Girt By Sea

 

Girt By Sea

Item Composition

• Blue merino yarn hand-spun and knit by artist; merino fleece

• White cotton (G. barbadense, Ipswich cotton) yarn grown, hand-spun, and knit by artist.

• Camel yarn hand-spun by artist; camel fleece.

• Possum yarn hand-spun by artist; possum fleece.

• Angora/Cashmere hand-spun by artist; angora fleece.

• Blue variegated cotton inkle woven by artist.

• Green merino, khaki wool, brown wool needle felted.

• Beige and brown fabric scraps from Morris Mills, Redbank, Ipswich.

Background

Enjoying my tea on the afternoon of Sunday 18^th April, a friend had shared a post about Landline’s birthday along with a request for 15cm-by-15cm squares for a quilt for the celebration. Initially I just gave it a cursory glance as I don’t do patchwork or quilting.

Over my second cuppa I thought I’d have a look at the criteria. It was open to all sorts of fabric and fibre mediums. Reading that it was “whatever regional and rural life means to you”, it piqued my interest and I started to think.

My first idea was to spin some cotton to use to knit some lace to represent the expectant clouds we see on our horizons, then I would use it as an overlay on some ‘Aussie sky’ blue merino that I would spin and knit. The cotton would represent the Ipswich cotton mill and the cotton growing done in the area around 1890. The lace knitting references the lace making mill in Ipswich and the wool would reference the Ipswich woollen mills.

G. barbadense, Ipswich Cotton

 White cotton bolls, spun without carding, and plied. I choose a  lace pattern that would have round-ish shapes for clouds, and space between to show the blue sky behind. 

 This genus of cotton was grown in the Ipswich area circa 1880s', and  for 10-12 years the Ipswich Cotton Mill was a major supplier to England.

Blue merino fleece, handspun, and plied. I took a few goes to get the correct number of stiches to get the 15cm by 15cm required. I chose stocking stitch as the fabric texture.

I wanted to include more of flora and fauna with some history thrown in; from native possum, imported merino and goat, to feral camels and rabbits to eucalyptus, wheat, native grasses and shrubs, hills and fields in the area. Influence was also drawn from the woollen mills, cotton mill, lace (and sock) mill, all operated in Ipswich, with the last mill shutting in 1980’s, and all surrounded by the sea.

With the Australian sky-blue background and a small piece of cotton lace as my starting point I dug around for all of the other bits and pieces, working out the layers and processes as I went.

Possum, wool, camel fleece, cashmere and angora (cashgora), merino, cotton, camel yarn, cotton tape.

Starting point - Australian sky blue knit merino, and cotton lace cloud. 

I ended up using the knit piece sideways, to give more visual width for our wide brown lands

Measuring the 15cm square, and getting pieces ready for the needle felting

  Pinning out and layering before needle felting

The beige and brown fabric are scraps from some suiting that was made at the Morris Mills, Redbank, Ipswich.

Eucalypts have such a lovely range of colours that would need some care to show. I needle felted layers of camel, possum, and angora/cashmere fleece and yarn until there was a mini tree appearing. The canopy is made with green merino and khaki wool, pulled and blended then needle felted. I added depth to the border to break the fourth wall and give dimension.

Working on the needle felting. At this stage I was looking for the kind of canopy you see on country drives, with the wind blowing, and glimpsing the sky through the leaves

Laying out the inkle loom tape, and measuring for the 15cm square

Feeling a little unsure about a few things I showed my husband. I wanted his thoughts as he has a good eye for composition, drawing, and colour. He gave me some good pointers that may be tricky to implement with my fibre medium, and my need to keep it to the colours and fibres I had thoughtfully sourced. I did keep them in mind and they were useful as work progressed.

Here you can see the foreground, and a layer of bush, and a layer of field.

And here you can see an horizon tucked in behind the field. I used possum yarn, needle felted behind the fabric.

The horizon is hand-spun possum yarn needle felted onto the blue merino. The rolling rural hills of the farmland and country are layers of Morris Mill fabric, and brown wool. The clouds needed a little something, and I remembered a technique used in embroidery, and padded the clouds with a darker sky blue merino.

Knowing that the criteria for the piece called for binding, and not being confident with the method, I dug through my stash of existing inkle loom weaving tapes and ribbons. I found a variegated, ocean blue tape to use for such a task. Aha! My piece will be “Girt by Sea”.

At this point I sewed the border to the main piece around the outside edge, then the inside edge and corners.

