I’ve mentioned this new art gallery before in my ‘Blanket of Ideas’ post and I’d been looking forward to it opening since I heard about it. Not least because their very first exhibition is David Hockney which was not a disappointment, especially ‘A Bigger Splash‘.

The other thing I was hoping to see was the Blanket of Ideas and sure enough it was there with my little shell stitch crochet square right in the middle! That put a grin on my face for the rest of the day I can tell you :) Lisa Anne Auerbach has a really good photo of it on her website ‘The Little Red Blog of Revolutionary Knitting‘.

If you’re in Nottingham visit the gallery. I’m sure I’ll be spending lots more time there.
www.nottinghamcontemporary.org

Nottingham Contemporary have been working with artist Lisa Anne Auerbach who uses knitwear as a way of provoking good-humoured political discussion. She has created a line of knitwear called ‘Take This Knitting Machine and Shove It‘ for Nottingham Contemporary showing various slogans, song lyrics and sayings.

Following on from this Nottingham Contemporary are planning to exhibit the ‘Blanket of Ideas‘, a huge red and black patchwork blanket with squares knitted and crocheted by Nottingham people, expressing their own political messages. Of course I couldn’t not get involved in this. My square is crocheted in shell stitch which represents a concern for the damage we’re doing to the world’s oceans through over fishing, climate change and pollution.

I loved the shell stitch so much I decided to make something with it that I could keep, so here’s the beginnings of a new winter scarf. It’s getting pretty chilly here now so I’d best get cracking, I’ll need it very soon.

I was going to post a link to a ‘how to crochet shell stitch’ resource but when I started looking I realised that there are many different ways to create a shell stitch. Do a search on Google or YouTube and you’ll see what I mean!

Well now its October, its cold and rainy and just in time for winter I’ve made a granny square blanket out of my little summer obsession.

I sewed the squares together with black yarn in whip stitch but I think next time I shall either make one giant square the size of a blanket or crochet the small squares together as I go. In total it must have easily taken about 20 hours to sew it together and I was up until 4am this morning determined to get it finished. I think it was well worth it though :)

Blog owner Pip Lincolne also runs the Meet Me At Mike’s shop in Melbourne Australia and has a book of the same name. I finally managed to buy the book last week and have already started planning some of the craft projects in there. If I lived in Melbourne I’m sure I’d be at the shop all the time buying treats for myself.

Pop over to Meet Me At Mike’s and say “hi” to Pip. She’s had a bit of a tough time this week so could do with some happy vibes.

In the meantime here’s my top 5 reasons to love Meet Me At Mike’s:

1. Pip loves granny squares just as much (if not more) than I do!
2. The blog is teeming with gorgeous 70s style. Check out the brooches and purses in the shop too.
3. There are always lots of list of ideas, projects and things to do.
4. Beautiful pictures and videos abounds!
5. Lots of energy in Pip’s writing that’s bound to get you inspired

For those of us not lucky enough to live in Melbourne we can still visit Meet Me At Mike’s online: www.meetmeatmikes.blogspot.com

Granny Square Update

Speaking of granny squares I must tell you that I fell off the wagon ages ago. Claire kindly donated a new stash of yarn for my addiction and since my ‘(Granny) Square Numbers‘ post in May I have been adding more and more squares to the growing blanket.

All I have to do now is sew them together!

It started quite innocently. My thinking was that since I enjoy crochet as much as I do I should master the staple skill of the granny square. It was quite easy to pick up (from my trusty Happy Hooker book) and once I got it, one square became two, became ten, became twelve…

It was the point of no return. I really don’t like to waste so what else could I do but keep going and make a lovely, traditional granny square blanket?

Now, the added complication is that although it began with one square from one gargantuan ball of orange wool (the same that my little crochet clutch bag came from) it needed brightening up a bit. So I added a canary yellow and a few cream squares. With the orange and yellow I could really indulge my 70′s fancy.

However, once I made the cream squares I decided that a blanket in softer, more pastel colours would look lovely too. So in came the baby blues, the mint greens and the candy pinks. The loud orange and yellow do not go with the subdued pastels so they had to be split into two separate blankets.

These two projects have taken up my every Stitched Up session for many weeks and at every opportunity (waiting for the kettle to boil, before I go to bed, at breakfast) I sneak in a quick little square. Its like a compulsion that, if I didn’t have anything else to do, I could happily occupy myself with all day, every day until it was done. Why does work have to get in the way of crafting?!

However, I fear that I must go cold turkey for a while on my little granny square addiction. My stash of lovingly collected second hand yarn from charity shops, eBay and my mum have been very much depleted. And since I’m only half way through each blanket I need to start building the stash up again. Oh well, just another excuse for a spot of charity shopping!

If you’d like to make a granny square blanket pop over to the resources page for a how to video. Be warned though, granny squares are highly addictive.

