Ruby's Button Tin

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! 

 

Treats and more nattering about knitting

I treated myself to a couple of goodies the other day.  One was Knit1, a lovely magazine with some really interesting patterns and features in it, including ones on Freddie Robins and Diva Zappa.  It always feels very indulgent to spend money on magazines - this one was £4.95, but you need a treat now and again, don't you? 

The other goodie I bought was a book of Julie Arkell's work.  She's such an inspiring artist, and her work appears simple and naive but it's actually rather sophisticated - and definately beautiful.  I'm looking forward to putting aside some time to read the book thoroughly.

 

I've also been knitting some odds and ends like this little piece with plain and purl rows of stripes. 

There're 3 buttons to fasten this around an unsuspecting lamp post or street sign post.  Just gotta be sneaky and fix it in place ...

 

 

Is that a cabbage I see before me?

I bought 'Knitorama' about 6 months ago, Rachael Matthews zany book of '25 Great & Glam Things to Knit'.  If you haven't come across it, the book features such fab projects as knitted fried egg earmuffs, ham sandwiches, even a knitted hand grenade.  I rustled up a couple of knitted cabbages, and have been wondering what to do with 'em ever since!                                                                 

Here you can just about make out a mini cabbage nestling among the rocket and thyme on the windowsill. 

 

Anyway, with my new interest in 'yarn bombing' I had an idea: I'm going to attach them to the noticeboard at the allotments where I've got my plot.  I thought that was an appropriate home for them.  Allotments always look eccentric anyway, with their bathtubs for rainwater and cobbled together sheds and bird scarers that consist of CDs strung on lines of string.  I reckon my cabbages should fit in beautifully!

Nattering about knitting ...

I've been thinking for ages about a knitting project I'd like to do, and finally the idea's coming together.  I love the whole 'urban knitting' movement, 'yarn bombing', 'guerilla knitting' or whatever you care to call it.  Also, I love knitting but it's more the process of knitting than the end result I like.  It's the stitches, the choice of colours and different textures.  I like making simple shapes like rectangles or long strips of wildly clashing yarns.

So anyway, I've decided to be a big, brave girlie and put some knitting out there in the urban landscape.  Probably as part of the Totterdown art trail which happens in - I think - November this year.  I took part last year, selling felt food softies, but fancy doing something a bit different this time.

 

So I've been knitting pieces with button fastenings to wrap around fence posts or traffic sign posts.  Here are some that I've draped around my arm to show you.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

     

And here's another piece. 

I want to attach labels to these pieces, and I really like the idea of the label having a piece of text written on it - a paragraph from a novel or a poem.  I want to just pick pieces at random from various authors, from different genres, so people move from one knitted cosy to another reading the labels.  So one might have an excerpt from a Georgette Heyer novel attached to it, another might have a bit from Dickens, another could use a quote from Agatha Christie. 

Well, that's the plan so far.  Let's see how I get on!!

A weekend in the sun

A gorgeous sunny weekend ... after the weathermen were promising a deluge of rain!  I managed some needlepoint yesterday, working on a new pattern.  The sketch below gives a rough idea of what it'll look like - oblongs of bright stripy colour on a plain cream background.  

 

The basket in the back of the picture is one I picked up yesterday for £1.50 in a charity shop.  Baskets like this are so useful for yarn or spools of thread. 

 

This idea of putting stripy colour on a plain background was also behind this pin cushion pattern (which could be easily adapted for a full size cushion).  It's really enjoyable to work as you just get to choose any colour you like in those oval shapes.  You can blend them in or have quite marked contrasts. 

 

 

 

It reminds me of those patchwork quilts where you get a white background and circles of printed fabrics appliqued on, then the whole lot quilted. 

Finally, a knitted bag for you.  I've made a few knitted bags in my time, but never ended up with one I liked or that was useful.  The trouble is that I don't like lining bags with fabric as it's too fiddly, but most bags I've tried to make are too flimsy to be useful without being lined.  Then yesterday I had a Eureka! moment. 

I used a sky blue double knitting weight wool along with a lighter blue in a thinner yarn (the sort you'd use for baby knits).  I cast on 30 stitches using this doubled wool and knitted this sturdy little bag.  The bag is just one long oblong, and the handle is knitted separately and sewn on.  I might add a decorative button or a knitted flower, but essentially it was finished in the space of an evening. 

Going to have a go at a bigger version, maybe add stripes to the pattern too. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hello sunshine

Ooops, the fishy cushion how-to hasn't made any progress, and you can blame the sunshine for that.  As well as my guilty secret - 'Britain's Got Talent'.  

The sunshine - because it's been such utterly gorgeous weather that I'm just spending as much time as I can outside.  'Britain's Got Talent' because I spent an hour last night watching it instead of being good and doing crafty type things.  (Not that I entirely approve of BGT.  The little girl who performed last night and cried her eyes out was just way too young to be on the show.  She looked terrified and it was very uncomfortable viewing.)   So between doing laundry, watching that and doing a mountain of washing up, I didn't craft at all yesterday evening. 

We'll see what today brings - though I'm definately spending a few hours on the allotment today - oh heck!  I need more time!!  For now,here are some pictures of little knitted houses. 

 

 

 

 I've been experimenting with attaching them to ric-rac to make bunting.  Here's the first one I've finished. 

 

 

Knitting news ...

This is a tea cosy I knitted which is meant to be shaped like a cake! The white paper case, the chocolate sponge, the pink icing with strawberries on top. It was partly successful, but I might have another go at getting it right. I wish I had a photo to illustrate the following, but this is a snippet from The Sunday Times. It in turn got the info from the Brighton Argus. It's about a knitter called Audrey Horncastle. She '... has knitted more than 100 woolly breasts in the past three years. They are squeezed into shape by daughter Rhona ... and used to teach breast feeding to new mothers. Audrey, who now produces one breast a day, says "I try to keep the basic fleshy tone but sometimes people ask if I can put in a bit of colour just to make things a bit different."' How fantastic is that!!! What a great new use for knitting.