French knitted wrap bracelet

As I was knitting up my little tester yarns from my dyeing session the other day, I remembered I had used one of my earlier dyed yarns to start making a knitted bracelet a wee while back. Where was it? How far had I got and was it looking good? A good rummage later and I had found it. A few more inches of french knitting, add a button and that was it! I couldn't believe I had that little to do before it was finished. Don't you love when that happens?

The photographs however took a lot longer. Don't know what it is about some colours, they just won't photograph well some days. The light was poor today and wet outside so this is as true as I could get. Pretty close. The knitted samples I'm working on though were a bit more stubborn so tomorrow I'll try again.
 

I was thinking this I-cord technique would be lovely for my new yarns too. They're coming out rather nicely with a definite long contrasting stripe to them. Quite fascinating to watch them knit up. Had to include a pic of my french knitting dolly - I've had her since I was a girl and she always makes me smile :) Makes nicely spaced I-cords too. I tried making this on a double ended needle to compare the cords. Works well either way really, just a matter of which feels more comfortable to you and gives you the best tension. Some dollies have large spacing that limits the weight of yarn you can use with it so if that's an issue, then the needle I-cord would work out better.

It does take a surprisingly long time to make a cord long enough to wrap around your wrist four of five times. I think that must have been why this one disappeared to the wayside for a bit!! It does give a soft, comfy fitted wrapped bracelet though and I love all the warm rich burnt reds and plums.

Tomorrow I'd like to get started on some of the vessel ideas using some of the dyed yarns. It will be interesting to see how they wrap up. I have a feeling they will be too regularly spaced colourwise and a non subtle striped effect but hey! there might be a happy surprise or two along the way, who knows? :)

Thank you for joining me today and see you all tomorrow for the next week of the creative journey!

Copper wrapped earrings

I'm beginning to adjust again to making time creatively every day. The first few days of the challenge were a bit hectic trying to find my mojo and make something worthwhile to show you. But I'm getting into the swing of things again and everything's settling down to a creative normal again.

Today especially was Good Day :) I wasn't intending to make earrings at all. I was going to explore wrapping the dyed yarns and testing new ideas for some vessels. Which will happen very soon, but I got kind of hijacked by a lightbulb moment!! Out of the blue, I had a series of separate things linking up - click, click, click, lots of pennies dropping in place - the wrapping, netting for inclusions, dyed yarn, jewellery, 3D form - BAM, totally smacked me in the forehead and demanded I explore these new ideas and write them all down before I forgot them.

So that's what I've been doing most of the day - on a roll!! Some of the ideas will need me to develop new techniques which will take a bit of time but I don't mind that. I'm just glad I've managed to break the deadlock of these filigree vessels. I wanted to achieve so much more with them but didn't know how to do that technically but now I've broadened my skills base in the last year, there seems a clear path forward - hurrah! Such a relief, I tell you ;)

So, on my visual travels today I found some more lovely wrapped jewellery, mostly earrings. So I thought I'd try to wrap something a lot smaller. These earrings are about 2cm wide so the challenge was just having patience to work on a smaller scale and keep the wrapping even. I actually found it theraputic, quite calming even - except when I realised I made a mistake after taking the photos tonight! Still, they're just testers so it will remind me to check the wrapping before finishing off ;)

I have lots of more complex designs saved too, with beads, hammered metal and oxidised copper - ooh, that lovely green colour! - so lots still to try. I'd also like to get some silver too so I don't end up with just all copper jewellery, lol! Still it will all be matching :)

Tomorrow will be a busier day so maybe not so much time for creating. I'd like to get a little bit of the new yarn wrapped to see how it looks before dyeing larger skeins, and play around with some of those new ideas some more.  I'd also like to knit some more of the knitted waves and ladders sample while the pattern is still fresh in my memory. It's so much harder going back after a big gap, you have to learn all over again!! We'll see what happens tomorrow - you never know when you may be hijacked and all your plans go to belly up :))

I'll keep you posted!

Graduating colours

Creative day 7!

Today, I decided to play with colour again but using dyes. There are several different ideas I've been meaning to try out but hadn't got around to so with such a lovely sunny day, I thought it would be perfect drying weather :)

One thing I hadn't got around to much when I was dyeing sock yarns was graduating colour - the ones where the whole ball goes from light to dark in long runs of colour. These yarns work especially well for longer lace shawl patterns and parasols without colour repeats too. I've seen several methods of doing this so I thought I'd try them out.
 

First of all though, I had a play with mixing colours on the skein. These colour bands are quite close together so will knit up more of a zigzag yarn with short runs of colours. What I love about experimental yarns is that the quick changes and blends give you ideas for other yarns - like using a viewfinder to focus on new compositions. I like the soft ochres, aquas and purple/blues down at the bottom right of the skein especially.

