"Will you forgive my single-mindedness, and my tendency to see knitting in everything?"

August 9, 2010 marks what would have been the 100th birthday of British-born knitter, Elizabeth Zimmerman. EZ, as she is known amongst the knitting community, was influential in shaping the craft into what it has become today. She was one of the first knitters to publish patterns in magazines. Her Wisconsin-based Schoolhouse Press was one of the first mail-order knitting pattern businesses. It is still producing countless well-thought-out and creatively designed patterns today.

EZ, herself, wrote many books about knitting. Her writing style is direct and logical. I have several of her books and they are my favourite works of knitting theory. I enjoy the mathematics and geometry that is involved in knitting. Elizabeth has managed to take these aspects of knitting and use them to design incredible techniques and guidelines for creating sweaters that fit perfectly and mittens that have such interesting construction. Really, EZ epitomized what being an arts and scientist means to me.

Not to mention, EZ was just one clever lady. Her personal motto was "Knit on with confidence and hope, through all crisis."

I have several favourite EZ quotes, but my all time favourite is a perfect example of Elizabeth telling it like it is, "really, all you need to become a good knitter are wool, needles, hands, and slightly below-average intelligence. Of course superior intelligence, such as yours and mine, is an advantage" (from Knitting Without Tears).

Above and beyond all of this, everything EZ made or designed was absolutely, simply beautiful. I think I will pull out my copy of The Knitter's Almanac tomorrow for some mid-summers knitting inspiration.

Thank you for everything, EZ.

Good art.

Nat sent me this link to her friend's website ScheibStor. He makes cool sketches and you can have them printed on clothing and things. Everything is done in one colour, pencil and line drawings. I like it a lot.

This is one of his sketches of downtown Montreal:

Today.

Blog needed some organization today. The list of blogs I follow keeps growing and growing. I decided to add categories to make things easier to keep track of. I think I like the new set-up.

I'm really glad I started writing here. Whenever I need a break from anything I can come here and feel completely refreshed. Writing out all of these things that usually swirl around in my head makes me feel much more focused and pulled-together. Also, I've found endless sources of inspiration in the blogging world and it's really nice to know that they are all in order here. Every time I open up this page I find something new and exciting.



Now that I've become more comfortable with html editing I know how to make the changes I want to make before I tell other people about this place. Today I figured out how to make a little icon for my blog tab. This why my personal style will show up on the tab as well and readers will be able to collect it for their bookmarks. The one I added today is not simplified enough to show up on such a small scale. I just clipped one of my favourite images from the title bar and used converted it to an icon file with this free converter: converticon.com. It's cute and worked well ad has a little Mac interface design. Then I uploaded it to this spot to make a direct link to the image: Image Boo Hosting. So, I'll work on the header and the icon over the next little while, but things are starting to come together!

O, and I almost forgot to mention, check out this collision of art and science:


Fluid Sculpture from Charlie Bucket on Vimeo.

Cass

The Story About Ping.

One of my favourite childhood books was called "The Story About Ping". Mom read that little paperback to Jayme and me so many times I could probably still recite most of the lines. Ping was a little duck who hid from his family and ended up lost in a confusing harbour full of fishing boats.



Ping is drawn in a simple pan and ink style. The images are coloured with only four hues. However, even in its simplicity so much emotion is conveyed by the combination of words and pictures; Ping is terrified when he realizes his mistake and can't find his family. I think I was a sucker for good design even when I was a kid.



I've picked up The Story About Ping at several different bookstores, but have never brought it home. Some day I think I'll have my own copy again when I have a house with room to collect children's stories.

Good Design.

Found this cool little blog today. It's called Design Observer. Each Monday one of the authors posts a series of desgin images for their readers to contemplate. His name is Eric Baker and this is the clip from the end of his weekly post:

Eric Baker Design Associates is a Manhattan-based design firm established in 1986. Eric teaches the history of graphic design and corporate identity at the School of Visual Arts, and has twice received National Endowment for the Arts Grants for independent design history projects. He is inveterate collector of books and ephemera.



I'm thinking more about communication outside of my usual styles and I'm feeling very inspired.

Doug is having a "shocking realization" (his words) that the world is moving forward faster than he can keep up. He just spent the last half hour on the phone with the, most likely, only government employee whom keeps track of all of the airphotos of Canada. Apparently, you can't see the 7 million photos online, you need to find the location, e-mail them, and they will snailmail you a letter containing the desired photo. In essence, the government can't afford to provid the service that googlemaps can for free. This is much like the way musicians can't afford to make a CD because noone will purchase it. People will just obtain it from the internet for the low, low price of zero dollars. None of this really makes sense to him and I try to support the indie music scene as much as I possibly can.

New look.

Today at lunch I'm trying to figure out how to customize this blog. So far I've learned how to update my title area. I put this together pretty quickly and it still needs work, but I really like how the look is working.

The images are taken from the work of Ernst Haekel. Haekel was a German scientist who lived from February 16, 1834 - August 9, 1919. He promoted the work of Darwin, did a lot philosophizing, and made beautiful artistic interpretations of everything he studied. One of the images he is most famous for is the controversial embryological drawings:



These drawings were recently (2001 and 2002) mentioned in Nature as examples of fake schematical drawings. I don't know much about this issue, but it's definitely an interesting one and something to look into a little further.

Whatever, even if the old drawings and sketches aren't completely accurate, he certainly could use colour and light in interesting ways.