Kreativ Blogger (Award) - blush

The lovely Kat has named me in her list of bloggers to honour. I'm blushing as this is the first time anyone has done anything like this. I love reading her blog http://thestoryofkat.blogspot.com/ and she's a lovely crafter with gorgeous bits and pieces in her Etsy shop.

Anyway, all I have to do is to tell you seven things you might not know about myself. (Deep breath, you don't have to tell things you don't want people to know.....), and, to also honour another seven bloggers in a similar way.

Seven things about me:

1. I didn't learn to swim till I was 21, and I didn't learn to ride a bike badly till I was 28. (Not sure if they're things you should admit as an Australian.


2. I always had deep desires to both paint and write. I now have done both, but not in the deeply romantic way that you might think.


3. I would love to play a musical instrument, but I have no idea what.


4. I'm only ticklish under my feet. I can release this information because my children are too old to try 'Let's tickle mummy'.

5. I like driving cars. Not driving them fast, just trying different cars. At college, I got to drive a kombi van, lime green V8 monaro (classic!), a brand spanking new datsun 120y and a few others. I did think, while I remembered this, that maybe the guys that should have been boyfriends should have been the guys that let me drive their cars??

6. My favourite movie is 'Local Hero'. I just want to go and live in a small seaside Scottish village.

7. I got my driving licence when I was 18 and the first place I drove to was my Grandma Bennett's house, about 15 minutes away. Thinking about this reminds me of how much I miss her.

I would like to nominate the following bloggers:

1. Ixchel Angora Bunny & Funky Fibre Art

2. Art journal

3. Dr Bones knits

4. Saint Verde digest

5. ii-ne-kore


They all inspire me, one way or another and this is just a little thankyou, and two more blogs, relatively new to me that I'm falling in love with:

6. Advanced Style

7. t does wool

Spinning Cassette tape and other tangles

Last Saturday was Experimental Spinning and the topic we were covering was spinning audio and video cassette tape.

I've been a bit remiss with blogging about this one, so I'm going to rectify the situation. However, thinking about this spinning raises more questions than it solves.

We didn't have many of us spinning, so were not able to explore alot of options. I used audio cassette tape and plyed it with some white top. I wrapped, around it and with it and was satisfied with the result. We did decide that to be really effective you would want thick bright coloured slubby yarn!

Some of the questions that were raised were:

1. What use would it really be, apart from 'because you can'?

2. It was reasonably soft, so would it make a hat?

3. If washed and left, would it rust AND dye the wool? (I HAVE to try this!)

Other interesting things were:

1. You need to do an awful lot of spinning to use up all those no longer used cassettes we all have lieing around the house.

2. There are lots and lots of bits in cassettes, once you pull them apart. Useful spools and potentially interesting tiny bits. (Could you glue them to glass?)

3. Don't pull apart an audio cassette tape before you spin. Cut the tape at one end and spin from the cassette, otherwise you could end up with a mess.

I now want to do some knitting with the resulting yarn and the tape on its own. I want to see how strong it is as a knitted fabric. Perhaps another sculpture or two is in order......

Drawing in the Botanical Gardens

As part of orientation week for the DVA (Diploma of Visual Arts) is a day drawing in the Melbourne Botanical Gardens. Last year was rather daunting, as while I had done drawing classes, I was (and to a certain extent still am) extremely reluctant to draw in public. However, if you're going to sign up for something you might as well do it right!

Drawing is extremely important, the basis for everything that follows, an artform of itself, and it forces you to LOOK. During the process of a drawing it's fascinating to suddenly realise how closely you are looking and what you can see that you certainly didn't notice when you started.

There was significant improvement. For a start I did TWO drawings, though not completed, were taken as far as I was going to on the day. I felt far more confident. And I tried a different approach, 'encouraged' by the drawing teacher I had last year, to start working tonely with graphite, rather than with lines. I quite liked this and look forward to trying this out in the Life Drawing classes I'll be doing this year.

PS They do look better photographed rather than in the flesh!

The Endless Garment or stalking Issey Miyake and Sandra Backlund

Today was off to orientation at the CAE. A chance to catch up with lots of people, but basically an administration session. Instead of going off to the Art galleries that were listed, I went off to the RMIT gallery for the exhibition 'The Endless Garment: The New Craft of Machine Knitting'.

The best reason to go to exhibitions is not to look at pretty pictures, but to be shaken, stirred, inspired, shocked, surprised............In other words, when you have an emotional response, then an exhibition is a success. This was such an exhibition.

This is all machine knitting from a variety of international and local designers. There are so many ideas to absorb, both for machine knitters and hand knitters.

I'm going to purchase the catalogue when it comes out. I highly recommend that you pop in and have a look at the exhibition.

