Vynn's ravelings

Hoodia Gordoni

2011-08-22T11:40:00.000+02:00

The other day i was browsing the shelves of our local chemist. I was looking for something that would cut my appetite. I know. How terrible. So i browse the shelves, trying not to get noticed... Hmmm, no, no, just having a look... And then i see it. An amazing plant : Hoodia Gordoni. Needless to say i forgot all about my muffin top and started twisting yarn in my mind to recreate those silky flowers on the rough and thorny cactus.
Turns out not only the plant is beautiful, but the San people used it to control their appetite when hunting for long periods. I can't say it works for me, as a tea it tastes fine, and i suppose that's enough. Just have a cup of Hoodia and stay away from muffins, huh.

Hoodia Gordoni

I hunted for the perfect pink, but it only came out after some experiments with dyes....

So here it is!

Hoodia - Mohair and cotton

Vynn who?

2011-08-22T10:19:00.000+02:00

It is my habit to say: “I am a yarn artist!”.
At best people imagine some extravagant form of expression like yarn bombing (in which i incidentally indulge). At worst, they look puzzled.
And it’s still better than the old rusty doily image conjured up in their mind if i say: “I am a crochet artist!”.
Old, musty, dusty and desperately out of fashion.
Maybe i should try : “I am a hooker!” or “I am Captain Crochet!”, but then it’ll just be confusing.

I have worked with thread and yarn as long as i can remember. In my family all the needle skills are lovingly passed on to the next generation. It starts with an uninterrupted chain of crochet stitches and then moves on to knitting, embroidery, sewing… you name it.
Mistake? Unravel and correct. Irregular tension? Undo it all, start again. Frustrating discipline, yet effective.
I have become a perfectionist in those arts; i can identify at a glance stitches crossing the wrong side on a piece of embroidery. Rather embarrassing, though, when a friend shows me her mom’s work, proudly… and all i can see are those flaws jumping at me.
Thanks, Granny.

Before i started the Ravelings i hadn’t touched a knitting needle or a crochet for 15 years.
After my baccalauréat (French matric) i studied graphic design in Paris, my hometown. During that time I was also an avid role-player, which is where the name Vynn comes from (The rune Wunjo means joy). Then I went to study Theatre in Central Saint Martin’s in London and partied a lot. I became a set designer and a costumier assistant for pantomimes, meanwhile i did a lot of barmaiding to pay for my studies. I still partied a lot. When i went back to Paris i became a model-maker for film and i did some graphic design again to make the end of the month go smoother. Lastly i saw an opportunity in Interior Architecture for the Emirates, so i was part of an architect's office. I now work as a draughts(wo)man for mechanical and chemical engineering technical drawing. Scary. Yet sounds so much cooler than “crochet artist”, huh?

I landed in Durban, South Africa seven months pregnant with Faye. On the other side of the world from Paris that is. I don’t do things half-heartedly. Courageous or nuts, choose one.
I left my creative career behind me simply because i wanted to see my children in real life, and not as the background image of my desktop. I have two little girls to dress up!

