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.