Seveness at Stitches Midwest
Stitches Midwest was relaxed and pleasant at the Schaumburg Convention Center. The market was smaller than at other Stitches events, but the yarns and books and tools were just as tempting.
By the time Sunday afternoon rolled around, everyone was tired and suffering from information overload. It was the perfect time for Seveness Knitting—a class where we prepare our pattern by flipping a coin, and then we knit.
Seveness stands for “Suzann’s Sensational Similar Shade Scrap Stripe System,” which uses up scraps of yarn without looking like a scrap project. A former student said, “It’s like you’re creating a luxury fabric.” Well put!
Our Stitches Midwest class did such a great job, I’m thrilled to show you every single swatch they knitted.
Vintage Flower Fabric
Being a fan of flower fabric, I was happy to find this vintage pattern book, Doily Bouquet (Star Book No. 71, by American Thread Company).
The doily at the top right is made of flowers crocheted separately at first, and apparently joined as they are made.
For my own flower fabric, like the Roses Poncho (close-up below), I crochet all the flowers separately, pin them to a template, and sew them together with sewing thread.
I chuckled when I read the doily instructions. The designer obviously assumed some intelligence on the part of the crocheter, which is not so common nowadays:
“Work a 2nd daisy same as 1st daisy, joining it to 1st daisy as illustrated.”
Illustrated where? The only illustrations in the book are photos of the doilies. You’re on your own to figure out how to join the flowers.
I think it’s good for crocheters and other crafters to figure things out on their own. You have to think. You have to try various options to find the best one. The more you are forced to figure things out on your own, the more you improve as a crocheter.
That’s how crochet designers, teachers, and writers are made. Hurray!
Buttoning Up the Red Sweater Renovation
Stitches Midwest is next week! My friend Gail Hughes will be there with her wonderful buttons. Please stop by her booth. It’s a feast for the eyes!
This reminds me that I never showed you the final stage of the Red Sweater Renovation. It was the most fun stage, because I got to go through Gail’s buttons and choose the best one for the project. They were all great, with their completely different looks. I especially like the ones with gold sparkles.
I settled on the ones below–they’re not the boldest, but once you notice them camouflaged on the red sweater, you can’t take your eyes off them. Spots are the best!
Inspiration May Be Anywhere
What do you do, when you’re visiting Austin, Texas, and you’ve already had breakfast and it’s hours too early to shop or go to the library?
You visit the Texas Capitol, of course! It’s open early and late (hours here).
When your money is limited, the Capitol is a great place to go with friends or a date. If you go at night, you don’t even have to pay for parking, but I have to say that parking the Capitol Visitors’ parking garage is a bargain.
We walked all around the building, inside and out, enjoying the cooler morning temperatures and the light of the eastern sun on the pink granite walls.
We climbed as far as we could into the dome (only three floors) and looked down upon the terrazzo floor. We marveled at the fancy architecture of this beautiful and beautifully-restored building.
In our wanderings, we came across a hallway where rows of chairs were stored against the walls. Five of them had needlepoint seats featuring Texas wildflowers. I have to share, because they’re so pretty, and it’s something you don’t normally see in the course of a visit to the Capitol.
When I was working on Crochet Bouquet, the wildflowers of Texas were a great inspiration to me. The “Fire Wheel” (pp. 83-84) is a Texas roadside flower that I knew as “Indian Blanket.”
Have a look at the last picture of this post, and see how the needlepoint designer interpreted the Fire Wheel. Three Fire Wheels are close to the lower edge, barely to the right of center, one on top of the other–round, red flowers with yellow tips on the petals.
Decorative arts inspired me as well: embroidery, flowery chinaware, tin boxes with flowers on them, carvings, even wrapping paper. I love to see how other designers translate the essence of the flower to wood or stone, or to the flat surfaces of fabric, metal, or porcelain.
So there you have it. Inspiration may be anywhere–even, apparently, under the bottoms-of-state!
Bob and Bobette
You may remember Bob from a previous post. Eva crocheted him. Bob was very popular at the local middle school. This year he makes his debut in high school.
Bob travels to band events and goes on other school outings. He sleeps in a drawer in Eva’s room, which is fitting, because she slept in a drawer for several weeks after she was born.
This summer, Bob acquired a family! Here he is with his niece, Bobette. She has thick orange hair, which is swept back into a ponytail.
Eva crocheted her for Ella. While Ella is at school, Bobette sleeps in her backpack. Just having her near helps Ella feel a little less lonely in first grade.
Bobette was Eva’s first foray into the world of crocheting with No. 10 crochet cotton. Now she knows why people love to crochet doilies.
Steel Silhouettes
In our part of Texas, people love metal cut-outs to decorate indoors and out. Blanton and Russell Jones, owners of Custom Iron Art, cut designs out of steel in their workshop near De Leon, Texas. We went to see a demonstration of the craft last weekend, and Blanton was kind enough to let me take pictures.
The father and son team work with customers and computers to come up with the perfect design, often combining ready-to-use artwork with images that customers bring in. Russell is the computer expert, scanning, composing, redesigning, and resizing designs until they meet with the customer’s approval.
The result is a computer graphic file that looks like a line drawing. Using specialized software, the Joneses place the design onto a screen that represents a sheet of steel, which is lying on a cutting table a few feet away.
At the press of a button, the laser cutter positions itself to make the first cut. The sparks fly!
A few minutes later, the design is cut. Then the finishing work begins. With a home made tool, Blanton knocks steel bits out of all the holes in the design.
