August 2018

August, Go Green  2018

August Bejouterie
August this year is gorgeous! Not a single sign of summer's end - as green as spring! Look at these beautiful shades of green. This Lime Green goes perfectly with one of the best natural accessories - an ocean shell.
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InSpiration,
Sun,Smile,
niCe,StoneS, 
acCeSSorieS, 
shellS - all these words whisper - Shhh.... August ...

Shades of Green
These beautiful flowers - hydrangeas- which have dozens of different colours - go green too! In August!! This shade seems like kiwi green. For my short cardigan, I picked several shades of green, some melange, and a blue one. What did I get? A beautiful combination of colours(Amelia's favourite expression) - various shades of green yarn!
Yarn Store in Vienna
I bought yarn for this project in Austria in 2014. The store is called Filati, and it has a wonderful collection of yarn.  I bought Italian Lana Grossa, Cool Wool Print, 50g=160m, 100% Virgin wool. If you are interested, here's the store address: 1220 Wien, Donaustadtstr, 1 Top 760
Yarn and Design
I started combining the colours into the stockinette stitch raws and made the back and the front, but I didn't finish the project, and it was sitting sleeveless (!) in my knitting drawer for the next four years. Design is mine - meaning I just knit and see what comes out :-)) It does not mean I do not 'read' my knitting - I know where it is taking me :-)

Sleeves Sleeves were finally made this summer. I like knitting sleeves right into the armhole - I just pick up and knit stitches along an armhole edge. Like for the pockets, the pattern for the sleeves was the wrong side of the basic stockinette stitch.
Buttons I didn't want the buttons to stand out, so my choice was knitted covered buttons. You can hardly see them, but they are there :-) - green, blue and melange.
Stitches and Crosses After I finished the jacket, I decorated it with stitches and crosses of various colours.

Green as Grass Green goes great with grey, so this August-made cardigan is good for a cool end-of-summer day and for a green spring weekend in the city.

August, Be Awesome They say that August is like the Sunday of the summer. Right - we want it to stay a little longer.

They also say there are Sundays and there are SUN days :-) Dear August, please stay sunny and stay longer ...

Venice Scarf  2017

Inspiration  One of my travel destinations this summer was Venice, Italy. What inspired me?
- airy, stone lace of palazzi on a busy and beautiful Piazza San Marco 
 - old narrow calles - like wrinkles on fabric
 - fading pastel buildings looking like unraveling knitting
- numerous canals and crooked bridges like yarn on the needles
 - evening magic of orchestras on St. Mark's Square

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​Interpretation
All of the above inspired me to make
something vintage and elegant,
airy and kind of transparent,
long and narrow, light,
not cold as marble
but warm and soft,
a bit Vivaldi like ...
and definitely
feminine.

​Yarn Internationally famous Debbie Bliss Angel
Super Kid Mohair & Silk: 76% Mohair, 24% Silk
200m/25 g - 2 balls
Needles N5,5 Hook N3,5

Design The design for this scarf is taken from the Europe's Top Knitting Magazine Verena - Winter 2008. I very rarely use patterns from magazines, but in this case, I followed almost all the instructions and recommendations.  I changed the colour a little: not pure white but faded shade of off-white. The two lace patterns were used. Scarf length size is 10 x 205 sm. I started knitting the scarf on the plane and finished it in Toronto.
Fine Accessory The scarf is not very busy, heavy or too warm, so it can be a great accessory for any summer
or winter outfit.

2008 Same Store 
Like in 2007, I stopped by at a beautiful yarn store on San Marco 3718 (Calle della Mandola)- Lellabella.
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"At Lellabella, you won't find just "wool", but the highest quality Italian yarn and unique products from the most sought-after brands. We use our yarns to create a large variety of personalized items made by hand."
Meravigliosa lana! 
Italy, 2008

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Viva! Venice is not a 'man' city (like New York) to me. Venezia is a woman ... aging gracefully ... knitting her yarn of dreams, trips, people, stories ... keeping glowing from the inside :-)) Viva Venezia! Viva Knitting!
 

