The circle of makers is back!
A wee gathering of us finally managed to meet after major transport issues, armed with hooks and wool.
I was demonstrating by trying to crochet right handed, more difficult than I imagined. It's amazing how easy it is to forget what it's like to learn something from the very beginning. Nothing like trying to use the 'other' hand and figure it all out from scratch; anti-clockwise.
So, to the astonishment of those who have never crocheted before, completed flowers were made from scratch and I was very impressed with how quickly they were all created.
Someone even invented their own crochet stitch! But that's all part of the process and we had time in between many cups of tea and cookies to make two flowers each.
I'm sure the flower creations will soon be adorning coats and bags, and if anyone asks - 'yes, I made that'.
Now the trick is to remember that pattern...
Check out the facebook page for updates on more workshops through autumn.
I have a dream of owning a sheep. Yes, a real living sheep, not one that is needle felted. I know that this is a bit of a crazy dream as I live in London and when I mention it to friends, I think they picture a rampaging woolly animal in a small city garden, or on a leash on the train to work (though I’m sure there are other kinds of rampaging woolly animals on the tube be times)
My artist friend Liz has her own flock in Wales, so my new ewe, when I purchase her will hopefully live there, and I can visit, perhaps on the way to Ireland.
This harebrained idea comes from a desire to know where my materials come from and to start having my own raw material fleece that I can use to felt, spin and eventually turn it into something wearable. Not by killing the sheep though. ☺
Before traveling into Peru we had a brief interlude in Bolivia. I was in fabric-colour-wool-alpaca-pattern-craft heaven.
I wanted to take the whole of La Paz with me. OK, maybe not the crazy streets, traffic and fumes.
Everywhere you looked there were indigenous ladies knitting or crocheting on the street, all without patterns, making the most complicated stuff. But my first experience of weaving was on the island of Taquile in the Peruvian side of Titicaca, the highest lake at altitude about 3900 meters above sea level. The indigenous people of Taquile are some of the finest knitters and weavers that I have ever come across. What surprised me was that the men knitted and the women weaved. But it’s not so surprising when you think that sailors originally knitted to pass the time back in the 18th century in Europe. Perhaps if there is something we should be more surprised with is that knitting nowadays is seen as gendered in the West. But even that has slowly started to change.
Both men and women learn from a very young age to knit and weave and the hats and belts they wear all symbolize their status in the community, so you know who is married, who is single and who’s an elder. The main square centre sells the crafts of the whole Island; each item has a tag to indicate which family made it so that the money can go directly to the maker once sold. The male elders of the community sell the crafts and they all sit around knitting with the wool in pockets and around their necks, needles clicking away.
I was left wondering if this was all a show for the tourists, but however much they survive by earning extra money from their craftwork, the quality and intricacies of the work cannot be argued over. I learned this the best way by trying to weave a bit myself. And I just can’t get over that fact that the pattern is in their heads, that they don’t look at anything but their own work as they are making it. And yes, that is an animal horn in my hand, used to keep the tension right as you go. You've got to use what you have, right?
I’m posting after the event, which is probably a sin when it comes to blogging etiquette, but we (the one in the woolly hat) and myself travelled around South America without any electronic devices and with the bare essentials, meaning one medium sized backpack each. We had to rely on slow Internet connections so I became very happy being away from computers, hence why I’m doing this now.
We travelled in Patagonia from the end of January to the first two weeks of February. The place blew my mind. It was a hikers dream. But before getting swept away (almost quite literally) by it all we had to stock up on provisions and make sure that we were going to be warm enough. The wind even in the summer months is extreme. It would cut through you or almost knock you over, and the sound... Luckily there was wool everywhere to insulate against the cold air.
There is long history of sheep trade dating from the late 1800’s in Punta Arenas. It’s not as prosperous as it used to be thanks to the Panama Canal. But we still passed rolling fields full of sheep, and catching a glimpse of the gauchos herd up hundreds of the beasts made it all the more real.
The hardest part about travelling light was not being able to buy small things like Patagonia wool, and to knit and crochet along the way, because I didn’t have anywhere to put it! So the closest I could get was seeing the ladies in the town square market making hats, scarves and all other woolly things. One of their hats coming in very handy over the next few months…
I started crocheting these hexagon shapes three years almost to the day and I've only recently started sewing them together, hence my excitement. I think there is a case for using your hands to make something as a way of not going mad, well especially if you are waiting for a delayed Ryanair flight.
There has been much more of a debate surrounding this, especially with the publication of Matthew Crawford’s The Case for Working with Your Hands: Or Why Office Work is Bad for Us and Fixing Things Feels Good. This is pretty much the ethos of Frizzle Circle and why it exists in the first place.
I've crocheted the hexagons on the tube, train, and at any time when I’ve started to feel manic, or when I’ve been on the computer too long. So the hexagon shapes are all different tensions depending on how I’m feeling. It’s a great conversation starter; I’ve had old ladies telling me their crochet life stories and people ogle my hands maybe because I crochet left-handed. There is no pressure to finish it either so roll on another 3 years!
It's a pattern by Erika Knight from her book Essential Crochet . I’m using a cotton acrylic mix (Kool Kotton) and a slightly larger 4mm hook. My sister helped me figure out the not very straightforward instructions and I think I can now make a hexagon blindfolded anywhere. My aunties who taught me how to crochet all those years ago would probably be amazed that I’ve stuck at it this long…
We had some different members come along today to have a try at needle felting, so we continued the 2-D work with those fantastic vibrant colors of fleece. But we also branched into 3-D territory, what needle felting is all about really...
This was the start of a sheep that I was working on. Pepa made a much better one!
Many ouches along our way, the only dangerous thing about needle felting, ah well...
Today we were weaving on home-made looms (wooden frames you can pick up in pound shops) with my extensive wool and yarn collection, some of it free-cycled, some of it belonged to my gran and the rest I have picked up over the years. Eight of us descended on Bianca's place for a creative afternoon.
This was the proudly completed beautiful weaving creation made by Gaia. Amazed how into this we all got. So after I left you guys stayed there till midnight to finish your weaving? Mad...
This is our first official crafty gathering. Hurray! We did start a couple of weeks back with some crochet, but sadly there was no photographic evidence. Today we were needle felting, making some 2-D work. The felt (or fleece) that we were using comes in amazingly vibrant colors...we are all drawn towards different ones. We were needle felting onto pieces of felt that you can pick up in haberdasheries.
You can also needle felt any kind of wool onto the same piece, it doesn't have to be all fleece. All of our designs turned out very differently.
