新东西- New Stuff - Crickets & Compasses

Here I am in my second week of self employment, and only now do I have a chance to check in! It's been a real process of adjustment, getting used to the new flow of time and trying to reorganize my space without spending a ton of money. Things are finally settling down, and I've got some new introductions to make!

Emblem of Courage

I've been working on this new design for a while - I had the idea a few weeks ago to pair a screened image of a hand-written letter in Chinese with some sort of symbol. I took the letter of introduction we received about Zhang Lin during the process of coming to sponsor her education and made it ready for burning a Gocco screen. Then I spend quite some time toying with which symbol to overlay. Too busy and it would fight with the Chinese characters. Too simple, I could end up with something meaningless. Finally I settled on the cricket, a beloved little beast in Chinese culture and a symbol of courage. Courage seemed like a perfect match for Zhang Lin, who has been through so much in her young life.

Last night I did the printing, both on moleskines, cards, and tags. They came out so well! I'm excited about posting them in my shop as well as using these cards in my Bamboo Village correspondence. Whether or not this story means anything to you, I hope the design will stand on its own as a beautiful print.


Ancient Compass

During the process of developing the cricket design, I was suddenly inspired with another design idea which ended up being a quick and successful print. I launched the Ancient Compass Moleskine last week and have met with great success and attention. Every time I list one, they generate more traffic than any other item in my shop. These are a great gift for guys - evidenced by the fact that every one that's sold has been purchased by men! Very exciting!

The design is a modified photograph of a fengshui luopan (风水罗盘） - a compass used in hard core feng shui consultations for determining energy flow in physical space.


More Cozy for the Coffee

Finally, I whipped up a couple more french press coffee cozies (one and two). These pretties have been warmly received in the shop since I made up the pattern last month, so I've got one on the needles just about all the time now.

December is turning out to be my best month ever, for more reasons than just Bamboo Village Press. I'm so excited to be fully engaged in this new endeavor, and can't wait to get more work done on the Educational Fund! Coming soon, we've got a new guest artist, and I will finally be able to do some writing about life in rural Sichuan, China.

this is what happens...

When one posts only once a week, what happens is either you end up leaving out significant pieces, or you end up with a post that is rather more like a word smörgåsbord. Hopefully this will not be the trend here at Bamboo Village, because we are soon getting wireless internet and will not have to be computer-sharing as much. Hooray for our household!

Here is our week in review, working backwards:

Cozies a go-go.

I love knitting while watching tv, and these cozies are super-easy! Strangely enough, my own French press is still without its own cozy, but I think I'm going to fix that today. It's getting cold enough that the coffee is cold before I get to my second cup. I've always wrapped a towel around the cylinder, but I want my own cozy! Here's the new one, just added to Bamboo Village Press:

Saturdays are for Delicious Food

measuring out the rice

anise cloves

Yesterday I went to spend the day with Knittah, her husband and close friend Amy. It was a lovely, crisp fall day, perfect for slow-cooking meat. Don't worry, dear veggie friends, there will be no photos of the pork. This is one of my all-time favorite recipes, and it's always a hit with guests. It's very easy, and ridiculously scrumptious. It's the "Shanghai Ham" recipe from the Joyce Chen Cookbook, and is just one of many crowd-pleasing meals from this great collection of Chinese recipes.



红烧猪肉
Shanghai Ham

4lb fresh pork ham, butt or shoulder [we always use shoulder, bone-in is best, but buy more than 4lbs if you're getting one with the bone]
1 cup dark soy sauce [if you can, buy your soy sauce from an Asian market. it will give much better flavor than the kikkoman you usually get at the regular grocery]
1/2 cup sugar [honey is also ok!]
1TBS dry sherry [i skip this and use a splash of white or rice vinegar]
2 [generous] slices of fresh ginger - or 2 whole cloves garlic
few cloves star anise
1/2 - 1 cup water

Sear and scald the pork by soaking it in boiling water for a few minutes. Rinse with cold water.
Place the pork with all the ingredients in a large sauce pan or Dutch oven. Bring to a boil, cover, and simmer. Turn the pork over occasionally until tender - about 2 hours or more. Remove cover and increase heat. Baste the pork until about 1 cup of liquid remains (about 15-20 minutes). Skim fat and serve it hot or cold.

Gifties!

Unexpectedly, the gathering of friends yesterday also opened the birthday lead-up, complete with gifts and talk of cheesecake.

I received these two awesome books, appropriately, from Knittah. I think we have an unspoken pact to support each other's knitting obsessions on our birthdays. The first book, Last Minute Knitted Gifts, has been a long-time favorite. The photographs are stunning, and I like almost all of the projects. It was among my last batch of overdue library books, and was destined to be so again, so this is super-awesome!

