This has been a project that has been forming in my mind for at least a few months.  One of the questions that somebody asked me in my anonymous question post how it was that I went about the design process.  I answered that I just thought of something that I might like to wear, or owm or just something I might like to knit, and something for which I had not yet found the perfect pattern, and then I go about knitting it, sometimes (but not always) making notes as I go.

My project, and the book that inspired it

This is true, but it doesn’t give any notice of how the inspiration for a project might come about.  My new project was inspired by a recurring motif in Gabriel García Márquez’s book One Hundred Years of Solitude.  This is my favourite book of all time, though I admit that it is a few years now since I last read it (in fact I didn’t even have a copy until a couple of days ago as every time I buy a copy I end up giving it away, which I will almost certainly also do with this copy). Still, throughout my life, since the age of about 13 when I first read this work, this same recurring motif has stuck with me and for some reason I think of it quite often.  I have painted versions of this idea onto stage scenery and canvasses, embroidered this same image onto blouses and cushions and decorated various items around my home with this same recurring element, so the idea to use yarn to re-create the idea has been nestling in the back of my mind for some time.

I have finished writing and formatting the pattern and will post the FO with (probably far too many) pictures tomorrow, but whilst it is blocking in the airing cupboard, and I am being patient in waiting until it is dry before I take the final photographs, here is the reverse of the colourwork:

Stranded colourwork

100 flowers to knit and crochet by Lesley Stanfield - RRP: £10.99

Lesley Stanfield’s beautifully produced book promises 100 flowers for knitters and crocheters to make and use in their own work, but the title is a slight misnomer.  The book actually features patterns for 70 flowers, rather than 100, the remaining patterns being for a mixture of vegetables, various bugs, acorns, fruit and leaves.  This does not detract from the book, however – these additions compliment the flower designs very well and can be combined with the actual flowers to make larger motifs.  Apart from the asparagus – that’s just weird… and wonderful.

As a knitter who is only vaguely familiar with the wonderful voodoo that is crochet, I was slightly disappointed to find that the designs are rather weighted towards those that wield hooks.  Only 40 of the designs are knitted motifs, and of those there appear to be quite a few that only vary slightly in their design – the patterns for ‘large leaf’, ’small leaf’ and ‘citrus leaf’ do not present enough variety in their design to make them particularly distinct; the dahlia and chrysanthemum are also very similar in finished appearance.  There are a couple of beautiful knitted flowers – the sunflower and arum lily are wonderfully constructed, but in this book many of the more interesting designs are designed for the crocheter.  This may turn some people off, but for others it might just act as that extra push to pick up the hook and try twirling some yarn.

Knitting instructions are in written form, crocheted patterns are both written and charted. Patterns are divided into beginner, intermediate and advanced sections.

So, is it worth spending your money on?  Well, there’s the pinch, really.  It was only after buying the book that I was made aware that many of the designs included in the book were available online, for free, from the Lion Brand website in the stitch finder section.  If you only intended to use the book to occasionally find a little embellishment for a hat or purse, then you might well be satisfied with the selection available to you on the Lion Brand website without cost.  If you then find that you enjoy these patterns and would like more of the same, then it is certainly a charming little personal knitting library filler and be one of those books that you turn to when you want to make a standard garment that little bit special.

The embodiment of monkey physical perfection - Giantmonk

So… several people (ok, two – the beautiful and intelligent Getknitics and Mooncalf) guessed that yesterday’s blob was a leaf!  It was a fig leaf, to be precise – a pattern taken from Lesley Stanfield’s ‘100 flowers to knit and crochet’ which arrived in the post on Saturday. This was a book that I’d wanted pretty much since I started knitting, but wasn’t sure if I could justify spending £10 on a book about ‘frivolous embellishments’, because it was hard to see how they might have any practical value, until I realised the obvious and pressing need for crocheted, felted fig leaves:

Michelangelo's David? No! It's Monkeyangelo's Giantmonk.

For those astute viewers that might rightly note that the original, slightly less magnificent statue by Michelangelo does not actually figure a fig leaf, this is quite true.  However, in reserved British style, one was made for the cast of the statue at the V&A museum after Queen Victoria expressed shock at the sight of the statue.  Nowadays, however, David usually likes to be a bit more free and easy, much like Giantmonk when he’s not trying to help me justify buying a book of crocheted and knitted flower patterns.