Finally Finished!!!!!!!!!!!

And I am so pleased! It has taken ages. When I started this "Summer Challenge" I honestly didn't expect it to take all summer. But there we go. I haven't even tried to work out how much thread and wire I have used.

I have written parts of the pattern as I went along, basically because I needed to. I had to make all six petals on each flower the same so I wrote the pattern on the first one and followed it for the other five.

It has been suggested that, even though not many people would want to make the whole thing, the pattern would sell for the individual parts to use on bags and clothing. Sounds good to me! First though, I need to make a scrapbook of it. A digi one of course, with lots of crochet bits added. Then, maybe I can convert that to a pattern book.

Lots of flowers!

This is what it is looking like at the moment.

There are six different flowers each a little bigger and a little lighter than the last one. I am going to be making another each of flowers two to four, which will give me nine in total. I think any more will spoil it. I can fill up some of the empty stems with fluffy heads. I also need to work on an opening bud and maybe make two or three of them. Then, if I have time, I might change the way I have done the buds. When I started this, September 16th seemed such a long way away. Now I only have 19 days left!!!!!

My 1st Flower

What you have all been waiting for - my 1st flower. The flowers on this clematis start off a gorgeous violet colour and gradually fades to a pale lavender before the petals finally fall off. The 1st flower is based on a newly opened flower.

I am using a technique called "Thread Painting". This is where you use two or more strands of thread/yarn together then change just one thread at a time to the new colour. This gives the effect of the colours shading from one to the next rather than an abrupt change.

I have used this technique a few times with gorgeous results. I am using DMC perle size 8, two strands at a time, in 208, 209, 210, 211 and white. This one uses just 208 and 209. I think the centre should be trimmed a little more though. The actual flower looks a lot neater.

Fluffy Heads

I have been taking loads of photos of my real clematis to try to get the crocheted one looking right. However, I do plan on using a LOT of "Artistic Licence". As I tell Mark when he complains I am not being accurate enough - "You are an engineer, I am an artist. So I can use artistic licence."

The centres of the flowers start off with a little cream in the middle of mostly plum. As the flower gets older the plum opens, revealing more cream.

When it eventually loses all of it petals, the fluffy head left is all cream. I made them with loop stitch, working round and round amigurumi style and keeping the loops to the outside. When it was finished, I trimmed them off and fluffed them up.

Leafing Through!

Or Through Leafing!!!! Either way, I have finished the leaves. All 270 of them! I have also made some fluffy heads and am now on the flowers. No pics of these yet though.

134 leaves and 4 buds later................

Yes, that is how many finished ones are on here. I have finished wiring all of the leaves and sewn most of them in place. And I have made quite a few more. I started at the top with smaller ones as I decided it would be easier to make them and attach them as I go, rather than work out how many I would need and do them later. I can fill in all the other full sized ones later.

I also changed my mind about the buds. Doing them in the same colour as the leaves just didn't work out. You couldn't see them. So after a bit of research - sitting in the garden and looking at my favourite clematis - I decided on a paler colour.

Unfortunately, I already had it in my stash so I didn't have to go stash shopping. I think you will agree, these buds show up more.

Mark says "If you had done it like I thought you were going to, you would have finished it by now."

Hmmmmmmmmmm, maybe so. But........

"Yes Dear, but I have done it like *I* thought I was going to!"

Change of plans.

Slight change of plan about the Clematis leaves. I sewed on all the leaves I had finished, just to the end of the stems and not in place as I thought I could do that better when the leaves were attached.

Then I decided that the centre leaf should be a bit further up the stem than the others so started taking them off and re-attaching them.

Then I decided that the bet way to stiffen them was with florists wire rather than find something to spray them with. So I started taking them all back off - again - thread wire through the stitches and sew then back on.

Then I found a longer needle to thread the wire through with so I don't have to take them all off to do it, just the ones that need moving up the stems.

I started crocheting the new ones with the wire included. This means no blocking as the wire keeps the shape so I will be able to sew them on as I go.

It also meant a trip to the Florist as I am going to need a LOT more wire.

The original lot I got at our monthly "Craft and Lace" group when we did a workshop for table centres before Christmas. I asked if I could buy some of the wires used and she gave me a handful.

I went into the Florists on Thursday to ask if she had more or if she could order me a bundle. She very kindly sorted out what she had left and gave them to me. Apparently they are too thin for the flowers and don't support them properly. They are perfect for crochet though. Now I am getting used to it, these wired leaves are working up almost as quickly as the unwired ones. They take about 20 mins each. I still haven't finished wiring the ones that are all ready on there but it has been a bit hot to sit with that heavy thing on my lap in the evenings.

However, sitting out in the garden is perfect! I can rest the frame on the patio table to keep it off my lap and watch the birds fighting over the peanuts at the same time.

And I thought you might like this pic of Benjamin at the Chatteris Historic Festival this weekend.

Clematis Leaves

After taking a short break to finish off some items I found in the attic, I have got back to the Clematis.

