It’s almost here, Heritage Weekend starts on Thursday (it’s a long weekend, okay..). We will be in Jacksons of Reading from Thursday 11am, running a special beginners knit workshop/ informal knit lounge to a more advanced knit surgery. Pop by and see us, we will be there Thursday 11am-4pm, Friday 11am-2pm, Saturday 11am-3pm. Here’s a sneaky peek of a special A5 booklet created by some of the talented outcasts, costing £6 this first edition is limited to 100 copies containing 8 new designs. Available from Thursday 8th September, grab one before they run out.
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Reworking the Old and the New
Stashbusting
I can’t use the word ‘stashbusting’ without having the Kate Bush song ‘Cloudbusting’ playing in my head. This adds an air of upbeat determination, so I recommend listening to it while you’re reading this.
See?
So, at the moment I am trying to decrease my stash by stashbusting – making things in order to use up my stash of yarn, rather than making new projects with new yarn. I’m not doing very well so far, but I haven’t bought any yarn for myself for over four months now, which is a bit of a record for me.
I’m trying to save money and empty the many boxes of yarn I realised I had when we moved house recently. I had managed to hide yarn all over our flat – at the bottom of cupboards, drawers, in bags, in the space between the legs of the coffee table… When I packed it all up I realised I had six boxes of yarn and found things I didn’t even know I owned.
It’s forcing me to look at the fibre more closely and think about what could be done with it, rather than picking the final object and buying what the pattern suggests. I am more creative with what I knit and I try new things because the pain of the expense of yarn purchasing is that little bit further behind me. There’s also the joy of the ‘Eureka!’ moment when the idea of what the yarn could be clicks into place.
My favourite stashbusted knit so far are some knitted slipper boot things that I made with some impulse buy yarn I bought in Jersey. They look more like knitted wellies than slippers, but they keep my feet toasty warm.
My oh so fetching knitted wellies.
It means I don’t know what my next project will be, I’ll just have a rumage through my boxes and see what I can find. But as Kate says, ‘I just know that something good is going to happen’.
Shower Puff, knitted Art.
Garden art created using a shower puff.
Below charity shop yarn, as really for art you can use any type, and my empty coffee cup for myself coppice amounts of coffee need to be consumed for any project.
This post is a little like a Blue Peter post of how to, unlike in the early 80′s when know one ever had any of the things needed to create the project a shower puff is pretty easy to come by.
Yes I do knit! I know that is is very unusual but I figured that I would include reference, a basic knit stitch.
I guess if I was to re-name it would be crochet for art but five years ago I didn’t realise that crochet would be my chosen choice of creating.
A recycled shower puff.
Completion of my garden art/wall hanging.
Photos taking in a distant memory of a lovely British Summers Day, little stitches
blowing neatly in the wind.
The main body is created using a shower puff that I unravelled and then carefully tore,
Picking up the edges using a crochet chain, then adding which ever stitches you like to join the panels.
Above the crochet twisty stitch, fondly tilted by myself;-)
I like the almost silhouette/shadow of the edging crochet stitches.
Above Knitted Stitches, using a large and small needle.
Isn’t knitting for babies lovely?
My baby, Gracie, is 1 week old today. Unsurprisingly I am just going to make you look at pictures of her – but she is modelling the few bits of baby knitting I did whilst pregnant. Two pairs of booties that went in my hospital bag and my test knit of Ella Austin’s Highbury Vest (which is not a very boyish purple so lucky she turned out a girl!). Now I know she’s a girl my needles are going into overdrive…
And just so big sister, Esme, doesn’t feel left out:
It’s a pretty special feeling putting your children in something you’ve made.
September Heritage weekend – Outcast and Jackson Project
This year Jelly and Jacksons are working together again on a project for Reading’s Heritage Weekend – 9th to 11th September.
Suzanne and I had a chat with the lovely people at Jacksons and were excited by a book written by a member of staff. The book featured a collection of old photographs of the store and illustrated the changing fashions over the decades.