So here i am, picking up my grandma’s knitting needles again and looking for yarn. Not any yarn. You see, i have become a yarn hugger. I confess to hugging balls of yarn in the privacy of my workshop. Quite indecent.
In another life i must have been a cat living in a basket of yarn.
I boast a collection of natural yarns that dribbles through every corner of my workshop. Angora, bamboo, banana, cotton, merino, mohair … And now i am learning to spin my own. The ultimate happiness would be to have my very own flock of sheep. My hubby is already looking for a border collie. He doesn’t know about the flock of sheep yet…shhhhh.
So here i am, again, with my needles, accumulating yarn and projects, having an affair with my crochet hooks as my hubby would put it (I think he’s secretly happy about my choice for an extra-marital relationship even though he grumbles a lot). And we moved to Assagay where i was introduced to the indigenous flora. In Paris the flora is crammed in pots on the balcony of one’s flat. Yep. And as warning against wannabe nature lovers, all the public parks boast a “KEEP OF THE GRASS” sign. Paris is beautiful, but it is famous for its museums and its architecture. And its flying fauna whose poo is so acid they have to repair the damage on the statues every couple of years. Nature is not nurtured in Paris. Here i discovered the world of trees and flowers.
The Ravelings are the result of this encounter between yarn and nature. Well, most of them. Some are just a play with yarns. I started to wonder what these magnificent indigenous flowers would look like if they were crocheted. The designs naturally became jewelry designs, because those flowers, to me, are as precious as any gemstone. In fact if we’re not careful they might just become more precious than gold. You can live without gold. You can’t live without vegetation. I especially honor those flowers which are endangered, like the strawberry spider head (Serruria Aemula). I have many flowers in my head. The challenge lies in turning them into crochet jewelry. I dye my own yarns and threads, or else i buy hand dyed yarns, because in nature colours are infinitely different. Dyeing is quite a chance driven process, the resulting colour will vary with the everchanging conditions of temperature, quality, weather… Most of my first designs were also experiments with wild-crochet. Even now a design will take a while to mature in my mind before it comes out through my hook. You see, crochet doesn’t have to be a dusty doily (and by the way i love doilies, even dusty ones). So i can proudly say : “I am a crochet artist”!

Vynn's Ravelings Exhibition at Fat Tuesday

2011-07-10T11:11:00.000+02:00

Rastafarian Story-teller

2011-05-19T15:25:00.000+02:00

To my great enjoyment, i have access to the library of the school, so two weeks ago i found one book called "The gnome craft book" and i can't let it go anymore!

The Story-Telling Gnome in angora wool....mmmm, so fluffy and cuddly

And as i was researching wool-felted dreadlocks... i had to...

These lovely puppets have hollow arms in which you slip your thumb and your index finger, and so they can tell stories! I haven't made faces. I decided it was quite unnecessary since they come alive and very expressive as you play with them. The rastafarian story-teller is a gift to my brother, and he was made entirely of cotton and bamboo yarn from Vinni's Colours (Cape Town), his dreads are felted with merino wool from Cape Town. I dresed him with the colours of the SA flag. A true citizen!

Serruria aemula

2011-04-14T18:06:00.000+02:00

After a long silence, here is another design : Serruria aemula, or the Strawberry Spider head. It had been a long time that i wanted to feature proteas since hundreds of different ones ornate the fynbos of our beautiful South Africa. Proteas are magnificent, every single one, when i come across one of them i immediately have this fantastic pattern unravelling in my head. During a visit in the Western Cape we stopped in the fynbos around Franschoek, Greg had to drag me back to the car. I had found yet another one i didn't know!

I chose this protea in particular because not only it is stunning, it is endangered.
Apparently there are only 1000 or so survivors.
The habitat of the plant has been dramatically reduced by farming and urbanization.Veldfire is extremely necessary to the life cycle of the plant (triggering the germination) but regular "man-made" fires have a negative effect since the plant has no chance to produce a significant store of seeds. And if it was not enough, the indigenous ants that carry their seeds underground are now in competition with another type of ants from Argentina. It seems immigration is never exempt of problems. By the way, after five month of waiting i finally have my visa! Yeah, i am legal here! No, i won't neglect the local flora, promise! I'll help with crochet-propagation!

Serruria Aemula

The necklace of the same name

The necklace was sold as it was coming out of my workshop... I miss my Serruria.... i've started another one in the same vein!

Serruria on a rock

For more info go to :
http://www.plantzafrica.com/plantqrs/serruriaaemula.htm

Nymphea

2011-04-14T17:27:00.000+02:00

Now that my dear friend has received her box of goodies (errrr, long time ago!), i can disclose one item : the Nymphéa Kink! Kink because it is actually the name of that fantastic pattern (see Knitty.com), and Nymphéa because i used a ball of cotton yarn that i hand-dyed and it did look like the paintings of the same name by Monet.

