Showing posts with label knitting. Show all posts
Showing posts with label knitting. Show all posts

23.4.14

St George's Day egg cosy

I'm on a bit of a roll with my Saint's Day cosies. Lovely feedback about the Leprechaun last month, so, thought I'd have a crack at St George...

and seeing how many egg puns I can get in a post…

St George's Day egg cosy
St Patrick's Day egg cosy

I crocheted the head and the egg cosy body for a good fit - the other bits are knitted because I'm a little more confident about my knitting abilities. The sword is a covered cocktail stick (point cut off!)

Have to admit I had to look up when St George's Day was, and it seems I'm not alone - apparently two thirds of us don't know the date. Probably because there's no national holiday - sure we'd all know it if we got a day off, like Scotland and Ireland.

A few other facts about the patron saint of England found out along the way:

He wasn't English.

Born in what's now Turkey in the third century, he became a Roman soldier and was eventually imprisoned, tortured and executed for protesting against the treatment of Christians.

St George has been the patron saint of England since the Middle Ages because he represents the traditional English ideals of honour, bravery and gallantry.

The myth of him slaying a dragon and saving the princess symbolises good driving away evil. In medieval mythology, the devil was depicted as a dragon.

Other myths about St George include: surviving being boiled alive in molten lead, forced to swallow poison and crushed between two spiked wheels before finally being beheaded.

By the by, Shakespeare's birthday is said to be on the 23rd April too.

So, time to celebrate, maybe with an egg? (possibly chocolate?) …if you're English that is, which I'm not. Anyway my 9 year old wants St George, which is fine seeing as he's more English than me. And he's my only egg eater.

Now I just need to work out how to knit a kilt…


21.12.13

Knitivity



This is my longest ongoing knitting project and probably my favourite. Every year a few more figures arrive at the stable, and I'm almost there - just two shepherds and an ox to go.

A while back I thought I'd lost the donkey, so knitted another one, only to find the original in my daughter's My Little Pony House… and I'd forgotten how many sheep I'd made - a few have wandered out of shot (need another shepherd) - last year I found some fluffy white and brown yarn in a charity shop and got a bit carried away.

I used 'Knitivity' by Fiona Goble. Such a great book. The patterns are easy to follow and the knitting really isn't tricky. Probably the most time-consuming part is the robes, and you do need lots of different colours, which was never going to be a problem for me with my wool hoarding habit..

It's such a lovely thing to have - every year I forget quite how lovely, until we take the figures out of the box and set them on the hall table. Hopefully they'll be making an appearance for years to come.

I've a few old family Christmas decorations that are very dear to me - and who knows, maybe far into the future some small person will be asking his mum why Great Granny knitted so many sheep..


9.10.13

Nostalgic Knit


It fits!
Such a relief.
Almost 2 years since I cast on the first stitches, and quite honestly after all that time I wasn't holding out much hope. Mind you he's not allowed to grow for a while...apart from his arms, they can grow; for some reason I got a bit carried away with the sleeves...

I'm thinking it would make a perfect Christmas jumper, and bless him, he's promised he'll wear it because he knows how long it's taken me. Though sense there might eventually be some bribery involved.

I was given the pattern decades ago by a friend who was well aware of my love of all things Tintin. I had every single book of course, and couldn't for the life of me understand why my sister didn't like them - I mean what's not to like about a plus-four wearing mildly rascist reporter whose best friend is a suicidal alcoholic?
But none of that stuff, nor the lack of women, bothered me in the slightest when I first started reading the books - they were just cracking adventure stories as far as I was concerned. Adults do have a knack of ruining things sometimes.

I've passed my Tintin collection onto the kids, and the boys dip into them from time to time - and the 8 year old seems genuinely pleased with his jumper... though we all know who it's really for :)

6.5.13

When a crafty idea gets wheels

My other half smiled and rolled his eyes when I showed him what I'd made last week: he's pretty used to my random knits, so always good to know I can still surprise him!

