Crochet « The Blue Brick | Photography and Handcrafts by Shireen Nadir

Posts Tagged 'Crochet'

Oh, yes I did.

Published February 3, 2011 Crochet , Photography 12 Comments
Tags: 7D, Canon, Crochet, photography, Tanis, yarn

Meet the new baby.

This is the Canon 7D. Swaddled in TFA Grape. Yes, I said swaddled. Because nothing says love like TFA yarn. No Patons cop-out for my camera!

I crocheted a camera cosy. I’m not sure if this qualifies me as uber geek… or just incredibly lame. Maybe they’re the same thing. Nonetheless, I’m pretty proud of my new camera and it’s protective Canon-mitten =oD

There is a reason, besides just reaching for hitherto unheard of levels of crafting madness; it protects her from the elements, and allows me to tuck in a few hand-warmers around the battery casing which extends the life of lithium batteries in the cold. Really – it works. I’m taking her snow shoeing in Tobermory in a few weeks, so I’ll need it.

While I’m at it I’ll give you another little nugget of wisdom – if you’re taking your camera out in elements of dubious merit (rain, rainforest, fog etc.) then do this first: Go to a shoe store, ask them for a bag of the silica gel packs (most stores throw away a ton of these things every day) and pack a bunch of them into your camera case. Even if you’re just moving in from the cold and to a warm room, and you’re worried about condensation inside of the camera body – try this trick.

I can’t take credit for this nugget of wisdom – when I told the people at Henrys that I would be taking the camera canoeing up the Amazon river and did they have any suggestions, they could only (with sad faces), wish me good luck. When I mentioned it casually to someone at Mountain Equipment Co-Op they said ‘Hmmm… I wonder if this would work?’ and took me to the shoe department. Well, that person was a genius and I have them to thank for successfully taking a V.1. Rebel, plastic casing and all, from the Andes to the Amazon with absolutely no problem.

I left openings in the cosy for all important things, like the tripod foot and the dial for changing shooting modes, settings and of course, the shutter button.

The grody little boogly face on the right was given to me (and my 50D) in Madrid by a very nice girl who came up to me at random and gave it to me for good luck. I took some very fine shots in Spain, so I suppose it worked out for me =o) I’ve kept it on the camera ever since.

Many of the cameras other settings are accessed through the back LCD – so I didn’t need to leave anything else free.

It’s quite the engineering feat if you think about it. And yes, I’m talking about the cosy and not the camera, which we can assume is an amazing piece of equipment and which I love dearly. I’ve been a Canon shooter for over 12 years, and this, my latest appropriation, is a pretty damn amazing camera!

My 50D is being gifted to my beautiful friend Yvette, who I’ve known nearly all of my life and who is moving on to new adventures in New Brunswick next month. I can’t wait to see what beautiful work she does with it!

Yarn Swift!

Published December 30, 2010 Crochet , Knitting 1 Comment
Tags: Crochet, knitting, tanis fiber arts, yarn swift

Santa was very good this year! Among many lovely things (like girls-night-out tickets from my best friend, and lots of gift certificates to the Purple Purl!) I got two absolute killer gifts:

1. Tito got us tickets to see the Lion King! Mufasssaaaaa!!!

2. A yarn swift at last! A lovely wooden umbrella one. In one evening I believe I went through every single skein I had and wound it up. I even ran out of skeins and started re-balling stuff just because it looked messy.

You might notice a small bottle of mezcal amidst my yarn arsenal. There’s a reason for this – and it’s not the one you think! 20 Years ago I was given that bottle by my uncle Len because I was fascinated with the worm in the bottle. Throughout my teenage years many people (including me) were dared to open and drink it, but it never happened (probably a good thing). Now, after all these years I’ve finally discovered the perfect use for it!

See ? I still need to feed the yarn with my left hand a bit, and to keep it from burning, the bottle is just perfect! It shall stay with my swift from now on. Feel free to bite my tequila technique should you ever be in search of the perfect tool for feeding yarn to a ball winder.

