Laden with Texture and Color

All colors are my favorite. Is the singular of favorite correct grammatically, visually, perceptively, sensitively? Hard to decide, but the essence of all colors certainly is. I've been gathering yarn for decades, like this lovely Austermann Fancy Mix bought many years ago. 

Count the colors !

The first Breeze wrap I made I gave to a dear friend in France, using some of my many socalled orphan yarns (only one skein available for purchase) but Jane Thornley's Breeze pattern is so versatile that I could not resist drawing on the Breeze system again, this time using my long-treasured Austermann Fancy Mix. I combined it with some dramatic black and a golden cord I bought at the Berlin Textile Art exhibition last week  - adding volume, glamor and ritzy chic. After all, this is a gift for a special lady who is a goldsmith. What a wonderful and truly precious profession!

Golden Wrap

This time I wove a golden cord - twinned with a smooth black leather thread - through the smaller CO-edge as a draw-string. Gathered into undulating waves, it turns into a lovely shoulder-hugging cowl, framing the neck in precious colors like in a Klimt painting, or Egon Schiele's Crescent of Houses (1915, Der Häuserbogen II, Leopold Museum, Vienna).
Please see the wrap "Winter Breeze" posted earlier in this blog to get an idea of the shape (triangular) and size (always depending on the person who will receive the wrap).

Please visit ARTSY if you wish to know more about  Egon Schiele or Gustav Klimt. ARTSY is an association with the mission to make works of art available for viewing and buying on the Internet.

 Egon Schiele: Crescent of Houses

Happiness is the sum of many small things

Texture plus color are difficult to describe - that is why it is a haptic and visual sensation at once. It is easy to equal such sensations to those being in a garden with a bounty of bright flowers in summer and muted ones in winter. Since I moved to Berlin, I came to appreciate even more Peter Joseph Lenné's astounding capabilities as a garden designer and architect, a master landscaper.

Sanssouci - castle and vineyards

Amonst many prestigeous positions he was a founding member of the Prussian Society for the Promotion of Horticulture in 1822, and accepted the position of Manager of the Parks Division and the Orchard Cultivation. What is so utterly amazing is the fact that he, with no help of airplanes or hot-air balloons, was able to visualize an overall parc concept, incorporating many lakes, the river Havel, a number of existing castles such as Sanssouci (the above picture is by museumsportal-berlin.de) in Potsdam, and castles to be yet designed and built. The overall concept included the Pfaueninsel (Peacock Island) - the ensemble part of the Palaces and Parks of Potsdam and Berlin (UNESCO World Heritage Site). Truly a man with a lot of foresight, patience, know-how, experience, vision and imagination, such as all great gardeners must possess.

Pursuit of Happiness

The other day I read in the Smithsonian Magazine (May 2015) about what made people happy: “Physical closeness, which encourages human interaction; proximity to amenities, which creates the sense that what you need is readily at hand; green spaces, cultivated and wild, that provide places to play and explore; and varied architecture, which fosters a feeling of security, because it creates the sense that a place has existed for a long time. “All of these things create a genuine sense of safety,” says Rebecca Williams, “which is the most basic element of community and without which happiness is impossible.”

Blackbird singing in spring

We all have our individual, special but often very similar happiness niches. But these days it is hard to settle down and relax in the safety of our home and safe surroundings with so many upheavals around the globe, wars breaking out, devastating earthquakes, people leaving their home and risking their life for an uncertain future, freezing their feelings to the bare minimum of survival - I find it hard to concentrate on knitting and literature, hence the longer intervals between posts on my blog. 

Evening Sky Over Berlin

Sometimes one has to break camp without even knowing the new dwelling - twelve months ago I moved from the least populated Departement in France to the biggest city in Germany, Berlin. A megalopolis with over 440 000 trees spread over a surface of 892 m², improving the air for approx. 3.3 million inhabitants. Fields and forests, farms and parks, rivers and lakes make up the web of the city that is growing every day. 

Weeping Birch Tree - Betula Pendula

I am still taking my daily walks, but instead of feasting my eyes on“my” own garden flowers and centuries old oak trees I look into other people’s gardens, admiring their carefully tended formal flower beds as much as their neighbors’ nature hang-loose green space, which translates into “let it grow.” 

Red Chestnut Tree

The trees in Berlin are magnificent. One can become a “Baumpate”, adopting a tree to water it in summer and keep the place around the tree trunk clear of litter year round.  