Nymphéa on Angel

Earth's Tears

2010-12-09T21:30:00.000+02:00

The early planet was covered in volcanoes. These had a major effect on earth and helped to create the atmosphere. Volcanoes have fascinated mankind for millennia. The Ancients held the explosions of molten rock and gases to be the work of Vulcan (Roman version of Greek Hephaistos) forging away in his lava den. Johannes Kepler believed that volcanoes were the tear ducts or Mother Earth.

What a beautiful metaphor indeed. The tears of Mother Nature, her lava tears hardening and shaping our land, sometimes an underrated basalt, sometimes a coveted diamond..... I like to think Mr Kepler was right.

Some cheeky people will say that lava tears, like woman tears, are unpredictable... But remember : "the Kabbalah teaches that the female is more sensitive because her soul is more connected; that’s why she cries more, that’s why she understands more." (Rabbi Asher Jacobson in an interview about the Star of David, Shekinah and the Kabbalah)

- Posted from da EishPhone

Ondine

2010-12-02T13:58:00.000+02:00

Ondine is actually the second piece of a series of necklaces that are crocheted on the same theme. It was made for a friend's 40th birthday, and it can be said that if she was a necklace, she would be Ondine. It was the colour of her eyes that triggered my choice of colours. They're not green, they're not blue, they are a true "aqua", like the eyes of Athena in Odysseus.

Aquamarine stones were lurking in a corner of my treasure box and naturally found their way into the loops of my yarn.

When i looked at the necklace, it looked like a waterfall, the perfect gift for a mermaid!

Barringtonia

2010-11-26T09:45:00.000+02:00

During one of my trips to Durban city, i stumbled upon a beautiful tree. I had to stop and drive back to the spot!
Fluffy flower... that's what i googled, and here it was, my fluffy wonder!

Needless to say i immediately planned a necklace featuring it. A bit more research told me its name was Barringtonia racemosa, and that it was, in fact, a mangrove tree. Durban being such a humid place, the tree likes it and grows there, even though its feet are not in water, but in concrete (go figure Nature). For more info go to http://www.plantzafrica.com/plantab/barringrac.htm.

Oh, yes, and it does look like the designers of the world of Avatar could have been inspired by it for the "pure spirits of Aiwa"

What if you could wear them?

The finished necklace

The barringtonia flower and a blossom

That's all for today!

I can't see clearly now

2010-11-24T23:38:00.000+02:00

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Passiflora

2010-11-24T11:42:00.000+02:00

I have designed a few necklaces since my last post, but i wanted to share this design first.

I have been wanting to make a bridal head-dress for a long time, but i just wasn't sure what flower to use, apart from the orange blossoms which symbolizes purity (virginity). I came across the passion flowers and there was no doubt it was destined to adorn a bride. The symbolism of it is very rich :
When the Spanish conquistadors came across it in South America, they saw in it the symbols of the Passion of Christ (yes, with a long stretch of the imagination, they saw the whip and the thorns in the centre of the flower). The sad bit of the story is that they used it a sign from God that they were allowed to conquer the land. And therefore kill anyone who stood in their way. Hence its name, Passiflora, the flower of Passion.
To the Incas, it was the Vine of Souls, to the Mayas, it was the Vine of prophecy, to the Aztecs, it was the Healing Vine... for more info in a very detailed and very well research text, go to http://www.paghat.com/passiflorasymbolism.html.

Coming back to my design, i loved the intricacy of the passion flower.

Let's add to the orange blossoms (virginity, purity) a pinch of passion, a sprinkle of soul and a spoonful of magic!

The Passiflora (well, one of them, there are so many with such beautiful colours, they look as if they are coming straight from Paradise)

Orange blossoms... fresh water pearls....

Et voilà Passiflora!

[edit] My father just told me that there are more than 500 types of Passiflora!

