Flowers and Silk for the Festive Season

A wonderful festive season and all the best for the year 2015!

Some more scribble?
This is the best description I read about the joys of knitting scribble: "The technique achieves the fragility, transparency and soft drape of lace without any fancy stitches and is a good way to showcase those yarns you may have bought because they looked wonderful in the skein but were disapointing when knit up. The character of the yarn is maintained since none of it is hidden behind other stitches."  This is a quote I found in the amazing book "Unexpected Knitting" by designer Debbie New.

Some beads add to the precious look of silk

Fiber Fusion Silk married to the finest French Cotton

I did not find someone to model my Taos Winter scribble scarf but once my friend in France unpacks her Christmas present I hope I will get a picture of her wearing it. At the end of the year my eyes are on scribble and I am eager to try a few more projects using this great technique.

Sketchy Scribble

Scribble - a fascinating art - with yet another almost unknown meaning! 

This is not about your regular scribble, be it for children to train their hand-eye coordination or adults, absent-mindedly doodling an abstract drawing during a boring telephone call. But there is yet another, lesser known meaning of the noun and verb in the field of textile crafts:

Writing a secret scribble lace code

Cordonnet from Cartier & Bressons, Paris (France), Sari Silk Fiber FusionTaos (USA)

Finest Yarn in Pristine Condition

Scribble is also a technique in knitting, expertly described in the beautiful book "Unexpected Knitting" by Debbie New. She has been a trailblazer in NEW knitting techniques, and the book really lives up to its name, every project is an eye-opener and every pattern and description of the items will amaze even an experienced knitter. A sea-worthy coracle made of lace? Knitted teacups? A pixel-knitted picture of Debbie's grandmother? There seems to be no end to her imagination. Just reading about her many professions will make you dizzy with admiration, as she excelled in every one of them.

Fiber Fusion for Wild Fantasies - The Color Range of Dreams

So when I received the generous gift from textile artists, multi-talented Faith Welsh and Monte McBride (FB ) - a package containing recycled Silk in luminous colors, I could not think of any better way to fully enjoy the beauty of these yarns than displaying their essence in a visually unlimited 360° round-about-view. This is true and wild scribble, as the bulky yarn will determine its very own position and loops in the lacework.

Scribble Lace is a perfect technique for the purpose of keeping yarn visible for admiration, while adding a truly lacy and light-weight background to offset the color and texture of the main yarn. Unless you want to wear the yarn "as is" as suggested by my friend Sarah Peery. See more pictures of the handspun Sari Silk in this post or here on Ravelry.

Form follows Function - Liberated Yarns

It is worth visiting their site Fiber Fusion Taos (Spin Artiste) - yarns to make you dream, gorgeous wraps and shawls, interesting interviews with fascinating textile artists and, yes, Giveaways!

By the way: the term Scribble, or scrawly in the sense of almost undecipherable handwriting is translated into German with a lovely onomatopoetic word: Krikel-Krakel! Also: Gekritzel.

Scribble Lace Designed by Nature - Berlin (Germany) November 2014

Symbolic Frontier of Lights - Berlin

On November 9th, Berlin celebrated the 25th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin wall. 7000 ballons were lit along a 15 km long segment of the former course of the wall that once separated the city. Truly a symbolic frontier of lights - LICHTERGRENZE - . At the Brandenburg Gate, Conductor Daniel Barenboim directed the Berliner Staatskapelle playing Beethoven's Ode to Joy, renaming it for the event: FREIHEIT SCHÖNER GÖTTERFUNKEN - ODE TO FREEDOM. 

Daily Press: Fireworks illuminating Brandenburg Gate, 9 November 2014

And then the illuminated balloons were released, one after the other, their shell shimmering for some moments and then disappearing into the night, like the wall disappeared out of view. A truly magic moment. Listen to The Winds of Change to catch the spirit.

At the center: Can you see my daughter looking back?

 An estimated one million people wandered slowly through the streets, smiling, happy and elated with the spirit of freedom and unity.

