A weft yarn

Knitting toys

A few years ago I joined a lovely group of crafty Brown Owls here in Canberra and I used to attend fantastic monthly meetings where a range of fun and crafty things were trialled. They are still going strong but I ended up dropping out this year as the groups' move to a Saturday was a bit harder for me to manage with kids' sporting commitments and other family and life commitments. And being able to breathe is important.

At one of the meetings in 2010, I sat next to someone who was knitting a little dog and I was very enamoured of the dog, the book she was using and the purpose of her knitting - she was making things for the school fete. She wrote about it here. It is a lovely post and I felt quite inspired to take up the challenge. I decided to start with something easy and so started a curly snake.

I'm pretty sure I had in mind that I would pass these snakes on to her for use at her school fete stall. However, I moved a bit too slowly. By the time I'd ordered the book, bought the sock wool online, started knitting and made anything significant, the day of the fete had long come and gone. I kind of came to a bit of a halt on this project but will breathe some life into it over the next few months because I think there are a couple of little boys who might like these. They need to have their tongues fixed, tails woven in and eyes embroidered on - moments of time needed not hours.

Though Mr Garden slug may need a bit more attention. He has only one eyeball at the moment. That's gotta hurt.

 Garden slug pattern from Ravelry

Great American Aran Afghan

I'm not sure how I came across the Great American Aran Afghan, or indeed its compatriots: The Great American Afghan , The Great North American Afghan and, The Great American Kid's Afghan. I'm pretty sure I bought the pattern booklets from The Wool Shack, although I know they don't currently stock them. I'm also sure I bought them years ago and have been dreaming of this project for a long time.

In preparation for this Aran blanket, I did a practice run - the mohair shawl I knitted for my mum. I started the shawl in April 2009 and finished it in August 2010. It was a reasonably easy project to start learning to knit cables; just a rectangle with lots of repeating cable patterns.

Once that was done, I was free to purchase the wool for the Great American Aran Afghan, which I did, in September 2010. After hours of reading on the Ravelry site,  I chose Cascade 220 Superwash. It has a pop star status on Ravelry (75,000+ projects list it as the yarn of choice). Boy, it would be good to have shares in that one! During my research, I was very tempted by a Blue-Faced Leicester wool from England but the postage was nearly as much as the wool!

After the wool arrived we took off for a trip during the school holidays of October 2010. We rented a campervan from near Sydney airport and drove up the north coast of NSW, visiting my sister and her family in Byron Bay, and eventually dropping the van off in Brisbane before flying back to Sydney and driving back to cosy Canberra. It was over a week of travel and we had a really interesting trip and it was fun to catch up with family and we saw some beautiful countryside shrouded in rain. It rained nearly every single day of the trip, until we got back to Canberra, where it was drizabone. Luckily the days we spent in Byron, which included a walk to the lighthouse and a trip to Wet and Wild theme park on the Gold Coast, were sunny days. All the other days were wet and reasonably cold. At one stage, the Pacific Highway was closed due to rain and of course, later in the year, Brisbane was under water. It was a pretty wet 2010. Looking back, or maybe looking forward, we really should do that trip again, but maybe in the more typical Il Nino.

 

One of the outcomes was that I did a lot of knitting. We had been upgraded in the choice of campervan and the one we got was just way too big for me to drive. I admire my husband and any other person who drives those things, but to me, it was just a great, big, huge truck. It was comfortable inside and we all had a really good time and often I was grateful for the coziness of the campervan while the wind and rain was beating on the windows and roof. But I don't think we'd take a beast like that on a holiday again. It was hard to manoeuvre, park and turn. It was expensive in caravan parks and you couldn't take it to out-of-the way spots because it couldn't travel on anything except a very good quality road. I'd go for something smaller, more nimble next time.

The knitting though...the knitting...well in the week away I managed two squares from the Great American Aran Afghan.

Ann Strong and Hanna Burns. Both are quite pictorial patterns. Ann's is reminiscent of pomegranates and Hanna's is of DNA.

I took notes as I went and the Ann Strong block went like this:

1. ripped out at row 5
2. ripped out at row 6
3. ripped out at row 7

"Wow! going to take me a really long time at that rate!. Didn't follow the pattern carefully enough".