The laser cutter leaves irregular lines of slag, which Blanton breaks off with his tool.
He smooths the edges with a power polisher and touches it up by hand. Often, Blanton paints the finished cut-outs black to prevent rusting. We liked the plain steel finish of our hummingbird, and knowing that it will soon have a patina of rust on it, we proclaimed it finished.
You can find more of the Jones’s work at their website: http://www.ciaoftexas.com. Or drop by and see them, on your way through Texas–but call first!
Crazy Eight for the Eighth Month
Our August 2009 Crochet Bouquet Along selection is the Crazy Eight (pp. 81-82 of Crochet Bouquet). It is a simple eight-petal flower, which is perfect to crochet in the eighth month.
The basic Crazy Eight is easy to crochet and then you can fancy it up with several options for trims and embellishments.
My favorite is the ‘Outline’ option on page 82.
First, crochet a large or small Crazy Eight. To make the outline, attach a contrasting yarn to a ch1-space of Rnd 1, as in this photo.
Now you outline each petal with sc, working up one side of the petal, over the top, and down the other side, where you find yourself at the next ch1-space of Rnd 1. When the instructions say to crochet around the dc, I find it easiest to fold the flower so that the dc is at the top. Then I crochet around the stitch itself.
When you get to the individual petal at the outside of the flower, you will be holding it sideways. You crochet around the ch4 (that means you insert your hook under the chain, not into it). Then sc into the tops of the treble stitches, sc down the ch4 at the other side of the petal, and continue toward the center of the flower, crocheting around the dc stitch or stitches.
Here’s the first petal finished and the second in progress. Crocheting around eight petals takes time, but the results are very nice!
The outlined Crazy Eights on the Flower Power Jeans (pp. 100-101 of Crochet Bouquet) are made with Aunt Lydia’s No. 10 Classic crochet cotton. I crocheted the ones pictured here with Brooks Farm Yarns’ Duet, a blend of mohair and wool.
Churro Rug: The Final Episode
I’m posting on the advice of the famed Knit Doctor, Karen Frisa, who is available for consultation at all Stitches events. For me this means two blog posts in three days. I hope she has a remedy for a pulled blog muscle!
At the end of the last post, the knitted churro rug was in the washer. Its fate was unknown. Would it turn out well? Or would all that knitting have been in vain?
And now…read on for the exciting conclusion to our story.
After the first washing, the rug looked good, but it wasn’t felted enough. Back into the washer it went, this time with a bunch of dark towels. I set the water temperature on hot wash/cold rinse instead of hot/hot, because the hot-cold contrast is supposed to shock wool fibers into felting better. I forgot about that the first time around.
The washer finally spun to a stop. The lid took ages to unlock. I pulled out all the towels, trying to avoid looking at the rug. Only when the towels were hung out in the heat of the day, did I go back for the rug.
The wool felted even better during the second washing. Just about perfect! And I discovered a new rule about felting things in the washing machine:
Never wash your felt project with a new, pink beach towel.
I laid the rug on top of a big towel, on the floor. I straightened the edges and the stripes, and then spent about an hour picking pink lint off of it. The pink pills are still surfacing. Maybe they’ll all be gone by the time October rolls around.
It looks great. I’m very, very happy with it.
Anxiously Awaiting Laundry
Borders are just amazing! With its mitered border and lovely corded trim, my churro rug looks very, very handsome. Yes, that’s the best word for it. Handsome.
Ella wrapped the finished rug around her waist, struck a pose, and said, “Mom, you need to knit me a dress with that same pattern.” In softer yarn, it would be a perfect lap blanket.
But now we enter the great unknown. It’s time to felt the rug. As I write, hot water is filling the washing machine, where my rug is sandwiched between a brown towel and some dark sheets. I learned my lesson when felting the swatch:
Never felt dark colors with white laundry!
There were white pills all over the surface of the felt, which took ages to pick off. Luckily, with the addition of a little vinegar to the wash, color bleeding wasn’t a problem.
In a half-hour or so, we’ll know the truth. Did the rug felt well? Stay tuned.
Gazania and Book-Signing for July
The Gazania is a bright and interesting flower, native to South Africa. It is named after a Greek-born scholar named Theodorus of Gaza, who lived in the fifteenth century. He was a famed translator of famous Greek manuscripts into Latin. Among his translations was the work of the classical botanist Theophrastus. Plantzafrica speculates that the name may also be based on the Greek word for riches: gaza.
Let’s crochet the Gazania for our monthly crochet along. Gazanias come in many variations of yellow, orange, red, and an orange so deep it is almost brown. Choose these colors for a natural-looking Gazania, or indulge your fancy with the colors of your choice.
* * *
The Knitting Nook in Wautauga (Fort Worth) is hosting a book signing for Crochet Bouquet, and offering my knitted darts class twice in the next two weeks. Here are times and description:
Sweaters that fit well make people look better! Darts solve a number of fitting problems. Learn to identify fitting situations that call for darts, and how to measure and calculate for darts, and knit vertical and horizontal sample darts. Bring a sweater pattern you want to make, and we’ll discuss how to insert darts into the pattern.
Saturday, July 18, Book Signing 11 a.m.-1 p.m., Darts class 1-4 p.m.
Thursday, July 23, Book Signing 11 a.m.-1 p.m., Darts class 1-4 p.m.
The Knitting Nook
6601 Watauga Rd., Ste. 106
Watauga, TX 76148
Phone: 817-577-6305