Skip to main content

Kim Thomson of Live Wool



You know a picture like this would get my attention.  (Unfortunately it is a photograph of a newspaper article that I was not able to find electronically.  P.S. It is from the Washington State magazine called Getaway.  Discovered it on my way on a ferry to Port Townsend.)  Kim Thomson is the owner and creator of this portable yarn ball hat.  I love that it would certainly allow one to move and knit almost effortlessly.  So with her name and a location of Port Townsend, Washington I decided to find out more about Kim.

Let's start with the city.  Port Townsend is located in the northeast tip of the Olympic Peninsula and is known for the many Victorian buildings remaining from its late 19th-century heyday.  Captain George Vancouver found and named it in 18th century, so this place has been around for some time.  Here's a couple of geographic maps to help locate Port Townsend, Jefferson County in Washington State.
The red above is Jefferson county and the red dot, Port Townsend 

If you look at photos of the place it appears to be a part of a beautiful, protected harbour of the Admiralty Inlet that flows into Puget Sound.  With a population of just over 9,000 and a listing on the U.S. National Register of Historical Places, this small town has a lot going for it.

During the summer it has what appears to be a vibrant Farmers Market, which is exactly where the top photo was taken of Kim Thomson.  She is a trained artist who spent much of her life working with chemicals as an artist.  Ultimately she became sensitive to them and had to give up that craft.  For several years she was a busker playing her fiddle around the Pacific Northwest.  This activity took her to New Zealand where she found knitting and fell in love with it (my kind of person).  Upon returning to the U.S. she combined her sculpting with her knitting skills and has created lovely felted items.




Paul and I were just talking about spending some time in the Olympic Peninsula and when we get there I will have to add a stop into Kim Thomson's  studio and gallery, Thomson Art Forms, 833 Water Street, Port Townsend.  I need to meet this inventive and creative individual in person.

Labels:

Comments

  1. Anonymous12 September 2013 at 12:46

    Felting is the next thing I want to learn!!

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Anatomy of a Sock

I've been knitting socks for a relatively short time.  One of the disconcerting things for me as I started following patterns for socks is the pattern designer assumes the knitter (in this case that would be me) knows all the parts of a sock.  So I thought I'd devote a post to improve my own knowledge about the anatomy of a sock and maybe some of you will learn something about the humble yet necessary sock as well. Here's the names of the parts of the foot as I know them. #49 ankle, #50 heel, #51, instep, #52 ball, #53 big toe, #54 toe, #55 little toe, #56 toenail. There are some parts more important for this discussion; first the heel of a foot is generally used to refer to the entire C-shape from the ankle to the instep.  Speaking of the instep, it refers to that curve near the bottom of the foot.  And what seems to be missing in the design above is the sole which generally refers to the bottom of the foot in total or plantar aspect in more technical terms...
10 comments
Read more

Yarn Usage II: Crochet vs. Knit

All four swatches were made.  Each is 6.25" or 15.875 cm square; each prepared with the same sized yarn and needles or hook.  It took 25 stitches to get the appropriate width for the knit swatches and only 20 stitches for both of the crocheted squares.  That already says something, but I'll get to it in a minute.  (Don't know what I'm talking about here?  Check out this post first.) Unfortunately, you'll just have to trust me that four swatches were prepared and that they were all the same size.  In the excitement to get to measuring and weighing of the swatches, no photographic evidence was taken.  Luckily for me the results of this research doesn't have to be reviewed by a jury of my peer.  This blog post will be the sum and total of where this information is published. The remains of my four swatches What can be shared, however, are the balls of yarn rewound after the weighing and measuring was completed.  You will note the size ...
9 comments
Read more

Knitting-Related Guinness World Records

I had to share some of the Guinness World Records connected with knitting.  It is amazing to me the type of skill, stamina and unique characteristics these record holders have in common. How about trying to knit with these SPNs?? Ingrid Wagner and her large needles and knitted swatch The largest knitting needles measured 3.5 m (11 ft 5.8 in) long and had a diameter of 8 cm (3.15 in). Ingrid Wagner, a rug and art creation artist, from the UK used the needles to knit a tension square of ten stitches by ten rows at the Metro Radio Arena, Newcastle upon Tyne, UK, on March, 10 2008.  (And I complained about getting certain SPNs stuck in my clothes.)  See how this swatch was done with merely 5 people managing the needles.  And what about the yarn?  It is truly ex-bulky.  It looks like they're knitting in a warehouse, but with a wingspan of almost 24 feet or 7 m, you'd need all that space.  Or h...
7 comments
Read more