I was really pleased to find out that my favourite 'teach yourself' crochet book has come out in a revised edition. I first bought Claire Bojczuk's 'Crochet Unravelled' at Spin a Yarn in Bovey Tracey (marvellous shop I used to visit frequently back in the old days when I had a job - how life moves on), and I have used the book ever since. It is small (A4 size, 64 pages) so easy to carry around, yet it contains just about everything you will ever need to know, including really clear diagrams for both right and left handers. The new edition has a cute crocheted pineapple on the cover - and Claire sent me a crocheted pineapple along with my order. I am keeping one book for myself so there are nine for sale on my website.
We went to the Bristol Botanical Gardens for their Bee Festival last weekend. Click her to see more info: bristol botanic garden
The colours of one of the borders in front of the Victorian house were stunning:
The last picture does not do justice to the orange (dahlias and canna lilies), yellow (rudbeckia) and purple (verbena). I have these colours in Petra so I think I will have a go at making something with them (I have some very cute DMC amigurumi patterns that I want to try out).
I have just finished a knitted octopus for Nancy's daughter (Nancy loves to crochet, hates to knit).
Here he is, crawling around my mother's sitting room ....
This is the picture from the book - I made him with Petra size 5 (available on my website!) and size 2.5mm needles.
And this is the book he came from - Amigurumi Knits by Hansi Singh. I enjoyed making this creature and I love the finished piece, but you do need to be an experienced knitter to make these - and using thinner (and slippery) yarn and small dpns made it even harder (the pattern is for double knitting, easier to do but I think the small scale improves the look).
I just wanted to share my favourite squares plus a beaded amulet triangle:
How lovely is that!
Since my mother gave me a tatting shuttle, some threads and some tatting she had done (see the blog earlier this month) I have been looking at tatting. And I have ordered some new shuttles for the website and am looking at threads too.
So what is tatting? Well I will start by passing on the introduction from 'Learn to Tat' from J & P Coats of Paisley in Scotland, which is undated but looks very '50s to me.
I love the models matching nails and lipstick!
So here is the introduction:
Frivolite is the charming name that the French, with their nice sense of the apposite, give to the needlework we know as 'tatting' - and a very much more appropriate word it is! The art of tatting seems to have originated on the Continent where an early form of it was very popular in the elegant, second half of the eighteenth century and, when it crossed the Channel, prim English ladies possibly considered that the adoption of the Continental title might provoke unseemly misunderstanding. Certainly 'Miss Emma is at her frivolity' would have sounded an altogether indecorous statement to an early Victorian mamma - and so tatting it became; but tatting is hardly descriptive of the exquisite, frothy result a good needlewoman produces with the little instrument called a tatting shuttle.
It was the Victorians, about a hundred years ago, who first revived the art and considerably improved the process of working. The great Mrs Beeton, who died in her twenties, having produced her monumental treatise on Household Management when scarcely more than a girl, also planned a comprehensive book on needlework, and she considered the subject of tatting so important as to devote the first considerable section to it. This book, completed by other experts, was published after her death.
After the first world war, however, all things Victorian, good, bad or indifferent were lumped together and classed as 'stuffy'. As a result many fine needlework arts were forgotten, until a few years ago women began to rediscover what might be called the more feminine handicrafts. So it was, that about the time when the so-called 'new look' began to turn the fashion world upside down, tatting, one of the most enchanting of such handicrafts, was revived and began to enjoy a new lease of life. As one would expect, it was smart Frenchwomen who first saw the many exciting possibilities of tatting for present day use but they were speedily followed by the fashionable in England and America, and this fascinating form of needlework is now being used to glamorise clothes as well as household linens of all kinds. Tatting has become, for the third time in a hundred and fifty years, a modish pastime and it looks likely to be an enduring vogue - as it deserves to be. It is a simple enough process and, with practice, proficiency comes quite soon even to the not so neat fingered: considering the elaborate effect obtained this is decidedly gratifying.
A modish pastime indeed - I can't wait to get started!
Here are a few more pictures from 'Learn to Tat'.
I just wanted to share this beautiful pendant bird that Nancy has made. It is really tiny and exquisite.
.... is moving along slowly - I am a couple of months behind but it isn't a race and I am really enjoying doing it. The colours Jane chooses always thrill me, and this is one of her very best - just beautiful especially the contrast between the blue and the orange. Here are a couple of pics of the work I have just pinned out for blocking - ignore the ends I have not finished off yet.
I particularly like the stripy squares (below) - I would love to do a jacket in that pattern.
Tatting is something my mother Margaret learned (from a family friend called Mrs Stringer) while serving in the WRENS during the Second World War. I was over at her house the other day, having brought my crochet to do, but I forgot my hook so she had a rummage around for hooks and during the rummage found her long lost tatting.
There is a beautiful piece of white lace, begun but never finished (makes me feel better about all the half finished projects I have!).
On the right is a cotton hankie that she had started to edge with tatting, but had rather quickly given up. Again I empathise with mum - so many things just started and never progressed.
I love the beautiful tatting shuttle (is that the right word?). I own up to a love of craft equipment. I feel that often our hobbies and pastimes reflect our primitive hunter gatherer instincts - we hunt out and gather yarns and equipment instead of berries and insects. I particularly like old equipment and really think I should start hunting for that. This shuttle is very tactile, beautiful to look at and touch.
Nancy's Fancies are flourishing. We are doing another craft show (Nailsea Tithe Barn, 18th May) and here are some pics of her part of the display.
Here is Nancy's part of the show, owls hanging from the tree, frogs on lily pads, aliens leading out of a box, mice sat on cheese - this woman comes up with some great ideas!
Here are the owls flying in the tree, plus a couple of lovebirds perched on a branch (ok, they are white so they are more like cockatiels than lovebirds - I am planning to introduce Nancy to some live lovebirds soon). The owls are lovely colours - my flash rather bled the colour out unfortunately.
More birds, this time wire and bead ones. Absolutely beautiful, Nancy has real talent.
Here are the so-o-o-o cute frogs, on their lily pads, wearing their crowns. The pink princess fell over in a decidedly ungainly way (see pic below), hopefully she will behave herself on Saturday.
And here are the aliens!
And the mice.
And some crocheted brooches.
So you see what I mean - a very talented woman, our Nancy!
... one of my favourite months, and the blossom and flowers are beautiful at the moment. I want to show you a few of Nancy's Fancies, some gorgeous birds she makes from wire and beads. These are brooch or pendant size but she has made glorious larger ones too.
My friend Sue has lent me some beautiful family crochet pieces.
We photographed everything on a blue/green scarf that I think sets the pieces off nicely, but possibly also interferes with the details, so sorry about that.
Though all are lovely, this one is my favourite. It seems like a dozen heads of ripe corn, both in shape and colour, and I am looking for a similar pattern and planning to get some yellow cotton to have a try at this myself.
Here is another doilly shape, the work is so neat, and again it is a lovely pattern. I think unless you crochet you really do not appreciate the superb workmanship shown here.
Here is a table runner and you need to look at the following two close-up shots to really appreciate the work.
The shapes in the work are stunning, I can see leaves and butterflies, it is like looking at clouds and seeing all sorts of creatures in them.
And here is some beautiful (I am overusing that word, but if this isn't beautiful, what is?) pillowcase edging - I remember when I was a child and all our pillowcases were like this, having been done by my mother, grandmother and great grandmother.
Finally a simple edging - maybe more achievable?
All wonderful things to have and to use, and giving us a link with those who made them. Thank you Sue.
