All Wrapped Up

It's getting pretty wintry here in Australia.
I lay in bed last night listening to rain pelting onto the roof.
I think this time of the year is wonderful.
I love it because it's such a blessed relief after the intense heat of summer
...and I love it because it means I get to take out my woollens!
I unpacked my scarves recently,
they're so colourful and soft,
and I've been wearing this wrap, which I rescued from a Salvation Army Opportunity Shop:

It's difficult to see the pattern from the picture,
(black is so hard to photograph)
but it's a bit like this lacy stole
(and I should warn you that,
although this is a link to a free pattern,
it's on the Lion Brand site and you have to be registered with them to see it.)
My wrap cost $4.00 AUD
which thrills the bargain hunter in me
but also makes me a little sad.
It is beautifully knitted and its drape is fabulous ~ I think it's a shame that no~one else seemed to recognise its worth.
But it's definitely loved now ~
I wore it to work three times last week.

I've also been wearing this stole,
bought from the Lesmurdie Arts and Crafts Association a few weeks ago:

Isn't it gorgeous?
... and it's surprisingly warm.
Unfortunately,
I didn't catch the name of the craftswoman who sold it to me but I did speak at some length with her. She told me that she spun the wool out of pre~dyed New Zealand topping before knitting it up.
I love the way she's placed the colours.
It's such a simple yet striking design,
and so inspiring!
I'd love to make something similar.
Luckily, although I'm very rusty, I already know how to spin.
Here's some wool, amongst other fibres, that I spun and dyed years ago:

And,
thanks to my darling cousin
(who's mother, incidentally, made this lovely filet crochet),
I have a spinning wheel:

Hmmm, I think a trip to Bilby Yarns for spinning supplies is in order!

Have a fabulous week everybody.

A Belated Thank You

Many thanks go to indigo blue designs who presented me with this award, a while ago now, for my "enviable crochet skills, lovely photography and enjoyable posts." I'm sorry I've taken so long to acknowledge it here but very flattered to receive it.

I'd like to return the compliment to indigo blue designs and re~award her for excellence. Her embroidery is beautiful (she recently posted pictures of some really pretty appliqued book covers that are for sale in her etsy store), her stories about her little girl are lovely and her industriousness is admirable. I really enjoy reading about her online business ventures.

...and then I'd like to pass the award on to some new blogs, that I don't think I've talked about here before. I'm nominating:

little black knitting crow for her fabulous drawings and prints, and her quirky soft toys. She's a very talented artist and her art blog, which is linked to little black knitting crow, is really worth looking at too;
Cheery Tomato Productions for her quietly beautiful photographs. I love the way she captures the wonder of the world around her;
2paw who writes, charmingly, about her life in Tasmania. Her gentle sense of humour makes me smile. She's a fantastic knitter too;
wooldancer who spins, dyes and sells the most delicious wool;
Greenishlady who creates lyrical, heart~felt, honest and inspiring posts;
and
Franklin at The Panopticon. Franklin is a delight. He writes and draws in a wonderfully whimsical, mischievous way...and his photography is gorgeous.

I hope you enjoy looking through these blogs as much as I do.

I'm going to finish off here with some more photographs of the new, scarlet ivy~geranium that's hanging at my backdoor. I adore its beautiful, bright flowers:




Have a wonderful week, everybody.

And The Winner Of The Give~Away Is...

...balkan style bloggers.
Congratulations! Can you please email your address to me at inkberryblue AT gmail DOT com and I'll start putting together your package of goodies. Thanks to everybody who participated ~ I really enjoyed receiving your feedback.

On the subject of blogging and give~aways, the talented Peta at createcraft is running a competition where she's giving away a knitted scarf (her work is fabulous) and asking readers to post about the inspiration behind their blog's name and then leave a comment on her site.
Here is my story, of sorts...

I don't have any really well defined reasons for calling this blog inkberryblue
but ink berry has nice associations for me.
I've played with the words before ~
I once, unexpectedly, won a copywriting competition with them

in my very first year at Uni,

which was a bright and affirming moment

in a year that was full of self doubt.
I remember that,

as a reward,
my usually grumpy and critical head lecturer

presented me with a beaming smile
and a small tube of bright pink gouache,

that he'd wrapped up with a matching ribbon.
(I treasured the moment.)

And I like to think that inkberryblue has a sort of poetry to it.
I like the cadence of the words
~ the play of berry and blue ~ ink and art and creative juiciness...

