Pulse 2008

Today I went to Pulse by Topdrawer at Earls Court1 London. Its the mid season trade show highlighting new trends, ideas, products and companies mainly in the gift and accessories market. It was a large show with over 700 suppliers (yes I remembered the flat shoes, my feet are happy) of which 300 where new suppliers to the show. This year an interesting new section called Launchpad was added showing the new young designer-makers, all of a very high standard with row after row of brand new items.

The show always has a lot of jewellery and bags and this year was no different, but I did notice lots more scarves. Crocheted, knitted, felted, beaded, devore, pleated and lots of shibori (Japanese tie-dyeing) scarves, lots of textures. It really stood out how many suppliers had added scarves to there ranges, it will be interesting to see if the retail shops pick this trend up in their Autumn ranges. Texture was everywhere on fabrics, bags even on wrapping paper. Most scarves were multicoloured, with the colours blending into each other, purples, black, blues what I would describe as jewel tones. Lots of hand work.

An enjoyment refreshing show.

Eurovision song contest

EEEEEEKKKKK!!!!! you have got to love Eurovision, just when I thought I had seen everything Bosnia and Herzegovina appeared with there entry sang by Elvir Lakovic Laka and co-vocalist Mirela. They sang a crazy little number called Pokuöaj which means Try, but that's not the surprising bit. They had 4 women backing dancers dressed as brides and they were all knitting! hooray for knitting in public I say :)

Back to basics

Cough cough cough, I have had a virus for the last 5 weeks (really getting fed-up with coughing) so have not felt like doing much of anything, not even blogging :(

I had started this lapghan in a nice soft cotton (which had been over twisted, that's why it was sold at a reduced price mmmm... another story) so decided my brain could cope with just granny squares at present.

Its now complete, hooray and I am very happy with it. Sometimes just "granny squares" I know everyone always dismisses them as untrendy, but I think they have there place and I am happy with the results.

As its made in cotton it weights in at 1150gms/ 46 ozs and feels soft and warm.

Handspun silk with beads

I made another small ball of silk yarn this time, I am trying to get the strand thinner maybe too thin in places, so to straighten the thin sections I decided to add another strand of silk sewing thread when I plyed the strands together and to be a bit different added some glass beads, eeekkk I am getting into this, pity about the living room now covered in bits of multi coloured fluff :)

I'm Spinning

Last night I unpacked and played with the spindle and silk tops, as soon as I got home. About 2 hours later and a sofa covered in peach and green silk fluffy bits, I have made a small ball of peach yarn and a small ball of green, I love it.

10 minutes later one crocheted flower and a very happy me :)

Stitch and Craft Show at Olympia2

I went to the Stitch and Craft Show today, again at this show there was very little yarn or jewellery stands, but they had a good selection of workshops. Plus some magazines with free gifts for subscriptions (I like free gifts, even if I know they are not really free...)

We picked a handspun yarn workshop, the teacher Ruth MacGregor (check Ruths website for her book, spindles and silk tops) was excellent, explaining the processes required to produce silk from silkworm to fibre as practiced how to rotate the spindle (ours to keep and take home) and a choice of hand-dyed (by Ruth) silk tops in beautiful colours.

Before long we were spinning and I think I may now addicted :)

I could not resist buying some beautiful silk tops to play with at home :)

Hyperbolic Crochet Sphere

Progress so far, this is the sphere I started at the workshop day. I am starting on some mini ones next.

St Patrick's Day

My aunt sent us some live shamrock from Ireland for St Patrick's Day

and the free pdf file of my filet crochet shamrock bookmark chart. is now available at ravelry.

A Happy St Patrick Day to everyone :)

Hyperbolic crochet

On Saturday I attended the Hyperbolic crochet workshop (at the Royal Festival Hall) run by Margaret Wertheim (a science writer) at the Institute of Figuring.
I have always loved maths (hyperbolic space is geometry) and combining that with crochet sounded like heaven to me and I was not disappointed. After a very interesting talk/ slide show on what was hyperbolic space and how it occurs in nature, corals, sea slugs and many other underwater critters. We were shown crocheted reef forms. (the photos below)

We than got time to play and start our own crocheted reef bit, I'll post mine in a few days when I have had time to play with it.
The aim of the workshop was for us to spread the word and make/ donate our crocheted coral forms for an exhibition at the Hayward Gallery for a Hyperbolic London Crochet Reef (eeekk that's a long title) later in the summer. It will be very interesting to see how it looks.
There is a lot of information at the institute of figuring site, with lots of beautiful pieces of crochet and a proper explanation of hyperbolic space.

EXCEL

The Stitch and Craft show was held at the Excel Centre in the docklands.

The bad bits - cold, wet & windy day (every time I go to the docklands why is it always raining?), the entrance tickets were overpriced at £9.00 each. Only 3 yarn stands & 2 jewellery stands, everything else seemed to be papercrafts.

The good bits - been in the company of an excellent friend (we always have fun on our days out) and I did manage to buy some very nice cotton yarn at a very good price.

Earth tremors in UK

EEEEKKKK I just felt a tremor 4.7 the news channel is reporting. Was working on the computer and everything shock the table, screen, windows and doors for about 5-6 seconds. Plus my newly sorted yarn stack (decided to sort through some of my yarn earlier trying to plan projects) just rolled into a one heap. So much for tidying!!!
I hope nobody is injured.

Butterfly bag

I started on the butterfly filet bag last week at the London crochet meetup group, I used my butterfly border filet graph and plan to post and make more items using filet crochet during the year. I have some nice beaded filet items lined up also.

The time seems to have flown by since my last post. I have not done much crochet or knitting :( I am currently re-designing the NezumiWorld website to add more sections, information "how to's" and a general revamp. So if there is anything anyone would like added please let me know and a big thank you to everyone who has contacted me with ideas already.

I am also working on another website for a tea business for friends I work with, flowering teaballs (also known as blooming teaballs) hand-tied green tea with one or more edibile flowers added inside, sewn into a ball and steamed. When boiling water is added to one it opens to reveal the flower/ s inside and have a beauitiful aroma. The flowers also flavour the green tea. The opened teaball makes about 3 pots of tea and can be put into a glass of water and used as a scented display for up to a week. They come in individual little embroidered satin bags which look really beautiful but the satin made them so hard to photograph......

With my normal teaching work and just life stuff in general the time just flights by. I will also post some of my students work soon here on the blog, I have been bringing my camera to classes all week. They make beautiful items, I really enjoy teaching the classes and students I have. Saying that, it will be nice to have a few days next week (Half term) to sit back rent a few dvd's and do some crochet. Plus post here on the blog and read friends blogs also.

The big wool scarf is half way

I can see why people love big wool it is so fast to knit with, the scarf is progressing at speed, which is just as will because it is freezing today and next week according to the weather people is going to be even colder. I hate the cold :(

Happy New Year

A Happy New Year 2008 to everyone with lots of crochet and knitting.

Mmmm I will make a few New Years resolutions but I will keep them secret (for now eeekk)

Progress

The bag is progressing. I have had very little time to crochet over Christmas so these motifs have been a good project as I can make one whenever I have a spare 10 minutes.

Plus I went to the sales and managed not to go mad this year (more lack of cash than self control) I bought 4 Rowan big wool balls which will be a cabled knitted scarf and 5 balls of Debbie Bliss alpaca silk aran which is so soft I may just hold and stroke this yarn its so nice :)