Ruby's Button Tin

Bank Holiday Monday and Wuthering Heights on the video

It's a Bank Holiday, so I've got a day off work.  I've been catching up on some knitting and in particular assembling some bunting.  This is an experiment with little knitted monsters - one eyed creatures with big gnashing teeth!  They're suspended on ric rac.  I was thinking of making a variation of these - aliens rather than monsters, so using green wool and the odd metallic silver.

When I'm done with the bunting there are plenty of other bits and pieces to finish off, and something good to watch on the telly too - I taped last night's hour & a half of 'Wuthering Heights'.  It's such an amazing book, I'm hoping that it's a decent adaptation.  There've been a few turkeys in their time (I'm not even going to mention Cliff Richards as Heathcliff.  Eeeuch!).  Bronte wrote such a weird, wonderful, compelling novel - so unusual for the age in which she lived - that I'd always recommend it to anyone who's just watched a film or TV version.  You need to read the prose to really appreciate the story.   

A crafty corner of the sitting room, always home to a jumble of knitting, needlepoint and felt softies.  Oh, to have a tidy home! 

 

 

Pincushion Friday

I had a day off work today, so I've been pottering about - doing odd chores and finishing off a few pincushions that've been hanging around uncompleted. 

 

 

 

 

 

 They're filled with polyester toy stuffing and backed with felt.  I'd like to make needlepoint cushions to sell, but they're just too time consuming.  So I'm comprising by making pin cushions with my own designs and colourways. 

I'm going to add gift tags to them as I splurged on some lovely Moo cards a while ago and they're just the right size. 

P.S. to the book post ...

Sorry the photo's not very good.  Also, if you can make out the strawberry in the picture - it's not a freakishly overgrown GM berry.  It's my first attempt at a strawberry felt pincushion.  It's not quite right yet - I stuffed it with polyester filling, but that's a bit too squishy.  Bye!

Have you read ...

I thought I'd recommend some inspirational reading today.  They're ideal for leafing through and getting ideas, or for browsing when you're just too tired to stir off the sofa.  The first is a book that's just right - the size, the feel of the cover as well as the look of it - you know how sometimes you see a book on a shelf and just know it's going to be a good choice?    'Knitalong' by Larissa Brown and Martin John Brown is a lovely book.  It includes chapters on the history of knitting, lots of modern patterns with clear instructions, website addresses to go to, examples of arty knitting projects (such as covering a tank in pink knitting!) and loads more.  It's a book that makes me yearn (yarn?!) to open a knit cafe and have people dropping by for a row of plain & purl and a latte.

Next is my favourite patchwork book, now I think sadly out of print.  'The Passionate Quilter' by Michele Walker.  A wide selection of crafters of all ages and backgrounds are featured, including Deirdre Amsden (oh!  those Colourwash quilts!)and Janet Bolton.  It's a book I return to again and again like an old friend. 

Finally, I'd recommend 'KnitKnit'.  Subtitled 'Profiles & projects from knitting's new wave'.  I think this is going to be an old favourite too.  From Knitta Please via Freddie Robins, Joelle Hoverson and Cat Mazza, it's full of gorgeous photos.  Some - in fact many - of the knitting projects featured are way beyond my knitting skills, but there's a mohair belt that I want to make before long.  There's also a fab photo of Joelle's 'Purl' knitting shop.  I want that shop!!!

Oops, I'd better sign off now.  Time to get out of my dressing gown and get ready for another working day. 

Saturday and Sunday ... soon be Monday

The weekend goes so quickly, and it's back to work before you know it.  But before then there's still more crafty work to pack in.  I finished a few half completed pieces of felt food yesterday.  I forget how much I like work with felt, having done so much knitting & needlepoint lately. 

The colours are so vivid, and not fraying means it such an easy medium to sew with.  I'm now completing some Jaffa Cakes!!  (Mmmm, wish I had the real thing to hand, but I'm trying to cut back on snacking.  My tum is starting to resemble Pooh Bear's.) 

In the evening when the light got too bad for sewing (my poor old eyes don't cope well with artificial lighting when it comes to stitching tiny, weeny stitches) I swapped to a few more purl & plain rows.  The scarf is growing .... row by row. 

I did that while watching 'X Factor'.  Cringe-tastic!!  The self delusion of some people who auditioned is extraordinary.  They're so convinced they're going to be a star, and look crushed when the blindingly obvious ('you've got a terrible singing voice') is explained to them. 
You can tell autumn's on the way when the TV schedule changes and the big shows like this crank into gear.  I'll watch for a week or two.  It might be car-crash TV ... but it's my guilty secret!

Not a very crafty start to the week ...