So there you have it. If you decide to join in too please tell Peta I sent you!

I hope everyone, who celebrated yesterday, had a happy Mothers' Day. I planned on giving my mother the pouch that I started making for her birthday in (ahem) October, and blogged about here, but the buttons I crocheted looked ridiculously big and I didn't get time to buy anymore.
Here's a detail of the work that's still in progress:

Instead, I gave Mum a little affirmation stone and one of the geraniums that I propagated late last year,
which is much like this one:



She loved it.

Mum, Dad, my youngest sister and I also went out to lunch, and visited the Art Gallery of Western Australia where we saw the Year 12 Perspectives Exhibition, a display of the best work that's been produced by students in their final year of school. It runs every year, I always enjoy the exhibition and this year's works are particularly good. If you're in Perth I think it's well worth a look. Work's very busy right now but, if I get time, I'd like to go back to the exhibition before it closes on May 25th.

I hope you all have a wonderful, juicily creative week.

Ouch!

My computer was hit by a really nasty virus last week which culminated in me having to (nervously) wipe and then reinstall all the software on my computer. Thankfully everything's running smoothly again, I now have a much better security system and I've managed to take a few quick, sun~dappled shots of some of the things I'm working on:

Here's a dishcloth, which has become so enormous I'm going to make it into an eye pillow instead:

my crochet shopping bag:

and a shrug that I'm crocheting because it's going to take me forever to work out how to knit the cavern cardie I've got on the needles and I really want something cosy to wear now that it's Autumn here in The Land Of Oz:

The shrug's called Cotton Candy and the pattern's from the October 2006 issue of Annie's Favorite Crochet. I'm finding it really simple to make and it's going to fit, always a good thing. This is what it should look like at the back when I've finished.

Thanks to all the people who've said nice things in my last post. I really appreciate your feedback, and your sweetness...and to those people who've been visiting for a while but have only just commented ~ it's nice to "meet" you. I've enjoyed discovering your blogs too.

Blogiversary Give~Away

I have been writing here for a year!
I've loved the opportunity I've been given to express myself,
to share photos, drawings, musings, crochet, my attempts at knitting...
Most of all,
I've enjoyed the connections I've made with other people.
There is so much inspiration here in Blogland!

Therefore,
to celebrate,
I'm having a give~away which includes:

• a crochet washcloth with some hand~made rose geranium and pink clay soap,


• an affirmation pebble,


• and a small print of one of my paintings.

The washcloth is made out of Peaches'n Creme kitchen cotton using the Victorian Lace pattern from 200 Crochet Blocks:

the affirmation pebble will look something like these:

(I'll pencil on an affirmation of the winner's choice, if they like),

the print is of a pastel and watercolour painting of chrysanthemums:

Edited Christmas 2009: Please do not copy the image below. I did not give Bing permission to use this painting in their Christmas card images and I don't give you permission either! If you want to use any of my images you'll need to email me and get my OK first of all. I can be contacted at inkberryblue (at) gmail (dot) com. Thank you for your understanding.

...and in answer to someone's question,
I haven't used any scrapbooking techniques,
the painting's all my own work.

All you have to do is leave a comment telling me how you found Inkberryblue. I'll close the contest on Saturday, 10th May (which gives people a fortnight) and announce the winner on the following day.

Don't be shy!

Bags, Birthdays And Loving Kindness

I've been working on a crochet shopping bag. It's the first time I've made up my own pattern and, happily, I like how it's working out.

Here are some progress shots:

I am using v stitches for the sides, and they are crocheting up sooooo quickly. I'm writing it all down as I go and I'll share the pattern when I've finished.

Now for the birthday part: I'm going to be celebrating my blog's first birthday with a give~away in my next post. Please stay tuned...

And on a very sober note, I'd like to bring people's attention to Jenni Ballantyne, who I first encountered through GreenishLady. Jen, a courageous woman, has cancer and is documenting her experience on her blog. She needs love and support, and people to witness her journey. Please consider helping out ~ you can find details about how to do that if you click on the link to GreenishLady's site. Thanks.

Speaking of loving kindness, I'd like to leave you with a photo of a Tibetan Buddhist prayer flag garland, given to me by my sister (thanks A.), that's catching the afternoon sun in my backgarden...

Kitchen Goddess

Well,
maybe not...
but I am the proud owner of three, newly aquired, vintage aprons:

I found them on ebay,
inspired to look after seeing all the gorgeous retro aprons that are being shown off in blogland right now,
and I bought them for a song.
They remind me of the aprons my mum, and the other ladies of the neighbourhood, used to wear when I was little.
I love the floral prints.

