Thank you all so much for your eloquent comments and a wonderful free exchange of ideas. I’m so glad to hear from all of you – whether you regularly comment here or not. Please know that I’m working my way through every comment. If you don’t hear from me – I READ WHAT YOU HAD TO SAY and took your words to heart. I have to admit, when I pushed publish yesterday my heart sunk a bit at the earnestness of my post. I’m don’t like to be earnest – it’s uncomfortable and embarrassing to say the least – plus I’m not sure it makes good writing (I put it just below sentimentality.) But I don’t think I’m all that earnest on a regular basis and sometimes you just have to get stuff off your chest.
I really don’t get that much negative feedback – constructive or otherwise – compared to others. And I’ve, fortunately, never really been flamed here or anywhere else, that I know of (and please don’t feel you need to tell me about if I have been.) But I have friends who have been – and frankly – I don’t think that behavior is appropriate whether you’re my friend or not. It’s just not good blogging.
I would like to say that I welcome CONSTRUCTIVE criticism here, on this blog. And please don’t feel that if you have a contrary opinion from me, or anyone else that reads here, that you aren’t welcome to express it. If something should happen in the comments because of your comment, you can rest assured it will be addressed by me in the manner I deem appropriate – that may be a further blog post about my feelings, or the deletion of comments. Thank you again, as always, for taking the time to read my blog.
Whew! Now let’s get back to what’s REALLY important! The miters!
Square #18
This square is based on a ribbon sample I bought a while back. I like the squares and colors and I think it’s a good match for the blanket. I’ve got three more squares planned out – the next one I started is based on one of my photographs and I’m really excited about it. It’s kind of neutral so I hope it works out. I’m off AGAIN for the weekend, but I hope to have more miters on Tuesday. My goal is an even 20.
Have a great weekend!
Love your site. And the miters are awesome to observe as you continue to create gorgeous color mixes. One bit of constructive criticism… It should be “now” in the title, not “know”…
all best, m
The miters look great. I’m only the second to comment! That’s a first. I really came to read yesterday’s post and say I’ll miss Vonnegut. sniff! sniff!
Watching you mix all the different colors together in this miter blanket is really helping me expand my color sense. I am enjoying it immensely. Thank you.
I love that one!! Not that I don’t love the other miters, I love them all!
I’m always surprised and delighted by your color choices! Maybe someone should be dyeing roving to match your miters….hmmmmm
I’m starting to look forward to your miters. I find them very meditative.
I love how the accent colors go with that green! And I think 20 miters will be perfect- enough to experiment with lots of color combinations, but not so many squares that you’re completely overwhelmed.
Have a fun weekend! I wish you inspiration. ; )
My BF saw pix on your blog of the blanket and now wants me to make one for our couch 🙂 He’s absolutely smitten with it.
Your miters are wonderful and truly inspiring. I always look forward to reading about your projects and ideas. They almost always get me thinking – especially the eloquent post from yesterday. If you read your comments all the way down to this one, I just wanted to say thanks!
I read the post yesterday and then Googled to see if anyone had ever said anything nasty about me anywhere! Glutton for punishment, I guess.
I don’t really understand why people are mean to each other in any medium, but hey, they misbehave everywhere else.
I read this somewhere a couple of years ago. If people are trash talking me, well, then they’re not trash talking someone else who would be hurt more than me. So it goes.