And the burnt ochres and greens in this one. The pinks didn't photograph well I'm afraid whatever light I tried. It was just too bright - I shouldn't complain!! But there were more burnt reds with hints of lavendar fushia pink.

In the other mini samples, I was experimenting more with technique. They all look similar as an end result but each one used a different method of graduating the colour. I learned a lot today, so I can make lots more progress tomorrow on the back of today's experiments.

mini spriral of graduating colour

One of the graduating yarns experiments. Once I unravel this fully, it will be interesting to see how the colours look and knit up. Imagine this as a whole 100gm ball of yarn. Rather subtle colour scheme for me isn't it? :) Don't worry I managed to squeeze in a dayglow rainbow one too just for contrast!

So part way done with these. The technique has been tested, now the results need to be knitted up to see if they look good. They're only short lengths so that shouldn't take long. That's my weekend sorted I think.

Have a good weekend and see you all soon!

Dreamscapes

Creative day 6 already:)

Today, after a good nights sleep, I felt much more up to tackling yesterday's rainbow challenge - as this mini knit is now being called!  As a bonus, the sun came out adding the feel good factor so I indulged in sitting in the garden knitting and writing my own version of the pattern. As this pretty much took most of the afternoon and is a pretty boring process to photograph, I thought I'd show you an afternoon's colour sketching I've been working on instead and save the rainbow bag for later on this week. Sound ok to you?  Cool :)

The idea behind this sketch was freeform drawing to music. I wanted to loosen up and not be so precious and considered in my way of working and see what happened. So no structure of composition beforehand, no choice of colours even, just whatever the music evoked in me. In fact, I even decided just to see what music was on the radio and pick something that took my mood.

I happened upon a Russian ballet, a nice long piece, I think it was Stravinsky. I love how these pieces visually tell a story - they flow and swirl, and move you along in their wake. I started drawing organic, soft, swirly shapes, soft colour fields in pastel, building up a tenuous dreamscape with suggestions of dancing figures, flowing with the melody. As the mood changed so did the colours, as a theme became more prominant, I accented it's presence. I smudged and reworked, I tried to capture the layers of story and emotion. And then it was over. Too quickly!!

And I stood back and looked. For me, it captured the feeling the music evoked in me and a transient, ethereal quality of figures not quite visible, partially emerging, then quietly disappearing back into the nebulous background. As a whole compositionally it doesn't work but I like the essence of it overall. It's the capturing of feelings, emotions, the less tangible elements that are such a big part of us. How to honestly express that?

It also inspires me to think how I could take this further. It makes me think of space nebulas, inner dreamscapes, fantasy illustration with printing, stitch and mixed media embellishments. Dreamlike vistas with layered felt as a base - or painted and hand dyed fabrics with applied layers of pattern and decoration. So many ideas just from a little sketch.

This small section makes me think of drawing with felt, seems the next logical step into textiles don't you think? It's been a while though so I'll have to brush up my felting skills and hunt out that fleece:) Hmm, what if I just drew with fleece to music? Added threads, fabrics, sequins, netting, layers of colour. Then went mad with the stitch and embellishment after? Ooh, a rich vein maybe!

Let's see where this goes. I think I might give this project some space to grow into itself over this month and post as I go. It might be nice to dye some fleece or fabrics to work with too. Maybe hand paint some yarns as well so I can knit some new organic vessels inspired by the music. I can see 'the firebird' colourway now, hehe. Time to hunt out some more inspiring music I think :)

Thanks for the company and see you all tomorrow!  elaine x

Rainbow's end

Today I decided to do a small, fun, relaxing project, using techniques I'm already familiar with so there would be more making to be had. In complete contrast to the last few days of fine wire and jewellery, I opted for a bit of rainbows, sunshine and comfy knitting.

There's a pattern I've been saving on Ravelry, a lovely rainbow bag made with simple short row shaping that's been calling my name for ages, so today I decided that this was the day! Yarn - check, needles -check, pattern -  ah, you have to buy it, but it's not a lot. Do I want to buy a pattern when I could probably work it out? Now, after learning from the wire bracelet project that sometimes it's ok not to reinvent the wheel every day, I decided, yes, why not? Have a day off from the working out and just enjoy the knit. So I did. :)

A lovely rainbow of colours to work with, perfect. The rainbow bag dimensions were 30x45cm and I thought, that's a two day project for sure. Maybe I can make a mini one? So, sure enough, I could halve all the calculations for the mini rainbow bag and we were off. I was thinking by then that this mini rainbow bag would be just perfect for my 2 year old niece - or a big kid like me :)

