WHEN EXPERIMENTS GO WRONG!

Some years ago I made a large lighted sculpture from PVA glue and some string! The overall look worked so well, but unfortunately during the 4 day art exhibition, with the unusually extremely hot weather the shape started to sag. Ever since I have regretted not covering the mould with crochet and brushing the PVA onto that in order to create a hard skeleton....

...so recently I have been experimenting on this on a smaller scale.... This worked well and I was pleased with the outcome until...

I made the silly decision to experiment with yacht varnish. The thought behind this was that I had used this very high gloss, hard drying varnish on some bags previously and it worked well. I was looking to form a harder coating around the globe and wondering if I could bypass the PVA and create the form from crochet coated in the varnish. However, disaster! coating the now dried PVA with varnish caused the two to react against each other, and thus ended with an almost curdled effect which remained soft......

Next step will be to experiment with the crochet and varnish minus the PVA glue.

(The original light sculpture from PVA glue and string)

ROWAN COMPETITION DRESS UPDATE

...Finally finished 'After Dolly' vintage eco dress. In relation to a previous post, this dress has been produced for a competition run by Rowan yarns and 'Knitting' magazine...

...I am one of three finalists; I now need to copy up the written pattern and grade it into several sizes...this wiil no doubt take hours and hours.....

...crochet and knit combined edging in both 4ply and D.k. : the final edge uses heart shaped crochet on a 3.5 hook.

...back ruffle neck details with Rowan 'Shimmer' edging and Purelife organic cotton which is dyed naturally....

....button fastening detailing.......this pattern is under consideration to be available direct from me at 'The Twisted Thread' shows at Alexandar Palace, 8th-11th- October 2009. You can find me 'Quirky Little Knits' in the Resource centre, stand RCC11....look forward to seeing you x

PROFESSIONAL PHOTOGRAPHY FOR DISORDER MAGAZINE

Last year I was lucky enough to be chosen to take part in a photo shoot for Disorder magazine....

....These photographs are just a small selection from this shoot; I rediscovered them when I was in the process of reinstalling my images after my virus...

....The twinset was hand knitted from Cashmere, Silk, Mohair and Alpaca.....and was themed from the images of how beautiful the inside of the body can be for the collection , Hung, Drawn & Quoted...

...I have a wedding invite in a few weeks time, and have decided to finally grant my 8 year olds wish and make her a mini-me version to wear to it....

....I have bought some different yarns for it, this time being a very beautiful yet expensive silk with mohair from knitwitches and pure new wool from Wensleydale sheep shop, I will combine these with my left over yarn when my ROWAN competition pattern writing has been finished which uses Rowan organic pure cotton. This will give me a pretty but more unusual blend of soft and raspberry pinks; my plan is to create a face made up of little raspberry coloured strawberries! for a more suitable fastening for a little girl rather than the vintage brooche utilized in the original catwalk version.....Hopefully I will have time!

SELF-IMAGE REVISITED & RECYCLED!

(Finally I am back! Had a Bug.....a laptop bug and took a while to sort out and even longer to get all my programmes back up and running)


Quite a while back I had an art and design project entitled 'self-image' in which I delved into the idea of what makes me me and played an emphasis on what it means to be a woman. I included my night time ramblings (You know! the ones which play through your mind as you are trying to sleep.....the things that worry you, the things that didn't get done)

I covered the basic self too, as in genetics and genes, this evolved into a me corset from 'Mod rock' modelled around my-self and embellished with photographs of people who mean something to me in the guise of the genetic code. The top part of the corset was hand crochet in a pattern which resembled the cells. See lower picture....

...fast forward to June 2009! Now I am working on some Bridalwear, incorporating crochet lace. I am using the lace traditionally and untraditionally, and this has manefested into a few shrugs to give the arms some modesty.

.....so the phrase, "here's one I made earlier" crops up, as I found the 'self-image corset' and recycled. I detached the crochet work and retouched the edges, taking off the ice queen look! beading. I then opened up the neck line and added a tie fastening.

The shrug would look well with a Bridal dress which has a touch of red or in a wedding party with red bouquets.