Crochet motif the second

It's quite fun trying to recall how to do crochet and figure out how to get an effect I want. Much trial and error. Here's Thing Two

Very nice pale green, but splitty yarn, and a bit soft for stitch definition. It's really knitting yarn, but was okay for an experiment.

I might even remember granny squares if I get out of the circle zone.

Change of pace. relearning crochet

Hands tired from Icord, brain needs rest from the fabric work, so I'm relearning crochet. I'm not interested in following patterns, so I plan to just try a few things in the form of these rounds. I can use up yarn scraps while I remember how to do it. So here's the first one.

There may eventually be a colorful pillow. Or throw. Or a couple of coasters..time will tell.

Art is what happens when you had a different thing in mind

I worked on the fabric piece again and decided I'd better be two flights up, in the studio where the light is better, the iron lives and the small stash of fabric and ribbon is to be found. This is the result of watching Arne and Carlos make a crazy quilt square and ironing each piece before stitching. Then again after stitching. This results, along with their massive talent, in a great finish. I developed partner envy, since one stitched, one ironed. Definitely speeds things up.

A good idea, it turned out, because in the studio I found a few interesting bits from old fiber artworks which I can up cycle, and I came across the rest of those silk printouts I made. These are images of my own artworks, scanned then printed on transparent silk.

I already started thinking about another work, quilt style, using them, and did incorporate a couple into the current artwork. But a couple of happy juxtapositions happened, looking at my own embroidery with a transparency. They go well, and they say something, always a good thing when art makes sense.

Here's the piece I'm officially working on, with a lot of bits of old artworks  appearing. Far to go yet.

And here's a  black stitched bird on white lawn, under a transparency of the collection of my Easter eggs, a few of which I paint every year, keep one, give away the rest.

 I like this statement.

And here's a drawing of a weed at the labyrinth I drew onsite then made again at home,  stitching freehand, using the drawing as a reference. It's overlaid with a  transparency of a mixed media piece, long gone to a collector, about tidepools. There's a small alternate version of this in the current piece.

Surprisingly productive day.

Transparency is back

So while I was looking at today's work, now that it's mounted on a linen base, I liked the areas of layers of transparency, much yet to do here, this is barely begun, and look what it made me do:

I remembered the silk transparencies I was working on a while back, with the idea of  working on them quilt style. I had framed and exhibited some, but here seemed to be the time to  work them up differently.

So. Wouldn't you know it, I'm working on both at once. These will be wall pieces, too fragile to be pillows.

Can't wait for my rotary blade to get here so I can act on the ideas. There will be goldwork.

Moving along there

This is a great visual adventure, as the shapes and colors start to make sense. That ragged bit looked at first like a ragged bit, but when muffled by the organza, turned into a distant mountain range. Or possibly the Cleveland Hills, from Yorkshire childhood, which insert themselves a lot into my work without notifying me first. Meanings keep coming and going, and I started adding on top, instead of waiting to embellish. The additions are part of the composition, can't just be stuck in at the end, I now realize.

This is probably where I depart from the tradition of crazy quilting. There's more of a Gee's Bend influence moving in. I say this with humble recognition of the high art of the GB  quilt artists. I know I'm making art because my brain gets tired, and about an hour is as long as I can work without setting it aside and resting my ability to actually see what's going on.

With crafting, making something already decided on, such as knitting to a pattern, I can go on till my hands inform me they're ready to stop.

And I had to break down and shop. For rotary cutter blades. Both my cutters are down to their last blade which is blunt, so I had to. It will be nice to have cutter action that's less like gnawing and more like clean cutting.

New adventure in art under way

I started my foray into sort of crazy quilting, sort of applique abstract art in fabric by finding my  little stash of fabric bits. Almost all silk or linen, some embroidery, ready for a start.

I did start with the five sided center piece, the way several YouTube tutes told me to,  and after that drifted off into various other ideas. This is all hand stitching, and the seams I know I will cover are left raw, the others turned under. Quite a bit of the silk and linen I had hand dyed or stamped or both.

And there's silk from friends, (Cynthia, some from you), the center piece is Thai silk brought back by Carol P from Thailand, there are bits of organza from Girija's wedding sari, bits of my own discarded embroidery, some rescued petit point, a surprising array from someone who doesn't work with fabric..

and when I get the base done I'll use motifs from some of the crochet I have around the house, as well as motifs from my own embroidery, in need of a good home.

Wearable wall hanging getting there

The main body is done, with many kinds of stitch patterns, beading, yarnovers, traditional and made up by the knitter as she went. Here's the whole thing, really hard to get a pic of a long piece like this with a simple camera, and details reading top to bottom.

 

Still to come: a length of Icord, in progress, which will be snailtrailed all over it and maybe beyond.

Then what, I wonder..

Curating, a rare event around here

I'm usually making, rarely looking back. But these favorite socks, Cabled Top Socks by Noreen Crome-Findlay, called for some care. Knitted ages ago with yarn given to me, which ran out, I ended up with toes in a different yarn. And wore one out. But since the worn out part was all the second yarn, it wasn't hard to pick up stitches and cut away the unwanted part.

It was triggered by seeing Arne and Carlos and their easiest sock in the world, where they knit a kind of tube up from the toe, but insert a row of scrap yarn where the heel will go. Then go back to pick up stitches on either side of the scrap yarn, to knit the heel

. Similar idea here. Picking up the stitches before removing the unwanted yarn.

The hard part was tracking down my pattern to see how to do it, and searching for a set of  size three dpns to do it. Then, nervous knitting over breakfast on election day, and here we are with the rebuild done. With another nonmatching yarn, but the other was long gone.

And, rainy cold day, these are the best socks for right now. I made and gave a couple of pairs of these socks for friends, years ago. Didn't do the cable top, but the spiral is really interesting to see as it develops. Since it molds to your foot, there's no heel turning. I made these socks a long time ago, when I was a bigger size and they were snugger then.

And the long knitting sampler idea is going on. Plus some Icord, which will decorate it once I get a lot more done. I've done several areas of beading, much to the interest of my knitting group who were unfamiliar with the process of beading using a crochet hook. I have a few of the very fine ones you need for this, and offered to give one to anyone wanting to try it out.

Let's hope we save the republic before the end of the day. If not, I will be out there working again. Actually, if so, I'll still be out there doing my bit. There's always need of some kind.

If you have the US vote and have not yet used it, please do. If you have, thank you, and maybe cast on a bit of knitting to get you through the evening of returns.