What do you think of this crocheted container? It appeals to me and I like the rustic colouring of the yarn. The only problem is that it wasn't meant to be a container.
Does this give you a clue?
Yep, it was meant to be a hat. Something went a bit massively haywire with my tension. That will teach me to be idle and not do a swatch. Ah well, at least it's a nice container. :-)
Meshell and I made a supreme sacrifice recently - we decided NOT to go to the huge Craft Show that comes to town each year. Why would we do this I hear you ask, shaking your head with amazement. Well, the reason is this - we decided we'd like to spend our pennies on a new toy instead - A Yarn Ball Winder! How exciting is THAT!
You have no idea how good this is. In our current yarn/roving/fleece/spinning mode, the house is draped with skeins of yarn every which where, and the thought of winding them all into balls was a daunting one. So we bought our toy, and set it up yesterday. One of us doing the arms wide thing, holding the skein, the other winding it. And it makes these wonderful, centre-pull yarn cakes.
We wound about 20 cakes of yarn, mostly Meshell's beautiful multicoloured spinnings - I'm sure she'll do one of her usual gorgeously colourful blog posts very soon to show you.
I finally sat down with my handspun fleece yarn and had a trembling attempt at doing a cable swatch. I've never before done anything more complicated than knit one purl one, so lots of deep concentration trying not to lose my place in the pattern. I was undeniably gobsmacked to actually see a PATTERN emerge! Yay, I did cable, I did cable happy dance
I've been in a reading mood lately too, what with the cold weather and all. I've recently finished Five Quarters Of An Orange by Joanne Harris (who wrote Chocolat). What a great book, I'm off to hunt down her newest one, called "The Lollipop Shoes".
This is one I'm reading now, seems to have a similar vein to the one above. Sort of culinary based, full of European traditions, just about people pottering through life. So far it's very enjoyable.
I also read this one last week - Crow Lake by Mary Lawson. Again, another good one
It's been a week of variety, of experiments, of dashing from one idea to the next, finishing none. But that's ok because progress has been made and I'm happy with the things I've dabbled in. Allow me to elaborate...
I finally plucked up the courage to knit a swatch using the first skein of yarn that I spun from fleece. It's a bit fuzzy but looks ok I think. I've taken the bull by the horns and decided to try and knit Steve a spiffy jumper that has cable panels down the front and the rest of the jumper is seed stitch or stockingette. It's going to take me a while. I have read Elizabeth Zimmerman's wise words about you MUST MUST MUST do a gauge swatch, and I figured that
a) I am a loose knitter
b) I am using a totally different yarn to the pattern
c) my spun yarn has glaring inconstencies regarding thickness and
d) I have no idea what I am doing
that I best heed EZ's wise words and get my gauge right! Do you think that will give me a fighting chance? :-)
My mum and dad have just returned from a holiday to the Barossa Valley and look what mum bought me for a giftie. It's a pack of yummy wine related fabric, isn't she a sweetie. She may find herself getting a quilted wine cooler for Xmas, who knows! And how do you like my thrifted crocheted doily, I think it's very pretty. Edit: And to the eagle eyed Knittingand who thought this actually looks like a knitted doily with a crocheted edge - on closer inspection, yes you are right! Thanks Knittingand!
Now THIS is what I made this morning. It's home made toasted muesli ala Shula who adapted her recipe from here. Holy toasted coconut Batman, it's deeeeelicious! I followed Shula's recipe fairly closely, but I also added chopped walnuts and pepitos. I love toasted pepitos, they swell up and go very crunchy. I was a bit weirded out by the idea of adding cardamom though and chickened out! And when it came to added the dried fruit, I used the standard sultanas and currants, along with dried cranberries which I love, but also the piece de resistance - dried strawberries! I'd never seen them before and spotted them at the supermarket quite by chance - they are very good! The other delight was that I splurged on was a little bottle of REAL maple syrup. God it's expensive which is why we've only ever had crappy fake stuff before now. We all lined up with a teaspoon and had a sampling - YUMMY YUMMY YUMMY - I think I want to live in Canada. Anyway, we now have a big container full of yummy, crunchy muesli - thanks for posting the recipe Shula! :-)
My insides are jumping around with excitement right now, I've just discovered The Crochet Coral Reef Project. Oh my lord, if you are interested in freeform crochet then go take a look, make sure you look at the galleries. I've been investigating freeform crochet for a few months now, just reading, looking at pics and absorbing, revving myself up to have a play.
