Serendipity at Sunset

So, more than a year after the fact, I have finally made reality a long-standing design project idea of mine: to combine my two favourite crafts, knitting and mosaic!



I kinda like it!



Specs:

Materials:
- Super 10 cotton yarn: parts of 3 skeins
- 4.0 mm knitting needles and 4.0 mm crochet hook
- mosaic glass tile: black, baby's breath and flame
- stained glass: gold, orange shades, opalised blue/green, opalised "oilslick"
- mirror
- sun and moon pieces from a disassembled mosaic piece
- 24"x36" canvas
- tile adhesive
- grout and artist's pigment in cadmium blue, burnt siena and cadmium red

Time Frame:
- central knitted piece completed over a year ago (design based on Tilting at Windmills by Pat Ashforth
- overall design, mosaic and assembly started 20th October 2007 and finished 21 October 2007 (approx. 8 hours in total)





Destination: living room wall


Notes:


- I very much enjoyed getting back to some mosaic work, which I am more creative at than with knitting, I think. The knitting, however, has taken up my creative energies for the past couple of years.

- The sun and moon pieces were originally part of one of those (annoying sounding, to me) windchimes. The remainder of the windchime is featured in my Four Seasons piece.

- The name is all I could come up with right now. The main colourway for the piece was inspired by the paprika colourway in the knitted piece, by and large. I decided to highlight the sun and moon parts in blue to differentiate them from the sunset theme overall.


- I am not 100% sold on the combination of knitting and mosaic as yet, at least with the Super 10 yarn. Should I endeavour another such piece I would probably go with a novelty yarn which would blend in better with the shininess of the glass and tile, I think. Overall, though, I like the piece and think the colours work well together.

- I tried to spray the knitted piece with some gloss spray epoxy for cleaning and to make it a bit glossy. However, not unpredictably, the epoxy got absorbed into the yarn for the most part - this had the pleasant side effect, however, of providing some rigidity to the knitted piece.

- If any of you attempt something like this yourself, I would suggest a harder backing than canvas to provide structure for the grouting. I ended up placing a sheet of PVC in the back because the grout was cracking a bit.

If anyone has a better name for this and wish to share it with me, I'm all virtual ears!

the beauty of evil

(pretty glass baubles... more info below!)

The philosopher Hannah Arendt coined the phrase "the banality of evil", a concept with which I have great sympathy. Having said that, my personal version of evil is quite beautiful. Fleece Artist and Handmaiden borne evil, to be exact.

I must have broken some kind of record this month in yarn spending, even for myself. I had to attend the MTO office yesterday to renew my driving licence (only two months after expiry, a personal best). I must say the lady there was so kind with me - usually they give me a really hard time and make me beg, plead and sign three or four statutory declarations that I didn't even THINK about getting behind the wheel of a car within the period the licence was expired. I was having nightmares about being forced to go and redo the test 21 years later, and now they have a graduated system which means I would have had to drive with the supervision of an "adult" for a year first (wouldn't JJ just love THAT!!).

But I digress. Of course the MTO office was only a 10 minute walk from my 3rd LYS, Lettuce Knit. And, of course, I had to take a spin by there - to buy stitch markers only, you know.

Well, 20 minutes later, here's what I left the store with:


Wool, of all things! Suri Blue, laceweight, Fleece Artist. Nothing wrong with wool, of course. I just don't usually buy it, preferring silk instead (and cotton when I'm feeling cheap). But I think it will be perfect for the Magical Earth shawl by Sandy Terp from A Gathering of Lace. I am a sucker for Celtic patterning (hence, JJ living with me... he is a Celt, and Irish, although he doesn't admit it. However, if both one's parents are Irish, what does that make one, anyway? Luckily for me he doesn't read this blog or the very first comment on this post would be "I'm SCOTTISH - how many times do I have to tell you!!!".

But here I digress, yet again. Not that I have anywhere near the skills to knit the Magical Earth shawl. But hey.

Holly thinks that zombies are evil. However, I'll tell you what the true evil in life is: lace knitting. It seems like the potato chip of knitting to me these days... you can't eat just one! So, now another 1200 metres of yarn for the stash. I could probably string together all of the yarn in the stash across the Atlantic and get myself a very cheap trip to Greece next summer. ;-)

This was me having patted myself on the back because I didn't locate any Sea Silk that I didn't fall in love with. So abstemtious, I thought, until I found myself rooting through the Suri Blue bin.

