Our Own Knit&Crochet Festival

It’s that time of the year again, when we at the Mari Merajut (Let’s Knit) community are preparing the Indonesia’s Knit & Crochet Festival (the 3rd this year).

Since 2009 we hosted the only festival in Indonesia that is dedicated for knitters and crocheters. It’s the brainchild of some of the members and first brought to life led by a member who runs an event organizing business. The first festival took place at Museum of Bank Mandiri in Central Jakarta, and the second one were held in sync with an event called NEXT in Ciputra Mall, West Jakarta.

There were always a marketplace (of course!), knitting and crocheting workshops, talkshows and booksignings. Last year, the second festival even had a fashion show and record breaking activity. What? Yes, we made a giant blanket made from more than 14,000 crocheted granny squares, with 32 meters of knitted garter stitch scarf as the edging. Around 150 participants from all over the country (and Indonesians abroad, too!) contributed to this project. The blanket was certified by the Indonesian Museum of Records (MURI).

The squares were arranged following a traditional batik motif pattern module (designed by yours truly), and then joined on the site of the festival. I couldn’t come to the event, so I could only imagine the excitement (and the exhaustion) of bringing the blanket to life from mere squares. Hail to the committee and the volunteers!!

You can see the process below :

The 'building blocks'.. the squares (from Yanti in the Netherlands)

One module of 'batik kawung' motif (by Dian from Bekasi, West Java)

squares details (by Thata, Surabaya, East Java)

One edging module (by Dian, Bekasi, West Java)

Assembling on site (the girl wearing headscarf sitting on the floor is Ayun, the blanket project manager)

..and that's Aji, one of our crochet men, joining squares...

And the result :

The giant blanket, the night before the certifying ceremony

At the ceremony. It's huge! And beautiful, don't you think?

The blanket was then donated to the Textile Museum of Indonesia in Jakarta. Here it is in display :

Our creation as Textile Museum collection.

Looking at these pictures sure bring lots of memories . Oh, I forgot to include the fashion show pictures! Here are some of them :

Gorgeous!!!!

We’ll just have to wait and see what this year’s festival will bring *wink*.

Superknits!

If there is such thing as a knitting superhero, what would the superpowers be? First of all, I would make the superhero a female…sorry boys, just tired with male superheroes.

Now the superpowers…

Lightning fast knitting power? Of course, who wouldn’t want that! And then catch a villain with knitted rope? She would be careful not to use wool, though. She’d use plarn.

That’s good, but kind of boring, don’t you think? Superhero catching a villain, I mean.

With that superfast knitting power (say, 5 scarves and 4 hats per minute), she would cover Warm Up America project in a day. She would let all knitters knit something for themselves without feeling guilty of not doing any charity project.

Another superpower : she can make yarn from any material, so she would never run out of yarn. (I bet every knitter want this superpower! Me too!!!) I imagine she has her own line of yarn, which make any yarn company envious.

Wait, I think there’s also an important superpower : the ability to brainwash all people so they all know that knitting and crocheting are different!!! )

Her uniform is : black ribbed balaclava, black tunic sweater, black leggings, and black boots. Of course she make her own superhero uniform.
Even though her ‘uniform’ is all black, it changes once in a while, depends on the season, occasion, and mood. In the winter, it’s wool. In the summer it’s cotton. Sometimes the tunic is in plain 2×2 rib pattern, sometimes there are cables here and there, sometimes it’s in seed stitch.

For special occassions (e.g the launching of Edible Yarn by Superknits), the tunic has lace edgings, and she would be wearing lace cape and Fair Isle legwarmers.

What do you think?

Finally (re)launched!

It’s been almost 2 weeks since my last post. Where have I been? I was working on my website, err…make that ‘our (Indonesian knitting-crocheting community) website’.

The website merajut.com (merajut means knitting in Indonesian) was first launched in July 2006, following the launching of the mailing list Mari Merajut (Let’s Knit) a few weeks earlier. They’re both one package. The website was first hosted on a free hosting account, but then I decided it needed more freedom so it was moved to a paid hosting account in 2008.

The website is in Indonesian (of course), dedicated for Indonesian knitters and crocheters, contains lots ofarticles, book reviews, some tutorials and patterns, members stories, informations about where to buy yarn supplies, monthly theme galleries, and knitting and crocheting news from around the world. It is mostly written and maintained by me, but a lot of the members also contributed to the site.

It has gone through tough times, with lots of spam, and hacked twice. Last month the automatic hosting renewal failed and I lost the site, I had to build it again from scratch. Luckily I have the files in my computer, and this time I tried to build it with WordPress (it used to be in Joomla CMS). The last 3 weeks I was busy building it again, sneaking time between caring for 2 small kids and house chores.

It used to look like the picture on the left. I used the template for almost 3 years. Now with moving it to WordPress, the appearance changed a lot. Well, I got bored with the previous one. Now it looks like this.

The site was relaunched today, even though it’s not 100% done.

Now I need some rest.

A knitter’s inkblot test

The last time I had an inkblot test was in college, and I was not a knitter then. I wonder what will happen if I take this test again…

Le Capitaine Crochet

…or to keep his mind off those crocodiles!

Hmm…he must have had a special trick to make doilies with that giant hook of his..:)

On knitting books

Ever since I set my foot on the 3rd floor of the New York Public Library Mid-Manhattan branch, I have read hundreds of knitting (and crochet) books from their collection. Pattern books, technique books, history books, stitch dictionaries. As a beginner 5 years ago, I usually borrowed beginner all over how-to books like Debbie Bliss’ “How to Knit” or Katharina Buss’ “Big Book of Knitting” (I finally bought the latter) and pattern books.

After a while, I prefer to read mostly knitting techniques books and stitch dictionaries, than pattern books. Why? Because technical books teach me to understand the principles of knitting, how it works, and gave me confidence to free myself from patterns and design my own. Such books are Mary Thomas’s Knitting Book, Montse Stanley’s Knitter’s Handbook, Threads’ knitting articles compilations, and of course Elizabeth Zimmermann’s and Barbara Walker’s. They are my prized possesions.

some of my collections

Since I read Mary Thomas’ Knitting Book 4 years ago, I rarely knit others’ patterns. I still read pattern books and magazines, but only for inspirations. I grew fond of lace, stranded, and sock knitting. I grew fond of Shirley Paden’s meticulously designed knitwears, Annie Modesitt’s designs’ structure which usually celebrate women’s curves, and Cookie A’s sock knitting philosophy.

Books on knitting history and traditions fascinate me, too. Nancy Bush, Melanie Fallick, and Donna Druchunas’ books gave that to me.

In my eyes, those books stand out among thousands and thousands of knitting books, and will remain so, because they’re talking principles and visions, surpassing trends, and give knitters confidence to believe in themselves and follow their own way. It’s like giving a person a fishing rod and skills, instead of the fish itself.

And now I want JC Briar’s book Charts Made Simple: understanding knitting charts visually. I would love to read a book which came from a self declared ‘technical (knitting) junkie’ .

I don’t know how to bind off..

Not knowing how to bind off is a real problem among new knitters. That makes it a fun topic for knitting cartoons. I’ve seen the same theme used by Franklin Habit in his book “It Itches”. This is my version :Originally I have another idea for bind-off cartoon, but earlier today I saw this news…and gasped :

Oh. My. God.

This is exactly my idea for my next bind-off cartoon. Needles dangling from unfinished knitwear. Yet it’s now a fashion ‘trend’…my goodness!