I love the way yarn looks when it’s all balled up! These two are both alpaca skeins from Rivendell Alpacas, and were dyed in my first Kool Aid experiments. I can’t believe how nice they look! You’d think I knew what I was doing.

Speaking of mad skillz check out my lovely line up of un-skeined Tanis Fiber Arts yarn – 6 lovely balls of the Sunset colourway – the first ball is halfway though in my first ever sweater! It’s been a while coming; I have a feeling it’ll be ready in time for warm weather ;) It’s a simple top-down cardigan, I’m pretty excited to see how it turns out.

Mmmm… Yarn. I’m such a nerd, but I still can’t wait til the Purple Purl opens so I can go spend those gift certificates on more things to wind up!

Deadly Assassin…

Published December 23, 2010 Crochet 3 Comments
Tags: Amigurumi, Crochet, doll, ninja

My Sensei (Karate instructor)’s daughter is about 3 years old. Now 3 is old enough to have your own deadly assassin ;o) For Christmas I’ve made her a little ninja doll, using the Japanese technique of amigurumi.

Amigurumi (編みぐるみ^?, lit. knitted stuffed toy) is the Japanese art of knitting or crocheting small stuffed animals. The word is derived from a combination of the Japanese words ami, meaning crocheted or knitted, and nuigurumi, meaning stuffed doll. – Taken from wikipedia.

Look at the depth in those eyes! Clearly, they have seen many battles.

All deadly weaponry has been embroidered right onto the body, to avoid creating any choking hazards.

A photo of the work in progress.

She’s a weapon of mass destruction alright, I can already tell.

I couldn’t distract her long enough to take photos with the good camera, but I managed to snap these quickies as she was guarding my windowsill.

I haven’t made many dolls, I’m pretty new to the technique of Amigurumi, but I had a lot of fun doing this and I hope she loves it!

Yarn Bells

Published December 7, 2010 Crochet , Knitting , Pottery , Yarn Bowls and Bells 4 Comments
Tags: Crochet, knitting, yarn, yarn bell, yarn bowl

New yarn bells out of the kiln today! Two of them are in rustic blues, browns and greens and one of them was a custom order for a lovely lady that sent me pictures of the fabric in her sunroom and asked me to match it for her.

This was my first time trying to match colours using underglaze – I think more blues and greens could have been used but the resulting bell is still very pretty. I’ve also learned a few things about the behaviour of oxides during firing – a similar bell in purples came out patchy while the yellow in this one is nice and strong.

Pre-fire – looks pretty much like post fire. A nice, predictable result.

Another view showing the plate.

This is the purple one I was talking about – you can see there is a double coat of strong purple on it.

And here it is after glaze firing – looks pretty inconsistent. The girls at the Purl still liked it but I had that enemy of all potters – the preconception of what it would look like out of the kiln. I will be experimenting in the new year with other purples, it’s the Purple Purl after all ;o)

These bells are also fresh out of the kiln – and are done in earthier tones.

Another view showing the plate.

These bells (not these particular ones but other lovely bells) are available at The Purple Purl on Queen West here in Toronto.

Don’t live in Toronto? I do have an Etsy Store where I don’t typically stock pottery because of the challenges of shipping. If you would love one of these yarn bells however, please email me your mailing address and I will get a shipping quote for you. There is no purchase commitment to request a shipping quote. If you approve the quote then I will bundle it up very carefully and send it your way =o)

Some more of my beauties

I call this one ‘the Bishop’

I also make yarn bowls =o)

The Evolution of the Wooly Muggeth

Published October 26, 2010 Crochet , Knitting , Pottery 5 Comments
Tags: Crochet, knitting, pottery

When Kris and I were in Hawaii, (what a strange place to think of cold-weather drinks) I came up with an idea for combining two of my loves into a cute, comfy drinking vessel that would feel cozy in your hands when filled with hot yummy drinks. I came back to discover that the concept of the knitted mug cosy had been done, and done, and done. Undaunted I determined to evolve the idea into something fresh and fun and unique, and so was born the wooly muggeths.