Once I started paying attention to the pattern (ie reading it properly) I was fine and it was done in a day.

The Hanna Burns one though - My notes record that -

OK. Officially humbled by this block. I've made mistakes in the DNA, the trinity stitch (the bobbles), and the single column cables. So ripping out over and over again has been for different problems. [emphasis in the original]. I remember sitting on my sister's couch and ripping out a whole column of stitches back to the beginning, re-knitting those stitches until I rejoined at the top again and pressing on. As my notes indicate, I did this more than once! To make matters worse, both blocks are rated as "EASY". In total, I spent 29 hours on that block alone! I also remember while Tim and Nick climbed around the Adventure Parc at Mount Tambourine in the rain, Tess and I sat at the wood-fired pizza cafe and ate pizza, drank warm drinks and she drew pictures while I knitted and ripped and knitted this block. It was a great holiday. True. I remember the trip very fondly and though daunted by my rocky start to the project, I'm keen to press on. The next block is Jay Campbell.

HCB - Individual Pineapple Upside-down cakes

We are big fans of upside-down cakes in this house. Before I started on the Heavenly Cake Bakers adventure I used to plan one fruit-based cooked dessert each week. Often they were pies or cobblers or crumbles and if they were cakes - they'd almost always be upside-down cakes. The Rustic Fruit Desserts cookbook was my favourite cookbook for fruit based desserts. Now, I'll be adding Roses' Heavenly Cakes to the list.

Rose's version of the Pineapple Upside-down cake is wonderful and was well received around here. The tangy, lime caramel sauce cooked nicely into the fresh pineapple and cherry and created crunchy toffee like bits on the edges. I have only one complaint about this recipe, the cake part was a bit small. As I put the batter into the pan, I noticed it only came half way up the pan. Sometimes this isn't a problem because it rises a lot, but on this occasion it didn't really do that. There just didn't seem to be enough "cake" for my liking. I wonder if it would cook well enough if I doubled the cake part of the recipe.

I used a fresh pineapple, as suggested in the recipe. Then because I didn't get the core out in one straight go, I needed to core it twice, so I ended up with two holes in some slices. No problems. I included two cherries. These are morello cherries from Aldi that are bottled and allowed to dry out slightly on a paper towel.

I again succumbed to the speciality pan - suggestible child that I am. But like the last one, I do love it and as hinted above, I think I'll get plenty use from it.

And like the earlier Nordic Ware pan for the Rosebuds, I was amazed at how well it unmoulded. Nothing left behind. All the cakes had their appropriate shape and I thought it was pretty the way the cherries kind of bled into the pineapple. I do love the little pineapple fronds of cake at the top of the shape. This was a pretty easy cake and I'd put this on the "make again" list.

p.s. hopefully no one has read down this far...cause Jenn was pretty firm sounding last week ;-). Shhh. I didn't make the pineapple caramel drizzle (sounded nice but unnecessary and maybe would have sent us into a sugar coma).

Handmade soirees - book

I went to Sydney a few weekends ago for an embroidery weekend and while I was there I did a little bit of shopping at Mosman Needlecraft. Considering how wonderful the shop is, I was remarkably restrained. There is an excellent collection of craft books - embroidery, sewing, knitting, and then this one caught my eye: Handmade soirees. As you know, we've just completed a renovation to our kitchen and outdoor entertaining area. W-e-l-l ..completed ...hmm.. that's a bit optimistic. Anyway, the builders are gone and it's just us needing to finish stuff off, so I'm claiming it.

In other news, spring is here and so the thoughts of throwing off the winter depths, the opening up of the house, the flinging of oneself out into the air, the light, the backyard, are all streaming through my body, like sap in the tree. I am trying to explain why I purchased a book about entertaining. It is a lovely book, with beautiful photos that expressed a style of entertaining that appealed to me - basically: outdoors, platters of vegetables, a style that is not too perfect and creatively handmade.

After I got home and started writing this post, I searched for other reviews and was intersted to see a fair smattering of negative ones. The main criticism being there aren't enough craft projects or recipes in the book. I needed neither. I have plenty cookbooks and plenty craft books, I was interested in the dreaminess of entertaining with handmade soiree style. I bought it exactly for the photos. Photos as ideas, photos as expression.

