Tunisian Crochet

Lockdown Craftiness…

humanist55

 My partner and I decided to spend the winter escaping the virus in the relative safety of Crete and rented two doors down from her sister in Mavrikiano, Elounda. barbara and Virginia plunged into knitting and eventually the itch to stitch got to much and I purchased a double-ended crochet needle from one of the knitting shops in nearby Agios Nikolaos before the lockdown was clamped down even tighter than in the UK. 

I have only made some samplers to explore new stitches in Tunisian Crochet which is my thing and to stitch with alternating colours on the pairs of rows. I can give more details if anyone is interested…


Roundup 2 – other blogs on the A to B 2020 Challenge

humanist55
I am working my way through the list of participating blogs which is now over 500 of which I have opened 120 now – phew! Here are the more of the those i have decided to follow:-

I may be a man but I am first and foremost a designer so I have done an evening course in dressmaking and can make a shirt. I crochet but mostly Tunisian crochet which is slightly obscure. I help my partner with her sewing machine projects and this site Quilting Patchwork Applique appeals for a couple of reasons. First of all the selection of images in the banner are unusual including a wolf hiding in the forest. Secondly, the site is bi-lingual, everything duplicated in French and English – not just trusting to Google translate if people want to be bothered. For us English speaking peoples, it’s easy to forget that there is a whole world of other-language internet and this is a refreshing window…

Mk1 and Mk2 of a Tunisian Crochet handbag I made as a sampler of all the stitches I could find…

Sharon E Cathcart is a novelist but instead of using the Challenge to promote her writing directly, or practice writing to a theme, Sharon is sharing her research into Pompei which she has done for a future book and she is revealing some interesting details – hope she makes it to Z!

Jane Turley over at “The Witty Ways of a Wayward Woman” – what can I say – your description of making cabbage soup had me laughing out loud (I will not brook the acronym for that phrase in a blog) – does what it says on the tin!

Tommia’s Tablet – favourite things of a 50 year old woman – a photograph and a poem, what’s not to like!

When I look down the list of blogs, a name like Zombie Flamingos gets me going and this site’s theme for the challenge is to introduce us to the life and work of Female Photographers. Sadly, in our still too male-dominated world, the names here will include those who are not so famous so watch this space. Having said this, the first up is Dianne Arbus – a favourite of mine ever since she was featured in a Sunday colour supplement back in the 70’s. Then we have some names I didn’t know though I had seen some of the work, Margaret Bourke-White, Julia Margaret Cameron (see below) and Rineke Dijkstra.


John Herscel by Julia Margaret Cameron – see Zombie Flamingos