on the needle

moving on with cutouts

2010-01-23T11:49:00.002Z

If you take the cut-out shape, here with parts of the actual motif removed to give a more complex shape, and draw it randomly into a more regular shape (shown here into a square, rectangle and circle) you can throw up other combinations of the motif. Also the negatives spaces between the motifs also create new shapes, all these could be used together as they are all 'related'.

Here I have used coloured and decorated paper to give an idea of how the shape will appear in textiles etc. I folded the paper into a long, thin concertina, drew round the motif down the length and cut it out. I then cut the still folded paper into sections, opened them out and rearranged them to create more shapes.

more play with cutouts

2010-01-21T10:48:00.001Z

Still experimenting with the paper cut-outs based on a question mark shape.

I have started use a thin and thick black pen to draw out the lines and shapes suggest by the cutouts

The next stage could be to use the same shape but distort it into another basic unit (which gives it a more regular and easier overall shape for stacking and layering)

question mark

2010-01-20T11:39:00.001Z

I am thinking of doing a short workshop using a simple design technique. So I have spent the morning playing around with paper cut outs...could have been doing the ironing/cleaning/shopping but snipping with scissors was more fun!

I took a punctuation mark( question mark) and, freehand, drew it bold and chunky. Folded paper into a concertina and drew round and cut out the basic shape. I kept one for a template and used the others to create the following repeat patterns.

This last one looked nice when laid horizontally.There is a lot of possibility in such a simple shape, I may have to have a cup of coffee and play a little more :)

we thought we had a white dog!

2010-01-06T14:50:00.000Z

who can resist snow pictures

2010-01-06T14:49:00.000Z

clasped weft

2010-01-05T14:36:00.001Z

I have been playing about with the clasped weft technique, using my knitter's loom.

I, with the most marvellous's help, warped the loom by putting a separate length and colour into each slot along the length of the 12" loom, and then put pink on one side and blue on the other through the slots. I used 4 pinks and rotated them, and 4 blues and rotated them as well.

The weaving was done by putting the first colour through the shed, around the second colour at the side, and then both colours were pulled back through the shed: two strands of each colour in the shed. They were positioned by eye. I repeated this 4 times and then wove a tabby weave for 6 rows which neatly left the first colour at the opposite side to which it started.

I used light and dark green for the colours so that I could see what was going on and placed the 'change over' at the centre each time.

Not the most appealing piece of weaving but it does allow me to get a hold on the technique. I see lots of possibilities.... you could stagger the 'join' randomly across the width of the work, run a narrow column of alternate colour up on edge, create a pattern using the tabby weave infill's with a bold change of colour etc

mostly mitts

2009-12-18T13:10:00.001Z

I have been playing about with creating a pair of mittens for Claire. She is renown for her cold hands and wants something 'thick, long and warm'. Not too sure these are what she has in mind but, hey, I liked making them.

They are made from some Falkland Islands chunky I have had for an age, one skien I kept as natural, the other I dyed in a multicoloured effect with acid milling dyes.

They are slightly different as I was 'playing'.. one was done on 4mm needles and doesn't have the stripe between the cuff and stripey pattern, and doesn't have a terribly attractive decrease at the top, the other was done on 4.5mm needles, does have the stripe between patterns and has a much better wick decrease.

I quite like them, well to be honest I gave them a test run last night, wearing them to Oxford (Mat was playing at the Holywell and it's a long walk in from where we park) in the bitter cold that decesended on West oxon.

So do I give her the practice pair, or keep them and make another...hmm.

I'll think about it whilst I get ready to have the delight that is little Jake, who's coming to stay with granny for the weekend so's his parents can party.
Oh and before I go
Guess who walked past the little newsagents in the village and saw...'for sale spinning wheel £10.00'. So, of course I phoned the number and am now the proud owner of a single treadle Ashford traveller(in full working order) for..£10.00...oh I must have been good in a previous life....I know I already have one but can you ever have too many spinning wheels??

Mushrooms and fungi

2009-12-10T08:47:00.003Z

New new passion...boiling cauldrons ( thanks to my sister-in-law for her image of me as some white witch) of rotted fungi. I have discovered dyeing (yarn) with mushrooms etc. So far I have managed lots of golds, yellows, fawns, taupe's, browns, greens and ,amazingly, purples. It's been great fun to get up early and roam the forests looking for the mushrooms, I had no idea how many and how complex a group these were...they are everywhere once you get your eye in...dog walking will never be the same. The hat above is made completely from yarn dyed with gilled mushrooms, made for the mycologist who took us on a forage one Sunday morn...with the BBC!!

Again

2009-12-10T08:21:00.010Z

Time to start this up again I think...well blame Luce who want pics of a Christmas tree. The tree is made from old welding rods and copper plumbing pipes welded (not by me the but the most marvellous himself), with the large packets from multi pack crisps stripped and wound up the centre. Dangle bits from foil cake cases from apple pies and beer bottle tops and cleaned and opened out tomato puree tubes. My thanks to Mat who manfully drunk the beer and ate the apple pies.

