New blog post on Regina Rioux!

I'm playin' with plastic!

New Pattern Available! Flower Power Shawl!

And so it begins...again...

A NEW MONSTER CROCHET PATTERN FOR YOU!

I'm so excited! I haven't published anything on my own for some time. However, I am breaking my no-patterns-for-you streak by offering what I am now calling the Flower Power Shawl (formerly That 70's Shawl) on both Ravelry and in my Etsy Store.

Come on, you know you want to make tons of these lovely flowered hexagons:

Me thinks that I need to make more of these and fashion them into a bedspread. How cool would that be???

Happy Friday everyone!

That 70s Shawl: The Second Movement

So, my original design went from this...

...to this...

This is what I was aiming for to begin with. I just didn't know it at the time!

 Big, bee-you-ti-ful 70's flowers encased in handy hexagon frames!

Thank you to my gorgeous offspring for modeling my newest creation. She's a doll!

Anyhow, I like this version of the shawl MUCH better than the first pass. I am especially fond of the overall shape of the wrap. It's difficult to tell in the pics above, but shaping looks like this:

This wrap looks just the way I had envisioned. So excited! Oh, I will be making this pattern available for sale both in my Etsy store and on Ravelry.

Happy Monday everyone!

Let's talk about painting...

Head over to my namesake blog to see what else is cooking over at ChezLinoleum.

That 70's Shawl: The First Movement

So, although I've been silent lately, I have, nonetheless, been creating. In fact, I am working on two eBooks filled cover to cover with quirky crochet patterns, loads of one-off patterns as well as lots of paintings and drawings (revisiting my existence as a visual artist). Literally, I am having a personal creative renaissance as I haven't been this productive in years (and that's saying something because I'm generally pretty productive, even during life's darkest times). At any rate, I realized that while enveloped in my creative fervor, I have simultaneously been depriving the world of my nutty design sensibilities due to my state of quiet. However, I just felt like I needed to sequester myself away for awhile in order to allow myself the freedom to make lots of stuff far from the eyes and opinions of others. This "girl in the crocheted bubble" state of being has been very different from my traditional processes of making, as I was trained in art school where pretty much everyone saw everything I made everyday. So, holding up in my yarn cave felt a bit strange, but "right" by the same token. Anyway, I have pushed the skeins out of the way and I'm ready to show you all what I've been working on. As such, I bring you all the first version of what has now morphed into three versions of this delightful retro accessory I'm calling "That 70's Shawl":

Basically, I've turned those iconic 70's flower stickers we (we as in those of us alive and kicking in the 1970's) used to see plastered across the sides of VW buses into crocheted motifs.

While I'm not completely unhappy with the final result of the motifs and subsequent shawl, I don't LOVE it. Why, inquiring minds would like to know, do I not LOVE it? Okay, for starters I am not a fan of flower motifs that connect on four sides. Call me crazy, but I'm into hexagons, man (woman and child)! Give me six sides to connect away any day!

Uh, yeah, moving on. Second, the green leaf-like motifs are fine, but again, I'm not IN LOVE. Third, the edging bugs me. Just bugs me. So, in the end I blocked this puppy and threw it on my photography pile, knowing that I would take another stab at this effort another time (which I have completed). Stay tuned for the Second Movement of That 70's Shawl. I am blocking and photographing tonight...

Happy New Year, Peeps!