Another bloggy review of the book - that is positive.

There are a few craft projects that relate thematically to an entertaining event, or to a giving opportunity - jars of jam etc, table cloths, aprons, that kind of thing. I just liked it for the ideas and the inspiration and in some ways, for the confidence to put together mismatched crockery, second hand glassware and handmade items to create a homely and inviting event. Hmm. Not sure of the when or how of me actioning these things but it will sit there for when I'm ready.

 

HCB - Ginger cheesecake with gingerbread crust

I was looking forward to making this weeks' cake as the photo in the book looked so inviting with the little gingerbread people dancing around the outside of the cheesecake. However, I was feeling a bit pressed for time and decided to skip making the gingerbread people. The making of the cheesecake was interesting enough as it transpired.

It called for 50mls of ginger and by that I mean take a large piece of ginger root and grate it, and then squeeze the juice out of the grated ginger and then weigh it and add it to the cheesecake mix. We aren't talking about powdered ginger, we are talking about fresh ginger. To be frank, I was nervous. Raw ginger is a pretty intense taste and much as we love ginger in this house, I just wasn't sure if 50mls would be too strong. Oh yee of little faith. I did taste it before adding it and sure enough it burned the end of my tongue. But when you add the greenish, burny liquid to a bowl full of creamy cheesy, sour creamy, eggy mix it transforms it. Again, Rose makes it all worthwhile. It was beautiful.

I did, unfortunately, have a bit of decorating disaster. There were three holes in the top of the cake when I unmoulded it and my usually very easy going husband gently suggested when he saw it that "perhaps it needs something". I thought maybe I could use the little tiny bit of whipped cream, leftover from a previous eating adventure, to mask the offending part of the cake. In the end, I think it just looks odd. Like an old ladies unfinished sentence...but it does hide the holes...so..there it is.

Next time though - going with the gingerbread people.

Thread painting elephants - Samburu blanket - animal number 2

I went to Sydney on the weekend of August 27th & 28th to attend the next class for my African embroidered blanket. Sydney was beautiful, once again, and I managed a ferry trip across the harbour from the Taronga Zoo wharf to Circular Quay. The harbour never disappoints.

Despite willing myself to press on, I hadn't quite finished my Giraffes from the March class. But I was close and that was good enough for me. Not that Jenny cared or made a fuss. There's no sense we are doing it for her, or to meet some requirements. Six out of the 9 women doing the course had been on the March weekend, so it was nice to catch up with some familiar faces. I even sat with the same ladies from last time.

Over the course of two full days there were moments of quiet between the many long stretches of gentle, rambly, soothing chatter about lives, children, relatives, travel, books, shows, movies, embroidery in Australia, embroidery overseas, the world. There were occasional strident opinions voiced, some amusing anecdotes and lighthearted moments and quite a bit of instruction, where Jenny asked us to stop and watch what she was doing. Jenny also travelled around the room and sat with each of us for some period of each day and she made sure, before we went home, that we had done the important and hard. Last time it was those detailed Giraffe heads, this time it was the head of the mother elephant, her eyes, and the shadowing around the baby elephant's head.

 

 I learnt a number of interesting things that weekend. Like the difference between my stitching tension and Jenny's and I also got better at putting in the interlocking straight stitch. On the Giraffes, I had been doing much more of a satin stitch type effect and the interlocking stitch is much better. Much more painterly in its effect. And this, after all, is the technique - thread painting.

Jenny's stitching is beautiful and soft-looking and subtle and painterly. After we had gazed at her blanket and then sat back at our table, the three of us on our table all chatted about how we put in much more tight-looking stitches. I think this is just practice. If we want to loosen up, for the effect on the stitching, I'm sure we can. Whether I can ever be some free spirited, devil-may-care, loosey goosey creature is another story altogether! Hah. Besides, I'm equally drawn to stumpwork as an embroidery technique and that's all about tension! Anyway, on the weekend, I did try and immediately adjust my stitch tension.

