Showing posts with label home decor. Show all posts
Showing posts with label home decor. Show all posts

Monday 29 April 2013

Now Your Off-the-Wall Knitted Efforts Can Go on the Wall


It can require some doing to find some attractive art work to hang on your walls. Original art is very expensive, and inexpensive prints and posters can look chintzy. It's one of those Martha Stewart-type decorating rules that framed personal photos should not go on the walls but should sit on the furniture, and I agree it's a rule that upgrades one's décor, because family photos almost never look really artistic.

But your walls needn't remain bare until you can afford original artwork. One way to go is to expand your ideas as to what constitutes art, because you can hang up anything you like so long as you find it interesting and attractive. The question to ask yourself is, simply, "Do I really enjoy looking at this?" In my front entrance way, I've hung up a wooden checkerboard that my father (a very talented and award-winning woodworker) made for me. A friend of mine has an antique post office window hanging over the couch in her living room, and I've heard of people mounting a large tree branch over their dining room table (they decorate it with lights at Christmas), or mounting and framing collections of small items such as buttons, or making collages out of personal momentoes.

Another option is to make your own art, and don't think that you have to be an accomplished painter, sketch artist, or photographer for this to be an option. If you can make anything beautiful that can conceivably be hung on the wall, go for it. I have a little stained glass butterfly hanging over the doorway in my bathroom, and I'm always surprised by the number of my guests who come out of the bathroom and immediately comment on it. In my front hallway, across from the checkerboard, I have hanging a framed counted cross-stitch of a magnolia that I made. It has approximately 29,000 stitches in it and took me two and a half years to stitch, so I had it professionally framed and hung it by the front door so I could see it every damn day of my life and think, "That's right. TWENTY-NINE THOUSAND STITCHES."

People have been framing needlework such as embroidery and needlepoint for many years, and now crocheting and knitting are getting into the picture. I ran across the picture above on the net a few weeks ago, and was very impressed. Finally, someone found a contemporary use for doilies! The collection looked so sharp I made a mental note to myself to find some comparable shots of framed knitting and write a post about it.





There were fewer examples of framed knitting on the net. Knitting tends to be less purely decorative than doilies are, so it might take a little more imagination to produce a decorative knitting piece, but it can be done. The blogger at Crafty Yuppie made this piece for an art show at work (and had a bit of time convincing her co-workers that knitting could be art), and I thought it quite lovely.





I found this piece, which is about contrasting the colour and texture of the knitting, in the My Mountain Studio shop on Art Fire, and it's striking.

This is a new direction to explore, and I'm sure most knitters could make a beautiful collection of knitted pieces that would suit their homes and become the admiration of all their house guests. You might even have swatches on hand you could hang up by the end of today, or say, a lace scarf that you can't finish because you ran out of yarn, that would be a perfect candidate for framing.

One important factor in knitted art's success is that the pieces should be framed to a professional standard, because a good quality framing job really adds to the aesthetic viability of a piece. I can't do framing myself and professional framing is one of my few extravagances in decorating, but so worth it. Especially when it comes to a piece of needlework that has TWENTY-NINE THOUSAND STITCHES in it.

Thursday 21 March 2013

All Poufed Up


Back in 2007/2008, Netherlands artist and designer Christien Meindertsma (who brainstormed and coordinated the 500 sweaters flash mob) designed and created these poufs for Design Within Reach, knitting each one by hand using hand-felted yarn and giant needles. The poufs cost $800 to $1,600 each, which won't seem unreasonable when you consider the amount of work involved. However, we knitters happily have another option than laying out over a thousand dollars on what is essentially a large floor pillow: we can make them ourselves. Ravelry has a number of pouf patterns available.





The poufs look like the perfect thing for a small child to sit on, and in the right space these poufs could look fun and warm and even whimsical, like the lemon above. I found some others that looked like various other fruits and included stems, but I'm not sure you'll want to go that way and risk getting, say, a pumpkin stem wedged in the last place you ever wanted a pumpkin stem wedged.

Coming up: Look for the Knitty Spring/Summer 2013 review tomorrow morning!

Wednesday 13 March 2013

It's Curtains for Your Latest Knitting Project


I've sewn many a set of curtains, but I never thought of knitting window treatments. Now that I have, it actually seems like a sound idea for sheer-type window treatments: they can be knitted in any size, colour, and texture you wish, and it will drape beautifully. The pattern for the picture above is available on KnitPicks.





Here's another knitted curtain pattern from Joanne Seiff on Ravelry. There's no need for a knitted curtain to be white lace. It can be any colour you like, and have a modern and minimalist yet interesting texture.





Here's another window treatment idea from Lion Brand. This one doesn't involve actual knitting, and just requires a novelty yarn, beads, and a lot of knotting and tying.





This, of course, is filet crochet, not knitting, but if you want a sheer with any kind of image in it, filet crochet allows for endless possibilities.

Coming up: Look for a review of the Knit n' Style Summer 2013 issue tomorrow!