Some work went into figuring out the shape to throw, I settled on a mug with extruded rings at the top and bottom, to give the cosy a place to sit and keep it from sliding off. I also went through quite the adventure trying to find the perfect yarn match for each glaze. I wanted each mug to be different. This purple-blue one is paired with a skein of Stormy by Tanis – a match made in heaven!

Crocheted cosy in hand the next challenge was how to keep the mug from sliding through your grip and onto the floor – even with the ridges the cosy was sliding around. My genius friend Manda suggested sewing no-slip to the inside, worked like a charm! After test-driving the concept with dollar store no-slip drawer liners I went to Canadian Tire and invested in high quality, colour-matched no-slip. Sounds silly, I know, but it really does make a difference when you use a good colour, especially if you use a pattern where you can see through the occasional stitch (as you can on the triple crochets in this one).

For the second pair I decided to try stranded knitting for the first time – and I loved it =o) I wanted to leave a clear strip of the glaze on this piece so I purposely left the cosy an inch shy of the actual circumference.

Pair number 3 took a while to find the right yarn, but I ended up settling on a varigated yarn from Liberty that I bought on a whim at the Purple Purl. The colourway is very pretty and I thought it matched the mug well. I added clasps purchased at the KW knitters fair to finish off the look.

And how do they work you ask? They are lovely, when I filled mine up with hot chocolate the warmth seeped through the clay body and into the cosy. There are no handles and the mugs are definitely comfort-sized, so it’s a two-hander, but a warm and wooly tea cup is the perfect thing to wrap your hands around when coming in from the cold =o) These lovelies will be available at my show next month!

Photography – Yvette models my work =o)

Published October 2, 2010 Crochet , Knitting , Photography 2 Comments
Tags: Crochet, inspira, knitting, photography, scarf

I finally got around to photographing some of my finished work, and what could make a better shot than getting a lovely (and patient) girlfriend to model my work for me!

Yvette is modelling my Lacy V fingerless gloves and slouch hat in ocean blue merino. She’s holding one of my Wooly Teacups in purple and blue glaze with a crocheted cosy in gorgeous stormy hand-dyed yarn by Tanis Fiber Arts. She’s also wearing a diagonal lace scarf in turquoise lace-weight yarn.

She also helped me show off my Horseshoe Lace fingerless gloves and slouch hat, while holing one of my 4-colour glazed mugs.

And last, Horseshoe cable fingerless gloves in soft grey bamboo.

All of these items, and many more knitted, crocheted and ceramic pieces, as well as one of a kind handmade jewelry and original photography will be available for sale at my Christmas Gift Show this November 24th. More information coming soon!

You threw off my groove…

Published September 8, 2010 Knitting , Travels 1 Comment
Tags: Crochet, knitting, photography, yarn

This past weekend Tito and I drove out to the beautiful town of Merrickville, ON – a town dedicated to crafters of all kinds. They have several pottery and glass blowing studios, a brilliant artist who carves gourds and a metal smithy.

On the way we had an unexpected treat – we passed a llama and alpaca farm. On a hunch Tito turned the car around and went back to see if they sold their own wool and would let us have a look around, and they did! They were very welcoming to us, and I ended up falling in love with one chocolate and one white alpaca, so I bought 200 grams of each. I might try my hand at dying the white one myself.

We’ll definitely be going back that way – while in Merrickville we signed up for a glass blowing workshop in a few weeks – I’ve never tried it, I’m so excited!

I’ve been inspired to find and visit other wool farms in Southern Ontario now, it’s a great way to get all-natural wool, with the lowest carbon footprint, and as a bonus you get to meet some lovely people (and animals). Below are some pics from our adventure, I’m pretty sure those llamas are gossiping about Tito in one of the pics ;o)

Look at these cuties ;o)