Stitching Again

I ran out of week before I ran out of stitching homework last week, so I've had to do a bit of catching up. This is my feather stitch sample. We're still working on colour blending using the six-stranded embroidery cottons. Plus there are a couple of new stitches to use each week. I've found it challenging to use a set stitch and a set combination of colours while designing something with an overall sense of purpose. This time I've kept it reasonably simple, and that's helped.
My car is booked in for a service tomorrow. I'm planning to sit at a nearby cafe and stitch away until it's ready. It seems like a more pleasant and efficient use of my time than getting home and back again on public transport. So today I'm going to switch my attention to my other homework--it's currently a lump of clay sitting on the kitchen table. But first I need to take care of another form of stitching. My dog Macc in now two-weeks post-surgery and it's time to go back to the vet for a check up. The wound seems to have healed really well. That should mean his stitches can come out and his Elizabethan collar can go to. I won't be at all sorry to see the end of that phase in his recovery.

Wiggles

This mass of wiggly wool is the next stage in reclaiming the yarn from the cardigan I knitted for my friend D: Believe it or not, this morning's temperature was only 13 degrees--we're in the middle of summer here and a week or so ago the max was 40. So, starting to crochet a largish lap rug is actually an ok thing to do. I gave the yarn a good soak in some warm water. Now it's hanging to dry. That combination of warm water and gravity is all it takes to get the yarn back to a near-new condition. Meanwhile I've started the first few rows of the blanket with other colours. I'm using teals and brown as well as the red-burgundy colour. I'm liking the combination so far.

Close Up

Another half dozen completed Quilt as You Go blocks were delivered to the Neighbourhoood House yesterday. They just need to be squared off to the exact size and they're good to go. L had the basket of blocks and strips stored under her desk yesterday. I borrowed it so I can do a bit of sewing this morning. Meanwhile I've had a moment to enjoy some of the little details. This colour combination caught my eye. It's not one I would normally choose, but it works well and I'd like to play with it some time. One of the things I love about quilts in general, and particularly scrappy quilts, is the way a detail will jump out and catch my attention. This particular little scrap of fabric is a corner piece, so there's maybe 10cm by 3 cm of it in a mass of other fabrics, but there it is ready to interest and inspire me.

Colour Conglomerate

I received a couple of these Tibetan felted coasters as a gift from my friend A yesterday. Each is a flat disc made up of tiny felt balls, just threaded together. There doesn't seem to be any science to the way the colours are combined, except that each colour is different from its immediate neighbours. The result is bright, cuddly and fun. There's a spot on my new sewing table that's just right for either a cup of coffee or a pin-cushion. These cuties could serve as either or both. It's been a rough week for me. I won't go into details here, but bright, cuddly and fun is just what I needed.

Picot Edge

I decided on a crochet edge for this woollen placemat. It's 4-ply cotton which I dyed myself. And the simplest of picot patterns: just two double crochet stitches followed by a single chain to give the hint of a bubble. I've been enjoying the blue-green combo--all the more since it was frowned on in my growing up. Do you remember the saying, "blue and green must never be seen unless there's something in between"? Well here they are, and I do like how they look, so there!

. . . and the inevitable dog hair highlighted by my macro lens, oh well . . .

Light

Yesterday I finished undercoating the Studio. Patchy white on white isn't a great look, so here are some lovely flowers instead:My friend A brought these hydrangeas from her garden when she came to visit me and admire my progress yesterday. I love the delicate pink and green combo--a beautifully subtle take on the complementary colour scheme. The flowers were intended for my Studio, but it's not quite up to that stage yet. They're sitting on my big table in my living room giving me quiet encouragement.

Variety Show

I'm making Christmas gifts, so you can expect a few slightly cryptic posts--just in case the intended recipients are reading. This week I've been challenging myself to make one of these items each day: You can see there's a theme happening, but each one is different. I found the thought of coming up with half a dozen variations on a theme all at once a bit daunting. One at a time works much better for me. As I'm working on one item, thoughts are brewing for the next one. I'm really enjoying the blue-green colour combination too.

Another Colour Capture

I finished spinning the sea green colours for my friend M last night. Now I just have to do the plying. I ended up mixing a variety of green-blue tops for the second single, rather than using the dark purple I'd chosen originally.

Here's the purple wool top--on the right--with some dyed silk. I'm thinking this is a better combination.I didn't want the contrast with the purple to distract from the subtle variations in the greens. . . . Note to self: take a photo of the green skein when it's done, before you hand it over.

