Yarn Over Easy

furrrrryyyy

2005-12-18T12:50:00.000+01:00

I started to knit up my expensive eyelash yarn, and then stopped as it just wasn't working, far too tight on the needles, and well the effect although soft and luxurious was just a bit too smooth for me.
I cast on again, this time using the eyelash with a dark ruby fine chenille, and its working much better..the whole fabric knits together much better and there is a more random and heavier feel to it..this doesn't really come across in the pictures, but its a vast improvement. As it was expensive I am knitting myself a short but wide scarf, I thought it would look nice worn more like a cravat with my white woollen jacket. I had hoped that there would be enough wool to make it long enough to pull up onto my head, but I'm pretty sure that isn't going to happen.
In the meanwhile I've knitted S a scarf using a cotton acrylic mix which feels lovely to the touch -it doesn't itch at all- and knitted up really beautifully. Its a very plain scarf, double rib, short because he doesnt like really long scarves under his jacket, and a soft and fairly difficult to describe faun grey. I have two balls left over so I think I'll start another scrumble, I loved doing it because it felt so creative even though it was functional.
I now have a large cupboard space for the stash and projects, which is great in one way as they aren't all over the place in carrier bags, but bad in another--out of sight out of mind, and to my shame there are still several unfinished things hanging in there, while I eagerly look forward to the next thing on the agenda..
One thing I am thinking is that I just must make something for Lynds, she has requested a laundry bag which is functional but good to look at - still trying to find the right pattern for that one, and she also loved the scrumble, so the next one is for her...

unpicking

2005-12-06T00:34:00.000+01:00

Its been months since I posted here, but I've decided to dig this out of my stash, unpick a few stitches here and there and update the look. First thing I had to do though was go through the process of getting my user name and password re-sent..how come I didn't write this one down somewhere?
When I checked through my notebook, I had so many passwords for different groups, accounts and whatnot, add to that all those pin numbers I have to carry around in my head, I feel like I'm just a list of strong passwords and digits sometimes, passwords so strong, not even I can remember them.
So..what have I been up to since September?

Well..I have made a small bag - still in the cupboard, not washed or blocked yet, might have a go at washing it in some very hot water and see if it felts- if not no big deal.
I have scrumbled a cushion cover- ok for my first attempt, but after a while I realised that my yarns need to be much finer and more decorative, I don't like working BIG I've realised, I prefer delicate fragments...
I have rediscovered, through scrumbling, my love of knitting..yes, I can and do love knitting AND crochet, those two old adversaries, it reminds me of school when you could be a fan of the Beatles OR The Stones, but it wasn't ok to like them both..
I have knitted two rugs, one small one for Lula, which turned out so nice that I made one for the floor on my side of the bed--naturally I had used all the best of the yarn on hers *glares at cat*
I am now knitting a black miniskirt with some loop stitch through it, to wear over tight black trousers now that winter is here, a childs jumper, also with loopstitch ( my flavour of the month), that's for charity, and....

...dada..Eyelash Yarn--I've been hankering after some of this for a while, and the other day I bought two balls. One is very cheap mostly acrylic but in lovely green, blue and mustard colour ways. The other was very expensive, and is in muted dark reds and purples and blues, incredibly soft to the touch but hell to work with.
I've started to knit a scarf with the luxury eyelash but I am rethinking it, I'm using 6mm pins at the moment, and the yarn, which is fine, tightens around them like a garotte, its not pleasant work and I may have to abandon it and start again.
I'm seeing that really this type of yarn needs to be worked with something else, maybe a fine chenille or cotton. I'm just content to think about it at the moment.

OK well this is a good new start, and I want to keep it up. My blog over at 360 is going really well, its really taken off and I've been seeing so many fine knitting and crochet blogs that have inspired me to keep on with this..

I've written down the username and password this time, and I'm a bit more comfortable with html now, so why not?

The picture is a detail of the cushion cover that I scrumbled, not keen on those colours but pleased with it overall.

If you really loved me....

2005-09-09T15:11:00.000+02:00

" If you really loved me, you would go and get me an espresso"
" I love you my darling, but I'm not going to get you and espresso..."

