Somme 100: Poppy Patterns

Work in progress on patterns

I love the diversity of my work, I love the different opportunities that come my way and the chance to work with lots of different organisations on different projects. I have just finished designing two patterns for Cumbria's Museum of Military Life, which records the history of Cumbria's County Infantry Regiment. The patterns I have designed are a knitted poppy and a crocheted poppy.

Working on the train: Trying different shapes

The patterns are available on the museums website and are part of a larger project commemorating the centenary of the Battle of the Somme. The aim of this part of the project is to create a knitted or crocheted poppy for each soldier of the Border Regiment who died during the Somme. The poppies will be displayed from the windows of the museum building, each month more poppies will be added to the display, corresponding with the number of men who died that month in the Somme 100 years ago.

Knitted Poppy

Detail

In total the museum are aiming to make 1700 poppies. It is very difficult to know exactly how many people died and when they died. A soldier may have been injured during the battle and died from his wounds many weeks or even months later. There were also of course other Cumbrian's not in the Border regiment who died in the Somme but in order for the project to work there has to be some parameters. I hope that rather than getting caught up in agonising over exact numbers people will recognise that a huge number of individuals lost their lives and each of those lives was significant and this project commemorates them all.

Crocheted Poppy

Creating these patterns was surprisingly challenging, not because they were difficult to make but because part of the brief was to make the patterns accessible to beginners. I spent a lot of time stitching and un-stitching trying to get a shape that worked but that would be easy to re-create. Hopefully I've managed that but we will see! As part of my efforts to keep the pattern simple I chose to use the stylised shape of the poppy used by the British Legion.

If you'd like to get involved with the project please contact the museum, there are a lot of poppies to make!

Silvery Threads

The Silver Thread, machine embroidery on dyed and painted organza. 2014

Another competition and another piece of work! I saw this particular call for submissions quite early in the year but didn't have chance to work on my entry until quite near the deadline (nothing like a deadline to get you going!) The competition was run by Norwich based charity the Costume and Textile Association. To celebrate their 25th anniversary they ran an open textiles competition on the theme 'Silvery Threads.'

Detail

As soon as I saw the brief I had an idea of the kind of piece I would like to make; something to do with hands making to carry on from my drawings of hands engaged in various textile practices such as knitting, crochet and stitching. Having started to experiment earlier in the year with machine embroidered drawings on organza I decided that this would be a good option to explore further.

An embroidery from earlier this year

My experience with display and mounting of my stitched drawings earlier this year made me very aware of how the work should be displayed so I tried to keep this in mind throughout the time I was working on the piece.  To fit in with the theme of silvery threads I had decided I would use silver thread for the embroidery and I also wanted to incorporate a silver yarn. So, after drawing and playing about with ideas I decided to create a stitched drawing of hands crocheting, with the yarn the hands were crocheting forming a long, silver chain that would fall off the edge of the piece. I was thinking a lot about silvery threads and spider webs and the various creation myths associated with spiders and threads.

Stitch detail

Stitch detail

The piece was quite challenging to work on for a number of reasons. Firstly, as usual, my drawing ended up really big so manipulating it around the sewing machine was awkward. Secondly, metallic thread is not the easiest to work with and I had to work with it in the bobbin so I was in effect working backwards (the right side of the work being face down.) As I was working on organza this wasn't too bad I just had to keep checking I was going in the right direction!

Crochet chain

Hem detail

However, by far the biggest challenge came in trying to photograph it. When I hung it in front of a wall the camera was unable to pick up the silver thread, so the pictures just looked like a random blue rectangle. When I photographed it with light behind the drawing was clear but not that it was in silver thread. So, for my submission I had to do a halfway house. I sent a picture photographed against the light so you could see the drawing and a detail against a dark background so the silver thread would show up. The piece wasn't selected but I learnt a lot making it and I've got a few ideas out of my system so I can now focus on other things. Onwards and upwards!

Home (and the benefits of talking it through)

Nests, 2014

As I keep saying, this year I am focusing on getting back to my own personal artistic practice and developing my work. To this end I have been making more time to spend in my studio and I have been entering competitions and answering calls for entries for quite a range of exhibitions and opportunities.

