Humbug!

Christmas... a time to brighten up the darkest days of winter with twinkly lights and thoughtful gifts, sumptuous feasts and cards to old friends.

But sometimes it all gets a bit too much... commercialisation, pressure, hard work, waste... Around now I tend to have a "bah, humbug!" phase.

So here's a little seasonal offering - my own design for a crocheted humbug. Make alternative (tongue in cheek?) decorations, or something to fling at grumpy people. Perhaps taking a break to create a silly humbug will bring back the simple childish pleasure, help you keep sane... or make a point to those around you.

Most importantly - have fun!

 Crochet Humbug

designed by Anne Honeyman, aka chocolatefrog, www.annehoneyman.co.uk

Alternative Christmas decoration!

• hang on the tree
• free standing ornament
• or make a whole garland

Other ideas:

• bean bags (for catch or juggling)
• keyring or bag charm
• Earrings

You will need 

Small quantities of white and black yarn, thickness depending on size of humbug, and a crochet hook to match:

Mini, e.g. for garlands or keyrings (about 4cm): no. 10 crochet cotton, 1.5 hook

Medium, e.g. for tree decoration (about 5-6cm): 4ply cotton, 2.5 hook

Large, e.g. for free standing ornament or bean bag (about 9cm): D.K. or Aran wool, 4.0 hook

You will also need a little toy stuffing.

Abbreviations
ch = chain    ss = slip st    dc = double crochet

To make
Using white, work 15 ch

Round 1
Skip 1st ch, 1 dc in next 13 ch, 3 dc in last ch. Now work back along the bottom loops of the foundation ch: 1 dc in next 12 ch, 2 dc in final ch (30 dc). Ss in 1st dc to join.

Round 2
1ch, 1dc in each dc, ss in 1st dc to join.

Rounds 3 and 4
As Round 2

Rounds 5 and 6
Change to black, work as round 2

Rounds 7 to 10
White, as round 2

Repeat rounds 5 to 10 once more, so you have 3 wide white bands separated by two narrow black bands.

Fasten off leaving  long tail for sewing up.

To complete
You will now have a little square pouch. Put a pin in the top edge at each side/fold. Bring the pins together to make the humbug shape. Stitch closed in this shape, stuffing carefully before closing the gap completely.  Add a hanging loop if you want, perhaps a length of crochet chain. 

Starfish

I live on the sea shore now! After 10 months that's still so novel and exciting.

One of the marine themes I've been exploring, on and off, is starfish. Such a variety of shapes, colours and patterns, who could resist? 

I started with a favourite technique - FME on soluble to make lacy shapes. These cast pretty shadows if they're mounted on pins and lit at an angle.

I was a bit disappointed with these tbh. Not sure why... too far from the original inspiration, and not interesting enough in ordinary daylight? And, I remembered I meant to give up creating fragile wall pieces that need box frames and are impossible to photograph! So I didn't take them any further. They're just pinned randomly on polystyrene here.

So, going off at a tangent, I tried felted crochet next. A nice loosely spun pure wool, in pink-orange-red. I tried raised, textural crochet stitches, and plain crochet with chunky French knots. After felting in the washer they looked like this:

The really knobbly one, using popcorn stitch, is fun - it's very 3D. And the French knots worked well too. Now what? These are quite big (9-12cm), but perhaps smaller ones, made with finer wool, would make brooches?

Back to the Bernina, and soluble fabric (I never stay away long!). But not lacy embroidery this time - the soluble fabric allowed me to decorate a cut out felt sunstar. Embroidering felt this way means you can go over the edges, and end up with a slightly stiffened shape without the usual fluffy edges. It's only about 6cm, so don't zoom in. More brooch potential, I thought...

A wildlife trust walk at an exceptionally low tide provided my first glimpse of living maerl beds. Maerl is coralline red algae, a sort of seaweed with a hard chalky skeleton that grows unattached on the sea bed. It provides shelter for a wide range of marine creatures, including brittle stars.

I used the embellisher to create my maerl bed, needle felting lengths of pink-purple textural yarns to white felt.

Then I machine embroidered brittle stars on soluble fabric.

 The brittle stars were fun, so I made a whole tangle of them for another little framed piece:

That led to the idea of a lacy structure of finer brittle stars held together by crossed legs!

Instead of mounting in a frame, maybe something like this could hang in a window?

Aargh, there I go again, creating things that are impossible to photograph nicely! (for me, anyway)

And finally (for now), I tried a brittle star bowl. Just a little one, 7cm diameter. The most open bowl I've ever made, and a very different technique to my Botanic, Ice and Metamorphic designs. Amazingly, it worked!

The idea needs some refining, and I didn't like the brittle star centres, but it's opened up a world of new possibilities... watch this space! 

Samples 2016: Week 42, ZigZag/Lichen

Just fancied a bit of crochet this week, but I did make it difficult for myself by using the finest possible wool (mostly a DMC one meant for embroidery). Still enjoyed working a simple chevron pattern in lichen-y colours though.

