Slugs on the Refrigerator

Inspiration and Originality

 

Nothing is original.  Every single thing that we make, that I make, has its roots in something else...a picture, a book, a pin on pinterest.  As a designer I take the full breadth of my experience in making and put in into my designs...using them like tools in a toolkit, collected from all of the other designers I have learned from over the years. 

 

 

Textile designers can do what they do because they (do I get to say we?) have an ability to think about how something is constructed and then make it. Generally speaking, when designing I stay far away from the internet because I am cautious about "reading" how others made something and getting that idea stuck in my head. In fact, it is much the same for blogging - I tend not to participate in meme's and writting workshops because I struggle to find my own voice amidst other people's words.

Of course, I do make other people's designs and my stance thus far has been quite a simple one: where an item I am selling has elements that have been directly inspired by someone else, I contact them to let them know.  The Herringbone hat and mitts, the Viking hat, the costume wings.  I have had email discussions with all of the designers about how I am using their designs and have had permission to sell. In the case of the Herringbone hat and mitts, a lot of work went into developing and writing the patterns, making the samples and getting to the point of publishing a pattern...but I chickened out at the last minute for putting the patterns for sale as I just felt awkward doing so with someone else's work (even though I had Craig's permission).

Serendipity is another issue...the owllelly warmers were born out of a gift for a young woman who loves owls.  I had made owl cables before and adapted them along with a ribbing that I thought would  fit a range of leg sizes, as having very, ahem, shapely calves, stretchy ribbing is required.  It wasn't until after I made the first pair and drafted the pattern that I saw there were handwarmers on ravelry with the similar stitch pattern. 

Ultimately, I have to take the perspective that these things happen.  Where possible, I think it is key to be open and honest and hold one's hand up, but the reality is that creativity works in mysterious ways and, we are always going to be inspired by others, be it for new crochet designs, blog posts or dinner ideas. 

And that is where this little work in progress comes in (we are calling him Elmer). He appeared in my studio in the late hours of last night after I'd been dreaming about him for several days.

 

We'd been at a friend's house this weekend and Georgia was captivated with their hobby horses. She isn't interested in much other than destruction, so I do tend to jump on any opportunity.  I decided to make one for her birthday in March and wanted to do a tester for another little boy's birthday next week.  Coincidentally, in my daily dig around pinterest, I stumbled upon a range of hobby horse designs. 

And Elmer was born.  He is entirely my own design, crocheted like a sock, complete with ankle ribbing and heel flap, but is very muchinspired by the beautiful ones I saw here.  Of course, I would like to write up the pattern and share the love of his sweet little face and make many, many to send off to homes all over the world, but I hesitate because I want to respect the work of others. It is always a challenge to find balance...

As he is still in the developmental stages, I am comfortable to wait and see what happens as he and his lady love (her name will be Eustice the Unicorn) develop.

 

I guess I will leave this discussion with a quote from my friend Robyn who commented on a facebook post of mine when I was venting frustration about this issue:

'The artist Eva Zeisel, who says that the folk tradition in which she works is "her home," nevertheless produces ceramics that were recognized by the Museum of Modern Art as masterpieces of contemporary design.

This is what she says about innovation for its own sake:

"This idea to create something is not my aim. To be different is a negative motive, and no creative thought or created thing grows out of a negative impulse. A negative impulse is always frustrating.

"And to be different means 'not like this' and 'not like that.' And the 'not like'--that's why postmodernism, with the prefix of 'post,' couldn't work. No negative impulse can work, can produce any happy creation. Only a positive one."' 

Ultimately, I have to believe that we are all better for just making...for putting more of ourselves and our visions into the world.

And, of course, Elmer and his lady love will be appearing in their finished forms soon, even if it is just here.

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I am also excited to be Parentdish's Blog of the Week!  If you have come through from there, "Hello and Welcome!!"

 

Playroom and Studio 2.0

Aaah, remember my lovely studio? It was so clean and tidy and beautiful, no?