The second, Knitting Nature, is as artistic as the previous is practical. The patterns are simply mind-blowing, so this will be a book of patterns to aspire to making.

I've also included here a gift from Knittah's aunt, Mother Earth and her Children, which was signed by the author. If you don't know the story behind this book, take the time to look it up. It's completely worth it.

Autumnal

On Friday, my sister and I were fortunate enough to take a 2-hour hike at the Wissahickon, one of my favorite places for outdoor bliss in this area. I say fortunate because it was our last chance to see the foliage before it all dropped to the wintery ground. Here are some of the photos... you can see more on Laurie's blog, linked above.

covered bridge along the "forbidden trail"

japanese maple, in full autumn glory

And, although that is not a *week* in review, it's all I've got in me! Stay tuned next week for a new moleskine design honoring Bamboo Village's China roots and Zhang Lin, our sponsored student.

新东西 - New Stuff - Gocco & Fiber

Happy Sunday! The Nadeau girls have been busy this weekend, making and finishing new items for the shop!

After a successful rollout of my hand knit coffee cozy last week, I've made two more - a knit one and a new quilted cozy in rich Asian blues.

And we were so excited to get the Gocco rolling yesterday. After spending about 8 hours on our feet, testing out designs and print quality and color, we've got two new designs by Laurie up in the shop! Click the graphic and check them out in full detail. We'd love your feedback!

calling all knitters

My dear friend posted on her blog yesterday the linked message detailing an afghan project for her aunt and cousin who have lost their homes in the San Diego fires.

I'll be casting on tonight.

mid-week

As everyone knows, I don't usually do mid-week posts. But I'm trying to be more communicative about the ole BV, so here we are!

First, in personal WIPs, we've made some progress on my current knitting project, the 103-1 Drops Jacket. May I say again how dearly I love this yarn??? Goodness gracious me, it is so soft, it just exudes the spirit of comfort, into my fingers, hands and then straight to my heart (where I need it these days!). Who knew a mere fiber could produce such wonderous effect? Why, every knitter on the planet who has worked with yarns other than acrylic and novelty yarn, of course! But this alpaca is special. I will say that Misti Alpaca is just as good. Bulky weight alpaca wonderfulness. ::sigh::


So, yeah. I've made some progress! I am done both sleeves! I settled after quite some back and forth on a size large, and I'm sure I won't regret it. It's going to be the embodiment of cozy, and this fabric has a lot of drape, but I wouldn't have been happy if it pulled at the top button. So there you have it. I'm one happy knitter.

In other excitements and acquisitions, I have some new books in my collection! I'm looking forward to some quiet time because I think they're going to be pretty inspiring.

Here's one: China: People, Place, Culture, History - it's a gorgeous coffee table book I've been eyeing at B&N, but saved a bundle on by buying online! It's typical DK Publishing style, with lots of terrific graphics. I'm looking for lots of inspiring ideas for design in this one.



The other one I got is The Chinese Calligraphy Bible. It's a nice spiral-bound number with lots of great ideas for mugs & other etched goods for BV Press.

That's all I've got, besides a steaming cup of Sleepytime tea ready for late night sippin'!

hu xi - breathe

In Bamboo Village, autumn has settled in. The rice is harvested and winter crops are taking root. Children are back in school. Nights have become cold.

Meanwhile, here in the northeast region of the United States, it still feels like summer. The cooling and grounding of fall has yet to reach us, and it seems like in my own life, the heat and discomfort of summer months continues in many areas. So much is currently unsettled for me that I am simply putting nose to grindstone to get through it. I'm waiting for the calming, cool relief of fall in oh, so many ways.

In an attempt to quiet the mind and restore some comfort to this time, I've taken up the needles. Last weekend, I went up to Reading, PA with knittah, and we spend a couple of happy hours fondling yarn and chatting with the wonderful women at the Yarn Gallery. I walked out with Baby Alpaca Grande in a gorgeous moss green for this Drops jacket pattern. And since then, I've been spending my evenings with this heavenly yarn, knitting and sometimes just holding (because it's soooooo soft) this amazing fiber.

Coming soon, we have a new Guest Artist!

Pain in the Pi-gu, or the Great Tyrolean Arse-Kicking

Hello. I’m Celeste, and I’m not a sock knitter.

I know, it’s so shocking, in this current craze of sock knitting. But hey, they just don’t do much for me! Small needles, tiny yarn... counting, and lace, and all that... it just doesn’t inspire me.

