'How to' crochet a neck warmer without a pattern

Another easier than it looks crochet piece, I had a wooly hat, made & given to me by the lovely Gemma and although it had stretched and was a bit too big to wear I couldn't bring myself to get rid of it, the wool is lovely. So I carefully pulled it down back to a ball of wool. To begin I just chain stitched about 15 chain, with another three for turning, to create the narrow width and used treble stitch on from there, just turning the work as it goes until it resembled a short scarf. The scallops come from a couple of trebles into one stitch alternating with slip stitches. I sewed the toggle on fairly loosely so that it would be easy to push through anywhere required for a snug fit. Guess who is getting it for a Christmas pressie!

'how to' crochet basic wristwarmers without a pattern

Do you crochet just a little & know how to create a chain & a double crochet stitch? Want some wristwarmers? Have you got a ball of double knitting wool & a size 4.5 or 5 hook but no pattern?

its very basic, this is just a tube with just double crochet all the way, the change in appearance is when in creating the thumb hole I just turned the work and went backwards and forwards until I again crocheted into the other side to continue the tube. 

after finishing the tube & to define and strengthen the thumbhole I added a couple of rows of double crochet, crocheting directly into the top row around the hole.

               if you need more info just let me know! I'm also on twitter as textilequeenie

and I do like a bit of art on buildings.......

I'm not really sure what the attraction is, maybe the visible texture of the bricks through the sign, just a brick quilt really (& more controlled chaos perhaps?) but I love painted posters, much preferring them to billboards, sadly you don't see many of these any more, this one is in Blackburn.

the Lion atop of the Lion Hotel in Leominster's Broad Street, wouldn't mind seeing him stretched out under a bush in my garden

and the previous Embroidery Magazine mention for my Textile Society Undergraduate Bursary win

'Voices' a small part of my original art journal exploration


I was quite pleased when a photo of my work was used in the July/Aug Embroidery magazines small article on this years Textile Society's Student Bursary winners and runners up, even though photo for the article was not attributed to me until the Sept/Oct issue.
I felt very honoured and immensely proud to have been the 2011 Undergraduate winner. When my website is up and running I shall show much more of my work as this blog is more about the source of my designs and supplies. The other really important thing about this blog for me is being in contact with other textile minded people to balance the large amount of time spent working alone.

 click here to see the write up on all of 2011 Bursaries winners with my work as the page banner on the Student Bursary page of the Textile Society website

If you are a student you may want to check out the 2012 competiton!

thank you Embroidery Magazine!

I was very excited to see a piece of my work included in the Embroidery Magazine in the
'Schools Out' section. Tea, the social interaction around it and its associated paraphernalia were my inspiration and I thought I'd explain the processes I used.

I came to see tea shops as social capsules, exploring them in my art journals and on loose large scale mixed media work, utlising stitch, paint, pastels, fabric, collage, tea, block printing, paper and fabric manipulation, one outcome being the piece of mixed media on calico above, the starting point for this being the cups motif, 'drawing' on the calico with tea, I also used Markal Artist Oil Paintsticks before embroidering with cotton.

I then photoshopped the image to create a repeat pattern which I had digitally printed onto a fairly heavy cotton in several colourways.  (I was thinking about an interiors fabric at this point) I took it a step further by highlighting just one rose in silk thread satin stitching. The size of the embroidered rose is 9cm tall x 10cm wide.

The buzz for me throughout all my work is amalgamating the past and present, combining both traditional & contemporary methods and examining the correlation between historical issues & of humanity.

For anyone who creates textile based (and arguably other genres) think about a subscription to Embroidery magazine, please don't just think traditional although the historical pieces covered are also of great interest and extremely useful as both inspiration and a sound source for written work. Anyone interested in contemporary methods would be depriving yourself to go without. I miss Fibrearts which sadly has fallen by the wayside but Embroidery helps heal the pain of its loss! Embroidery Magazine Nov/Dec 2011

the Victorian Arts & Crafts Shop in Poulton-le-Fylde

We shopped in Poulton-le-Fylde this week and as I needed some bits & pieces popped into this great little shop in the Market Hall.  I'm always mesmerised by controlled chaos and couldn't resist embarassing myself by asking to photograph the button & thread displays. The staff were very kind, probably feeling sorry for 'the Everpresent' who was patiently smiling, watching my antics. I also noticed how busy the shop was and of how friendly the interactions between staff and customers were. I'm old enough to remember when this was how most shops were, of how at home you were made to feel and of how great the service and advice was.  Of course I also have my favourite internet shops for supplies and goods but oh it was nice to touch things and look through all the stock. The variety of wool was staggering. So thank you Victorian Arts and Crafts, we really could do with more like you.

an excellent source of products for handmakers and crafts people

I needed a bit of  heavy weight black cotton strapping (plus cotton cord and snips) and was shocked to find that my mail order would be over £70 from a London company.