We had this jokey conversation on the beach the other afternoon, when at about 5.00pm I started to suffer from serious caffeine withdrawal. The nearest beach cafe was at least half a mile away, still we did have the car, but no he would't budge.

So, I finished the capelet/stole, and it's a bit bulky, fine for a lady with a modest frontage, but not for a woman like me with the whole shopfront on display..hmmm...what to do, well I'm thinking about it. All is not lost because when I was styling, it did manage to look pretty good as a shrug, the bulk at the back balancing out the er bulk at the front as it were.
I had to have something to do while I was thinking about it, and as I'm growing my hair and it's frightful, I whizzed up this little do-rag. As he was keeping half an eye on my progress, I eventually held it up to show him..

"if you love me you will wear these underpants I'm hooking for you.."
" Carissima, I love you dearly, but......

George seems more interested though, although its a triumph of hope of a piece of cheese over any sort of appreciation of my handicraft, methinks.

Thanks as ever for the comment Gina, you will be the first to hear public opinion!

cape fear

2005-09-04T19:36:00.000+02:00

Ooh my little home in the country, I haven't been over in a few days, mostly feeling depressed about the horror of what is happening in New Orleans, also feeling my way around new projects with the hook and pins..
I've started - infact I'm almost half way through - a sort of capelet or stole as they used to say in the 1950's, in a faded bobbly fuzzy sort of yarn of dark multi colours with some splashes of fuschia. This yarn lordy I bought 10 balls and when I started knitting it up to check out tension and effect , I really didn't like it BUT I've persevered and it looks good. I want the stole to fasten on one shoulder and down that side with some large square funky fuschia buttons, I think I will also make them myself as I have some DAS which would work, but need to find the right paint--also asking myself will they wash?
Now, I started doing something I probably haven't done since I was about 13, some sketches for the things I want to create, they look really good so I have started a new notebook, what fun! I want to make a hat to match this stole, and maybe some cuffs. I thought perhaps with gloves knitted in a soft dark tone to match, but my knitted gloves are legendary for the extreme length the fingers always end up, sort of custom made for Edward Scissorhands, so I could always buy the gloves and attach my cuffs...
I have a sketch for a similar capelet with a collar this time, and a matching miniskirt..and of course the hat, I'm just hat obsessed at the moment and hankering after a head form to use when making them, no idea where to go for that one....

All this planning helps me keep my mind away from current affairs, which I have been glued to all week, and its made me more and more depressed as the days pass. I always get really upset and withdrawn in the face of international disasters, I can't keep my mind away from the horror, or my eyes off the news. I don't know if this is a good thing or not, but there again I cannot stand indifference. I am seriously thinking of leaving one forum I visit, as very little mention has been made of the disaster that has unfolded in N.O--plenty of wasps banging on about what a great time they are going to have over Labor Weekend though and whinging about how much they are having to pay for gas ---what? Like I said, indifference. Or shame maybe.
I think it was looking at pictures of the suffering that gave me a strange dream last night, that all my life was at my feet in two bags, one shopping bag and a green hold-all with tan leather handles. But try as I might I couldnt see inside the bags, I just couldn...but I knew the bags didn't contain material things, rather the emotional fabric of my life and that was all that was left...strange strange strange

Now, I dont have a pic of the capelet so lets see what I can come up with today..I have only one skein of this so it will go into a bag..or a hat..or both

madhatting

2005-08-31T13:15:00.000+02:00

After a struggle and a transer to dpn's the hat is finished. Will I ever wear it out of the house? If I do I will need a new coat to go with it, as everything I have, apart from the black leather, is way too boring...

What can I say?
It's warm
It's comfortable
It's wild

This is the first really unusual thing I have made, and although I followed a pattern it has become very much my own thing. And it was hard, much harder than I had imagined. I had forgotten so much about knitting, and it was only in the teeth of disaster that things came flooding back to me.

Well now I move on. I'm thinking maybe skirt, short, soft for over winterwoollytights, I'm thinking little capelet stole type garment, with a few embellishments, and I'm thinking felted bag, either small bucket bag or large, can't quite decide....

