Salaric

I am attempting to do some gothic arts and cute scary crafts for Halloween – this is my first sketch 🙂

This is my last check in I think until six months other than writing up specific projects!

I have joined a community forum thingy called ravelry it is a knitting, crotchet, weaving and spinning community and I found it by trying to find Harry Potter knitting patterns! And then it got suggested by several friends. I’m Saffy on there but spelt with a 5 instead of an S at the beginning – so 5affy.

In joining I discovered just how many things I have knitted and how many things I want to knit!

I have knitted in the last month – a rainbow snake which still needs to be sewn together and have eyes etc… added, a pastel variagated scarf which is in the unraviel pile as the baby pulled it off the needles and I muffed putting it back on etc… a red rose and LEAF! yes I managed a leaf 🙂 And more importantly I sewed the thing together. I also managed a moss stitch coral and off course worked endlessly on the Berry Bear Blanket. I also have two petals of a christmas rose knitted.

Equipement added: I now have a crotchet hook to help with dropped stitches and like a giant safety pin to put knitting on whilst you knit the piece it needs to be attached too. My mother unfortunatly took back her double ended needles :/

I made a giant papier mache coral for the Exhibition in Braille – here are the creatures, plants, fungus and life forms in general that occupy it. (It was a take on the tree of life concept!)

Knitted coral, mushroom (not by me but by the lady who run the singing groups at Centre Arts), and rose.

Pompom pals made of pompoms, pipe cleaners and crepe paper – a ladybird, butterfly, spider and carrot.

Wooden carvings out of pine (done by my Leonard Pym – my dad), an egg, fish and hedgehog.

A gypsum sphere I found – it is an evaporite deposite found in desert environments.

Fimo/polymer clay models of a shrimp and penguin.

Sugru (this is funky new stuff which air dries to a rubbery plastic)

I have been making a giant papier mache coral as a piece of textural science art for the Exhibition In Braille which will be on this weekend (Sat 24th September 2011). The idea is that it represents the tree of life and at the end of each zooid or polyp tube is an organism made of different things such as wood, polymer clay, textiles, metal, stone and so on. There is a series of pictures in relief around the base that cannot really be seen but must be felt – these represent the scientific theories of Life’s origin and subsequent evolution. There is also a molecular sand made up of beads which will fit in the pockets built into the sand part of the sculpture and a series of poems which will be played along with it for people to listen too whilst feeling the piece.

This lovely little hedgehog is one that my dad has carved out of a piece of pine wood – the denser variety – a lovely blonde wood. He starts by cutting out the basic shape from a block and then using a knife and then then chisels of various sizes. The pickle area is then stained and the face painted fallowed by a layer or two of yatch varnish.

I am going to attempt to make some of these myself – I have made them before but they always have wonky noses!

I have a shoe box of wool off cuts to use for flowers

I have knitted another scarf in garter stitch this time in varigated reds, yellows, browns and oranges for my mother in laws birthday!

I have knitted several flowers and due to a piece of art work I am working on have bought another book which I can barely understand at the moment:

75 Birds, Butterflies and Beautiful Beasties to Knit and Crochet by Lesley Stanfield.

I have also started a blanket for my baby for when she is about three and going into a proper bed – it is multicoloured and strippy and known as the Berry Bear Blanket – it will probably take me all the intermediate time to knit the thing!

For the flowers I had to manage rib, and this involved me discovering that moss stitch is the result when you get it wrong! And stocking stitch. So I can now do three stitches – yay! go me!

It took me two and a half weeks to knit but I have managed one fluffy black scarf in garter stitch. There are wholes in it and I found I was accidently increasing by one each row for a while due to pulling the last stitch round on the end so that two threads are there instead on one!

It took four balls of wool and this was only just enough to make it scarf length!

My little girl is now demanding a rainbow scarf and though it is mid summer my husband will not take this one off!

Me and my husband have been married for seven year this year and the theme for this anniversary is wool. So I am taking up knitting and he is taking up crochet. Our first challenges are I am to knit him a scarf and he is crocheting me a coral tea cosy.

I cast of the huge piece of gone wrong fluffy knitting I started like nine years ago now – it was origionally supposed to be a shawl but I lost the use of my hands and stuff and then lost the wool and then was just knitting for the sake of knitting etc.. So it is being turned into a record bag (if I ever get around to it!). Around the time this project was started my husband (then boyfriend) picked out some black fluffy wendy jazz wool for me to knit him a scarf in so that is what I am attempting this challenge in!

I have selected a varigated sock yarn for his project. We also got two books:

Really Wild Tea Cosies by Loani Prior

and

The Knitter’s Handbook by Hamlyn

I personally plan to be knitting scarfs in the short term – mastering the different stitches in the handbook 🙂 I am starting with garter stitch, 60 stitches for Alaric’s scarf.

This is my drawing for the March Time Capsule for Art Evolved on the heavy set large meat eating birds known as the Terror Birds. I chose Kelenken which is from about 15 million years ago and is one of the largest found so far. I got the general shape from looking at pictures of the skelentons – the feet I am not happy with but the over all bird I am 🙂

In the Summer I took part in the Open Air Art in the Park Exhibition which happens in Cheltenham ever year.

I selected my pictures – mostly acrylics and wrote out tags for them – Alaric my husband made hooks to hang the pictures from on the display grid.

The first day we got up and running in good time but I looked at it and thought…

.. I can fit more pictures on here.

I sold one painting called Vortex which was a green swerl.