I am feeling a little bit cheated by the Sonata. They did do an update this week which has increased my color choices, but clearly TCC has a much broader range to choose from–and you are making great use of your options! Will there be a second miter square project in my future ussing TCC? Hmm, better get this first one done…
In the kitchenwares section of Whole Foods, there are some very interesting teatowels, packaged three to a set, that you may want to look at for color ideas.
rosesmama
it’s funny. i often think your blog posts are too long, so i don’t bother to take the time to read them. i just look at the pictures! (you do take beautiful pictures.) and when there aren’t pictures, sometimes i don’t bother reading at all. (it’s not you. i do this with all knitting blogs i “read.”) but yesterday, i read your entire (very long) post! and how about that, i enjoyed it! looking forward to reading more lengthy posts in the future 🙂
This is the first time I’ve read your blog in about a week. No, not because it bores me, but because it takes me that long to get through all the knitting blogs I read. (You want to talk about obsession?) And I am always astounded that someone takes the time to make a nasty comment about someone’s blog…AND ADDRESS IT TO THAT BLOGGER! People: If you don’t like a blog, DON’T READ IT! And if you feel the need to make a horrid comment to someone, you need to examine yourself and figure out why you feel the need to spread your nastiness into the world.
As for the miters themselves, I admit some days I’m not so interested, so I skim the post. (This is not hard. I recommend it to anyone who is bored with a particular post.) Some days I’m enthralled and scroll through the pictures repeatedly. But what I think is really immaterial. It’s part of the creative process to find an idea that obsesses you and then explore it until you’ve exhausted all possibilities. So: (1) you should not feel guilty about doing this; and (2) no one should begrudge you your obsession.
There. I feel better about getting this off my chest. It’s been bothering me for awhile.
I love seeing the ribbon inspiration – not an exact replica, but evocative. A peek into the process, that is what I enjoy. As knitters e open up books or magazines and see these beautiful items, go into a store, see beautiful knitted items, on the street etc. But to follow a B.K.I. (Beautiful Knitted Item) from inspiration, execution, decisions – that is the meat of knit blogging. And earnestness? It is important sometimes.
I’m really liking margene’s idea about the roving.
And about yesterday’s post, I have to say it was an eye-opener. I’m very new to the whole blogging thing, my blog is read by very few people, and apparently I’ve just been lucky enough to not yet encounter horrible comments, on my blog or someone else’s. It bothers me to think that people do that. I think of blogging as a pleasant diversion from the day-to-day crap that goes on in everybody’s life. Why would you want to introduce more crap into that? People blog and read blogs for enjoyment, right? It should not be terribly difficult to keep it nice and civil. It’s a lot easier to not write a comment than to write one – don’t waste the effort on being catty.
And I realy liked the quote. Vonnegut’s voice will certainly be missed.
Keept the miters coming. What a great color scheme, so springy and clean.
Cara, i read your blog often and always enjoy it. Sometimes people don’t think before they talk (comment) and would be insulted if someone left them a negative comment. Whatever happened to “if you don’t have something nice(or constuctive) to say don’t say anything”? Loved the words of Kurt Vonnegut about being kind. Keep up what you are doing the majority of those who read your blog read it because of who you are.
Yesterday, I refused to cave in. But this morning, after working my nightly 12 hour shift, I just got hooked. I did purchase Elann’s offering of the Sonata – in every color!!! What have you done to me? OMG! I am so committed to the miters now.
Every new miter amazes me! It shows how you can glean inspiration from everyday objects. Keep up the good work!
Hey, just wanted to drop you a line and let you know that I am really enjoying the pictures of the progress made on the blanket. Seems to be that making the miters is a very medatative process, no?
I have not made any yet but it is on my list of things to make. Does that list ever get smaller? Not for me, only bigger with every blog I look at with great FO’s!
Chat with you soon,
Marly aka: Yarn Thing
knitthing.blogspot.com
knitthing.mypodcast.com
ooh, I love all the different places that you get inspiration for color choices. FAB!
I’ve really enjoyed seeing all the miters, and I can’t wait to see the finished product.
(And if anyone complains that the miters are boring, you can send them to my archives to see the endless posts on the Endless Sweater of Endlessness…which is done! Squee!)
I really like how you are using things as inspiration (intentionally and unintentionally) for your color choices. I’m terrible with color and that makes it seem like a great way to make some choices. Still contemplating starting one, getting harder to resist the “force” that is the mighty miter!!!
