All posts by Sylvia Szucs

About Sylvia Szucs

Victorian Eclectic blogs on our changing lives, toward a useful mindset for those who would like to conserve, use less, save. It is a given that we will keep technology. We need to have fun along the way.

Thoughts On Shakespeare

People, Thought,

 

Recent events recalled to mind William Shakespeare.  This picture is a photograph from my computer screen, of the article in Wikipedia about William Shakespeare.DSC08263 Introduced to him early by our mother, who read on of his plays to us when we were young children, having seen “Othello” enacted with Richard Burton when I was in high school or college, and having purchased an inexpensive book of his complete works when our own kids were young, I had not thought much about him.  I did see Verdi’s operatic interpretation “Otello”, and heard some famous quotes,

“There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.”
—Hamlet in Hamlet

“This above all: to thine ownself be true.
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.”
—Polonius in Hamlet

You can see these and many more Shakespearean quotes online, and on other websites.

In April 2015, we passed the 451st anniversary of his birth.  I am so impressed at his astute insights.

Fall Textile In Double Crochet

Crochet, ,

This textile can be used on a table alone or on top of another compatible table cloth, made into a pillow, or even hung on the wall.

DSC08159 Three strands of number 10 crochet cotton, worked together in double crochet, give a rustic, drapeable  textile.  This piece is about 18 inches square.  The three strands together cause a tweed-like effect when I use different color combinations.  They also permit one to modulate the colors.

I learned that black thread as one of the three gives a dark value.  Totally different threads can come out  very similar in effect.  There are two axes available with which to play.   I started out with one idea in mind, which I modified according to my available thread colors.

The log cabin pattern is a very versatile , and can give larger patterns in combination.  Try searching “log cabin crochet”, and you can see many examples.

Bavarian Crochet Dishcloth

Crochet, , , , ,

This runner design caught my eye in a catalog.  Someplace I saw a reference to learning Bavarian crochet, and I realized I did not know what that was, and so I looked it up online.I found a good video, and then what looked like a quite similar set of Bavarian crochet  instructions  in three colors, illustrated by with color photographs.  First, I learned the basic idea from this Bavarian crochet video.

DSC08156

Done in 85% , size 4 cotton, this dishcloth weighs 1.3 ounces, and is 7 1/2 inches across.  I am still mastering this technique.