Happy days

2008-10-11T12:44:00.013+01:00

I have spent a 'happy' day yesterday plying up yarns for winter socks, scarves, mittens etc. I use lace weight merino (mostly from Thehandpaintedyarn.com, as the colours are wonderful and the yarn is soft and strong), but also use yarns from cones that I have, in the main 2/28's and single ply.. This time I also had some wonderful cobweb weight silk from Colourmart which has added a beautiful sheen to the yarns and also brightens the colours. For socks I ply 2 strands of merino and one of silk and for scarves I just use 2 stands of the merino.

The sun was out, and it is such a beautiful autumn day that I took the yarns outside to photograph them, don't the colours of these match the flowers and the pebbles well?

I also finished off and blocked a scarf made for the Colour Swap on Ravelry. Its knitted from lambswool on cone, 2ply, in a wonderful straw colour way. I have used the crest of the wave pattern , doing 4 repeats of the lace pattern to 4 rows of garter stitch for the border and elongating the pattern to 12 rows of lace and 12 rows garter stitch for the main body. I'm really pleased with the look of the scarf, it's light and airy and the lambswool shows the stitch pattern well. So next week, after a trip to the Ally Pally tomorrow..yippee... it will be making its way across the Atlantic.

there and back again

2008-10-06T11:31:00.016+01:00

Well, we're back,(truthfully we've been back a week or so but I have taken a bit of time getting back in to the swing of blogging) and these are some pictures of wonderful Wales. At the left is husband and dog at the top of a mountain that was just rising behind the site we stayed on. The middle is taken from the top of Snowdon, and yes we chickened out and took the train. The funny thing is it was glorious up there, the views were outstanding but does that show in the photo's...no. I think the camera 'sees' the view OK but just can't provide the atmosphere... it was freezing up there, the wind was so strong we were struggling to stand and the feeling of awe that you got looking down to sea level just doesn't translate on to the lens. Bear in mind that this was 'one' of the sunny, warm days of summer, I really wouldn't want to be up this mountain on a wild autumn day. The one on the right is an arty-farty shot of the rail track on top of the mountain... how did they build it all the way up there?

Train on top of the mountain

Dog 'on holiday' on a beach on Anglesey

Didn't get a lot of knitting down whilst away, well actually no knitting was done whilst away, I thought about knitting, the wool and needles were there but ... no knitting. Since I've been back there has been knitting, 4 slouchy hats for my daughters workmates, lace scarf for swap partner, pair of socks for a friend but they have all gone to their recipients and I forgot to take piccs!!
So I will leave you with more photo's of barbed wire... developing a thing for barbed wire.. just not sure what to do with it.

pictures and blogger....grrrr

2008-08-18T09:19:00.001+01:00

After a terrible tussle with blogger I let him... must be a HIM... put them where he wanted to... so sorry for the rather messy look to the previous post.

useful daughter

2008-08-18T08:35:00.014+01:00

It was really nice to see Claire at the weekend, not only because I'm blessed with a beautiful daughter(... and three rather handsome sons... ) but because she is a willing model. So here are some photos of the cowl made from the knitting in the previous post. I was going to make it into a scarf but ran out of two of the yarns I had used to make up the colours,
It is possibly a bit wide, but I had to finish on a pattern repeat to create a circle. I really like it, I like the nice , soft colours, and really like the stitch pattern and the fact that it has two distinct patterns therefore making the cowl reversible. The hand spun merino (from Handpaintedyarn.com) is lovely soft and cosy, and more importantly... not itchy!!

Whilst she was here I also used her to model something I had intended for myself.

We are away on Thurs, on our now annual tour around the UK. Mat is playing at Towersey Folk festival and then we set off with the caravan. This time we are going to tour around Snowdonia and Angelsey. We went to that region briefly last year and loved it so thought that we would go back and spend some time there. So this is the last post until the end of September when we return.

Back to the knitting... I thought I would make myself a shawl to wrap up in during the festival, and also trial a pattern before I committed some rather lovely pure cashmere to it. I decided to use a pattern from the book Folk Shawls. I choose the North Sea Shawl and used some wool and silk I had (on cone). I made no changes and just knitted the pattern as written. There are several changes I will make before I knit with the cashmere.. I will add border stitches as the lace patterns right to the very edge stitch. The transition lace is a bit weak,the look of it needs strengthening and the central pattern, across the back and shoulders, needs to be knit in two parts and grafted to create a symmetrical look. Having said that the shawl was attractive when knitted as is and would have been lovely except for one thing... after washing the yarn became very itchy.

As you can see she did sterling work, and only cost the price of a roast dinner!!... Oh and the shawl,.... it went home with her as she doesn't find the wool at all itchy. Thank you Claire.

playing

2008-07-31T13:30:00.009+01:00

This is not work for mod 1..which is what I should be doing!!... but a 'play' using some of the colours identified in the artwork and colour wraps for 'The Fence' and a pattern found in my Mod 1 work... so what is it?... of course it's a scarf, or rather it may be if I continue with it.

