Lucky stars

I wish you all the best for 2013! These “lucky stars” were quite difficult to knit, but I think the end result is lovely :-). The pattern is called Stjärna, from Karolina Eckerdal, and you can download it for free on Ravelry here.

Crochet waffle stitch, part II

Image from Pattern-making.com

In the previous post, I wrote about a crocheted doll's blanket in waffle stitch. I took the pattern from Pattern-Making.com and adapted it a little to make the raised crochet bars stand out more:

Row 1: crochet a row of chain stitches

Row 2: one double crochet in each stitch

Row 3: *two double crochets, one raised double crochet on the front side *

Row 4: *two double crochets, one raised double crochet on the back side *

*repeat *

Keep repeating row 3 and 4

You can find a tutorial on raised double crochets on the front side here. Raised double crochets on the back side of the work are made in a similar way.

I made the picot border as follows: *3 single crochets, 3 chain stitches, 1 slip stitch in the third single crochet*, *repeat *

I hope it makes sense :-)

Hier is de wafelsteek tutorial die ik vorige week beloofd heb. Ik heb het patroon van Pattern-Making.com een beetje aangepast om het relief wat duidelijker te maken.

Rij 1: haak een ketting van lossen

Rij 2: haak in iedere losse een stokje

Rij 3: *2 stokjes, 1 opliggend stokje aan de voorkant van het werk *

Rij 4: *2 stokjes, 1 opliggend stokje aan de achterkant van het werk *

*herhaal *

herhaal steeds rij 3 en 4

Dit is een (Engelse) tutorial voor het maken van een opliggend stokje aan de voorkant van het werk. Een opliggend stokje aan de achterkant werkt op dezelfde manier.

Het picotrandje heb ik op deze manier gehaakt: * 3 vasten, 3 lossen, een halve vaste in de derde vaste *, *herhaal *

Ik hoop dat het patroon een beetje duidelijk is :-)

Project management

While I was finishing my leaf & lace throw (see previous post), I was thinking about what I was going to do next. I decided to work with some yarn from my stash. Remember I found some beautiful yarn in the thriftstore a couple of months ago? In addition to the purple balls, there were 16 balls of cappuccino coloured silk/wool blend. The yarn is absolutely divine, but it doesn't suit my skinetone, so instead of knitting a vest, I decided to make one more lace throw :-). I used a pattern from Filati HomeMagazine, issue 46. (picture here). It's knitted with a circular needle size 4. You can find similar (free) lace designs in the Drops pattern library.This is a snapshot I took while I was knitting in the garden. It looks a bit like an under water scene, but in reality, I was sitting under a cherry tree :-)

Het is altijd leuk om nieuwe handwerkprojecten te bedenken. Ik had nog een prachtige voorraad capuccino-kleurig wol/zijde breigaren (in de kringloopwinkel gevonden!). De kleur staat me absoluut niet, dus ik brei geen vest of sjaal, maar nog een leuke plaid. Het patroon is van Filati HomeMagazine, nummer 46. (foto hier). Het wordt gebreid op een rondbreinaald nr 4. Je kunt soortgelijke (gratis) kantpatronen vinden in de DropsBibliotheek. Deze foto heb ik gemaakt toen ik in de tuin aan het breien was. Het lijkt wel onder water, maar het was onder de kersenboom :-).

Leaf & lace throw finished

My leaf & lace throw is finished! I'm happy with the way it turned out but … I must confess that I've had a bit enough of this design for now.... I'll just put it in the wardrobe and take it out when the weather is colder :-)

Some technical details:

• knitted with needle size , 150 * 150 cm 
• pattern taken from the Dutch book “De techniek van het kunstbreien. Kanten en patronen. H. Van der Klift-Tellegen, 1984, Cantecleer, De Bilt.”
• similar patterns in English can be found on-line here
• tutorial for the crocheted border blogged here

Mijn gebreide sprei is af! Ik ben er blij mee, en ik heb voorlopig ook even genoeg van dit ontwerp. Hij gaat nu de kast in, en ik haal hem weer tevoorschijn als het koud is :-)

A scalloped crochet border

This is a close-up of the border of the leaf & lace throw I'm working on right now. Only 3 meters of crocheting to go, and then it's finished :-). I did one row of single crochets and two rows of double crochets. I made the scalloped border like this

*One slip stitch

skip two stitches

5 double crochets in one stitch

skip two stitches*

repeat **

In the corners, I did 8 double crochets in one stitch, instead of five.

