Feeling very warm and fuzzy....

Wow, wow and wow, thank you Diamond Creek, and thank you to my patchwork network and their friends and relatives.  

Only collected from two stops in Diamond Creek and my lovely Star Quilters in Warrandyte  and look

my heap of stitching has more than doubled!  Dont try and count, there are 39 forget me nots, I know cos I tied them last night and I celebrated by adding  two more birds!  

And, still 13 days left before the last collection, Diamond Creek you are going to have the prettiest kniffiti garden!

Correction on yesterday , by the way, you cant collect or drop off at Panton Hill at the moment, the Living and Learning Centre is closed until the 30th January. 

Look whats been happening

Its been a long time since the last post...sorry folks, our December got quite out of control BUT many things have been happening.

Lots of lovely knitting and crochet rolling in,

Pieces of the installation are coming together

The first panel for the tank is well on the way

The chandelier for the pavillion is done

by night

and five pillar wraps are ready........these three from Araluen, thanks guys, such lovely workshops.

BUT NOW THE RACE IS ON,

the last kits have been dropped off, and THE LAST PICK UP IS ON JANUARY 31.  

INSTALLATION begins in the second week of February, keep an eye out for yarnbombing workshops 

See you in Diamond Creek

The deadline is extended and the yarning goes on.....

Sooo exciting - more and more knitting and crochet is rolling in.  The project is proving soooooo popular we have decided to extend the deadline to January 31st.  I've just been out to buy some more yarn for you so, my lovely and amazing knitters and crocheters, you will have all December and all the school holidays.  

I cant tell you just how exciting it is and how grateful I am for all your wonderful contributions.

If you imagine my design (see my post of October 24) to be a huge drawing all you people are my Faber- Castell, Derwents, Staedtler and Arches rolled into one.  You are creating  the materials needed for  

  Thank you to all the wonderful people at Araluen Centre Diamond Creek who helped me get started on these last two wraps.  I am so very much looking forward to your help getting at least two more wraps started in December.

This weekend is Nillumbik Artists Open Studios.  I have put the three Pole wraps up at two studios in the Bend of Islands. So come and visit Tread Sculptures - you've just got to see how wonderfully and unexpectedly,  sculpture can enhance an outdoor setting ( Not to mention a pole wrap on a tree).  You've just got to walk his sculpture track and enjoy some stillness by the river. 

And then, in front of Creek House Studios,

Inside you'll discover the wonderful prints. paintings and more by Syd Tunn and Ona Henderson. 

 You'll have a lovely  time at both studios who offer an amazing experience for the visitor.

Just for fun, a blast from the past I couldnt resist leaving outside the studio a checkerboard .

 This was an interactive piece from an exhibition called "Who Needs Permission" where, collaborating with fellow artist Margaret Summerton,  we  indulged in  a yarnbombing spree in a gallery space.

Who says work isnt fun!

Less "oops" .......

The oops debate over doubles and trebles could go on forever but there is room for everything in our "From Thread to Thrive" kniffiti  garden.

On the left we have doubles, on the right we have trebles.  I love both!  

The leaves are one 25stitch knitted  square squeezed and stretched and twisted then pinched in the middle.

For the textile nerds, the flowers on the left and the centre on the top right Panda Magnum premium 100% acrylic yarn was used.   Tough but nice and easy  work with.  Its the same yarn used in the "Poppies for Peace" project in Dandenong.  It has stood up to outdoor exposure really well.

  The crochet chain and the embroidery and flowers on the left were all done with 100 % acrylic yarn grabbed from anywhere on the run. The colours are bright and shiny but the yarn is inferior to handle, it splits easily and is not as easy to manipulate, it remains to be seen how it will hold up in the weather.  I intend photographing all yarns at invervals through the summer to compare how they hold up.

Now a new version of the same crochet flower,  details can wait til another day - but  when your son's girlfriend says "Can I help" and you stupidly ask "Can you crochet?" and you get the answer "A bit but not for a while"  Then you are given  this

and  you say to yourself," I can do that" and you end up with 

Without  doubt, crochet is not boring!!!!!!!!!!!

