By Gum - A GumNut and some catch up

Yea - my GumNut Beanie for an adult is on the Dust Team Blog list of gift suggestions for Father's Day :-) the yarn is hand-spun undyed, natural coloured sheep and alpaca fleece.

My Etsy shops have been rather neglected in the last few weeks - and neglect is always immediately reflected in sales :-( but yesterday I listed some very old newspapers (from 1930) and they sold almost immediately VBG

I don't like to boast about knitting I've made for stage productions until the run is over - but I think I can show you a bit of the last Theatrical Knit now. It was for Bell Shakespeare Company's production of "Pericles" - wonderful costume and set designs by Julie Lynch. I knitted a striped vest for a fisherman - a very loose knit in banana silk yarn and self patterning sock yarn.

This vest featured some-what in the action - when Pericles is ship-wrecked for the 2nd or 3rd time (he makes a habit of it) he is rescued by some fishermen and when he complains that he is cold, one takes of his vest (the one I knitted) and gives it to Pericles.

Some of my bits are on Display!

What an exhibitionist!

And what a busy week it has been ... I've a bit of costume-sewing work at the moment AND I've been helping out back-stage at this year's Theatre Costume Showcase at Ultimo TAFE so I've been doing 12+ hour days and all at full-pace with not a moment to sneeze!

Part of the Showcase is an exhibition in 'The Muse' and the Munchkin costume I made last year is on display with all the other Munchkins.

Our Munchkins were full-grown adults walking on their knees, hence the over-sized foam 'shoes'. My Munchkin was an over-weight dandy c.1810 so he had a 'fat-suit', mad baggy trousers (lots of ribbon etc sewn into stripes), vest, tail coat, towering high collar with shirt frill and cravat (tied in the 'Romantic' manner) also mauve knitted gloves, a walking stick and a purple top hat.

The mauve lace on the shirt frills is tatting - I did most of it while on the bus to work and got lots of stares!

The Showcase exhibition is free and well worth a visit - with lots of fabulous work on display. Munchkins, Crinolines, Tutus ... and some spectacular Major Works.





AND today was the opening of The Sydney Hyperbolic Crochet Coral Reef at the Powerhouse (just up the road from The Muse!).

An amazing gathering of creativity and it really does look like coral reef. Had great fun trying to find my small contributions ...








Unfortunately I can't claim the gorgeous pink 'nautilus' but one of my corals is underneath it.

Dye & Spin Experiment a Success - Resilience

Last post I had just dyed a whole lot of wool roving and was being mysterious about what I was planning to do with it ...

Voila!

I like variegated yarn with long lengths of colour, when knitted up it gives a banded look, however, most of the commercially available yarns with long length colour variegation are really expensive and/or single construction (not plyed) which means they wear very poorly. So I've been dreaming of spinning up my own for ages and at last I've worked out how to do it. Long lengths of colour, plied and nice and thick (about 12ply).

The yarn is mostly Bendigo Woolen Mills 'Readyspin', the charcoal came that colour, I dyed the green and yellow.


I'm calling this colour-way 'Resilience' because it is inspired by the way the Australian bush bounces back after a fire. It is amazing how (when the bush-fire has been fast and not-too-hot) only 6 to 9mths later those apparently dead trees are sprouting new green growth all over their blackened branches and in the spring there are wildflowers and wattles in bloom. Amazing resilience! The charcoal is for all the burnt branches etc, the green is the new growth and the yellow .... that's the wattle blossom.

Now, what to knit with it ??

Cooking up some Colour

Dyeing can be fantastic fun when all goes well and the colour is just as you had planned; it can be a disaster when the colour ends up all wrong! However, as I get more experienced I'm having fewer disasters :-)

This weekend I had the dye-pot on the stove again and everything turned out really well. This is a spot-dye, the yarn is Bendigo Woolen Mill's 4ply wool - when knitted up this sort of yarn looks very pretty, like spring blossom.Then I dyed some roving - Bendigo's Readyspin and some Border Leicester - in shades of grass green and gold/yellow (showing quite washed out in the photo, sorry!)



The green and gold will be part of a spinning experiment ... all rather exciting!

More Kitten Ears

According to Coco Chanel, a Lady can never have too many silk blouses (not an exact quote but then, she would've said it in French) and according to me a baby granddaughter can never have too many Kitten Ear Bonnets :-)

This one is from a wonderful Bernat pattern dated 1963, the yarn is Bendigo Woolen Mills Alpacca Rich in the rose colour. Unfortunately my granddaughter lives interstate so I had to find another model - this is a very old teddy bear, looking rather like a chihuahua!


The pattern is very cute with a panel of Moss St through the centre and the ears are - well - they could be little devil horns! guess it'll depend on the wearer ... when she is good they'll be kitten ears and when she is naughty ...

More Hyperbolic-ness

Posted off my last contributions to the Hyperbolic Crochet Coral Reef project last week - I am rather proud of this one:


a 'pot top coral'. The base is finger crochet - made with some denim FabYarn (yarn made from recycled fabric and I'm selling more of this in one of my Etsy shops) the bobbles on top are from a wool & soy yarn.

The complete Coral Reef will be on display at the PowerHouse Museum in Ultimo from the 22nd August - but there are some sneak previews - I think some of the reef will be on display at the ABC's Knit In this Friday morning.