After knitting faithfully to the pattern for a while, I began to notice some things didn't seem right. The overall shaping with increases didn't seem to be logically placed and my lovely oval short row coloured panels were shifting off to the left alarmingly. I re-read the pattern to make sure I'd not made a blundering mistake. Nope. No mistake. Somehow the increases needed to make the bag bigger at the middle weren't staying in a straight line up the centre of the bag - major problem. I'd already knitted 3/4 of the bag by then and I was not a happy bunny:(

So what to do now? Maybe a fresh look at it tomorrow will help me work out whether it's just me or the pattern that's the issue. Or, dump the pattern!! Oh, the irony though - if I'd just written a basic pattern out I'd have been fine, lol! I might just do that anyway and brush up my pattern writing skills:) So, today's lesson has been sometimes you should trust your instincts when you know your knitting is going squiffy. And maybe the pattern isn't always right.

Well, the big kid or the little kid will have to wait just a bit longer for their bag full of rainbows but it will happen I'm sure. There's always a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow now, isn't there? :)

Turquoise beaded ring

Today's creative challenge has been all about pushing the wrapping a bit further, and this ring has certainly taught me many things today! In a good way:)

I saved this picture ages ago on pinterest and posted it on Facebook about february time with lots of oohs and aahs:) I just loved this ring. The silver, the beads and wrapping - just gorgeous! I certainly never thought I could make one myself at that time. But as my collection of wrapped jewellery images grew, I realised that maybe, if I started to learn some jewellery skills, it might just be possible, maybe!

Recently my lovely friend Jane, gave me the opportunity to attend a sea glass ring course at her studio/gallery. It was a huge crash course in silversmithing techniques for me and I made a complete ring from scratch  - soldering, setting the stone, everything. In one day I had a ring - a properly made ring - and from that day I've looked at jewellery making as much more of an achieveable thing. (more on that course soon!)

So today, as I was thinking about what I'd be inspired to make, someone 'liked' that very ring on my facebook page. And I thought, why not? You've just started with wire wrapping yesterday and this would be a perfect way to take those skills further today - and it looks a small project:)

Oh the wise words of my friend Marilyn only a few days ago!! She said that sometimes the smallest projects can take the longest time. Well, today this little ring as proved that very point but I have learned SO much.

I decided as I've no silver anyway that this could be a copper ring to go with my spiral bracelet of yesterday. Then I spied a lovely turquoise stone I've been meaning to make something with but didn't know what and thought, a-ha! Turquoise, amethyst pearlescent glass beads, copper and swirls. Perfect!

In fact I've nearly made two rings today as my first one helped me realise the surrounding wire wasn't strong enough for wrapping, also that shaping the wire into a ring shape with spirals first wasn't the easiest way to wrap and bead the ring. In fact, the wire got so tangled around the spirals it became a nightmare and my beautiful ring shape, spirals and all, got rather squashed. So, plan B! I treated it more like a flat project to be shaped after the stone and the first lot of beads had been set in place. Only then did I curve it into a ring shape so I could start letting the wrapping create and hold the form. And it worked!! Happy dance!

I've noticed today and yesterday that the practical working out takes more time than the actual wrapping. After I got this beginning part in place it grew quite quickly and I was at the swirls before I knew it. And then it was done! Quite suddenly I was finished. And I have a ring, a lovely ring just like the one I loved on pinterest all that time ago:))

There isn't a pattern for this but I used the original image as a basis for construction, also the designer sells her rings on Etsy here and has fabulous photographs of her work. All her jewellery is exquisite and she really has been an inspiration to me. If not for that one photo I'd never have attempted to make something I love so much.

See you all tomorrow! x

Copper swirls

Creative day 3!

Today's project is all about the simplicity of repetitive shapes and colour - and shinyness:) I found this beautiful copper armlet pattern on Pinterest, and I've been just waiting for the chance to experiment with wire again.  Looks like a day project to me!

If you're familiar with working with wire, then you may feel quite happy working this out by eye. If not, don't worry! There is a tutorial you can buy for £2.63/$4 on Etsy so you can work through this step by step. The designer sends you the tutorial so this isn't an instant download but she will get it to you within 24 hours. Mine was super quick. I went for a quick food break and when I came back it was there in my inbox. The pattern itself is very well written and with easy step by step instructions and the attention to the little things is great - like good finishing so there are no sharp edges so the wire won't scratch you arms.

This is quite a simple construction  - one spiral shape repeated, then interlocked and wrapped into place. Oh it sounds easy doesn't it? In theory! Trying to get all the spirally shapes exactly the same so they would fit together perfectly did have its moments, lol! Sometimes the attention is in the detail. For this design the balance of the regular shape with equal spacing of even wrapping makes this so effective.