I've got 6 skeins of hand dyed yarn that I bought in an online sale recently that are a bit coarse and I've been trying to think of something to use it for, and this idea is just perfect. The colours of this yarn are very 'nature' and would look darn spiffy as brain coral and tube worms. I've spent hours wandering through the Crochet Coral Reef site, jotting down ideas and suggestions - the people there are very generous with their explanations of how to create certain effects when you look at the taxonomy gallery photos. It's basically called the hyperbolic effect - pretty much just regular and intense stitch increasing which produces convoluted effects around the edge. Ooooo, I love it!!!
On a different note, I thought I'd show you the progress on my Kandinsky cross stitch...
Compared to the last photo, taken in October 2006. It's a slow process as I only cross stitch for a couple of hours a week when our group gets together, and the main focus of our group I might add is to dissect the problems of the world and the neighbourhood, and to drink champagne, so actually doing cross stitch is a poor second... or third... :-)
Wassily Kandinsky painted this in 1925 and it's called "Yellow-Red-Blue" (no marks for originality there!). I used a cross stitch conversion program to turn the image into a stitch pattern. It's quite interesting to see how the pattern has interpreted certain parts of the painting, particularly the thin straight lines - the cross stitch has hints of lines rather than solid ones. I'm not sure yet if I'm going to do any back stitch. I'm thinking that I probably will, just here and there.
And changing the subject yet again, I forgot to mention that Steve and I scored free tickets to the football a few weeks ago. We thoroughly enjoyed watching our beloved West Coast Eagles flog the pants off the hapless Melbourne Demons.
This is the Eagles mascot, who was wandering around outside the ground putting people in headlocks or hugging pretty girls and posing for the camera. He has attitude, you can see by look in his Eagle eye :-) That bit of blond hair in front of him is the fleeting image of a young lady who has just escaped his taloned clutches...
This was very very cool.... at one end of the stadium that contained over 40,000 excited people waiting in anticipation for the game to begin, a man released a REAL eagle - it was freaking huge! It gracefully and slowly flew from one end of the oval to the other, flew through the goalposts, then parked itself on top of the grandstand. In the meantime then handler walked into the middle of the oval where he placed something yummy on top of a giant football, then as I watched him I saw him tap the football with a stick, at which point the eagle lazily turned around and looked at him, then took off, flying back through the goalposts and landed on the giant football to eat his reward. Then the handler put the eagle (did I mention he was huge, he totally dwarfed his handler) onto his arm and walked the perimeter of the ground. It was awesome! I was amazed that the eagle didn't freak out at all the noise of the crowd.
Drum roll ~~~~~~~~~~~~
I have finished my Ripple Crochet cushion!
I know, there are people everywhere who have finished these massive ripple blankets - legends, and there are even overachievers who are on to ripple number 2 (Kirsty - haven't you anything better to do with your time woman! :-) ). But I am a plodder, crafts do not move quickly in my fair hand, and I'm a shocker for not finishing things so to have a completed task is worth a glass of celebratory wine (done, was good)
Anyway, this is the front of the cushion, I love this colour combination, very under the sea.
Then I ran out of green wool, so decided to use one of my first spinning attempts, done in lairy bright green. Uneven blobby handspun is quite a challenge to crochet I discovered, but makes for interesting abstract kinda texture!
My camera has had a hissy at this point, it can't quite cope with all this bright colour and hasn't reproduced it very well in this shot, it has a weird tone to it.