Uh, yeah.  It quickly turning into dumping ground 101.  

Here's the thing about working at home with 3 children under 5: Wherever you are - they are.  I spent so much time running up and down the stairs, carting yarn here and there, that I never really used my studio.  In those moments when the babies were both asleep and E was occupied, one of 2 things would happen:

- My working upstairs would wake them

- Ellis hollering for me as I was not downstairs and he needed his 200th drink/snack/conversation of the day would wake them.

So a reshuffle took place over the weekend and the playroom became our shared work/play space.  The upstairs still has the sewing equiptment and stores much of the non-working yarn, but my new work space in the heart of the activity means that I can work while they play near by.

The centrepiece of the room is our old coffee table, transformed by several coats of eggshell paint and two play panels - one Duplo and one blackboard.  The table is originally from ikea and has always been a great coffee/playtable for the children so I am glad to have rescued it out from under the TV. 

 

  

Most of the toys are hidden out of the way in the bookcase with the ikea fabric curtain.  

My favourite bits are the imporvised car garage from a spice rack, the wagon "shelf" serving dual purpose as fire surround and bookshelf and the beautiful Sylvia Woodford wall hanging

And of course the fairy lights, because who doesn't like to work by their twinkling glow?

 

Art Takes All Shapes

 

Georgia wants to paint or colour all day long.  She will go through page after page of paper.  However, markers and crayons have to be counted in and out, in the same way narcotics are controlled at hospitals, lest we end up with contemporary art at knee level.

Ellis has less interest.  He likes to pour all of the paint out of the bottles into huge swirly puddles, preferably covering toy cars in the mess. All of his "pictures" he brings home from nursery are just blobs and scribbles, not unlike those of a few years ago.

However, his attention remained fixed for over an hour as we transformed an old table.

He told me later he wanted to be a painter. "But not a silly artist one. A serious one. I want to paint houses and walls".

He will be his father's death.

 

 

Workaholism

I don't really want to talk.  Or cook. Or write. Or wipe noses or floors, do the dishes, play "choo choo", read stories, sing songs, go to playgroups or to the park.  I do not want to make play dough or cake or dinner or lunch or breakfast or second breakfast.  I do not want to pay the bills or listen to the crying.  I do not want to give baths or brush hair or change nappies or tackle the mountain of laundry.

The interuptions that come at 5 minute intervals send me snappy and on edge.  I wish I could say that the 6,000 lego spaceship of the day was more interesting than a new design or the need of a 10 month old to be held all day long was as fufilling.

But, its not.  They aren't.  

I love them.  I love their little noses and blue eyes.  I love their funny laughs and their messy hair.  The way Georgia says "Thchoo -Thchoo" instead of "Choo Choo".  The way Ellis says "I got it from my brain" when congratulated on a good idea.  The way Theo gives open mouth kisses on demand.  I love them so much...

But the constant pull is there.  I want to be with them, but I want to be working or not even working, just doing something else. Something that is wholly me and not someone else.

And then, that means that I end up doing most things badly.  Half-attention and stolen moments are not the way to do anything well from designs to laundry.

And so today, I will not be working.  I will put it down and draw a line under it so that the talking, cooking, writing, wiping of noses and floors, doing of the dishes, playing "choo choos", the washing of laundry and all of the other things I *need* to do can get done well and without shouting or crying...

...plus we've run out of underwear.

 

*pictured: Texere Chunky Wool

Christmas Handmades: Part 2

I know. Its almost February. You are all planning your Valentine's crafts and gifts and Christmas is a distant memory except for the extra 10lbs hanging over your waistband (ok, my waistband)

But I couldn't not show you this:

It is made from an old duvet and  with a pillowcase used for the straps and pocket.  It is *exactly* the apron I would make for myself..long and wide straps.  Big wrap around sides.  Pocket. Vintage.  *Swoon*

I am notorious for not wanting to give away things I make, but this one may just have been the hardest to hand over. However, my love of my friend definately outweighed my love of the apron.

