Friday 20 May 2011

Paint the whole world with a rainbow

Yesterday I did yoga and today I can hardly move. There was a point during the class where I was propped up on my shoulders, with foam blocks under my bottom and my feet up the wall, when my lower back spasmed and I thought I would not be able to get down again. I had visions of the fire brigade having to be called and me making the cover of the Cambridge Evening News looking traumatised with a red face and scruffy jogging pants. Anyway I have lived to tell the tale and thought I would show you some nice colourful things to take us into the weekend (also, I appreciate that my introduction has kind of made a mockery of this, but, yoga! So much fun! Everyone try it! I have the level of athleticism of Waynetta Slob so if I can do it anyone can! I mean that entirely literally).
I know I should present this graciously and not say, quilting that sod nearly killed me
Mum’s quilt! Finished, bound and trimmed! I tried to get a more complete photograph of it for you, I got the tripod out and held it up and everything but it didn’t work. I looked like a person being smothered in a quilt with Birkenstocks sticking out of the bottom. I think it was Pages of Julia’s mum who said I should do a double border, I didn’t, but in retrospect, Pages of Julia’s mum, I think you may have been right. Never mind and we will know for last time. I am proud of this quilt as it is my first self-designed one, I know you are thinking, self-designed, ha! It is just squares, but actually it is an artistic representation of Fire, look, there is the fire at the bottom and I had to draw a diagram and colour in squares and everything. I may make the pattern available as a free pdf, we will see if I can work out how to do it (it may involve excel). I shall also do a tutorial next week for doing the binding because I have a special quick way based on Knitting Kitties Denise’s technique and I like it. (I don’t know if you have all been following Denise’s blog, but, there was some wonderful news on it recently – her partner is now home. Hooray for Mr Denise!).
I like to go for subtlety
Lots of double knit acrylic (Stylecraft Special DK, from here) to make a throw. I think you might be able to see where that colour scheme is going. I am making a rainbow crochet throw, and I think I am going to base the pattern on Attic 24’s crochet ripples. If I have time next week I will start working out how wide to make it, etc. I’m not sure whether to do solid rainbow stripes or to graduate the colours in, I’d like it to be fairly mindless so I can do it when I am watching TV or Partner won’t stop chattering.
And again, I like to go for subtlety
I started some more stranded knitting. These are Eunny Jang’s endpaper mitts, I have definitely made mistakes so far and I wimped out of the tubular cast on, but I’m pleased with how they’re going so far, and I think they’ll be wearable on some level – I think they’ll be nice for winter. I shall sit here typing and drinking tea with them on (some things do not change with the seasons). The red yarn is some lovely 4-ply merino Stephcuddles gave me in a swap, and the blue is some King Cole 4-ply wool which I thought was reasonable value (it was about £2.75). Unfortunately I had to buy new needles though so I can’t quite say, Cost Of Project £2.75! At least I’ll be able to use the needles again, though,
Underwater colours for seahorse mittens. Rapidly approaching Critical Mitten Capacity
Possibly on this next project. I love stranded mittens, and I’ve been looking at these seahorse ones covetously for a while. I cracked and bought some Zauberball to make them with, but the dark blue Regia for contrast is out of my stash (it was a Kemps special). I’m not sure whether it will be enough of a contrast, as there are some fairly dark greens in the other yarn, but perhaps I will have some light blue left over from the endpapers. We will see,
Reality + artifice gosh which is which
And I made a corsage as a test to see if I want to make more for a craft fair I’m doing in July. Can’t quite decide!

Have a lovely weekend, everyone x

7 comments:

Maria S said...

Ooh, I love your endpaper mitts. I've got them in my queue on Ravelry, and i was thinking of burgundy/gold for them. But your colours look lovely, so I may steal your idea... I mean, I may be inspired by your blog to create something similar myself!

Karen said...

Wow! I love reading that someone thinks I'm right. It happens so rarely.

I think your quilt is great, and the contrasting binding does do what I had in mind. It offers reference to the main body after the dark border both contains the center and gives the viewer a resting place.

You could make lots of if-only and on-the-other-hand comments which don't compare to the fact that your quilt is finished and beautiful!

I like reading your adventures with yarn; it's been a long time since I've done any knitting. I don't remember if the colors were so vibrant back when I was reading Elizabeth Zimmerman.
Julia's mum
Karen

Anonymous said...

quilt is ace :)

Lynne said...

WOW!!! Your quilt is fabulous! And everything else is lovely too. :)

Susie said...

Thank you, everyone! :-).

Maria, steal away ;-). I'm pleased with how the colours are going for those mitts, I think you need something with a strong contrast. Karen! {Waves}. Thank you, I'm glad you like my quilt (and you are right again that the fact that it is actually finished is the best thing! ;-) ). I keep meaning to read Elizabeth Zimmerman properly (I skim read one of them once) but she scares me with her continental knitting.

martine said...

Lovely quilt, I love the way the colours change and the little snippets of the red and yellow that appear amongst the paler blue.
much love
martine

kristieinbc said...

That quilt is absolutely gorgeous! You did a great job of designing and putting it together. I am not a quilter (I'm allergic to sewing in any form), but seeing beautiful quilts like this one always make me wish I was.