Juju Loves Polka Dots

More Embroidery Inspiration

Is that Ronald McDonald in the middle of the embroidery? Who knew?

I love these guys. Especially the one with the giant cup on the right.

Folk Embroidery

I spend a lot of time drawing from old embroideries in my sketchbooks.

I love the combination of embroidery, crochet and lace making on this tablecloth(?). This was part of an exhibition of traditonal handwork at L'augille on fait in Paris a couple of years ago.

If you haven't seen the amazing Muhu Island book have a look at some of the pictures from it on the Loop blog. Every page is awesome!

 

 

Some wooden friends

I love this lion. Saw him in an antique shop in Ontario last summer. Couldn't afford him but I got his picture. He had some horse friends.

More lion love. No one can afford him on ebay, but there he sits waiting.

Lions

I'm having a thing for lions at the moment. Particularly wooden ones.

Playing with Sketchbook in Photoshop Fun

With thanks to Jenny Mendes  for ceramic inspiration.

All Blogged Out!

Oh My Goodness!

When I started blogging the world was such a simple place.

But now, everyone, and their sister has blogged her baking and babies. Is there really anything of interest left to blog about? I'm afraid I've lost the motivation to keep my own blog.

However, I now keep a blog for Loop. I'm more motivated to do this since there are always new things in the shop to talk about and I imagine our customers are interested. I'm posting patterns as well as interesting ideas over there. 

Check out my pattern for the Crow Waltz Shawl.

Will I still keep my own blog about non-knitted things? I don't know yet. I'm afraid that it's just vain and self-promoting. These days, I get so much irritating spam ,I have to approve all the comments. Yet, it is a place to have a voice and a web identity. I'd miss that, if I gave it up. I just don't know.

In the meantime, I thought I'd show you some recent non-knitting. I went away for a weekend, just to bead. I mostly finished off old projects. Two bracelets:

And two new pairs of earrings:

I was very inspired by my friends Marilyn Phipps and Zitta Smith. They both have astonishing collections of bead jewellery that far surpasses anything else I've seen. Their colour and design sense is first and foremost. They make wearable delights, but not for profit. Mores the pity really because I can't direct you to much on the internet. Marilyn is teaching some of her collage beading in the summer and autumn. I find her collage style really inspiring. It got all my juices going! I have all these lovley bits and love what they do when you put them together. Here is a little play on my bead table last week.  

I don't have time to make anything of it at the moment but it puts fire in my belly!

The Pleasure of a New Book

Christmas brought me lots of wonderful knitting books, as my husband found his way to my Amazon wishlist and stress-free Xmas shopping. He thought that Santa was very clever to fill my stocking with books about stocking knitting. So did I!

One of my favourite books was Ann Feitelson's Art of Fair Isle Knitting.

This sits along with Alice Starmore's Book of Fair Isle Knitting as a favourite in my library.
But I also have two new (to me) Japanese books of Fair Isle knitting which I think are really beautiful.
Have you seen these?

 

ISBN978-4-529-04676-3

ISBN978 4 529 03923 9

They are both full of beautiful, contemporary interpretations of Fair Isle knitting. I love the colouring of this vest  from the book above.

These next pictures are taken from the first of the books and show the colours and styling typical in it.

 

Most of the yarns seem to be solids rather than heathers so they look quite different from traditional Fair Isle.

I've been working on a hat for my soon-to-be-50-husband, based on the pattern from the first book's cover. I'm just making up sizes and colours as I go. It won't have any patterning on the top since he wants to fit it under his bicycle helmet. I suggested a head band, but he thinks they're naff.

His head is giant. Beware young women, when choosing a husband, look at the size of his head and remember that you have to give birth to his children! (or not).

 

Fits me fine. Hee, hee!

Mittens Make Me Happy!

I've got so much I want to blog about but no time at the moment. However, I was so excited by this Latvian Mitten project that I had to link to it and tell the world immediately.

 

Maybe it's my inner Canadian, but I love mittens. I've been planning my own mitten post for a while. Let these wet your appetite...

 

Just a small sampling of the 3000 Mittens the Latvians have knit for the NATO summit.

More from me soon!

Urban Fashion Fix

China has a population of a billion people. One billion. That means even if you're a one in a million kind of guy, there are still a thousand others exactly like you. ~ A. Whitney Brown

I'm back in London. Back in the hubub and the stink. But I'm making good use of it. After my summer of Project Runway veiwings, I can't wait to start sewing some fabulous clothes and I've been looking around for inspriration. I have all of my September issues and I've even visited a few fancy shops to check out my faves.

As always, I love the clothes at Future Classics. I think this is the perfect dress:

 

Funky, vintage-looking, flattering and fresh. It is draped ingeneously and the silk crepe de chine with dirty-dip-dyed hem is to die for.

 

However, the price at £761, is far beyond me!

I'm also loving Future Classics tailored jackets. I'm determined to wear the new shoulder. My son says it makes me look like I have muscles.

It's also supposed to make your waist look smaller. We can dream, can't we!

I like a bit of military influence in a jacket too. Especially the front cut away and the all the vertical braid detailing like in this jacket by Bird Juicy Couture.

 

Or this Twenty8Twelve jacket:

It has some great lacing and flap details in the back:

 

Although, I think it needs more shoulder. How quickly my eye has readjusted to the pad! Or rather not the pad, but the height, as the new shoulders are not so much padded as cut and interfaced or boned into their shapes. Fun pattern cutting stuff.

As soon as I've unpacked and decluttered my studio, I'll be off and drafting. Stay tuned.

Watercolour, Wool and Polka Dots

I love dying yarn! It combines several of my passions; colour, painting and yarn! Last night, I demonstrated dying to my friend Dawn.
I took two skeins of Colourmart merino and painted on acid dyes. I then steamed them and Voila, the colour is set. If you you are a knitter and don't know about Colourmart, you are really missing out: great value, (mostly cashmere), high quality yarns.

I call this colourway raindrop. It is mostly pale blue-greens with a sprinkling of lilac.

This is Chalcedony. I was aiming for a semi-solid here, the colour of a chalcedony stone in my friend Henny's (check out her website, she's a great painter) earring. 

 

I think I got it. I'll have to see what Henny thinks.

I've also been to the Hayward Gallery to see the Walking in my Mind exhibition. Not so interested all the junk in the men's minds but delighted to discover Yayoi Kusama and her polka dot hallucinations.

Me so happy!