Baby Blanket 1

 Before Christmas, the Guild put out a request for some knitted baby cardigans for the Guild shop, preferably in white. Over the Christmas break I used some of the white cotton I had been using for the Shetland Wool Week hats to knit a baby cardigan, using a pattern I had from Bendigo Woollen Mills. The pattern had 7 sizes, so I picked the middle one. It turned out to be what consensus at the Guild said was for a two-year-old!

I didn't have enough white yarn for another, but made a couple in the smallest size in cream and ecru. 

It turns out that what the Guild shop is doing, is putting together Baby Welcome packs.They have a couple of knitted blankets which they are pairing with some basic clothes.  

Once I understood the goal, I got more targeted. I'm currently working on an aqua cardigan to accompany a green-blue knitted blanket they have in stock

I also dug out the squares I was crocheting towards the end of 2020- with a view to using up the same 4 ply cotton.  I had 53 completed squares - and another 45 of the centre circles. I had planned to keep going with the squares until I had used up all the yarn, but now decided to create a baby blanket  for the Guild  with what I had.

I tried joining the squares using some of the cream cotton (left). It looked, I thought, OK.  

However, I also found some rolls of white/blue/pink variegated knitting cotton which had, I think, belonged to my mother. 

That, I thought, looked really good. So this week I have been busy crocheting around the squares, and creating a baby blanket from 56 squares, laying it out on the floor as I went to get the best combination I can.  

I didn't undo the ones with ecru borders. I will make a second blanket using the centres I have left.  The variegated pastel works really well, but so will other things.                                 

It took quite a bit of time to do the individual, then the total border - most of the Adelaide Cup weekend. The result pleases me.

I worked a border around the whole thing in the variegated cotton. It is about 110cmx91cm.

I decided against stretching it much  by blocking, given it will need to be washed many times in its life and no mother has time for blocking. Instead, I washed it and spread it to dry flat on my table.

After 24 hours I moved it to a drying rack to get airflow underneath. 

I have a cone of 3 ply wool/acrylic mixture which I'm hoping might knit into a cardigan to go with this blanket, and an idea about a bag to contain them. 

Hopefully I will report on progress soon!

Greek Museum of Adelaide Exhibition

I spend an extraordinary hour or so this morning at an exhibition at the Flambouron Hall, 18 Fulton St Glenelg, guided by Chrysoula Melissinaki, president of the Greek Museum of Adelaide Inc. Chrysoula has lived in Australia for eight years and is passionate about collecting, preserving, displaying and cataloguing art and craft items belonging to the Greek-Australian community in Adelaide.


Most items have been donated by members of the Greek-Australian community. A few come from Museums in Greece or are on loan.


The association hires halls for exhibitions and stores the collection at other times in boxes in Chrysoula's home.

They hope to create a permanent home for the collection. I was mightily impressed. Items were beautifully displayed - indeed curated, with ample descriptions in both Greek and English. Chrysoula has found videos of various elements of the exhibitions and these can be viewed on screens. Also available are books that provide further information.

I was able to take photos, and given permission to use them on social media. Chrysoula took me through the whole exhibition and gave me background on the items.  The exhibition deserves more detailed cover. I am, however, anxious to publish and distribute this tonight, so that friends and Guild members in Adelaide might be able to get to the see it before it closes on Saturday around lunchtime. It will be closed on New Year's Day, but open from 10am -5.30pm on Thursday 2 January and Friday 3 January and 10 am- around 1.30pm on Saturday 4 January.


The exhibition covers a wide range of handcrafts, including musical instruments, pressed metal, lamps and a fine collection of old irons.


There are beautifully crafted wood items.

The importance of Plato and Socrates to Greek culture is acknowledged in many homes, and in the exhibition.

It is, however, the textiles that took my breath away.






There are many examples of historic and vintage weavings, many arriving with migrant families. The two on the left were made by Chrysoula's grandmother.

Many examples are behind glass - great for viewing but not so good for amateur photography.

This is just a tiny sample of the crochet on display - from spider-web fineness to heavy bedspread quality.










Similarly, the costumes vary from skin, to heavy wool to fine silk.

I loved the Cretan work, and the examples from Skyros.

Some fine cutwork, and Lefkaritika, one (left) hand-stitched and one machine.

 

Tatting

I have tried to capture the scope and depth of this exhibition.  If you have a chance to see it, don't miss out. It is a remarkable achievement for a non-profit community group. It is a huge commitment of time, effort and shared knowledge. I do hope this develops into a full-fledged museum - and that other groups take inspiration from it. 

This is Adelaide's heritage.
Thank you Chrysoula and your Museum volunteers.

Tea wallet adaptations

After making the tea wallet prototype, I was fired up with ideas to improve the design, so using the remainder of the fabric, I set about narrowing the size of the wallet. I cut the fabric narrower, but the same length - about 18cm wide instead of the original 27.5cm.









This produced a wallet about the size I had in mind.











I followed the same procedure of blanket stitching the edges then crocheting a chain.

This time, however, I created a side opening as well as the interior pocket opening. This enables the user to remove a teabag without opening the wallet and introduces the option of carrying different flavour teabags in different parts of the wallet.

The overall finish is the same.

This shows the size of the adapted model compared to the original.















I got a bit carried away using up the remainder of the fabric and experimenting with styles.

I even created a little crocheted flap for one of them.

I had a lot of fun playing with these and created a set of wallets that tea-drinking friends who carry their favourite teabags around with them will find useful. And I am so chuffed to be crocheting edges.

It occurred to me as I was doing this, that this shell edge is a variation of that my grandmother used to edge the handkerchiefs she made out of old shirts and bedlinen. It pleases me no end to be making teabag wallets for my daughters and granddaughters from fabric my mother bought me and in the pattern my grandmother used for the handkerchiefs I still have!

Tea Wallet Prototype

I kept instructions from a Handmade magazine last year for a project I thought looked interesting and useful. My interest was sparked by the crocheted edge. I am interested in progressing my newly acquired skills in reading a crochet pattern and one of the reasons I wanted to learn this was to crochet edges. While I don't carry teabags around with me, I know people who do, so thought this might make a pleasing gift.

So recently I dug around in my stash for suitable fabric and came up with the bottom of a dress I made and wore in the 80s - a Paisley Liberty cotton. It needed a bit of unpicking, but yielded a piece of fabric the required size - 27.5cm x 59cm.

I also found interfacing - but then forgot to use it - folding the fabric, stitching and turning it inside out without the interfacing. I'm quite pleased I made this mistake because the fabric is firm enough without interfacing and better, I think, without the bulk.

In line with instructions, I buttonhole stitched around the outer edge of the folded fabric using ecru crochet cotton and crocheted a chain on top of it.

I then followed the crochet pattern to finish the edge. It actually worked!

This is what it looked like.

It folds neatly into three to form a handy pouch, or wallet.

I used an odd piece from an earring as a fastener. I undid my stitching of the fastener three times before I got it in the right place!

I like the finished effect. I don't, however, think it works as well as it could for teabags. It would be better to be narrower - the width of - well, a teabag... As it is it might be more use for holding a comb, nail file and a small packet of tissues. I like the concept however and am now in the process of adjusting the size to fit teabags more precisely.  More on the results soon.