...and,
seeing as there is a domestic (ahem) flavour to this post,
I'm including a biscuit recipe of mine
(which, actually, is a sort of a Goddessy thing to do, isn't it?)

Kitchen Cupboard Crunchies
So named because the ingredients are very simple ~ the sort you have on hand in the pantry. If you put them in an airtight container, they'll keep for weeks.

Ingredients:

2 heaped cups rolled oats
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup butter
1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1/2 cup flour
1/3 tsp vanilla essence
1 dessertspoon cocoa (you could substitute with hot chocolate powder)
1 tablespoon boiling water

Method:

Preheat oven to 180 degrees celcius (350 degrees farenheit.)
Mix oats, sugar, flour and cocoa together.
Melt butter and dissolve soda in water.
Mix butter and water with flour mixture.
Add vanilla essence. (If the mixture is too dry and crumbly, add a little more boiling water.)
Put teaspoon sized heaps onto a greased oven tray.
Bake for ten minutes on the top shelf.
Makes approximately 25.

Cup of tea, anyone?

Noro Cashmere Flavor And Japanese Crochet Motifs

The Noro Cashmere Flavor arrived yesterday morning.
I think it is absolutely exquisite:

The apricot skein is colourway number 5 and the purple skeins are colourway number 4.
(You can see what they look like knitted up if you look in Maschenkunst, the company that I purchased the yarn from. If you click on the American flag the site will be translated into English. Photos can be found in the Noro pages of both the Yarn section and the Gallery section.
Sorry ~ the site won't let me link the individual pages that show the photos, but they're gorgeous and well worth a look.)

Now I just have to decide which one I want to use to crochet the Garden Party Wrap. Maybe I'll make two!

I've also been playing with some patterns from the Japanese book Crochet Motif Item that I bought last year,
after getting inspiration from Kwoozy's lovely work,
with the idea that I'll make a scarf out of one of the patterns using some Anny Blatt mohair from my yarn stash.

This is motif number 30:

and this is motif number 32:

The motifs are made out of kitchen string, which is easy to work with, as are the clearly drawn diagrams in the pattern book. Hmmm...it might be fun, and good practice, to crochet all of the motifs with jute and put them together into a floor rug.

...oh and, incidentally, if I ever get to be a good enough knitter I would love to make a pair of Rivendell socks. Aren't they beautiful?

Happy weekend everyone.

Feathers, Fans And Flowers

As regular readers of this blog will know,
I'm teaching myself how to knit.
I thought I'd increase my knitting skills by trying a lace project
and chose a beginner's lace scarf pattern and tutorial,
which promised to be easy,
blithely cast on
...then proceeded to wrestle with it all through the weekend.
Sigh.
I've had to start over again about ten times,
which has been very frustrating,
but,
actually,
I really need to learn how to fix up mistakes in knitting
(I find them much harder to deal with than mistakes in crochet)
so, when I think about it, it's all good ~
over the past three days I have learnt how to fix up unintentional increases,
I'm on my way to learning how to pick up dropped stitches,
I have discovered the invaluable technique of using lifelines
and I've produced this:




It's very small, it's very simple but I am so pleased with it.

...I'll leave you with a picture of an ivy geranium,
growing effortlessly and gracefully (unlike my knitting), at the back door:

Beautiful Yarn And A Sweet Dog

I'm doing my tax right now (erk),
consequently there hasn't been a lot of crafting happening around here.
So, in the absence of anything recent,
I thought I'd post about this beeeeeyoooooutiful wool I bought last year:

Scrumptious, isn't it?
It's a twin yarn set of handpainted millspun wool and handpainted handspun wool which I purchased from an indie one~woman Australian business called wooldancer.
I didn't have a pattern in mind when I bought it,
I just fell in love with the colours and textures and had to have it
...you know,
and I still haven't found a pattern that I want to use
so if anyone has any ideas I'd be glad to hear them.
Meanwhile, I'm using the wool as an objet d'art and displaying it on the piano which some of my less arty friends think is a little bit odd.

...and,
in other exciting and yarn related news,
I have just ordered my first~ever skeins of Noro wool.
I'm going to use them to crochet Kim Guzmann's new pattern
The Garden Party Wrap. I've bought the Noro from a store in Germany (I couldn't get it anywhere else) and I'm having it sent by seamail rather than by airmail in an attempt to be green (surface shipping saves carbon emissions...there's a really good article about this in Issue 9 of Yarn)
so I'll have to wait a while
...but I'm excited none the less.