Wednesday 19 December 2012

A Run of Christmas Stockings


The Christmas stocking in the Tangled Holiday 2012 issue that I reviewed yesterday made me want to do a Christmas stocking post. There are loads and loads of knitted Christmas stockings on the web (a search for "Christmas stocking" produced 30 pages of hits on Ravelry alone), so I'll just post a selection of a few of the ones I like the most.

These fair isle stockings are pretty and striking, and would be a great way to use up odds and ends of yarn.





After ten minutes spent scrolling down through a lot of very similar stockings, these really popped out at me. The designs, from Judy Tollefson, are beautiful and original and yet still look Christmassy. They are by far the best designed stockings of any I've included in this post.





These are eye-catching and fun and colourful, and the kind of thing a child will love, and yet are still attractive to adult eyes.





I like the simplicity of these ones, but if you make a set for your household, you might want to put names on them to avoid potential hair-pulling arguments as to whose stocking is whose early Christmas morning.





A simple and classic pattern from Red Heart. Though the shape does look a little rough.





One thing to remember if you're going with patterns like these is that you don't have to make it in the usual Christmas colours. The snowflakes and the fact that it's, you know, a stocking hanging from your mantlepiece in December, will keep it looking Christmas-appropriate. This could look good in any contrasting colourway, and two colour-stranded knitting like this is a good chance to pair some self-striping yarn with an ivory or a cream.





These are cute. I can imagine a whole array of these for the family, because you could put a different Christmas symbol on each one: an angel, a candy cane, a Santa, a snowman, etc.





Love the subtle colourways and great design of these Scandinavian stockings.





Very pretty snowflake stocking. This must be the first time I ever actually liked anything knitted with glitter yarn.





Really clever design on this one: a classic Scandinavian pattern adapted to include holly berries, and the colourway is non-traditional yet still very Christmassy.





Very pretty holly stocking.





After all the above, I'm rather abashed to be saying that my own handmade Christmas stocking is not knitted, but needlepointed from a kit I bought at Value Village for $6. The knitted stockings tend to look droopy when empty and bulge out of shape whenever they have anything in them, while the needlepoint, being stitched on canvas, holds its shape. Alas, it will not stretch to hold more goodies the way the knitted stockings do, but then my stocking is purely decorative anyway. I live alone and Santa skips my house.

Monday 17 December 2012

Have a Ball!


Knitted Christmas tree baubles seem like such a great idea. They're a good way to recycle scratched glass Christmas tree baubles, or alternatively, if you wanted to just stuff them, they'd be child-safe. They'd be a good way to use whatever odds and ends of yarn you have lying around. They could be knitted up so quickly and they should be quite durable. And there's so much scope in their design. You can make them in any colour or style you like, and add beads, lacework, Aran cables, argyle or fair isle patterns, Christmas symbols or phrases or whatever you please. Here are some examples, with links to patterns when available. It would be pretty easy to take the basic pattern and adapt it to achieve whatever look you wanted.

The photo above is of the 7 Colorwork Christmas Ornaments, designed by Meg Hollar. The pattern is available for $5(USD).





This is the Luxury Christmas Ball, designed by Daniela Johannsenova. The pattern is available for free.





These designs are the Julekuler patterns, by Arne & Carlos, and are published in their book 55 Christmas Balls to Knit: Colorful Festive Ornaments.





This is the Deck the Balls design, by Sonia Ruyts. It's a free pattern.





This Sheep Balls pattern, by Dona Carruth, is simply too cute. It's a free pattern.





The Deck the Balls with Aran, by Kelly Jensen makes each ball look like it's wearing its own little sweater. This pattern is available for $6(USD).





The Knitted Lace Ball, by Judy Gibson, is delicately beautiful and doesn't even require an inner bauble. It's a free pattern.





The Fuzzy Christmas Baubles design, by Fran Welch, give us a good way to use up some leftover kid mohair. This is a free pattern.

Sunday 9 December 2012

Show Those Neighbourhood Crocheters Who's Boss


If you really live to knit and want the whole neighbourhood to know it, you might make this wreath to hang on your front door this Christmas. The instructions are on the Styrofoam site, which makes sense as this product requires forty-one Styrofoam balls of assorted sizes.

The wreath is kind of cute in its way, though rather too kitschy to work in any but a very country and craftsy-style décor. I think I'd only make this wreath if I owned a yarn store and was preparing a Christmas display for the shop's front window. Since I have neither a country-style décor nor a yarn store, I'll be sticking with my existing wreath, which is a traditional affair of artificial pine needles, pine cones, cranberries, raspberries, winter berries, and tiny white lights. I fear the yarn ball wreath might make me look as though I'd gone a little knitting mad, and perhaps even was no longer someone who could be trusted to wield two pointed pieces of metal, lest I start sticking them.... just anywhere.

Friday 30 November 2012

Remember All Those Times an Earring Got Caught on Your Sweater?


When I made an earring holder some time ago, I used a piece of screening from the roll I keep around for repairing window screens, and I was happy with that, but I must admit these look really good. They won't take much time or money to make. If you knit, you probably already have an extra ball of yarn lying around that you can use, and possibly also a spare picture frame. If you feel the need of technical guidance, there's a free pattern available on Ravelry.