The picture above shows it lying against some of the colour finding exercises from 'The Fence'. I spent a happy hour looking up the word fence in a thesaurus, partition, boundary, picket, palisade barrier, paling,guard, rampart,enclose,defend,, separate, fortify, and many more, I find having a list of words helps me concentrate on the design source, and gives me ideas to work from.

I haven't used all the colours I found but have made an 'artistic' decision and used about 3. These are made up of lace weights (Shetland, merino and some strange cone of yarn that can only be the dreaded acrylic) plied together to get the colours which also gives it a textured look.

This picture gives the other side... I love the way it has 2 distinct patterns... this is in fact the right side and I created the pattern to go with this artwork from Mod 1 (although I have to say that the inspiration for the holes came from seeing Lyn's lovely scarf in sea foam stitch done in beautiful hand spun, by herself, merino) I wanted something with much more texture between the holes and I am pleased with the way its turning out.

I find myself drawn again the working in three colours, striping them one row at a time. I find it fascinating how the colours move according to what stitch pattern you are using and how, if you use a pattern that uses a number of rows not divisible by 3, the colours will appear in order...seen in the picture below.. the holey bobbles repeat the colour sequence.

Of course I now have loads of 'what ifs' floating about in what remains of my brain... make it reversible... should be easy enough, just add one more row of the twisted rib so that you are doing the holey pattern on a wrong facing row/ right side row alternately, and turn one of the welts to the other side.... make it lengthwise, make it by increasing from a small end, gradually getting wider and then narrower again, I like the way scarves of this shape wind and sit round your neck... make it in one colour to show the pattern off... change the twisted rib for another pattern stitch.. change the holes making them longer and thinner... use it for something other that a scarf, now that's a difficult one(for me, the person most seduced by scarves) but I can see it as a cuff pattern for a pair of mittens.

Here are a couple more pictures just because Blogger is playing nice today.

module one

2008-07-17T12:01:00.026+01:00

These are some images from my folder of work. None of it has yet been for assesment.

knit and purl samples

The little book holds my abbreviation exercise and two knit and purl samples are along side it.

These are my cast on sample(waiting for some more to join it), cast on's and decorative cast off.

These three are.... assorted rubbings, rubbings and wash and a knit and purl sample

The three below... rubbing from texture collage cut and shapes identified, looking at the lines in the source material and exploring a few textures I can see in the photo

The three below are my source photo, texture collage and a rubbing taken from the collage

Now some recreational knitting.... firstly the start of a scarf based on the 'Cold Mountain' colours(see previous post) using the Morning Surf pattern. I have used 2 colours of lace merino from the Handpaintedyarn company and size 3.5m needles. It is a bit darker and richer than the photo shows.This is for my daughter, she choose the colours, yet again lace weight merino from the Handpaintedyarn company, this time 6 colours.... 2 together for main yarn and 2 x 2 for the highlight nubbles. She want a 'Claptois' type scarf with out the holes caused by the dropped stitches but still ribby looking. I have used a bias rib pattern, the scarf has a great drape.

fenced in!

2008-07-10T14:42:00.006+01:00

I seem to be increasingly drawn to fences lately, wooden ones, stone walls, steel barriers and barbed wire. WHY? I don't know, I keep walking/driving past them and they are 'calling' to me... all sounds a bit hippy but sadly true. The latest one to catch my attention is the humble barbed wire fence.
The colours captivate me...as well as the contrast in textures between the rusted portion and the steel.

Also the 'knot ( is that what it is called?) makes me think of twisted cords and wrappings. What to do with them and the ideas that they are throwing up... having been to Urchfont in Wiltshire for the college's annual end of term exhibition ,where the company artway.co.uk come to ply their wares, I now own lots of different shapes and sizes of sketch book so I think I will just start one on fences and play.
I have been feeling much freer about sketchbooks just lately, much less precious about using one and I think it's helping me to think more creatively. Having somewhere to put random ideas, thoughts, pics etc seems to set them in my mind. So, I have a nice large one now that contains these rambling muses.
I was watching the film Cold Mountain last night and was very taken by Ada's clothing (Nichole Kidman's character), in particular a long dark maroon coat she wore with a lacy bright blue scarf. The coat was belted with a nut brown leather belt finished with a brassy coloured buckle... I just loved this combination of colour so wrote them down in random 'book, where they joined company with a picture of a towel whose pattern was stripe of differing widths broken with a haphazard chevron, a sketch of an expanded grid and some notes and a sample using it (incorporating dropped stiches, cast off/on and ribbing), a dried rose, and some colour chips from a paint card in the colours of a scarf I saw someone in an advert wearing. Written down like this it makes me feel I might becoming slightly unhinged!!

London Fences

2008-06-23T11:01:00.009+01:00

These lovely pics are of the fencing at my sister's house, up in London. This part of the fence is exposed to the elements and provides really exciting shapes, textures and colours to use in design work. I am finding myself drawn to the soft greys , browns, greens and subtle burgundy- oranges present in the wood, unusual for me as I normally prefer lavenders, purples and blues... is my taste maturing as well as my age? I have started to look at the colours more closely, and am just starting out with thread wrappings and colour matching swatches (ahead of myself as I'm not yet completely finished with Mod 1). I started with a striped colour swatch, which was OK--ish but then Jen suggested that I knit the sample using short rows to imitate the more organic lines in the wood.. a great improvement!!