I still have enough material to make at least 4 more and I should be able to find some time to make one for myself...

right?

What You Make Of It

The last few days have been so very challenging.  It seems everything we look at breaks, dies or just goes wrong. My patience has all but disappeared as we leap from one catastrophe to the next.

 

I've mentioned before that I love to wallow.  Oh yes, give me the hint of excuse and I will whine and moan and sulk with the best of them.  My particular talents - throwing things in a rage and sobbing on the floor.

And so yesterday, as the destruction reached comedy levels, I wanted to shut the children in the lounge in front of a DVD and mope.  Fighting against that primal urge, I grouped us un the kitchen where we spent the afternoon listening to Michael Buble's Christmas album at full blast, making salt dough ornaments and peppermint crisp.

 

And yes, it was 800g of the cheapest chocolate I could find at Lidl. No I didn't have any peppermint extract. And so what if the candy canes were from the Pound Store and obviously very close to their use by date. And no, the salt dough did not set at all. But actually, the ingredients matter very little on days like yesterday.

 

Because, in the end, its what you make of them.

 

 

Not Your Brother's Jeans(kirt) Tutorial

 Ellis blows through jeans on an almost weekly basis. His skinny little legs and the jeans that fit them make patching a swear-worthy affair, but throwing them away seems like such a waste!! So a new solution was found--> combining upcycling with the ancient art of hand-me-downs between siblings. 

Materials:

Old pair of jeans (these were sized 2-3 years)

Long strip of material for the bottom of the skirt (for an age 2-3 skirt, my material measured 34" by 6.5") 

 

1. Take jeans and cut in a straight line just above the crotch and under the pockets.

 

2. Prepare your skirt material.  Cut it approximately 8" longer than the circumference of the opening of your jeans (longer for a more ruffled skirt, shorter for a more straight skirt...I wanted something with just a bit of flare).  

Use an existing skirt to gauge the width of the material for the bottom of the skirt. I used a strip of material about 6.5" wide. I based this on the width of the pattern on my material, but came out with quite a long skirt for an 18 month old.  However as the jeans are sized 2-3 years, it will be a good length as she grows.

Sew the skirt into a tube by using a french seam.  To do this, fold the material in half, placing the short sides together, wrong sides facing and sew down the edge.

 

 

 Then, turn the tube inside out and sew the seam closed again, encasing the first seam inside the other.

 

3. Hem the bottom of the skirt.

 

4. Using a basting stitch on your machine, sew around the top edge.  Then, pulling on one of the lengths of thread, gather your material until it is the width of the opening jeans.

 

5. Turning the skirt material inside out, place the jeans inside the skirt rightsides together, the gathered end will line up with the cut edge of your jeans. I lined the skirt's seam up with the back seam of the jeans.

 

4. Sew or serge the open end. And ta-dah - a little upcycled skirt out of a pair of jeans that would have been thrown away.  As there is a 3 year gap betwen Georgia and Ellis, the skirt is on the big side for her, but is fine turned over once at the waist.

 

 

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No. I am NOT procrastinating.  What do you mean?  OF COURSE I had to make a photograph this skirt yesterday instead of making hats.  Georgia NEEDED it, she didn't have anything clean to wear and making it took just almost exactly the amount of time it would have taken to do the laundry ;).  

Have a fantastic weekend!!

 

And this is why you should photograph your finished object before trying them on your toddler:

 

Queen of the Jungle

It is no joke that Georgia's first word was "Roar". Having been roared at by her older brother and his best friend from birth, we think that she thought it meant "I love you" or some other term of affection.

Even now in Georgia's mind, it is the sound most animals make and her favourite game.

And so this little hat revamp is for her...

 

...my little Queen of the Jungle

 

 

Finished hats are available here.

Patterns can be bought on etsy and ravelry.

All of my hats are tested by my Trusty and Super Awesome Army of Testers.  You know who you are and thank you again!!