Nest/sphere drawings

One recent call for submissions that I made a piece of work for was from Gallery 202 for an on-line exhibition entitled 'Home.' (The resulting gallery is really interesting. There is a wide range of responses and media and some of the pieces are great, I'm enjoying working my way through and exploring other people's art works.)  The title seemed to fit well for an idea I've had buzzing round my head for some time based on nests. One of my favourite things to draw when I get stuck are these spiralling, sphere nest like shapes. I've been wanting to create them in various forms for a while and the recent felt making workshops I'd been running had also pushed them to the front of my mind.

The start of the larger nest

Finishing the smaller nest

I did not have much time as I saw the call quite late so I decided to crochet the nests from wool and then felt them. This was a process I wanted to experiment a bit more with anyway so it seemed like an ideal opportunity. The smaller nest is crocheted from a 100% wool yarn whereas the larger one is about 80% wool so it has not created quite such a dense fabric when felted. This allows a little more stitch definition, showing the original process.

Detail before felting

Detail after felting

Small felted nest

My original plan had been to crochet the nests, felt them and then either colour the insides or line them in some way. I would then arrange them, in a suitably artistic fashion of course, and that would form my piece of work. However, when I was speaking to my partner about it he suggested adding sticks. I must confess that my first instinct was to reject his idea out of hand, however, I listened and I began to warm to the idea (after a good argument about WHY I should add sticks.) I went away and experimented with driftwood, twigs and bamboo sticks until I found an arrangement that I thought worked. I liked the way the straight, regular lines of the sticks (which I painted black) contrasted and defined the nests. They made me think of architecture and how spaces define us, make us behave or feel in certain ways; how home suggests safety, softness and warmth (as textiles and particularly felt does) yet the materials that make the home (brick, concrete, tile, timber) are not often associated with these things.

Nests (detail)

Nests (detail)

I also like that it's not something I would ever have come up with myself. Sometimes it can be quite isolating working away on your art (tiny violin) and I think it's good to step outside of your bubble, get some input from others and try something different. It won't always work out but you never know where a conversation might lead.

Plastic Fantastic: The marvels of melting

Beautiful butterfly collage

Yesterday I ran a melted plastic decorations workshop at The Hut, which is part of Brampton Community Centre. It was a bit of a wet and grey morning but this worked out well as the session was over subscribed so very busy, a few more than I anticipated but it kept me busy! Last year I ran a similar session at The Kirkgate Centre in Cockermouth as a drop in workshop. The session was for children and there was quite a wide age range. Because of this I'd planned two activities so that they could choose what was most suitable for them.

Arranging bits and pieces

Laying the pieces out

Another collage ready to melt

The first option was plastic bag collage. This involved collaging and then fusing pieces of plastic bags together to make pictures or abstract compositions. Some of the children made really complex collages and there were some really fun ideas.

Melting!

Cat collage

The right trousers!

The second option was to crochet chains and then arrange the chains into shapes before melting. Because it was quite a large group it was difficult to have enough time help everyone with this but all the parents, grandparents and carers were really helpful and some of the children picked it up really well and made some really long chains!

Learning to crochet

Finger crochet

Chains arranged into a flower and melted

My main aim for the session was to give the children and their carers a fun and creative activity that they could experiment more with at home. As all that is needed are plastic bags, an iron and some baking parchment it is a cheap and easy thing to experiment but with a bit of skill and practice complex patterns and pieces can be produced. I've been melting plastic bags for about ten years now and I like the element of transformation and slightly unpredictable nature of it.

Fish Collage

Fish Collage #2

A Giraffe in Stanhope

Sheep!

We had a lovely mini-break last week in Stanhope, County Durham. It's the fourth time we've visited and one of the things that I love about it is that although it is very remote there is so much to see and do and it's only an hour and a bit away from us. We were also very lucky with the weather this time and were treated to gorgeous sunshine and clear blue skies. We made the most of this by getting out and about and doing a bit of walking, which was both relaxing and inspiring. The landscape is awesome in the truest sense of the word and alive with wildlife and sheep (which I have become obsessed with trying to identify since buying a sheep poster at Woolfest a couple of weeks ago!)

More sheep

Blue skies

Wide open spaces

One of our trips was to Durham where we walked along the river and enjoyed mooching around the city, exploring the alleys and little paths. In the cafe where we had lunch we saw this wonderful embroidered map from 1796 which prompted lots of discussions about how county borders have changed, traditions of embroidery and samplers and the merits of various dyestuffs.

