Month: March 2012

Needle Felted Wrist Ornament

Everyday in my creative art space, I stare at a stack of recycled felted sweaters and contemplate what to do?  I could cut off the sleeves and construct a purse or draw circle templates in graduated sizes for layering adding dimensionality to surface design.  Maybe I’ll cut the sweaters into strips similar to a log cabin quilt and create a piece of fabric.  Hmm…needle felted fabric.

Perhaps I’ll stare at the recycled sweaters for a bit longer as I ponder the idea of needle felted fabric.  Boiled wool lends itself as a support for needle felting, which I’ve got plenty in my stash.  Thus, begins the co-mingling of boiled wool and the unspun fibers of roving.

Collage for Design Inspiration

The grid-like appearance of mesh consists of open space and a network of lines.  These spaces in a network are found in fashion from shoes to eyeglasses.  What knit stitches could properly translate the visual of a mesh or grid-like appearance?  While pondering the answer to this question, I found a book at my local library which may hold the answer.  Reversible Knitting by Lynne Barr “adds something different to the stitch pattern references that many knitters may already own, and offer exciting new patterns with a reversible twist.”  The chapter on Openwork, stitches 19-27 create open space using yarnovers and dropped stitches.   Stitch 25, Half-Nelson or Stitch 22, Cane Lace present an opportunity to work in a mesh or grid-like pattern.

Stitches West 2012

This year at Stitches West, I enrolled in two classes taught by Wilhelmine Peers. The first class I attended was on Thursday, February 23.   Designing Using a Photographer’s Frame set my creative juices flowing.  Wilma instructed us to pull pages from a magazine that caught our attention without over-thinking the image.  The stack of magazine pages were then prioritized according to our favorites. Thus, began the building of a collage with color, patterns and shapes.  After the collage was finished, a photographer’s frame was moved across the page in order to detect possible design translations from our selected magazine images.  Below are pictures of various design possibilities from my collage.

Knitinterest-clique

Since today is leap day, I decided to start another blog.  Yes, another blog.  A blog about the latest happenings in the world of fiber.  Sticks-a-gogo will still highlight the creative endeavors of Knitorious, and Knitinerest-clique will explore knit and purl stitches up and down, and all around the West coast.   The word “clique” defined as “a small exclusive group of people” describes all the individuals that come together in their lys or guilds sharing a common desire to knit and/or crochet.  These “small exclusive groups of people” multiply to form a global community of individuals keeping a long-lived tradition alive.

So, why don’t you follow me, Knitorious  at http://knitinterestclique.wordpress.com as I travel up and down the West coast encountering an eclectic mix of talent in my own  backyard.

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