yarn

Posts tagged
with yarn

Craft Food

Crocheted Toasts, Ramen, and Turkey Dinners Are Prepared with Rich Fibers by Maria Skog

Maria Skog guarantees her orange slices, turkey, and eggs won’t spoil. She crochets fiber-based creations with preservation in mind, ensuring that every berry and bagel stays as fresh as the day they were made.

Based in  Närpes, Finland, Skog began crafting the fare for her two daughters about 12 years ago when she was diagnosed with breast cancer. The practice was meditative and calming. “If I wouldn’t survive, I wanted the girls to have living memories of me, and I thought that they would remember us playing together with the food I crocheted myself,” she says.

Skog sells her toasts and other treats, along with patterns for each piece, which you can find more about on Instagram.

 

Craft

A Centuries-Old Decorative Tradition Inspires Michelle Robinson’s Vibrant Weavings

“Colour is my first passion,” says Sydney-based artist Michelle Robinson, who weaves textured fibers in vibrant hues into lively wall-hangings and accessories. The artist draws on more than twenty years of experience in the soft furnishings and upholstery industry, which instilled a deep appreciation for textiles. She began working with the medium as a way to further explore her love for decor and shares that the process “allows me to continuously play with all the colour combinations that wizz through my brain—and hopefully pass on some of the energy to others that colour can evoke.”

After weaving for four years, Robinson signed up for a masterclass in passementerie, the 16th and 17th century European decorative art—derived from passement, an archaic French word for “lace”—that centers on ornate trimmings like edging and tassels for clothing and furniture. Led by U.K.-based artist Elizabeth Ashdown, the class was an opportunity to learn traditional methods from a practitioner who is committed to keeping the craft alive. Robinson shares that she “was immediately besotted with the possibilities for this historic and beautiful technique and was reminded of all the beautiful braids I worked with in my decorating days.” Her pieces reference the ornamental plaits and trims of furniture and garments.

Robinson creates wall hangings and accessories like bookmarks on frame looms, employing traditional techniques to produce geometric works that have a contemporary feel. Recently, she has been exploring how to scale up the medium, examining how the different threads behave within the structure and retain a sense of nostalgia and playfulness. She explains:

I find myself constantly experimenting and learning new techniques, using primarily all-natural fibres. I also love adding repurposed items like knitting needles and re-spun fibres and finishing weavings with hand sewn details. It’s the details that draw you into an artwork that appeal to me.

Robinson often makes pieces available for sale on Etsy, and you can find more of her work on Instagram.

 

 

Craft Food

Kitchen Stitching: Pies, Pastries, and Chicken Wings Are Crocheted into Delectable Fiber-Based Cuisine

Healthy fibers meet delicious decadence in Normalynn Ablao’s crocheted provisions. The California-based crafter and pattern maker is cooking up spring rolls, pies, and party-sized platters of chicken wings, crudites, and dip, all made with yarn. Like her pastas, Ablao continues to serve textured designs that mimic their edible counterparts, although she tends to have a taste for cakes, pies, and other baked goods that you can find on Instagram. Whip up your own by grabbing a pattern from Etsy.

 

Art

Loose Threads Dangle in Bright, Bold Gradients in HOTTEA’s Kaleidoscopic Installations

Suspended from gallery ceilings or strung across an open courtyard, innumerable lengths of yarn comprise the chromatic installations by artist Eric Rieger, aka HOTTEA (previously). He arranges the soft textiles in concentric circles or wide gradients that stretch from wall to wall, creating vibrant fields of color that shift in composition depending on the perspective. Most reflect the artist’s memories or experiences, and in recent years, he’s installed site-specific pieces in cities like Minneapolis, Houston, and Miami.

The tri-colored “Strangers” is HOTTEA’s largest outdoor work to date and was designed for Breve Festival in Belo Horizonte. Drawing on his encounters in the Brazilian city, the massive, uplifting work measures 100 feet long and 30 feet wide, with the individual yarns extending 13 feet. “The word ‘stranger’ often times has a negative connotation,” he shares on Instagram. “I liked the idea of referring to a stranger as a positive thing.”

Currently, HOTTEA is working on several installations for locations in Los Angeles, New York City, and Far Rockaway, New York. He’s also organizing a flash fashion show and collaborative project to create temporary pieces throughout his community in the Twin Cities.

 

Art Craft

Rainbow Tapestries by Judit Just Layer Cut and Woven Yarns into Textured Patches

Asheville-based artist Judit Just of jujujust (previously) transforms twisted ropes, skeins of cotton, and plush, carpet-like tufts into roving, abstract tapestries. Suspended from skinny wooden dowels painted to match their hanging counterparts, the sculptural textiles tend to swell in amorphous patches and curved lines before falling into thick patches of fringe. Just’s color palettes parallel the contrast in textures, with soft, pastel tones alongside bright, neon-like hues.

The artist is currently working on a large-scale tapestry for Culture Object, which opens on May 10 at Culture Object, and plans to release new pieces in her shop this Friday. See more of her process on Instagram.

 

Art Craft

Social Issues and the Climate Crisis Intertwine in Subversive Crocheted Works by Jo Hamilton

From a mix of wool fibers and yarn made from plastic waste, Scottish artist Jo Hamilton crochets large-scale portraits and architectural landscapes delineated with dangling threads. Her knotted pieces push the boundaries of art and craft traditions, bringing the two together in subversive portrayals of powerful women and metropolises marred by production. Unraveling at the edges, the textured works reflect on interlocking issues like unchecked capitalism, social disparities, and the increasingly urgent climate crisis.

All of the materials Hamilton uses are recycled, whether sourced from estate sales and resalers or created in studio. A few years ago, she started turning grocery bags, videotapes, and other household items into skeins of yarn-like threads—the artist shares some of this process on Instagram—as a way to reduce her impact on the environment, explaining:

We tend to glorify nature as an eternal and everlasting idea, separate from ourselves and our real-life actions. We’ve held on tightly to these ideas during the last few decades in the throes of late capitalism and globalization, and if we don’t change our thinking, policies and behavior immediately it will be too late. So I channeled my anxieties about over-production, pollution, and climate change into my work, using plastic in some of the works in contrast with the yarn.

If you’re in Portland, stop by Russo Lee Gallery to see Hamilton’s most recent works as part of her solo show Transitory Trespass, which closes on November 27.