Busy Bee Bijouterie  2016

Three Bracelets Time in the summer really, literally flies ... like a bee. You want to do so many things and catch up with people you don't often see during the year. You want to read and knit and .... be busy :-)
In knitting, planning ahead unfortunately does not often work for me - I prefer to knit in season. This way, time for big projects is never enough :-( So what?! I knit small things - like this Busy Bee Bijouterie set.
 

Sunny Color It's one of my favourite colours - very close to 'busy bee' shade on the colour palette. Yarn is my summer favourite silk and cotton.
Summer Gifts Such small knits make nice small gifts. All pieces are crocheted with the 3,50mm hook.
Simple Circle It didn't take me long to knit this set-just one Amelia's sleep (2 hours :-))) Pattern: basic stitch-single crochet. 
SSS Collection 
SSS stands for September Shells and Stones. It's the name of my last year summer accessories collection.

Knitted Bracelet This bracelet was made some years ago. The technique is the same - you knit around the metal base bracelet. Cable looks nice and creates volume.
Perfect Fit This bracelet also works well as a wrist warmer. My new little model Amelia loves it!
Wrist Warmer I have a 'line' of wrist warmers in different colours.

Under the August Sun

 
 
Summer, you were gorgeous!! ​

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Summer and the Sea  2015

Summer and the Sea Crafts My August 2015 knitting was inspired by the Pottery Barn bottle toppers summer collection. I took a picture of them in the store to have it as an idea for my projects in the future. It was not long in coming because my travel destination this summer was The Maritime Provinces. What could be better for crafts on the road than these cute sea motives?!

Maritime Sea Creatures
The model items are knitted (left). 
 
My project is crochet (right). 

Summer Yarn For these wine bottle toppers, I used leftover yarn from other finished projects. Again, it was my favourite blue cotton. (I have tons of it :-)) 
Bobbles Bobble ... - a fun word to say. The technique to make them is fun too. You have to create 3-dimensional texture on the knitted surface. I wanted 8-10 small bobbles for my sea star. I knew how to knit bobbles, but I never crochetedthem. A crocheted bobble stitch exists, but apparently I invented my own since my bobbles looked different :-) 
Sea Star My sea star does not probably look very elegant, but I thought it was okay since my product was supposed to be a kind of rough - like the rough craggy sea shore  rocks through which we were passing :-)

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Summer Yarn For the next bottle topper I picked beautiful, very soft orange yarn. Cotton again. Marine colours can be so bright! Last summer, I crocheted from grass green cotton. The project was never finished ... :-(
From the Shoreline and the Deep I took the crochet-in-process pictures in different sea creatures habitats - by the sea, on the beach, on the boats. I have no idea what fish it is. I didn't have any specific pattern. It was just crocheting the shape of a fish. But when I was putting everything together for the newsletter, I found the link to all crochet sea creatures.
Looks Fishy? Fish? Fish ..... Finished!!!!!! It doesn't look like an ocean sunfish, but it looks pretty much like a lake sunfish (no kidding - you can google the image). Who would have thought these types even existed?! .... And the colour is sunny!

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Summer Yarn For the last wine bottle topper, I picked two shades of purple. Purple is a color between red and blue in the color wheel. In my project, it's between
a red fish and a blue star :-) 
Purple Lupines Wonderful color! It can represent deep cold ocean water and beautiful lupines in Nova Scotia and P.E.I. where they bloom mostly in their natural color in the wild -  purple. Researchers at the University of Prince Edward Island are trying to figure out why purple is the dominant colour amongst the lupines that line P.E.I.'s roadways.
Oh, Octopus This friendly octopus has a spiraling single-crochet light-purple body and several curly dark-purple tentacles.

Aquatic Wonders There are so many other aquatic wonders to knit and crochet. Each of them is fast and easy to make and can be yours in an evening.


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Cheers to the summer and the sea!

In the Loop  2014

Loop the Loop Our annual early September activity is the air show. This year we watched  it from the Toronto Islands. What a performance!!
 loop-the-loop [loop-th uh-loop] noun
1.an airplane maneuver in which a plane, startingupward, makes one complete vertical loop.
2. a ride in an amusement park that simulatesthis maneuver.
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Loop Knitting Naturally, this maneuver reminded me of
one of my favorite stitches - the loop. This techniques gives projects a nice depth and texture. 

