Felting and Embroidery

Just finished teaching a two day felting and embroidery class (my last class until the end of summer eeekkk time for designing and updating nezumiworld Oooo and paperwork from all the years courses........)
I love all types of felting whether its crocheted, knitted or from fibre, the course was using the fibre methods soft merino wool tops. It was great fun and as it was over two days it was so nice embroidering and adding beads & sequins to enhance the felt made on the first day. Everyone made lots pieces. Here's some of the photos of the students work :)

Recycled Plastic Bag Crochet Patterns - Little Bowls

Materials:
1-3 (depends on size and type of bag) plastic bag/ s cut into 2.5cm/ 1inch pieces (for how to cut and make plastic bags into yarn and other recycling patterns including little pots pattern go to nezumiworld home site)
8mm/ L hook

Stitches used/ abbreviations:
ch - chain stitch
dc - double crochet UK / sc-single crochet USA
sl st - slip stitch
st - stitchsts - stitches
rnd - round
beg - beginning

Note:
You may find you prefer to use a smaller or larger crochet hook, use the size you feel is right for you. Depending on the brand/ type/ size of plastic bags used, you may find you need more or less bags then stated in the pattern.You can also use cotton twine, jute, string experiment, torn fabric pieces, twisted paper (good for cheap seedling pots)

Pattern:
Rnd 1: Ch 2, 6 dc (6 sc USA) into 2nd ch from the hook (the 1st ch that was made), join with a sl st to top the 1st dc (sc USA), 1 ch (you should now have 6 sts}

Rnd 2: 2 dc (sc USA) in each dc (sc USA) all around, join with a sl st to top the 1st dc (1st sc USA), 1 ch (you should now have 12 sts}

Rnd 3: *1 dc (1 sc USA) into the next dc (sc USA), 2 dc (2 sc USA) in the next dc (sc USA)** repeat * to ** 5 more times join with a sl st to top the 1st dc (1st sc USA), 1 ch (you should now have 18 sts}

Rnd 4: *1 dc (1 sc USA) into the next 2 dc (2 sc USA), 2 dc (2 sc USA) in the next dc (sc USA)** repeat * to ** 5 more times join with a sl st to top the 1st dc (1st sc USA), 1 ch (you should now have 24 sts}

Rnd 5: *1 dc (1 sc USA) into the next 3 dc (2 sc USA), 2 dc (2 sc USA) in the next dc (sc USA)** repeat * to ** 5 more times join with a sl st to top the 1st dc (1st sc USA), 1 ch (you should now have 30 sts}

Rnd 6: 1 dc (1 sc USA) into the next dc (sc USA) to end, join with a sl st to top the 1st dc (1st sc USA), 1 ch

repeat row 6 for 5 more rows or until desired height (for a smaller bowl just skip rnd 5 and go straight to rnd 6)
Weave in all ends to finish.

© Michelle Ryan For personal use only

John Lewis sale

John Lewis sale or more importantly their yarn sale started yesterday. Lots of cottons, yummy kid silk haze/ spray/ midnight, noros, alpacas and lots more

Yes I bought a few balls of yarn in the sale :) I am saying no more............

Let's Knit

I bought a copy of Let's Knit magazine as it came with 3 bamboo crochet hooks and a crochet booklet and in the booklet I found web watch and NezumiWorld was there eek eeek :)

The Marylebone Village Summer Fayre

Sunday was The Marylebone Village Summer Fayre, I had a look around I had not been before, there was lots of interesting things going on including a farmers market (I do sometimes go to this but normally in a different place) lots of market stalls with tasty foods, live music, salsa dancing and very happy people.

I helped friends selling Jasmine Flowering Green Tea Balls, which sold really well so it was a very good day.

WWKIPD or World Wide Knitting in Public Day

Today as WWKIPD or World Wide Knitting in Public Day I enjoyed the The London Knit Crawl organised by Stitch and Bitch London last year so joined them again this year with the London Crochet meet-up group.

We started at Westminster Abbey which had Morris dancers a traditional English folk dance troop. They dance with sticks and handkerchiefs, it is the first time I also saw Morris women dancing too. I watched for a while and joined in with knitting and crochet (yes I brought both) on the grass. It was also the queen's official birthday (she has a real one in April and an official one on another day this year June, I am not sure why) so the Abbey bells were ringing as we knit.

From Westminster Abbey we walked to beautiful St James Park, it has wonderful flowers and ponds. There was a fly over again for the queen's birthday as we arrived. The weather was great (no rain) and the knitters/ crocheters numbers increased greatly. So many interesting things been made, lots of people had knit there own cushions to sit on, yes this year I brought a cushion with me I learned from last year.

Next stop was Trafalgar Square and the whole of it was taken over by the Thai Festival wonderful food, dancer, painting yes and more knitting :) and the knitters numbers had increased


I left after this to catch up with my lovey aunt Myra who had come to see us and for the day :)

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)