Tagged: tapestry crochet
Tapestry crochet project bag
I can’t resist picking up my crochet hook to start yet another bag or purse. I need only a small amount of yarn for a bird, a flower, a non-figurative ornament. I have a lot of left over yarns that I store according to yarn weight. Thus I can easily find yarns that can be used together.
In this case I used yarns from Jamieson & Smith, Jamieson’s, and Pirtin Kehräämö. I found the designs in two books with cross stitch patterns. The birds are traditional Scandinavian, the “spindle whorl” is from the book “Grafiska korsstygn” by Renée Rudebrant.
After my mother died me and my brother and sister divided her things amongst us. I got a window curtain (amongst other things) that I loved as a child, so it’s probably from the 50s. There were holes in it, not from moths because it’s some kind of synthetic cloth, but because of wear. I have no clue to how there can be wear in a curtain. Here’s a piece of that curtain in my purse as a lining:
The project bag is sized for a small knitting or crochet work. It also takes two 100 gram yarn balls and circular or 20 cm dpn needles, small scissors, and tapestry needles. I’m thinking of adding a short strap. The idea is that the bag will fit into my smallest back pack amongst other necessary things, so I won’t make a big shoulder strap, only a short one for easier carrying.
Tapestry crochet is a lovely technique! Slow, meditative, and you need to concentrate as unraveling means a lot of extra work. Here’s Carol Ventura’s awesome site: Tapestry Crochet. If you want to see me crocheting in 2009, look here! I’ve done a lot more since then, and oh how young I looked… Please read about the other persons in the “Portraits”, there are awesome crocheters portrayed.
For Maggie
I have spindles of many kinds: top whorl, bottom whorl. Russian, Tibetan. Tahkli, Akha. Some are made by skilled spindle makers, others by myself. Some spindles are very dear to me. One such is my Maggie spindle from Magpie WoodWorks. It’s beautifully made, and it’s of course a very good tool. I wouldn’t be so fond of it it wasn’t, would I?
So I made a container for it. Tapestry crochet, commercial and handspun yarns, some dyed by me. Motives from the Korsnäs sweater, and the traditional birds from some Scandinavian knittings.
I put a plastic bottle inside, and a blue cotton lining. Tassels. A crocheted wristaff.
The warm glow of this perfectly turned wood…
Spun, crocheted, and knitted
It’s been a rather hectic January. I had articles to write, and a spindling class to start planning, but I have also spun, crocheted and knit. I want to show you some of what I’ve done.
In the autumn I suddenly saw how I should knit a sweater I’ve been thinking of for a while. I spun the yarns from different fibers, mostly Swedish Finull but also Merino, silk, and cotton nepps during several years without a special project in mind. One day, as so often happens, I picked through my yarns in search for something, and saw these skeins together in my mind, laid them out, and started the sweater later that day. Here it is:
I also took part in a spin-together event in the Swedish spinning group on Ravelry. I spun green, lilac, blue, and red fine 2-ply yarns from Swedish Finull. I dyed the wool last spring, and carded it during the summer. The grey and black skeins are Norwegian Pelssau, a very nice and soft wool. The yarns are part of a project where I try to spin different fibers on different tools, trying to make yarns I can use together. I used one of my old Finnish Saxony wheels, Louet Victoria, and Hansen Minispinner for these and the brown and red skeins below. The yarns in the sweater where spun on Kromski Symphony, Louet Victoria, and Hansen Minispinner, and they are much thicker.
The red skeins has company from a natural brown Finull skein.
I wanted to test the yarns i one of my favourite techniques, tapestry crochet. This purse is now on its way to a spinning and dyeing friend in Sweden:
The sheep are my version of stranded knitting sheep you can find in many patterns. I already know my friend likes them, even if she doesn’t know they are hers. I showed the purse on Facebook the same day I had sent the package, and got a positive comment from her. I hope she’ll be happy when she opens the parcel! She’s a skilled dyer. As you can see, the colours in my yarns are uneven, which is what I’m after when I dye. I think it makes the finished item more vivid.
This is an experiment: white cotton and purple silk noils. I had a high quality cotton sliver that I wasn’t able to spin into a nice yarn. So, with an aching heart, I took my hand carders and turned it into punis. I had just seen Sarah Anderson blending cotton and silk, so I wanted to give it a try. I’ll use it as an effect yarn in a woven scarf one day.