I have been knitting... continuing with the wrap for my daughter, it's now at the tedious stage... you know..almost long enough but not quite!! I do hate it when the knitting seems a chore, it's a very basic lace pattern and therefore not much to keep me interested when knitting so my mind keeps wandering, thinking of other things to knit and make, books to read and yarn to fondle!! It is as long as I am tall...5''6', and I have enough yarn left to add about another 18'' so I will have to hope that it will be long enough for her to throw artily around her shoulders! Made in Fleece Artist Baby kid mohair, bought from Get Knitted in Bristol.

artwork for fences

2008-06-05T12:57:00.007+01:00

I know I should be doing coursework for the HKC&G but I got sidetracked by fences. here is some artwork from a sketchbook I started for the fences.... the book is an old radio times with it's pages stuck together and gessoed.. gives a lovely ripply texture to each page, just right for fences.

It's quite amazing the colours in the fencing panels, who'd have thought you'd find turquoise in the wood!!

I really like the lines and shapes found in the panels, there is something soothing about the way they radiate and twist about.

Finding the shapes in pencil was rewarding, giving lots of opportunity for repeating, and overlapping shapes

These last 2 are my favorites, although they are not in the 'colourway' they could be done using the soft turquoises, greys and browns. Click on any of the pictures to enlarge them

New camera AND New computer!!

2008-05-28T16:12:00.013+01:00

Have taken a short break from blogging to get to know my new camera and computer... two new technologies at once is more than enough to tax my poor aging brain!!

But, here I am...all poised and ready to embrace the 'new world'...well... a step at a time maybe!

Knitting first...the three samples above are patterns from the lovely Japanese stitch dictionaries. I have started out by deciphering the easy(?) ones first and particularly like the unusual use of a drop stitch in the one at the bottom left. I tried this without all the twisted stitches but it looked so bland and lacked any definition that I did not continue with it. The stitch patterns in the books use a lot of twisted stitches... through back of loop on both the knit and the purl side... and it really defines the shapes and lines in the patterning.

I, also, got taken to Get knitted in Bristol by my lovely husband, and ladies/gents...go if you can!! It is wonderfully large, well set out, calm and there are even sofas and non-knitting mags for hubbies and other non-knitter types!! They carry a vast stock of the usuals..Rown, Sirdar, Debbie Bliss etc as well as all those lovely imported brands you only ever see at the Ally Pally.... Fleece Artist, Heartstrings, Cornish Organic etc I know you can order them on the net but it's wonderful to see and touch them in the flesh!! I managed to come away with a bag containing some Fleece Artist kid mohair( already a quarter the way up a wrap for my daughter's birthday), a hank of Lane Borgosesia lace weight..a stunning 1460yds of deep cerise merino, some Addi lace needles, a book and bits and pieces like point protectors... plus a free pen and pattern.

I started to take pics of fences last year, they are full of wonderful stripes and colours, mod 2 Loraine? Depending on the weather it is surprising what colours appear in them. These are a few 'wet fence' pictures to give you an idea.

Plastic Fantastic

2008-05-02T19:21:00.004+01:00

Just have to put a couple of these up on the blog. I have spent sometime in the greenhouse lately getting the seeds started for the allotment, and popping in to water them today I spotted this.... where I had sown seeds the previous day and covered them with clingfilm (to encourage them along) the moisture content had built up between the compost and the clingfilm causing the film to cling to all the lumps and bumps of the earth. Click on them to enlarge them to their full beauty.

I feel a printing with cling film session approaching. I think I will try laying coloured tissue paper between the earth and clingfilm, what will happen when the seeds start to sprout I wonder?

work of art

2008-05-01T08:38:00.002+01:00

Just a short note to say that the beautiful felt painting in the previous blog was made by Caroline Turner, who is the tutor for the felt courses at IDC, also mentioned below.

wonderwool and mountains

2008-04-29T09:03:00.008+01:00

Back now from staying just outside Brecon... stunning, totally stunning is all you can say about the Beacons.

We decided to wrap a few days away around a visit to Wonderwool. The show itself I found a little disappointing and I think I will wait for it to develop more before I visit it again. I was hoping to find stalls and exhibitors there using wool not only in the 'normal' way ( knitting, crochet, felting& weaving etc ) but in innovate ways. I know there are, for example, small businesses in Wales using fleece as duvet fillings etc. It was, essentially a selling show, stall on stall of hand dyed sock yarn! It was nice to see some of the smaller guilds attending, in particular the Longdraw spinning guild, had a go... great fun.... I am still resisting the offer of 2 free spinning wheels... another obsession in the making I think.

This was the IDC stand, the college is in Worcestershire and offers course on Fashion Design, Theatre Costumes and Hand Knitting and Felting etc. their display was from the C&G level 1 Felting course. The standard of the design work was very high and the finished objects showed unique fabric formations and textures. This college is just starting the C&G Hand Knittng course which will be run fortnightly throughout the coming educational year.

