Festive Days

After a Cold and Frosty Night

Festive days are ahead of us. The beginning of a new year is steering our thoughts away from the past into the future. But it is also a good time to reflect and to make plans for the coming twelve months. If we take the spirit of peace on earth and goodwill toward mankind into the days, weeks and months that lie ahead we can have hope, ultimately, that present woes will subside, wars will come to an end, crime rates will abate, and the fate of children around the world will improve. Kindness goes a long way. Making the difference between despair and hope for just one other person has a tremendous impact. Like every year I will join you in trying.

Winter Days in the Lauragais

My mother loved embroidery. Christmas, Easter, birthdays - these were special occasions for her to select new colors of embroidery floss and buy beautiful patterns, which she either bought preprinted on linen like this "Millieu"

Cross Stitch Embroidery

or counted the stitches in like in this embroidered bell pull decoration brought out during the four weeks of Advent.

Bell Pull Advent Decoration

During the time her three children were small she had no outside help at all but she still found time to sit late at night and knit, crochet, embroider or follow other textile crafts she knew. The baby bib below is white work, and I admire especially the way she made the closure, a small mother-of-pearl button and a loop fashioned with buttonhole stitches.

Whitework Bib, ca. 1939

I would like to thank all readers of this blog for visiting and 

leaving comments.I made many wonderful discoveries myself 
by following my favorite blogs and finding new ones.

All best wishes to you for the Holidays and the coming year 2013!

Fibonacci Ornaments

As a small gift and just for the fun of it I made some ornaments using the Fibonacci sequence, not by adding different or changing colors in the Fibonacci sequence but by increasing each row in the required sequence, starting with 3 stitches: 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34 and then reversed the sequence with decreasing rows mirroring the increase rows in reverse. Once I had 3 stitches on the needle I continued with the I-cord again. I added beads in the white ornaments in row 6, and a bit of mohair, black seed beads and fuzzy stuff in the pink one, also in row 6, just before starting the decrease rows.

For the stitch increase per row I used no mathematical formula (mathematics unfortunately not being my forte!) but found that the sequence below looks quite balanced. Please add your comment if you have a better and more balanced increase, which is probably quite easy!

How to make Fibonacci ornaments :
Use a thin, thread-like yarn (DMC 5), start with a three-stitch I-Cord.
After about 5-7 cm start with the Fibonacci sequence with 3 stitches on your needle:
Row 1: knit 3
Row 2: knit 1, M1, k1, M1, k1 (= 5 stitches i.e. 3 + 2)
Row 3: knit 1, M1, k1, M1, K2, M1, k1 (= 8 stitches, i.e. 5 + 3)
Row 4: knit 1, M 1, k1, M1, K1, M1, K1, M1, K1 M1, K1, M1, K2 (= 13 stitches, i.e. 8 + 5)
Row 5: knit 1, M1, knit 2, M1, knit 1, M1, knit 2, M1, knit 1, M1, knit 2, M1, knit 1, M1, knit 2, M1, knit 1 (= 21 stitches, i.e. 13 + 8)
Row 6:
knit 2, M1, knit 1, M1, knit 1, M1, knit 1, M1,
knit 1, M1, knit 2, M1, knit 1, M1, knit 1,
knit 1, M1, knit 2, M1, knit 2, M1, knit 1, M1,
knit 1, M1, knit 2, M1, knit 2 (= 34 stitches, i.e. 21 + 13)