Loved your post and comments from yesterday. Wanted to second everyone’s comments. Everyone put exactly what I would like to say so eloquently – more so than I ever could. I can’t imagine what a person would see on a blog that would posess them to make a rude comment. I only see inspiration and what doesn’t inspire me I scroll by. I guess it takes all kinds but those kinds I could do without.
Keep knittin’ and inspiring!
Jen/NJ
well at least you weren’t Ernest 😉 looking forward to the neutral one…sometimes neutrals are so refreshing.
Hey, Cara, I like this blog. I like you, from what I see here, and I like your knitting. I love your photographs–of ALL of it, even (and especially, honestly) the miters.
I like it all.
I just read today and yesterday’s posts, and had to tell you that I enjoy your blog very much. I don’t always comment, and I don’t always agree with you, but why would I expect to always agree with anyone? It is not my perogative to make nasty comments though. If I don’t like a blog, then I can stop reading it. If I don’t like a project that you (or any other blogger) is making, so what?! I am not the one living with it. There are probably plenty of things that I’ve made that other people don’t care for. We don’t all like the same things….that’s the real world. And in the meantime, I often learn a lot from the projects others have made (and frogged!) whether I’d make that same project or not. I don’t think that I would make a mitre blanket…that doesn’t mean I haven’t enjoyed your uses of color and your “obsession” with it!
As I often tell my kids, just because you can’t hear the hurt in someone else’s voice because you are online, doesn’t meant that you haven’t wounded them. It would be so great if everyone just followed the Golden Rule and played nice.
Love your miters and your dedication. It took me three years to finish my daughter’s psychedelic squares blanket (in almost every color of Sugar n’Cream solids) and that’s with a lot of nagging from her toward the end. By the way, the seaming went relatively quickly. Fun to see it all come together, and the challenge of making the seams invisible kept me going.
Okay. the miter thing is starting to frighten me because it is looking intersting. I must . . . resist . . . the mitered . . . squares!
Seriously though, I’ve just read the previous post as well and am very saddened. I read knitting blogs for the same reason I read everything (except the newspaper or magazines), to escape the ugliness of people and life. How awful that once more an avenue of escape has been closed. I’ve stopped reading comments on many blogs, and this is a shame because as a solitary knitter, I relish the feeling of community and problem solving that usually exists there.
Hang in there.
i just want to tell you how much i’m enjoying your foray into miter madness. very inspiring.
Its tough to say because they are all so lovely, but I think this square is my favorite so far. Love the colors.
Christi, Jenfromi, Doris, right on spot girls, wow, I just love reading your post. The freshness of it just takes me back to more youthful times and my fondness of Bob Dylan, Jimi Hendrix, and the Who, wow, that as colorful a mix as your miters, and who can forget the posters of that era, Cara, you are a fresh inspiration to this tired ole soul, tell it, tell it, like it is….
i really like #18.
Would you stop tempting me with those squares?? I don’t have the book nor do I have the yarn. Considering my budget, or lack of one right now, I might have to work the streets in order to do this, which is not really a pleasant thought.
Seeing your gorgeous squares being cranked out, I’m thinking of getting some knee-high boots to go with a tight red leather mini skirt.
Cara: I read your blog regularly because you are intresting, funny, dedicated and insightful. Your pictures are beautiful, and your knitting is inspiring. I raise my glass to you and all the other fascinating knitters and knit bloggers out there, and dedicate track 8 of Raul Midon’s CD ‘State of Mind’ to all of you. You have created a kind and colourful community. You inspire me to knit better, and to care more.
It worries me that people can be negatively critical of someones’ creativity. Especially when someone has the talent to create rainbows with a couple of needles and some yarn. I admire you.
And yes, I like the miters. I find them soothing.
Cara, I have no idea how you keep coming up with all the combinations. I would probably have been stumped at square #2! I’m not into the miters (yet) but enjoy looking at the squares and your title pic. I don’t comment very often on blogs I read but . . .