The photo on the right is one of the winning entries of the Wonder of Wool competition. It was entitled Forever Blowing Bubbles and was a beautifully rendered 'felt painting', sadly I did not write down the name of the creator on the day and there is no information in the show guide about the competition and its entrants.

I did, however take some great photos of the stock sheds(I seem to be in an 'building phase!)... here are a couple.

Lovely strong lines and blocks of texture, really useful for producing design work.

Blogger seems to have a mind of it's own on placement of pictures today... sorry if they are a little haphazard.

Japanese stitch book part deux!!

2008-04-20T12:17:00.005+01:00

Isn't she lovely, my shiny new Japanese Stitch Book? The stitches are slightly more complex than the ones in the '500' book... with new and different symbol's to translate!! To this end I have joined a group on Ravelry that was set up to help us non-Japanese speaking folks with translating their patterns... still there's a couple of symbols that I'm struggling with at the mo.

And just the one little sample for the course. I really like the way the quilted effect has been caused just by using knit and purl stiches. The top half of the sample was done at a tighter tension to increase that effect.

Japanese stitch books

2008-04-10T14:07:00.009+01:00

I have been lucky enough to receive a Japanese Stitch book from a lovely lady, via a ravelry group, in exchange for some yarn and English sweeties! On the strength of this book I have succumbed and ordered 2 more from YesAsia, which is a great site as you can order from it in English. Here are a couple of pictures from the book. The book gives a diagram of every action(eg.. yarn over, knit stitch) and the designs are charted so its really easy to follow, and being Japanese it is laid out very logically. I saw the exhibition of Knit Japan at the ally Pally in 2005 and was amazed then at the intricacy of the stitch work so its great to have this directory

I have also mounted up some of the samples in the last blog against the artwork that inspired them, but other than that have not done any more knitting for the course, rather I am ploughing my way through the scarf for the ISE6.. nearly done now.

'grey' times

2008-04-01T15:22:00.004+01:00

I have been fiddling about with some grey yarn I bought from a charity shop, I think it's acrylic... I really don't like the stuff, it always makes my hands sweat when I'm knitting with it...... however I do like the stitch patterns I've been making up. Starting from a basic basket weave stitch I have added ribs, taken away ridges, added more texture and different rib patterns whilst still retaining that lovey curved effect. I am using the artwork done on the rock stacks at the Devil's Causeway, Ireland still for inspiration and feel these work well in that context.

I have also been trying out what happens with the 'fisherman's rib' knit stitch when it is combined with other combinations of knit and purl. At the same time I have also used two different sized needles as I thought this would create more stitch definition and it was a way of using the differences in tension creatively. I know a lot of knitting used to be done in the 70's using one very large needle and one the right size for the yarn, but I used one needle one size larger and one three sizes smaller and I have been pleasantly suprised. It is a technique I think I will explore more. I have also been knitting for the International Scarf Exchange 6, but no pics of the scarf yet... it's already been 4 different scarves, in colour, pattern and shape!! I must come to a decision and the times ticking away.

Coach Travel

2008-03-18T10:30:00.007Z

I have been up to London quite a bit recently, on the coach, and each time wish I had remembered to bring my camera. The coach goes quite quickly along the motorway but as it enters the outskirts of London it has to slow right down because of the traffic and progresses in a fit of starts and stops! Being up quite high you get a great view of the captial's skyline, I don't think I had noticed before the sheer numbers of different architecture there are in just the roof lines! Next time I go up I am taking the camera!!

In the meantime here are some pictures from another inspiration source, closer to the ground!!

These were inspired by two ladies, well known in the Embroidery world, Jan Beaney and Jean Littlejohn. They teach various City and Guild courses and Master Classes at Windsor, all over the UK and the World. They wanted to encourage their students to 'see' and so devised the '5 minutes from home' inspiration gathering technique

The idea is that you don't have to travel to find and see inspiration, it really is all around! They themselves produced work for exhibition using this idea(you can see them working on it and the finished works on their DVD's available from Double Trouble Enterprises)

So... I went out into my dead ordinary garden and started taking photo's. It's quite suprising what you find to photo.

These were taken at the end of summer, not long after the floods.

Exhibition

2008-03-03T10:43:00.005Z

I have had to stow my needles for a couple of days to finish getting ready for the Art of Recycling Exhibition at the West Oxon Arts Gallery, Bampton in the Bush, Oxon UK. I have a few rag rugs and some book forms showing in the exhibition and, as usual, have left it right to the very last minute before getting ready. Why does sewing twill tape rod hangers on to the rugs take so long? My fingers are sore as it's quite hard going but... da dah... I'm on the last one.

These are a couple of rough pictures of some of the book forms... simple accordian books, folded so that they open in different ways. I reuse the covers of childrens annual for the boards and decorate the papers with spent dyes, bleach, furniture wax and acrylic paints. as you can see the middle one is still sporting a cute picutre of PINGU!!

mulitple WIP

2008-03-01T10:42:00.008Z

I seem to be starting more than I'm finishing these days. Funny how, when you're supposed to focusing on one thing, all you do is something else. I'm putting all the new starts down to a blacklash againgst small samples... or is it just me looking for an excuse? I've started quite a few new things in the last few days... socks, scarf, and a shawl... one day I'll knit a jumper!!

