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...