From my Window - BCC Window Installation project - the start

 I'm embarking on an exciting new project for the month of October. Banyule City Council put a call out to artists to create work for windows of businesses all over the city of Banyule. They wanted to reflect the business and also use materials from the business, right up my alley. I put in a proposal for one window.

I was asked to do two, and then when another artist pulled out, I was asked to do more. So I went from one window to three! I am a little alarmed and hope I can finish all three windows to a good level. The three businesses I have are:

1. Eastern Vitality in Heidelberg where I'm going to focus on their plants and add flowers, phoenix and a background weaving.

2. Rosanna Heating and Cooling in Rosanna where I'm using their ducting to do some off-loom weaving and some origami houses and furniture. It's should be shiny and fun, I haven't done this sort of off-loom weaving for quite some time.

3. The Dish Cafe in Eaglemont was my third business and when I met them I was determined to use some coffee cups in their work. It was a sad story of good intentions unfulfilled, so I sort of feel that I'm mending them. I'll also do a weaving for next to their door incorporating no longer used plastic utensils.

These are all my first successful trials and I'm sure that they will develop further. I also have yet to do enough weaving for photos. There is a warp on the loom, though. The end of October is my nominal deadline with some leeway after that. Should be a busy month.

Liminal//A Shared Distance - the videos

Two videos were made for the exhibition. The first was a trial but I liked it so much that I asked if I could include it as well and they agreed. 

I think they're a little boring, but happily reflect the stillness of my art practice and the way I work.

 

Liminal // A Shared Distance - the works

Way back in February, the Banyule Artists group put out an expression of interest for the last exhbition to be held at the Hatch Contemporary Arts Space. I really wanted to be part of this as I'd been involved with Hatch since the start of the Ivanhoe Makers Market, a long time ago, so I responded.

As Covid-19 changed their exhibition and also changed the works I was going to produce. As part of the experience we were required to produce a video. Armed with my camera and discovering how it worked in regards to video I managed to do this.

I did produce three works. I couldn't narrow my focus so these reflect various aspects of Climate Change, the Covid-19 pandemic and the Black Lives Matter protests.

1. Safe (2020) 

        Are we safe in our own homes, reflections on the effect of Climate change and the pandemic and how we might view the safety that our homes give us and how deceptive that might be.

2. June, 29 of 423 (2020)

        A difficult topic to try and respond to was the Black Lives Matter protests and how they were reflected here. The Guardian have an excellent website documenting some of the indigenous lives that have been lost in custody, a total of 423 since the Royal Commission in 1990. Each day of the year someone mourns a loss, 29 in June.

3. Global (2020)

        Global warming or the pandemic, these are my places of shelter around the globe.

  

 

Sock Madness 2020

Sock Madness came at just the right moment this year. I suspect for many people this was true. Most of us around the world were in various forms of lockdown, and in various forms of shock, as COVID-19 became a pandemic and restructured everyone's lives. Sock Madness gave me a structure and a goal and resulted in a terrific set of socks. 

I know the moderators plan the socks well ahead and couldn't have known what was ahead, but they do seem to be a particularly good set of socks with challenges and beautiful outcomes.

The socks are (from right to left):

    Qualifying Round : Wohin?

    Round 2: Echoes from a Transylvanian Forest

    Round 3: Lacy not Lazy Madness Socks

    Round 4: Adament Hears

    Round 1: Diamond Duality

    Round 5: Mobius Madness (this was my dropping out point but I decided to continue, especially, as it turned out, because round seven was written by Adrienne Fong who passed away. Such a lovely tribute.)

    Round 6: Lampropeltis

    Round 7: Suky

For me it was a bit more of a challenge than usual. Early on I made a mistake, picked up by the moderators and had to reknit a toe. Then later I completely misread the instructions and unfortunately the fix was too difficult and as I was in Round 6 I knew there was little time left, so I quit. A bit unhappily, but I'd never got two so wrong before, so a lesson learnt.

Can't wait for next year.

 

A Shawl for my sister

My sister is going through some personal difficulties and deserves all the love we can provide. She desires her privacy so I thought I'd knit her a shawl.

 

I found a pattern 'Flowers of Traken' on Ravelry and couldn't resist. Along with the beauty of the pattern her oldest is a Dr Who fan and this is a reference to one of the episodes.

I had some beautiful alpaca and silk in red....perfect..

Here it is, all bloked, just before I unpinned it and sent it off. 

 

Skating on Thin Ice

I've been playing around with creating shapes using other shapes. In this case to get a very round base, I coiled around a tennis ball. I used fabric remnants, handspun yarn and twine. I learnt the technique at the Handweavers and Spinners Guild during Summer School.

Finishing a piece is always tricky and it took me awhile to find the right pieces. I really didn't want to buy something as it really goes against the whole sustainable practice ethos. Luckily, I had some glass that was left over from a leadlight window class I attended way before children. I kept all the glass. Then some rocks from the garden supplies finished it off. Pretty pleased.

 Unfortunately, it hasn't found an exhibition, yet, in which to shine. 

