Hyperbole and Hyperbolic

The Auckland Museum is going to put together a hyperbolic crochet coral reef project… and I’m in! They contacted the Creative Fibre group leaders and as I’m the one for the West Auckland group, I said yes on behalf of us… better tell them I s’pose… haha. Some of us have been playing with hyperbolic crochet anyway, so now we can play… with a focus.

The Museum’s Seaweek runs from 8 March through to Conservation Week which is from 12-19 September. So I’m busy making a collection of pink anemones fringed in bright red Fun Fur. At last – a use for Fun Fur! Then there’ll be a bunch of other hyperbolic shapes to construct with all sorts of remnants.

I was thinking of doing a bunch of shapes in whites and creams… before realising that that would be depicting dead coral. Perhaps not quite the look they’re after… It’d be a conservational statement though, I guess. But for now I’ll focus on bright and colourful!

Wonder how much I can make while travelling to and from the UK in the next 2 weeks…

Sprout has Sprung!

I got this lovely pile of goodness from Southern Cross Fibre; it was the September 2009 Club Fibre – Sprout (80% Polwarth, 20% Tussah Silk).

I wanted to preserve the overall sprouty greenness of it, and intersperse the other colours lightly throughout to get a variegated single, which would then be n-plied. To achieve this, a whole lot of colour separation, mixing and matching was done. Nearly drove me mental, but am very pleased with the results:

It’s currently being knitted up as a Koolhaas hat for me to take to the UK in February.

Tongues of Fire lace stole

Made for my mum. She liked it. Phew…

The not-so-seekrit project is DONE!

MUM – go away NOW! You’re not allowed to look here till AFTER CHRISTMAS! Go on. Off you go.

Right. Now she’s gone we can talk…

Oh. Thank. God. My first-ever lace project is done and blocked. It’s a much-belated present for my mum, and quite possibly the only person in my family who will truly appreciate something like this, because she’s a knitter too. I won’t be uploading all the pictures until after Christmas when mum’s seen it, but here’s a small sample of the finished product:

I’m going to wash it gently to settle the fibres though. I think I was a bit rough with the steam blocking process. No damage, but the fibres are a bit ’sticky’. I’m hoping a wash will bring out the merino loveliness, make everything lie down and chillax…

Tongues of Fire is a 16-row repeat. I am an unbelievably slow knitter, cursed with the attention span of a flea, so this project (See? I’m not quite saying what it is… shhhh) took a couple of months to complete. I wish I’d taken note of when I started, but no matter. The most important thing is that determined persistence won the day (for a change) and I’m very happy with the result, and am sure Mum will be too.

Other things I’ve been doing over the last month have been making Christmas cards and learning to tat. Yes, tat. This is a beautiful lace-making method that my grandmother was amazing at. I have a big pile of her tatted doilies and cherish each one of them. I spent all weekend trying to figure out how to do it – watched loads of YouTube vids and read lots of tutorials. Each and every one of them was crap. Why? Because not ONE of them said to release the tension on your left hand, pull the shuttle thread taut with your right hand, THEN raise your left fingers again to create tension THUS ‘flipping’ the stitch to the right side of the shuttle thread. If you don’t do this, the stitch won’t slide along the shuttle thread. Fortunately, a friend of mine is a very experienced tatter and showed me the trick. Can’t beat the personal touch, now can you! I shall now practice and practice until I can form beautiful stitches and make purty rings with picots and stuff.

Persistence and determination are going to win the day again, by crikey!

Doing the baking thing

I’m rediscovering my inner baker. Mother would be proud (hey Ma).

These Vanilla Buttercream Cupcakes were whipped up (and fast consumed) last week:

After a hard day in the garden trimming a Triffid-like ivy hedge, I gathered juuuust enough strength to whip up some afghans and pikelets. Can anyone say mmmm?

Afghans, stage 1 – from the Edmonds Cookbook. Waiting for them to cool…

Afghans, stage 2. No nuts in the house so cachous had to do. Now to the eating…

Pikelets – also from the good old Edmonds Cookbook. Haven’t made these in years!

That’s enough for one day. Now to sample the bake with a cup of tea. Sundays are gooooood…

Spinning Update

What’s been on and off my wheel in recent months? Quite a lot actually, starting with the most recent:

Currently spinning Dingo (NZ Polwarth top from Southern Cross Fibre):

Had a dyeing day with the CF Red Hill group and came home with this (lime/black merino top, over-dyed brown alpaca):

Finished Night in a Forest (Icelandic top) – man, this stuff is coarse! I’ve spun it as rough singles and will most likely use for a felted bag:

Thorny Devil (Australian merino top) has been spun and Navajo-plied. It’s hard to get it even, but I console myself with the knowledge that 1) I’m hypercritical of my own work and 2) no-one will notice when it’s all knitted up into something:

Southern Cross Fibre Club purchases:

October: Angelfish, Australian Merino top

September: Sprout, Polwarth/Tussah Silk (80/20 mix)

That’s it for now. And I still have multiple fleeces to get through, and SCF fibre arrives every month. Am loving it!

Mad Hailstorm!

Yesterday evening I had just gotten home from an excellent colour mixing workshop when the skies opened and crashed ice and torrential rain all over the ground. Repeatedly and at length. The cat thought the world was ending, but I had her trapped inside as she trembled and yowled at all the racket. It was really loud – had to shout over it. The end result was loads of hail dumped everywhere – even in drifts, dare I say it, further up the street, which still hadn’t melted by this morning. Go Dorkland! We’ll have snow here yet. Here’s what my yard looked like after the dumping:

Vintage Textile Fair

Sometimes I enjoy shopping. Today was one of those times. Even though I did my back in yesterday, I flatly refused to miss out on today’s Vintage Textile Fair held at Alexandra Park. After scoring free parking, GrannyG and I moseyed around the Fair oohing and aahing over oh-so-many gorgeous (but often rather pricey) things. Eventually I settled on a pretty scarf, a darning mushroom, and a vintage linen embroidered tablecloth (bargain at $20!!).

If/when this Fair returns, I am definitely going again. There are some good bargains to be had, loads of gorgeous and interesting stuff, but also a fair amount of (to me) over-priced op shop finds being flogged at several hundred percent markup.

Still, I’m very happy with what I picked up, and the prices were very fair. We stopped off for coffee at the Auckland Farmers’ Market on the way back to the car; I grabbed some fresh bread on the way out, and we were randomly yelled at by some odd person in a craptastic Toyota as we enthusiatically admired the cute-as-can-be Minis being displayed out front. Apparently we are “Mini enthusiasts”. We are now so informed…

Icelandic Top

From Southern Cross Fibre. This is a ‘primitive’ long wool and is quite coarse. I’m spinning uneven singles because it’s going to be used in a felting project and will be bee-yoo-tiful!

Polwarth ‘Snowgum’

OMG, I love Polwarth! This lovely fingering weight was spun up from NZ Polwarth, supplied by my luffly friend David of Southern Cross Fibre. Seriously, if you can nab any of his stuff, do so. David’s a brilliantly talented indie dyer and everything he makes sells within minutes of listing so you have to be FAST! Let’s just say the shop updates leave you shaking… but thrilled if you got some goodies!