When I got home, I laid out my blanket on the floor. Two animals started, three more to go, plus the border. A class is being scheduled for about March next year, when we will do the Zebras. Mosman needlecraft will send details once the calendar for next year is ready. It seems like a long time away, but then I do have many other projects to get on with, so I think that kind of timing is just fine.

I can show you the progress I had made on my Giraffes before the last class. I had almost finished. Just the final bits of the legs and the underbelly and the grass.

When the stitching is finished, apparently you cut away the solvy and wash the blanket and then the rest of the solvy melts. In the photo below you can see it has started happening already. I have some melted spots, bottom right hand corner. Time waits for no one. Apparently really high humidity can make the solvy want to depart this mortal world. Thankfully, Canberra has a very dry climate and its not often I'm thankful for that!

Jenny McWhinney kindly let me photograph her blanket so that, if over the next few months, I get a bit lost I can always look at the master stitcher's work.

 

Previous posts

There's an elephant on my sofa (August 30, 2011)

Samburu blanket thread painting: Giraffes (June 18, 2011)

Giraffes, Africa, Blankets - embroidery - thread painting (March 23, 2011)

HCB - Deep chocolate rosebuds

Ok - so we all know I love chocolate. And who could resist something called a baby cake and shaped like a small flower? Apparently my husband can! Last night, I suggested he try one as they were warm, just out of the oven. He reluctantly walked over to where they rested on the kitchen counter and said "Hmm, they smell too chocolately from here. No, thanks".

What can I say? He has his preferences, I have Rose's Heavenly Cakes and Deep Chocolate Rosebuds.

These were wonderful and my son and I loved them with a glass of milk. They are fudgy, soft and delicate, with a bite of bitter chocolate from the dollop of ganache added before baking.

And I love, love my new pan. I was amazed and thrilled at how well it worked. The cakes just dropped out and left only small stickiness behind. All of the beautiful detail of the flower was transferred to the cake shape. Magic. I might try this pan with the Yellow Butter Cupcakes as my daughter said she'd love to ice them with pinks and reds and greens. Sounds fun. Maybe not as elegant and end-of-grand-dinner-party sophisticated as Rose's presentation implies, but maybe more us. And that, after all, is the point of life - to inhabit the space that is right for you. Though, if we ever did have a grand dinner party - these chocolate flower morsels would be perfect, and as they are easy to make, I could imagine a number of giving opportunities.

 

 

The Ferry tapestry - the 2011 September Tapestry weekend

The tapestry that is to be my major work is 'The Ferry', which is based on the painting by E. Phillips Fox from 1910, and exhibited for the first time in 1913 in Australia. I gave a bit of background about it in my first post on this project and there's a link below if you're interested. The painting is a scene from Trouville in Normandy. I was curious to see what Trouville looked like and naturally Google images and Wikipedia were most helpful. This photo is from Wikipedia's Trouville page. In the painting, the ladies are standing on some steps, about to embark into a small boat for a journey. They are beautifully dressed and it seems they are going to a party.

In the photo below, I think you may even be able to see the steps that the ladies are standing on - or so it seems to my imagination.

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I also found a charming travel article that focuses on the literary and artistic scene that Trouville can claim as its heritage - Monet, Flaubert, Proust, Boudin, Duras and though not mentioned, of course our own E.Phillips Fox. The article is here> Impressions of Monet's Beach at Trouville - Guardian, Travel article written in 2008.

I find it hard to photograph this tapestry of mine. It is reasonably long and so I've made an attempt to show you the project in one go, but also in segments. On the right hand side of this tapestry, in the photo below, I've marked off evenly spaced parts of the tapestry. I divided it into 10 equal parts, and have thus set myself goals to finish each part over a year. In September each year, I gather with about twenty women to spend a weekend working on our tapestries. I started this tapestry last September at our weekend workshop and was hoping to have my first year's work stitched down to the mark - I'm not quite there. I do still have a week before I'll be catching up with them, and possibly if I give it a big push I can get fairly close to my goal.

I'm using a standard continental stitch in wool for the steps leading down to the boat. For the water, I'm using a reverse continental stitch in soft cotton, plus a fine oblique slav in DMC, and a horizontal half continental in perle 5. There are about nine colours in the water: grey, green, khaki, yellow, gold, orange, light blue, dark blue, and brown. It was one of the things that appealed to me, the painterly strokes of rippling water. To get the effect of movement the fine oblique slav and the reversing seem to create reflections and ripples.