This is a 'Falling Leaves' sock from the book Favorite socks. I have knitted these before with a few alterations to the pattern, but this time I'm sticking to the recipe...so far. These are done using some lovely Shetland from an EBay seller, it's beautiful wool, comes oiled but washes up so beautifully soft and snuggly.

This is the start of the Melon shawl fron Victorian Lace Today, I have never tried this stitch before, it's very easy to work and grows quickly but I don't think this will come to anything.. just a play. Again in the lovely oiled sheltand in cream. I have just bid on more of this yarn, in different colourways, I really do like it and can you ever have too much!!

A lovely 'scrap' sock using 6 different colours of Handpainted Yarn's merino lace, using up small bits left from other socks. I have made countless socks using this yarn, plying up the lace to what thickness I require; because each seperate lace yarn is hand dyed plying gives wonderful marls without too much 'pooling'.

This little beauty is a start to a square shawl for my daughter, no pattern..just making it up as I go along. Wool is merino lace, bought as a one-of from a ebayer.

A start to a scarf using that wonderful Shetland again( I seem to be having a Shetland moment..could be worse I suppose:) the patterning is coming from the samples done for City and Guilds Handknit course. I really like the crunchy-ness of the fabric so thought I would knit up a scarf in a neutral colour and dye it later.

In a coarser natural Shetland(agin from Ebay) socks for my brother-in-law. Using the basic sock template from Charlene Schurch's More Sensational socks and a sailor's rib on the leg and a variation of K1P1 rib on foot. I really like the idea of having basic templates and loads of pattern's to use with them.. I think it's a great concept for a book and will buy her other one at some time. You can 'plug' in your own patterns, make variants of heel and toe shapes. endless possibilites and all the math done for you..brilliant!!

knit and purl samples

2008-02-27T11:01:00.008Z

These are some samples using my inspiration source, The Giant's Causeway, Ireland. These are very basic, just looking at the varying 'marks' different types and combination of stitches make.

This is a page from my sketchbook roughly looking at the lines made by the rock stacks.

For these 3 samples I have used a basis of K2 P3/P2K3. In the first I have used 2 stitches in knit and 3 stitches in fishermans rib, staggered every 5th row. second sample uses 2 purl and 3 twisted rib, third sample uses 2 knit and 3 twisted rib stitches, both staggered every 5th row. It's amazing the difference in the feel, look and size of the samples... they were all knitted on 30st using 2ply shetland doubled, 2.75m needles.

this sample is made using twisted rib, k & p checks, rev st st and plain knit, again using the rock stacks as inspiration. The stacks themselves are, at first look regular, vertical and orderly but when I looked more deeply I saw that they lean to one side, are made up of different lengths and widths and depths. I picked out a couple of textures in the rock stacks and used them veritcally and made a more formal arrangement of the stitch patterns, done in 4ply cotton yarn on 2.75m needles.

chicken sheds

2008-02-27T07:56:00.008Z

Spent the last few days away in the caravan in (I would love to say sunny, but drizzle was the order of the day followed by minus temperatures at night) Buckinghamshire. We went to Milton Keynes(never again!!) as I knew there was a Border's bookshop there and hoped it would have loads of interesting books and magazines, sadly not. I bought Knit Knit which is a great read.. such wonderful, wacky people and projects, but nothing else. It's unusual for me to come away from a bookshop so light-handed.

Back at the field( yes we were staying in a field!) I was overcome with the old chicken shed. It had such lovely lines and grids and the cowlings made me think of Norse warriors(phew.. too old for thoughts like that). I love the way the light is reflecting on the windows, making a focal point of that end. There's lots of potential for design here... what would you call a sweater designed using a chicken shed??

cast off/pick up

2008-02-20T12:18:00.003Z

Had a quick 'play' with casting off and pick up again along the reverse side of the fabric. This really excites me ( am I sad or what?) as, in effect, you are turning the stitch horizontally. Tried casting off on the knit side and picking up knitwise/purwise/k1p1, also casting off on purside and picking up knitwise, k1p1. Had a go at just casting off and picking up a few stitches... this needs a bit more work to eliminate the gap and large stitch at end of cast off. I'm sure I must have seen or read about this technique somewhere before but I can't remember where or when...possibly something to do with Scandinavian knitting... I have a beautiful old book of Norweigen knitting I pore through.

using textured ribs

2008-02-20T08:56:00.003Z

Spent another freezing day(boiler packed-up 2 days ago...man arriving Fri!!) looking like a Mitchelin man, tucked up under a throw knitting. To try out the different combinations of ribs/knit and purl stitches To start I knit a long strip just randomly putting in different stitches at a whim. I find this often throws up unexpected combinations.

