a creamy scrumble

wool...mohair...silk...cotton

This freeform piece was worked using odds and ends of many different creamy-coloured yarns that I had in my stash, plus a little bit of brown, grey and yellow mixed in for contrast.  

It is mostly crochet, but also includes a couple of areas in knitted linen stitch.   These sections were worked using 3 colours, alternating 1 colour per row.  I like the little spots of colour and the textured effect that linen stitch gives when it is worked this way.  

For the bullions, I chose a lovely single-ply pure silk yarn that has plenty of body ('spaghetti' from The Loom in Bangkok).  It was originally created as a weaving yarn, but it crochets and knits up fabulously too.

a crochet spiral that grew into a necklace

This is another one from a couple of years ago

...made by me, for me

...I have worn it quite a lot

Scrumble #47

here is a scrumble for March

...so much for my original idea of weekly scrumbles!

Maybe I will get another done before April, but at least I am aiming for a minimum of one a month this year...and since this is the 5th for 2012, I have already done way better than last year ;-)

I always seem to have a problem photographing oranges and reds, so in the picture the centre of the scrumble has lost a little bit of definition. The piece started with a small knitted section behind the ruffle (just above and right of centre), and then I crocheted on the raggy-looking orange bit (Indian recycled silk). Much richer in real life than in the photo.

I then continued outwards with little areas of both knitting and crochet, working multi-coloured stripes for most of the knitting and back post stitches and slip stitches for a lot of the crochet, with the aim of avoiding too much of a stripey effect. The tw0 little crochet flowers were made separately and attached onto the surface.

Lots of stash yarns, both new and very old, were used in the making of this scrumble; they include wool, silk, cotton, rayon and a few blends, plus a bit of man-made stuff for added sparkle (which probably doesn't show up much in the little thumbnail, but should be apparent if you click for the larger photo)

Scrumble # 41

ok, so i'm really not planning on making all my future scrumbles resemble anything in particular, but since i said last time that i had one that was sort of wanting to turn into a fish, i decided to go with the flow with this one, too ;-)

it started out ages back when i made the knitted 'body' (which was worked in short rows: 2-colour stripes in garter stitch with a dull and a glittery yarn). then i added various bits and pieces of freeform crochet directly onto the edges of the knitting (and a couple of sections onto the surface too). the crochet was done using some wool boucle, a smooth cotton, some ribbon, a stretchy cotton/lycra yarn, and a hand-dyed one that looked like a cotton/acrylic mix.

the unusual openwork area where the fish's 'head' should be was created using a crochet cord of the kind that is usually worked as the foundation for Romanian point lace.

once i had created a length of cord that was about 8" long, i twisted it around onto itself and stitched it together wherever it touched. then i added rows of crochet slip stitches to the edges of the cord, to give it a 3-D edging. the tail was added last; just simple fringing, using 2 different flat ribbon yarns.

and before you ask the answer is...no, it isn't actually underwater...though i hoped that the background would help to give the photo that impression! i finished working on it yesterday, and then photographed it sitting on top of some pigface (carpobrotus - a succulent plant) that was growing wild on a sand dune near Monterey, CA; i thought it made great 'seaweed'!

Scrumble #39

Scrumble #39 actually started with a couple of small crochet doodlings that were made quite a while ago, but were only recently rediscovered amongst my stash - these were the little yellow area of Tunisian crochet near the centre of the scrumble, and the oval shape with spiral embellishment that is underneath it, near the bottom.

When I decided to use the yellow cotton Tunisian section in this scrumble, I knew that it would be too light a colour. Not wanting it to be too much of a contrast, I immediately wove a length of olive green ribbon yarn under the bars, so that it would blend better with all of the other autumn-tones yarns I was selecting for this piece.

I added a couple of knitted sections to both of these 'starter' pieces before sewing them together; then, once they were joined, I continued outwards in all directions, using tiny scraps of yarn to create other random motifs. Most of these small sections were finished off just because I was about to run out of that particular yarn.

The 2 green leaves and both of the flowers, plus the wool bullion circle (top left) and the round linen piece (top right, partly hidden under the bent bullion flower), were done last; these were all made separately before being attached (some with crochet slip stitches, the others sewn).

scrumble #38 - finally

I'm finally back to blogging my scrumbles again...and I definitely do intend to keep it up on a fairly regular basis for a while, at least over the next couple of months, until I reach #52 (a year's worth, even though it will have taken me more like 2 years to complete them all)

I really love creating small freeform pieces, so this one contains 2 small hearts, one knitted and the other crocheted from the same dark lilac twinkly man-made yarn. They were created separately, and both were surrounded by a row of crochet using a very soft and slinky recycled sari yarn - then they waited patiently for the rest of the scrumble to evolve.

The main, central part of the scrumble was made as one piece, with random sections added onto the initial red knitted area... then the hearts were joined on using crochet (slip stitches worked from the back to join the top one, but 4 short sections of chain stitch for the lower, pendant one)

Along with the twinkly stuff, some of the other yarns used include wool (a lovely chunky single), cotton (various mercerized), silk (a soft but still 'crunchy' handspun mulberry silk from India) and acrylic (an ancient find in my stash - must be over 20 years old)

Reds and oranges always seem to be really difficult to photograph well, but the detail should show up a bit better once you click on the thumbnail.

(...and I'm already working on #39, so it shouldn't be too long before I post here again)

Week 21

This week's scrumble is made with cotton, wool, silk, hemp, a few odds and ends of a Japanese paper yarn, and some man-made fibres. The rough hemp twine gives an interesting contrast to the other yarns, whether crocheted (as in the beaded flower on the right) or knitted (the sections at the top and left-hand edges). I am currently working on a much larger project that incorporates this yarn, and even though it is a little difficult to work with (a bit rough on the hands and overtwisted) I am enjoying seeing how it reacts to different stitches.

I was running a little bit late with this scrumble, but I almost have Week 22 done, too, so that one should be up by tomorrow!

week 16 scrumble

The yummy red and orange left-over yarns that I used in this little scrumble positively glow like molten lava. Again, the photo doesn't really do it justice!

Much of the background and the base of the 3D flower on the left are knitted; the stars, the other flower and the edging around the lip of the 3D flower are done in crochet.
Measures about 18cm (7") x 16cm (6.5")

week 3 scrumble

only black, white and red yarns were used in this week's scrumble...they were of varying thicknesses, and are mainly man-made fibres. a combination of knitting and crochet; parts of it are quite 3D -the red sparkly bauble is a crochet circle that has been drawn in over the top of another smaller bobble - the small bobble became the padding for the larger ball, which in turn was covered with white crochet mesh.
size approximately 20cm (8") x 15cm (6")

Week 1 - scrumble the first

Not quite the beginning of the new year yet, but this is my first weekly scrumble. Made using both knitting and crochet, it contains a few fine-weight handpainted yarns (including a silk chenille), along with other chenille, a bit of cotton, a few synthetics for glitz and some sock yarn. The crochet bullions were done in a single ply silk. The yellow and gold yarn outlining the bullion clusters was still in my stash, bought in Germany in the '80s.
size approximately 15cm (6") x 17cm (6.5")