Dit is een close-up van de rand die ik om mijn sprei aan het haken ben. Nog drie meter te gaan en dan is 'ie af:-). Ik heb eerst een toer vasten gehaakt, daarna twee toeren stokjes en toen een toer golfjes volgens dit patroon:

*1 halve vaste

sla twee steken over

haak vijf stokjes in een steek

sla twee stokjes over*

herhaal **

In de hoeken heb ik acht stokjes in een steek gehaakt, ipv 5.

Two birds

The Christmas book from Arne & Carlos has 55 designs, but I limited myself to the ones with hearts and birds. I think the birds are really sweet!

Now that I've finished the yarn I bought for these Christmas balls, I'm going to use the little balls of white left-over yarn I found in my stash, and then I think it's time to start working on my throw again :-)

ps: I was told that Arne and Carlos are working on an Easter knitting book. You can browse the look book (no patterns) here. And, they've designed an extra advent Christmas ball, downloadable for free here. It's in Norse, but don't let that scare you, because the basic pattern is the same as the one in their book.


Dit zijn de vogelballen uit het boek van Arne en Carlos. Ze hebben ook nog een gratis patroon voor een gebreide Advent kerstbal gemaakt (hier) en werken aan een Paasbreiboek. (voorproefje hier)

A crochet workshop @ Kleinvak, Schalkhaar

Last week, I was at a crochet workshop in my local yarn store, Het Kleinvak Schalkhaar. We learned how to crochet with Hoooked Zpagetti, a very thick yarn (hook size 12!) made out of left-overs from the textile industry. It was really fun! In the top left corner, you can see the fluo-pink toy basket I made for my daughter. She now uses it as a hat, by the way :-) The cute gray bags were made by Mireille, the shop owner.

Ps: The Hoooked Zpagetti website offers free patterns of bags and pillow covers in Dutch, English and German.

Vorige week heb ik meegedaan aan de Hoooked Zpagetti workshop van Het Kleinvak in Schalkhaar. Het was erg leuk, en ik ging naar huis met een knalroze speelgoedmand voor mijn dochter. De grijze tasjes op de foto's zijn gehaakt door Mireille, de eigenaresse van Het Kleinvak. Je kunt de patronen gratis downloaden van de Hoooked Zpagetti site.

Aran knitted Christmas balls

Last weekend, I visited the Knitting & Crochet Day in my local yarn store. Knitted Christmas balls were all the rage, and we exchanged a lot of tips, tricks and patterns. That's how I found out about this aran Christmas ball pattern. It's taken from a free HolidayKnitting e-book by Knitting Daily. It’s quite small, about 5 cm, and really sweet :-)

Ps: I decided to include a Dutch summary in my posts from now on. 

Vorige week was ik naar de Breidag van “Het Kleinvak” in Schalkhaar. Een leuke dag, met veel gebreide kerstballen! Dit patroon voor een gebreide kerstbal met kabels komt uit een gratis e-book van Knitting Daily.

How to knit balls: two video tutorials by Judy Graham

In the previous post, I wrote about knitted Christmas balls, and in the comments section, we discussed the type of skills needed to make such balls. Arne and Carlos assume that you know how to knit in the round using 5 needles, and that you know how to increase and decrease, which results in the ball shape.

These two video tutorials by Judy Graham explain how to knit a ball using 4 needles. It’s really clear and helpful! Knitting on five needles follows the same principle. Instead of casting on the stitches on 3 needles and use the 4th needle to knit, you cast the stitches on 4 needles and use the 5th needle to knit.

Tutorial part 1

Tutorial part 2

I didn't know Judy Graham, but I'm so glad I discovered her work by googling for tutorials! She knitted for film and tv and made pieces for eg Barbara Streisand and Tom Hanks. She shares her work, tips and tutorials on her Youtube channel, website and blog. If you’re interested in knitting, be sure to take a look her work!

Marie Claire Idées

All images from Marie Claire Idées

One of my favorite magazines is the French craft magazine Marie Claire Idées. I was in Brussels for the weekend, picked up the September/October issue and fell in love once more with their projects, color choices, styling, everything! The magazine features a range of crafts (knitting, sewing, embroidery, paper crafts, painting, cooking, floral arrangements) on different levels (beginner, intermediate, advanced). Their website is wonderful too; you can search for projects by technique, color, materials, occasion, … The only problem might be that the site is in French, but don't let that stop you from taking a look!

Here's a collage of the projects from their website I was drawn to this time: autumn colors and cozy textiles...