Once I’d finished the crochet part it just seemed to want to have a 1970s vibe. Its orange, who am I to argue? So, what’s more 70′s than ric rac and a chunky button? I’ve also lined it with genuine 1970′s fabric, man-made (polyseter I think) and difficult to add as a lining, but you live and learn.

Although the lining was a bit tricky to add (it’s shiny and slippery and stubbornly will not be pressed) I absolutely love the gaudy (in a nice way) little flowers on chocolate background.

This highlights something that I’ve yet to get to grips with – what types of fabric suit which jobs. Once I know more I’ll post more but in the meantime I’ve added some links to the resources section about fabric types.

Read up on colour symbolism and you’ll find that the colour orange is associated with happiness, heat and flamboyance.

Despite my declaration for a love of orange there is a distinct lack of it in my wardrobe and in our home. I’ve even taken a little tour around the house to see if I can actually find it anywhere. As of today the things around me that are orange are some body scrub, the spines of 3 penguin books…

a jumper, a bunny food bowl…

and this ball of yarn and ribbon…

That’s really it, nothing more. So I guess I need to make something. Well, I have been. Using the Happy Hookers crochet book as mentioned in my previous post (‘The ripple effect‘) and this very yarn I followed a pattern for a lovely little clutch bag. In this wintry weather I thought a crochet bag in a warming orange would be just the ticket. But look what happened….

Can you see that when the bag is laid out flat it changes shape? Rather than being a rectangle, its more like a trapezium. I followed the pattern to the letter (except I added a few extra rows because I wanted the bag to be a little deeper) but my tension changed through the fabric. I guess at the beginning I was making looser loops and stitches because I was cautiously labouring over each one but as the pattern progressed I became faster, more confident and tightened it up.

That’s a biggie to look out for in crochet. If the tension isn’t consistent you’ll end up with a really bizarrely shaped item.

I am going to unravel this bag and start again. I don’t mind, I’d rather get it right and use the opportunity to hone those tension skills.

Watch this space to see the finished product and in the meantime hop on over to the ‘Resources’ page where you can find some interesting colour links.

I guess I could have picked up just about any beginners’ crochet book and had a go at teaching myself but convinced that I don’t learn properly that way I wanted a master to show me. I gave Claire a few headaches at first I’m sure because I just wasn’t ‘getting it’ but after lots of false starts it finally sunk in. The stitch I wanted her to show me was the ripple stitch (or the wibbly wobbly stitch which I named it in my ignorance) because its just so beautiful to see when a gorgeous combination of colours are put together.

I was so impressed with myself at learning the ripple stitch (and treble stitch which it uses) that until a week ago I didn’t bother to learn anything else. Plus I just love that stitch, I was literally hooked (ooh sorry, bad pun)! The undulating pattern, just like gentle water, is so relaxing and rewarding as you add more and more waves to the fabric you’ve created.

Here’s a little clutch bag that I made in gold, orange, teal and green.

So on Boxing Day, my first day of isolation with this evil flu, I took my Happy Hookers crochet book (given to me by the lovely Anna-Lisa), a great big ball of orange yarn which I found on a car boot sale at the seaside, my crochet hooks and chocolate rice crispy treats (cheers David!) and settled on my bed. Since I’d not ventured any further from making straightforward rectangles with treble stitch I thought I’d better go back to basics and start from the very beginning.

As I’ve said before, I’m awful at following instructions because I’m just too impatient but that had to stop. Going through each step of the book’s guide was like opening new door after new door, learning which types of yarn suit different items to make, why gauge is important and how to do that first difficult row without having a messy loopy finish – by going through the ‘bum’ of the ‘V’ of course! Then there were the stitches, ‘Single Crochet’, ‘Double Crochet’, ‘Half Treble’, ‘Treble’, ‘Double Treble’ and ‘Treble Treble’ and their confusingly similar yet different American comparatives. At the end of the first two sections of the book it said “… you’ve learned all the basic stitches you’ll ever need to know in crochet” – Wow! the world is my oyster!

The next revelation was pattern reading. The way crochet patterns are written is brilliant, so efficient and concise. Does this mean I can actually follow a pattern and make something other than a rectangle? Well I have actually started making something from a pattern in the Happy Hookers book but its a work in progress that I’ll show when it’s finished.

Resources for learning crochet

If you’re a beginner like me and wondering what on earth I’m talking about then scoot over to the ‘Resources‘ page where I’ve given details of the Happy Hookers book and links to a couple of crochet tutorial videos.

Does crochet have style?

This is something you might be wondering. What on earth can you make from crochet that you would actually want to wear? My (misinformed) idea of crochet and crocheted items used to be that all you could make were shapeless cardigans, doilies and granny square tank tops but I was so wrong. Crochet makes great accessories such as hats, purses and bags and since I’m a bagaholic having too many won’t be a problem. If you’re very clever you can make beautiful tops, jackets and shawls in crochet too but we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.

If you don’t believe me that crochet has style then listen to Vogue’s experts talking about crochet collections for 2009!