I'm trying to get somewhere with this needlepoint pattern, but as yet it doesn't seem to have got enough zing to it.  Sometimes you just have to keep going.  A lot of patterns look uninspiring when you're halfway thought but come right in the end.  This one - with the coloured rectangles on a white background - isn't vibrant enough, and I'm wondering if the white is the problem.  I wanted a neutral background, but white can be deadening. 

I'll carry on till I'm finished, then back it with a lively fabric and see what the cushion's like when completed. 

 

When you make up your own patterns you have to accept that some work better than others, it's trial and error.  Occasionally you make things you adore, sometimes you make things you kinda like, and other times ... hmm, well ... those end up being cat cushions or tucked away out of sight.  Oh well, on to other matters ...

 

 

 

 

 

I've been sorting out some of my works-in-progress too, and there are plenty of those.  I started some knitted bunting a while ago, and need to get that completed.  Does everyone have stacks more ideas than time to complete them? 

Yarn storming ... phew! Nobody saw me ...

I went out for a Sunday morning cycle today, armed with a bag of knitted cozies and the idea of attaching at least one to something.  Then I behaved like a complete wuss and almost lost my nerve.  Everytime I delved in my bag for a cozy or a cable tie, a jogger/dogwalker/cyclist appeared.  Who knew there were so many neon lycra clad cyclists around on an overcast Sunday morning!  I keep telling myself to just ignore them and attach my knitting anyway.  So what if they see me ... they'll just think I'm a nutty old bag, an eccentric Englishwoman ... but I haven't reached that point yet and still want to yarnstorm anonymously.  But at last I found a quiet couple of minutes and attached this little fella to a glossy black post.  I think this second photo is so funny.

Somehow the left side of the picture has distorted so it looks as though the railings are bendy. 

I don't know how those graffiti sprayers work up the nerve to produce some of the elaborate sprayworks they do.  (I'm not talking about the idiots who just write f**k in huge letters, but the proper artists who have a lot of talent.)  Do they go out at night?  Or just get up very, very early in the morning?  Cos that doesn't sound like any teenager I know!

Well, well ... how did that get there?

I sneakily tied a little piece of knitting to the pipe on a water tank at the allotments the other evening.  Strange but true!! 

Here it is - with some lovely hollyhocks in the background.  I wonder if anyone else has noticed it yet.

 

Another view of the knitted cozy.  

On the home front I'm knitting a scarf - this on a beautifully warm sunny day!  But by the time I get it finished it'll be autumnal.  I'm not sure how to make up the scarf - whether to back it with a silky fabric or to fold it lengthways and have a narrow skinny scarf.  In the meantime I'm just enjoying using every colour of wool I can get my hands on. 

 

 

Sea coral, Nirvana and Rick Astley ... and yarn storming. What a mix

I'm still knitting my weird version of sea coral.  So far the pieces are quite small so I want to scale up and make some bigger versions.  Can't find any patterns for coral or sea anemones online, knitted ones at least, there are lots of crochet forms, so I'm just coming up with my own.  

 

 

 

Really lovely wool - those sumptuous Rowan silks and mohairs are so expensive, but luckily a lot of charity shops have odd balls of interesting colours and textures.  I might also try some genteel begging at my next book group meeting and see if any donations can be found!

  Apart from knitting, I've been doing my usual internet browsing, and have something weird to

recommend.  If you go to www.tinyurl.com/mnharb you get the strangest thing.  It's a mash-up of Nirvana 'Smells like teen spirit' and Rick Astley singing 'Never gonna give you up'.  It's so funny.  Bizarre but oddly compelling. 

Finally ... yesterday I checked on a couple of yarn cozies I stuck up a week or two ago.  (Losing track of time!!)  One I'd attached to some railings has gone, so whether a council cleaner disposed of it or a knitting collector nabbed it I don't know.  But the other cozy was still there, sitting proudly on top of a fence post.  It looks really good with the rusty colour of the post and the greenery in the background.  I'm so happy it's still in place! 

 

Midweek rainy morning

It feels like an Autumnal morning, gloomy and rainy, but it's only August!  C'mon Summer, let's see the sunshine again.  Yesterday it was a case of dodging the showers.  I wasn't too successful and got soaked, but I did squelch my way into a charity shop where I picked up this nice jug.

 

Not sure what I'll use it for, but I knew I'd regret it if I didn't buy it. 

 

 

 

 

 

In the evening I got stuck into knitting coral.  Yup, coral.  Nope, I don't know why either ... actually I do know why.  I'm very, very probably taking part in this year's Front Room Art Trail, so I need to be thinking about what 'artistic' venture I'll be showing off.  I've seen some amazing photographs on Flicker and subversiveyarn's website of knitted & crocheted coral reefs, and I want to have a go.  I've got this so-far vague-ish idea of an underwater scene, with blue netting or satiny material as backing, then on top knitted and felt pieces of underwater creatures, shells etc.  It's not too clear yet, so it may not happen. 

 

 

 

My work basket with assorted experiments.