And then there were 1, 2, 3, 4, ............ 58!!

Well, the hawaiian flowers are growing, and growing, and taking over the floor really:) I just crochet a few every time I sit down to watch any tv - not that I've actually watched a lot of tv this week, if I had there would have been a flower fest!! but the blanket, it's a-growin'.

48 flowers and counting....

Yes, I've decided to make this one a full on flower blanket. I wasn't sure when there were only 9 motifs but I saw a lovely one on ravelry that changed my mind. (you do need to be a member to see that link but its free to join!) It looked like beautiful coloured floor tiles all pieced together to give a colourful mosaic effect - lovely! So, it was decided very quickly to expand the mini throw into a full blown blanket. This did mean introducing a few more colours to the palette so I could get more variety in how the colour tones are balanced and I'm still tinkering with it as I go. You may notice a couple of plum/pinks that weren't there before and an apple green has sidled its way in too:)

57 flowers taking over the floor....

I have no idea how big this will become - the last ripple blanket was about king size - so depending on how many flowers I need, I'm aiming for at least for a double so it can be a decorative throw or even a wrap? Big enough to be versatile anyway! At the moment pieced together in a rough rectangle, it's measuring 60cm x 75cm and that's without the final crochet edging around to join them all together. So maybe at least another 100 - 150 flowers? Sounds a lot but those 58 have kind of snuck up on me so I'm hoping my abstract crocheting whilst watching the tv will help the numbers rise without feeling like I'm trying too hard!!

(yes, there are only 57 flowers in the last photo but I've crocheted another one since then, so officially the flower count is on 58:))

Hawaiian flowers

A little tv project going on at the moment... some bright colourful hawaiian crochet flowers, pattern courtesy of the wonderful Sarah London - go see her blog!! Colour and crochet heaven!  The flower pattern was part of a mystery motif month last year and this link will take you to day one. Four days in all and on the fifth day, there are gorgeous photos to get you thinking COLOUR!

Every so often, I get a hankering to start a longer project, like my ripple blanket from a few years ago. Projects that are in units are ideal as I can work away and feel I am making progress with small completed motifs. Okay, I'm trying not to think just how many motifs it will take to make a throw or blanket/snuggy the size I'd love to make, but at the moment, I'm happy to pick up my flowers and crochet in a bit of downtime.

I've not put the final edging on my flowers as yet as I want to link the motifs as  I go. For now, I can crochet a pile of flowers and play with the layout - that's the fun bit for me! Once I have them done, I can balance them with the final coloured edging. All is happy in the land of crochet;))

Extreme Knitting

Thought you might like to see this video of extreme knitting by Rachel John - 1000 strands of yarn knitted on super big knitting needles. Amazing! The strands alone look like an art installation. Wish I had that stash:)))

Enjoy!

Cupcakes

Yesterday, a lovely friend came to visit - bearing gifts! A huge cupcake to be precise, lovingly made with her son who decided it just HAD to have blue icing:) Doesn't it just make you want to put the kettle on to have a nice cup of tea and a large chunk of cake? Yes, me too!

And fresh strawberries and raspberries around the cake too - yum! Just this piece alone was very filling and I didn't need much in the way of food for the rest of the day, lol! I didn't realise you could get cupcake moulds this big - such a great idea.  Apparently it's two moulds together so just like a cake only with shaping for the top.  And then all the fun of decorating - if you don't eat all the icing mixture first:)

Looking online at some cupcake photos I found tiers of cupcakes used as wedding cakes - fantastic!! That is brilliant:) For myself, I don't like heavy fruit cakes and I can't really say, "excuse me, can I just have the icing?" So lots of little cupcakes makes a novel and very aesthetically pleasing cake, don't you think?

These are so gorgeous. The precision and delicacy of some of these decorations - lovely! I love the tall one - a christmas cake! Don't think they would last very long, do you? It could be a really clever exercise to keep children busy on the run up to christmas though - decorating and adding cakes to the tree - if they didn't keep disappearing into little tummies:))

Anyone for cake?!

Filigree vessel

Two posts in one day! But now I've got my work in progress photographed, I was just bursting to show you what I've been up to this month. The problem of working on larger creative projects is that they take so long and don't look very exciting photographically speaking till near the end.

I've been playing with modular freeform crochet, building sections of crocheted loops into a 3D form. The original intention was to use white to focus solely on the form structure as I went, but for a lover of colour, I'm really liking the subtlety the white is giving me - especially with a light source behind creating all those interesting shadows.