The umbrella is being stitched in vertical half continental using DMC and in five different colours. I know my technique from Dominique Siegler-Lathrop's book makes it look messy while it is a work in progress, but I do find it reasonably effective for ensuring no stitches are missed.

 

The fine oblique slav needs to be worked from the bottom to the top and so doesn't mesh very well with the continuous backwards and forwards of the Siegler-Lathrop method. You can see in the photo below that I've laid in the oblique slav stitches first and then I'm filling in the blanks. I think for my weekend away with the tapestry group, I'll just concentrate in putting in as much fine oblique slav as possible.

I'll try and give an update after the weekend to show my progress.

Previous Posts

The Ferry - E.Phillips Fox - Baxtergraphix Tapestry

 

HCB - Apple-Cinnamon Crumb Coffee Cake

It is free choice week and so a few weeks ago, I asked my husband to choose some cakes he liked from Rose's Heavenly Cakes. It was really interesting watching him go through the book. I had some preconceived views about what he would like, given I've lived with him for 18 years. However, these little exercises in picking and choosing are never completely predictable.

That he chose an apple cake was NO surprise. Apple-Cinnamon Crumb Coffee Cake. An apple is a desert island fruit to my husband. He grew up in an apple growing area of Victoria and his parents still talk about growing up with Tim and finding apple cores all over the house.

That he didn't choose a cheesecake was a HUGE surprise - but perhaps he's been typecast in the role of cheesecake lover all these years and given an opportunity to redefine himself....See you really should ask...

That he only chose 4 cakes was NO surprise. As a point of context - of the 99 cakes - I probably love the sound of 70 of them. Don't get me wrong, each week he's more than happy to see what I'm making, to share a slice and to provide feedback. He just isn't lying on his back, staring at the ceiling and day dreaming about cakes (not that we know anyone like that).

That he chose a 'fun' cake was NO surprise. He has always loved helping with the children's birthday cakes (Thomas the tank engine, the lion, the princess mushroom fairy cake, the old lady in the shoe...). He chose Pumpkin Cake with Burnt Orange Silk Meringue Buttercream. For those without the book....hint....it is the shape of a pumpkin. I love that one too.

That he chose a cake that was romantic and dramatic was also NO surprise. After all, the cake is shaped like a heart - Rose Red Velvet Cake. After the priest blessed us and told us we were married, he held my hand walking down the aisle and I'm sure this man will be calmly holding my hand and telling me he loves me when I'm on my death bed.

That his final cake was the English Gingerbread Cake was also NO surprise. He has always loved ginger. And given that he comes from a long line of Anglo Australians (no Italian, Irish or American heritage like myself) it isn't surprising that his tastes run to puddings, roast dinners and gingerbread cake.

So, perhaps after all, the only big surprise was the rejection of the typecast cheesecake-lover. Though I actually think if we did the exercise again, one or two would sneak in. The cheesecakes are towards the back of the book and he just may need a bit more cookbook training...you know the kind of training you do when you learn to read cookbooks in bed. It's hard to believe that for the last eighteen hundred years that I've been baking him cheesecakes, he hasn't loved them....nah. cant be true. must try again with cookbook. but in a few months time.

Anyway, HAPPY FATHER's DAY Tim. We love you. And you love Apple-Cinnamon Crumb Coffee Cake. p.s. I loved it too.

 

Stumpwork - new project

Almost finished with catch-up posts...this one is from the July school holidays. July 15th to be exact.

It was the end of a long two weeks of supervising builders and painting our kitchen and study nook. A few things hadn't gone exactly to plan - ie the cork for the kitchen floor had been delayed, which meant we wouldn't have the kitchen finished before the children returned from their trip to Sydney. Ah well. Breathe and press on. Or more importantly, take the day off and, on a beautiful winter's day, travel one hour to Goulburn to spend time with the most amazing Jane Nicholas and join her class of stumpworkers.

I don't know if I mentioned, when I first described the rotation system I'm using for handwork projects, that I was curious to try two new types of embroidery: stumpwork and threadpainting. If you've been following along you'll know that I have pursued the threadpainting with the Samburu blanket project.

