2016: Exhibitions: WARM and The Royal Melbourne Show

Some of these landscape squares were knit by me! 1000 pieces, 250 Victorian hand knitters
SEAM's WARM community knitting project

Hasn't time flown!
I've got a few things I'll share here so I remember what I did for next time, and some lovely things I've been part of that deserve to be remembered in this space.

I've continued to dabble in machine knitting, and emboldened by my Dairing 2/3/Four, I made the matching Two/3/4 top, a sideways knitted tank in the same thin cotton/stainless steel/silk mix, with neck, arm and hem edges left to roll. 

I took my time joining the side seams by hand, and thoroughly enjoyed the process. I had difficulties with keeping my cast on edges loose, so I joined them to each other and the result is a modern asymmetrical top that I adore. I entered it into my local show, The Royal Melbourne and was rather chuffed to receive a third place against some rather talented, and very experienced competition - definite beginners luck!

No luck was involved in Mr MaciNic's results, he's a very talented artist over several mediums and was placed for some lovely woodworking and took the blue ribbon in the rather obscure printing technique, Intalagio.

The Blyde River Butts image was taken by the equally talented Jenny Rennous_oh_Glennus in Africa and then printed:

Intaglio is a rather time-consuming technique using an etching press and plates.

In detail, it involves converting an image to digital and then using photopolymer plates. These have the image inkjet printed directly onto the plate and exposed to uv light. The plates are then washed with water to remove unhardened polymer, Inked and wiped, same as traditional Intaglio, and passed through an A3 sized benchtop press onto dampened cotton rag paper. 

In September he wanted to try copper drypoint next, and he has. I have some rather fetching octopi etchings, hand coloured with watercolours, and a study of our somnolent dachshund.

I was also fabulously fortunate to stumble across the WARM project, a community knitting project where Victorian hand knitters were asked to knit from designs, specific to the project, designed in Victoria by Georgie of Tikki. I contributed several pieces. A large scale image of a rejuvenated open cut mine was then created to open conversation on renewable energy and the environment. Why? Because we've forgotten how to warm ourselves with wool.

It was rather lovely to see the installation at the Art Gallery of Ballarat and to be able to take my grandma. She's an amazing crafter who is still knitting and crocheting for charity, at 93.

It's currently touring, and I believe it has just left the Ararat Art Gallery after spending time at the Geelong Wool Museum. Details can be found on the SEAM page.

Listening to the fabric - Felted Wool Jacket

I love this jacket.
A couple of years ago, Helen mentioned that a small local fabric store was closing down. I managed to go in during its final days and after chatting to the lovely proprietress, I left with some very lovely pieces of fabric.
And every few months I pulled the fabric from my special stash, patted it, dreamt of what it would like to be, and tucked it away again in its tissue paper.

This amazing felted wool is part of that small collection.
I finally settled on a cape last winter, and amped up my collection of all the cape patterns, vintage and contemporary, Japanese, French and English, jacket-cape styles, raglan or circle, arm slits or arms underneath, I have them all.
None of them were 'just right' for this wool though.

So I made my own.
I love that I have raw edges wherever I could. I especially love that the entire jacket is cut from one piece, with zero waste and no interruption to the border print.
Want to know what I did?

It's simply a rectangle of fabric, with 2 slits vertically at my shoulders. I then inserted 4 triangles, cut from a rectangle along the non-border print edge, as raglan sleeves along this slit. I have considered inserting godets in the diamond shaped underarms, however the open diamonds are working very well.

Ok, so I do have 2 spare triangles, but they aren't waste ;)

The felted wool isn't perfect - although it's perfectly striking. I had to reinforce each seamline as it's not particularly strong. I started using rayon seam tape, then changed to strips of charcoal silk. The back neckline is faced with silk as well. Each seam is top stitched on each side for added stability.

Apart from a rather high level of satisfaction that my concept worked (YAY!), what I adore and makes this a 'throw on every day' jacket is that it's perfectly versatile. It is delightfully snuggly when pinned closed high on my neck, perfectly warm when worn with a V-neck - with either a casual exposed facing collar, or with them tucked in for a neat version - or open and breezy when I only need my back and shoulders covered. I've not put any permanent closures on, my everyday bag style is a messenger bag/cross body satchel and it holds it in place perfectly when I'm not using a shawl pin.

And the fabric, I am SO glad I took that deep breath and nabbed my 1.5m of felted grey wool with felted black foliage.

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