hey everybody,
Thanks for the positive feedback on my second freeform•ish guide! The Freeform Denim Tote guide is available now on Ravelry, and the 25% discount for newsletter subscribers with coupon code YARNYTHINGS is in effect through April 9th.
In the last newsletter, I asked for votes on which pattern should be scheduled first for a zoom class. I’m pleased that there’s interest in both the tote and the shawlette, but the shawlette won this race. Scheduling is still in the works, so I’ll send a separate announcement when the classes are on the calendar.
what’s been going on
Here’s another Freeform Denim Tote from a few years ago that I made in collaboration with our niece Camryn after she learned how to knit.
Most of my fiber time has been spent on the spirals for my 100 Day Project, and a few weeks ago, I posted some ideas for adapting crochet stitch patterns for use in spirals.
Things have certainly gotten more interesting since I started the project. At first, I was just interested in doing a little something as a daily practice. So I assembled some yarns that looked good together and planned to make a little spiral each day, nothing fancy. The idea was to end up with a pile of spirals to use in a project somewhere down the road. For the first couple of weeks, I stuck with the original plan, using some variety in stitches and stitch patterns. And then sometime during the third week, things started going a little wonky. The photo in this blog post shows the beginnings of the Spirals With Irregular Shapes.
Using graduated stitch heights, combining more colors in each spiral, and including more techniques in a single spiral added some excitement. Then I made a small mistake on Spiral #30 that turned into a new-to-me strategy for surface embellishment.
The spirals got bigger as I added all of these new elements. It became clear that the yarns I had set aside for the 100 days were not going to be enough, so I started adding in a few more here and there. I stopped thinking about making a project with them at the end of the 100 days and started realizing I’d end up having the seeds for many future projects.
Que sera, sera! I’ll just have to wait and see what happens. Until then, I’m really enjoying putting variety into each day’s spiral.
artists, places/books/newsletters for inspiration
Barbara Lee Smith is a mixed media artist in Durham, NC, known for sculptural drawings constructed from fabric. She has an exhibit up through the first or second week in May at Urban Durham Realty at 401C Foster Street, and I took some photos last week when I visited to see her amazing work.
She has a beautiful website well worth visiting. In the About the Work section, which includes an interesting video that shows her working in her studio, she’s written about what inspires her and how she uses that inspiration in her work with fabric and paints and stitching. This excerpt about her process really stuck with me because it could describe the freeform crochet mindset as well: I aim to be both at one with my materials, but also to be free of assumptions about their limitations; in other words, to play as I work and vice versa. -Barbara Lee Smith
If you live in the Raleigh-Durham area, it’s worth a visit see her work at the Urban Durham Realty offices sometime before May 8th.
something to try
I’ve been talking a lot about spirals even before I started The 100 Day Project. Using spirals as vehicles for different stitches, stitch patterns, and even other fiber techniques (like crochet and weaving) has become a fun and (sort of) quick way to invigorate my freeform work and reinforce my daily creative practice.
Challenge Part One. So, crocheters, I have a challenge for you. First, I will reiterate that taking one element (like a spiral) and repeating it many times is a great method for building crochet skills first, and then for building a freeform mindset. Therefore, the first part of the challenge is to make a basic spiral, then another, and another, over and over. When you’re able to make a few of them without looking at the instructions, move on to the second part of the challenge. I’ve included the instructions for a basic spiral (for which you can use yarn at any gauge and a hook appropriate for that yarn) from Issue 1 of this newletter for convenience:
With a plain yarn (you can use yarn at any gauge and a hook appropriate for that yarn), ch 4, sl st in the first chain to make a small ring. Ch 3, work 11 dc into the ring. The circle will look almost but not quite full. Find the ch-3 from the beginning of the round, and instead of counting it as a dc, you’re going to work sts into it. Work 2 dc into each of those 3 chains. Next, working into the back loop only of the dc stitches, work 2 dc in each st over the next 10 stitches.
