Proud Colours and Improvisations

My latest pieces are for organisations calling for things to be made in colours of Indigenous Australia.   I really enjoyed making these and feeling the strength coming from them. Symbolic colours have an amazing, wonderful power.

There were a few new exercises I set for myself with this project:  getting a straight treble-row square right (I’ve never quite managed to keep edges straight), trying a mitre square pattern, and making my first hat.

The hat was a nice easy pattern I found on Ravelry for a simple beret.  It was quite ok doing increases and decreases, the only thing I could say was that I found it a bit boring going round and round – I think I prefer centre starting squares because then at least you have the variety of corners!

Now one of the things I naughtily like to do in crochet is cheat.  Improvisation is part of my working style and it’s great when you invent a solution out of thin air, and crochet is great for that!  I reckon most probably unpick mistakes, which I do sometimes.  But most of the time I’m too reckless for that.  It means I have to then go back and try to salvage the work, like I did with my thrifty square.

So when I looked at my finished beret I thought it might look nice with an extra row of black.  I mucked in and made up a stitch weaving in and out of the already existing work.  This probably has a proper name and all, but in my inexperienced world, this is what I made up.

 

My first mitre turned out a bit wonky.  I didn’t really go back and check I’d followed the pattern right at the beginning corner, I just kept going.  Well the price I paid was an uneven square.

I managed to fix it by adding on and taking off a little here and there.   Against the rules but it worked!

And here is my square in straight treble rows.  Only I didn’t cast on (can that term be used for crochet??) enough so it turned out to be a rectangle.  Somehow I still didn’t master the edges that well.   

So I meddled with it some more, adding edges until it grew to the size specification.  

I actually like this one the best.  I find these pieces far more individual and quirky than others, more akin to a darn than a square sitting in a stack.  I hope it brings something lively to a blanket of standard squares.

One day if I take on amigurumi, I will get caught out badly.   But that’s ok because I’m never going to make anything that twee - yet.