guess the good news is the poor and disenfranchised are no longer paying for the sins of the rich by getting shot in a jungle or putrid trench. There will be suffering, and perhaps if we all shouldered the burden equally it would be a bit more tolerable. We are truly in this together; why compound the problem? Life is like a henhouse ladder, afterall...

Breaking Away from Convention

I was a teacher. Once a teacher, always a teacher. It is impossible to not want to enlighten people once you've developed a taste for it. I spend a great deal of time thinking, and when I'm not thinking, I'm talking. Talking clarifies my thoughts, but so does putting emphasis on reflection.

So much wisdom to impart. So, I documented here on this blog my health scares that resulted in my attention to every moment of every day. Nothing is guaranteed, and I am now on my 3rd major health scare, and, even if it doesn't actually get easier to deal with fear and pain, it is my fear and pain and I am feeling something. That's life. It can be sublimely ecstatic or dreadfully painful, but it's an experience! Feel the wonderful life that is within you; let nothing be lost upon you - Oscar Wilde

I look to the greats for bits and pieces of my philosophy. I also look to travel to broaden my mind and see things in a way I never would have expected. I cannot plan travel for quite some time due to my health issues, but I can still read the greats, who did travel. Here's some of their unattributed wisdom:

• The Paris slums are a gathering-place for eccentric people - people who have fallen into solitary, half-mad grooves of life and given up trying to be normal or decent. Poverty frees them from ordinary standards of behavior, just as money frees people from work.
• And there is another feeling that is a great consolation in poverty. I believe everyone who has been hard up has experienced it. It is a feeling of relief, almost of pleasure, at knowing yourself at last genuinely down and out. You have talked so often of going to the dogs — and well, here are the dogs, and you have reached them, and you can stand it.
• It is fatal to look hungry. It makes people want to kick you.
• He might be ragged and cold or even starving, but so long as he could read, think and watch for meteors, he was, as he said, free in his own mind.
• Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things can not be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.
• Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts.

This is one of my favorite books, by a famous author, but I bet you can't guess the author. No cheating.

Right now, my convalescence that was a gift from my sister and father is coming to a close. I need to get back to the grind and yesterday, sick or not. I have used this time, amongst other things, to travel back in my mind. It has been one of the best trips I have ever taken. I have an old friend to thank for that: a very, very patient friend who may not have pure intentions but neither do I. I am very lucky. Even not feeling well, I am enjoying myself. And, hey! if this great author can be cold, ragged and starving and yet broad and free, I can do it warm, ragged, and starting to finally fill up.  

My Custom, 3'x5' Wool Rug for Under $150 (excluding slave labor, my own)

Well, sometimes doubt and procrastination equals savings. In my deliberations, I found the perfect palette (I am hoping) AND it's cheaper than my two prior options. But, I do have to increase my yarn length 12.5%, to at least 2.25". That makes it 121,500" in total, minimum. So, now we have: 

•  White: 37% = 44,955" or 1248.75 yards = 6 skeins of 220 or 12 of 110
• Kelly: 18% = 21,870" or 607.5 yards = 3 skeins of 220 or 6 of 110
• Chartreuse: 13% = 15,795" or 438.75 yards = 2 skeins of 220
• Marigold: 14% = 17,010" or 472.5 yards = 2 skeins of 220
• Yellow: 14% = 17,010" or 472.5 yards = 2 skeins of 220
• Black: 2% = 2,430" or 67.5 yards = 1 skein of 110

But! I found more than half of the yarn for $2.50 per 110 yards at Hobbii.com. So, I under estimated the white in my excitement and bought only 10 skeins and so I'm under for the white by 148.75 yards. Another $5. The rest are Cascade 220 and Cascade 220 Superwash. All 3 types of yarn that I am using have the same weight and ply. Imagine. Here's the breakdown for yarn:

220 Superwash in Sulfur (formerly known as chartreuse): 2 * 11.50 = $23

220 Superwash in Gold Fusion (formerly marigold): 2 * 11.50 = $23

220 in Daisy Yellow (formerly yellow): 2 * 11 = $22

Free shipping, total: $68. Now for the other 43%:

Friends wool in kelly: 6 * 2.50 = $16

Friends wool in black: 1 * 2.50 = $2.50

Friends wool in white :10 * 2.50 = $25, but, should have been 12 for $30, oops!

That makes $42.50 in Friends wool, plus $4.99 shipping and $4.21 tax, or $51.40 for 1923.7 yards of wool. Hmmmm...What's the catch? I'll tell you when it arrives.

I want to change the image to reflect my more orangey palette. I hope it looks nice, because now I am worried I've gone too John Boehner (Donald Trump for those of you who follow politics "lightly"). What do you think? Can you spot the differences?

There is no way that I even changed it. I am impressed with myself! The best news is that the white that I didn't buy enough of is a true white, or it looks more so than most wools I've seen. So, this is looking fortuitous as a beginning. Planning definitely helps rather than just jumping in. And testing, because I used my 2" yarn bits and they were too fiddly, so I increased it and all it affected was the white.