The Priscilla bedspread book, 1914

As you may have guessed, I have a thing for throws and blankets. That's why I really liked the Priscilla bedspread book. It's a collection of crochet patterns for lovely bedspreads, downloadable for free here. These are some of my favorite designs:



Throws with flower and lace designs like these would not be warm, they would be an awful lot of work to make, but they are so so pretty! I also like the idea of making a throw with pieces of fabric and crocheted borders, like the one below:

All images were taken from The Priscilla bedspread book, 1914

Art in needlework, a book about embroidery

Image from:

Art in needlework

a book about embroidery

by Lewis Foreman Day
Published in 1900, B.T. Batsford (London)

downloadable here

Cable and lace knitted throw from favecrafts.com

Find the pattern here.
image from favecrafts.com

Interlacing stitch tutorial

http://www.bayrose.org/AandS/handouts/Interlace.pdf

Amazing tutorials: blackwork, klosterstitch and refilsaum

The blogs by Laren and Racaire are some of my favourites (see links below). Their embroidery is stunning, and I really appreciate the way they share their information. This week, they both posted some very interesting tutorials. Do yourself a favour, and take a look!

Laren posted a great tutorial about blackwork embroidery, including pictures, background info and how to instructions. Take a look at her pfd here:

jane_stockton_non_counted_blackwork.pdf

And her research page with other interesting handouts here

And Racaire posted her wonderful tutorials about klosterstitch and refilsaum . These have pictures, background info and instructions too.

Tutorial:14th century border in interlacing stitch

Finally I know how to do this type of borders, frequently used in 14th century Swiss and German whitework:


This example is taken from: Kroos, R. (1970), Niedersachsische Bildstickereien des Mittelaters, Berlin: Deutscher Verlag fur Kunstwissenschaft

The original embroidery is done in white linen on white linen. I used red cotton, because I'm still familiarizing myself with the stitches. Cotton is a bit easier to find here, and red thread is easier to distinguish from the background fabric

So, here is what I have done. Click on a picture to enlarge. (The pictures were taken on an autumn day with changing weather, so the light is a bit different in each picture)

Step 1: draw dots on the fabric. Each dot is one interlacing stitch







Step 2: make the 'skeleton stitches'







Step 3: the inner part of the square is embroidered separately. It took me a lot of time to find that out... :-)






Step 4: all the "skeleton stitches' are in place







Step 5: start lacing







Step 6: the inner part of the square is laced separately







Step 7: Yeah! The figures are not exactly parallel, but in the original 14th century work, it seems a bit shaky too (see enlarged photocopy in step 1 and picture above)

Another interlacing stitch tutorial: highly recommended

This is an excellent interlacing stich tutorial by Bhavani:

http://needlecrazy.blogspot.com/2006_03_01_archive.html

She calls it Kutchwork or Armenian embroidery.

And this is my own progress so far:

Encyclopedia of Needlework by Therese de Dillmont (1846-1890)

I found a link to a wonderful online historical needlework book on the Project Gutenburg website. It downloads quickly (on my computer at least) and the pictures are beautiful and very clear. I'm absolutely fascinated by the alphabet done in some kind of embroidered braids. And I love the practical directions for transferring the design onto the fabric.

Encyclopedia of Needlework by Therese de Dillmont

This is the table of contents. The links don't always seem to work, but sometimes you can click on the titles for a direct link to the pages :-)