A hat and mittens for the boys partners

I like making things for other people, but I rarely have confidence that I can figure out what people would like. I make do by making bulk things for everyone and hope for the best. I love when I get requests..

So, here are the requested hat and pair of mittens, the hat for Steph and the mittens for Shannon. The hat is from the standard accessories book from Patons that I always use along with Bendigo Classic in Steph's favourite colour, it seems. The mittens are my standard pattern in Black yarn from the stash. They seem to have been well received. I hope they kept them warm this Winter. 

They were a nice quick project for the start of the first lockdown in Melbourne.

 

August Experimental Spinning - Fractal yarns

Fractal Spinning is another way of spinning a multi-coloured top to get a mix of colours. It's based on the idea of fractals and indicates an ever diminishing division of colours. 

I decided I'd like to see what happens when you use the primary colours, red, yellow and blue. This should be bright but I was hoping for some optical colour mixing. I had the separate colours and created a run that consisted of the three colours four times.

I split it all in half and spun the first half. Then spun further splitting the remains and spinning half until I had this left for the last sequence.

Which gave me the following two bobbins, which I then plyed together.

A fun and gorgeous yarn, not as much colour mixing but not as starkly bright. 

For further reading have a look at the Schacht Spindle Company website (www.schachtspindle.com) for articles by Benjamin Krudwig exploring this topic.

Also suggested by members of Experimental Spinning:

1. Spinning a Rainbow-Fantastic Three Ply fractal ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mIqr00PwvRA )
2. Fractal Spinning Preep and how to - craftymisfits Tour De Fleece Weekly challenge ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MTYEZwVSIxo )

July, Day 2 of 29

July - Day 1 of 29

I have started my project for the Banyule Artists exhibition: Luminal // a Shared Distance

It's a month where each day I make a remembrance of a death in custody. Some days are precise, I do have dates from 2008 to 2020 courtesy of the Guardian database: Deaths inside

Here is my first:

Not quite the shape I thought I'd do, but it resonates well. I have to think more about the base. It will be circular like a clock.

What is an Australian vision

We have an indigenous population that looks at the landscape through the lens of 60,000 years and produces suitably powerful art, and the relationship to land is inherent. Even when ties are broken, you would think genetic memory plays a part in any artistic response.

I am often drawn to English landscapes and do feel a comfortable resonance, whilst loving the Australian as well. My response to the Australian landscape has to come from outside the family and not from the guidance of past generations. This feels like a disconnect.

Modern and traditional indigenous art can speak to all of us and shows us a way of looking at our country. Hopefully, this art resonates, intrigues, challenges and we can be inspired and influenced by what we see. But it cannot be the way, as non-indigenous Australians, that we make art and show our view the country.

It's a difficult challenge. There have been non-indigenous artists that have shown the Australian landscape in a new way that seems to draw on all sorts of influences. My favourite two are Fred Williams and John Olsen.

Fred Williams, Hillside 1966 - Gallery of New South Wales

John Olsen, Sun and Paella 1978 - Olsen Gallery

At my core I'm a weaver. I want to find a way that this influences other aspects of my art. I continue to try and find my own voice. 

Experimental Spinning in isolation

As the Handweavers & Spinners Guild of Victoria has closed because of COVID-19 we have held our meetings virtually with a combination of WhatsApp and Zoom. It's hard to figure out how best to use them. I suspect many of the features are there, just have to find them.

One good outcome is that I seem inclined to finish the different yarns we've done so far.

This is the bead yarn that seems to be a leftover from the last time we covered beads. The beads are dalmation beads and I put them on the single as it was spun. I've got some black alpaca that I'll spin and combine with this one.

We were supposed to look at Border Leicester, however, we weren't able to obtain some in time. I found some English Leicester and decided to do some tail spinning. I've only done it once before and this time it was more successful.

For information on Border Leicesters see: https://www.thespinningloft.com/sheep-o-pedia/border-leic... and https://www.borderleicester.com.au/why-borders

I found a good video on tailspinning: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xv24qJaEhpk

The last one I've completed so far, we were blending all sorts of bits and pieces. I had wool, alpaca, threads and core spun around some 4 ply yarn which  worked quite well.

For core spinning yarn by Ninja Chickens- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KhRGnWdJeOc's 

This month we were playing with compost yarn that uses fabric and buttons. Lots of feathers were on the agenda for others in our virtual Experimental Group.

I need a pair of mittens

4th June, 2020

I decided yesterday afternoon to knit me a pair of mittens.

Well, it wasn't quite that sudden. I had decided that the pair of mittens that I had knit with yarn from Hawaii should be reknit and teamed with some hard wearing handspun yarn. The mittens had developed a hole which I didn't want to repair, as the mittens were quite flimsy.

However, between Round 6 and Round 7 of Sock Madness I had about 2 days. I'm no longer in the competition but was interested in knitting the socks with the beads which turn out to be the Round 7 socks. (192 beads is tantalising!) So I needed something quick.

I used my favourite basic pattern book: Winter Warmers from Patons. (Book 483) It has lots of hats, scarves and mittens in different weight yarns and it is an essential item in my pattern collection.

This is them...

Happy and warm.