Colour Capture

I've just spent a frustrating five minutes trying to capture the colour of these wool tops with my camera. I picked them up at the Guild last weekend. Well, actually my friend M picked them up and paid for them and I offered to spin them up for her. I'm trying to keep them out of the general stash, so there's a better chance of my getting to the spinning sooner rather than later. There's a dark purple to go with the sea-greens, but I'm not quite sure how to make the most of the combination. I started pulling colours out of my collection, which has its own excitement, but may not result in any spinning happening anytime soon.

This coming Sunday is the first in the month--October already!--and I'll be at the Guild for a few hours of easy spinning and conversation. That seems an ideal opportunity to get on with this project. Maybe I can complete it before it officially gets on to the to do list. It's fun to trick myself that way occasionally.

More or Less

Today's post is dedicated to the colour blue--more or less. I'm still trying to spin my way out of accumulated piles of fibre. Last night I had a look at another bag of wool tops. They were mostly shades of blue. I'd obviously put them together for something or other some time back--I'm not at all sure what or when. I decided to just go with the flow. I added a few more bits of colour to bring the quantity up to about 100g. Then I split up the colours; distributed them randomly in a pile on the corner of my big table and started spinning. Here's how it looks this morning: Everything from light pepermint through to purple--and I've just spotted a stray strand of red in the pic that shouldn't be there at all. I'll navaho ply this bobbin-full, probably tomorrow.

I was going to give an explanation of Navaho plying, since I fielded a few questions last time I mentioned it, but I got myslef into a total twist with words trying to explain the process. So I've deleted that paragraph and instead leave you with a promise to expain it another day.

Colour Improvisation

It was close to my usual bedtime when I got home yesterday--my usual bedtime is quite early by most people's standards. But I needed some time to settle and reflect. My spinning list included more "fat singles". I wasn't in the mood for that. Instead I pulled out a bag of coloured tops I had prepared some time ago. I took out some colours, added others and played around for a while with combinations. I ended up with this "bush spring" improvisation. Colours of new growth and leaf litter--one of the things I love about our Australian natives is the red of the growing tips. Rose leaves have the same feature. I've spun short lengths of each colour. I distributed the colours fairly well through the mix, but I haven't arranged the order of the colours--that's as random as I could manage. My plan is to ply it back on itself--navaho style--to keep the colours as separate as possible.

Fascinating Rhythm

Anyone who regularly reads this blog will know that I am fascinated by colour: the way colours combine with one another; how to mix them; variegations; contrasts; colour illusions. I'm never done thinking about them and experimenting to see what I can make. Lately I've been thinking particularly about the ways colour is distributed in a skein of dyed yarn. Here are some examples from my drying rack:All four skeins are the same fine cotton yarn--designed for crochet, but in my mind intended for weaving. The outer two skeins are dip-dyed. The pattern of colour in the skein depends on the way I've folded the skeins before dipping them into the dye bath. the blue skein on the left was turned over after the warm blue dyeing was finished and the opposite end of the bundle of yarn was then soaked in a turquoise blue. By the way, I thread a chopstick through the looped skein and balance it on the outside of the dye pot to keep the yarn where I want it to be.

The inner two skeins in the pic are cram-jar dyed. This is more random, because the skein is pressed into a confined space to combine with the dye. For the red-orange skein I first used a warm red along with about a third of the skein of yarn; then the warm yellow and as much more of the yarn as I thought would take up the amount of dye I had poured in. Finally I tipped a little bit of cool yellow over the top. The colour change is slow and fairly regular, though not as predictable as it would have been if I'd used the dip-dye technique. The blue-green skein second from the left is more jazzy. I was getting to the end of my dyes and the end of my energy for the day. I had soaked the skein in soda ash to prepare it to take the colour. When it was readyI just poured the blue into the top of the jar where the yarn had been soaking. I tipped a bit of yellow into one corner and got ready for bed. I couldn't resist having a look after half an hour or so, and found that the colour had all stayed in the top part of the skein as it was crammed into the dye pot. I turned it over and added a bit more blue dye. I decided to leave it at that. I quite like the lighter and white areas as part of the colour scheme.

As if all this variation in the rhythms of colour across the skein wasn't enough, I'm now anticipating what will happen when the yarn is turned into fabric. Whether I knit, crochet or weave it, the colours will combine again in different ways depending on the pattern I use and the size of the piece I make. In weaving, there's the added variable of the colours of two different yarns interlacing with one another. Oh, it's exciting to think of all the possibilities!

Look at These Colours!

