Wednesday 25 March 2009

A little starch


My jewellery projects and plans have set me thinking of different types of crochet. Wire is, of course, the obvious. Jewellery needs structure to be effective. There are other ways, however, of giving your crochet work some 'backbone' and starch is one of them. It's an area that I haven't strayed into but many others have and on Flikr there is a whole group devoted to it, Starch It! started by Inger Carina who some might remember for her starched crochet TV!!
You can really starch anything but some items lend themselves better than others and filet crochet seems to be the favoured medium. It has some pedigree as the Victorian method of crochet, filet, really blossoms with a bit of starch. It really shows off the lacey effect. Many people stick to the doily idea and I think that this crocheter, Suzy_12, that I found on Flikr really can 'do' doilies. I love these, they're so structural which is what I'm drawn to. Of course, there are many other ideas you can go with. Tea-cups for some reason are very popular. Perhaps because they work so well. Pushing the idea further along, designers have made lamps which I think are stunning.





A designer who keeps popping up in this context is Marcel Wanders and his lighting and seating ideas. Strangely I think we're coming full circle as these designs are very much in a tradition that we've explored before with Joan Vasconcelos from Portugal.


For us mere mortals, a few lessons might not go amiss and there are plenty of how-to sites to dip (without the starch!!!)into. I've selected a few but there are many forums that will help you if you do decide to get the starch pot out.




Good luck and please let me know if you've ever tried this out.

3 comments:

Aveen said...

I've tried it! I made some bookmarks with sparkly cotton thread and starched them and they came out lovely. I'll see if I can get a photo tonight for you and send it along.

Aveen xxx

Aveen said...

Here you go Bee - something I starched. Terrible photo though!

LINK

Bee Creative said...

Wow, Aveen, it's sooo cute. Thank you for the picture and the comments. It's very chaincreative!!!!
Bee xxx