New Painting

< Two 8"x10" paintings for the Summer Greene opening. I'm currently working on a 16"x20" of my three Japanese kokeshi dolls.

My Heroes, Kaffe Fassett and Sophie Digard

I'm in love with the work of Kaffee Fassett and Sophie Digard and see them as kindred spirits when it comes to pattern and color. Sure, Kaffee's color is more intense and they work at different scales, but they both hit my design sweet tooth the same way. Small gauge crochet is wonderful, just look at Irish crochet. Sophie takes that scale and makes it work in sophisticated colorways. I would love to own a Digard scarf but it isn't going to fit in my budget and I enjoy crocheting laceweight wool so I'm starting on my own version. I expect that my colorway will be a bit closer to Kaffee's. I'm going to try to harmonize the colors with smaller joining motifs and a border as Sophie does. I'm using a single strand of Persian needlepoint wool and a #7 steel hook. Persian wool comes in so many subtle colors and if you want to, you can felt it. When I get a decent sample done I'll post pictures.

The Dr. At The Jubilee Concert

I love Annie Lennox but I just couldn't resist making this. I can't be the only one who immediately thought this!

New Work

Here are the first scarves made from the silk neckties I took apart and a new hat style, the necktie newsboy. I got a number of men's tweed jackets at a bag sale and the cap is cut from one sleeve. You can see the cuff buttons are still in place.

Free Labels For Craft Projects.

Anybody want these labels from the ties I'm using? I've seen pictures of a jacket covered completely in labels or you could use them in collages. Email me at lydia@wanderinglydia.com if you want them.

Maker's Euphoria

Here's a quick picture of my newest upcycling material, gorgeous silk neckties. I'm in a wonderful makers euphoria these days,loads of ideas and fingers just itching to get going on them. One of my goals has been to design things that will sell all year. Nobody wants to try on a wool hat when it's 95 and humid. So I've turned to an old friend, silk neckties. The colors and patterns, especially the paisleys, are so beautiful! I'm especially happy to have sourced these at a local thrift store, Stars & Stripes. The shop helps vets and their families. I could have gotten them from an ebay seller but Stars & Stripes was able to match the price for me. When I walked in they had just received a big donation of Pillsbury pizza dough, the kind in the cardboard tube that you crack open on the counter. Problem was, they have limited storage space so they were trying to reach the food bank at St. Vincent de Paul Thrift Shop across town but getting no answer. My friend works there and I usually stop in on Mondays so I offered to take some over. Some of the packages had been jostled on the ride to S & S and had popped open and had to be discarded. So I couldn't help thinking on the ride over to SVP that if anybody rear ended my car the explosion of dough would be pretty amazing! It all worked out fine. They were happy to have it and my "rear air bag" did not go off.

Tribal Belly Dance Cuff

This was one of those times I used a bunch of thrifted materials that I'd bought even thought I had no idea of what to do with them. It started with a package of leather bracelet blanks. I've been having fun drawing henna patterns on them with permanent pigment markers and decided to do an all out tribal style cuff. The color is acrylic paint mixed with textile medium. I sealed it with mink oil. Then I went wild adding bells, beads, pearl buttons and upcycled parts from old jewelry. This thing is so fun to wear! The idea was to put it in my etsy shop but I really want to keep it. Since it's Monday I stopped in at St. Vincent de Paul Thrift shop. I got six tweed blazers for a buck each. Not sure what I'm going to make from them but the fabric is very nice.