The Stitching Challenge

The Stitching Challenge-A different kind of CAL/KAL “Create Your Own Motif” guidelines said in part:
1) Measure out 30 yards/27.5 meters of the yarn of your choice.
2) Use your knowledge of increases, decreases, stitch variations, short rows, long rows, and all the stitches and motifs you care to include, and make your own motif.
3) You may work in any direction you choose -- in the round, linearly, standing on your head...

My first effort didn't quite finish within the parameters:
Improv A Long Motif

5.0 mm (H) used about 30 yds of Red Heart SS in Ocean.Ocean

My next and favorite is the Pockets and Pillows Motif used dk Knit picks Merino Style and a F hook/3.75mm

 My third, Swirled Square used 3.75mm/F and Knit Picks Wool of the Andes in Cloud




My fourth one, Caribbean Window, used a G/4mm and Knit Picks Swish Worsted






 

 This was great design calisthenics!

EXPLODING ENLARGING the Joys of Scaling UP

Ah! The joys of ever larger applications of crochet! The dainty intricacies of doilies are appreciated anew when they are expanded to wall-size  decor, or used as stencils for  steel, plastic, and shaped into furniture.

I needed a break from the intense, lately pleasure-delimiting  thought-work of pattern writing and so asked a bit, read a bit  and looked at various doily and motif pattern books to start a rug.

I got some great advice -- I know because in choosing the piece that i liked the most, I didn't follow the advice and it's not working out! Sigh.

Four strands of LB WoolEAse is not  sizing up -- the motif in thread is 4.5" and done with 4 strands and a 10mm hook -- all I got was 11.5 inches, not an explosion!

So I've got to design more, add more rows. Images from 101 Motifs for Thread Crochet and Bib Book of Little Doilies.

FF CAL Day 22-23

Meditating on the Mayan prompt, the images and symbols, i thought about our symbols - alphabet and so i made a letter, then made more letters, then some words.

I wanted to create  letters in a way that did not require sewing or breaking the yarn. I found a pattern for a S in my files and then made up my own A, K, L, O, V, E, Z, I to create Akua, Love Is, and Lez. My Z is backwards unless viewed on the wrong side. There’s no way around it, if i want Z to be right side facing, I have to break the yarn.

There is a beautiful bit of netting/background, framed in a square in Duplet 130.. i can see letters hanging/sewn or crocheted in in this way as a signature block… but my letters are large, i have to make 2” letters. I'm enjoying creating and playing with the  letters… and then i made a flat Mayan doll and a bullion spiral.

Day 23
The chain prompt led to my chain person. It is worked continuously, beginning with the block of chains as instructed, the only break is the waist-cinch chain. I really enjoyed playing with chains! I found some sportweight (yay) and so tried another chart without instructions, but making it a bit short and those are the picot linked leaves.

Then i tried the crazy mesh at first reading a chart and then trying to generate my own defined randomness ( 3 2 2 7 4 5)
and my overstock floor blocks arrived yesterday so i can dry and have a tray and rehearse pieces with greater speed and ease. The vine was to be an edging for my middle piece but i think it looks better framing/containing the crazy mesh. The layout helps -- I need to make a bigger O, or cram the letters closer together but it’s interesting to me that this resembles my handwriting.

Flying Bird Pin Crochet Pattern!

The Flying Bird Pin Crochet Pattern is the second in my series of bird patterns.

Using 1/3 skein (approximately 30 yards) of light worsted weight yarn, F hook/3.75mm or equivalent (slightly smaller than recommended for yarn), the Flying Bird's body approx 2.75”, Wings 2.25” Tail 1.5”

The other materials needed are a small amount of fiberfill or other stuffing,
beads, round head pins or shiny black thread or thin yarn for eyes, a pin back, yarn needle and (optional) a small amount of embroidery thread for nose, neck markings, tail markings.

The pattern is available at my Etsy store.

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.