Zaz

haute-couture designs

Sunday, September 28, 2008

fabric necklace tutorial

i had seen this one in a magazine but i canot show it to you, so here it is on a blog.

i never made it yet but i will ask a guy and see if they like it, if it's not too childish.

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Thursday, September 25, 2008

commissioned work

i met a person at a designers' exhibition where i had a booth full of knits (sweaters, luxurious). he bought all of his christmas and birthday gifts off me and we "designed" his sweater to be fo me to knit.
he commisioned orders where we discussed together for a year. this was my first time doing this.
i enjoyed the money as much as i enjoyed looking after his needs (alpaca, etc) at a fair price.

it was a question of trust, i looked for yarns, called to give different prices, and gave him the choice. he knew the value of handknitting (maybe because he's venitian aristocracy?!).

i miss it to say the truth. very little time was left for my own knitting but you have one sweater to keep you warm and the rest is superfluous. i remember i made fun stuff for me that were crazy and took little time because i had to be quick, i'd wear them to meet him and he'd sometimes want to buy them off my neck with the yarns still "out".

who did charity to whom? i guess we both were happy, i loved the putting ideas together...
the money was just a fact of life (you don't go through a knit project with just the price of the yarn redeemed.
he also got his joy: he knew he participated and could have what he had in his head and could not find in readywear market nor in highfashion market because he'd have to pay much more.

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Wednesday, September 10, 2008

everything old is new again

i am using scraps of yarn to make beautiful things with.
i find myself jumping into projects without this tightening in the stomack and angst and the pondering that many skeins of a new yarn induce in me:
is this THE project that i want to be knitting with this?
is this creative enough or is it very plain for all of these skeins?

it's so liberating to knit or crochet from "old" and make something "new", very satisfying. have you seen howbeautiful some children's drawings are? they just don't sit there wondering about a topic, they throw their hearts on a paper, when i "grow up", that's how i want to approach knitting.

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Friday, September 05, 2008

more for PROJECT TIBET

it seems that i want to go on with this idea that started at the OG. it's funny that ravelry had the idea of an olympics but for knitting: like you'd put yourself an aim to accomplish in a definite time lapse (ravelry's was 17 days).
but not knowing about it yet and with this dilemna of what's happening in tibet and the olympics being held in china i wanted to express my opinion using my own medium: knitting.

here's my project.


so i started knitting for TIBET with a hat in maroon.
now that it's done, i was in bretagne and in this huge yummy yarn depot almost so i picked a few skeins in maroon and safron for the winter to inspire me for more knits for TIBET.

on another note, i was telling someone about how the tibetans cannot wash because of the extreme cold conditions and i was surprised that he used the word POOR to define their condition.
i then noticed that "poor" was long banned from my way of thinking. we think we know what others want and how they should live but do we ever think if they think of themselves of "poor"?

i believe that in some countries where you grow your own food and milk your own goats and cook your own food, there is no room for thinking thoughts like: "i will not have money to buy Danone desserts for my kids".
this would be hilarious for them to hear. is Danone or the supermarket the God that drives their world? certainly not, is it to us in daily life? in some way yes. now who's more ridiculous?

i remember my mom making our yoghurt from the previous batch and every time we had an enormous quantity. people say that they have no time yet complain about cost, is it even feasable to make a comparison between costs? no i don't believe so, the difference is like between the distance between earth and the moon.

i don't know about you but, have you ever tried my grandma's dinner? at 70 + she used to spend time at our place and i remember her sweet self filling a bowl with yoghurt that her or mom had made and adding the rose jam she had made from rose petals. since i've never tasted any supermarket yoghurt that smelled or tasted so good. food was REAL. my own preference goes for yoghurt sweetened with heavy opaque white honey, at lunch time i may replace it with a dash of salt and a drizzle of olive oil and stir and eat: yummy!

this reminds me of my birthday dinner at my first tibetan/monghol restaurant, i ordered tchai and at the beginning of the meal they brought me an individual teapot with herbs and flowers and rose petals, it was a sweet tchai. during the meal it was a salty tchai with milk, butter and salt and "orge" barley flour, i believe.
are these meals "poor food"? i do not see it this way at all. in buddhism it is believed that people come live on this earth in different realms: the same things can be lived as being heavenly by a person of a certain spiritual realm while they can seem to be hellish by those of a different realm.

as many things in spirituality and religion this is an allegory (maybe more ;-) ) but one thing is for certain: the way we live life as good or horrible stems from "View" and View can be perfected. so this means that everyone (almost) has the potential to live (or view) a wonderful life.

i know this may be incredulous but i am firm about what i assert because i've had proof.

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Short Rows Tutorial

Short Rows: How To

good reference with photos.

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