Just before sundown - near Kremmen (Brandenburg, Germany)

Grey Cranes (Grus Grus) flying South

A week before this event, friends invited us for a trip to Kremmen (near Berlin) where thousands of Grey Cranes stop to feed and rest for a few days on their long flight South. A truly amazing event it was, seeing these flocks of cranes flying above, honking as if to have a conversation or keep in close contact during their long trip, constantly changing individual positions in the long stretched-out lines but essentially maintaining their famous energy-saving V-formation, oldest birds leading.

Grey Cranes Flying South

Grey Cranes Flying South

The sky was cloudy, a blessing in disguise because it allowed us to witness an amazingly beautiful sunset, trees silhouetted against the sky of many colors, cranes crossing our path on the ground and flying above in smaller and larger groups - PURE MAGIC!

Knitting took a back seat for the past couple of weeks but a few projects saw the light of the day. I want to make an unsual textile piece to showcase the gift from a very generous and always inspiring Ravelry friend, Faith Welsh of FIBER FUSION Taos. She (Faith Welsh) and her friend Monte McBride are blessed with a true feeling for fibers as you can easily see when visiting their sites. I was the lucky winner of two skeins of gorgeous silk yarn, so beautiful I have it sit in front of me during work to feast my eyes whenever I want to. Hard to find a project displaying the yarn in its full beauty - maybe a scribble shawlette, lacy and light, combined with kid silk haze? A heart-warming idea ...

Recycled Silk from Fiber Fusion

Shining and glossy, candy of eyes and soul

Magnificent Colors!

Imagine! Faith and Monte are selling these !

Silky Sari Ribbons and Lush Velvet

The season for secrete delights is here - luxurious and fabled fabrics such as soft velvet, shiny and smooth leather, felted materials, sleek long woollen skirts, heavy corduroy jackets... the very feel of those materials makes one get a bit warmer inside and wish for a nice cup of tea, a few lighted candles, some pre-Christmas cookies, a Dresdner Stollen, oh, such delights!  Stollen have a long tradition in Germany and special family recipes are handed down through centuries. The picture below is from this source.

The other day I had the very rare chance to go window shopping. I love looking at beautiful things, dropping into shops where no music is blaring, feasting my eyes on fashionable or antique items, new and old editions of books, the latest practical household items nobody really needs, and then there are those yarn stores... but never fear, I am definitely just looking!

I admit though that I caved in when I saw VELVET outfits, lovely long and narrow-cut trousers, elegant smooth blazers, stylish knit cardigans, cotton tops and blouses - in BURGUNDY and PURPLE, colors I really like and somehow neglected a bit over the years. And before I got too carried away with that vision of a new and elegant me, those velvet trousers and a blouse in my bag cheerfully welcomed the addition of a pair of happy socks, purple with pink polka-dots. No drastic style change for me after all.

stash virtually on the spot of one of my loveliest treasures: Silk Sari Ribbon yarn. A solid crocheted base band (approx. length 28"/70 cm, 1 1/2 " width) of regular single/double crochet stitches, into which I knotted on one side the purple Silk Sari Ribbon (cut to different lengths and tied into various sized bows) and a very fine feathery black thread, while on the other side of the band I crocheted stiff bows with pearl cotton DMC (5) to form a petite stand-up color, a bit into the Downton Abbey direction. Click here for another color of Louisa Harding Silk Sari Ribbon, temptingly still in my stash. - As it turned out, the scarf was a perfect match for my lovely friend Donna and her always exceptional outfits - so it changed hands quickly and looking at the picture of Donna wearing the scarf at Thanksgiving dinner, it is clear that it truly was meant for her!

 

Lovely Donna -
Lovely, Donna!

No Chill One

A new project: I finally found the very yarn I had envisioned: Sari Silk Ribbon. Justification is the word - I can buy this skein of the most colorful Indian Sari Ribbon because I did not buy... whatever - yarn addicts will understand!
I started last night trying out the basic shape of the No Chill One project. The ribbon is so beautiful, I could not bear having it tied down and knotted up by using anything but the largest needle size I possess: 25mm! Unwieldy, to be sure, but the result is beautiful and achieved quickly as an extra bonus. Oh, do I wish I had bought more skeins - I could not only make this project but a colorful vest in just one sitting...