So you have gotten so obsessed with miters you can’t take the time to shower. Duh! I get going on a project and would rather not take the time to do anything but that project! Been there, done that! I have problems even going to bed sometimes.
Selfish? Aren’t we all? You reach out to good causes though and make me think about how good I have it. Thanks for sponsoring Heifer and bringing all the work they do back into the front part of my brain!
I know I’m a bit late to the party but… I’ve been flamed on my personal blog, probably with due cause since when I first started writing it I was one messed up, hurt individual. But I’ve never been flamed on my knit blog, nor have I ever even thought that any of my posts or other people’s posts on the multiple blogs I read have warranted any kind of anger or ridicule. Flames and fibre don’t mix.
I lurk mostly because I don’t like needless gushing or ranting. I delurk when something warrants it, admiration, silliness or mild irritation. It’s just sticks and yarn, why would anyone flame another person over knitting?!?
That said, now I want to make a multi-coloured blanket. But with ripples. Will someone just please go and have a baby so I have an excuse? Thank you.
I must say, that set of squares in this post are my favorite yet 🙂
First, must say that I’m loving your posts about this project — it’s been an excellent study for me in colorwork, but I do have a question for you…it looks like on some of your miters, you are making 2 of the same (like in the first pic in this post) but this isn’t a rule for every square you’re making. If I have that right, how did you decide to do it? Because I have this strong sense of order (read: anal), I think I would have to make ALL the miters with 2 of the same squares or not do it at all….sorry for the ramble, but it made me interested in how you made the decisions. Thanks and have a great weekend!
Cara, One of my favorite things to say to my nieces and nephews (and now son) is that Civility costs Nothing. So do it!
On a more fun note, have you found an actual color card for cotton classic to purchase any where? I’m picking some colors for a bib and want to be able to pick out a true red. It’s hard to do online or even with a color photo.
TIA for any assistance.
I so love to see the new miters. They are so fun and colorful. Have a great weekend.
Cara, I’ve enjoyed looking at the miters. I didn’t see it as something I ever wanted to do. But you’ve infected me. I want a knitted coverlet for *our* bed.
I’m not so much for stripes. I was thinking of something solid or slightly variegated, more like Wendy’s sweater, but not so random. I am thinking about a nine-patch pattern or maybe something based on tumbling blocks. I really should wait until we paint the bedroom. Or I could make the coverlet and paint the bedroom to match. Yeah, that would work.
And I fail to see why anyone would take the time to read something that they didn’t like, then post disagreeable comments or send hate mail. Life is really too short for that kind of negative energy.
I think square 18 is my favorite!!!
Like two peas in a pod, I love the green…yummy
Okay. I don’t know if this is constructive or not but the miters are killing me. Why you ask? Because now I’m making the damn things, too!!! I can’t stop! I love me some miters.
I’m glad you decided to use one of your photographs as color inspiration! Can’t wait to see it 🙂
I may not have time to read every post but I do love seeing the beautiful photos of the mitered squares. They are so pretty!!!!
And if the trolls start to get to you again, give ’em a good kick. Even trolls know their manners. If they choose to ignore such manners they need a swift kick in the pants!
OK, so I’m a lurker… I read you all the time.
Decided I must post, because today I headed to my LYS and left with a bag of Cotton Classic. I started a miter blanket with Blue Sky Cotton, when you started posting your squares. (So soft, waiting for more yarn) But, I needed some serious color, inspired by you. The owner wanted to know what was up with the Cotton Classic Miter blankets.
