CARLA’S ‘QUILTS’ – THE SPECS – PART THREE

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Here’s what the back of one of Carla’s completed, hand-tied afghan quilts looks like. This is exactly the same technique used by ‘conventional’ quilters to make hand-tied quilts. The quilt is always a ’sandwich’ consisting of the pieced (in this case crocheted squares joined together) design, the middle layer of batting (fleece, fiberfill, an old blanket, toweling, or just another piece of fabric), and the backing which is either quilted in a decorative style or tied like this one. A crocheted ‘quilt’ is has much more stretch than a quilt made from woven fabric, thus the wrinkles in the back of carla’s quilt will disappear when the quilt is in use. There must be excess fabric on the back to allow the flexibility of the crocheted front.

For the most part, Carla uses a 2.5 mm hook with DK weight yarn to make squares that measure from 5X5 cm to 10 X 10 cm. Using these sizes of squares, Carla is a talented artist who creates these lovely, unique afghans. Each blanket is almost 7 feet square and weighs about 5 kilograms – a whopping 11 pounds! That should keep anyone warm – from his toes to the crown of his head. I have a son at home who’d love to receive an afghan this large AND with this much weight AND with no holes. A dream come true for my 25 year old son. Maybe I should ship him to Amstelveen near Amsterdam, Netherlands where Carla resides…..

Some of Carla’s intricate designs are made using an embroidery graph as a guide. This is the case for the wonderful orangutan afghan picture in Part One of this series. Carla likes the work of Elizabeth Bradley in the UK for these graphs. http://www.elizabethbradley.com/

Finished back of Carla’s completed afghan ‘quilt’.

Here’s a picture of the back of one of Carla’s completed afghans, before she has added the backing. Anyone like loose ends??? Here’s Carla’s DEEP DARK SECRET: one of the reasons Carla applies the backing to her quilts is so she won’t have to weave in all these loose ends. Smart lady!

This prolific artist also has a nature blog – and her photos there provide a lot of the inspiration for her crochet. She’s as good at photography as she is at crochet. Check it out!

http://www.carladebruijn.nl/#

Although the text is in Dutch, we can ALL enjoy photographs no matter what language the photographer speaks.

To view more of Carla’s work, please visit her website:

http://www.carladebruijn.nl/

I’m so happy she offered to share her artistry with the rest of us! Thanks, Carla.

Generally I like knitting patterns where I feel like you can use whatever yarn you have (because my stash is big enough and I want to use it, thanks) and make a successful project. This is one of those times when a special yarn makes the process that much easier.

The Floral Bouquet Shawl from Xandy Peters uses a specific extended color pooling yarn from Feisty Fibers, which allows you to place the bobble flowers with increasing frequency as you knit the project.

It starts with a solid color yarn, then the two color yarn is added in, and you make a bobble whenever you encounter the color pops. This would be hard to replicate with other yarn that doesn’t have the extended color pooling built in.

The background of the shawl is ribbed, making the project reversible.

The shawl uses fingering/sock yarn and comes out to be an asymmetrical triangle that’s 54 inches/137 cm long and 36 inches/ 90 cm deep and 60 inches/150 cm across the top edge.

Xandy says the pattern is for intermediate to advanced knitters. Knowing how to work traditional bobbles would probably help, but there’s a great video tutorial for how to work the floral bobbles so you can practice on other yarn or even incorporate the bobbles into other projects.

The bobbles are five-petaled flowers but they also kind of look like starfish to me, which could be fun on a child’s cardigan or other pattern. They’d also be fun on the leg of a sock or around the brim of a hat for extra whimsy.

The pattern includes photo and video tutorials, and written and charted instructions. It also includes tips on what to look for if you choose to use different yarn for the project, and instructions on how to dye your own yarn to use in the project.

If you want to give it a try, you can find the pattern on Ravelry.

[Photo: Xandy Peters]

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