fibre friday: swatching

swatch: spring, originally uploaded by ebbandflo_pomomama.

I admit I'm not usually too keen on swatching for anything. It always seems a complete waste of time and creative energy, and meh! I can usually cope with the wrong size or whatever.

I never swatch with wire and fibre, preferring to create on the hook and treat each new project as a brilliant adventure.

Except now. I'm working on a wire and fibre series for the four seasons (not just the two we have in Vancouver, rain and even more rain), and wanted to explore some new techniques with different yarn combinations. Each swatch was prepared on an 8 chain square of tinned copper wire crochet (copper for autumn) with the new fibrey experiment embroidered across the mesh.

The one shown above is for Spring (pre-felting). I used brilliant shades of green to illustrate the fresh shoots emerging and roving French knots as the blossom buds.

So far, the Spring project has not yet emerged but I have included the French knot idea in another piece, skookumchuk, to convey the idea of foam and frothy wave edges on the roving whirlpools in this cuff.