Embroidered map

Detail

Detail

No holiday would be complete without a few souvenirs and naturally mine are textile based! In Durham we visited the Fowler's Yard art studios and had a lovely chat with the proprietor of the Woolly Workshop, who has got me all excited about giving spinning a go. We also visited Allendale Forge Studios which also got me feeling all inspired and creative. I came away with some more threads to have a go at doing a bit of natural dyeing, having invested in a book and some dyestuffs (again at Woolfest.) 

Threads, silk, fabric and beads

Threads for experimenting with

Pretty beads

As well as some sketching and stitching I also made a giraffe whilst we were away. Before we left I was given a kit that the person had bought but got fed up with without finishing the giraffe. Although the pattern was simple it was a bit fiddly so not ideal for a beginner. However, I do think that the finished giraffe is rather sweet!

Crocheted giraffe

Crocheted giraffe

Crocheted giraffe

Cosy Shells Fingerless Gloves-Free Pattern!

Tea and crochet

The finished gloves

Whilst flicking through one of my old knitting magazines I saw a pair of beautiful crochet fingerless gloves in a shell pattern. The picture was part of an advert for a wool shop but I really liked them and decided I needed to make them (rather than finish my hundreds of other projects.) From looking at the picture I knew I could figure it out myself but I was being lazy and wanted someone else to have done the thinking for me! So, I headed off to Ravelry and google but I couldn't find a pattern I liked enough so I did end up writing my own pattern and then because I'm nice I thought I'd share it with you!

It is a very simple tube pattern with an opening for your thumb, the shell pattern has a degree of stretch allowing for the changing shape of your arm and hand and I would also advise using a yarn with a bit of stretch (such as a wool rather than cotton) to allow for the varying thickness of your arms and hands.

I began by swatching and testing out the pattern using the yarn I wanted to use; Colourspun by Rowan, a wool/mohair/polyamide mix in roughly DK weight. The colours are beautiful, grey and blue spun through with bright pink and green and it works up really nicely. I'm quite sensitive to wool but decided that as my hands are pretty tough this yarn would be okay for fingerless gloves. The gloves took just over 1 x 50g ball but if you made them a couple of rows shorter or had a yarn with a better meterage (colourspun is 135m per ball) you could probably get away with one ball.

I should at this point inform you that I have ridiculously thin wrists so if you follow the pattern exactly be prepared for very cosy gloves. However, it is easy to alter them as the pattern repeats over 6 stitches so you just need to make your starting chain a multiple of 6 and long enough to comfortably fit your wrist. Alternatively if you only need them a little bigger just use a bigger hook.

The Pattern

If you find any errors or are not sure about something please let me know and I will amend or attempt to help as best I can.

UK Terms

ch: chain
dc: double crochet
slst: slip stitch
tr: treble
shell: 5tr

Tension: 10 cm x 10 cm should give you roughly 3 shells wide by 6 shells high. Change hook to gain correct tension.

Finished measurements: Length 30 cm Circumference 19 cm

Each glove is worked in the same way, make as many as you have arms.

Using a 6mm hook chain 24 and join with slip stitch to form a ring

Round 1: Change to a 5mm hook, ch1, work 1dc into each chain and join with slst in first dc (24dc)
The first dc should be worked into the same stitch as the slst from beginning chain

Round 2: Ch3 {counts as first tr}, work 4tr in same st as slst and ch3, miss 2dc, dc in next stitch, miss 2dc, *5tr {shell} in next stitch, miss 2dc, dc in next stitch, miss 2dc* Repeat from * to * all around and then join with slst in top of ch3

Round 3: Slst to middle tr of shell, dc in this stitch, shell in next dc, *dc in middle tr of next shell, shell in next dc* Repeat from * to * all around and then join with slst in first dc

Round 4:  Ch3 {counts as first tr}, work 4tr in same st as slst and ch3, dc in middle tr of next shell, *shell in next dc, dc in middle tr of next shell* Repeat from * to * all around and then join with slst in top of ch3

Rounds 5-20: Repeat rows 3 and 4 (ending with a row 4)

Thumb hole

Round 21: Work as for round 3 except replace last shell with ch5

Round 22: Work as for round 4 working last dc into third chain of ch5

Rounds 23-25: Continue with pattern as set {repeating rounds 3 and 4}

Round 26: Ch1, dc in each stitch around, join with slst.

Weave in ends, place gloves on hands and enjoy cosy feeling.

Stitch diagram: Round 1

Stitch diagram: Round 2