Linden Tree - with crocusses adorning the foot of the tree

Wisteria - Glyzinie - Glycine

During those walks I find myself thinking of yarn colors to match the flowers’ abundance, one garden resembles Jane Thornley’s beautiful designs with multicolor yarns such as Madelinetosh or Blue Heron. I started giving those gardens yarn brand names: Habu metallic or Rowan Kidsilk Lace or the emperor of multicolor yarns Noro Silk Garden! Watch Noro’s Brand Concept video and you know what I mean with garden colors… Or satisfy your color temptation with Jane Thornley's Spring Ascension Shrug. I am knitting a long thin scarf with the colors of a Wisteria plant:

"Wisteria" scarf, long, thin, moving in the wind

 

Easy Moss Stitch

Wisteria Blossoms

Being new to Berlin, there is plenty to explore. An especially meaningful and moving event was the Kirschblütenfest, the Japanese Hanami festival, celebrating cherry blossoms in spring of each year. This Berlin Hanami Festival has a special background. To commemorate the fall of the Berlin Wall thousands of private Japanese citizens, adults and children donated toward the planting of Japanese Cherry Trees along the path of the former wall as a gesture of congratulation and celebration. 

Japanese Cherry Trees - Commemorating the Fall of the Berlin Wall

And as the wall came down, thousands of cherry trees now line the path of the former wall separating the two German states. TV-Asahi supported the donation. The last Hanami took place on 26 April 2015 in Berlin. More than 30 stands at either end of the Boulevard offered food and drink and commemorative items. What a beautiful idea to turn a death-bringing wall into an ocean of flowers!

Flowering Cherry Trees - Their Petals Softening Your Steps

Cherry Blossoms

From the Japanese People: the Cherry Tree Gift

Cherry Tree Blossom Boulevard - the Wall Turned Into Flowers

Amazing Lace in Architecture

Lace is one of the most amazing and lovely ways of using yarns. We know that the structure of lace is not limited to textiles. Here is an example in kind - the ingenious lace screens, fences and balustrades by the Dutch company LaFence. It is well worth visiting their site to see more of their lace / lattice projects! By the way, all their lace patterns are reversible!

Isn't it marvellous that lace actually becomes beautiful because of its empty spaces, the holes in the fabric?
By including virtually nothing we get this intricate gorgeous structure! Looking for and at invisible things seems to sharpen your mind and increase your perception!

Taking this to a philosophical level:  Often it is the very absence that improves one's perception and provides more freedom. And with the lack of seemingly indispensable items of everyday life, we learn to do without and reduce our consumption of the superfluous, realizing how presumptious we have become over the many years, expecting to have recourse to all things and comforts of life to which we have become accumstoned. Reducing those expectations - a liberating concept, indeed.

My last post included a link to an entertaining waltz performed by colorful triangles. It reminded me of a Jane Thornley Mini-KAL that called for the use of triangles - so with a sharp eye and some imagination and vision beyond reality you can see a lot of invisible triangles in my project for the Mini-KAL, in fact there are 16 of them!

This modular Mini-Project can be a bracelet or a choker-type Neck-Lace. The individual squares are interconnected with a very small ring that you can find in bead stores. The material I used here is silk embroidery yarn bought at the Texere Company near Leeds (UK). They have many kits with color or material-coordinated yarns, mostly 1-2 yards in length. In fact, they are an absolute Dream Place for yarn people! Prepare to spend hours going through their huge store or browse the online shop.

How about some more triangle news? A friend just send me a link to this incredible artist Michael Moschen, doing his unbelievably fast fleeting triangles act, inside a huge triangle! 

Maybe someting invisible crosses your path today? Keep your inner eyes and your mind open!

Winter Breeze

Squirrels are busy burying walnuts, the cats sidle along the house protected from the wind, spiders stealthily fabricate their web in hidden corners - there is a touch of  a Winter Breeze in the air! With the first frost I made this Crazy Lace wrap, using Jane Thornley 's lovely lacy Breeze pattern published in her newsletter and on Ravelry. The Austermann Fancy Mix yarn had been lingering in my stash for quite a while and waited for the right project to come along, and the long wait paid off: there was simply no other yarn to match the beauty of the frosty meadow in the early morning sunlight. I used the Navaho ply (also see here) in places where the yarn was too thin to keep within the overall weight and added random Crazy Lace rows (Navaho knitting). I think my friend Helga will like the colors and feel of this Breeze...

A Greek Pyramid Poem

Sometimes it is just a small poem or a sentence that will bring new understanding, reflection or interchange of thoughts and ideas. In light of the Burqa (burqu‘ )-discussion in Europe I kept on wondering about the concept of Strangers and what makes people strangers or strange to the beholder, who vice versa is seen as a stranger or strange as well. An interesting book on this subject is Beyond Beards and Burqas.

A Pyramid Poem written by Ntinos Siotis in Athens, on 22 July 1996 and published in his collection of poems Mouseion Aeros. Here's an unofficial translation into English:

HOW STRANGERS DO SEE US 

How do strangers see us?

Do strangers see us?

Do strangers see?

See strangers?

Strangers?

There is an interesting article on Concrete Poetry on Wikipedia:

"Concrete poetry or shape poetry is poetry in which the typographical arrangement of words is as important in conveying the intended effect as the conventional elements of the poem, such as meaning of words, rhythm, rhyme and so on. It is sometimes referred to as visual poetry; a term that has evolved to have distinct meaning of its own, because the words themselves form a picture. This can be called Imagery because you use your senses to figure out what the words mean."