I jazzed it up a little at the end with hand embroidery - orange French knots inspired by the bright (but tiny) fruiting bodies seen on some lichen, and some textured thread woven through for a bit more crunch. 

The sample is about 8cm x 6.5cm; I should give the sizes more often, sorry I forget, but they do all fit on A6/postcard. 

Samples 2016: Week 28, Twirl/Forest

Bit homespun? For this week's random combo, I crocheted twirly shapes in foresty colours of fine wool. Then used the embellisher to needle them onto a felt background.

Samples 2015: Week 15, Monopoly

Crochet in two shades of cotton 4 ply yarn.

Source picture

From this article in the Saturday Guardian 11/04/15:
“The secret history of Monopoly: the capitalist board game’s leftwing origins. In 1903, a leftwing feminist called Lizzy Magie patented the board game that we now know as Monopoly – but she never gets the credit. Now a new book aims to put that right.”

Magie’s original board design for the Landlord’s Game, which she patented in 1903. Photograph: United States Patent and Trademark Office

Sample design

Last week’s sample took ages… and I didn’t have much time to spare this week. I nearly settled on simple black machine embroidery on white, with squiggles for the writing, but I fancied something completely different. Inventing a crochet square loosely based on the monopoly board didn’t take long, it’s so quick and easy to try a few stitches and pull them down again. Adding a second colour on the surface as I went along was the trickiest bit to work out. 

Weekly sample project 2014

Did anyone ever wonder what happened to my 2014 weekly sample project?

Is there now an EIGHTH annual set of 52 samples jostling for space here, or was it abandoned?

And, which of those outcomes would be the biggest achievement for me?!

I’m a little disappointed to confess that once again I just HAD TO complete it.  

But I did manage not to blog about it all year, so here’s the catch up.

The idea was to do absolutely any textile technique as long as the sample fitted on a 5 cm square of card.

 

What did I learn?

• not challenging enough, I could stay in my comfort zone
• too much choice, for a quick weekly exercise I prefer more constraints
• 5 cm is pretty small!

 

Techniques used:

• Hand embroidery (lots – that was nice for a change; tried some new stitches too)
• Machine embroidery (not much, I spend the rest of my time on that) 
• Embellisher (love it but not much scope at this size)
• Crochet (aaah... wish I had more use for this)

 

So, it still makes a nice change from the day job!

And I end up with a great collection of samples to trawl through when I’m looking for inspiration. Now I should really make all those little squares a special box, shouldn’t I…

 

Wood Anemones

Every year we have more and more wood anemones spreading across the garden - there's thousands now and they look wonderful.

Living on (in!) the edge of a wood, we really appreciate all the spring wild flowers as very little will bloom once the tree canopy closes.

In the mood for a bit of stitchy play, I happened to see a menu, offering something "three ways"... hmm. How about anemones three ways?
 

Machine embroidery using Flower Stitcher attachment 

 

Free machine embroidery on soluble fabric with scraps of thread and fabric

Crochet flowers on embellisher-ed felt/scrim background

I like the dissolvable machine embroidery best - no surprise there, then. But it does me good to try something different now and then... doesn't it?!

GNCF

A rare trip to Manchester yesterday, for the Great Northern Contemporary Craft Fair - an Origin for the north (in need of an equally snappy name?).
It's definitely getting more comparable with Origin, in size as well as quality, which is fantastic for those of use who live far from London and/or hate going there. Only complaint - the catering was unexpectedly dire, having been fine last year. No lunch for us veggies. Mind you Origin in Spitalfields wasn't good on that score either.

Too much lovely stuff to mention, but the pic above shows something new to me - Catherine Carr's crocheted glass bowl. Yes, she actually crochets glass fibre, then skillfully fuses and shapes it in a kiln.

Two down, one to go

Yesterday I delivered a box of goodies for the Contemporary Craven Christmas exhibition, which opens next week in Skipton. Is anyone really thinking about Christmas shopping in the middle of October?!
Lots of felted crochet corsages and necklaces (all new designs – must get some in my shops too), embossed velvet brooches, and a few mini soluble lace bowls. Struggling to get any photos though, the light here is awful – it’ll be a bit brighter when all the trees lose their leaves, but that’s not something I really want to hurry up.

Differing Viewpoints

The new Textilia III exhibition opened yesterday in Halifax (details on the website). We had a lovely opening, thanks to Karen Lewis and Joan Tillotson of Calderdale MBC, as well as Rachel, Jane and Margaret of Textilia III who did all the hard work. All I had to do this time was hand over my work - four framed pieces and five little bowls, all on my Antarctic theme. I took a few pics for the group website but they're not great as there were a lot of reflections.

Apart from that I'm still putting together ideas for the christmas shows. Inspired by a custom request on Etsy (thanks Nia!) I made a batch of embossed velvet brooches. And remembered how much I love those - when they work that is, lots don't get past quality control! I think they'll be great for one of the shows.

Still on textile jewellery (something of an obsession), I'm also designing new felted crochet corsages and possibly necklaces too. A lot of trial and error here - I made some real horrors! But maybe some promising ones as well? We'll see.