Plumbago Auriculata : Blue Plumbago

2010-08-04T16:24:00.000+02:00

I didn't write about the plumbago until now, whereas actually, it was the first indigenous plant i planted in our new home.
When i went to Jenny's indigenous nursery (link below) for the first time, i saw these lovely flowers in bloom. They are all over our neighbourhood, but more often than not people very conservatively trim them into a strict hedge, so they just look like another hedge. Shame really, considering how beautiful the flowers are. Makes me think of an exotic "hortensia".
Anyway, the next day i told Greg to come with me pick up the plants, and check if he's happy with them. After all, he's got his say about the garden too (Well...). The first thing he said about the blue plumbago was : "What? You like that weed???" And so my love for them was born. I discovered that you can eat the flowers : just remove the sticky bit at the bottom of the flowers, sprinkle a few on a salad and voilà a beautiful dish. The sticky bits help with propagation (and they're not as prickly as the black jacks!). Fifi and Gabbi play at sticking them on their arms, their clothes etc... In no time the Blue Plumbago necklace was born!

So here is the work in progress. Believe it or not i made the neck mannequin out of plastic bottles and a bit of papier mâché... Upcycle!

Sticky plumbago flowers on my neck!

The finished necklace

Links:

Jenny Dean Wildflower Nursery :

http://www.jennydeanwildflowers.co.za/

Plumbago Auriculata info :

http://www.plantzafrica.com/plantnop/plumbago.htm

Website where the flower image comes from :

http://www.gather.com/viewArticle.action?articleId=281474977754918

Embo-craft in South Africa

2010-08-03T12:57:00.000+02:00

Last thursday at Embo-craft i taught the ladies how to crochet the Nimbostratus earrings. It was a great success! They loved it to bits, at last i presented them with a project they can complete in one three hour course!

Embo-craft is a charity on Botha's Hill (basically the hill just across us) and teaches all sorts of crafts (you didn't guess!) to the people of the surroundings thanks to volunteering and donations of crafts materials. They make beautiful screen-printed tee-shirts, felted jewelry, lots of sewn items too, dolls. The most striking pieces of all are the patchworks. The crafters depict their life like in a comic with different fabric skills like drawing, embroidering, dyeing…etc. (Link on the right hand-side and below)

Here is a photo of the Indabuko project (link below), i love those tees, hand dyed and screen printed with all local materials (More info on the Embo craft website). My favourite is the tree with its root outlining Africa. It also makes me think of a human heart. Yeah that's somebody's Xmas present!

I came across the centre one day by chance, i bought a few things, and i volunteered. I really liked the idea that we would give them a skill. It is the old “give a man a fish and he eats for a day but teach him to fish and he eats for a lifetime”. Also any yarn nuts like me would love the storage room where they keep all the donations of yarn in all forms, wool, beads… A dream for a creative mind. (We need crochet cotton though! Mail me if you have some to spare!)

I have been teaching the women five times so far, every Thursday, and the number of “students” in the class is growing! I teach crochet for now, but they are all very keen to learn knitting. I will wait a little for that because, i explained, crochet can be done anywhere easily. Just take your crochet out of your handbag and go. Knitting in a taxi, well… that wouldn’t be that easy!

So far i had put the emphasis on how to make simple squares and learning stitches. A bit repetitive, for sure, but i had to find out who could and who couldn’t crochet with a regular tension. Then i taught them how to read a pattern and a chart, and i presented them the “puff stitch beret” by creativeyarn (link to her pattern below). They loved it! It taught them how to crochet in concentric circles (rather than shongololo/spiral style) and how to increase and decrease. It was a fairly long project though, so i had to find something quicker, but as challenging. Another thing was that eventually some of their projects must go in the shop to raise funds. So i went into the storage room, well, rather Ali Baba’s cavern, and i found earring hooks. Nimbostratus earrings was my next lesson!