Applied to knitting - visual poetry expressed in a beautiful lace pattern, such as stars, leaves, trees and other distinctive ornaments also form pictures - I'd love to call it "Imagery Knitting", like the pattern of "The Tree of Life" (here from Fairy Stitch Sarah) or Lily of the Valley by Herbert Niebling.
In Freeform Knitting a perfect example would be the "Frond" wrap by Jane Thornley - 

Imaginative Imagery Knitting. 

Most wraps and shawls are images of Pyramid Poems, one could even follow an equation of one word-one stitch pattern, all realized in color and transporting sensory characteristics, the feel, the warmth, the shape and visual appeal. Why not start a textile project based on your favorite Imagery like Edgar Varese did in his experimental music? 
31 May: Jane Thornley's thought-provoking new issue of the Inspired Knitters Club just arrived today. As it were, Visual Knitting - Imagery Knitting - is the main topic and her inspirational tales tell the story behind her patterns and suggest the roads to travel to new visual horizons.

 

Triturus Marmoratus - Marbled Newt - Marmormolch

Opening the shutters this morning, the early sun shone on a splendid creature sitting between the shutter and
the door. I quickly took a picture before it retreated
into the dark under a nearby bush.
It is the Marbled Newt and the glossy green, black and orange colors are simply striking in their contrast and brilliancy - probably right up Jane Thornley's inspiration alley! Also see these English information on the newt, in French called Triton marbré.

Morning Sun on a Forest Clearing Kimono

It took a while! Life intervened, as usual. But as long as it took, I am happy with the result and so that's all one can want, can't one? Started last year in May, not really knowing whether it would turn into a wrap, a shrug or vest, the  project started quite sometime ago finally turned into a Kimono.

I completed it on February 27, 2010 and took it on a three-week journey through Viet Nam. It was the perfect travel outfit, not too warm yet providing protection against the sun and cooler late evening breezes in Hanoi.
All parts finished, I added a slanted collar, adding short row after short row until it was just the perfect neckline for most of my tops, just covering them. Some beadwork brought in some glizz and a crochet border along the bottom, also beaded, gave a bit of structure to the stripes.

And here two pictures of the Forest Clearing with wild orchids and marguerites.

Crochet versus Knitting?

A few pictures of last night's spectacular sunset, 17 February 2010, by way of introduction - just can't resist showing those colors so abundantly and generously provided by nature.
Crochet AND knitting, I always loved both equally. Recently, knitting seemed to have taken the upper hand, in other years there were plenty of crochet projects. Of course, there are always tempting new techniques to learn as well, such as spinning and dyeing wool, weaving, occhi/tatting, kuhimino, macrame, sprang, surface work, embroidery, couching, tassel marking, beading, patchwork and many more - I attempted them all just to KNOW how they work - and did some serious spinning! - however: So Many Techniques, Such Little Time!
Having found freeform textile artists Prudence Mapstone, Myra Wood, Jenny Dowde and others, crochet bullion-stitched itself to the foreground again... and so last year freeform knitting - inspired by Jane Thornley - and freeform crochet crossed the finish line together in close harmony.
A great link for learning out-of-the-box crochet stitches (Tutorials on You Tube, many patterns) is The Art of Theresa.

As far as a new overall approach to Freeform Textile Art is concerned I cannot recommend enough the new venture by multi-talent Jane Thornley THE INSPIRED KNITTER'S CLUB - an Anything-Goes bubbling fountain of ideas, using the latest technology for like-minded people to share Jane's venture and accompany her on her travels in the multi-faceted world of textile art at its best.

Little Fishies - done

Despite the various rounds of
frogging, this has been an
enjoyable process. The basic
idea was a brown scarf,
a little out of the ordinary.
In keeping with the fishies theme, I found that the color of a goldfish can turn into various shades of brown!

So there it is, beaded and glossed over,
and ready to wiggle and waggle its way...
the Little Fishies scarf.

Back to Square One - LF Reknitting Vignettes

The NEW first vignette is made of of black DMC cotton, with a few knitted in golden seed beads.
Three rows of garter stitch MEZ embroidery floss, golden Anny Blatt ribbon, followed by dark chocolate brown Lana Grossa Sari, mirroring the Central Panel colour scheme.

The previous first
vignette was simply
too narrow and the
yarn for the second
vignette too thick,
which cause the
second vignette to
spread out too much.
So it was back to
square one, or rather to the central panel.

LF - Golden and Brown - Vignettes 1, 2, 3, 4,

Last day of a gloriously sunny September:
Added Vignette 1 to the left and right of the Central Panel.
I had no suitable multicolor yarn, so I plied one thread each of 6-split blue and brown MEZ embroidery floss skeins and of one Schürer JS mercerized curry-colored yarn. Both Vignette 1 parts hence are made of fine three-ply cotton and will wrap softly around the neck, not adding bulk either.
Added Vignettes 2, 3 and 4 on both sides.