Knitting Update

Here's some of the items I've knit over the years.

This is the first ever Teddy I knit, he's a rucksack teddy and I brought him everywhere with me. I was about 8 years old. 

A Debbie Bliss teddy. The first one I knit from this pattern, I've since knit many of these teddies. The most recent being a Rambo one and one for Duane, now named Alfie. 

In fourth year of Secondary School, I knitted this teddy as part of a school project.  The pattern was on a torn out page from a magazine. I think he looks adorable in his stripped pyjamas.

My first attempt with double pointed needles resulted in a pair of leg warmers. My second attempt was a pair of cozy socks, modelled here by Margie! 

I enjoy knitting baby clothes and accessories because they are quick to knit.

In the Knitted Accessories book, I came across a cute Berry Beret and tried my hand at it. I was very happy and knitted another in blue for Margie. 

While knitting, I watched The Sound of Music on tv. You can see the ballroom scene behind me in one of the photos. 

Baking Update

I've been taking photos for the last few months for this blog, but never got round to putting them up.  So, here they all are. 

Last year, Duane gave me a Student Vegetarian Cookbook.  I found fun and delicious recipes inside.  One of our favourites is for Oatmeal Cookies.  These cookies are white chocolate chip and always go down a treat! 

During the summer, Margie and I found ourselves in This is Knit in Blackrock.  We picked up some wool and a lovely book called Weekend Knitting.  Among the pages of patterns added treasures - for example, there's a recipe for chocolate chip cookies.  These cookies were delicious!

On the same day as baking the cookies, I also made a rhubarb crumble, one of my favourite desserts to bake.  The top browned up nicely and the bowl was empty by nightfall.

In August, when the weather was good, Margie and I started baking scones.  We followed a recipe from the September issue of Country Homes & Interiors.  I saw the picture of the scones and, with my mouth watering, couldn't resist the lure of a warm scone with melting butter and raspberry jam. Of course, the jam had to be Bonne Maman. This jam always reminds me of my childhood holidays spent in Belgium, where we'd go to the supermarket and slice the bread with those bread-slicing machines and then go back to the apartment and spread the slices with butter and Bonne Maman jam. 

In early september, I moved into an apartment in Dublin with my friends.  I needed to be close to college and also needed more independence than we had in Digs. The first weekend I spent there, I watched Saturday morning tv and was inspired by Delia Smith to start baking bread from scratch. 

 

Here, I'm punching the air out of the dough after it rose for an hour. 

I soon expanded to other recipes that called for yeast.  Here is my first attempt at Cinnamon Buns.

Unfortunately, I left them in the oven too long so they were a bit too chewy! They still tasted great though. 

I really enjoy baking my own bread now but I'm still hunting for a 1 pound loaf tin. 

I made a delicious pizza, also from a Delia Smith recipe. 

Margie and I enjoyed the pizza with Margie's home-made Chutney while watching a girlie film. 

Society's Abyss.

The statement I put up beside my piece:

From the selection of concepts I randomly choose Composition, Society, and Dante's Inferno.  From my research I developed a poem which follows the same rhyming pattern (Terza Rima) as Dante's Inferno and is written in Gothic Rotunda style.  Like the hell of Dante's inferno, Witch Hunts have been omnipresent in Western culture for centuries.  While Dante's Inferno deals with Divine Judgement of the sinful after death, the Witch Hunts are an example of misplaced societal judgement before death, thus highlighting society's own downfall or capabilities to endlessly repeat mistakes.  The mirror is a tool often used to discover the mark of the devil on accused people.  I use the mirror to discover the words of the poem.  The poem is faded and nearly illegible, just as the horror of the tortures used in Witch Hunts has faded due to desensitisation.  The editions are bound to become a Book of Spells, a play on the religious Book of Kells. 

Here are the photos of the completed art work:

The Poem reads:

Swinging from a man-made rope

Or roasting on a bed of wood;

Cruel judgement tore away the hope

Increasing the wrath of "common good" 

And still today we see the sky

Lighting up, 'cos those who could

Ignited another witch todie.

Nighttime hides the ones who come,

Justice cloaking sinners sly:

Uneasiness to the beat of Hitler's drum

Sounding out fears ill-founded;

'Though what good can come from 

Innocent and soul divided?

Condemned by their peers,

Every victim's life upended,

Silenced by the age-old fears

Of spells cast and poisons evil.

Fleeing the taunts and angry jeers -

Mass hysteria caused upheaval-

Often suspects flee from kin

Darkened by mentation medieval

Evading torture to begin

Rebuilding lives and dreams beside

Neighbours too accused of sin.

Day after day, far and wide,

Across the plains of ground and time,

Yesterday has been denied

When the sinless fall to impossible crime;

Ignorance is no longer bliss.

Tolling bells together chime

Cacophonies of laws remiss -

Heralding the killing spree.

Hunts of witches cause this 

Unfair disregard for history

Nullifying the need to pray.

These injustices of witch hunts can be

Seen in societies of modern day. 

copyright 2008 by M.M.W. (Marjolein Wouters)

Completed College Work since last post

Hm, I haven't been on this blog in so long. I've finally decided to return and now shall post a mountain of posts for updating my life on this!!

First off, here's the completed piece for my project from 2nd Year. I was very happy with it myself and had positive feedback from tutors, family and friends. 

Now I'm back in college after a fun-filled summer.  I don't have a picture of my final piece for my Chance Project. Here's all the workings.  It's very seasonally-appropriate. I had a lot of fun producing this work even though it was tough going with lots of late nights.  The final piece is a combination of literary and artistic ability- a print of a poem.  The concept is based around modern day witch hunts.  I'll give more information when I've posted the photos of the final piece. 

Here, I'm using scrim (muslin) to clean the ink off the copper plate and push it further into the etched lines.

The old printing press looks so lovely and I love being so hands on with my work. It's just a pity that it is so heavy to turn and that I had to roll it through four or five times for each print so I ended up with a very sore back for the whole of last weekend.

Embossing is a technique I hadn't used before in print so it was fun to play around with the image. The pentagram was printed from the internet and then I transferred the image to card to use as my embossing device! The press had to be adjusted so that a mark wouldn't be left on the blankets (the wads of material that cover the work while its being printed). 

The completed piece is very striking. This is the best photo I have at the moment but there'll be more to come!