Carousel Lion

The Lion has landed! He is done, in all his glittery beaded splendor. I painted the sides and back with orange acrylic paint, and gave the beads a final coat of glue. I'm pleased with the result, and I hope the patrons at the Museum of Folk Art enjoy him. I still need to affix a hanging apparatus i the back, but as this is a holiday, the stores are closed. He was fun to make, and I enjoyed the result a lot, despite using messy glue and paint. Will I do this again? Maybe...but I'd rather knit.

Lion in Summer part 2

Today the cats helped me finish the main beading of the lion. They were a great help, and stayed with me the whole afternoon. I decided to go with my idea of a fanciful carousel animal, and put a green and blue "blanket" under the saddle. I had some orange beads already strung, so used them for the front shoulders, but then came to the end of my stash of pre-strung orange beads. I thought it might be a nice idea to do the rest of the body in a random texture of orange irridescent beads, and so covered the rest with those. The feet needed some booties, and some yellow socks, so those were glued on also. I like the whole effect, literal and pretty as it is. As I was glueing, I thought of the many other possibilities for decoration, political statements and other directions I could have gone, but an orange lion seemed right for this rainy day, so here he is. Laying the beads in a uniform fashion took a huge amount of time,but it is fun to see how the patterns develop. I'm thinking I might paint the edges with black paint to give the piece a frame of sorts. Beading the edges seems impractical, and besides I used up all of the bead colors for the mane and the front quarters. Next time I'm going to work on the mouth and fill in the gaps. here is a detail of the piece:

Carousel Lion-first day

The Museum of Folk Art ( http://www.folkartmuseum.org ) in New York City has a fundraiser auction each year. Last year, they sent interested artists a blank doll and asked us to decorate it however we wished. I had fun creating a mermaid in a knitted skin, which was auctioned off. The event is a lot of fun; some of the artwork is quite elaborate and clever. This year the theme is "Carousel" and each artist was sent a wooden animal to decorate however we wish; the deadline however is in one month, so there isn't a lot of time to play around! I got the idea to bead my lion from my husband, who brainstormed with me about it when I opened the giant box. The piece is 21 X 15 inches, and about an inch thick. I was inspired by seeing the amazing work of Liza Lou, who covered ordinary settings in beads ( a kitchen, a back yard, a tool closet...). As I have a lot of beads, I though this would be interesting to do...as I don't usually work with it was a challenge to find a non-toxic glue which would be relatively easy to use. I thought hotmelt glue would be dangerous for my fingers, and was elated to find several glues at the craftstore which will work. Hopefully! I'm using Weldbond, which is a white glue made for glass, wood, etc. So far, the beads are sticking! I spent 5 hours today working on this part, and I'm enjoying the process, although it is painstaking and somewhat messy.
Here is my beginning, though, and I'm having a lot of fun laying out the beads. I hope they will stick! More in a few days...

Triangular Shawl Edgings

I've been fooling around with edgings other than garter stitch,on a triangular shawl, thinking that garter would not stretch as much as the stockinette-based fabric of the rest of the shawl.( Although sometimes perhaps you want this to happen so the thing stays on, but that is a different question...) I found that a 5 stitch edging of ribbing, e.g. PKPKP would have the same vertical stretch as the rest of the shawl, but not curl as a stockinette border would.. I started a shawl using this edge but haven't finished it yet, sorry. But so far, the edge is really nice.The ribbing kind of contracts like I-cord, but has the correct number of rows. And you can start it the way you do the usual 3 stitch garter-edged shawl, e.g.: provisionally cast on 5 sts, PKPKP, turn, KPKPK, etc, until you've done twice the rows needed for picking up on the edge, ( usually around 14 rows,) then pick up 7 sts along the edge of the strip you just knit, then undo the provisional cast on and pick up the 5 live sts. Now you'll have 17 sts on your needle, and you can start your shawl pattern. There is going to be a slight jog where the sts are 1/2 stitch off, but it isn't very noticeable and gets buried in the ribbing ( and is at the back of the neck anyway). Then you can start the pattern of the triangular shawl as usual, marking the 5 edge sts on both ends of the row as you would if doing a garter edge . See photos, and try it!

Miniature leaf Triangle Shawl

Several years ago, I bought one 273 yard skein of Great Adirondack Silk Delight, in Orchid, a lavender, blue, grey, green and purple colorway. It was lovely silk, but I couldn't decide what to make of it, as I only had the one skein. . Last month I played around and made a shrug, using the same pattern I'd used on the black one, but with short sleeves. I finished the piece, but didn't find it flattering. So, I had fun frogging it entirely. Then I thought it would be nice to see if I could make a triangular shawl, using the same stitch pattern, and graphed it out. I liked how the repeats fell regularly, and soon I was happily knitting along on size 10 needles. I had no idea how large it would be, exactly, and I wanted a little bit of a different edging, so as the ball got smaller and smaller, I knit and pondered. ( I also read Harry Potter 7 while I was knitting it, it was such a simple stitch pattern.) Finally I realized I could weigh the yarn remaining with my kitchen scale, so to determine how much to leave for the edging and the bindoff. After about 85 rows, I was ready. I had 12 gm left. I knit another row,and had 10 gm left. So I figured I could knit 3 more rows, so I had 4 gm left for the bind off. I was thrilled that it worked out exactly and I had 2 feet of yarn left at the end! It blocked out at 55 inches wide and 31 inches long, and it was a fun knit. I think my next challenge will be a variation with a straight section in the middle, like the Fareose shaping, to make it slightly wider and to fold better on the body, as the triangle does fall off easily! Now I need a nice shawl pin...

Cat is for scale...

Shrug it off!

After sitting in a tent at an evening party shivering as a cold wind blew into the tent, I decided I needed a warm shrug for just such occasions. I had 4 skeins of Elizabeth Lavold "Classic Al" which is a 50% Alpaca 50% Merino blend. I used the stitch pattern from Pam Allen's Little Silk Shrug on pg 47 of the book "Lace Style" but the construction design of "Retro Redux Shrug" by Mercedes Tarasovich-Clark on pg 75 of that lovely book. On size 10 needles, it went fast, and created a comfortable, warm garment. And used up all 440 yards of wool, which is fun to do. I've never worn a shrug before, but I can see the advantages; easy to construct, fun and quick. The disadvantage is that it lands under the arms so if you sweat a lot, it can get sticky there. Then you take it off...the perfect hot flash garment.

Lace vest

I finished my lace vest. Cotton Classic, 5 skeins, size 6(5,4) needles. Very fun to knit, and comfortable to wear. Good thing, as the weather is heating up. I enjoyed designing this, and now am planning my next concoction.