Urban Decay FFAL - Week 1 - Urban Structure and Framework

 

Welcome to my (k)nitty, gritty, grungy city. 

For the next couple of months we are going to be wandering its streets and alley ways, and poking our noses into the abandoned and derelict places, finding freeform inspiration amongst the Urban Decay.

I'm dedicating this freefrom adventure to two of my best co-conspirators on past adventures in the IFFF (International Free Form Forum)  - the delightful roseknits24-7, who first pushed me down the freeform rabbit hole but was right there with me all the way and Ne11 (Artisan Loops / Uncommon Loops on Instagram), mentor, friend and amazing inspiration who makes me believe we make art, not craft. They've both moved on from Ravelry but I hope their spirit of whimsical delight and mad crochet freeform skills infuse our adventures this time too.

I'm going to suggest something slightly radical as our starting point for this freeform adventure. How about a little planning to start with? Just a little - not too much to inhibit the freeform chaos and creativity - but a little to think about what we could make from combining our eight inspiration prompts.

I have to admit, I have had the luxury of eight months or so to plan this adventure and I knew right from the start that it wanted to be a wearable piece and I eventually decided on a shawl / wrap. (You can see the evolution of my design sketches below).

So ask yourself a few questions before we dive in:

What does this want to be? Something wearable, an art piece, something useful - a cushion, a bag? Do I want to cover something with my freeform? Do I want to just make scrumbles or doodle with yarn?

Or you can just say stuff it and move right onto the freeform thing...

Our inspiration this week is urban structure and framework - thinks bridges, girders, ironwork, scaffolds... Think about both the structure and the spaces in-between.

I'm particularly fond of railway bridges - especially when they are rusty and disused.

So let me talk you through how I used these in my piece. I was looking at the spaces. Can you see all those triangles?

That's a fun shape to play with (especially as a knitter where more linear, angular geometry is a better fit to the fabric structure). What can I do with lots of triangles?

I started with thinking about a template for mittens, constructed from triangles. But that constrained me to smallish pieces and possibly finer yarns than I wanted to work with. And it was just a little too regular to please the freeform muse this time, even if I made them non-matching mittens.

 

But what can I do with lots of different sized and shaped irregular triangles? What if those spaces in the structure were filled in with freeform? That promising thought turned in the shawl sketch above - A structural spine girder with spokes between the freeform triangles.

Might I suggest the patterns of Ursa major KNITS (Link to her Ravelry Designer Store) or you can find her as ursamjorknits on Instagram, as a source of structure inspiration? Her shawls are often made up pieces enclosed in a framework and uses all sort of different shapes

My freeform piece taking shape

I began my structure with the long edge at the top of my shawl. I wanted regular big triangular holes, something I wasn't quite sure how to achieve in knitting, so I turned to a shawl pattern I already had in my extensive collection - #11 Openwork Shawl by Cornelia Tuttle Hamilton from Designer Knitting No.1 2020 which features her Drop-Stitch Openwork technique. My knitted girder is essentially a modified single pattern repeat with an added i-cord rolled edge.

I deliberately held two lace-weight yarns together to achieve the rusty girder effect - a black and grey alpaca and a rusty tonal wool. This will both even up and open up when I block it.

Suggestions for your play

So my challenge for this week is to create your own openwork piece. Embrace the holes and the structure surrounding them. 

 

You could work with mesh, for example. Here's a link to a Ravelry search of crochet mesh shopping and market bags for inspiration Pattern Search - Crochet mesh shopping bag (free)