All the ladies are very skilled, and some of them, like Xesibile (pictured above) and Thuli, easily customize the patterns into their own creations. I really have to teach them how to write their own charts so they can make up patterns. Last time was a good one. I’ m starting to grab more Zulu too, so i’m not completely lost when they talk. Not that i could speak, but i’m getting there!

I have plenty great pics in store, watch this space!

Links:

Puff stitch beret

http://creativeyarn.blogspot.com/2008/02/puff-stitch-crochet-beret-with-bow.html

Embo craft

http://www.embocraft.co.za/

The Coral Tree : Erythrina Lysistemon

2010-07-23T11:03:00.000+02:00

That tree is the most beautiful of all, well, to me anyway.

It embodies Africa, to me still.

It loses its leaves in winter while its flamboyant red flowers are still in bloom. You’d have to drive down an alley planted with those trees to feel the beauty of it. Sometimes they stand alone, bright patches of red on the yellowing dry winter grassland. Better still, i have this image of a Coral Tree against the veld fires. Those fires are controlled (and sometimes out of control), the people/farmers …etc set it to the grassland to get rid of the high grass and manage habitat, grazing and so on. Those fires would occur naturally and they would be beneficial if only humans would let Nature take care of itself. Anyway to the point : i was in the car, heading to the Drakensberg and there it was, the coral tree, with only three or four blooms, standing against the dark grey of the smoking ashes. I wish i has a camera implanted in my head (or rather, a telepathy gift) so i could show you this picture from another world. If you are familiar with Kirikou (French film about a tale of West Africa, link below), you’ll remember the alley of the flamboyants (which is, i think, a different tree), and the picture i saw that day was very similar, vermillion, bluish greys and charcoal. A poem.

I have been wanting to catch that beauty into my work, but to no avail so far. I have only been able to use the colour combination of it.

Here is a picture of coral tree blooms, and below a link that will give you further info on that wonderful natural…. wonder!

Here is the necklace that has been stuck in my head for so long! I hope you enjoy!

Links:

About the Coral Tree :
http://www.plantzafrica.com/plantefg/erythrinlysist.htm

Kirikou et la sorcière (Kirikou and the sorceress) :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kirikou_and_the_Sorceress

About veld fires in SA :
http://www2.dwaf.gov.za/webapp/Documents/ForestFire/192.168.10.11/nvffa.nsf/037495e53fc3007e42256dde0043eebd/64a7c7f6bea728c942256dff003131a502ec.html?OpenDocument

The pic comes from : http://www.ubcbotanicalgarden.org/

Underwater

2010-07-18T10:49:00.000+02:00

Yesterday i was at a baby shower for a friend. I am rather new to baby showers since it is not a tradition in France (mind you it's like Halloween, it's on its way).We rather celebrate the baby and the mom when the baby is born. Safer, if you ask me. Anyway, it's a lovely celebration. The spoilt future mum was smiling so much she had to massage her cheeks!

Here are the booties i made for her baby (don't know yet if it's a boy or a girl) , from a pattern (modified) of MonPetitViolon's "Daisy Baby booties".
I called them "Underwater".

Dream house

2010-07-13T21:17:00.000+02:00

Fifi and i started to paint the wendy house the other day. I painted the branch while she was busy with something else and i made a stencil for the flowers. Here she paints the finishing touches of white.

Bravo my little Picasso! Three sides to go!

Asystasia Aqua

2010-07-04T21:19:00.000+02:00

Since the day i came to South Africa to live i have never ceased to be amazed by the luxurious display of its flora. It became a never ending source of inspiration for my restless hands.
Here is the first design that i submitted to the public. In fact it got me into the 30 runners -up of the south-african magazine IDEAS (same as the french Marie-Claire-Idées, except it's not featuring "La droguerie" at every page, those who know will understand). I will know in september if i am the big winner (4 days in Knysna!). But i am not deluded, i think the winner will have used mixed medias, and not a simple crocheted necklace!
Enough words, images will speak so much better than me!