CROCHETING ADVENTURES

I learned to crochet many years after starting to knit.  Another aunt - sister of the two knitters - lived some way away so I didn't see her very often.  I inherited two of her fantastic tablecloths.  This is a corner of one of them:

My crocheting started with baby clothes and blankets and progressed to adult garments.  I saved up all sorts of leftovers of yarn, bought some in charity shops and even used some new stuff to make these two jackets.  

The pattern came from 'The Crochet Sweater Book' by Sylvia Cosh published in 1987.  I bought the book some years later, but it took several more years to collect all the yarn and I finished the first one in about 2003.  When I came to do the blue one, I realised that I had misread the pattern first time around, so the colours of the diamonds are in a different format.  I still wear them and have been stopped in the street by admirers.

I'm still crocheting things like small brooches and these two mathematical objects:

A stellated dodecahedron (diameter of ahout 13cm)

An attempt at a symmetric hyperbolic plane - about 15cm in diameter - see a fascinating book by Daina Taimina - 'Crocheting Adventures with Hyperbolic Planes'  The book won a prize in 2010 - the oddest book title of the year (it beat Collectible Spoons of the Third Reich). 

JEWELLERY

Over the last few years I've had various attempts at making jewellery.  In his forties, my father gave up the family business (a fruit stall in Petticoat Lane) and made his living by making cheap costume jewellery.  I eventually overcame my dislike of jewellery although have never had my ears pierced and, many years later, I'm surprised to find myself dabbling in jewellery-making.

SILVER BROOCHES & PENDANTS

I made these two brooches and two pendants at a class at the Midland Arts Centre (MAC).  The pendant in the bottom right is made from twisted wire (my father did a lot of that when he made wires for pierced ears) and offcuts from the circular pendant.  The 'chain' of the circular pendant is crocheted silver embroidery thread.   

KNITTED WIRE & BEADS

EMBROIDERED & BEADED BROOCHES

I like to use loads of bead with fabrics, including handmade felt.  The top left brooch was made at an Embroiderers' Guild away weekend at Westhope College in Shropshire and the bottom right one at Jacqui Lawrence's class at MAC.

WOVEN BEADING

Two woven bead 'purse necklaces' and a beaded necklace using handmade

silver beads and bought seed and larger beads,

 METALWORK

Two pendants made of annealed aluminium from drinks cans, patterned by denting with a pencil and machined-stitched onto black felt.  I made these at another Birmingham Embroiderers' Guild weekend at Westhope College.  In the top right-hand corner is an enamelled metal brooch made at a workshop at the RBSA in Birmingham