New........

My Japanese friend says that March is the season of parting and April is encounter and starting new life season.

Since the last post, I have had a lot of new encounters..........

New life: 

I have had this miniature water lily for about 2 years now and this is the first time it has bloomed! In the last few days of summer, I watched it come to life over a couple of days and disappeared just as fast.

New weave experiment: 
I bought this beautiful yarn from Avril when I was last in Japan. I originally bought it for my mother but she was not keen on the colour. So I kept it for myself and had been waiting for the right project /idea to come along.
The skeins have a very defined band of colour and I wanted to see if I could weave or knit it with the colour band expressed. I experimented on the knitting machine but the tension was hard to control. I did not want to start with the original yarn on the loom straight off as it is a lot harder to un-weave than to frog knitting!

Frisbiee Tegasuri (32B gray)

I dyed some cotton with the same concept, calculated the width of the warp required, and started weaving. It seemed to go according to plan and I was quite happy with the results.

That is until here:

and I understand why! As I wind the weft on the skein winder, the circumference of the skein increases as it then becomes wider than the warp. The ikat effect then changes as the colour sections shifts slightly off course for each pick, forming the criss-cross effect. I know all of these theories in my head but sometimes, I just have to do it to believe it.
So maybe when I finally use the yarn from Avril, it does not matter how the pattern emerges. I think I will still like it.

New weave project:
This is a glimpse of some weaving for an exhibition submission. I have not really done a lot of 'arty' weaving before, usually they are scarves or wraps. So it is a totally new experience....... 

New technique:
I started my first top down, seamless cardigan last week and have learnt a new knitting technique, the magic loop. Thanks to Sooz and Woollenflower for starting me off on the right track, helping me with working out the right size and how to keep track of the instructions. It made me feel more confident with knitting a garment. Again, I have normally stuck to knitting accessories with minimal shaping......

New knit:

and here is another one of those accessories in the most gorgeous red colour just in time for Autumn.

Pink!?

It is mid-winter but my peach/nectarine tree is already in full bloom. Maybe because it is in a pot and has a warmer micro-climate. I hope that it will survive the rest of the season and bear fruit this summer.

Seeing these blooms and recently using up that 'green' yarn, reminded me of this scarf I wove a couple of years ago. A friend wanted something special for her mother's birthday and said that she liked pink. My first thought was 'a pink scarf? I can't do something that is all pink!?' Then I saw the blossoms and thought about the colours that tied in with pink in nature. I broke them down into the pinks, the browns and the greens. This made me feel more comfortable with the idea of weaving something 'pink'.

Initially, I  could not find a green yarn commercially that worked with the other colours. In the end, Barb introduced me to dyeing small quantity of yarn in the microwave. This resulted in that 'green' yarn.

I wound all the different colours in a group and then randomly distributed them. This prevented a rigid pattern of stripes and worked well with a broken twill pattern. It was all 'Bendigo Classic 2ply wool' except for the pink silk yarn that also gave it a highlight sheen.

The scarf was well received and I was happy that I achieved the brief of 'pink'.

Winter Garden

Thanks to my green thumbed friends, there are some beautiful things to enjoy this winter.

Freesia

Freesia buds

 

Michelia

Snowdrops

And a bountiful harvest of these golden coccoons:

Fortunella margarita, or the Nagami kumquat

Talented people

My greenthumb friends (Anne and Michele) came to the rescue with my plants. They were near death just before Christmas and you can see the evidence on the brown leaves of the Bay tree. The whole plant had looked like that. Anne helped me (well she did the work while I watched) re-potted all three plants and gave them a new lease of life and they are thankful. There are 10 limes on the Kaffir lime tree ( the most I have ever seen, and lots of cumquats for marmalade this winter........

Kaffir Lime

Bay Tree 

Cumquat 

And my super knitter mother made this for me!

 

The yarn is soft and absolutely heavenly. She knitted it single strand and the stitch is similar to all these collapse weave and machine knit structures with which I have been experimenting. This is the hand knitted version!