The International Freeform Fibre Arts Guild Book 2010

The International Freeform Fibre Arts Guild Book, 'Somewhere in My World' is now available on www.blurb.com

I had said in my previous post, that the monies raised will go to the Mercy Corps, INTFF fund, but they are also going to go towards KIVA www.kiva.org. Kiva's mission is to connect people, through lending, for the sake of alleviating poverty. A fantastic way to give money directly to the people who need it.

"The 2010 International Freeform Fiberarts Guild show, "Somewhere in My World", includes 61 freeform fiber artists from all around the globe.
 The artists were given the choice of creating one freeform piece interpreting the theme any way they chose using any materials and any techniques.

The artists were not restricted to scrumbles and many of the pieces are wearable art and sculptural as well. None of the artists saw each other's pieces until the online show was published."

The books cost €24,95 for paperback, €35.95 for Hardback (Dust Jacket) , and €38.95 for Hardback (Imagewrap). Postage to Ireland costs €5.99. You can pay by PayPal.

It's a lovely book, full of fantastic pictures, and little thoughts, poems, etc, lovingly put together by Myra Wood. And it's for a good cause


http://www.blurb.com/bookstore/detail/1390468

International Freeform Fibrearts Guild

SOS - A Crochet Meladrama

I started to make flowers and scrolls, practise my Irish Crochet. I am in love with scrolls at the moment. They are my favourite motif, and while making a few, playing around with them, I noticed they looked like letters, so I tried to turn them into letters.

At the back of my mind, was the piece for this year’s International Freeform FibreArt Guild online exhibition. The theme for this year was picked just after the awful Haiti earthquake. "Somewhere in My World". A reaction to the terrible devastation the earthquake caused, but also to the community spirit that can rise from disasters like this. The monies raised from the sale of the exhibition book will go towards Mercy Corps Haiti Earthquake Response. (You can donate here http://www.mercycorps.org/fundraising/intff)

The theme was decided in January. Since then, the world has had many far-reaching global events take place, worldwide recession, volcanos, oil spills, floods, droughts, etc. I was also going through some personal distress of my own at the time. This made me feel isolated and small. I couldn’t help myself, I couldn’t help the world.

So, I took the theme literally. Somewhere in my world, there is a person, a child, a family, a population under duress, emotional, physical, economic. Somewhere in my world someone is saying SOS, whether it is silently cried or shouted out. This has been one of the hardest pieces I have ever made, because of the thoughts that came with it. It also made me think of it's history, of lace, of my cultural history. How beautiful things come from poverty. The need to create beautiful crafts, in order to sell them to get food to feed a family.

I was beginning to be weighted down, by a little bit of lace. I thought I would never get the idea to work, the pieces made, the whole damn thing finished, before I had a nervous breakdown. But then, as the piece came together, so did my thoughts on hope. In each individual motif of antique crochet lace, in each stitch is hope. Hope, that they can feed their families, buy medicine, live their lives. That is what an SOS call is. It's a cry of hope, to be saved, save us, save me. My personal hope, and my hope for the world. First there was fear, and then there was hope. My little piece of lace became a distress call.

Then, to top it off, I had to write a little bit of blurb about my piece. And I needed to do it without coming across as a complete loony, overwhelmed by lace-making and sailors stories.You can read it here http://www.freeformcrochet.com/2010/Pages/orla.html

On a happy, hope, kind of note, this piece managed to win me 4 tickets to The Knitting and Stitching Show! It was part of a Radio 1 'Knit Your Way Out of Recession'' competition. Talk about timing...

(apologies for the font mess, blogger being anti-font at the moment)

Sea, Sand and Cabin Crochet

It's been a crazy month, I have moved house and caught up with lots of old friends (more than my kidneys and liver really approve of). I'm not going into detail, but it's suffice to say, I haven't been up to much stitchery over the past month. I have some news, some fun, some well, disappointing. My Yarnaholics Programme is going well, (but I'll admit I did fall off the wagon once), have even come up with another rule, but, well, that's another blog post...

So, I have completely given into the call of the sea, and have moved back to the fishing port I loved for many years. So, in keeping with traditional/granny buzz I seem to be on at the moment, teacosy's and what not, and my fascination with all things boats, the only project I have worked on for the past while is Canal Cabin Crochet. Possibly the longest I have ever spent on making one item, one pattern. And although I did get into it at the end, for most of it, I found it downright torture.

A few months back I came across Canal Cabin Crochet, the tradition of crocheting edgings and trimmings for barges and narrow boats. I have never done filet crochet, nor had any immediate plans to, (too much pattern following for me), but the pattern for a little net curtain for a porthole of a barge, was just too much to resist. I got a few lovely patterns from Elizabeth Byrant of www.englishcrafts.co.uk. I don't have a boat, probably never will, and didn't have any round windows, so I started to make the traditional lace edging. As I said earlier, torture. It's only about 15 lines of a pattern, repeated ad nauseam until the desired length. I had to re-write the pattern into my own language, and even then, after doing a yard or so, I still couldn't remember it. Filet crochet is tough! Then to top it all off, I decided to move house, and had to add another dozen or so inches to make it fit the new house. The patterns were well written, had nice charts , I am just so crap at patterns! I know I say it all the time. Thought by the end, when I did get the hand of remembering the pattern, I did begin to enjoy the making of the piece. Well, it's finished, it's in the kitchen window of my new house, and this is what it looks like.

Pictures aren't great, but it took me long enought to hang it up, not taking it down to get a better pic!! I actually could get into this filet crochet thing. There are such lovely patterns out there, just have to plan on not moving house while making another piece.But, you'll never guess what my new house has, a round bathroom window, so guess the next project could be a circular net-curtain after all..