Tag Archives: collections

Stashbusting – The Ugli Bag

Knoontime Knitting

This picture is a bit yellow, and the middle of the bag is beige and not lemon.  But behold, my friends, the Ugli Bag.

The top is super soft, fuzzy furry overdye with a thick central filament of a bulky yarn.  I didn’t have much of it, so I couldn’t at first figure out what to make; then I decided on a gift bag.

Then I ran out.  What to do?

The beige stripe is the leftover marino and alpaca blend that I used for a lovely scarf wrap that I’ll feature in an upcoming article.

Then I ran out of that.  Uh-oh.

Enter the blue.

Hrrrh?  The bag is a mixture of browns, pumpkins, and beige.  blue?  BLUE?

Well, orange’s complement is blue, and so it’s a natural choice.

Sort of.

Then it hit me – do the strap in blue, too.  The prior picture shows the top of the strap so you can see the texture.  This one shows the bag.

I didn’t realize, though, when I put in a 2-stitch edging of garter stitch that I would cause the strap to fold in on itself.  It worked to my benefit, actually, because instead of being ultra wide, the strap is now just the right width and the double-thickness means it will be stronger.

You can get a better idea of how obnoxious the blue is next to the orange, though, in this shot.  It’s not quite as neon blue as in the image, but it’s somewhere between muted and neon (how’s that for precise?).

I’m going to line the bag with muslin to give it some strength and I’ll show pictures once that’s all done.

Knit on!

Collections as art

Knoontime Knitting

I don’t know how many times I’ve had people look at something I’ve made and confess to me that they wish they were artistic – but they just don’t have any of the necessary skills to create something.

Usually I tell them they might be too worried about making something perfect, and if they just allow themselves to try something and not worry if it comes out flawed, they’ll find they have more talent than they think they do.

And sometimes, if I know them well enough, I manage to find something they’ve created that’s artistic without them even realising it. One thing I think people tend to overlook in the quest for creativity is just the ability to assemble interesting things. A collection can be very creative and artistic without involving the elusive skills that people tend to believe they need in order to be considered ‘artsy.’

I love to decorate with my own creations, and I realized recently that the collections I have are, in fact, a form of my own creation even though I didn’t actually make the individual objects that comprise the collections.

As an example – I didn’t make the shelf or the bright colored bitters bottles that hang in my bedroom, but the collection, as a whole, makes an interesting piece of art.

Here’s the collection of miniature vases that hangs in my dining room. Most of them come from garage sales and cost no more than a dollar or two. Arranged together, they make a pretty conversation piece that a lot of visitors comment on. 
And upstairs in my office, my collection of fancy sea shells, arranged on parchment paper and framed in simple shadow boxes makes a statement on an otherwise borning wall.

Do you have any collections that you display in an artistic way? Tell me about them!