It is funny sometimes the things that spark a crafty idea; this one came from seeing Wendy's gorgeous campervan bag, which got me thinking about our camper, Betty - and as I've been making quite a lot of woolly cake and the like, I thought I'd knit a Betty...


As with all my make-them-up-as-you-go-along projects, this looks totally different from the picture I had in my head.. For a start, the plan was to make it small enough so I could stuff it with lavender and dangle it from the rear view mirror - a bespoke/personalised van air freshener if you like; but it turned out bigger than expected, and would I think be a driving hazard...so I'm not sure!


Maybe a novelty lavender bag, or it could join the toy camper collection on the windowsill. OR perhaps I should stick with the original idea and put the mini Betty in Betty, just somewhere that doesn't block my view..

I don't think the knitted camper will be going into mass production...a bit on the fiddly side with all the detail, and I found it hard to get the shape right, but my newly acquired flat circle crochet skills came in handy for the wheels. Anyway it was fun to do, and what do you think? A dead ringer??..




Linking up with the ever so lovely Handmade Monday

19.7.12

Day 247 - The Art of avoiding the obvious #TheVeryHungryCaterpillar

I've had the time and space to get on top of things this week before we go away on sunday.
So I knitted a butterfly.
Yes, I know. Not that sensible with five weeks worth of packing to sort out, holiday shopping to do and admin to finish up, but definitely a lot more fun. I am seriously good at putting things off.

I think the idea for this random knit started when we joined the Big Butterfly Count - it's not been going that well due to the lack of butterfly weather. Then I read a lovely post on Jennifer's Little World about celebrating Eric Carle's work with lots of creative ideas and stuff to make based on The Very Hungry Caterpillar. I dug out the book and had a look at his beautiful butterfly.


It really is such a gorgeous butterfly. And that's when I thought I'd have a go at knitting it. Made perfect sense at the time. So the packing went on hold...
I have a rainbow of colours thanks to my wool-buying addiction, so knew I could make the butterfly nice and bright.

 In the picture each wing is made up of four individual strips. I knitted each one so they tapered in the middle....


...and then folded them over and sewed them up. It was more fiddly and time consuming than I thought, but by this stage I was on a mission and curious to see how it would turn out.


I mirrored the four I'd done, roughly based on Eric Carle's butterfly and then sewed each wing together. The body was just a small rectangle, mostly brown with red at the top for the head. I stuffed it with dried lentils, to give it some weight - and added a small bell, from my Lindt bunny bell collection for a bit of interest. Then sewed the sparkly pipe-cleaner antenna into the head and a few crocheted rossettes for the circles on the wings, though it probably would have been just as easy to embroider them on.
I'm sure I'll pay for using up my valuable child-free packing time, but I am very happy with my butterfly!




16.1.12

Day 57 - Why a Woolly habit can be good for you!


I am enjoying making granny squares although I'm running behind - 8 weeks now, so should be up to 32.  I always carry a ball of wool and a hook in my bag just in case.  I've crocheted during my weekly wait at ballet, football training and piano.  A few of my first attempts were on the beach!  It got me thinking about where else I might try?   Maybe I should spice up my granny square challenge by introducing a 'strangest place' category.   I could call it off piste crochet?!

I am trying to squeeze in a bit of knitting too, because it's my oldest woolly habit and it's comforting.  It helps me relax when the kids are asleep and I'm on my own.  Knitting away the worries of the day.  Sometimes.

I recently had a go at making up a knitting pattern.  A first for me.  Not exactly sure why, but I decided to make a small bird.  The first one looked like a bright, wooly, potato with wings?  After a few attempts they started looking a little more birdlike....

Knitted bird - species unknown...

...... and I knitted a whole flock of them!

A flock of knits

I sent the birds to my London sister who sold nearly all of them at a local craft fair along with my stock of teddies (do find it hard to part with the teddies..)

Knitted teddies - leaving home!

I still get such a buzz when someone wants to buy something I've made, which is a lucky as I'm  probably earning about £1.50 an hour!  Hey, it's not about the money......