This is a sample using fishermans rib/garter st/and stocking st combo the strip threw up. I have formalised it to produce a more regular stitch pattern. It has created a lovely crunchy fabric with lots of give.

I had terrible trouble trying to photograph it so scanned it instead. This is the 'reverse' of the sample which I think is lovely. Click on the pics to enlarge... I resized them so as not to use too much of my blogger allowance.

This is the 'front'. As I was knitting lots of 'what if's' came up... what if I knit it on a tighter tension(sample done in 100% aran on 4.5mm), what if I only use smaller needles on some of the rows, what if I reverse the fabric halfway through(I think the garter panels will remain the smae and provide continuity), what if I add colour, what if I stagger the rev st st blocks a bit like a chequerboard, what if I make the strips more irregular( ie longer panels of fisherman's with shorter panels of st st or , of course longer panels of st st/shorter fisherman's). Isn't it exciting the multitude of possibilites from just one sample... at this rate I shall be completing Mod 1 around 2020!! As I was casting off I had another 'bright' moment... I knit a bit of st st at the top of the samples to give the 'foldover' something to grip... I cast off on theknit side and then picked up the purl bump (on rev side) from the stitch just cast off, knit 3/4 rows st st and cast off again...it made a lovely ridge along the fabric. Not sure if this shows up well in the piccy but again threw up lots of 'what if's'

random ribbing

2008-02-17T15:17:00.004Z

I thought I would play about a bit with ribs, trying to see if I could give the suggestion of an ariel view of landscape. I cast on about 60 sts and just did the ribs freestyle. I suppose I could chart them out for a more organised look.The first one I did( in cream aran wool) sort of gives the basic idea.

The blue( merino and angora 2ply) are, I think, much better. the first image is the front and the second the rear. I was trying for random blocks of texture that would relate to field formations, hedgelines and roads etc. I am going to try again using more textured rib patterns( eg mistake rib, garter rib, fisherman's etc) I think they should give a better looking textured surface. I could see these as an inserted panel, or ornate pockets. could also be done on a shaped piece of knitting.... a collar or lapel.

Wheelgate House

2008-02-17T15:06:00.006Z

t these are views of the B&B, taken from the Market Square across the road.

and these are views taken by standing at the front door of Wheelgate.

2008-02-16T08:21:00.000Z

a short interlude, back soon

2007-09-17T11:16:00.000+01:00

A play and some work?

Managed to find a little time, after the hedge-pulling and before rigor mortis set in, to play alittle.

This sample is made from dyed tissue bonded to butter muslin, with the outline stitched on machine(yes, that's right... the monster is out!!) using one of the stitch patterns that came on the beast. Stitched again, inside the line, with straight machine stitching, cut away around the outside line and slashed between the internal line and outline. Love the texture bonding the tissue to fabric gives...tissue was well crumpled before appling.

these 2 are my 'play' with the idea of reversible reverse applique. % layers. The middle layer is glazed cotton, then lace and then lining material added to each side . Had to draw round shape on each side of sandwich onto the topmost material (if this was a more resolved sample I probably would use the tissue paper method for a cleaner finish) One side I stiched around the inside of the line with buttonhole stitch... done 'inside out' in keeping with theme. The other side I used random lenght button-hole around the outside of the line and whipped it with a nice glizty thread. ... can see lovely scarves made this way using 3 or more layers over middle backing, possibly using a wavy grid as design.

This sample is actually one of the required 6... 4 layers on to backing material. First design tacked from rear & machine stitched several times around outline, second design tacked from back and...top shape..couched and whipped with vicoise raffia

middle shape... just tacking stitches

bottom shape... just couched with the raffia.

I have cut away varoius sections of the shapes caused by the over lapping of the machine and hand stitching. The outline has been cut to different depths and top and bottom of shape. I have tried to show that you can get a complex look from simple shapes. Now this is not one of the most attractive samples but I think it offers a lot of potenial for further developement (say if a resolved sample was required)

2007-09-14T13:33:00.001+01:00

Nearly halfway!

These are my first stitched/reverse applique samples. The colours not that true, they are brighter than this but my scanner seems determined to mute them!! I have used a variety of materials that I already had as I will have to mail order for more organza's, sheers etc and I wanted to make a start. I like the effect of the layering, it required a lot of design choices... which design and whether to simplify or elaborate it, which materials where?, which colours where?, where to cut...inside or outside the line or both, what stitches to use. I am going to do some more using my Nemesis..THE SEWING MACHINE!!! Am I the only one that is frighten of this bit of kit?, my shoulders tense and I will even do housework to get out of using it. Once I get it set up and going I'm usually OK but ... well... I'd rather do the hand sewing. I can see there's an opportunity to make reversible reverse applique... if you get what I mean... if I use 4 or more layers I should be able to cut out a layer from the front and one the back to make both shapes...positive and negative, cutting inside the line on one side and outside on the other. I'm going to be a big girl and try this out using machine stitching...

2007-08-21T09:06:00.001+01:00

Cut paper designs. It was interesting to see the number and type of variation in pattern achieved in this exercise. I used the pieces left from cutting the squares to create border and new design shapes. There were moments of 'Oh... that's disappointing' as well as some nice surprises.