I didn't get to see my friend M last weekend. Life was a bit crazy for both of us. So much so that I forgot to return the bed I'd borrowed for my visitors in time for the arrival of her visitors. M was kind enough to revert to Plan B. I haven't even spoken with her enough to find out what Plan B was. I've spent the last couple of days sorting bits and pieces. It feels as though there are an awful lot of bits and pieces! It's going to take a little while for me to get back into routine.

Meanwhile this pic arrived in my inbox from M: The colour combination pretty much floored me. When I start to analyse it, I can see a range of colors from burgundy through orange to yellow--that shouldn't surprise me too much. Look a little closer and of course there's the green. And some of the yellows blend into the greens in the centre of the lilies. At this point I've decided to stop analysing and just stick with the Wow! factor. In my head, I'm already sorting through my dyes, choosing colours and working out proportions. The challenge will be to get the green highlights without muddying up the clarity of the red-orange colours. Of course, I could leave the green out of the dye pot altogether and add it in the form of neps in my spinning or a contrast yarn while weaving or knitting. There are so many options . . . I'm looking forward to having a go--after I've cleared the bench in the kitchen and returned M's bed to her.

Colour Table

I can't believe the dyes from last month's workshop have lasted so well! I usually try to use up any leftover dyes within a week, but that was just impossible with everything else that was happening. They've been sitting in a box on the bathroom floor and thankfully the weather has been unusually cool, so they still have some reactivity left in them.

I unexpectedly had the day at home yesterday, so out came the dye pots.

I mixed up the colours combinations yesterday and added fabric to each bag. I only added the soda ash fixative this morning, though. I've read that adding the fixative later gives a better variation in colour, since the dyes get to travel through the fabric before they react with the fibres. Besides, I didn't really have much energy yesterday and I'd run out of Soda Ash solution.

Rinsing will have to be a task for another day. I can leave the fabrics in bags as long as I like and it won't affect the result now. I guess I will need to clear the table at some stage, though. And if I don't tidy up a bit in the bathroom, any night-time visits there will be extremely hazardous!

Cultures and Colours

A friend took me out to lunch in Chinatown yesterday. Since I didn't get a Saturday Cafe shot this weekend, here's a Chinese Restaurant shot instead:I don't think the walls of this place were painted hot pink last time I was there. The colours certainly had me thinking. Jade green, red and gold are colours I associate with Chinese decor. They were evident, as I'd expected. As I looked around at various items, I saw a fair bit of this pink and orange-red colour combination. I'll have to have a play with it some time and see whether I can get comfortable with it. Or perhaps happily uncomfortable would be a better goal.

Meg's Lotus Photo

It was great to see my friend Meg for coffee yesterday afternoon. It was also great to see some of the photos she's taken recently. This one of a lotus flower really grabbed me. It grabbed me so much that I asked her if I could use it here: Of course, the form of the flower is beautiful. I love the way she's framed it in the photo. What really caught my eye and left me wanting more,though, is the colour combinations in the flower itself. It's more obvious in this detail :

The strong pink, almost magenta, is the obvious colour, but at the base of the petals it blends to a citrus green. and the inner aspect of the petal on the far right is an apricot colour. That's a combination I didn't expect and I'm planning to play with it some time soon. Meanwhile I have 100g of blue-green multi-marle which I'm half way through plying off and I'm still thinking of the Harmnony day rose petals for another colour blend, though I might try that in the dye pot. That would leave me more time to play with the lotus blossom colours.

Growth

If my word for the day yesterday was, "irresistible", today's word is "imperceptible". That's my word for the growth of my "bushfire blanket". I'm averaging a row a day. At 2 1/2 metres per row, that's still a fair bit of crochet, given that this is my armchair project. Some days, like today, I sit for a bit longer and get several rows done. Other days I just spare it a glance and get on with something else.

Here's how it looks today. It is growing slowly: My approach to the colours combinations is what I call, "regularly irregular". I have five colours to work with. Of those five colours, three are limited quantities and two are more than adequate. Of course, I don't have the same quantities of the three limited colours. That would make it too easy! I guess some people would calculate out a quantity of yarn per row and calculate a pattern to be sure it was all going to work out right in the end. That's not my approach to this sort of project. Instead I just keep varying the colour combinations. I keep an eye on the approximate proportions of colours, according to what I have available and I keep an overall rough pattern of colours to give a sense of unity. That way I can adjust the colour combinations as the project develops and keep my options open. At the moment I'm gradually working in more of the grey and caramel alpaca colours, because these are the ones I have most of. That will allow me to space out the chocolate alpaca and blue wool mohair in the centre of the blanket. The fifth colour is a variation on the caramel--just slightly lighter and not quite as creamy--so I'm just using enough of it to make sure it looks as if it's not an afterthought.