At this point, you’ll need to judge whether you need to work 2 dc in each stitch, or just 1 dc. Making the right choice about this determines whether or not your spiral will lay flat, which is what you want it to do. Here’s how you do it: work a dc into the next stitch, then look at the dc you just worked and decide if it’s standing up straight (when compared to the stitch directly below it) or leaning to the right. If it’s standing up straight, go on to the next stitch and make your next dc. If it’s leaning to the right, work another dc into the same stitch as the last dc. Keep doing this (it gets easy to eyeball it once you get going) until the spiral is as big as you’d like it to be. This is the trick freeform crocheters use when they want the fabric to lay flat, and this tiny project is a good place to learn it and practice it if you haven’t done it before.
When you’re happy with the size of your first spiral, stop working dc stitches and start working chains to make the loop for hanging. Make the chain twice as long as you’d like the loop to be, for instance, 5” for a 2.5” loop. Then, skipping the chain closest to your hook, work a slip stitch into the rest of the chains. You’ll secure the end of this row of slip stitches as you join the two spirals together later on. Leaving a 20” tail for joining, cut the yarn and fasten off.
Embellishment for the spiral: Since you’ve worked into the back loop for all of your stitches, the front loops are easily visible. Attach a contrasting color of yarn by working a slip stitch into the front loop at the center of the spiral, then work a slip stitch into each of the front loops going all the way to the last dc of the spiral. Fasten off. Use a tapestry needle to take both tails to the back of the spiral.
Challenge Part Two. Without having a particular project or end result in mind, start experimenting within the structure of the spiral shape with different stitches, like the one pictured below. That will build your freeform mindset and your freeform muscles. Taking a basic motif and changing it and making it your own is a great way to get into freeforming. Keep reading for a description that can guide you through the process.
This spiral from my 100 Day Project has graduated stitch heights and a little texture from the Granule Stitch. Here’s how I made it:
I started the spiral in the usual way, using the pattern from Issue 1 (see the Challenge Part 1 section above). As I got to the part where stitches are worked into the back loops only, I started to graduate down from double crochets to half double crochets, then down to single crochets. Doing the stitches in that order, which is order of height, is important to avoid gaps and buckling. You can probably see that the second round of the spiral is quite narrow, and that’s because it’s made of almost a whole round of short single crochets. Continuing, I worked intuitively, graduating up to half doubles, doubles, then trebles. Then back down again to doubles, half doubles, and singles. Again, changing stitches in height order is important. While doing this, I made sure that I increased stitches when needed for keeping the work flat (this process is described in the basic pattern). I changed stitch height whenever I felt like it, and if the results didn’t look good to me, I’d unravel a bit and try something different.
Every now and then I inserted some Granule Stitches, a stitch pattern I found in the Harmony Guide to Crochet Stitches. If you’d like to try out the Granule Stitch, first graduate down to working single crochets because the stitch pattern starts with making a regular single crochet stitch. Next, insert your hook for the next stitch, draw up a loop, then make 3 chains. Finally, yarn over and pull through both loops, finishing the granule stitch. Make one more single crochet to anchor the granule. Alternating regular singles with the textural granules adds a little bit of texture within the spiral.
To finish the spiral, I worked slip stitches in the front loops to add the surface embellishment, starting in the center and working to the outer edge, as described in the basic pattern.
I’m hoping some readers will try this challenge. Crochet beginners will build their skills through the repetition of making a pile of basic spirals. Experienced crocheters can try the variation and stretch their skills into freeform, and freeformers will hopefully find this challenge as inspiring as I have.
a few more things you might like
If you have favorite radio stations that you listen to when you’re out of town like I do, check on line to see if they offer streaming so you can listen in your area while you knit, crochet, rug hook, weave, etc. The ones I like are the Penguin in Wilmington, NC, and WWOZ LINK in New Orleans. NOLA fans, get WWOZ loaded up and ready to go on your devices in advance of JazzFest so you can enjoy festival type programming without having to leave home.
Speaking of rug hooking, I’ve been doing a little bit, even including some in a freeform crochet project. More on that later, but if you are interested in rug hooking, check out Deanne Fitzpatrick’s website. She has lovely kits with really nice fabric strips and yarns. I’m working on one that I’ll share in a future issue when there’s more of it completed.
That’s it for today. Hope you’re enjoying good progress on interesting projects. If you decide to take on the spiral challenge, please tell us about it in the comments. Thanks for reading,
Lisa
Issue 5, a crochet spiral challenge
I still need to relearn crochet but I’m loving watching your work and reading about your process for inspiration.