I wasn't happy with the tree. It looked rather anaemic. Trying for the windswept look mentioned above wasn't working (in this scale and my skill level, not necessarily this medium). The eucalypt green canopy of a solid, healthy gum tree was now the aim.

More layering with the green merino and khaki wool.

I also added an extra bit of bush/foreground. The suiting fabric got a bit bunched so needle felting wool made another feature :D 

Much better!

And  I /think/  I'm done!

Close up of the extra work on trunk and canopy

Close up of the fields, and bush, and of the bit of needle felting on the sky

But wait!

There's more!

I wasn't happy with the clouds. It was the first part I had thought of and there they were looking blobby and flat.

What to do??

Remembering something done with embroidery, sewing sections of fabric together in a pattern then padding the gaps, I decided I could do something similar. I thought of using the same blue fleece but I wanted a darker blue for a bit of depth. Using a knitting needle I padded the clouds, thicker in some parts, and needle felt between. Colour is a tad more subtle than I had planned, but I am much happier with the shape and lace definition.

Now I am done!!

Girt By Sea
By 
Damaris Parker

A Fine Finnish

My eldest, Anne, made plans last year to travel to Finland in Jan 2020, and to then travel further north via car and ferry to visit Santa in the Arctic Circle

She asked me to make her a jumper

Much discussion ensued

We talked about colour, style, design, fit
Originally Anne asked for a Finnish design, however I thought it would be more interesting to have Australian motifs. A bit more chat and I told about design programs to make your own patterns, and how they would work for her architectural artwork style
Anne decided to give it some more thought.
Keeping in mind that we had agreed to a dark green background, and a bright feature yarn which would suit the Australian theme
A day later Anne sent me this design and
asked if it was possible. It is an element from a work in progress
Perfect

I wanted to do the jumper in the round, and to have the pattern repeats to alternate the straight bottom and the dip. It took a little juggling but I managed to do it with no row change colour jog visible (unless you really really looked 😀)

The nature of knitting means that there are zig zags. If I had increased the thickness of the pattern lines I would have lost the delicacy that is usual in Fair Isle styles

I love the blending colour change, and I am really pleased with the pattern design

And look how well I did keeping the reverse tidy!!
It is a very pleasing sight

All of that extra yarn will create hundreds of wonderful insulating air pockets

I considered finishing the design at the underarm. Being the type of mum who says 'zip up your jacket', I thought I would save time by just continuing all the way up (but straight so I didn't have to try "keeping pattern correct" while decreasing 😆)





Something I have wanted to try for some time--
a no seam shoulder, particularly with this piece. Other times I have grafted there hasn't been a pattern to match up, and I didn't want the lines blurring into adjacent columns

When I reached the cast off shoulder sections I would wrap and turn at each row, keeping all stitches live on the needle. I kept everything on the cable needle, others may want to use stitch holders
After all 4 shoulders were done I used a 3 needle knitted grafted bind off. There is a great video if you google that phrase
It looks a little bumpy here.....






.... but smoother here after blocking.
And with more wear and washing it should settle even more

With shoulders done I used a short cable needle to pick up stitches around the neck and make an extra long turtle neck. Great to double over, ruched, or to pull up over the face
The original pattern said to work back and forth. Again, I didn't want seams so I worked in the round






These are the only seams in the garment. Attaching the sleeves, and the sleeves. I wanted to figure a way for no seams but I was running out of time to get it done.

Btw- the original pattern I was working from was a Patons book with classic styles
We had chosen a jumper with set in sleeves, with options for v neck, crew neck, or turtle neck. I knew that I would need bigger needles to accommodate the Fair Isle style. To keep the finished size correct I chose the smaller size pattern than needle size I chose.

Btw- the yarn is from Bendigo Woollen Mills, Classic Hunter 8ply, and Bloom Autumn 8ply






All finished!!

I was very happy to get this done. I did most of it during 30 to 35 deg heat!
It was gratefully received, tested, and packed for the trip
















There was a slight issue during testing, that it was difficult to tell front from back. So while I did the construction, design tweaking, and pattern adaptation, the original pattern isn't mine, the design isn't mine, I had to use the only label I have












                                                                             
oh yes
there was some leftover yarn
so i made a beanie. well, 2 beanies. no photo of the green one yet
and that turtle neck is really useful 😁

Enjoying the snow at Karvalan Kestikievari, minus 13 deg, 

and happily snug in jumper, shorts, and thongs 

❄❅❆❅❄

Rag Time Blues

Like many I have wanted to have a homely rag rug, maybe next to my bed, or a large one in the sitting room
To that end I have a box of fabric that I would "get-around-to-one-day"

These past holidays I got a bee in my bonnet and decided to make one. One of our members has been making them and I was going to get a lesson but she was too busy.
Trawl through online videos gave me a lot to think about, including that there were 3 types- rag rug weaving; braided rag rug; woven rag rug.

