If I had known when I started knitting this how much of a pain this much 2x2 checkerboard was going to be, I probably would not have done it, but it looks so nice...
According to Seamus, the "Tessalated Pavement" checkboard represents life and death, triumph and despair, good and evil. Working on this for him has been interesting--normally I am used to pulling imagery and symbols from my own fictionalized 'library.' I have both general and fairly specific rules and meanings behind the colors, shapes and materials that I use in my garments and what they mean in the fictional world they are created for, and to the characters that they belong to. Making this for him means working with pre-exsisting symbols, from the very rich visual language that Freemasonry has developed.
The tape-lace experiment continues on:
The bias strips were laid and stitched down to a dark backing fabric-so I can see what I am doing. When the whole piece is finished, I'll cut the green basting stitches holding it down and lift it off the backing fabric. Here it is not yet sewn to itself, so you can see some rough edges.
Joining the separate pieces of tape together. There will be some raw edges on the reverse, I'm not totally sure yet how I will deal with that.
Anddd, all joined up and a it cleaner looking. Now I'm ready to start the lace. I'm not sure yet if I'm just going to do an alternating pattern in every other compartment, or a bunch of different ones...
I've also started hoarding plaid shirts for a quilt, this time, I swear, queen sized to keep me warm this winter. Pattern I'm not totally sure on yet, but tonight I'm cutting them into 1.5 inch strips. I will probably just end up doing a string quilt, but I could also do a nine patch or something with the strips...
I'm sticking with blue/green/gray plaids, to keep it cohesive--they are seem to be the easiest colors to find in thin cotton (not flannel) shirts. I'm still not sure whether I want to do a simple diagonal strip block, or a log cabin. Have to wait and see what the light/dark ration is like.
Strip of each shirt, and the 7" paper foundation. I use phonebook paper because it's free, and it tears away from the fabric easily. It's the fastest way to make strip blocks. If I make log cabins I probably won't use it.
And, excitingly enough I started filling in my tape lace piece. This stitch is called the 'pea stitch' I think I'm going to alternate it with a looser stitch.
Right, now I'm back to knitting!
