Projects in progress

Squares made from embroidery floss, possible future vest

Random stripes using up random yarn, future cheerful pillows. Unless they become bags first. No options closed off.

My entire crochet repertoire to date

To those veteran crocheters who read this blog, this is probably sweet, oh, look what she's proud of! But in fact I am. Dark winter day, available light low, sorry.

I

New learning in the last few days, thanks to YouTube. Just trying my hook at a shell pattern now. This is about the sixth go at it,  learning a bit more each time. I count it learned once I can reliably do the stitch without referring back to the source. As for reading patterns, that's a future adventure.

One of the hazards of  crochet is that the terms are different in North America from the UK. So you have to know which continent your YouTube teacher is based on. The shell lady is a Brit, excellent teacher, Bella Coco, and she does explain at the outset. But then I forget to translate and when she says to do a double, I do, and later realize it's what I know as a single. Likewise her treble is my double. So thinking is involved, always a problem! Jayda Stitches, I think, is the Granny square lady, North American, and Arne and Carlos the circle guys. Carlos goes totally overboard constantly translating Brit and NA terms, while Arne, crocheting at the speed of light, interjects the Norwegian stitch names!

Just a shout out to the YouTube presenters, including the aforementioned,  who know how to use the camera so their hands are visible, who talk clearly and slowly, who have good lighting, and good resolution. They really deserve support.

As learners do, too!

Crochet motif the second

It's quite fun trying to recall how to do crochet and figure out how to get an effect I want. Much trial and error. Here's Thing Two

Very nice pale green, but splitty yarn, and a bit soft for stitch definition. It's really knitting yarn, but was okay for an experiment.

I might even remember granny squares if I get out of the circle zone.

Change of pace. relearning crochet

Hands tired from Icord, brain needs rest from the fabric work, so I'm relearning crochet. I'm not interested in following patterns, so I plan to just try a few things in the form of these rounds. I can use up yarn scraps while I remember how to do it. So here's the first one.

There may eventually be a colorful pillow. Or throw. Or a couple of coasters..time will tell.

Following the path of the wilderness piece staggering on

So yesterday I was out playing music, and poking about in a friend's art studio, she and I being old accomplices in art and music, and today I realized a few more stages of the wilderness piece. 

No obvious path between yesterday and today, but the ways of art are mysterious when they're not totally baffling.  I think I got in the zone just musing about all the incoming stimuli.

So I thought at first, and this was after seeing that wonderful book recommended by Magpie of Mumblings fame, of  Annemieke Mein, whose mixed media wildlife pieces involve drawing and stitching and all kinds of great stuff, where was I, oh yes, I thought hm, why not treat that freeform crochet piece you saw a while back as a kind of soft stencil?  draw through it? no, better yet, stencil with liquid copper acrylic through it using a sponge brush.

So I tried that, with the crochet still pinned to the muslin.  Then before I removed it, I thought, ah, better yet, a monotype taken off the piece right now, onto this piece of black satin.  Which I did. 

And the copper on black piece has real possibilities, which the copper on muslin piece probably doesn't.  It goes that way. Then I unpinned the crochet stencil and rested it on a new piece of muslin.

And took a look at the stencil attempt on the muslin

probably a nonstarter.

And the paint now drying a bit, I rested the crochet stencil on the silk dyed background and I like the mixture of copper and green a lot more as a natural background for my bees and butterflies and other animals.

It will be stretched out a lot more than this, once dry, and I hope the stretching cracks the paint here and there to add to the interest.

So this is where we currently are! one current piece underway, one nonstarter, and one future piece ready for further attention to be paid.  So it turns out not to be true that I finish one piece at a time, after all. There are always other pieces at work somewhere, but I hadn't noticed them so much. And I seem to have backed my way into the studio again.