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The Loop​ It also reminded me a lovely yarn store in Halifax, Nova Scotia: an amazing shop girl and beautiful local yarn. And, as you can see in the picture, the knitters' creativity. The entire block was under construction, but it didn't spoil the party. The work platform got a nice graffiti knitting touch - the shop used it to colorfully display knitted and crocheted yarn along with the enthusiasm of its visitors. How artsy-craftsy!!
P.S. The name of the shop is The Loop. 
Nova Scotia, 2015

Buenos Aires Many yarn stores go creative displaying the yarn they have to offer. When I travel, I always check out the local yarn shops and purchase the yarn from the new place.  Beautiful Wool!  Argentina, 2012 
Santiago I stopped by at some nice yarn shops in Pueblito Los Dominicos (Los Domonicos Village) - a crafts market in a heritage zone of Santiago. Lana maravillosa! Chile, 2012
Lima KUNA yarn stores are in many cities in South America.  I visited two of them and bought yarn in Kuna shops in Chile and Peru. In the picture - KUNA store in Peru, 2012

Vienna I bought yarn in Vienna as well. They love knitting here. My Austrian yarn project is still work in progress.
Wunderbare Wolle! Austria, 2014
P.E.I. Just opened this summer - a lovely shop in Kensington, P.E.I. Wonderful yarn! PE.I. 2015
Kensington The yarn is beautifully displayed. I bought very nice wool there. PE.I. 2015

Venice "At Lellabella, you won't find just "wool", but the highest quality Italian yarn and unique products from the most sought-after brands. We use our yarns to create a large variety of personalized items made by hand."
Meravigliosa lana!  Italy, 2008
Provence  I forgot what shop it was, but it was a good one. And they've got wonderful yarn - wool in particular.
Merveilleuse laine! France, 2008
New York You can buy beautiful yarn at the knitting workshops and shows - like at Vogue Knitting LIVE. I visited the first one - in 2011. The last one was in January 2015

Want to be informed?
I'll keep you in the loop :-)
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Happy knitting!

August. Andean Knits.  2013

Colors in the rocks
Source of inspiration: The Andes in Chile extend thousands of miles through several climate variations, and the scenary in the mountains. In the north, the Atacama, is completely different than in Patagonia in the south. In the north, the rocks look like lifeless brown desert hills, ugly, yet beautiful. Colors in the cities, on the other hand, are lively. They are everywhere: in graffiti,  architecture, women clothes, etc.

Chilean sweater My Chilean sweater paleta de colores is a combination of city colors on  the earthy background. This project was colorfast :-) - just  knitting simple stocking stitch and changing various shades of the yarn rainbow.
​Fast and fun!
As you can see, I tried to come up with a kind of a pictorial motif - imitation of the traditional knitting technique.  My focus was geometric shapes - the main pattern in ethnic Andean knitting (which looked to me like ancient graffiti).

Knitting graffiti. Knitting graffiti This is what you can "knit between the rows": "Zigzags may symbolize rivers or roads, which provide transportation through the mountainous terrain. They may also represent serpents, who bring wisdom and knowledge of the ancient past to the wearer, or earthworms, who bring fertility to the fields. Cross motifs are used to remember a recently deceased friend or loved one, as well as to provide protection over the fields during the growing season. "The project was "motiffast" :-) - the motifs were not knitted but embroidered on the finished sweater. Fast and fun!

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Pre-winter knitting I usually knit winter things in the winter and summer things in the summer- not knitters' logic at all. 
If you don't make some warm knits  in the summer, they won't be ready for you to wear when it's chilly. But this year it works for me: I am in the middle of the Chilean winter, and the warm knit I have just finished is ready for the Canadian winter. Super lógica, no? It was a "buttonfast" project :-) - buttons were made out of yarn. Fast and fun!