**Proceeds from the Lion Hat and pattern go to the keep 'Georgia in Apples' fund. She eats at least 3 a day, using stools and chairs to climb up and get them, then hides. We only know it has happened when we find brown apple cores in odd places, often with our feet**

 

UFO: Unfinished Object

 

Generally speaking, I am not one of those crafters who starts something and doesn't finish it.  With the noticable exception of Jasper, any project I've begun has either been seen through to completetion, or frogged immediately.

 

 

However, last Christmas in the US, with time and an awesome yarn store available,  I whipped up a little cardigan from Last Minute Knitted Gifts.  I'd gotten to the point of sewing it up when we left for the UK, packed it up and promptly forgot about it...

...until last week when I stumbled across it while tidying up my studio.  How sad, I thought, that such a sweet little thing didn't have a baby to wear it.

 

 

As luck would have it, a few days later, I received news that a friend was coming to Stirling to visit with her new baby girl. Queue frantic blocking, sewing up and button choosing (which of course necessitated the dumping out of the entire button jar).

 Looking at it this morning, mere hours before it was due to be handed over, I decided it needed a little something extra.  

A few weeks ago, Kevin found this Crochet Inspiration book at the library. It is my new essential crochet book, just packet with, well, inspiration. I know there is another book of similar fashion doing the rounds in the blogosphere at the moment and I'd be interested to see how they compare, but for now this one will be on permanent loan to us.

 

A flower pattern was chosen and sewn on at the exact moment Ellis was supposed to be at nursery.    

 

But it was perfectly worth it.  A sweet little thing for a VERY sweet little thing.

How To Design Your Own Hat (Part 2: The Math)

For the Math-a-phobic, stay back.  There are sime heavy calculations going on below.  There is nothing wrong with making a hat by eyeballing it or going by a pattern.  This is just the way I like to torture blog readers.

No really, this is most useful for people wanting to write their own designs in multiple sizes. For everyday hat making, its a lot of work to go to and as Joxy eloquently said in yesterday's comments, crochet is so versatile, you just need to know how to increase and decrease, then you are sorted. I would add that hats are stretchy and can forgive a number of sins. Now please forgive me for any that may appear below ;)

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So, I said yesterday that the method I described was the "easy way".  You basically pick a stitch, crochet a flat circle until it measures close to your diameter and then work even until its the right height.  Its all fine and dandy and pretty no-fool when you are working in simple stitches and in lighter weight wool. 

You can run into problems when you are working in more complex designs and bigger wools.  Basically a completed round may not be anywhere near the diameter of a circle you are needing or you may have a stitch pattern that requires a certain number of stitches in a round. This is where maths can play a crucial role.

The example below is using a US Half Double Crochet (UK Half Treble) for ease. With such a straight forward stitch, you probably will be fine with using a 6 or 8 stitch increase for the flat circle to get to the desired number of stitches to reach your hat circumference. You can just use step 1 to formulate that.  However, I go into the further detail for when we look at lace and more complicated stitches in future posts, where increases need to be more precise. 

You need to know:

- your gauge

- your HAT circumference

- your HAT diameter

Age	Head Size	Hat Size	Hat Height	Flat Circle Diameter
0-6 months	13 - 15in	12 -14  inches	4.5 - 5 inches	4 inches
6-12 months	16 - 19 inches	14 – 18 inches	5.5 inches	4.5 inches
1 – 3 Years	18 - 21 inches	17 – 20 inches	6.5 inches	5.5 inches
4+ years	20 – 22 inches	19 – 21 inches	7.5 inches	6 inches
Women	22 inches	20 inches	8.5 inches	6.5 inches
Men	23 inches	21 inches	9.5 inches	6.75 inches

 As an example, I am going to do the equations for a 1-3 year hat, with a 17inch hat circumference and a 5.5inch diameter. 