I guess she’s had quite a few people coming in for the cotton. So,there are people in Western PA following your blog. Thank you for sharing the great pics. I’m going to wind yarn now…
MITERS!!!!!!!
yesyesyesyesyesyesyesyes
Hi Cara, I have been reading your blog off and on for a while, and I admire your honesty and creativity. Love all the miters! Keep it up! You are inspiring me to make a mitery blanket of my own.
oh my Gawd, you’ve actually got me thinking about joining your madness! I really like your rule of one main color but think I would expand it to making the miter square all of the same but each full miter square a different two colors. Keep on knitting those miters. They are quite lovely.
I totally do get the feel for your earnestness. I try and not imagine how people are “talking to me” while writing me – I think that would be second guessing, but we can’t all help ourselves sometimes to think, whassup with that one? Unless I know them personally and can qualify it…wel you know the rest,
Did I tell you green is me all time fav color?
I have been really behind in reading, commenting, keeping up with people, but I do believe that there is a general decline in civility, and not just in blogland. Margene and I had a long conversation about this in the car the other day, so I had to drop by and see what you ended up proposing to the world. I am glad you opted NOT to have a “blast me” day, and I am in love with all the various color combinations the miters are giving you…. I say “bring it on” with the blanket!
I’m not sure if this has been said, people belittle others to make themselves feel bigger. It is classic bully mentality. You would think that after all the years we spent in grades 1-12 we would no longer have to endure that type of behavior. But alas, it is everywhere. I wonder what would happen if all of us that have young children really focused on how showing and teaching them how to treat others. (I not saying that most mothers aren’t teaching that). Would bullying and hatefulness be a thing of the past? When my 5yo is 25, would he even know what a bully was, I would hope not, but I won’t hold my breath.
This blanket is making me itch to knit one for myself. It’s positively amazing – the kind of blanket that will out-live you and your descendents. While I adore your use of color, I’m not sure I have the necessary color skills. Perhaps if I limit myself to a few colors and several tones of those colors. Hmm. But first, to bail out the basement – what weather!
Cara- I was at sock camp ( what a blast) got to see several of your socks and blanket in person- LOVE
Your website makes me happy. I check in every couple of weeks and never comment but appreciate your writing and beautiful pictures. I just felt like I needed to write something positive to offset whatever negatives have been sent your way.
I’d like to second VB’s comment above. I read knitting blogs for inspiration, knitting and otherwise, and for the feeling of being a part of a community despite my too-intense work schedule. Thanks so much for taking the time to blog and put your work out there. Regarding your miters, BRING ‘EM ON! I wish I was working on something so all-consuming, original, and kick-ass.
Cara,
What a great study of color with the mitered squares. I did a scarf for a friend photos here http://dudleyspinner.blogspot.com/
I am playing with the idea of a mitered square rug for my bedroom, done with unspun roving and felted.
Deb
I’m just catching up on my favortite blogs after being away from the computer since last Thurday and I have one question for you… Why on Earth do you think people will behave in a civil manner in blogland when they can’t seem to stop themselves from being rude in person? In general, our society has become so much more self-absorbed, coarse and crude just in my lifetime that it boggles the mind…at least it boggles my little mind! Anyway, Keep up the great work, Cara; I think your blog is terrific and a pleasure to read.
Whoa! I haven’t been by in a week or so. Lots going on! I read some commentary in our paper related to the NYTimes article you mention, and I thought, gee, on all the blogs I visit, all I ever see is positive and upbeat comments. I was thinking what a great supportive group knit bloggers are, even though we don’t really know one another (or even if we do). Funny about your yellow/turqoise/rust/green miters!
VIVA THE MITERS!!!!!
I actually come here to read updates ABOUT THE MITERS!!! I wonder what life will be like when they’re done? Oh well, you’ll probably move on to another all-consuming, awe-inspiring, drop-dead gorgeous project! 🙂
People can be very rude. Carry on as you are. What is the point of living to please people you may not even meet. What matters are the miters, and I say miter on if that is where you derive your pleasure from. They are stunning. You are an artist.
AND furthermore, some could argue that that character (who commented negatively) could spend more time endeavoring to help others rather than read and criticize blogs!
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