Mathematically Patterned

Have been working on a scarf design all day and have been playing with the idea of working it along certain mathematical patterns. Anyone who's ever read the "Da Vinci Code" is probably pretty familiar with the Fibonacci sequence and its also surprising how often I've seen it come up in knitting magazines when discussing colour work. So its probably no surprise that I started playing with it as an idea. If you use a number pattern then you can apparently get away with all sorts of irregular striped patterns without them looking odd. This is especially true of Fibonacci numbers as they are replicated in nature, so our eye is used to them and is designed to find beauty in them.

I got to playing with ideas and my first thought was to knit up a simple striped pattern as follows:

• Row 1 -      colour A -1
• Row2         Colour B -1
• Rows 3 - 4  Colour C -2
• Rows 5-7    colour B -3
• Rows 8 -12 Colour C - 5 and so on up to a block of 21 rows and then reverse the pattern

But I also wanted to work in some cables - and wondered if I could do c2 F for 2 row bands, C3B for 3 row bands etc but the result was scrappy and I was unhappy with the result.
So then I thought about lace and cables - a cable band alternating with a garter st lace band but again it just didn't seem to work out. Maybe I'm too picky but it seemed that combining complex colour banding and complex patterns just made it all too disjointed and busy. So after unripping it again I chose 2 numbers from the sequence and a random number devised a pattern that seems to work:

StSt 9 sts, moss 3, StSt 9, then on 16th row (with K rows as evens)  C9f, moss 3, C9B, work another 16 rows even and C9B, moss 3, C9F. It seems to sit together well but would welcome some thoughts please :-)

I love the way the cables actually give the scarf a sinuous form almost like an hour glass figure too! A great way to show off your curves!

Embroidering Peacocks

I've been playing with embroidery recently, which isn't bad for someone who nearly failed their Girl Guides embroidery badge! I cross stitch and have done black work in the past but wanted to do something more creative and artistic. Plus I didn't really want to use waste canvas on the fabric I'd chosen - a lovely fresh green! So I found a stylised peacock feather design in a book and did my level best to sketch it out - not being known for my drawing skills I decided a peacock feather was fairly idiot proof :-) I also knew that I could adjust the design as I went as I can "paint" with yarns and threads even though I can't manage to paint with the actual stuff.

Then I had to learn the stitches and as much as we all malign Reader's Digest some of their books are useful and I'd tracked down their Complete Guide to Needlework - covers everything from knitting to very fine embroidery - in a charity shop. I've already used it for knitting and crochet patterns so I decided I would give their embroidery instructions a go. The outline was fairly simple holbein stitch - running stitch that comes back on itself to "fill in the gaps. I then had to decide how to fill in the "eye" of the feather. I can do blanket / buttonhole stitch and knew that would give me a feathery effect so did that for the outer layer. But then came the middle - which needed to be feathery but more dense - so I had a look through the book and found some interesting filling stitches and chose to try Wave stitch - you can see a beautifully clear example at Needlework.craftgossip which was much easier than it looked, although mine had to follow a curve! I wanted the centre of the eye to be as "eye catching" (groan) as possible so thought that beading it would be a great idea. I secured each seed bead with a double back stitch.

The real challenge came when I wanted to do the feather tendrils  coming off the main "stalk". I have always struggled to make sense of  feather stitch, which seemed to suggest itself from the name and this time was no different! I just could not find a way to do it so was well and truly stuck. I turned the page and found another "dread" stitch - Fly Stitch, you can see an example at Sharon B's Dictionary. But this time the pictures acutally made sense and after a few rude words I was away!! I chose to do some tendrils in green and others in a greeny blue and was really impressed with the effect I achieved. And one of the beauty's of free style embroidery, where you're looking for a naturalistic look is that it doesn't have to be 100% uniform, so its ideal for working on non-counted fabrics and also ideal for the slightly less uniform embroiderer too.

Have listed the completed item today in my Folksy Shop:

Its also the start of November Sparks - the latest daily listings club @ Folksy and looking at today's listing I've found others who are posting along a "Peacock Theme":

Stars and Scars have a lovely black and white peacock brooch:

 

Lonely Hearts are offering this lovely peacock shades clutch purse:

Unique Beaded Gems have a lovely peacock blues necklace on offer

Also thinking peacocks - my Nan was really superstitious about Peacock feathers and refused to let me bring them into her home, even though I used to avidly collect them as a child whenever we visited anywhere that had peacocks! My Mum definitely didn't share her fears as she used to love them too.... So my question is, do any of you have any superstitions about peacock feathers?

Mrs Beeton as I live and breath :-)

Well here it is  - the completed Mrs Beeton Scarf - I've really fallen in love with it and am loathe to give it away.... which is probably a common feeling for so many of us crafters. But.... I do have a secret supply of some beautiful yarn I got in a sale at Hobbycraft that is for me to make something special for ME for a change... so as long as I have some eyelash yarn in my stash to co-ordinate with it, I'll soon have my own :-)  Will also be publishing the pattern as a PDF very soon so that other charity knitters can make it for their own causes.

The scarf is beautifully modelled by my daughter Lucy, who was trying very hard to look serious! :

And for those interested this is the detail of the pattern:

It makes a beautifully soft fabric with gently curving waves along the edges