GAUGE

First you need to gauge swatch.  For Cascade 220 and a 5mm hook, my gauge is:

14HDC and 11.5 rows = 4inches

In order to simplify things, its easier to use your 1 inch gauge, based on your normal swatch size, in my case:

3.5 HDCs and 2.9 rows in 1 inch 

Armed with this information, I need to figure out how many stitches will make up my circumference and over how many rounds I need to build up those stitches for a nice even crown.

Step 1: Stitches in Hat Circumference

First, lets figure out how many stitches are required for the HAT circumference. 

To do this, you need to multiply the hat circumference by the number of stitches in your gauge.  The number you get is the # of stitches around your final circumference will be.

HAT CIRCUMFERENCE x # of STITCHES IN GAUGE = # of STITCHES in CIRCUMFERENCE

In my example: 17inches x 3.5stitches = 59.5 stitches in circumference

 

Step 2: Rounds in Hat Diameter

Then, you need to multiply the diameter of the required hat size by the number of rows in your gauge swatch. Then, because when measuring across a flat circle, each round equals two rows, you need to divide this figure by 2. This is the number of rounds that will make up your diameter.

(HAT DIAMETER x # of ROWS in GAUGE)/ 2 = # of ROUNDS in DIAMETER

In my example: (5.5 inches x 2.9 rows)/ 2 = 7.97 of rounds in diameter

 

Step 3: Calculating the Increases

So now you have 2 figures:

the number of stitches that will make up the circumference (59.5)

the number of rounds that will make up the diameter (7.97)

Now, obviously you can't have 0.5 of a stitch or 0.97 of a row.  You'll need to make a judgement on each. Generally speaking, I estimate the rounds to the nearest complete number.  In my example, its obviously 8.

Next, you need to figure out how many stitches to increase in each round, or what number stitches you'll crochet into your first loop and then increase by over the rounds. This is calculated by dividing the stitches in the circumference by the rounds in the diameter.

# of STITCHES in CIRCUMFERENCE/# of ROUNDS in DIAMETER = Stitches to increase per round

In my example: 59.5/ 8 = 7.43 stitches per round.

You'll often come out with an uneven number. This is where you need to make a judgement. You can:

- Leave the remaining stitches out (in my example: I could make 8 rounds of 7 stitches each with a total of 56 stitches, which would change the hat size from 17 inches to 16 inches)

- Add stitches in to make a next full increase round (in my example, I could round it up to 8 stitches over 8 rounds, for a 64 stitch hat circumference, but this would mean about an 18inch hat circumference)

- To get the correct sizing, round down to the nearest number (in my case 7).  Then in an additional round (in my case, round 9) increase evenly by the remaining 'hanging stitches' (in my case 3).

Then you need to work even until the hat height measures your desired size.

 

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There are so many variations to this process, which I can not go into in this kind of format.  However, once you get this basic principle, the possibilities are endless, including sizing up and down for writing a pattern.

For other varieties:

- Slouchy hats tend to have longer heights and a diameter that will fit snugly on the wearers head so it doesn't slip down over their eyes.

- Beret styles are larger circles so the diameter of the circle makes up much of the hat height.  Obviously the bottom few rounds need to be decreased to a good snug fit.

- Hats with pointy tops can be made by alternating each increase rows with rows that do not increase stitches at all. This will form a cone. To measure the diameter, just rely on the stitch count

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Notes: Though I write about inches, it will work just find if you measure in centimeters. 

Even though this all sounds very complicated, it is actually relatively straight forward to implement once you get the hang of it (she says, with optimism).  However, if it makes no sense to you at all, try drinking a glass of wine, and if that still doesn't work, I accept full responsibility ;)

There is soooo much more I could say about hat design and pattern writing, but I am going to leave it here for now, as this gives a very basic foundation.  I am toying with the idea of putting all of this (and the other important information) in a pdf, but time is limited at the moment.  However, if you have any questions, please ask either in the comments section or on facebook and I will do my best to answer.

How to Design a Hat, Part 1 is here.

Subscribing in a reader or liking Slugs on the Refrigerator on Facebook are great ways to be alterted to when I post part 3.