Deer oh deer

Summer holidays have a significant impact on any creative activities.  However I have found time to knit this stag head for my Mum and Dad's 50th wedding anniversary.  I believe my Dad may have coveted antlers on the wall for many years, and I think this is the closest he is going to get!

 

This pattern is by Claire Garland free from Ravelry and can be found at  http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/my-dear---a-deer-trophy.

 

 

 

Not quite so serious

Still being a little creative over the summer holidays (and using some of my newly learnt knitting techniques from my first year at Uni).  This is Loopy the Sheep made with love for Ellis, to add to her ever growing pile of soft toys and animals xx.

Pattern from Amanda Berry at

http://www.etsy.com/shop/fluffandfuzz?section_id=11800947

Knitting with fabric strips

Now that I am on my very long summer hols, and I feel that I have had a bit of a rest; I've now started working my way through some of the ideas that I came across during term time, but didn't get around to trying them out.  This is a large square of old printed furnishing fabric cut on the bias to create a very long 3cm wide strip which I then knitted in garter stitch (every row knit) using 15mm (pretty fat) needles.  I've no idea what you would do with this, as the strip is far from perfect with extra rough ends where the fabric was cut on the turn, and creates random tufts in the knit, but its pretty self supporting and almost sculptural in its nature.

School Placement

I'm now about to start my final week at Highcliffe School for my work placement.  Not much update on the textile work front as I'm pretty busy experiencing what its like to work in a senior school!  This a small sample of Shibori resist that I created to demonstrate  to the GCSE group, various knitting techniques that I have used as part of my course.

Disperse Dyeing and Knit

I've chosen the Knit / Manipulation option for this stage of my journey.  I've taken imagery from my family relics including crosses, chain mail and details from our coat of arms, as well as the family motto "lux tua via mea" (Thy light is my way).  Today I've been experimenting and printing onto my machine knit pieces creating some interesting shapes and patterns with disperse dyes.  I need to work more with the dyes as these tones and mixes are too dark for my chosen colour palette, but going in the right direction.  Most surprisingly was when these small experiments were pinned on the mannequin, I was really pleased with the initial results and were far more successful than I had anticipated.

Bobbles and Mini Poufs

I've been stitching and knitting all over the Christmas holidays and most of my January submission is nearly complete.  For the hand knitting I've been experimenting with ways of creating more surface texture by using different knit techniques as well as mixing different yarns and attaching fabric strips and ribbons to the knitting.   

I've been hand knitting using an adapted Little Butterfly stitch, Daisy stitch, clusters, couching and intarsia to create samples in line with my themes of windows and spiders.  Playing around with scale and 3D ideas, I've knitted some mini poufs inspired by some of the pattern ideas from the fantastic Norwegian website www.pickles.no (who are even are kind enough to translate all of their patterns into English too!).

Machine knitting is still continuing well too.  I've re-visited one of my initial pieces and knitted it again in colours that are more in line with the rest of my samples, with the intention of creating more of a collection, rather than pieces that don't look as if they belong together.  This is a mass of small rectangular machine knitted pieces between 6 and 20 stitches wide, some short and fat, others skinny and long all knitted in various 3ply or less yarn.  Then they have all been individually attached to a second piece of machine knit to create a mass of knit.  I've intentionally left the cast on / cast off yarns attached which fall naturally together.

Bobbles

End of term is in sight!  Today I've been working hard on my final selection of stitch samples ideas and I've been creating stitch swatches, testing out my thoughts and fabrics.  All appears to be going well, the samples look related to both the print and knit; so with a bit of luck there will be some continuity when I submit this project in the new year for review.  Living room is covered in black and grey fabric, fluff and threads.  My last personal date for machine sewing is the 16th December when I finally give in for Christmas and will clear the decks for the tree and festive stuff.  Still hand knitting though, I finished this bobble sample last night and I've now started my intarsia house knit.

Knobbly Spiders

Whilst I'm on a blogging roll, I thought I'd add an update of some of my machine knit experimentations.  It's been years since I used a knitting machine and I have to say that I am just loving it!  I had a not so friendly and rather camera shy spider living in the garage and he inspired me to attempt to create some knobbly knitting:

The Big Knit

I've just finished knitting my hats for the Innocent Drink people for their 2011 The Big Knit initiative.  I've now knitted forty hats in total, the second batch are all the same format, knitted in either stocking, garter, or moss stitch and embellished with a crochet flower.  This time the colour scheme is bright and lairy with lots of clashes.

Cookies & Cream

A couple of Smoothie bottles kindly agreed to model a small selection of my Cookies & Cream 2011 collection.

The Big Knit

My one and only follower has complained about the lack of posts on my Blog!  Do not panic, I have been beavering away (as well he knows), and I'm working my way through my draft sketches for my FdA summer assignment and hope to post the final outcomes shortly to my blog (or at least before I go to Uni!).

In the meantime, as a bit on the side, I've been doing some knitting for the Innocent Drink people for their 2011 The Big Knit (see their website http://www.innocentdrinks.co.uk/bigknit/).   I much prefer knitting little things so I've been knitting hats for their smoothie drinks and my creations will be bought by some poor suspecting persons later this year.  I've named my current collection 'Cookies & Cream' and as you can see in the photos the colour scheme is chocolate themed.  Hoping to move into more lively colours if I get time, I particulary like the knitted flowers with beaded embellishments, I've knitted these 'in the round' with scraps of double knit, which saves having to sew the seam at the end!