At this point I discovered I was a little enthusiastic with my ripple rows and had made it 3 rows too long to make a square cushion. Solution (thanks Meshell) was to create a fold over flap on the back and secure it with buttons. I had a hankering for a big of zingy bright yellow...
And, and, the piece de resistance - POMPOMS! I don't know about the rest of you, but I can't stand waste, and here I was with a tiny bit left of 5 balls of wool, so instead of having them lie around and go to waste I thought I'd use it all up and make a pompom for each corner. I must say that I'm delighted with the slightly ridiculous look they have given the cushion. :-)
I tell you what, it's the comfiest, softest most gorgeous cushion to lean into - you positively sink into it. Steve likes it too and seems to think that this will be his special "lean against whilst playing on the X-Box cushion", ha!
And this is the back, which side do you like better? It's amazing how different a few buttons and a different green can make it look actually.
It went like this...
Meshell: nag nag nag (over the past week), we have to visit Bilby Yarns, they have cool stuff - yarn, roving, fleece, spinning wheels, bits and bobs
Me, beaten down by the constant nagging: Ok, let's go
Arrive at said Bilby Yarns
Me, hissing under my breath: We are just looking Meshell, we are not buying ANYTHING. In particular we are not buying a spinning wheel, we are raw beginners and need to learn our craft before making frivolous purchases of expensive equipment
Lady in the shop: Anything I can help you with?
Me: I'm curious about the price of a new spinning wheel
Lady in the shop: They start around $570
Me: Oh (bugger)
Lady in the shop: But I have 3 or 4 second hand ones here, this is a nice one, why don't you sit down and have a try
Me: Ok, ooo, this has a lovely smooth motion
Lady in the shop: It's $120
Me: I'll buy it!
Pathetic isn't it. :-)
Me, upon arriving home: Steve, guess what, I'm going to knit you a jumper
Steve: Oh, that's nice
Me: See this bag of fleece.... and there is a spinning wheel to go with it
Steve: Riiiight
And Meshell is beside herself with joy, not quite believing that we have a spinning wheel when her mother sounded so stern and determined one step from the door of the shop. We have to wait til Thurday to pick it up, as the lady had to clean it up a bit.... she bought it from a hippy man from Margaret River and he left the cobwebs on it :-)
So, there you are then
I am such a bad blogger, I haven't been here for over a week! Now I can't decide whether to do one ginormous post or a couple of separates. Lets wing it and see what happens.
I'm not as happy as I could be today though, some lowlife decided to smash the window of my son's car last night and pinch some stuff that he had left on the back seat. Hours and hours of phone calls to police and insurance companies and windscreen repairers later and hunting the house to find 'proof of ownership' to satisfy the insurance company I think it's sorted. Grrr! It kind of freaks you out a bit, I keep wondering if the person is coming back or if they are now watching our house. Hopefully it was an opportunistic crime done by someone walking past our house near my son's car parked on the lawn.
Onwards to happier things.... let's see. I'm reading a great book at the moment - "Girl With A Pearl Earring" by Tracy Chevalier. It's such a richly descriptive book, very captivating. I think I need to track down the DVD of the movie - is it any good anyone?
Meshell and I are on to another craft obsession - yarn! It started off with a bit of knitting and a bit of crochet to buying yarn to buying roving to buying a couple of drop spindles and now you find us obsessively hand spinning yarn! Well, trying to anyway. Meshell is definitely getting the hang of it and is spinning up some cool yarn - I think she'll do a blog post this week and show you. My attempts are 'interesting'
In the instructions I've been reading it says to rejoice over your knobbly, slubbed and uneven spinning, that you have produced novelty yarn and expert spinners have a great deal of trouble producing it because they are so used to spinning smoothly. So I have embraced this theory, as well as laughed at it - I have most definitely produced novelty yarn!!
I've also been plugging along with my ripple cushion.
