Hello? Hello! I can’t believe it’s been so long since my last post. And so long since I’ve *finished* anything. Life’s been getting in the way a bit – a weekend visiting family, a couple of weekends working. A lot of work-reading on the commute, or worse, snow-chilled hands too cold to do any tatting. My tatting fingers are itching to get back into it, so hopefully this week I can pick things up again.
I have had these chaps on the go for a week or two. They’re made in Rowan siena cotton, which I really love. It’s got such solid, strong colours, and it does make nice tight shapes. I would say these aren’t really the most umm… I dunno – they’re not the softest monkeys, this kind of tight cotton crochet feels much more like it’s creating toys for the shelf of an adult, or perhaps just slightly gentler fingers. They’re quite small too, which I like. I’ve been meaning to make a pair of monkeys in opposite colours for ages, and so these are being made at the same time. Non-identical twins.
Unlike the yellow monkey, who looks rather uncertain I think, these fellas look pretty confident. They actually look a little bit like trouble, if you ask me. We’ll see what they’re like when they’re finished…
Yesterday I had the pleasure of going to Wool House, a showcase of wool at Somerset House, in London. It’s a collection of rooms, each decorated and designed by different designers. There’s some lovely work there, and it’s a nice place for a morning’s mooch. The first room by Kit Kemp was my favourite I think – or actually, that’s not strictly true. It had lots of things in it I liked, and was perhaps closest to my taste. Lovely colours, and a few nice things I could happily of run off with, like this chair and cushion:
And this was the wallpaper, which I also liked. (The ceilings were very high, and the repeat on the pattern isn’t too dense, so it wouldn’t drive you nuts). Again, nice colours, machine embroidery I guess:
The other room that really caught my attention was by Anne Kyyrö Quinn. Lots of interesting folded felt, creating textures and patterns with light. Also, bright vibrant colours that grabbed you by the throat and made you feel a little bit more alive:
Occasional Crafter 
Sounds like you have been having as busy a time as I have! Glad to see you are still managing some monkeying around though 😉
They look like they’re pretty happy monkeys, and I like the inverse twin thing a lot.
Somewhat unsurprisingly, I picked out the same Wool House rooms, pretty much for the same reasons. A fine day out.
It was! And I like your photos better than mine!
The heads are adorable, I can’t wait to see the finished monkeys. They do look mischievous and up to no good!
I don’t work in color much, but I often think of making things mirror image, colorwise. Maybe it’s a good thing I don’t work in color!
I’m a bit weird with colour – I think it depends on what I’m going to do with the final things. On the whole I like colour for crochet, and ecru for tatting. I like everyone elses colourful tatting – then I look at my own and think it’s all too much…
This cotton is great for toys though – I almost bought even more of it last weekend just because it looked so nice in the shop!
I saw that knitting counter at Unravel! It was for sale too!
Sorry, it doesn’t help you but i just wanted to say!
Gah! Well, it means there’s more than one in the world 🙂 I doubt I’d ever use it, but it’s such a nice ‘thing’.