In any case, optimistic me wants to believe that for the low, low price of $119.00 plus the cost of the hook, $8, I will have myself a custom wool rug? The reason I am not factoring in the canvas is because it was a bit irregular and I am trying to get my money back. Not too shabby for a 3'x5' rug in wool!

I did also make some more egregious errors than just not ordering enough white. This was before I started officially planning and just jumped into things. I was ordering pre-cut yarn and it was going to cost me a small fortune for the wool. Most pre-cut wool has two major drawbacks, besides the exorbitant cost of the wool: 1) it is sourced exclusively overseas retail so factor in exchange rates and foreign shipping and 2) it comes in limited colors. So, even if budget was no issue, pre-cut wool is not going to make floor art! Luckily, the buyers that I started buying from, in grossly underestimated amounts, did not bother to check if the packages all came from the same dye lot and they did not and I got my money back on all of it. The only other mistake so far was buying a hook that is too large, and that set me back $8. I eyeballed it and thought I estimated correctly, but the flange was back and when it's folded up, it makes the hook too big to fit through the holes without tearing the canvas. The reason I had to eyeball it is because there were no dimensions on the package. So, now I want my $8 back! Haha! I will get it, too! I will not accept shoddy quality!

Now I'm noticing two things about my longer strand computations. First, I am not only short the white, but 220 x 2 < 472.5 yards, so now I need to two white for $5, plus the $4.99 shipping and $0.45 tax, and one more each of expensive Daisy Yellow and Gold Fusion. Two inches is going to have to work with my new hook that I should be getting for free, because we just added $22.50 more onto the total. $22.50 worth of 220 wool + $10.35 in Friends + $119 already spent = $151.85. My pride wants this rug under $150. I will make it work!

Color Mock-Ups for Marimekko Unikko Rug

Decisions, decisions. So, now that I sourced my colors, let me rethink the design. So, this is my inspiration art, by Bjorn Wiinblad, and that inspired my bedroom color palette. Now I'm using this as my design, but it's looking a little stark. Here they are together.

Now let me show you some others that I don't like. First off, there is the matching background color, but I feel like this adds clouds to very bright flowers. Nothing is bright when it's cloudy, so this is a fail.

This is worse! What are they in front of, Donald Trump? Jeff Boehner? I think these mockups are getting worse. The color proportions just look off compared to the artwork. As for the pink, it is pretty and could be a pink, cotton candy sunset, but again, no. I think the eye needs the white space to take a break. Also, do I need to complicate the settled palette and throw off all my hard work spent yarn sourcing? No.

Now, what I could do is switch out one of the colors for the white, I'm thinking the chartreuse, and that could be the background color? Where do you find chartreuse flowers in nature? However, my wedding flowers were exclusively Stop n Shop chartreuse mums. My colors were chartreuse and all the greens and bronze. My one bridesmaid was given free choice but told green or bronze. She doesn't look good in green and so my bridesmaid wore...brown. Close enough! How many people remember that my bridesmaid was not in the metallic family? My main complaint about her was that she hadn't popped and wasn't as pregnant as the bride (why didn't she invent a time machine?) Okay, off topic.

Before I even write this paragraph about white flowers, do I even want to consider dirty white flowers? No, no I do not. But, let's try it. Okay, I do like this. It is kind of unexpected. And now the jonquil or true yellow looks chartreuse, but it is jonquil! So, two final decisions before I commit to the yarn: white background or white flowers? Now even what I term marigold is looking pretty orange, and there is a minor focus on white or near white (pale pink), echoing the tones of the picture more? It was the chartreuse that set this whole project off, so now I'm wondering, do I lose it altogether and go with the blue-grey background and these 3 distinct flower colors rather than the color family with the white background? 

Okay, that's a no. So we have 2 versions to decide between. The original, unmessed with vision, or the chartreuse background with white instead of chartreuse flowers. 

Finding Yarn for Marimekko Rug

This is going to be harder than I thought. I found two almost suitable yarns for my project, but the main photo is missing the chartreuse plus it isn't appropriate for rugs, and the second from the top is just peach rather than yellow-orange. So, this is going to be a lot harder than I thought. The greens are too far off on the right middle, from Peace Fleece. But the top-most yarns, from Harrisville Designs, is off for the marigold, but overall I could see the rug in this color combo. It is sold in 200 yard skeins for $17 a skein, and remembering my chart from the Pre-Contemplation post, we have:

As much as I'd love to patronize an actual store,
this is proving futile.

• White: 37% = 39,960" or 1,110 yards = 6 skeins
• Kelly: 18% = 19,440" or 540 yards = 3 skeins
• Chartreuse: 13% = 14,040" or 390 yards = 2 skeins
• Yellow: 14% = 15,120" or 420 yards = 2 skeins
• Jonquil: 14% = 15,120" or 420 yards = 2 skeins
• Black: 2% = 2,160" or 60 yards = 1 skein

That makes a grand total of 16 skeins x $17 = $272 in yarn. The good news is this is pure wool. The bad news is they are heathered. I asked for samples, but in the meantime, the search continues. Finally, maybe the best candidate, is on bottom right, which is from here.

