Here's the setup for AIR Week Seven, including beaded knitting which uses a crochet hook, stitching on net, and designing ideas.
We were up against a beautiful Spring day, which kept people away in droves, so, since few people got the benefit of this setup, I plan to repeat it next week. That's the lemon part.
However, the lemonade part is that for the first time, I got to work during the session, not needing to stop and explain and show. So here's the lemonade, a finished phone purse, started as a demo.
In fact it wasn't wasted, since I showed a couple of stitchers the crochet hook beading idea the evening before, at our meeting, and then a couple of neighbors who dropped in at home the evening after.
You will see that I now have three beaded phone purses. They seem to fall in seasons, the latest one, in string and blue glass beads, being a summer idea, the white with the blue wooden beads and gold strap a winter one, and the dark rust with I think agates, or some such precious stone, and silver strap, a fall one. This was not planned, but it occurred to me just now that it's what I seem to have done.
Since I plan to learn a bit of Ukrainian embroidery, and have a kit and instructions ready to go, and Ukrainian embroidery features flowers, perhaps I can stitch a Spring phone purse..all a bit quirky, but if some people, who shall remain nameless, create pillow covers for the season, well, I can do phone purses. Neener!
And tomorrow I plan to shop for the piping and connectors to build myself a standing embroidery frame. The original wonderful plans, found on Magpie's blog, go here , are for a freestanding or tabletop frame.
This link takes you to a nice post on Magpie's blog, always fun to read, and you will see the joke in the previous para as well as a link to the plans for the frame, created by Kathy Shaw, so you get a twofer. Or a threefer, really. I think Kathy deserves some sort of citation for this idea, and you will too, once you take a look at the plans.
I plan to adapt them to make a floor frame, and my stitching buds are eager to see how it comes out, after they saw the pvc niddy noddy in action! They asked me for the link to the original ideas, which I sent, but I will show them my finished product, with any luck, soon.
And while I was musing about this, and thinking, what a pity, I seem to be weaving rather than stitching more than anything at the moment, that it struck me with a blow like a meteor to the head, that this can also be a weaving loom! And it would be easy to remove the weaving at the end by sliding the members aside rather than cutting and tying the warp ends. Exactly like removing yarn from the niddy noddy. And it's at an angle all the better to save my stiff neck. Now I really can't wait to get on with this.
I can use up the rest of the piping left over from the niddy noddy, plus buy more piping (I guess it will be like the hot dogs and rolls, never coming out exactly even, there will always be leftover pipe), and various connectors.And I'll report back in due course.
This week's musing, while I worked on a tapestry, about what to present for the seventh in the series of nine Artist in Residence sessions on the textile arts was given a jolt today by a tweet about crochet-hook beaded knitting. Thanks so much, Quinn. I've been thinking idly for a while about this and hadn't incorporated the idea into any plans.
So in addition to the elements of design and transfer, using Vilene and net, and other ideas, I'm putting in beaded knitting, using samples I use all the time.
This is the technique where you use a tiny crochet hook to slide the bead onto the knitted stitch, as needed, rather than the counting and planning that the other form of beaded knitting requires. Much more to the taste of a knitter who likes spontaneity. That would be me.
The crochet hook I found in a thrift store box of old sewing items, many of which I passed on to sewers, but the extremely small hooks I kept since they're not easy to find. The hook is almost hard to see with the naked eye, that small. There are YouTube videos of this technique, so I won't describe it here, but do try it.
So here are a couple of examples, both are phone purses, which I've made a lot of and given away a lot of, and which are great for a beginning knitter, small enough to finish and useful, too. Adding the beaded element is fun for the next step. The one on the right is a lovely calming piece to hold in your hand with beads between your fingers. This was a discovery after I'd made it, and I'm very pleased with it.
The left one has a strap braided from an old piece of broad gold cording, while the strap on the right one is crocheted. Both go right down the sides of the purses, making them secure.
No pix yet of the Vilene ideas, not yet set up. It's all part of the Art is for Everyone approach! you can, too, design your own, if you want to. There will be a net embroidery work in progress, based on my drawing, and I'll be bringing in other drawings which I have also used as design starters. I didn't draw them for that purpose, but they lent themselves.
Aside from the AIR 2016 planning, I've made a little freeform tapestry, here seen off the loom, but not quite finished -- a couple of things need to happen before I declare it done. These are all threads I spun and dyed
The trailing warp yarns are pretty long, and are part of the design of the piece. I got them by warping right over the back of the (cardboard) loom rather than just up and down the front.Their ends need to be finished in some way so as to give them a bit more weight. Title suggestions will be welcome for this piece. It helps me see what other people see when they look.
This tapestry happened while I was thinking about another, completely different one. Art goes that way quite often. But I'm going to take another run at the one I meant to make.