Mind you, here is the Sea Silk I fell in love with earlier in the week at Romni, in the amethyst colourway:



It's now official. I have enough yarn to make shawls to cover the entire exterior of my six story apartment building. The Super 7 or Lotto 6/49 had better come through very soon, given that having to work impedes me substantially in attaining this goal.

Oh - and my new addiction (although, thankfully, much cheaper than the yarn one):



Beads!! Because, of course, I had to hit Arton Beads on the lunch hour yesterday. So, now I have enough beads to mark every kilometre on the cross-atlantic yarn pulley trip to Athens... 11,000 or thereabouts (I am geographically challenged, so please do correct me if I am wrong!).

But - did I actually end up buying stitch markers? NO. I forgot. SIGH.

I wonder if the landlord would accept yarn for the November rent? Hmm. Note to self: lobby Ministry of Housing to suggest change to the Residential Tenancies Act to allow for rent payment in stash rather than cash. I would run it by the Toronto housing study group but they would probably have me committed.

On the knitting front: I am working on two projects that I want to submit to Knitty to see if they will actually publish them. This is killing me in a way as I can't show off project pics on the blog. SIGH. Next project will be the Brioche vest for JJ from the Best of Interweave Knits (selfless little ol' me...).

I'm also hacking away at some mosaic flowerpot candle holder thingies for holiday gifts. Luckily for me, they take quite a bit less time to make than the Magical Shawl will!!!

Oh - NEW CRAFT ALERT!!!! (for those of you who have lots of time on your hands and want another craft which will allow you to make fancy Christmas presents...) here is my gift to you for the 20 October feastday of... well, it must be some feast day, somewhere!



Shiny Happy Coasters!!

(you may or may not know that I also do mosaic work, primarily with stained glass. If interested I have links to some of my mosaic projects on the sidebar)

I started making these after seeing some woman selling them for $25 for four at a craft sale (which I thought was quite something, given that the glass costs about $1.50 and they take about 5 minutes to make). J "if it's no' whisky, it's CRRRRAP!" J has co-opted the last set I made (10 minutes before a dinner party I was hosting... he was amazed. One minute, no coasters, the next minute ... coasters! The guests also got some to take home as a little hostess gift. How Martha of me, really!

Here's a gratuitous cheesecake photo of JJ - a very rare sighting with a glass of alcohol other than whisky!

He does look Irish, doesn't he?!?

Back to the regularly scheduled programme...If interested in making coasters, the start up cost is fairly low. This is what you need:



From the bottom (because I'm weird) - all tools available at a stained glass shop, and likely at places like Michael's as well:

1. glass cutter (this one is rather high end as I have done this professionally, but you can get a decent one for this purpose for about $10 CDN)
2. tile/glass snapper (to separate the pieces of glass once you have scored them - about $3)
3. a rasp to file down the edges of glass (about $5). I also have a special machine I use for this, but again, not necessary unless you're doing pro work.

You will also need:

1. a cork-backed straightedge (mine was, ahem, liberated from a past office)
2. stained glass, of course. It costs anywhere between $5 and $20 for a one-foot square, depending upon the type of glass. The one in the photo is "opalised" and goes for about $15 per foot. One foot will make 9 coasters. My favourite is called "oil slick" and is opalised like the one in these photos but I don't have a pic to show you right now.
3. these little foot things with sticky backs (available at ye locale dollar shop). There are optional but helpful to avoid slippage.

The process:

1. put the piece of glass on a non-slippery surface (a table covered with a towel works well. Don't forget to put the towel in the laundry basket right after).

2. pick the part you want to score and put the straightedge there.

3. score a line on the straightedge with the glass cutter.

4. use the glass snapper gently to separate the pieces.

5. cut the resulting smaller piece of glass into coaster sized pieces.

6. file the edges with the rasp.

7. stick the little feet on.

Voila!

So, now you're asking - why did I post a photo of glass baubles at the top? Because they're pretty (Michael's, $7/bag. You can also get some good ones at the dollar store) and because they lead to a very simple craft to do - either by yourself or with kids. Just get a tube of glue or a small bucket of tile adhesive if for outdoor use, and stick the beads to stuff - glass vases, mason jars, etc.

Have fun!

more mosaic stuff

1. Photo Album (wedding gift for friend)



2. Fiesta Chair



3. "Four Seasons" wall hanging



4. Greek Island wall hanging



5. Number plate for house door