I feel unsettled today, this is Stefs last day at work and things have to change from now on, regarding internet and essential blogging time. Honey we need to talk.

HatBand

2005-08-28T11:57:00.000+02:00

After a delicious rummage through and purse shocking half hour in the yarnemporium, I could hardly wait to whip out those knittingpins and cast on for The Hat. The band is a joy, the fibers so pretty...but oh my when I came to the crown....

I haven't knitted for years, and had forgotten the delights of trying to pick up stitches on a circular needle, one of those wild bamboo and plastic devices just created to make us fibercyberers get tangled up on the inside and the outside.....the tension was awry and palpable on the air, the cats vanished to the safety of our bed, my husband suffered a sharp learning curve about his wife's irritability in the face of things not going quite as she would wish...he held his tongue and slid away to the comforts of the kitchen, last seen chopping parsley while my fingers sweated and shook...

120 stitched picked up and I was euphoric. Calmness returned, marital bliss was restored, sly Lula snuck craftily back to my side.....eatable perfumes wafted from the kitchen as I joyfully cut my luscious textured yarns into bigbite size strips, weaving them in to initiate this mad lovely mop of a hatcrown.....euphoria turned to disbelief, the sweating fingers turned the pages of the book and again and again, but no indication on which side those stitches should have been picked up from....are my textures hanging on the right side or the wrong..I can't go back and do it all again, I can't I can't I can't.

I don't. This really doesn't matter, its freeform, freestyle, freefromstress, freefromrules, and I'm free of all restrait to carry on weaving and looping and styling this sweet blossoming forth, bursting with unaccustomed colour...

And with the letting go, saying ciao for now to the rules and regulations, it starts to take shape, to form and grow within my grasp................

Chaining the Round

2005-08-24T13:05:00.000+02:00

I come here with slightly hesitant steps and knock on my own door... How freeform will I be oh mercy me, I want this to be a widescreen journal journey, yarnovereasy on the eye, but patienza, a little learning is a dangerous ( and exciting!) thing........

Inspiring Read for Today

Freeform Knitting and Crochet by Jenny Dowde
At first I couldn't see the way, but last night I hooked and knitted some fragments and yes now I can understand the way to go..any way I want! Its so liberating to pick up hook and yarn and needles and just DO, in whatever stitch , whatever direction...but like all great abstract art, don't think Huh! What's that! Anyone can do that!

Er, no, the skills are needed and the creative EYE for colour and texture. Jenny is an artist, her palette is extraordinary and beautiful. When I was studying art I was a strictly Monochrome Girl, good in black and white but frightened of colour....here, 30 years later I open Jenny's book and the soundbites on colour theory are the clearest and most inspiring I have ever seen. Now I understand, now I know that my instinct for tonal values is much better than I thought ...and even better...there is software OF COURSE there is software that will give a little help and guidance when the colour wheel goes dancing off somewhere..

Some stitches I learnt too, and how to make a little bow as you knit...ok I want my bow here, I turn the work, cast on 10, cast them off again, repeat it and here are two strips just needing to be tied together and there it is - a bow- so pretty, no holey holes to be tugged at either..

Then a lovely crochet crabstitch, going backward, makes a wonderful decorative rib of yarn which can then be worked from behind, and delicious trailing stitch to give crazy loops of interest anywhere I want.....

Now I need lots of lovely yarn...some lovely textures and mixes to the fiber , inspiring colours, my favourite warm earth tones with sun and plants shooting through....so much to yarn about , so little time

A little thankyou to my friend and CrochetGoddess Ginarenay for visiting here and mentioning this small beginning in her most fabulous blog which is.......

http://gina_renay.blogs.com ...go visit this emporium of creativity, crochet, poetry, art and beauty all threaded together with Gina's inimitable style...its joy all the way

Casting On...

2005-08-23T19:44:00.000+02:00

......and chaining the first stitches of a new creation.

Today will be the gauge day, checking the pattern, choosing the colours, feeling the yarn, letting the cyberhook take me where it will...this is my cyberscrumbled tension square, being given life in a creative connection between fingers, materials and inner voice.

Now, take that yarn over easy..............