This has led me to design a piece of knitwear initally inspired by the Jacksons archive images. I researched vintage knitwear pieces with particular reference to one of my favourite fashion decades the 1920′s (see images from my sketchbook)
My garment is machine knitted using ‘stylecraft – 4 ply’ yarn available from Jacksons. The finished garment will be on display during the Heritage Weekend and during Septembers Third Thursday event. The image below shows a section of my garment for the Jacksons project.
Would you like to get involved with the project too?
How to get involved:
Last year the Outcasts designed a pattern to make a candle for the knitted Jacksons birthday cake.
This year we invite the Outcasts to design ‘vintage inspired’ hand knitted or crochet patterns. The patterns will be made available download online during the Jacksons Heritage weekend.
We would recommend that the patten should be for something small, made from one skein of yarn such as a brooches, cuffs, bracelets, socks, toys. The possibilites are endless and all ideas welcome. There is yarn left over from my garment which will be available for the Outcasts to use.
Deadline date for finished patterns: 1st September 2011
If you’d like to join in please register your interest in the comment box below and we will be in contact again soon with more info. I shall also be at knit night on Wednesday 3rd August to discuss the project.
Other wooly, crafty and fashiony dates for the diary of events happening in September:
5th to 11th September – Wool Week. Events all over the UK. See website for more info –
15th September – Jelly Third Thursday Event.
16th September – London Fashion Week – Spring/Summer 2012
22nd to 28th September – Origin – Contemporary Craft Fair, Spitalfield Market, London.
knit night venue change
Dear All
Just to let you know that for this week knit night will move to The Coopers Arms, 29-31 Market Place as Amys Ghost rehearsing at jelly on Wednesday 3 August. Amy will answer the phone for anyone who forgets and goes to jelly but see you all at the Coopers
A bit of a pimp…
I belong to an online knitting group (ah, yes another one….) ~ the Etsyknitters ~ we receive daily mailings through our yahoo group which is worldwide and I was so excited to receive this mailing…..
Four years in Stockholm, it could only be one person …. knitting for art
A Confession
My puppy loves yarn. In the worst possible way! That’s not the full confession, I’m building myself up to that…
This is my cute little puppy. He looks innocent enough. But leave him alone for a few minutes and this is what he does to yarn.
This photo was taken after an hours untangling. The kid silk could not be saved.
Tiny puppy doesn’t just love yarn to play with; he also loves hand knits -for eating! Look what he did to Intrepid Fox.
Don’t worry, my confession is not that I murdered my puppy in rage! Luckily Intrepid Fox made a full recovery after some surgery.
My mother warned me that a puppy would eat my yarn and I have to confess that I didn’t believe her. (That’s still not the confession!)
‘Don’t you let him eat my High Seas,’ my mum said. Which leads me to my confession…
Sorry mum!
The Ultimate Festival of Knitting
Just a quick post to remind everyone that the ultimate festival of knitting is taking place in London this weekend. KNIT NATION is on Saturday 16 and Sunday 17 at Imperial College London (South Kensington Campus), with a special preview evening on Friday 15. There’ll be a heady concoction of yarns and knick-knacks in the marketplace, and an impressive line-up of designers showcasing their work/talking/teaching.
Some of the Outcasts will be working with Skein Queen in the marketplace. Come and say hello!
Talented friends and a wind knitting factory
MMmmmmmmm, yarn cake (what am I thinking after last weeks yarn sale and the gorgeous yarn club from skeinqueen, I surely have enough!). There are so many things out there that I want to design and then things I have seen that I want to knit and then there are the talented designs from the outcast knitters:
The outcasts are aplenty with knitting talents, quirky, offbeat and beautiful so here’s a little snippet of some
Bombella: Ella has so many fab ideas, I had in my mind that I would only pick one piece but hell I can’t do that (in fact I would have picked all of them) but here are two cuties, the intrepid fox and the highbury vest.
KurlyKnits – Snowglade mitts
Billybrown – Porthmeor
Skeinqueen – sweet chicory socks
Joyuna A perfect pattern for anyone who bought some Angel at last weeks yarn sale, The Grateful Crane shawl
You can find all these patterns on Ravelry (and more).
Now all I need is probably one of these:
