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This fall is PACKED with fiber-y goodness! Don't believe me? Read for yourself! OctoberSunday, 10/18 Join Boston Handmade at the South End Open Market! From 10 AM - 4 PM enjoy free music, handmade goods by local artisans, and a whole barn of choice antiques! Free admission, and a farmer's market featuring local bakeries too! Saturday, 10/31 - Saturday 11/21Join me at The Eliot School from October 31st to November 21st for a four week sewing course! Bring in an old, vintage, or used coat and we'll work together to transform it into something brand new to you. Re-line, re-shape, re-size, and re-new, all based on your own measurements and design. You can view the course description and sign up here. Basic sewing skills required, but novices are welcome! NovemberSunday, 11/8 The Pine Street Inn is currently raising money for the 2009 Knit-A-Thon, and Blue Alvarez Designs is proud to be a part! I've joined forces with the South End Knitters to raise money for the project, which gives hand knit blankets as housewarming gifts to people who graduate from the Inn and move into affordable housing. All money donated goes to build additional housing for homeless citizens of Boston. Please support this wonderful cause by giving at my donations page, knitting a few squares yourself, coming down to the Inn on Sunday 11/8 to help sew squares into blankets, or all of the above! Friday, 11/13 After you've gotten your giving on by helping the Pine Street Inn, come down and enjoy a night of one of a kind fiber art at the Common Cod Make Mine Local Showcase! This fashion show will feature two designs (one women's, one men's) from yours truly, among dozens of others by local knitters, most of whom will be there to meet! And serving as Master of Ceremonies is the illustrious Shannon Okey (AKA KnitGrrl)! So come by Friday 11/13 at 7 pm and revel in the handmade glory! (At the MIT Stata Center. See CommonCod.com for directions.) And don't forget you can always follow me on Twitter to stay up to date on the arts, crafts, and fiber scene in Boston. Have a great week and happy knitting!
 Two weekends ago I was fortunate enough to hitch a ride with TheatreKnitter on Saturday, 8/15, up to Fiber Revival.  This event was held at the beautiful Spencer Pierce Little Farm in Newbury, MA, organized and underwritten by the fabulous Twist Collective. It was an idyllic day of knitting and, in my case and the case of many others, spinning, in a pastoral setting complete with a fiddle-cello-light drum band under a tree. Total bliss. As I went with one of the members of the South End Knitters group (and I am a sort of honorary member), we met them there and copped a squat on Beth's blanket under a beautiful tree.    Beth's lovely niece again:  And a very cool swatch for a shawl Beth is working on:  Obviously, some shopping - both window and actual - was done. Beth's niece was game for trying on a linen skirt sample at the Yarns In The Farms booth, which was adorable on her:   We tried to convince her to get the pattern, but to no avail. What you don't need a see-through skirt? Perhaps I am the only one who thinks transparent clothing is completely acceptable. Moving on . . . We were fortunate enough to meet the brilliant woman (whose name I totally forget now - Emily?) who is responsible for We Have Thumbs, a great new podcast that covers crafts and tech of all kinds - if you can make it, she'll chat you up about it! Definitely fiber heavy, absolutely worth adding to your regular iPod rotation.   CassieR bought a beautiful pattern for a Noro-sleeved raglan, seen here being held up by TheatreKnitter:  And some additional shots of the lovely Yarns In The Farms booth, including a wild, felted fair isle skirt the owner was wearing:    And although I failed to take a picture of him, Guido Stein was there as well, networking his ass off and stopping to show up some very cool super secret stuff. A brilliant day in a beautiful place with wonderful people. For me, that's what fiber arts are all about!
Yo! Some last minute plans for the next few days, plus some future planning for crafty goodness this fall. Get ready to rock! If you follow my Twitter feed, then you know I've been promoting this:  Click the pic for Google Maps directions to the show! In case you're wondering why I'm promoting a local metal band, it's because the Brother of Blue Alvarez (a little like the Bride of Frankenstein, but with better hair) is in charge of Pillars of Atrophy, who go on at 10, and they are AMAZING. No, I'm not just saying that because I'm related to the lead guitarist. My brother is insanely talented - think Pelican. You won't be sorry you made the trip out to Metro West. Before that, and for those of your more inclined to take your fiber arts to 11 than, say, your ear drums, I'm teaching a Get To Know Your Machine class - as in sewing machine - at The Stitch House tomorrow, Saturday 8/22, 10 - 11:30 am. It's only $15 I believe and if you've got a machine you're dying to take out of the closet and get cozy with, bring it on down and we'll get you sewing! Realizing that this is insanely short notice for that class, I will be running another Get To Know Your Machine workshop on Saturday, September 26th, 10 - 11:30 am, also for $15. So that gives you a month to sock away some spare change, drag out the old Singer, and plan to bring it on down! And speaking of September, we're calling all designers! If you've ever whipped something up from scratch, even if it's a one of a kind piece, as long as it's knit or crocheted, we want you to apply for the Common Cod Make Mine Local Showcase! You have until September 1st to submit a sketch and swatch, and then until Novemeber 1st to finish your design - so it doesn't even have to be knit yet! Amazing but true - even if it's just an idea in your head right now, with a quick gauge swatch you can make it happen. See the guidelines on the entry sumbission page for full details, you do not need to be a guild member to enter. Hope to see you and your designs there! And last but certainly not least I will be teaching a four week outerwear tailoring course at The Eliot School from October 31st to November 21st. Bring in an old, vintage, or used coat and we'll work together to transform it into something brand new to you! Re-line, re-shape, re-size, and re-new, all based on your own measurements and design. You can see the full course outline and sign up here. (See course AW537 under Sewing.) That's it for now, hope you're staying cool in this insane Boston heatwave, and enjoy your weekend!
Chromalab just wrote an AMAZING blog post about 1st Thursdays with Boston Handmade. We are going to have loads of vendors tomorrow, and there's also going to be a Knit-In-Public stitch & bitch! I'll be there with bells on, finishing my CCFG show submission sketches, knitting up a new design for Twist Collective Spring 2010 (hopefully) and of course eating Fiore's cupcakes. Here are the deets! 1st Thursdays Jamaica Plain Thursday, August 6th, 5-8pm Curtis Hall - front lawn 20 South St. Jamaica Plain, MA 02130 Be there or be square! Er, or be there to knit squares! Or something - just come down and hang out with us, we promise we're awesome.
I haven't been blogging here because I've been doing a lot of personal writing about other, non-craft stuff. So at the end of the day, I'm flat typed-out. But I have a big update coming with sketches of new designs, shameless promotion of friends, fundraising for Pine Street Inn, and more. :) More this weekend when I can finally take up the helm of this crazy ship again.
I Twittered a few days ago about deciding not to finish reading Nausea by Jean-Paul Sartre. I generally persevere to the end of a book regardless of how I feel about it part-way through, because I am eternally optimistic, ever hoping it will come to a satisfying end. In this case, I identified so much with Roquentin, the main character, that I already knew how it would end - however I choose it to. I often think of the simple line from Trainspotting, "Choose life." That such a potent affirmation should come out of a story about hopeless junkies doesn't surprise me (even if they were railing against it at the time). But in reading the detailed way that Roquentin let February get the best of him, I felt both nostalgic and scared. Would next winter be the same again? Right now his thoughts as created by Sartre seem absurdly introspective. Can he not simultaneously see that there is no inherent meaning in what we do, and yet actively participate anyway? Can he not just choose life already? It seems so obvious - that awareness of the human condition and participating in human society are not mutually exclusive - but I wonder, would it still present so clearly if I were in the throes of melancholia too? Because I know it doesn't, and after many years of persevering through seemingly inexplicable emotional cycles it seems that these moments of rational thought are as beautiful and fleeting as a long weekend taken somewhere by the sea. On Monday it's back to working overtime just to stay afloat. Last night it was suggested to me that I am still just growing up. It's a tempting thought - that in a way all this cycling is just a social detox, the inevitable fallout of choosing life and learning to live it. And while I hate the cycling, if this means it's a dampening oscillation, that truth and love will out so to speak, then I am willing to stick with it and reap the benefits of all this hard work. So, yeah. I choose life, one screwed up, meaningless day at a time.
Fri, Jul. 10th, 2009, 12:13 pm
Animal House
I am shifting from an animal rights to an animal welfare position more and more lately for several reasons, some of which have been outlined well already by Peter Singer, via the concept of equal consideration of interests. Not the least of these is my desire to knit wool. No sense in sugar coating it - there are a lot of fabulous vegan fibers out there, but in a New England winter, wool is king. I also still work for a cashmere knitwear company. And frankly, I am not one to bite the hand that feeds. And so I find myself slipping back into some culturally convenient modes while realizing I have learned too much about factory farming to ever fully revert. I still really only like ice cream and could pretty much do without any other dairy - in which case I find it best to try to stick to the non-dairy frozen desserts as much as possible, especially since I am ethically opposed to factory dairy farms. I wouldn't want to be kept hormonally "pregnant" and lactating unnaturally, would you? But on the other hand, I crave seafood something fierce. Not all the time, but once in a while it comes over me, and not in a "I just want something fishy tasting" sort of way. I already supplement with B12 and Omega-3 from flax, so really, I can't imagine it's a deficiency issue. Nor would it be too strongly cultural, since no one is ever trying to force lobster on me. I mean, if I can avoid pizza, ubiquitous as it is, surely I can avoid high priced delicacies from the sea. But I have chosen to give in a few times in the last two months, partly because I just couldn't be arsed to fight it. Which brings me to one of the biggest reasons I am taking a more relaxed approach to this now, which is that I am at a tipping point in my personal life right now and most days it is acutely more important for me to do what is best for me at that moment than to worry about a sheep or fish somewhere off in the distance. That said, having learned about animal cruelty I can't unlearn that information. So I am trying to make good decisions that benefit my health while still honoring animal welfare as much as possible. When I buy wool, I try to source it from local and/or responsible farms. I am eating fish only sparingly and again try to choose the source of my seafood wisely. I'm largely avoiding dairy, and totally avoiding beef, chicken, and leather. The latter are not only because of animal welfare, but also because I do not agree with what large scale meat and leather production does to our health, economy, and environment. Part of this comes after reading up on the difference between animal rights and animal welfare, and realizing that while I feel a mostly-vegan diet is really better for the planet and doable on varying levels for most people, I'm not sure I agree that animals are equal to humans, or that they could be accorded rights as members of a pan-species society. But I don't think they're there just for our sake, either. So I am walking that middle ground of really preferring not to feed off of their lives in any way, but accepting that at the end of the day, I am always going to be more concerned with the bee keeper being able to make a living than I am with the life of the bees. I supposed that's speciesism (sometimes referred to as specism), right? Someday, maybe a few generations from now (possibly in my lifetime) this blog post may seem like a perfect example of narrow-minded, rationalized prejudice, not unlike prejudice against black Americans was only 40-50 years ago. Maybe so. In some ways I hope so, because maybe that would mean we'd significantly evolved as a society. But today, life is hard enough, and while I am still aiming for progress in this arena, I am no longer concerned with perfection.
So, I went to see the South End Knitters last night, and they were prepping for a group member's birthday. Now, being a recent re-joiner and not reading every Ravelry thread as closely as possible, I knew it was Claire's birthday, but had no idea who Claire was. Well, this is Claire:  Precocious doesn't even begin to cover it. Claire turned 9 yesterday, and much to our delight, had been to Storyland in NH recently to celebrate, from whence she brought her marvelous hat:   Stacey found the hat especially marvellous:   Ah, youth. So, let it be known that knitting knows no (age) bounds. And the South End Knitters are insanely awesome for welcoming a (parent-accompanied) young knitter into their inner circle.
Thoughts from a sleepless mind: Boston Handmade is at Union Square this weekend, 3 - 7 pm. One Happy Island is playing and Common Cod Fiber Guild will have a booth there in addition to the fabulous vendors, manned by none other than Mr. Purl himself. Also, free demos by my old friends Shobu Aikido. All in all, if you consider yourself part of the DIY in-crowd, this is the time and place to represent. Immediately before that at The Stitch House I'll be teaching another serger workshop. So if you missed it a few weeks ago, now's your chance to jump in and learn coverstitch, overlock, and machine maintenance and threading for a mere $15. Beyond that: Wednesday nite Ms. Stephanie The Great is helping me turn the sheep's worth of roving I bought from Spunky Eclectic into proper bulky yarn for the Vulcanized sweater.
I am reading Nausea by Sartre and It is the most ambivalence-producing thing I have ever read. At times I feel no one gets me like Jean-Paul, and then suddenly the story changes, goes that step too far, and I want to hurl the book down a sewer grate. What I can't decide is if this revulsion is because he touched too deep a nerve, or because it's beyond my ability to relate. If I am even verbalizing this, it's probably the former. Am planning to move the blog to Wordpress very soon and add a Twitter feed there. Will syndicate the feed here so that LJ still updates accordingly. Would also like to start up that Boston Vanguard site I purchased but am now rethinking its use. Perhaps a more polished, less DIY-centric menswear site for my testosterone-driven designs? More later, after sleep ensues.
 If you're near JP tonight, please come down and keep us company at 1st Thursdays!  Inside Curtis Hall 20 South St. Jamaica Plain, MA 02130  Boston Handmade members will be there selling beautiful handcrafted items, and there will be specials going on at all the stores and restaurants along Centre and South streets. 5 - 8 pm, and some places later (JP Licks until 12 am!). Come down and check it out!
Weird stuff going on as of late. Am going away for the long weekend, with fellow knitters no less, and would like to say I will have some almost-finished pics of the new lacey cardigan pattern when I get back. In the meantime, please come say hi tomorrow night to me and all my fellow Boston Handmade comrades at 1st Thuesdays in JP, and listen to the podcast about the Design Piracy Prohibition Act that Guido was cool enough to let me babble about here: It's a Purl Man. Have a great 4th!
Simon Doonan kind of hits the nail on the head here: Fashion and Charity - False Friends?I think he's spot on about this: It’s so much easier to separate your tithing from your tube tops. If you write the check yourself, you can be sure the shekels are ending up in the right hands. You can also keep much better track of how much you have actually given, thereby knowing whether you have been stingy or stellar. But that said, I think his faux-naivete at why fashion is such an easy mark for guilty consciences is a bit unbelievable. Truth is, most people at this point know that what they're buying comes at a very high cost, and I'm not talking about the price tag. Apparel above many other goods has its largely abysmal manufacturing processes highlighted in the news consistently, and lately wholesale pricing has been broadcast more and more often from the rooftops, leaving people wanting to see the breakdowns of the incredulously high markups on some of these garments. So being told that buying an item of desire might actually help contribute to making the world a better place is very appealing - it assuages the customer's fears that they are a bad person for wanting to own something they know was made with the sweat and tears of someone else, and not in a dignified or fair manner. And on a less labor-educated level, it also just helps them avoid buyer's remorse. Even if they assume that a garment is made by happy, well-paid, fairly treated workers, the markup may still be astronomical in proportion to the cost of manufacturing and distributing. And the customer on some level knows this and wants to feel better about buying such an expensive product. They want to justify the expense of what could be a much more affordable item while still being stylish and made under fair conditions. They want to justify a lifestyle and system of global inequality that makes their purchasing power possible. So why, as Simon mentions, does this happen so often with fashion and not, say, with a garage door? The truth is it happens to both, but people are more aware now overall - at least in America - about the disparity between value and price for clothing. Both clothing and garage doors are durable goods, and both fall under the "useful items" category (to tie this back to the copyright issue). Just like with clothing, garage doors fall into different categories and some will be priced higher based on their materials, appearance, and manufacturing time. And some of those differences will be superficial enough that they will not justify the full amount of the added cost over, say, the base model. But the extent to which this is done is not the same as in clothing because clothing, unlike a garage door, is used as a direct extension of our self. True, the garage door may tell your friends something about you when they see it on your house, but not the same way the shirt you choose to wear all day right next to your face does. This difference is the essence at the heart of the fashion industry, and one I do not take issue with. But it is also the reason that superficial giving and fashion go so well together - both are deeply wrapped up with our sense of worth and identity. HT to New Brahmin