I was drawn to stumpwork for the playfulness of having an embroidered object rise out from the canvas. I also quite liked the idea of the precision of it all. Having said that, it is not a type of embroidery that is particularly easy to self teach (at least that's my impression from some of the reading I've done). However, we are really lucky to live reasonably close to one of Australia's best stumpwork embroiderers. Jane Nicholas has won an Order of Australia for her services to teaching us curious folk a little bit more about this very old craft. She lives in the Southern Highlands and runs courses in Bowral and in Sydney (as well as all over Australia and the United States). I did try and enroll in one of her classes in Sydney early this year but as I was a beginner and the class was more at the intermediate stage, the organiser and I decided I should try and get on a beginner's class. Well, one came up in Goulburn in July and so I was really thrilled to get along to it.

It was held in the Goulburn Regional Art Gallery, which was showing an exhibition of Jane's work and it is difficult to put in words how amazing her work is. If you ever get a chance to see it - I wholeheartedly encourage you to do so. Even if you don't like embroidery. It was so amazing, I went back a couple of weeks later with my husband and children. They were also impressed and we had a fun afternoon and evening in Goulburn.

The project that we were to do, was a very small piece called boysenberries and ladybug. The boysenberries are padded and then beads are sewn in such a style that you end up with a glittery, three dimensional berry cluster. The ladybird has red wings that rise up off the body of the bug and could be moved by nimble fingers. I didn't make a lot of progress on the day. I was very contentedly sewing along, but unfortunately my children were feeling sick and homesick after a week away with grandparents and so they were returned to me only and hour and half into the all day course. Poor little things. They really did want to get home. I had to pack up, collect them from outside the gallery where the grandparents had brought them, and then we all drove home to Canberra a bit quietly. They were sick and drowsy and I was wondering when next I'd get a chance to be taught by the master. I didn't really feel I'd learnt enough to press on by myself. It is quite precise and I'm not really experienced enough in embroidery techniques. Anyway...there's always another day.

The artwork below, which is a photo taken from Jane's book, was actually in the Goulburn Art Gallery. It was full of jaw-droppingly amazing detail. I gazed at it for long periods of time, soaking up one after another playful and fascinating detail. It is harmoniously proportioned and the more you look, the more you see. And the mastery of the technique was outstanding. I've had a taste and I'd like to do more so I'll keep my eye out for another opportunity to do a beginner's course of stumpwork with Jane Nicholas.

Mary Corbett from Needle and Thread does a really nice comprehensive review of Jane Nicholas and her books here > and you'll get to see some good pictures of her work close up.

FANTASY Exhibition

24 June - 20 July 2011

Featuring works by Jane Nicholas, Alexia Sinclair, Russell Johnson, Judith Bradhurst and Fiona Hammond

A fantasy can take us on a journey to magical places and imagined scenarios, to an other mythical world.  A fantasy, unlike a dream, is something we can return to again and again, but is it always the same?  A fantasy evolves and takes on new guises.  The works in this exhibition echo a fantasy and allow us to delve into five very different imagined worlds created by the artists.  They allow us to return again and again, always seeing and seeking something new.

 

LADYBIRD & BOYSENBERRIES Stumpwork Masterclass

Friday 15 July 2011, 10am—3pm

Worked on ivory satin, this design features a branch of raised, beaded boysenberries, and a tiny ladybird with detached wings.  The finished embroidery may be framed, mounted into the lid of an oval porcelain bowl, or inserted into half a walnut shell to make a small pincushion. This class is an ideal introduction to stumpwork embroidery.

REQUIREMENTS:

• Small, sharp-pointed embroidery scissors
• Old scissors or small wire cutters
• Fine blunt-nosed tweezers (for shaping wire)
• Notebook and fine (0.5mm) HB lead pencil (a clutch /mechanical pencil works well)
• Magnifier (if required)

Where: Goulburn Regional Art Gallery, NSW

When: Friday 15 July 2011, 10am—3pm
Cost: $63 includes tuition and kit with full instructions
Bring along your lunch!
Bookings essential - 02 4823 4442