I'm getting a bit addicted to crochet. I like that if you lose the hook then only one stitch undoes at a time whereas knitting can prove to be a disaster cos I'm not clever enough to work out how to rescue a dropped stitch, so I'm constantly in dread of one of those little suckers falling off! Crochet is much more salvageable it seems. I bought "The Idiot's Guide To Knitting And Crochet" today, right up my alley!
I've been a baaad blogger lately, I can't seem to find much to chat about. I suspect this means I am dull, colourless and boring. Not completely colourless though, I've still in yarn mode and have been knitting and crocheting.
My Ripple crochet cushion is coming along slowly. I really like the colour scheme, however I must say that I'm a teeny bit jealous of Meshell's gorgeous yarns - hers are very smooth and fine, so her stitches are beautifully defined and really soft, whereas mine are a bit more fuzzball. It's kinda funny peeking into our house, as you'll quite often see two girlies rippling along at the same time. :-) We are suckers for crazes.
Continuing on the yarn theme, look at my fabulous birthday present from Meshell. It's hand spun and hand dyed yarn from KnittyDirtyGirl. Aren't the colours just divine! I love the variations in hand spun yarn too, it's so interesting.
I knitted up about half the yarn into a square, it was interesting to see where the colours placed themselves. I'm going to have a go at weaving the rest.
Hoping to get my mindset back to embroidery and TAST next week. I've decided to start making my stitch samples into bookmarks, so I've marked appropriate sized rectangles onto fabric as guidelines in readiness. I've been a bit troubled by just doing samples for 'no reason' - I know that sounds wrong and that it's a learning situation and that is a reason in itself, but I kinda feel that I need a purpose. I'm still to finish the serviette box embroidery, but I like the idea of starting a collection of bookmarks too. Bookmarks make nice gifts
I'm having trouble settling back into pre-holiday routines, I can't quite settle down to embroidery just yet. Sooooo, what's the solution.... fondle a different textile for a bit! It's all Meshell's fault, she's making a very gorgeous ripple blanket, in keeping with the world explosion of ripple crocheting. Hence my craft interest for the the week, I can't quite cope with the thought of crocheting a whole blanket, so guess what I'm doing...... yep, a CUSHION! I'm so predictable. :-)
And, and this is also Meshell's fault, I've just spent a fortune on yarn at Knit Happens. She just happened to mention that there was an online yarn sale, so, what does one do when the Aussie dollar is measuring up well with the US dollar?..... you send all your Aussie dollars to a US yarn store. :-) I might point out before you go racing over to have a look that there's not much left, I was sad to see that there was no Koigu yarn left - that is something I covet.
I don't do a huge amount of knitting or crochet, but I've been trying to build up a stash of various bits and pieces for a while now. I'm interested in doing some wool felting after seeing some of the fantastic felted backgrounds in the TAST group. So, I'm kinda leaping about from one craft interest to the next at the moment, depending on what mood I'm in. Woolly girl this week and hopefully Embroidery chicky babe next week.
And the tipple in the title, Tamar Ridge Sauvignon Blanc, nothing gets that crochet hook running smoothly like a nice glass of Tasmanian wine :-)
I love making cushions. They are a less formidable task than larger objects and I also like the hodge podge of cushion variety on the settee. Now this cushion is a hodge podge in itself, a regular riot of colour. Those of you who read my blog in its early days may well remember my foray into knitting - I started churning out many mitred squares in various colours and sizes. Well, FINALLY I made it up into a cushion yesterday. I backed the knit section with cotton fabric so it wouldn't stretch out of shape, and here it is...
It's bright isn't it!! Lucky for me that I love lairy stuff. Do you know it is the MOST comfortable cushion to lean into - soft and squashy and just right. The reason I had a go at mitred knitting was after Melody Johnson posted this on her blog - her cushions are one of the yummiest things I've ever seen! 
And here is a close-up of knitting, for no reason apart from the fact that I like to amuse myself by taking macro photos. :-)
