Colour Palette for Freeform Project

It is so rainy these days and so I felt like mixing very bright colours ... psychedelic colours ... for my next freeform crochet project. Because of the flamboyant nature of the material I think the patterns should be as simple as possible and mostly flat. We will see how it turns out.
Here are the first pieces:

The Art of Recycling: Evelyn Roth

Since I discovered how many ways there are to recycle and upcycle any kind of fabric and a lot more stuff which is commonly regarded as trash I have started to collect a lot of things, mostly textiles and I enjoy turning them into pieces of Wearable Art or any kind of useful thing. I thought initially this was a quite recent phenomenon born out of a new awareness of the absurdity of consumerism, but of course there is nothing new under the sun if you look at the work of Evelyn Roth in the seventies. She has published a book on several recycling techniques for textiles and even more unusual materials like leather, fur and feathers.



More than fascinating I found the section on crocheting with discarded videotape.
Videotape is a very fascinating material, absolutely sturdy and it looks very elegant as it is shimmering and black. I have tons of old VHS cassettes, but the material seems to be highly toxic and so I will probably throw them away with a heavy heart.

Evelyn Roth's Work is very inspiring. She looks at clothing as a kind of scupture which was very forward thinking for that time.



Stunningly beautiful are the Wearable Edibles and other works of art. Look at them here.

If I Needed a Big Fence it'd Be a ...

.... LACE Fence for sure!
Functionality and beauty in one. The combination of industrial wire and lace compositons is thrilling. Hostility versus kindness, industrial versus craft.

Introducing a patch of embroidered wire within industrial fencing, Dutch design house Demakersvan combine the small and sensitive with the powerful, large and industrial. Lace fence is a customizable high-end metal fabric for outdoor and indoor use, suitable for anything from fencing, staircase railings, room dividers, to balcony railings and building facades. Lace Fence is available in two types of wire with an outside wire diameter of 2.5 or 3mm in mesh width 40x40mm or 50x50mm. Available in galvanized iron or PVC coated, both suitable for indoor and outdoor use.


Lace Fence is a design of Dutch Design House Demakersvan.
Find: here.

Subversive crocheting: Joana Vasconcelos

This was love on the first sight. Joana Vasconcelos, born 1971 in Paris, works and lives in Lisboa, Portugal. Wonderful 3-D, room filling crochet work between beauty and absurdity.



Good taste or kitsch? Personally I love the painted faience ceramic by late Rafael Bordalo Pinheiro covered with handmade cotton crochet.

Everyday objects transformed. Teapot from lacy wrought iron.


Gorgeous. A giant crocheted tablecloth handmade by 500 persons.

All pictures from here. Look and get enchanted.

Love Miake's Crazy Knitting

For all those knitting addicts out there a few inspirations from the Fall 10 collection of Issey Miyake. Finally some wild knit stitches. The world needs more!

Picture credits here.

Colour Magic and a Love Letter

Sometimes my friends give me clothes they don't like anymore, that makes me happy as I do not want to fill landscape with even more waste. This time the colours were not my choice but the size was perfect. After dying with two simplicol-packages, one in dark brown and one in violet, see how cute they became! An orange dress turned chocolate brown, a very flashy turquoise jacket is now the most lovely petrol. The blouses have all different shades of brown according to the colour they had before; plus there are a pair of saved kid's pants and a couple of doileys for tone-sur-tone embellishment. So many new garments for only 12 €!
Another thing made me happy this morning - a sweet love letter from my husband on our vintage kitchen board. I love you too, Amine!

Clothes Make-Up

Today an easy and very rewarding DIY project: I had a few clothes that could`t be worn anymore; baby trousers with a big stain from chlorine, a hoodie and a pair of jeans with a couple of spots. I machine-dyed them dark brown, and - tadaa -
the baby trousers are like new, the spots on the jeans invisible and the fainted hoodie looks ok now. There were only some tiny white spots left which I covered with a cute Russian doll patch and a flower from the same fabric:
Three new clothes for 6 €. Good bargain.