Craving and Creating

I have several new thoughts being actualized. They include

1. a headwrap hat. For some reason I resist the word "turban" but in the millinery
sense, this is what it is. I translated my fabric headwrap to a crocheted fabric
and I am very excited by the results.

2. a headband. I am so enamored of the elasticity and texture of the stitch
used in the headwrap hat, that I made a headband for my niece at Oxford.
(gosh I'm proud)

3. neckwarmer for my brother in law. I wanted a more masculine fabric. I
am infatuated with this stitch pattern too, and am thinking it would be great
for some handwarmers.

4. scarf for youngest nephew. I couldn't find the pattern I made up last
year for his scarf -- Cable Lace and so I made up another one and then found
the notes on the one last year. It's taking a lot more time and work than
I thought but it's looking good.

Not yet realized, but half written and sketched:

5. Spring Toque ( just learned this word and dig it)

6. Daché (for Lilly Daché)

7. Bounty Bobble

Akua's Fish Toy

So much has been created since last I posted here. I will attempt to catch up and share
my efforts.

My Flower Link Scarf pattern will be included in the 2010 Crochet-A-Day Calendar!
Hip Hip Hooray!!!!

I'm at work on a science fiction story about the sea and this fish pattern came to me--- not as easily as I wanted it to--- while it was easy enough to make, writing exactly what
I was doing was a bit of a challenge. Named fish "toy", it could be a baby toy, soft sculpture, pet toy or pin cushion.

I'm submitting it for the 2011 calendar. Wish me luck!

Leaves, Leaves, Leaves

Ahhhh. Leaves are my delight, especially as lariat/neckwarmer adornments. And I am proud to have developed
a wonderful maple leaf, and to have improved my gingko leaf.


Yet I needed more for the garland/lariat/neckwarmer and as I'm not a fan of repeats, more is indeed, more for me.
I thought about an old leaf spray and didn't remember the souce. I searched for it on the web and couldn't find it.
Digging through my samples, I found it! The green leaf spray was my sample.. and it feels good, right, well done...
but how to do it?

My patterns are an unreachable floor away and I have, unsuccessfully sent someone to find my crochet flower pattern books.... so I trieed to decode the stitches and I remembered on thing about the construction, that the first (closest) leaf is the last one to be made. The white one is the reproduction, I think I came close.



I am very inspired by Roberta Wong's peerless book on crocheted lei. In it she has a tiny leaf, Rereading it as I set about designing my Fall Leaf adornments, I found what I was missing: a small leaf, created in what seems a totally different way. It unlocked a whole series of thoughts. Her leaf was created to accompany buds and flowers, to be twisted in a bundle. As mine is more a singular entity, I needed a plumper,fuller representation. And this was easily accomplished,

What a refreshing antidote to the stolid march of stitches and stitch heights along a chain!


Then I did find a leaf spray, this white one, a new one to me. Very gestural, the leaves look sketched and
I think this would be fab fab fab if I had white wool, so I could felt it, and make the small leaves firm....

Well this leaf spray had a similarity of approach in the leaf creation to the larger spray, in that it wasn't about
the march of stitches and stitch heights along a chain. Each is shaped. And it is easy to make each one
different and still stay true to, well remember, LOL! the pattern.


So I'm almost ready to do a leaf pattern collection. I thought I was before, but now that I have several approaches
to leaf making, I think the collection is more robust.

Creating the Flower Scarf 1

It's taking me forever to post this journey. Maybe someone out there like me will be aided by this listing. First I was looking to look, to learn, to sort out my ideas. Then, when I found what I wanted, I couldn't afford it and then, realizing that indeed, I wanted to sell what I made, realized the constraints on using someone else's patterns. The meandering link list will explain that I grew to reject the sewing together at the end approach, because it is seems so labor intensive (although one could collect the odd flower for a year, sort through them and then jsut stitch them together).

I wanted a flower scarf. then I wanted a leaf scarf because the flower scarves I saw had more colors than I could fulfill and I wanted something winter.

Scale--- I couldn't find the right scale
Calla lilly Scarf
http://www.catirinabonetdesigns.com/index_files/image362.jpg
I like this idea but not the scale.
Fabulous flower Boa
http://www.catirinabonetdesigns.com/index_files/image348.gif

Trail of Blossoms Scarf in Lion Brand Romance
http://cache.lionbrand.com/patterns/60209A.html?noImages=

The scale is too big. 1 motif = 4" and the scarf is 2 motifs wide and tehn some. The picuture makes it look.... cumbersome...
though as i was writing this i found
http://www.flickr.com/photos/projectgallery/298432556/

and she works it but it still looks a bit big and cumbersome. I love purple, though and this lady will be mentioned again.

This is just boring and .... klugy.
http://cache.lionbrand.com/patterns/60027.html


SAme with this knitted Eskimo scarf, lovely to look at again it looks large around the neck with flowers dangling from the end.

http://www.roosteryarns.com/knittingkits.asp?id=01&b=1


Another commercial site with flowers as not intergral, tacked on at the end, made in Bolivia
Amano Crochet Flower Scarf

http://thestripeysheep.co.uk/index.php?itemID=161&jump=navbar#navbar


http://www.garnstudio.com/lang/en/visoppskrift.php?d_nr=93&d_id=39&lang=en
flower scarf
Fun but another kind of of would wearing it be comfortable?

Caron ( a yarn seller) has a black mesh scarf over which posies are strewn, the posies , 8 spoked wheels in two layers of clusters shells are among my least favorite interpretations of a flower in crochet.
http://www.caron.com/projects/br/BR10_posy_mesh_sc.html and they don't bother to tell you how to make them, just the black mesh scarf.
www.dinaladina.blogspot.com/ portugese freeformer i dig her exuberance--- Jan 2 shows a scarf approach that i feel more for my necklaces...


Then there's the crochet.flower scarf pattern that says make sixteen flowers and then sew them together that seemed more the width and weight , but sewing 32 points at the end did not excite me

http://needlebook.blogspot.com/2005/12/crochet-flower-scarf-how-to.html
http://needlebook.blogspot.com/2005/11/crochet-flower-scarf.html

100 flowers? Lovely but again all that sewing at the end!
http://applehead.typepad.com/applehead/2006/05/100_flower_scar.html

http://www.flickr.com/photos/gipsybazar/280747095/in/pool-fabrictextile_art/
once again, lots of sewing!

http://moonstitches.typepad.com/moonstitches/2006/11/post.html http://www.flickr.com/photos/greenkitchen/87440526/
another set of sewn together flowers


ahhh! China http://chinascarf.en.alibaba.com/product/50114745/50521738/Scarves_and_Shawls/Acrylic_Crocheted_Flower_Shawl.html

another verision of sewn at the end
http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=386704
http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=278156
http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=304357


Here's another commercial version
http://www.debenhams.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/product_10001_10001_59735_279418_-1
http://www.debenhams.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/product_10001_10001_18800_279384_-1

then I saw this lovely scarf flower give away and thought: That's the ticket!
http://www.flickr.com/photos/projectgallery/278648339/
This is the "Garden Scarf" from SNB: The Happy Hooker
But the pattern is in a book and I'm poor and disabled and gee-- I want to make a scarf that I can sell and so be less poor and enable myself.

This design presents the flower more graphically, which gives the scarf a loft and air, though i find it a bit too square.

So my design: edited. I decided to enter it into a contest or two, so I can't describe them here. If they -- o the one became two-- don't win, place or show, I'll share their images here.