FYI, excellent quote from WWD today: “If designers could pay contractors’ factories just a little more, it would go a long, long way. A jacket or pair of pants can retail for more than $200 and the designer gets $100 or $110. They pay us $14, if they paid us $16 that would help us a long, long way,” Lam said. “They are so used to chiseling us. They are not used to helping us.” Seemingly related to this, but not in the hoped-for direction per se: D&G drop retail prices. I am psyched that D&G are coming back down to earth (er, or re-entering the stratosphere), but if a simple pair of pants includes $14 of labor to manufacture in New York, how much does does it cost to manufacture it in Italy? And if it's comparable (say, less than 20 euros for one pair? 30 euros? - bottom line, probably 10% of the final retail price, maybe less than 30% of the wholesale?) And while I of all people, because I get paid by a knitwear design & wholesale house, understand that markups pay for materials and designers' and sales reps' and customer service reps' wages, how big a margin do we really need on these items? I will grant you this - the fewer the units, the larger the margin that is needed to keep a fashion house profitable. That's simple math, after all. But I'm pretty sure D&G have the units to push, otherwise I wouldn't be finding their overstock at TJ Maxx. So what gives? Is it really necessary to build an empire, in any industry, to be successful, or is it enough to just make enough to be able to reinvest in your business and keep a small number of well skilled people employed, consistently and with benefits? I hear pretty often that we can bitch all we want about large corporations that copy each other, rip off small designers, and move production overseas, but we've made this bed for ourselves by hungrily buying up cheap and not-so-cheap fashion by the bagful, condoning and in fact making possible these practices. Sure, that's logical. But by that reasoning we also have direct power to change it. Again, I speak from experience when I say that working long days to push massive units into department stores where the product will be overpaid for and under-appreciated leaves not only me feeling drained and pointless, but it also leaves the store employees, the designers of those pieces, the workers who knit and sew them, and every other person in the long chain from drawing board to closet feel sapped and listless. For what do we do this? So we can do it all over again in the same colors and styles next year? Who really needs those units and who really needs that much money? Because here's something else you already know, and which the quote that started this post illustrates: the payout at the end of the day is not being distributed in proportion to the amount of work each person in the chain does. I don't believe in "basics". I don't believe in "must-haves". And I don't believe in the fallacy of domestic vs. foreign. What's basic is what suits you. What you must have is what both fills your needs and lifts your spirits. And the people who deserve interesting, meaningful work with adequate pay are the people who live and breathe anywhere on this earth - or any other earth for that matter. It's a question, as always in America, of Supply and Demand. Change your demands, the supply will adjust.
Boston Handmade is at it again! For the second year in a row we have been honored with top billing at the SoWa Open Market! Come join us Sunday, June 14th from 10 am 'till 4 pm at 540 Harrison Ave., Boston, MA for a day of handmade goodness! We'll be flanked by a fresh produce market, a new antiques market, loads of other artisans, and live music by The Grownup Noise! Hope to see you there!
Quote of the day from Granite Studio: And frankly, people in Beijing don’t really seem to care very much, or maybe just aren’t that interested in big public displays of dissent. The majority of urbanites in China’s capital long ago traded away their political pottage for the right to buy knock-off handbags and a decent compact car, and they are reasonably happy with the deal they’ve made. Also, if you're near JP tonight, please come down and keep us company at 1st Thursdays! Lawn in front of Curtis Hall 20 South St. Jamaica Plain, MA 02130 Boston Handmade members will be there selling beautiful handcrafted items, and there will be specials going on at all the stores and restaurants along Centre and South streets. 5 - 8 pm, and some places later (JP Licks until 12 am!). Come down and check it out!
It's true!!!!!1111!!one!  Also coming shortly is a pattern for a sweater I just finished while in Italy called Pronto. It's a quick, open cardigan, designed for easy layering and draping over summer sundresses. Perfect in cotton, bamboo, or any other lightweight, sustainable fiber, you can't go wrong with this 3/4 sleeve beauty. Want to know the best part? Both of these new patterns are FREE! But wait, there's more pimping yet to be done . . . You can see samples of these new patterns, and even buy finished versions of them, at my upcoming shows in June: Thursday June 4th, 5 - 8 pm, JP 1st Thursdays, 20 South St., Jamaica Plain, MA 02130, the lawn in front of Curtis Hall, rain or shine! Sunday June 14th, 10 am - 4 pm, part of Boston Handmade's showcase at SoWa Open Market, with loads of Boston hand crafters, a farmer's market, an antiques market, and live music! Hopefully you'll be able to come down and check out the new designs and one of these two upcoming events. If not, please enjoy the free patterns (which you can also find on Ravelry, just search for bluealvarez!) and if you knit them please send pics! I'm always psyched to feature finished work on Ravelry and the blog. Enjoy the rest of your weekend and happy knitting!
Mon, May. 11th, 2009, 08:58 am
Food, Inc.
I'm a little late posting this, bur Food, Inc. is tonight at the Kendall for free: RSVP to get in for freeSeating is first come first serve. It looks awesome, so if anyone wants to join me just Tweet @bluealvarez or email and we can meet up. :)
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