Lastly, I'd like to introduce you all to the lovely Rocco.

I met Rocco,
who, in real life, is even more adorable than he looks,
when I was on holiday in Margaret River last year and I promised his mistress that I'd post a photo of him on the 'net.
(Sorry it's taken me so long, Leigh.)

Crochet Shopping Bag

A little while ago, I posted that I was going to crochet Inga's Bag with some Anchor Magicline I had in my stash. I was hoping to come up with something as lovely as this,
but I've realised that I need to have a multitude of colourways to achieve the look I like...and I only have one. Ho hum.

So, I've been playing with other crochet bag patterns like this and this
...and I've finally decided to have a go at designing my own.
I've started by crocheting a circular pattern for the base:

I've used the crochet circle recipe from Debbie Stoller's Happy Hooker (how I love this book.)

When the base is big enough, I'm going to crochet mesh sides using a v stitch...and I don't know how I'm going to do the handles yet, I'll wait until I get to them!

It's fun.
And, if it works out, I'll post the pattern here when I'm done.

Happy weekend, everybody!

Daisy Table

Thank you to all the people who noticed, and said nice things about, the mosaic table which was in one of the last photos I posted. I originally blogged about it here but I thought I'd write about its construction in a little more detail, for those of you who might be interested.

So,
I found a sweet little wrought iron table at the local St Vincent De Paul charity shop which was just the right size and shape to mosaic.
I created a big orange daisy design,
inspired by my seventies kitchen,
and worked outside for three full days,
mosaicing late into the evening
by candlelight
in the hush of my garden.
Bliss.

I made the mosaic out of wall tiles, mirrors and broken china. You can see all three materials in this close up:

(If I was to make it again, I'd build up the mirror and the china so that the centre of the table has a more even surface.)

Unfortunately, the next stage of making the table, grouting the tiles, was less than blissful. In my inexperience, I used too much acrylic paint to colour the grout and, when I put it on to the tiles, the grout filled with air bubbles and wouldn't dry properly. Sadly, grout takes minutes to apply but it takes ages to remove. I cried (literally) when I realised the enormity of the mistake I'd made...and I've been chipping the grout out, on and off, for the last three years.

Not surprisingly, I lost my momentum and the table has sat untouched for a long time. However, after some prompting by friends, and a pep~talk by a terrific mosaic artist called Chris, I decided to have another go at finishing the table in February. I used commercially coloured grout this time, applied it successfully ~ to my relief, and ended up with this:

Here's another close up
(showing just how deliciously smooth the new grout is) :

I am very, very happy to have finally finished it
and I'm also happy to report that I've rediscovered my enthusiasm for mosaicing. I've been gaining inspiration from Helen Baird and her book The Complete Practical Guide To Mosaics, Emma Biggs and Tessa Hunkin's fabulous text Mosaic Workshop and the wonderful work of Kaffe Fassett. I have also started preparing to mosaic my kitchen splashback
...and this time I'm booking into a mosaic studio so I can get immediate advice as I'm working.
Wish me luck!

Daffodil Stitch Vintage Tea Cosy

At the beginning of the year I posted about the Aussie Knitters Tea Cosy Swap I was involved in over at Ravelry. I posted pictures of the tea cosy I crocheted but didn't share any photos of the beautiful knitted tea cosy I received from my swap partner, Kate of Knights Don't Knit. Kate used a vintage pattern, from 1937, called the Daffodil Stitch Vintage Tea Cosy and she created the loveliest of details which included a clever undercosy, delicate flowers and delightful edgings.


Here's Kate's tea cosy, in all its gorgeousness:

Kate sent over lots of other goodies too, which you can see here
(on my freshly grouted mosaic table, Felicity!)

I was also given a tea infuser weighted with a sweet little red tea cup, organic english breakfast tea, a china tea flower (which I can’t wait to try), a card and bookmark decorated with lovely native Tasmanian flora, a pretty and ever~so practical small projects bag and matching crochet hook holder, two vividly coloured handmade candles, three balls of wool (hidden in the photo, I’m sorry) that match the tea cosy (I’m thinking that I’m going to make some egg cosies with these) and a wonderful Canadian pattern book for kitchen cloths. I just love the way Kate caught my colours, my love of things vintage and of things floral, even my preoccupation with dish cloths!

I am so spoilt!