Knit fest & peacock progress

Had an enjoyable weekend having mucked out the craft roost and becoming reacquainted with the table top! Firstly I had a blissful afternoon with the lovely Alison knitting and talking our heads off. I think I did more talking than knitting tho!

Look at that clear table!!

I've been knitting a twisted cowl in this lovely variegated bamboo yarn I found in my stash that I've had rather a long time. Also Alison came bearing balls of Rowan Fine Lace for me to have a play with so am doing a bit of swatching to see how it behaves itself. Alison was knitting some fab new top secret designs - to see more about her designing adventures follow the link on the 'Places of Interest' column to the right.

But today has been more about picking up the threads for my project which is to design a piece of patterned fabric, based on the peacock theme. I'm going to use a few different techniques to make 2m of fabric with pattern and a border design - well that's the plan anyway. Toyed with the idea of doing this digitally, but don't have photoshop and will take too long to get my head round it for this project deadline, so going to go for good old fashioned hands-on methods. For one of the larger motifs I'm going to use a stencil - though how I use it is a decision for another day! May screen print it, or use it simply as a stencil.

 after much doodling I settled on the motif above which I'll keep as an 'original' so I can make more stencils if needed. So first job is to trace it onto some freezer paper. I've made a reverse image tracing too.

Thankfully remembered to add a couple of 'bridges' before cutting it  out or I'd have had a Doh! moment. After cutting it out I thought I'd make use of the cut away pieces to make a rubbing plate which may come in handy at a later date. I'm also going to cut one from acetate too so it will last longer and cope with some repeated use. So my next step will  be to actually use it! I've started colouring up some fabric for sampling using some old dye I've got hanging around (doesn't need to be colourfast just for a sample).


Wanted to add a bit of subtle visual texture so added some salt while it's wet - but I think it's turning out a bit too subtle!! Oh well, will have to wait and see how it looks when it' dry.

So, that's what I've been up to - how about you guys?