Now the form is complete, the intention was to start incorporating wire and beads, weaving through the structure in an organic way, crossing and twisting over each other using different colours and thicknesses of metal wire and threading beads as I went. But now I like the simplicity of the white, would a riot of new colours and surface materials kill its delicacy? As it is, the form is not quite sturdy enough to sit on its own and maintain its pod-like shape and the wire's main purpose - other than being decorative:) - was to strengthen the form unobtrusively, so to speak.

I had considered using starch but it can leave a residue. Although the yarn used isn't all that special at this stage, it could be a feature I may not want to lose on another vessel. So, I think a series of small test samples are going to be needed exploring all these possibilities before I decide on a final course of action.

But it's all very exciting!! If I used starch, would that give a good ground to paint on? If I crocheted with wire instead, how would that look? Strength would no longer be an issue but what about the tactile element? Would there be enough fibre content to keep me happy? How could I incorporate more? I think I may have a series of vessels before I'm finished:))

I'll keep you posted!

Colour personality test

Thanks to Kate @ The Garden Bell for telling us about this colour personality test. I'm a bit of sucker for these things:)) so I had to go and check it out straight away! It goes into a lot of detail so I've just edited the main bits of my results here. If you want to try this out, you can find it the link here.

Result of your test :

Your Profile : You are 48 % extrovert and 52 % introvert.

Independently of any order of importance :

• You are creative, you always have new ideas, and your inspiration comes from the inside.

• You are also strong-willed and active, your actions are determined by your own will, by the goals you settled for yourself, and by your need to act and to move forward.
  
• Finally you are able to listen to others, you show a good emotional intelligence, you know how to bring your support to others.

The qualities that characterize your personality at this time :

24 % Your creativity.
You are creative, you know how to see beauty, you are intuitive and your inspiration comes from the inside.

21 % Your energy.
You are strong-willed and active, your actions are determined by your own will, by the goals you settled to yourself, and by your need to act and move ahead.

20 % Your imagination.
You are a creative person, with always new ideas, and you know how to apply them.

17 % Your dynamism.
You are dynamic and active, you are determined in your actions, you know how to communicate your ideals and your energy, and thus, you know how to boost people.

16 % Your thinking.
You are attuned to others and you show a good emotional intelligence, which allow you to give support to people.

Finally, you are a manager and a structured person, you know how to take into account the needs of each person while leading them to the fixed goals, you are a manager and a leader, and you know how to organize groups of people and how to give them your energy.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

So there you go! Glad to see that creativity is at the top of the list:)) Actually it's very interesting how accurate this is as a personality test - hmm. I'm working more on my own creative work and less teaching at the moment which this reflects too. But good to know it at least thinks I have managerial and leadership qualities - who knew?! :)))

Back soon with some pics of the aforementioned 'creativity' !

Ready, steady, knit!!

My poor blog has been neglected this last week or two! I've been outside making the most of the lovely sun and working with a friend who is learning knitting techniques. There has been lots of knitting, chatter and cake devouring but alas not much of that is bloggable! So for your delectation, I have a lovely video for all you knitters and makers to enjoy...:)))

Back soon with some garden pics - my, how the plants have shot up!! - and even, fingers crossed, some knitting:)

elaine xx

Cake

Over the weekend, I got around to doing some baking. I haven't baked in, oh, such a long time, and I thought  chocolate cake would be nice. But starting with an easy recipe - just in case! When I was young I used to 'help' my mum bake cakes and look through her Be-Ro cook book at all the pictures of the biscuits, cakes and buns inside.

So with my own Be-Ro cookbook to hand, I chose this picture:

Yum, yum, yum! Doesn't it look nice? Swirly chocolate topping and filling - perfect! First though, I had to top up the cupboards with some extra baking things. I thought I'd need lots of melted chocolate but this recipe only uses cocoa and chocolate butter icing. So off I went, weighing and mixing.....

.... till I got a nice smooth cake mixture. Then whap, straight in the oven, wait, wait, wait, then out and cooling while I whipped up the butter icing. Mmmm, was that tasty;-) I did leave enough to cover the cake, honest! The only problem I had was I was too impatient to decorate and tried to spread the icing when it was too runny! Ah, well, no swirly topping for me but at least I managed to cover it better when it had thickened properly:-)

Then we both had a nice slice of well deserved cake - that's the space from 2 slices, not me being greedy - just sayin';-)) Anyway, after the compulsory eating of all the leftover chocolate icing from the bowl, I wasn't needing a lot more sweet stuff! Well, it's a crime to just throw it away, isn't it? I must say though I remember having a much sweeter tooth when I was young - I was struggling:)

Needless to say the cake didn't last long and is all gone now. Maybe just in time to browse through the pages and pick another recipe?