So enjoyable, I did some more. Now I have a pair for the beach and one for the city.

The Round the World Trip blanket

I'm trying to do a series of posts that catch up with this year. The first post is all about my trip blanket. I finally finished it in January, way after our return in September.

The idea was to get a ball of yarn everywhere we stayed. This didn't always work out, but in the major cities where we stayed, I managed to find a yarn shop and often some yarn that was from the local area. I used the 10 stitch blanket pattern as I could do the yarns in order, which sometimes gave odd results, but that was the point for me, to keep it in order. See: https://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/ten-stitch-blanket

These are the shops I managed to find yarn:

San Francisco - Atelier Yarns, 1945 Divisadero St., San Francisco

Bellingham - Northwest Yarns, 1401 Commercial St., Bellingham

Haines - Dalton City Yarn, 312 Main St., Haines

Anchorage - Wooly Mammoth Alaska, 416 G Street, Anchorage

Talkeetna – The Patchwork Moose, 22262 Talkeetna Spur Road, Talkeetna, Alaska

I don't think I took a picture of the tiny bit of Quviut yarn I bought here!

Cordova - The NetLoft, 140 Adams Avenue, Cordova

New York - Purl Soho, 459 Broome St., New York

Boston - Newbury Yarns, Old South Meeting House, 2 Milk Street, Boston

Helsinki - Fiinaneule, Simonkatu 12, Helsinki

Edinburgh - McAree Brothers, 19 Howe Street, Edinburgh

Belfast – The Wicker Man, 18 High Street, Belfast

A great Irish Craft souvenir shop, well worth a visit. Even has yarn!

Cambridge - Sew, Knit, Craft, King St., Cambridge

Stow-on-the-Wold - Bourton Basket, The Old Forge, Moore Road, Bourton-on-the-Water
Maidstone - Hobbycraft Maidstone, St Peters Wharf, St Peter’s St., Maidstone
Faversham – The Yarn Dispensary, 6 Market Pl, Faversham, United Kingdom
Vienna – Meidlinger Knopfkonig, Meidlinger Hauptstrasse 32, 1120 Wien, Austria

My favourite shop was in Cordova. The Net Loft is run by an amazing women who has managed to make this remote, off the tourist track yarn, art, embroidery, souvenier shop, quite a success. Full of amazing yarns, including locally dyed and working on locally produced, as well. She has a program where they knit Ganseys for the local fisherman, so successfully that the author of the book that inspired them, Knitted Ganseys by Beth Brown-Reinsel, created a Gansey just for them. For more information: https://thenetloftak.com/pages/cordova-gansey-project

Many birds migrate through Cordova, it is Alaska, and they created an exhibition of knitted birds and continues to get submissions from around the world. Have a look at this:  https://thenetloftak.com/pages/copper-river-delta-birds-by-hand

Asking at a local cafe, it was admitted that they didn't know a women who didn't knit. If only it were true everywhere.

Oh, and here is the blanket...

Finished 'Secure' Sculpture

I have been working on this piece all last year. It's taken all year to work and resolve golf balls, clay, yarn, fence pailings and nylon wire into a finished piece.

I've called it 'Secure' asking the question in our Security obsessed century, whether security is an illusion.

It's now been entered into the brand new 'Australian Textile Art Award' and I wait to see if it has been accepted.

However, I still think that there is a further iteration of this work to come!

UPDATE: It was accepted into the exhibition. However, due to COVID-19 all we were able to do was have a very small opening ceremony.  Even in June, it's still sitting at the Embroiderer's Guild waiting to be seen.

Discovery

Walking along the beach at Cape Woolamai is always full of majesty and beauty. Sometimes though, it's the small things you find that are the most delightful.

Hooded Plovers are endangered but there is a concerted effort to protect them. It's such a privalege to see these very cute birds as they skip over the sand. They're very skittish and we have to keep our distance.

This lovely little sea anemone in one of the rock pools. It's a very rough beach and you don't tend to see these. 

However, on the rocks at the end of the beach is the mass of mussels and limpits.

Gifting the Gnome

This is the third year of making something to give to the 'children' in our family. The first year I gave mittens and last year, bed socks. Coming to the third year I didn't have a clue about what to make. My time was limited as we went overseas and renovated our home kitchen.

All the 'children' are over 18 and several have partners, and I include the partners! Somehow I found a pattern that I'd had for quite a long time and decided to make Yuletide Gnomes.

I had a photocopy of an article from Simply Knitting from a Christmas Crafts Extra in 2005. Yuletide Gnomes by Alan Dart. They're based on Swedish Jultomten.

So thirteen gnomes had to be made from only my stash....not as hard as it sounds. Plenty of materials have been given and I had lots of eyelash yarn, great for beards, stuff that I will never use! I made all the hats in leftover handspun yarn, for those great individual hats.

This is my first attempt and now sits with all my Christmas trees.

This lot are ready to go, there are still three to make, but what a jolly bunch.

And here are the last lot, under the Christmas tree waiting to go to their new homes.

They all seemed to be accepted in the spirit with which they were made, so I'm quite happy. Next year, I will do something a bit more serious!