I literally said out loud words that more politley translated as Good Grief!

I was so fed up of the prices of some of the well known makings 'hardware' suppliers (especially one with the initials M & W and when searching, happily found this company!

http://truetrim.com/shop/catalog and they are part of http://www.supplydivision.co.uk/

The same supplies costs changed from £74.00 to £24.00.What a wonderful find and I hope it is useful to you too. They sell quite a few things from eyelets to bias binding, beading thread to corsetry/bodice products, quality snips to button covering equipment so enjoy!

come in Number 3, your time is up....

this delapidated lake boat is sat on the sea front at Lytham St Annes, Lancashire

it caught my eye with its ruination, it had been used as a planter but even the plants had given up

plenty of rust and lichen growth

this rusty three has decided that I should form a photo collection of unexpected numbers

Ait seems quite resilient though, even fire has not had much destroyed it

but the most captivating feature for me is of how the flaking paint has taken on its own identity and is now impersonating a seascape

perhaps its trying to emulate the seasape it actually looks at..........

Textile Art from the Sea, a sea urchin memory

I had a wander on the beach the other day and found a sea urchin skeleton, virtually intact but oh so fragile. I'm ashamed to say I didn't have my camera with me but was able to do some quick sketches and then some work in my sketchbook one home again. I then felt compelled to try and recreate it in textile, using wire to make the frame I then stitched torn pices of raw calico onto the frame with black embroidery cotton. It's about the size of a large satsuma and I find myself  handing it quite often and I'm feeling a slight compulsion to make a sea of my own out of hundreds of them. Thankfully though it doesn't smell like the real thing.....

for another piece of Textile Art from the Sea go to May 13 2011 below......

somethings keeping me busy

In a continuation of my honours work around tea, the activity and its associated paraphenalia here is a section of a piece I'm working on at the moment, its a represetation of  a busy tea shop in Lytham St Annes (although it could be a tea shop or cafe anywhere) and of all of the conversations going on around me. Some of the conversations were obviously emotionally charged whilst others very low key and laid back. I am only on the second stage of this piece.

The overall size is 45 x 62 cm this section being 7 x 9 cm. The digitally printed cotton is a combination of two of my sketches and I am embellishing areas of the surface pattern to represent the various conversations overheard on my visit. I won't be posting the while piece here until I've finished working on it.
so far I've used cotton and silk embroidery threads with ink but have plans for the application of other naturals and organza with probably a further injection of colour with either dyes or paints...watch this space!

Controlled Chaos...a section of my work room a.k.a. my toy room

This is where I spend so much of my time in a sort of controlled chaos. Chaos because there just isn't enough room to fit everything in, in fact the only thing I can now squeeze in is dust it seems! It has so imprinted me that some of the work I'm doing at the moment is 'Controlled Chaos' I see pictures of wonderfully tidy art studios and gaze at them in wonder. Perhaps (Christmas Hols?) when Alan the Everpresent builds my cupboards along another wall to the one pictured here, I may be able to again take full control of it all, until then should I go missing send the search parties in, I will be buried here somewhere, still I will survive, as long as there is music and/or Radio 4!

one section of my toyroom where many treasures are captured

so much stuff!

cat memories, including my own precious human pusscat daughter Becca

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my gnomes (less than 4cm tall), yes I know a bit strange

even stranger, a tiny doll (less than 5cm tall) my sister Zoe found in her garden and generously gave me. She is sat on rocks loved ones have given me, I'm a cheap date when offered a gift from someone on their travels I ask for a small rock.

is it just me or do cup handles and ears seem very similar?

Have you ever noticed how much like an ear a cup handle is? Perhaps it is no coincidence that we often listen to our loved ones hopes and worries over a cuppa.

some of my 'Thinking of the Forest of Dean' art journal/sketchbook

snap of one of our long ago walks in the Forest of Dean, with one of my children behind the tree, (we still can't recall which one!) this walk was along some of the route I used to take to school as a child myself.

ink sketch of the bluebells

fabric collage onto acrylic wash

this was exploring the view between the trees, how there is often just a peek of what is further down the overgrown path

Twigs from my favourite tree, the Silver Birch. Favourite because as a  child in Canada I had learnt how important this was to the indigenous people of the Canadian mountains, woodlands and lakes. I also love the use of the bark as paper and of how ghostlike the tree is in the twilight. My mystical tree.

Silver Birch Leaves

a bit of paper and paint collage, just for fun!

using arcylics to explore the texture of bark

mixed media

thinking and doodling

my own Bluebell wood