So just how many variations on a theme of my initial design are we going to get?

Want to be a streetartist? Then dont forget to run down to the Diamond Creek Community Centre, or the  Diamond Creek Living and Learning Centre or the Diamond Creek Community Bank Stadium and pick up your kit.  There's only a couple of weeks left before we start joining the pieces together.  If you're using your own wool  email me for the postal address. 

Here is another nerdy aside. As a professional photographer I have spent years explaining to  people about the built in flourescers in fabric dyes that look gorgeous  to the sensitive  human eye but do not register in the camera. As a result  often when you photogaph clothing, or in this case yarn, what you see is not what you see in the picture!   The blue in the top left is actually a purple/brown  to the eye and  the deep red has a pink toning.   

The only difference this makes is if you compare the two - and its why some colours look  great when you look in the mirror and look different, or even worse dull or muddy in a photograph.  They look great to other people when they look at you too, just the camera isnt able to see it that way!

forget-me-not..... in haste

I'm sure you all think I'm nuts asking for a million squares and rectangles.  The concept  is to make lots of quick and easy raw materials for a kind of stretchy kind of origami flower making community workshop. Then we (you and I) can  have a lovely time at a flower arranging community workshop to create the post and tank wraps - THEN we (you and I) can yarnbomb and create streetart together .   

Anyway on with today's explanation.

That 25 stitch, more less square piece on the top left can make 

a relatively conventional forget-me-not

or 

a very quick and star flower that can be used as a star or a forget-me-not 

then the same  25 stitch square in green and we have a leaf

All are made from a 25 stitch rough square even though the finished size varies by the time they have been folded and twisted and stretched or squeezed. 

On November 27th  how to videos will start appearing so if you cant make it to a workshop you can still put the flowers together at home and drop them off during the week.

DEADLINE - absolutely no later than DECEMBER 3

For the next few days new flower samplers will be appearing here ......(I may end up having to make  a woolly sampler quilt)

Once again I thank my lucky Star Quilters - for more knitted contributions .....

OOPS I made a mistake, correction right now

I have a confession to make, I dont use patterns.  As an artist crochet is just one tool for me, just like a different brush is for a painter so I just do it and invent as I go.

So I crochet a background and a flower, for several years in fact - when it comes to writing it down I check with a friend or two, look  up a book and go for it.  This time the friends  and I all slipped up and to top it off  I looked at the right stitch in the book and wrote down the wrong label. OOps.  However, we may have a discovered a different looking flower in the process so like lot of slip ups it might just turn out to be be great.

Its not major,   For the background it will be fine, just it will use more yarn, take more time,  and might be a bit narrow - but thats easily fixed if needed with the later addition of a stripe - could be really interesting..... 

So this is what it should look like if its treble...

   I wrote d.c. on the pattern.  Today I'll have a go at it that way and see what that looks like.  If you have already done some or all in d.c.  then thats great, its more than  useable - its one more piece of our stretchy yarnbomb jigsaw.   The flowers will be dahlias  instead of peonies or whatever we wish to think of them as.  Variety is great, just as in any garden.  The finer texture on the background for the post will look lovely.

Simply so we dont use up too much yarn(budgetry reasons) or your time I'd prefer if from now on the background was done in tr. do NOT unpick what you have done already. STRESS is forbidden!  This is meant to be FUN

For the flower, well, have a play and see what you would like to do. You can also play with stripes or graduated colour in the petal area.  More on variations later...

Now to get some corrections printed and run out and correct the kits already out there in the bins for pick up.............

Stranger things......

Strange though it may seem there is a connection between this

and this

and this

There is one way to find out,  come to the 

Thread to Thrive Workshop, drop in for five minutes or stay four hours, 

all will be revealed, 

9am til 1pm, Saturday 5th November, Diamond Creek Living and Learning Centre,

 119 Cowin Street, Diamond Creek