Band Robin

I promised a couple of weeks ago that I would post photos of some stitching I recently completed. This is for a Round Robin.





The piece you see here is Margaret's Band Robin. She has stitched the glorious tulips which are at the top. I have added the amaryllis design beneath. You may recall the photos of the amaryllis from an earlier entry to the Blog.

This second photograph shows some of the detail of the stitching and the beading. The threads I have used are YLI silk, whilst the beads are Mill Hill small bugle beads. The colours are more accurate in the top picture.

The following pictures show my own Band, currently in the USA. I have used YLI Jeans Stitch on 28 count fabric. The background is a mottled blue. The fabric was purchased rather than dyed by myself... perhaps something else to try one day. The booklet is travelling round with my embroidery.

Knitting

I must be mad, but I've started knitting again..........

I found myself listening to a really interesting podcast by a male knitter from Australia:

http://www.sticksandstring.com.au/

Its well worth a listen.

Unfortunately, I have now got back into knitting once more. For me knitting is addictive, once I start I cannot stop until I run out of wool or finish the project.

I do have one knitting UFO (UnFinished Object). This was started a couple of years ago. Its a Jaegar pattern called "Hattie" and should have been a cardigan rather a long time ago. The yarn is Jaegar Trinity in a shade I would call light jade.

I got bored, so didn't finish it. I got to half way up the right front, having completed the back and left front. One day I shall get back to it.

I don't know what I am knitting at the moment, at present it is a collection of 4" squares which I shall probably knit or crotchet together to make either a scarf or a shawl. I'm making it up as I go along......... The yarn is the polyester yarn shown at the top, alongside some of the completed squares.

One thing that has got me really thinking is the idea of going green - using more ecologically sensitive yarns, threads and the like. This was the topic of one part of David's podcast (http://www.sticksandstring.com.au/) today. Neither of the yarns I have could be called green. One is polyester and the Jaegar Trinity uses silk, cotton and polyamide! I think I have rather a long way to go before I can consider myself truly green.

Scarf

Well, the next stage of the scarf has been finished.
You will have seen this for the first time here:

http://crazydaisytime.blogspot.com/2007/01/new-work.html

The water soluble has been washed away and the felt slightly felted.

At present it measures thirty-two and a quarter inches long, and just seven and a half inches wide. At this size, it really isn't quite long enough or wide enough to work as a scarf. My next task will be to add some FME (Free Machine Embroidery) lace at both long sides to add width. There will be more lace added at each end. This will then end in a long fringe. See sketch book entry below.

During the week, I also discovered a discarded pair of jeans. These belonged to one of my daughters who had sliced up the sides of the legs, leaving slits around 2 inches in length. I thought it would be fun to cover the bottoms of the jeans with a patchwork of small fabric pieces. This should then cover the slits, leaving an almost-new pair of jeans ..... for me! (Unless they get claimed by the previous owner.)

I have the Easter Holiday coming up soon, so these two projects will make for a rather pleasant time. My sewing machine is back from being serviced (how I missed it when it was away!) and I am eager to start using it again.

Discovering podcasts.

I've had quite an interesting time today. Stitching feverishly to get a piece finished in time to send off, I was able to listen to a couple of podcasts.
Looking through a number of Blogs, I found a mention of this podcast -
http://www.craftcast.com/
Its an American podcast, and well worth a listen. The interviewee was Celie Fago who works with polymer and precious metal clays.
Searching around, I found another podcast -
http://www.theillustrativedesigner.com/
Again, this comes from America. It seems to be intended for artists rather than craft enthusiasts. However the speaker, Stefan Bucher, was fascinating to listen to.
To most of you I will sound really rather behind the times. I had heard of podcasts, but never listened to one. It will be interesting to find out about other podcasts there are which might be out there - to do with textiles. Any suggestions?

I shall post photographs of the work another time - I need to show it to the recipients first!

Dawn.

I got woken up rather early this morning since I had forgotten to switch off the alarm clock. This goes off at 6.00 am during the week. I was struck by just what a beautiful morning it was turning into outside, so made a grab for the camera.

I took the photos from a downstairs window. They show houses across the nearby roads from my own home. For some reason my camera is showing a time exactly an hour later than the photos were actually taken. Sorry they look so dark................

Felt thing.

Well, the felt object from my last Blog posting has now metamorphosed into a "Thing".

It was great fun working the felt, making this shape. I wasn't sure how it would work out. Its quite an interesting shape, though I'm not sure whether I like it or not! I shall leave it on one side and look at it again in a few weeks time. It might sound a silly thing to do, but I find that I can see something more objectively if I do this.

The scarf is still being worked on. I will be continuing the sewing tomorrow when I go back to the Textiles course.

Felt making again.

The Textiles course has start up again after the Half Term and I am back making felt once more. Firstly, I shall be continuing work on that scarf first seen here:

http://crazydaisytime.blogspot.com/2007/01/new-work.html

The current size of the scarf is 35 inches long by 10 inches wide. I plan to add free-machine embroidered lace and fringing to the ends to make the scarf of a useable length. Well, we shall see if it all works out.
The second project is, or rather will be, a three dimensional object. At present it looks like someone has driven over a doughnut.

The colours you are seeing are not quite right here - I have used red, orange, deep brown, mid yellows and a bright green. The size at present is just over 13 inches at the longest point and just over 9 inches across. It has been partly felted and is currently inside out. I have absolutely no idea what it will look like when it has been turned. There is a piece of plastic inside the felt to help keep the shape and to ensure that it remains hollow. It is probably because of the plastic that I cannot get a decent photograph of the reverse side.

Tomorrow I shall get to complete felting this and turn it inside out and shape the openings. I can hardly wait. I am hoping it will turn into some kind of bowl or vase shape............... It could easily turn into a major disaster. I am only partly joking here, since without Ruth's expert support I would not be attempting anything nearly so demanding.

Just in case you haven't seen my other posts about the Textiles Course, this is a course held as an Evening Course by the local Sixth Form College. Its open to anyone over the age of 16 and the Textiles Course is run by Ruth. There is no qualification at the end of this, just the practical experience gained in trying all sorts of new techniques. But then, that's exactly why I came to join.

There are all sorts of other courses being run during the week - Caligraphy, Flower-arranging, Computer studies, etc, etc. All the sports facillities are used for different courses too.

http://www.sjd.ac.uk/

The following link takes you to work I have previously completed during the Textiles Course - Paisley 1 and 2 were done on the course, whilst Paisley 3 was a project of my own at home which progressed alongside the others.

http://crazydaisytime.blogspot.com/2007/01/those-promised-photos.html