CrumpArt

March 8, 2010

In a spin.

Filed under: craft, friends, knitting, yarn — Tags: , , , , , — Crumpet @ 7:40 am

Yesterday I got news that my friend Alex and his partner, Rebecca, had welcomed a little boy into their family. Now, I knew they were having a baby, knew when it was due, but still somehow had only imagined making a present.

There is a new babby!

It turns out I can make one of these in half a day. Hooray! It’s the Umbilical Cord Hat from the first Stitch ‘n Bitch book, with 8 extra stitches and as such, an extra lot of decreases to make up for the thinner yarn and smaller needles. Rav details here. I hope it’s still cold enough in China for a tiny new babby to wear a lovely wool hat.

It is getting colder here. And when I was choosing a yarn to knit the hat with, I found two bags of ‘Summer’ wool/silk roving from the Melbourne Handweavers and Spinners Guild in my stash. What better time to start spinning it than just after summer’s end, on the weekend of constant storming when we get hailstones the size of golfballs?

Summer.

September 5, 2009

Knitting Mojo

Filed under: craft, knitting — Tags: , , , — Crumpet @ 8:38 am

I have discovered that I am an absolutely selfish knitter. Making promises and knitting things that others are expecting just does my head in and makes me not want to do it, no matter how fun or interesting the project is.

In June 2008, I promised a new pair of gloves to Mr Crumpet’s mum. I was going to make them for her birthday in July. I got some yarn and knit nearly a whole glove, with adjustments for size and gauge, before getting distracted by schoolwork and putting them down. By the time I went to start them again, the birthday was gone, winter was gone and I’d lost track of all my adjustments. I’d also dyed some yarn and decided it would be much better than what I was using.

So I frogged the glove.

A few months later, I picked up the yarn and knitted the cuff again. But I made a mistake so ripped it out.

A while down the track I started up, did the cuff, started the thumb gusset, then realised there was a problem with my old version of the pattern. I downloaded the correct copy and ripped out the glove. I finally finished the gloves this year. At Mr Crumpet’s mum’s birthday party. Oh, how I both love and hate them…

Knotty

The pattern is called Knotty and the Ravelry details of my project are here.

Two!

Despite have a baby blanket to finish that’s now overdue by six months, I’ve taken the freedom awarded by completing the gloves and have been knitting some things for myself. Behold, the most awesome hat on the planet.

Quincy

This little piece of genius comes courtesy of Jared Flood at Brooklyn Tweed and is called Quincy. Click here for my Ravelry project details. It’s one of those patterns that I read and thought, why the hell didn’t I ever think of that. It’s ingenious.

change

I went shopping in the stash for this one, and used a lone skein of Noro Iro that I purchased from Web Goddess when we were on holiday in Sydney four years ago. It’s been knitted and ripped and taken out and fondled several times over the years, and this ended up being the perfect project. I finished with 40cm of yarn remaining.

twist

Someone at work told me I looked like a homie, and my local grocer said, unprompted, that he liked my hat and it looked like Robin Hood. FTW!

May 9, 2009

Week 11. Making.

Filed under: craft, knitting, photography — Tags: , , , , , , — Crumpet @ 11:27 am

On the first day, I rested.

#71/365

On the second day, I finished o w l s. Possibly the most wonderful thing I have ever made. Rav details.

#72/365

On the third day, I started taking photos of old knitwear, and began to notice a trend in my preferences. This one is CathodeRav details here.

#73/365

On the fourth day, I tried to distract you from my love of short sleeved jumpers with macro pictures of loosely knit mohair. I made Loopy repeatedly as a thinner scarf for many people, and it was this that sparked my undying love for Debbie New and Unexpected Knitting. This one was a replacement scarf for my sister. I never gave it to her. Apparently I haven’t added this to Ravelry yet.

#74/365

On the fifth day, I said “LET THERE BE LIGHT!” And accidentally set my kneecaps on fire. This is Puff from Fitted Knits, another short-sleeved cardigan. Rav details.

#75/365

On the sixth day, I unravelled something that was going nowhere. While wearing cheerful heart-covered socks.

#76/365

And on the seventh day, there was a toe.

#77/365

December 3, 2008

Mario Kart Love Song

Filed under: music — Tags: , , , , — Crumpet @ 9:25 pm

I don’t know what I love more — the song or the fact that the musician has yarn taped to his face. :D

(With thanks to Mr C.)

November 26, 2008

recovery

Filed under: art, knitting, music — Tags: , , , , — Crumpet @ 11:35 pm

Last night was awesome. The gallery was packed out (and very hot), the food was brilliant and it was loads of fun.

I drank far too much beer.

Unfortunately I couldn’t slack off too much today. I went in to uni and helped clean up a little (although I missed most of the actual cleanup part and pretty much just carried some boxes of glasses back to the studio), had some Indian food for lunch and picked up my computer and camera that I’d locked in the studio overnight. Came home, spent some time on the internet, walked the dogs and then headed back to the city for a friend’s going away dinner.

All in all I’ve walked about 7km today in 30 degree Celsius heat while hungover. The first to tram trips of the day were spent sitting in a daze listening to the soothing tones of Josh Pyke…

The next two tram trips I expanded my playlist a little, and started a new sock. Something soothing and simple to get me through the day and the three gallery sittings that are coming up over the next two weeks. Judy’s Magic Cast-On truly is magic.

Future sock.

August 24, 2008

“Little Ewoks. An entire empire brought to its knees by small, furry creatures.”

Filed under: art, craft, geekery, yarn — Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , — Crumpet @ 12:46 pm

Remember these?

A Lace Odyssey

Well, the green and white Pi circles have now been frogged and turned into these…

Chaos yarn #1

Chaos yarn #3, bright section

Chaos yarn #3, murky section

Yarn with Table

I dyed them using the d20 die set method. As you can see in the following picture, Mr C’s 8-sided die determined the colour, the 20-sided die indicated the length in centimetres of the colour and the 10-sided die determined the overlap of colour.

Dye by Die

All of this is part of my latest art project, crocheting the Lorenz Manifold. This stems from my interest in space, the universe and Chaos Theory.

As the Oxford Amercian Dictionary on my laptop puts it, chaos theory is

the branch of mathematics that deals with complex systems whose behaviour is highly sensitive to slight changes in conditions, so that small alterations can give rise to strikingly great consequences.

Lorenz Manifold

My lecturer at uni did advise me to go all out with my geek this semester, and as such, I’m lovingly referring to this project in my head as Jaffa Cakes and Coat Pockets.

Jaffa Cakes and Coat Pockets

This was my Ravelympics project, but I didn’t have the yarn ready in time for the opening ceremony and ended up starting this a week ago instead. There is no way I’ll be getting Ravelympic gold here, but at 23 rounds of a total 47 in, I’m pretty damn proud of my progress anyway. Before this project, the only crochet I knew was the basic stuff needed for knitting, so I’ve learned how to crochet on the coolest (“cool” in geek terms…) project ever.

23 rounds in

I’ll give more details as the project goes on, but my proposal this semester is looking at the links between fabric, stories, creation, science and the universe.

ripple effect

As such, this podcast, which I listened to on the tram coming home from work the other night, almost made me cry with its wonderfulness. Thanks to Alex for turning me onto Radiolab.

negative curvature

Happy National Science Week everyone!

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