IFFA Guild Challenge 2015

Within the next week or two, the International Freeform Fiberarts Guild will post the works of art for Challenge 2015 - Oceans: The Color of Water. More than 50 artists from around the world participate each year in the Challenge. I have been a participating member for the past few years.

Until the Challenge is published (book and website), I can't reveal my offering for this year, but I can show you parts of the process. When I first learned to spin, I bought some pale blue thick and thin handspun yarn and some same color bulky yarn from MamaJude in Pine Lake, Georgia. So, I picked it up and squeezed it a bit, visualizing this as sky reflecting the color of the ocean in the early morning. It called to be knitted; so I pulled out some very large knitting needles and began making sky. Here's the beginning of the sky in a herringbone pattern.

After a bit I decided that every ocean place needed sand and rocks. I just recently began spinning in earnest; so I had that marvelously overspun alpaca in a chocolate brown. It kinked and curled and twisted - perfect for gnarly rocks.

I finished a panel, looked at it, decided that this spiral sitting in the middle of it was detracting from the flow; so I unstitched the top. The bottom was all crocheted together; so I reluctantly picked up the scissors and began snipping - hoping to save much of the piece. 

That did not happen. Because this is freeform, I had crocheted round and over and under and forwards and backwards without regard to possible changes. This great junk pile is the result.

Suddenly four panels (16" x 20") were finished. I sewed them to latch hook rug backing and then stapled that to foam core and hung them over the sofa in my living room. That wall is BIG, and they were lost on it. More panels were needed.

In two days, I created a Pre-Dawn panel that lacks a few finishing touches.

Several parts have my hand-spun yarn: the top of the sky, the white clouds, the sun rays, and the rocks. I have spun some balanced yarn, but I didn't like it very much. I can buy balanced yarn. I can't buy the irregular yarns that give interest to my wall hangings.

The white clouds are tail-spun Border Leicester, firm and scrunchy and white. At the edge, unseen in this picture, is some hand-spun cream Suri alpaca. I've spun a bit more of the yarn like the sky to use as sun rays becoming gradually darker towards the edges. The top needs to be squared, and this piece will be ready to hang.

Tomorrow I'll begin another panel - maybe a twilight ocean panel?

Swatching and testing

Yarn that is very thick and very thin presents a problem for crocheters wanting to show off the beauty of the fiber. Do I want a tight weave and possibly lose some of the thin contrast? Can I use a very open stitch with a big hook to show every nuance? Should I just go ahead and knit it and forget about crochet?

I pondered these questions as I began work on my 2015 Challenge piece for the International Freeform Fiberart Guild -  a Yahoo group with affliate versions on Ravelry and Facebook. (Here's the link for the 2013 challenge, 2012 and previous, and 2014.) My Challenge pieces have been types of work that I've not done before; new stitches, new combinations, new inspiration, NEW. I like new, but, if you know me, you already know that. This year will be no different in that respect.

So, when Mama Jude of Mama Jude's Plant Dyed Stuff showed me the big hank of thick and thin blue yarn, I was excited to try this type of yarn. The sections are short, and I tried a swatch crocheting only the thin sections leaving the thick sections in great loops. It was beautiful but not what seems right for the 2015 theme: Ocean - the color of water. So, I changed to a size 30 hook and did some single crochet with it. Nix on that. Finally the size 15 knitting needles felt right, and I began a 30 stitch cast-on; after 20 stitches, I stopped and knit one row. Nice, but not quite right.

Back to Ravelry to look at uses of thick 'n thin yarn. The stitches used in  By Day, By Night scarf are interesting, and I've used them twice, but wait. My So-Called Scarf (found on Ravelry but the link doesn't work) produces a herringbone-like appearance; perhaps that will work. Ahhhhh. Slip one, knit one, PSSO. Answer phone. Where was I? Oops. Not there. Dang. dropped that stitch.

The herringbone stitch pattern pulls the yarn in so that my 20 stitches were suddenly 10 stitches short of my goal. After five rows and five interruptions, I decide that is a good look. But I also liked the crocheted shell pattern that I saw; maybe I should try it. Transition from knitting to crocheting and proceed with double crochet shells.

A combination of herringbone and shells! Mama Jude's indigo dyed thick 'n thin yarn has found a pattern.

(Note photographs and specific discussions of the work itself are deferred to post publication in June.)