PREFACE.	Page
PLAIN SEWING
Stitches
Seams
Gathering
Sewing on cord and flaps	10
Button-holes	11
Sewing on buttons	12
Binding slits	13
Sewing on piping	13
Fixing whale-bones—Herring-boning	14
MENDING	15
Linen darning	16
Satin or twill darning	17
Damask darning	18
Fine-drawing	20
Patching	20
SINGLE AND CUT OPEN-WORK	23
Hem-stitching	24
Open-work patterns	27
Cutting out threads at the corners	39
Cut open-work	40
Patterns for cut open-work	42
NET AND DAMASK STITCHES	51
Net embroidery	51
Net patterns	52
Net darning	62
Damask stitches	63
WHITE EMBROIDERY	76
Stitches	77
Different kinds of scallops	79
Eyelet holes	80
Six ways of making dots	81
Venetian embroidery	82
Patterns and alphabets	83
FLAT STITCH AND GOLD EMBROIDERY	105
Encroaching satin stitch	105
Oriental stitch	106
Plaited stitch and mosaic stitch	108
Persian stitch	109
Straight and encroaching flat stitch patterns	110
Chinese embroidery	111
Raised embroidery	113
Turkish embroidery	113
Implements and materials for gold embroidery	115
Stitches used in gold embroidery	119
Patterns for gold embroidery	120
TAPESTRY AND LINEN EMBROIDERY	127
Marking out the embroidery ground	128
Tapestry stitches	129
Tapestry patterns	138
Stitches for linen embroidery	143
Patterns for linen embroidery	152
KNITTING	171
Position of the hands	172
Casting on	173
Stitches	178
Stocking knitting	182
Scalloped edge	183
Heels	184
Toes	189
Mending knitting	190
Piqué patterns	195
Patent knitting	201
Turkish stitch	201
Knitting patterns	203
CROCHET WORK	221
Position of the hands	223
Stitches	223
Method for copying tapestry patterns in crochet	238
Crochet with soutache or lacet	239
Crochet square, hexagon and star	240
Tunisian crochet	241
Hairpin crochet	243
Patterns for hairpin crochet	245
Crochet lace patterns	249
Crochet counterpanes	284
Crochet stars	300
Crochet collar	304
Crochet chair-back	316
TATTING	325
Position of the hands	326
Knots	328
Patterns of scallops and medallions	331
MACRAMÉ	343
Materials and implements	344
Formation of the knots	345
Macramé shuttles	360
Macramé patterns	361
NETTING	395
Implements and materials	395
Stitches	397
Patterns produced in netting	400
Mounting the netting on the frame	410
Stars and wheels	414
Grounds and lace	423
Embroidery on netting	434
Netted insertion	438
IRISH LACE	439
Materials	439
Tacking down the braids	440
Bars of different kinds	442
Insertion stitches	445
Lace stitches	450
Needle-made picots	467
Irish lace patterns	468
LACES OF DIFFERENT KINDS	473
Pillow lace and the implements for its manufacture	474
«Stitches» or passings	481
Patterns or grounds	481
Armenian lace	503
Laces in knotted stitch	505
Reticella-lace	508
Venetian-lace	510
Brussels-lace	515
MISCELLANEOUS FANCY WORK	517
Knotted cord	518
Balls for trimmings	519
Tambour work	521
Smyrna stitch	523
Malta stitch	525
Triangular Turkish stitch	526
Turkish embroidery	530
Appliqué-work	531
Morocco embroidery	535
Spanish embroidery	536
Different kinds of linen stitches	540
Pattern for linen stitches	541
Pattern for Roumanian stitch	544
Pattern for Piqué embroidery	546
Embroideries with Soutache	546
Chinese subject	551
PRACTICAL DIRECTIONS	553
Tracing and drawing the designs	553
The preparation of the stuffs and the subdivision of the patterns	557
To transpose and repeat patterns by means of looking glasses	559
To alter the proportions of a pattern by dividing the ground into squares	560
To prepare the paste for appliqué work	564
To stiffen new needlework	565
To wash ordinary lace	565
To wash real lace	566
To stiffen lace	566
To iron lace	566
To pin out lace	567
To wash coloured cottons and work done with the same	568
Materials

Border in interlacing stitch: work in progress

This is how I tried to transfer the design of the interlacing stitch border onto the fabric. It works, but I'm not really happy with it. There might be better ways to transfer a design, and maybe I should not work with a soft pencil :-) If you have any feedback/suggestions, I'd love to hear it!

First, I made a sketch of the border, using:

• an enlarged photocopy of the original border
• this tutorial for sketching interlacing stich designs
• a geometrical square
  

Next, I tried to transfer the design onto the fabric. I outlined the design with a dark marker and put the fabric on top of it. This way, you can see the lines through the fabric. I traced the lines of the design with a soft pencil. Next, time I might use one of those erasable pens, because I made some errors and now I probably have to wash it.

The final step is marking traces were the stitches should be. Mine are about 6x6 mm. Once more, maybe I should use an erasable pen here.

Whitework: interlacing stitch, first try

After some false starts, this is my first attempt at a horizontal interlacing stitch. It's about 1 cm. If you want to google it or look it up in a book, there are a lot of different names for this stitch:

• English: interlacing stitch, and sometimes also known as German, Maltese or Armenian interlacing stitch
• German: orientalischer flechtstich
• Dutch: oosterse vlechtsteek

In my seventies stitch dictionary, I saw that you can also use this stitch in more complicated patterns, such as blocks or crosses. In fact, in the tablecloth and wallhanging, the interlacing stitch is used in zig zag patterns and in angles. For a picture of the zig zag border of the tablecloth, click here and scroll down.

I came across a very fascinating website about Armenian embroidery, which uses the interlacing stitch as basic stitch in different patterns. This website explaines how you can draw your own charts for interlacing stitch patterns:

Drawing charts for interlacing stitch

So, the next thing I'll do will be drawing a chart for the zig zag pattern, using this website as a tutorial.