Lost Arts studio

A lot of the fiber arts I enjoy are things like tatting, netmaking, chair caning, and even weaving, where people will come up to me when I demonstrate and solemnly tell me, "That's a lost art."

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Location: SW Outer Nowhere, Michigan, United States

On the Internet, nobody knows you're a chicken. (With apologies to Peter Steiner.)



22 March 2009

The Magic of Blocking

Unblocked knitted lace often reminds me of sea slugs or nudibranchs.Here is the bluest nudibranch I could find so you can see what I mean. (Lots of pictures - the one I was looking at is right on the top of the page.)

After I blocked this to 16 points, I looked at the photo in the booklet and saw they had blocked it to 32. Now what am I going to do with a 24x14-inch woolly Leberblümchen?

I'm not sure. At one point I thought about running long circular needles through it, blocking it to a smooth oval, and wearing it as a hood/kerchief/thingie.

I knew that Leberblümchen meant liver-flower (hepatica), so I went looking online for photos of the German hepatica, and learned that the Hepatica triloba that grew in the woods where I grew up is the same as Hepatica nobilis.

This link is to a gallery showing some of the variability in color (I've seen them from white to pinkish to this lavender-blue) and number of petals.

And here is someone's gorgeous close-up of hepatica flowers.

Now I'm feeling terrifically homesick for the place I grew up, which doesn't exist as I remember it any more.

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10 Comments:

Blogger Hobbygåsa said...

The Leberblumchen is so beautiful, can't you try to block it again with 32 points? The original flower is beautiful too, we will see them here in about 2 months I think...

11:10 AM  
Blogger amy said...

I love that such a thing as a sea slug forum exists. ;)

12:10 PM  
Blogger Julie said...

Nudibranchs. Teeheehee. NOW I know what that lace reminds me of. Thanks for that. We should knit some real nudibranchs, that would be a hoot.

Lovely work, and that was a super-fast turnaround on the work. Dang! Fast!

I like the idea of it as a hat. Didn't they call those 'clouds' back in the day?

2:31 PM  
Blogger TinkingBell said...

It looks so beautful - but looking at all the pictures with the DPNs gave me palpitation!!!

I love nudibranches - they look wonderful and what a great name!

10:27 PM  
Blogger Dave said...

Absolutely amazing. I knew there were oval designs out there, but wasn't sure how to do them. Watching your process has been both educational and, well, kind of scary. :-) What a wonderful FO!!

8:12 AM  
Blogger Gr8lakesgrrl said...

We just saw some of that Hepatica at the park, I was wondering what it was? Very waxy and succulent like.

2:28 PM  
Blogger Knitting Linguist said...

Ooh, it's absolutely gorgeous! I love that color... And I know what you mean about the places we grow up -- they do change irreparably over time, don't they?

3:36 PM  
Blogger Bells said...

They're such pretty flowers! I adore that close up (big surprise there!)

It's gorgeous Alwen. Nice work. And so fast!

12:45 AM  
Blogger Felicia said...

Yeah, sea slug sounds about right. How did they get 32 points from that? And if you get up the nerve to redunk, you can always reblock!

8:59 PM  
Blogger Donna Lee said...

That is beautiful! The blue suits it so well. You are amazing!

9:02 PM  

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