There's a number of event as part of the exhibition, I'm particularly interested in the Public Lecture by the Creative Director for Issey Miyake, and, the talk titled Knit your building. for more details visit: Rmit Gallery

Exhbition dates: 12 February - 21 March 2010

RMIT gallery / 344 Swanston Street / Melbourne

Mon - Fri 11-5 / Saturday 12 - 5 /

What I was supposed to do in the holidays, or making friends with my knitting machine

With the long summer holidays and having made the decision to, again, not do any markets in February, I decided that I would try and develop a new product more suited to the warmer months. Upcycling t-shirts by inserting beautiful machine knitting is still thought, by me to be a good idea......

It's an idea that is still in the general swirl of my thoughts, but it hasn't quite made it to reality. I do have a beautiful op-shop t-shirt to work on, and I have been working on my knitting machine, but not on the same project.

I have created this.

A combination of my favourite machine knitting stitch, the tuck stitch, and long floats has worked out beautifully. I haven't pressed all the kinks out of the floats, I do like them.

I added 9 pearl buttons to each end, just to give it a bit of weight. (it weighed just 50gm with half the buttons on!) These were obtained from the lovely Anne in a swap, perspex for pearl buttons...I think I am very lucky. They finished it off just right, giving just enough of that weight to be able to tie the ends if wanted.

I'm about to start on the next one, having done a sample in what is likely to be the last of some gorgeous red mercerised cotton, that I've used in lots of projects. It's a stunning shiny red and I hope the pattern will work out right for this one. Yes, each shawl will have a different pattern. My knitting machine and I are friends, so I'm going to try all sorts of different patterns.....

I'm back!

After the most frustrating month without access to my computer and my files, the team (husband and oldest son) have finally got me back online. I did stay out of this as the old adage 'too many cooks spoil the broth' was perfectly apt; two IT professionals and a knowledgeable 18 year old meant that within 5 minutes of working on the problem we were arguing. A hasty (door slamming) retreat was made by me.

The computer problem was payback for the first weekend away that my husband and I have had to ourselves since before children. We've had nights away, and, individually, have been away for weekends, but not together. Doesn't sound much, but anyone with children will know that one night is just that! Drop the children off to babysitters, in our case, if using in-laws was travelling too far, or, cleaning up the spare bed so that babysitter could stay. If lucky we could have an afternoon, then our night out, then get back quickly to relieve said babysitter.

Our weekend was all out for Saturday night dinner, we headed off and spent all Sunday and most of Monday all by ourselves. The big boy cooked dinner for the two of them, so they were well fed and could watch whatever they wanted without my usual ' not THAT again'. (They do like to watch their favourite shows over and over and over again......I know an awful lot of shows, but have rarely ever watched full episodes, just osmosis over time)

Phone call just before returning was 'we've got a virus on the computer'........

Anyway, I have been working but will sort of work backwards through various interesting things that I've done. Not as much as I wanted, but some fun.

What am I working on now?

I have two scarves that relate to each other. The first was a 'just finish off spinning so I can get on with the next project' sort of thing that I fell in love with and kept going. I had purchased some alpace 'bump' they called it. You could pull from the centre and spin and it was in changing shades. I didn't think that I could recreate the original look, but to my amazement I did. I spun half from the centre and then from the outside and plied the two singles together. (This was going to be a whole entry about guessing half - I am always unsuccessful, but that was another story)

The resulting yarn was beautiful. As I spent most of the time at the beach spinning this I wanted a pattern that reminded me of the beach, waves, sand, seashore.....

As I thought the colour was right, I came up with two patterns in one. Half is a scallop pattern with an odd purl row thrown in, the other is double knit stocking stitch with the odd purl row. I'm hoping that because one side will be shorter than the other that I'll get a soft frill. I'm really happy with this so far.

So much so that I started another scarf with the double knit alternating sides and just garter stitch with extra rows for the frill. Out of my stash came a lovely blue and lurex yarn and dark blue mohair, which I 'm running out of! Might be a different blue mohair at the end.

What a ramble. See I missed you all!

Summer knitting - interrupted

I've had to interrupt my knitting......doesn't everyone knit in the Summer holidays?.....to spin some samples for the HWSG Summer school class that I'm running next week.

I've called the class 'Wild Spinning' and hopefully it will be alot of fun.
Firstly, we spin fat singles. Quick.







Then we create a crazy batt full of all sorts. In my case, glitz, fluff, linen warp yarn and silk flock, all carded with merino wool.















It spins up wonderfully, full of shine, glitter and everything. Very happy with this.











To finish off the yarn, I ply these two singles together incorporating a knot every now and then. Big and chunky.





Now I have to do it again, all the same, except that I'm going to overdye......