I’m looking out on a white world. We have snow, which is wonderful this time of the year. It makes the world lighter. The morning sun gives a golden glow to both snow and creatures!
Hats in Myrbergsgården
In an earlier post I wrote about socks you can see in one of the museums in my municipality. Today I want to show you hats from that same amazing museum, Myrbergsgården = Ant’s Hill House, if you wonder 🙂
Some of these are skilfully crocheted children’s hats. Sometimes they were made for women, who wore them as an extra layer under the head cloths for more warmth. Indoors they took off the head cloth, but sometimes kept the hat. The houses, and especially the small cottages, where not always very warm in winter in those days, i.e. the end of the 19th century – beginning of the 20th. As you can see, they were crocheted in the round. The pattern designs are the same you can find in crocheted clothes and purses here on the Ostrobothnian coast.
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Tapestry crocheted hats
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Tapestry crocheted hats
Close up: I still haven’t had time to see how they solved the problem with going from crocheting in rounds to making a flat piece. You can do it in two ways. Either you continue working in rounds and make a steek afterwards, or you cut the threads after each row. I really can’t tell from my photos which method they used.
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Tapestry crocheted hat with Twisted S design
The Twisted S design is often used in the Korsnäs sweater, but you can also find it in suspenders and purses. It’s one of my favorits, I often use it in purses.
I have tried to copy this hat, made and used by an elderly woman as her indoor hat, but it’s very hard to find out exactly how the increases are made. I think this design must be made exactly like this. It’s charming with it’s slightly irregular “propellers”. If you make it regular it looses much of its charm.
These plain knitted caps were also used under the head cloth. Some of them are machine knitted. Knitting machines where common before WWII in my municipality. This is a simple but highly usable sock heel construction:
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Machine knitted cap
- Twisted stitches
Hope you enjoyed! To me head gear are constant objects of amazement. It seems we put just anything on our heads! I think the hats I just showed you are lovely. When I get even older than I am now, I’ll crochet a hat like that for me to wear on cold winter days.
Carol Ventura, tapestry crochet
I’m happy to have attended Carol Ventura’s beaded tapestry crochet class at a Nordic Crochet Symposium some years ago. She has an awesome site with hundreds of photos from all over the world. Her blog (link on her site) is a joy to read. She even presented me in it a few years ago. As a teacher she’s intense, eager to share her wast knowledge. If you ever have the chance, go to one of her classes!
One of her books with patterns and techniques:
And may I present Iiro, who got his name from one of Finlands ministers of finance who seemed to know only one word, “save”. Iiro eats left over coins from our travels. You know, beads for swines… he eats from the small basket I crocheted in Carol’s class.
Teaching tapestry crochet at a knitting symposium
So I will teach tapestry crochet at the Nordic Knitting Symposium 2014. Who could’ve guessed? Not I, for sure. When they called me and asked, I said “tapestry crochet???” in a tone that suggested I don’t know what a crochet hook looks like.
But a short tour in my Ravelry projects reveals the truth: I have crocheted lots of bags and purses in that technique, and I have crocheted/knitted Korsnäs sweaters. So after thinking for a while I said “yes, please, I’ll be glad to teach tapestry crochet!”
I’m so excited to take part in this big knitting event!
Hjärtligt välkomna till Nordiskt Sticksymposium 2014 alla som vill virka något färgglatt och folklig tillsammans med mig! Hjärtligt välkomna alla som vill virka något dämpat och stilrent! Jag håller två halvdagskurser under symposiet. Du lär dig grunderna, och sedan börjar äventyret. Du kan omsätta det du lärt dig i egna projekt i den stil du vill. Hjärtligt välkommen även om du inte alls vill virka utan bara sticka, för den illustra skaran fina sticklärare är imponerande!
Sydämellisesti tervetuloa Pohjoismaiseen Neulesymposiumiin 2014! Tästä tapahtumasta tulee hieno, siitä olen aivan varma. Opetan monivärivirkkausta erittäin mielelläni. Perustaidot opit nopeasti, ja sen jälkeen voit kehittää omia malleja. Tekniikka on monipuolinen ja sitä voi käyttää monella eri tavalla vaatteissa, pusseissa ja laukuissa, sisustuksessa. Tervetuloa myös jos et halua ollenkaan virkata! Vöyrille tulee suuri joukko erittäin taidokkaita ja inspiroivia neuleopettajaa.
Barbro's Threads 