Colorful knitting My last August knitting color palette was completely different - aqua - like Chile on this map. Prep-for-chilly-season knitting can be fast, and colorful knitting in Chile is fun. By the way, one of the explanations about the origin of the name "Chile" is derived from the native Aymará word "chilli" meaning "the land where the earth ends."
And my Chilean adventures will end at some point as well, but ...

Sweater season ... there's always time for knitting, and ... they say it's always sweater season. I am gonna make another one! Chao!

Aqua August  2012

Colors Aquamarine, turquoise - a bit blue, a bit green. Beautiful tint, and goes well with so many other colors. You can pair it with anything. In this azure top I mixed the aquamarine with yellow and shades of blue. The yarn is my favourite Japanese habu. It feels great on a hot summer day. As you can see, the design is very simple.
Accessorize It The eye-catching greenish-blue pin is a beautiful accessory for the habu airy knits.
Aqua Attic In the aqua assemblage (found in the attic :-)) everything is filled with this fantastic color!

The highest good is like water...
The highest good is like water.
Water gives life to the ten thousand things and does not strive.
It flows in places men reject and so is like the Tao.
In dwelling, be close to the land.
In meditation, go deep in the heart.
In dealing with others, be gentle and kind.
In speech, be true.
In ruling, be just.
In business, be competent.
In action, watch the timing.

​~ Tao Te Ching ~

Online Store  2011
It's nice to have a lot of free time in the summer. So between reading and knitting I actually opened a store... an online store of course - at CafePress. So, sneak peek at Artisaknity design at my online store :-)

Read Knit Love  Tote bag This 100% cotton canvas tote bag has plenty of room to carry everything you need when you are on the go. It  includes a bottom gusset and extra long handles for easy carrying.

• 10 oz heavyweight natural canvas fabric
• Full side and bottom gusset
• 22" reinforced self-fabric handles
• Machine washable
• Measures 15" x 18" x 6"

Knit Seasons Thermos Food Jar Perfect for lunch bags or picnics, this durable food jar does an incredible job of keeping your food hot or cold. Although small enough for easy transporting, it’s big on convenience. Soups on!

• Holds 10 oz. of food
• TherMax® double-wall vacuum insulation helps retain temperature
• Keeps food hot (5 hours) or cold (7 hours)
• 3.5 W x 3.5 D x 4.5 H
• Extra-wide mouth for easy filling, serving & cleaning
• Made by Thermos®
• Hand wash only

Late Summer Purse  2010

Late Summer August is a wonderful month when the summer is almost over and the heat is usually mild, but not this year. I guess we are all hoping for the 'cooldown' these days.
Late Summer Purse I called the carryall I made last month a Late Summer Purse. It has all the summer colours but they are a little faded. I thought that just a couple of bright blooms of anemone would add a blast of colour to the purse.


This easy-to-knit carryall with leather straps is made of hand-spun yarn.
I like how the purse plays up the rainbow palette of this beautiful  hand dyed yarn. Two purple needle-felted anemones  are a finishing touch.

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Anemones Anemone, pronounced as 'a-NEM-o-nee'. The name is derived from the Greek word 'anemos' meaning 'wind'. In Roman times Pliny wrote that the anemone flower was opened by the wind. The flowers of the taller types are carried on long, wiry stems and nod gracefully in a breeze. This flower comes in vibrant shades of white, pink, purple, magenta and burgundy, and although it is quite showy, it has no scent. Felt flowers are very easy to make. I had fun making them and am planning on adding some more to my website.

This flower comes in vibrant shades of white, pink, purple, magenta and burgundy, and although it is quite showy, it has no scent. Felt flowers are very easy to make. I had fun making them and am planning on adding some more to my website. The meaning for this flower in flower language is "expectation". 

William Congreve: Uncertainty and expectation are the joys of life.

Anemone inspired quotes:

Claude M. Bristol: We usually get what we anticipate.
Brian Tracy: Your attitude is an expression of your values, beliefs and expectations.
Eli Khamarov: The best things in life are unexpected - because there were no expectations. 
Laurence Overmire: Expect nothing and accept everything and you will never be disappointed. 
Celia Thaxter: There shall be eternal summer in the grateful heart.