Freeform Knitting



I completed this scarf months ago, but I'm a bit behind on blogging. This was my kind of knitting! I roughly followed Jane Thornley's "recipe" for her Baked Squash Scarf - find it on her blog or ravelry.com. She encourages making it up as you go, which is the kind of thing I love! A bit of feather and fan on the top and bottom and random stitches for the rest, just making holes here and there. The ribbon section in the middle is done increasing and decreasing numbers of yarn overs, which are all dropped on the following row. I like the monochromatic colour scheme, but I can't wait to try this with more colours too.  This was made with 5-6 different balls of yarn - mostly natural fibres - cotton, wool, bamboo, linen - it feels lovely.

I'm so inspired by Dina Wakley! (I have taken her online Art Journaling 101 class and highly recommend it!)  I created these cards using her techniques and I'm teaching them at the Scrapbook Shop in Mildmay on Nov. 23rd at 7pm. Please give them a shout if you are interested in attending! I'm super excited! Lots of messy, inky, spray painty goodness is used on these! I had so much fun making them, I kept right on going and made a bunch more!

Upcoming Card Class

I'm pretty excited to be teaching some card classes at the Scrapbook Shop in Mildmay. This is what I have planned for Nov. 9th at 7pm. Give them a shout if you are interested in attending!

Ambitions

I love the gorgeous fabrics on the new quilt I have started. There is something very pleasing about the straight lines, organization and the simplicity, but sometimes I aspire to do something a bit more freeform like this...

This was done by the fabulous fibre artst Robin Olsen. I first saw her work in my favourite magazine Cloth Paper Scissors and now they have put this article into one of their free downloads -check it out here.





 

A New Quilt

I'm so excited about this quilt! I've just got about half of the quilt top finished and I love it so far... the colours are bold, earthy, and juicy all at the same time. I will post more when the top is finished.

It's been awhile...

but, finally posting again! It has been a busy Spring while we are preparing to move here:

I am completely overwhelmed by the amazing gardens here. I am not an experienced gardener or very knowledgable about plants, but I am super excited to get my hands dirty and learn all I can! It is amazing to see what new is blooming each week! I wish I had taken more photos when all of the bulbs were blooming, but I guess I'll have a few more years to do that!

So most of my art & craft supplies are either packed, totally disorganized or scattered between both houses. But never fear, I always have access to something creative. Lately I've been doing a lot of knitting. Doesn't this look like the lovliest place to knit?

And there are serious perks to working in a yarn shop - if nothing else I've been able to squeeze in some knitting at work. A couple of things I've been working on lately...

A scarf made with Rizos yarn. There are several of these specialty scarf yarns at the store right now. They are so fun and easy to knit. It is like a wide ribbon and you knit in to the large loops on the one side.

These are some of the other yarns:

Triana

Ondas

Salsa

 I also made this sweet little baby beret and Mary Jane booties with Smiley Stripes yarn - so soft - it's 80% bamboo and 20% wool.

My sewing stuff was the first thing I moved to the new house, so I spent a couple of afternoons working on this patchwork bag for my sister-in-law. It's just like one I made for myself last year. I use it all the time now - it's become my portable knitting bag. The perfect size for a magazine, a knitting project and my water bottle. I bring it to work every day!

I will leave it at that for now! I promise to post more again soon!

Dear Monica

Have a coffee... it will make you feel better.

artwork by Mati Rose McDonough

I love her work! - check her out at: http://matirose.com/ 

It's Despicable

I finally finished knitting this Gru scarf for George. He loves the movie Despicable Me and identifies with the character Gru! LOL It's a very soft scarf for such a crusty character - yes, I mean George! Ha ha.

It was knit it using 4mm/US6 needles and a gorgeous DK weight 100% Alpaca yarn (purchased at Signature Books & Crafts in Goderich) - 2 balls of black and about 3 1/2 balls of grey (50g balls). 

It was super simple to knit:  simply cast on 44 stitches and knit the entire scarf in K1P1 rib, slipping the 1st stitch of every row. I knit 18 rows of grey and 10 rows of black for each stripe with an extra 4 rows of grey at the beginning and end. Final length: 100 inches! It still needs to be washed and blocked to even out the stitches, but I think it turned out pretty good.

Does this ever happen to you?

Your brain is moving at a million miles/second, you can't stop thinking about paint, paper, ink, fabric, colours, designs... art plans are being made in your head (whether you want them to or not) and you cannot sleep! I had this on Friday night -couldn't have slept for more than 4 hours.  I think I was overly excited about not having kids on Sat. and very eager to make art!! You would think this would result in a super productive art-making day, but...  
I think I'm just into too many things! LOL If you know me, and have seen my art, room you know this is true! Sometimes, I have a hard time narrowing down my focus.
Though I did manage to start some paintings/collages. I was dreaming about this colour combo... aubergine, lime and cerulean... I looove it! I think it's my new fave!

I have some ideas about adding more 3D stuff to these - I've been watching Sue Pelletier's video, Textures for Collage, from Interweave. I love all the great dimension in her work!

I also managed to knit a good chunk on George's Gru scarf - I will post photos when it's done. 



Spring is in the Air

I can feel it... I can see it it my choice of colours... the snow is melting... Spring is coming!
I am hooked on sewing paper strips together.

I cut out Easter eggs.

I like the backs of these just as much.

I made a couple of Easter cards.

Snow Day = Creative Day

I love snow days! It feels like a free day to do whatever you want... fun stuff! No housework, no defenitely not any housework.
Today I worked on a simple Easter card for an upcoming class. I am trying to come up with some simple cards for people with little stamping experience. I am also trying to make use of the paper we have in stock at the store, as well as limit the number of supplies I use (which can be very difficult for me).

For this card, I just folded a piece of cardstock and cut it into an egg shape. I added strips of pastel coloured cardstock which I had stamped with various stamps, added a couple of stamped butterflies, a few dashes and dots with gel pens, et voila!

One of my biggest obsessions is using book pages in my artwork. I love words/letters/script/text in any type of artwork. Today I gessoed and then spritzed and smooshed Glimmer Mist & Radiant Rain onto some pages I had ripped out of books.

I have lots of ideas for these. Here is a collage I made by stamping and embossing this nest stamp from the Artful Stamper onto one of the book pages and then painting it with Glimmer Mist. I also used one of the pages for layering in the background.

I like how this paper is turning out so far...

It reminds me of this fabric I have...

hmmm... what can I do with these?



Welcome to my blog!

I've been wanting to do this for a long time, and for some reason, the time is right now! I love to make stuff and I hope to share a bit of it with you! The world is a beautiful place - sometimes we just need a little reminder to take the time to enjoy it!