Feeling woolly!

I am happily overloaded with bags of wool! I have loads of Cass Art bag-for-life bags (Cass Art is a great art supply chain in the UK that I visit every time I am in London) and they are great for holding skeins of wool and then hung from the end of the banister in the stairwell...

Though it is coming along slowly (still having pains in my wrist if I do too much at once) I am happy with the way my African Flower blanket is coming along. I realised that since I was going to introduce some new colours (wine/maroon, grey, sarasota orange, emerald green) I had to make some more flowers using those colours before continuing crocheting the flowers to the blanket. 

A closeup of some of the flowers I am working on.

I am also sorting the flowers according to their outside colour. The overall design of my blanket is that the petals are a specific red (it's a poppy-cadmium colour) and the joining colour is cream, but all the inner and outer colours are not repeated (so colours with the same outer colour never have the same inner colour and vice versa).

I have also started another blanket. The "Mile-a-Minute" blanket pattern uses three colours to create oblongs which are then sewn together. My main problem is trying to keep track of counting numbers as the pattern starts with chaining 206! So I have count that about six times...

African Flower Blanket

I have had tendonitis since May, so I have not been able to work on my crochet for awhile now. I am chomping at the bit to get back to it! I estimate that I have at most only one fifth of the African flowers that I need to make the big blanket that I want. Here is the jumble that I am working with:

I spread the flowers over the duvet to get an idea of how much space they would take up and an idea of how they would go together.

I took another photo with the flash to see if it would show the colours better. You get an idea of the foreground flowers anyway. My design is to have random and non-repeating colours on two of the layers but the petals are always red and the outline is always cream.

They are going to be crocheted together so that there is a small ridge where they join. I like this look. Hopefully I will get to work on it soon! I have to start joining and continue making more flowers. In the meantime, my great niece's birthday is coming up soon, so I have to finish her bag - just the drawstring and the pompoms to complete.

Doing and Making!

My colleague at the office is teaching a number of us how to crochet during lunches. For Christmas she most generously made and gave each of her students a beautiful bookmark (mine is centre, light green and pink). I have started on the next project, a small tote bag -- the rich green circles are my work. The items are laid out on the beautiful purple shawl one of my sisters made for me a number of years ago, and the sparkly purple earring was also made for me by the same sister. When making a Christmas stocking for my daughter I utilised the fine crochet work of my grandmother; originally this was trim for a set of pillow cases (which have long since disintegrated being made close to a hundred years ago!)

I made a list of all the people I wanted to make books for this year and started to work. I would not call this a production line, but while I was preparing paper for one book, I just did the tearing for the rest! I am making both leather and "eco" books (ready-made covers from recycled packaging cardboard!). I have two leather books completed.

And hurray! I have been back up in the studio painting my triptych friend "Maritime Alps" which has been so patient over the Christmas holiday period. This was the progress as of last week.

Happy New Year!

In the last few hours of 2013, I am patting myself on the back for keeping up my resolutions of last December: I started this blog, set up a facebook page, got involved in the charity fundraiser Big Egg Hunt Dublin, read a slew of books, re-booted my dream journal, and kept up a daily notes journal (suggested by, you guessed it, Austin Kleon in Steal Like an Artist!). While I plan to keep up everything from last year, and of course keep painting, I am planning to start work on my writing again. It has been a long while since I have actually set pen to paper to work on prose or poetry but it has always been in the background niggling at me. I have another list of books which are waiting for my eyes, and with the recent acquisition of a large piece of black leather, I have at least 5 gift books to make. Recently a woman at the office where I work part time, has kindly and patiently begun teaching a group of us how to crochet on our lunch breaks. So I will be starting a new crochet project in the new year too! 2014 will be another exciting and busy year and I would like to wish everyone a happy, healthy and safe New Year!