I did spend a bit of extra time trying to learn how to create even spirals. In fact, that part took the longest. When you aren't covering the wire with crochet, the spiral evenness suddenly matters a lot more. So I took time and experimented till I got the hang of it. Still not perfect but getting there. The wrapping was surprisingly quick though. Again I took a little time to make sure the wraps were even and tight. Mine got better as I went along but the first one looks a little dodgy now. But then I can be a bit of a perfectionist sometimes. I'm looking at it now and can't find the slightly less well wrapped part so - bonus!

I do love this bracelet. Copper, wrapping and spirals, it could have been designed just for me:)) I'm going to try another one with smaller spiral units soon. I'd love to see this with lots of little copper spirals - wouldn't that be lovely too?

So it's been mostly a gentle creative day today. I love the fact that now I feel comfortable with the basics of wrapping strands and know how to get a quality finish to the joins, I can start adapting this technique to my own work and see how that goes.

I've been intending to expose the copper core in my crochet vessels and add more complexity to the form with lots more strands. This wire wrapping technique would be an ideal solution to bind them together and stengthen the 3D form so I can achieve larger and more organic shapes. My brain is busy, busy,  thinking about all the ways to integrate this and it wants to start sampling straight away. So who am I to say no? I've got a pretty full day tomorrow with less time for a full day project so this would be a perfect time to see where the creative muse takes me, don't you think?

See you all tomorrow!

Waves and ladders

Summit shawl sample

Day 2 of the creative challenge. And what have I been up to today? Well, a little bit of experimenting with knit as you can see! This beautiful pattern is where I have happily lost most of today. I was racing the light for last minute photos, I got so involved!

Ok, so knitting a shawl in a day is a bit much, but I have made a decent sample to explore the pattern construction. This lovely pattern Summit shawl by Mandi Harrington has been sitting in my Ravelry to-do list ever since it came out - March 2010 to be exact - so quite a wee while. In fact, all the bigger projects seem to gather dust there so I thought, wouldn't it be nice to just allow myself to do a little bit, as a tester, to see if I like it enough to make it. I love working out the construction of complex knits but kind of lose interest if I have to knit metres of the stuff! So this way I get the best of both worlds - I enjoy the doing but there's no pressure of a Finished Object.

And I've always loved the look of this one. It's beautifully designed and aimed at slightly higher than a beginner. The pattern says 2 out of 4 for difficulty so it looks complex but it only requires you to know a few of the easy stitches like M1, Kfb, Yo. The thing that makes this pattern so unusual is its use of short row knitting - where you knit each 'wavy' strand individually back and forth in sections - rather than a full row. Once you get your head around that, it makes a lovely logical structure. How happy am I when that happens? Happy happy:) - when you 'get' the pattern and know exactly how it will unfold from then on in. Harmony, that's it. Perfect harmony.

I wanted to try a few things out with this pattern too. Firstly to see how the short rows would affect a variegated hand dyed yarn and secondly if I didn't use the suggested silk how would it flow or drape in contrast. As to the first, you can see where the green sections meet the blue ones so although it isn't terribly contrasting, I think a semi-solid yarn would give the best effect, especially if you are going to spend the time dyeing your own like I do. So, good to know. Secondly, the handle of this fingering weight does have a lightness and won't slip as much when knitting silk but - well, silk is silk and who wouldn't prefer a silky draped shawl to a wool mix??

Despite our desire for expensive gorgeous silk, I think this will knit well in any smooth yarn and if it has a slight sheen or lustre to it, even better.  This pattern has an evening, dressing up feel to it so if I were to knit an actual shawl or smaller scarf, I'm thinking deep teals, reds or plums for me.

Casting on in sections                                                                        First ladder created

cast on row complete for my mini scarf (7 sections instead of 15) - all set up now for the first curve section

right curve

left curve

I've taken some photos as I went through each stage of the pattern so I can remember in the future how it's constructed. Hope this helps anyone who may be interested in trying this pattern out. After the initial set up section to get all the solid areas and ladders in place, you then develop the right curve section, then the left. That's it. You just keep waving those left and right curves and the pattern just appears. Wonderful!

This isn't a pattern to be knitting watching the tv though, so it was nice music as accompaniment today. Now I've got the construction clear in my head I've found it getting quicker and quicker to knit - which is excellent if you're going for full shawl size! One other thing I made myself do was double check the stitch count before dropping the stitch to create the ladder. It's much quicker to check again than have to reknit a dropped stitch in the wrong place:)  This lovely shawl is really worth the effort and just trust the pattern, it does work out perfectly, honest!

Tomorrow, I'll choose something that's a bit more manageable in a day, although I like the idea I can give you a follow-up on this too. I think I'll sleep well tonight - hope I don't see waves and ladders in my sleep!!

See you all tomorrow!