However, when I saw the Tyrolean Stockings in the latest Interweave Knits, I went out and invested shocking amounts of money in gorgeous yarn and cast on. It’s been an arse-whooping experience ever since.

I can’t really say why this is happening, expect maybe to admit that I'm not such a great knitter! I won't be admitting that, so it's got to be something else! I’ve been traveling a lot, so I thought this would be good for plane rides and airport waits. Good for late nights in beds that aren’t my own. Long car rides. You know. But for some reason, I get into some kind of blank, zen-like state and miss a cable. Or cable twice in two rows. Or knit through where I should have cabled. Or cable in the wrong direction. You get the picture.

At least I’m learning how to fix bad cables without ripping back. I can’t believe I didn’t take a photo at one of the worst moments, when I had 8 needles active at once.

What is most remarkable is that I haven’t given up yet. You can see why I have a block on socks.

traveling

I know it's "wrong" for me to post the latest photo of Swatchy Hugz here, and not on Travels with Swatchy where he belongs, but we wanted to say HI from Atlanta!

This week, I met some new friends online - a couple of artists new to Etsy, and I'm excited that we'll be doing an interview with them next week! My first interview! It sounds like they want to partner up somehow to help Bamboo Village, which is really cool! So you'll be meeting them soon.

In other news, I have been a knitting fool lately! I'm knitting some amazing socks from Interweave Knits new issue - they're all cabled and beautiful. I'm also thinking I've leapt into a higher level of knitting obsession - this trip I think I packed more yarn than clothes. And I've purchased more yarn since being here!

I'll be home on Sunday, so there will be lots of new things to share then. For now, greetings from Atlanta!

ready, set. GOCCO!

I don't know what the block was to getting another post written... I did so enjoy looking at those blue bottles, I think that might have been part of it, lol. This week, there's not a lot of news about Zhang Lin except that she's started back to school already and now I have to figure out how to get the funds over there!

Meanwhile, not only did I finally get my gocco, but today I broke it in! Do you know what a gocco is? It's a Japanese home screen printer, and it's such a revolutionary little toy, it's crazy. I was concerned about fine lines, and was pleasantly surprised to see that I could have even gotten away with even finer lines than the ones I drew, but I'm getting ahead of myself, here.

I took pictures and everything. This is just a one by one set of shots... there are notes about them all in my flickr photostream.

Step 1: draw your design, and set in the gocco printer. Load the screen.


Step 2: load the bulbs, and set that in the cover. Press hard and the bulbs flash (and burn out), burning the screen.



Step 3: examine your screen, a.k.a. one of the coolest things, EVAR.



Step 4: Ink the screen, set your paper beneath, and peel off the original.



Step 5: press the screen down, and voila! a print!



Here are the finals - the owl and the hedgehog. I'm less confident about the hedgie, so he's not been posted in the shop...



It has actually been a very productive week over here, craft-wise. There's been a whole lot of photography for my ravelry account. And there's been knitting... knitting "Luxe" a neckwarmer pattern I am loving. Here are 2:



Finally, my sister came to visit! We went to see Rufus Wainwright on Friday night, which was truly memorable. Niko Case opened, we were in an outdoor venue, and there was a glorious thunderstorm between acts. It was fantastic. And before we went to the concert, we spent some time at Rosie's... where the sister simply sat and inhaled wool fumes and fondled wonderful fibers.

photos and stats

new items posted in Bamboo Village Press and Supply

Reading Materials:

New cell phone:



Finished Objects:
Dotty's latest socks using Bamboo Village Supply yarn (thanks for the link, Noricum!!!)





Statistics
Miles on the car: 600
Flights: 2
Number of new toothbrushes: 2
Days on the road in the past 3 weeks: 9
Friends announced pregnancy: 1!
Friend's babies born: 1!


Number of dollars raised for Bamboo Village Educational Fund in July: $140!

a little customer love

One of the best things about having these shops is hearing back from customers! Dotty has been with me from the get-go on Bamboo Village Press. I never asked her how she found me, but she's been loyal, remarkably easy-to-work-with, and generous with her feedback.

I always make a point to ask people to show me how they use the supplies and other items I send them, and she never fails. Here are some socks she's made with the "super soft wool" yarn, in the two-tone natural, and the grass green:


This morning, I found another terrific bit of feedback from Dotty, along with the green sock photo. Thanks again, Dotty, for your support, friendship, and taking the time to share your projects!

And, in case you don't know, I've moved the supplies from Bamboo Village Press over to Bamboo Village Supply! Free shipping in both shops continues until the end of June. I'll be back later today to report in on my latest Asian supermarket find, progress on Rowena and Breeze, and more!