Category: Other Media

Knitting, Mark One

A while ago I started an experimental knit that I intended to serve as a base for a crochet design of leaves and vines.

What happened to that?

This. The rolling up just never resolved itself. The more I knitted the tighter and higher it rolled.

OK, so experienced knitters will be saying I’ve done something wrong and I accept that.

Too tight? Nope, as loose as possible with yarn no thicker than a regular two ply, knitted on 4mm knitting pins.

Weird yarn? Maybe. 60% cotton, 40% viscose. No spring in it. At all.

Wrong stitches? Very possible. Stitches in the body of the work are fine. Loose and drapy as desired.

Increasing at the beginning of each row? The problem has to be there! Ffor the purl, rear of the work, row I increased by sticking pin into back of first loop, knitting that plain, then bringing knitting needle forward to knit a purl and continuing with a purl line.

Did the opposite at the front of the work, making a stitch at the beginning of the row by knitting a purl, yarn to the back then knitting a plain and coninuing in plain.

These made nice edges, one that I’d never seen before on the purl side of a work …

And yet, by the time I’d knitted twenty rows the first five had rolled up. After I unpicked those first five—with difficulty—the next five rolled up as I was doing it.

By sixty rows, the first fifteen had rolled up. No matter how I draped and folded the resulting cloth the bottom rolled up. By the time I’d knitted eighty rows I knew I had a twisted disaster and finished it off.

I may deconstruct it and use the yarn for another project, but this was already the second knit that that yarn featured in. Not sure how well it’ll stand up to the strain of pulling apart again.

Note that I said ‘twisted disaster’ …

Colours/colors …

What do you see?

I see a warm red and a warm green watercolour reaching out for a 50/50 agreement.

I might be wrong though. The red is warm, I have no doubts on that score. But the green?

Apparently if a green leans to its yellow side on the colour wheel it’s classified as warm. And cool if it leans to the blue side.

Light yellowish green has always seemed greener to me, and so cooler. Blueish green on the other hand, felt richer and lush, and so warmer.

I’m about to do that exercise again using Alazarin Crimson, which leans towards its blue neighbour so is classified as cool, and Hooker’s Green wich also leans to the blue side.

And after that, a second trial with the so-called warm versions of red and green. I assume I’ll need to use a scarlet and green made with a warm blue and a warm yellow.

I expect neither of these exercises to resemble the above but we’ll see what we’ll see.

Sedges

Out of sheer frustration trying to keep my fish pond/pot going, I intro’ed a couple of baby sedges after most of the so-called water plants died, and even the duckweed gave up.

Sedges will grow half in water, and in my past life, when I had a frog pond going for years, swamp plants were a strong feature. These often have their roots and soil substrate in the water, and their leaves above. s

I suspect they somehow condition the water, enabling other plants to grow. I certainly never had any problem keeping either Azolla water fern or duck weed alive and used to raise dozens of tadpoles to frog-dom.

If I knew anyone with karamat I’d go and beg a cutting but haven’t seen it since leaving the Byron Shire. Both these sedges are usually quite weedy though the little one at the back as far as I know is native to Australia.

‘Weeded’ them both from the local verges while out walking. One of them from the creek overflow. About ten days in their new position they don’t look like they’re dying.

The pebbles are to provide an island for bees and other insects to drink. (Though I need to top up the water.) And if I pour the water onto the pebbles there is hardly any disturbance in the water.

There’s one lone Pacific Blue Eye remaining of the seven fish I got for my birthday 10 months ago.

The Gisnep Puzzle

Welcome to Gisnep

Unfolds like origami in reverse

— — — —

Ironic Sans continues to shine. Every time I solve the daily Gisnep puzzle, I learn of another interesting person by way of a link to Wikipedia, this time the brother of the man who invented the concept–and word–of ROBOT, more than a hundred years ago now. Though the brother himself is the subject …. Lol, just trying not to drop too many clues.

The Gesso Project …

Finally able to do a bit more work on my big painting project. Out on the balcony it’s been either too hot 36 degree Celsius, or too wet, or both.

Today an early thunderstorm and short period of rain cleared the air. Painted the sky, a plain blue. Half of the mountainous mid-ground, a variegated green and brown.

As it’s drying, I notice hundreds of places where the paint hasn’t touched, or the paint is shrinking back. It will need a third coat.

It’s meant to be a backdrop for my brick stories.

Next time …

Gesso’ing …

Starting a large new project with a four x A3 length of gesso and tissue paper …

In other words, laying down a landscape and at the same time attempting to camouflage the joins.

The whole thing sodden with a mix of water and gesso. And that is a jar of medium strength watered-down gesso still possible to use as paint. s

A econd jar with a jellified gesso that had to be scooped out and softened to a paintable sloppiness … glad I got to it when I did as next week or month it mightve been to dry/hard to use.

As usual, I’m re-using remnants of an old project. I’m sorry to discover that the joins are very obvious in a photo.

The hope for this first stage is that the paper backing dries flat and I get rid of the big vertical … what would you call them? Not creases. Give me a hint? I can only think of a couple of Dutch words. ‘Rimpels’ and ‘golven’ spring to mind.

One of the things about old age is that ‘mother tongues’ IE the language a person grew up with, tend to come back. And I’m definitely noticing that. If I can’t think of an appropriate word in English, I’ll come up with a Dutch one.