For continuity's sake, I'd prefer to buy all of my yarns from one maker, but that's looking impossible. For the best colors, but no idea if the weights and plies will match or if it will look sparser in areas of different yarn brands, I would ideally chose the following colors: 

• Chartreuse: one cone $29 + shipping
• Kelly: two cones at €25 + shipping
• Yellow: one cone $29 + shipping
• Marigold: one cone $26.50 + shipping
• White & black: doesn't matter, but I'd like true white and not sheep colored wool. Whatever is cheapest
  

How much of a rip-
off of this, how much
of Marimekko?

Comparing my rug mock-up to the art from the room, I'm back to preferring the blue-grey background instead of white. First, white rugs are impractical - but not nearly as impractical as black! I tried that in Tootie Pie's room and I swear I'm going to get a hernia trying to get the tiniest of lint molecules from that thick pile. Second, it will knock you over the head with how tied together my room is! Or should I do pink like the Wiinblad and subtly bring in that neutral? Still decisions and mockups to be made.

So, no one does samples, because shipping 4 inches of yarn would be exorbitant, but they do offer a sample card (for a fee, of course). So, there we have a reason to keep brick and mortar stores: color. Also, definitely quality. We've all seen those "What I expected versus what I got" stories. Some of us may have even experienced it. Oooh! Harrisville has 2-ply wool in 450 yard cones and 200 yard skeins. Here's what I need:

• White: 37% = 39,960" or 1,110 yards = 3 cones 
• Kelly: 18% = 19,440" or 540 yards = 1 cones, 1 skein
• Chartreuse: 13% = 14,040" or 390 yards = 1 cone
• Marigold: 14% = 15,120" or 420 yards = 1 cone
• Yellow: 14% = 15,120" or 420 yards = 1 cone
• Black: 2% = 2,160" or 60 yards = 1 skein

$26.50 * 7 = $185.50 plus $34 and free shipping, equals $219.50! Somehow the website computes it wrong: $217.50. Okay! Math does come in handy! Here are my colors to the right:

For comparison, this project will require me to make 54,000 loops. My Lucy project was 20"x27" and I assume it was 3.5 squares per inch, took just 6,125 loops, and that was pre-cut acrylic yarn. I will be having to cut mine, and wool will absorb oils from skin, so dryness should get worse. As it is, you can simply peel my skin off in thick sheets, despite regular cuticle trims and pumicing. What can I say, my skin really does its thing.

This is the end of my excitement. Now, the tedium begins. Also, figuring out how to transfer the design to the canvas. My projector days are over, sadly. Hmmm...maybe that's the teaching career calling me back for one...last...go. Surely I know a place with a screen larger than 3x5... My already too big for my space telly is 3'x2' approximately. Do it in bits? Remains to be solved. Keeping busy! Now, let's really get some carpal tunnel!

Home is Mom

My beautiful mother, Jean.

For my 50th birthday, I went back home. Home, to me, had always been Rhode Island. I promised my mother, during this trip, that, "when this divorce finally happens, we will celebrate on Block Island". 

That was five and a half years ago. Two years ago, she got sick, and a year and a half ago she died.

We never made it to Rhode Island. That breaks my heart.

I went back last year to my village in RI, for the first time in 45 years, one year exactly after she passed. It isn't fair. I am still not divorced. That, too, was scheduled for 4 years ago, so 5 years ago, it seemed entirely likely that we would get to take that trip back home together. I had to do it alone, but she was with me. OH! How I wish she could share in my joy in a tangible way! I want her ashes to go to our local swimming hole, where I learned to swim and my sister outsmarted the instructor and didn't learn! She ran to shore to grab the wet sand rather than go under to retrieve it and no one was the wiser. Except Mom, who pointed it out to me. It was funny and I will never forget it. She would call me over often to share in the adorableness of my youngest sister, and I thank her for this. I felt maternal looking at my poor, left behind sister who would pretend to read magazines but upside-down, or make up sad, nay, pitiful songs about being the youngest. Otherwise, I'd always probably just see her as a peer, but I dutifully admired her angel wings and dark (for us) skin like a mother would.

Little sister just came for another Linda emergency (there are many) and is now my confidant. And I love her and marvel at her ability to juggle her life and mine, but she is not a replacement for Jean. My father, forget it! She is smiling, though, Mom is. Because something wonderful is going to happen!

Working in my medium, confusion and misunderstandings, I managed to put together a mini-reunion of my elementary school friends. Personally, my life has been painful and, I know no one reads this, not even worth maintaining at times. My life is on the edge. I really miss Jean...

But this reunion, and I don't want to put too many expectations on it, is giving me a reason to go on. I knew in my heart for years that I over-romanticized my RI childhood, but now that I've gone back again, I don't think I did!! It truly was special and magical and amazing. But, my real home is now in my heart, where Jean lives. I miss talking with her, but she is inside of me, and we talk all the time. Home is where the heart is, and mine is with her. Love you, Mom...