After getting various tips from 3 different videos on rag rug weaving, I gave it a go

The start was fiddly but working. Increasing was fine. Tension needs work. Effect on my arthritic  hands.... mmm. Not good. As I find out later, bed sheets are rather stiff to work with when trying to manipulate it like yarn

I decided to make the rug into a bag. Stopped increasing and kept going around. Towards the top I went through each stitch instead of between stitches. Looks neat

As my tension is dodgy I will line this, and maybe add handles to make it a project bag, or leave as is for a yarn/fleece bucket

So. What to do with the still quite large ball of fabric, and fabric strips??

I wound off 3 strands each 8 metres long. I tied the ends in an overhand knot and braided/ plaited it all.
The video showing the braid rugs showed people sewing them into a spiral using a sewing machine. Those were factory machines though and I wasn't going to try it on mine.
I used the leftover fabric strips to sew the braid sides together, using the same joining technique used for the rag rugs. Worked well









This was closer to what I wanted.While I was joining it I thought about having a mat. and decided it wasn't a good idea for me. It would be a trip hazard.
What to do? By the time I finished the section of braid the shape reminded me of the base of a Moses basket.
I wasn't going to braid, nor rug weave anymore, and crocheted the remaining blue sheet yarn around the new base.

It needed to be taller. Digging around in the afore mentioned fabric box, I found a couple of old summer dresses I wore when pregnant with John. Had to cut them, in the round, with scissors, rather than rip as dress made on the bias.

My hands welcomed the change to a softer fabric

Height of basket achieved.
Now for handles. Knit and crochet handles always stretch. Braiding would make it all too thick to sew. Inkle loom would be the thing
Colours?? Cotton?? Acrylic??

💥Brainstorm!!
💡 Light bulb moment!!
😲Eureka!!

USE FABRIC!!!


Warping up on the inkle floor loom. It can make straps about 3 metres long

Went better than I hoped. I was worried about the fabric ripping and having to try and sew ends together, Which didn't happen til the last 1/2 metre.
I used a lilac acrylic yarn for weft

2 1/2 metres of inkle strap

The last 1/2 mt I plaited. Looking at the side width I am glad I chose inkle instead of braid for a handle.

I considered hand sewing, partly as it was so hot and the aircon is upstairs and the machine is downstairs. Thinking about the damage to my fingertips I did 2 stints slowly  machine sewing the handle on

Fairly sure I could fit a baby in the basket. May have a few years before grandkids come along, so project bag in  the meantime

And what to do with the 1/2 mt of braid?
Following a style found in a few different cultures and eras, I sewed the end together, about 15 cm long to make a rectangle on the end of the "chain". I can then pin any brooch to it. Right now it is a piece I made last year after receiving a book for xmas (story for another day)

Will be just right for wearing to meetings, camp, exhibits

or anywhere :)

The Hand of Friendship

A friend was destashing before she moved to chillier climes, and giving away some beautifully prepared fleeces to our group. I picked up 1 big and 1 small bag.

This alpaca is from the small bag.

The fleece was delightful to spin, soft and silky.
As it was a fine fleece I spun it extra fine. Barely enough to fill 1/3 of a bobbin, wasn't worth trying to divide for 2 ply, so I Navajo / chain plied it.

It really was a very small amount, This was the entire amount in one itsy bitsy squishy ball

And what to make?
The yarn was so soft, so smooth, that I could wear it on my skin. However I didn't think there would be enough for the size of scarf or shawl that I like.
As I have arthritis in my fingers (and other places 😕) I have made a few fingerless mitts but none just right for our mild winters.

I did have a start of an idea from a magazine knit pattern but it just wasn't working. And then I started designing my own using a knit stitch I saw in passing. Still not working. No stitch definition.

I really liked the idea of the lace part of the sttich though, so I adapted it by taking out 3 rows and flipping a purl row to a knit row. Worked a treat!

I knit from arm up to thumb, cast off a few stitches, then knit up to knuckles. Keeping yarn attached I crocheted the seam all the way down and then crocheted dc in each stitch around the wrist. Three rows of *dc, fpdc,* to complete.

The result is an open lacy fabric that keeps my joints warm but not overheat. The wrist length will tuck into long sleeves. The knuckle length enables me to crochet or knit

Every time I'll wear them I can think of her and her love of cold ⛄