Here is the first batch of leaves on the blocking board. It holds 38 and I am going to have the fill the board up a few more times before I have enough to finish. I have started sewing some on but just 12 don't look very impressive so you are going to have to wait until I have sewn a few more on before I take a photo.

I have been working hard on the book as well.

I have had it proof read and they found loads of mistakes. As it is all still on the computer it isn't major hassle to change them.

Just time consuming!

I now need to do all the technical stuff to get it "print ready". I am not looking forward to that as I have to learn to use a new program.

It should be going to print on June 28th - barring any major problems.

Back to getting it print ready!

Finished Luceting.

At last. It is just as well that I had to make the frame smaller otherwise it would have taken me almost twice the time - if I had been able to finish it!

I ran out of thread. Not a major problem, I can just order some more - or so I thought. Also, I had hunted high and low for a ball of thread I thought I had. I distinctly remembered ordering two balls of 4 different colours at Christmas. However, this was just before I broke my wrist. When they arrived I was in a lot of pain, couldn't crochet and just dumped the whole bag in the wardrobe. When I finally looked properly in the bag, I realised I had been sent one ball of green short which had never been sent on.

I phoned Tandem Cottage, ordered another two (plus two other colours) and queried the ball I was missing. A few days later my thread arrived - minus the green I desperately needed. As it was the weekend I couldn't phone them so I hunted online and discovered that I couldn't buy the colour I wanted anywhere.

Purple Linda was very helpful and I finally discovered that DMC have changed their colour chart for Petra and the green I want is no longer on it.

After saying a lot of rude words, I phoned Tandem Cottage and asked them about it. It turns out her rep has not been anywhere near the place in ages, she can't get any answers from DMC themselves and she didn't know about the colour range changes.

She did, however, have the colour I want in a size 8, so sent me that. I got it the next day and have finished off the bits I needed to after more rude words. Thinner thread used double gets tangled ever so easily and I spend almost as much time untangling it as I did actually making the bits I needed.

As you can see from the first picture, its a bit of a mess. Most of this is due to all the loose ends in all directions. I can't hide them because of the way I have made the frame. But don't worry, they are not staying like that. I will be using all the ends to sew the leaves and flowers on after thay have been crocheted. And after I have decided what colour to make them in! I can go for either a deeper forest green or a lighter sage green.

I hope the other pictures, that I cleared the loose threads out of the way for, give you a better idea of what it looks like.

Summer Challenge - Part Two

So maybe I was being a bit ambitious with a frame that size but I never did do things by halves. I started working with my lucet, 8 brown threads to make the thick first stem, which I separated into two sets of 4 but added two more green to each so I still had 6. I carried on, separating the threads and adding more in to make the various branches. I was going ok to start but as I started making more branches it got very tangled. Very, very tangled.

So I abandoned that idea! Not that I gave up completely, I just needed a re-think. I finally undid most of what I had done and started again. This time deciding to make the branches separately and sewing them on afterwards. However, I still kept the beginning as it was. It was only one bobbin to cope with and hardly any tangles.

I proceded making just the two main stems. While I was doing this, I was thinking of a a way to attach the new branches with out too many ends to sew in. I can do it when I crochet, why not with the lucet?

This is what I came up with -

I worked out how much thread I would need for the bit I was working on. No easy way, make it up, undo it and measure how much I used. It might seem a waste of time but as I was doing lots of bits the same, it saved time - and thread - in the long run. I measured the thread off, doubling the original measurement and putting a slip knot half way along.

Using a tapestry needle, I threaded it through the middle of the stem I wanted to attach it to. The slip knot provided a stop end.

I then used a steel crochet hook to pull two loops through, which I slipped over the lucet - and carried on as normal!

Here are the resulting stems. The loose ends will be used to sew the leaves and flowers on later.

I was actually quite pleased with myself until I went to Craft Club last week and found out that were are supposed to keep them relatively small. About 2'. It is well under 2' wide but........... So I cut it off at the bar across the middle. The way I have attached the jute thread meant that I could do it without having to redo the whole thing. It is now 2'6" and isn't going any smaller.

Summer Challenge

At our Craft and Lace Club, we decided it would be fun to have a "Summer Challenge". After some discussion the theme of "Summer" was decided upon as some wanted "Gardens" and some wanted "Seaside". Summer covers everything.

After some considerable thought, and changing my mind about 50 times, I decided to try to re-create the Clematis in my garden. After even more considerable thought, I decided to make the frame from bamboo and garden string. I wanted to make it look as realistic as possible. The canes I bought were about 4 foot long, so I decided to use the whole length. I lashed them together to make a frame. However, my dearest complained that I hadn't done it properly or tight enough, so I gave it to him to redo! I then spent the rest of Saturday afternoon and evening tying garden string with clove hitches to make a latice for the clematis to "climb" up.

I was ever so pleased with my creation and set to work designing the rest. I have decided to use my new lucet to make the stems.