I liked the idea of placing the cutouts alongside the original to extend the design. The second design shape was made using scissor handles and produced some really appealing shapes. I then moved on to the coloured paper layered exercises.

This exercise was interesting, some I placed on 'busy' backgrounds and others on contrasting ones. Although I have outlined most of the shapes with pen, I have not necessarily gone all around the motif. Sometimes I have just highlighted certain edges. I felt that this made the motifs more visually appealing.

This page was a bit of a play, I placed the point of my original distorted shape into each of the 4 corners of the square and let the rest of the shape overlap. The page shows both positive and negative shapes. I really liked the outcome, feeling that although it still related to the original design shape it was much more irregular and pleasing than some of the more formal shapes I had obtained in the cut paper exercise.

These 2 pages are design sheets b & c from chapter 3 ( I have decided to go back through my design sheets and number them before I send them to Sian) showing shape changed by way of scale, pattern, new shape from old, complex counter change, divide and separate etc. Yet again it was interesting just what happened to the original shape during these exercises. I particularly liked the all over pattern made using the new shape from 'divide and separate'...it reminded me of carpet patterns.

2007-08-07T17:12:00.000+01:00

I am now doing the Design Development ( chapter3) and this has kept me busy snipping and sticking. The possibilities for distorting the shape are endless because each time the shape is distorted you can repeat the interchange/ counterchange/symmetry/asmmetry/repeat pattern etc exercises with the newly distorted one, offering countless variations. I decided to use a colour interchange on the backgroung, overlapping the various exercises, to give a richer look to the sheet.....just noticed yet again I have forgotton to title it!!

I then spent some time in the notebook exploring a few ideas the exercises had thrown up... distorting the shape into a wavy grid, cutting the distorted shape out of concertina folded paper.

I then realised that the shape would change depending on how it was orientated within the shape so tried out a few of these, also that you use the distorted shape and distort it again into the same shape (a double distortion). Of course you could repeat that as many times as you liked

I also tried distorting it back into the original cross shape, but preferred it where it was put back into half a cross. I then made a start on design sheet C. Creating the border was fiddly as my shape was not regular or symmetrical. Before I tried a new shape I tried out several in the notebook and came up with a couple that worked.

Its great the outlines that have appeared. This has been a bit of a wordy blog but how DO you say all this in just a few sentences.

2007-08-04T17:36:00.000+01:00

A couple more pages from the 'sun-sitting' yesterday, just finding lines really. This one uses a small photo of a cross in a graveyard and from that I have drawn around using the shapes and lines in the pictures, changing the scale and size of them. Mostly done in pencil, coloured lines done using Inktense pencils from Derwent and given a wash of water.

This is another human cruciform and I have tried to get the organic contour lines of the human body to move into the angular lines of a cross. I think it needs a larger piece of paper. more lines some of which to be in the bold black to show the transformation.

2007-08-04T17:11:00.000+01:00

Cut Paper shapes...whilst doing these I realised I had not put the heading on the previous sheets...have rectified that. I enjoyed doing these and like the one using the human form( bottom right on large sheet) the best.

these are the samples of the coloured papers used for the cut shapes, and to be used for further exercises in Chapter 3. I have used tile spacers to show some of the different patterns you can get with a cross shape; I placed these under the side triangles and rubbed over them with oil pastels. I find the mix of textures(collaged papers, rubbings, washes) on one page appealing.

Whilst taking a (well earned??) siesta in the sun I had this great idea, original I thought at the time. I made a cruciform shape from stones from the gravel, wet them, placed a sheet of tissue over the top and painted it with dyes. Left it to dry and I hoped to get the outilines of the stones where the dye had pooled. It wasn't so successful with stones but I tried it again with the tile spacers and that worked a treat. Tried it also with pressed Gladioli flowers(like you do) and, although you can't see the outlines of the flowers that clearly, I liked the effect. I say I thought this was an original thought but, whilst having my morning coffee in bed(weekend treat as I rise very early on other days) and browsing a back copy of Quilting Arts there was an article by Barbara Schneider where she does a similar thing using cloth and solar sensitive dyes...hers look tons better than mine!!...Issue 11 Fall 03 for anyone interested. Funny how some things stay in your mind to be retrived later!!

2007-08-03T15:08:00.000+01:00

have been making a start on the cut paper shapes but got sidetracked by the sunshine so 'played' a little in the journal that's accompanying the module whilst sitting outside

I like the effect of this page... line drawings of bits of cruciforms from the photos I took, just varied the scale.

done using pencil and koh-i-noor dyes

2007-08-02T10:50:00.000+01:00

Cracked it!!

2007-08-02T10:40:00.000+01:00

I'm having trouble making these photos go where I want them too so sorry if they are appearing all over the place.

2007-08-02T10:32:00.001+01:00

starting out

2007-08-02T10:23:00.000+01:00

How to start that was my first hurdle. Having viewed other Distant Stitchers my first inclination was to 'run for the hills'!!

Here are the first pages I have done, having chosen cruciforms over stars.