as an important part of my work, and my life, blankets deserve a separate category!
“I crochet to keep my mind from unravelling” is a revised version of a quote by Niki de St Phalle, very much appropriate for my next blog post, all about my crochet processes. I suppose it helps to look back at what you have done, every now and again, to review, and when you make blankets as huge as the ones I make, at the same time hope to post monthly, well, there are expected to be some months void of crochet blanket completion news.. This gives me a space to fill with crochet ramblings before each blanket is finished and each blanket's story is ready to be written into a new blog…
I don’t undo There is no unraveling and recreating stitches until perfection is bestowed upon my work. The point of my crochet is not for the project to look perfect, but for me to remember what i have learnt whilst making it... There is only keeping going and trying as i go along, i have no time to go back and redo... When planning this blog post, this was something that became focal to me, as it was always going to be a review of my work with an aim to start the new year with an increased ability to articulate my intentions within my crochet, and to define my practice a little…
yesterday’s yearnings – yearly yonder The weather in the UK has not been following last year's anomalous hotness... Am i surprised? Not really. But, when i started thinking about this post a little while ago, it was looking promising, with few days here and there bringing us temperatures warranting light jackets, if any outerwear at all... I nearly put my woolly wonders away, before i realised how perfect they are for this exact time in the year.... Crochet blankets are exactly the perfect spring/ summer outdoorsy attire – for evenings especially in the UK. Whether you are sitting outside after a barbeque of an evening, in your garden, or gathered by a campfire,…
I have been working with a lot of previously made small crochet items recently, turning them into large, humongous, oversized, ginormous, gigantic, crochet BLANKETS. It has been a way of using any crochet work that i have made previously, and that has been lying around the work room, in variously neatly organized packages/ bags/ boxes/ drawers... or at least on surface, this has been an exercise of efficiency and recycling. To find a use for items that were originally made to be used as small cloths, various sized crochet bunting triangles or crochet coasters, which will not really get a chance to be used in that way, because no one knows they exist…
Wondrous Women – Warm Wanderers So, it is finished. It is now time to write the story of another "thoughts-in-knots" blanket which i recently realised are the core of my current creative crochet work. The process of making these free-form crochet blankets helps me considerably when organising my thoughts.. It started with my Nan's work. I have been given these amazing leaves, pictured below, made by my grandma. The idea together with encouragement for Nan crocheting these maple leaves came from my mum, after having been surrounded by grandma's crochet work for the majority of both my mum's and my life... After completing my last thoughts-in-knots adventure with my Rainbow coloured Chevron Crochet…
So, another project finished, it is time to share the story of the rainbow blanket. I cannot remember, and refuse to count, how many times i have seen a chevron crochet blanket in the movies... It is one that these days appears, do i dare venture an opinion, even more often than the very classic of American crochet, the Granny Square Blanket. I have seen one in many films and because i have used the chevron stitch before, and liked it, i thought, why not.... so i started, a long-ish while ago. it got to a stage, where it was sat on the side and not much was happening with it, because, when…
'There is strength in numbers', I have heard someone say on many an occasion... Being a great believer in individuality, but at the same time questioning TRUE individuality of each and every notion, in my personal views on life, something had made me want to write this post. Crochet related, of course, this is what has happened in my work... I have famously finished the BAVARIAN CROCHET ROUND BLANKET and you can congratulate me endlessly HERE and wherever else you may wish to do so.... But, this had left me open with a space for the next project.... I have tried Chevron Crochet on numerous occasions and most of the time abandoned the…
...when you cannot see forward, to see clearly where you are going; look back at how far you have come... Suppose I should listen to the things I say to others- listen to my own advice sometimes… I have managed a to submit two pieces of work into the exhibition currently (May 2018) at Arts for Recovery in the Community (Arc) in Reddish, where I have been part of the volunteer team few years back, which made me somewhat reflective. My memory crochet blanket (LOOK) is displayed so that the tactile quality comes across really well and apparently visitors have been enjoying moving it around, unfolding and folding again to reveal/ discover different…
A little while ago i had an idea to finally connect my samples, trials and favourite patterns into a rainbow rectangular rug. It started well. The idea came to me back in June 2015, after seeing a blanket my nan had made for my cousin. A basic zig-zag pattern, using double crochet stitch. It was so very intricate and soft and rectangularly shaped and very inspiring. Full of enthusiasm, i started off the next time i had my own yarns and hooks at hand. it started growing, all was well. then, somewhere along lines, as it can happen with freeform projects, stitch counts on opposite, parallel sides stopped matching. it was too exctiting…
This week was mostly spent finishing the lemon meringue crochet blanket (Get it?!) so i could therefore finish and publish the pattern... This in turn meant adding a new page, specially dedicated to crochet lace, which you can see HERE. The pattern is ready, and so is the blanket... YAY! Well, it is ready to a point of being big enough to be photographed for the pattern sample. I may still add some rows, as with crochet, you could easily go on indefinitely - or at least untill you can get yarn to work with - and crochet around your whole house.... There's an idea... :) Anyway, I am planning another one which…
