Kinokuniya (the best book store in Sydney) will having a Craft Fair on Saturday, February 27th. The Inner City Guild group will be there giving free knitting help to anybody who drops by. The shop will also be giving 20% off all craft books! WIN-WIN if you ask me.
Category: Crafts
Craft projects of mine
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Knitters’ Christmas Tea Party
I went to a tea party! The regular Thursday night crowd from the Morris & Sons SnB all met up on Saturday afternoon at Harrogate Teas. We nibbled on sandwiches, sipped a variety of teas, and guzzled our weights in champagne. (I’m serious.) It was so much fun! We also had a “Kris Kringle” swap of decorations, where I got a lovely sparkly dove ornament. And of course, we all frocked up. I’m wearing a vintage “Jonathan Summers” dress that Ma Snook gave me last year. (Everyone joked that I looked like a Stepford Wife.) Lyn has some great photos here too.
Fiona in a fabulous floral headpiece…
Alison and Sue prove that there is no occasion too formal for the winding of wool…
Lee was a fabulous organiser and looked so smart in his green scarf!
Jody knits along with our distant visitors Donna and Ailsa…
Recent graduate Ness chats with Jody and Lyn…
A room full of happy and talkative knitters!
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Socks!
First up are the Biohazard Socks I designed and knitted for Eileen. They were a gift for getting her Biology PhD, so I thought the biozard symbol was fitting. I took the symbol and turned it into a chart, scaling it to fit nicely around the leg of the sock. I also centered it so the motifs would continue nicely down the top of the foot. Other than that, it’s your basic cuff-down sock with a slipstitch heel. The yarn is Pagewood Farms St. Elias that I bought last year at Compatto Yarn Salon in Santa Monica. It’s hand dyed Bluefaced Leicester and it’s GORGEOUS. I loved knitting with it. I knitted the socks one at a time on two circular 2.75mm needles. (Ravelry details.)
The second pair are Sheri’s Posie Socks from Socks from the Toe Up. (Thanks to Fiona for lending me the pattern.) I started them at Guild Camp last month but only finished them last night. I knitted them at the same time on two 2.75mm needles. The yarn is Lorna’s Laces Shepherd Sock in the “Sherbet” colourway, kindly gifted to me by Mary-Helen and Sandra. I was worried that the colours might compete with the lace, but instead I think it all worked together really well. The yarn is lovely to knit with and it really showed off the stitch pattern. There was very little pooling, and I ended up with heaps of it left over. I had some trouble with my initial cast-off being too tight, so I tried out Jeny’s Surprisingly Stretchy Bind Off, which worked perfectly. (Ravelry details.)
Now, on to the next project…
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Matt’s Random Striped Scarf
Remember back in June when I launched my site redesign? Well, in exchange for making my awesome header, I agreed to knit Matt a custom scarf. He liked the look of Kelley Deal’s recycled scarves, so that’s where the inspiration came from. I used sixteen different colours of 8 and 10ply wool on a 4.5mm circular needle (knitted as a tube). Each colour was assigned a number and put on a bit of paper in an envelope. In another envelope I had a selection of bits of paper with 1, 2, 3, 5, and 8 written on them (Fibonacci stripes). I’d pick a slip from each envelope and then knit the specified colour in the specified number of stripes. After all the slips were gone, I put them back in and mixed them up again. This assured that the stripes were random, but not too random. (I wanted a relatively even distribution of the colours.) I think it turned out really well! It’s about six inches wide when flattened, and about five feet long. (Another view.) Matt didn’t want fringe, so I sewed the ends shut. It’s now blocked and on its way to him. Thanks again, Matt! There are a couple other pics on Ravelry…
And isn’t the Snook a natural male model?
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A Christmas Story Embroidery
I may need to bust out my embroidery skillz to make this Christmas Story sampler for my sister.
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Papercraft Self Portrait
Papercraft Self Portrait. Cree. Pee. Yet so cool.
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Horace Behr and Mr Bunnyford
Horace Behr and Mr Bunnyford. Freaky and disturbing amigurumi.
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Food for the Future Fair
The Food for the Future Fair is in full swing, and the Knitters Guild stall is being mobbed by kids who want to knit. Here are the unsuspecting knitters right before the onslaught:
And here’s what it looked like after the kids found us. Eeek!
The Snook and I got to watch Lord Mayor Clover Moore open the new food co-op (while wearing a 350.org T-shirt); I sampled some macaroons from Sweetness the Patisserie, and I finally got to meet fellow Chippendale blogger Steven Noble. Pretty fun! Now I’m off to run some errands, but I’ll be back at the knitting stall from 2pm-4pm.
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Food for the Future Fair
Just a reminder that the 2009 Chippendale Food for the Future Fair will be held this Saturday, October 24th, from 10am-4pm. The Inner City group of the Knitters Guild (of which I am Convenor) will be giving free knitting lessons there all day long. It’s going to be a great day! If you’re in Inner Sydney and you’re interested in art, food, gardening, sustainability, and culture, you should come along. (Me, I just want to pat a chook.)
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M&S Sale
Morris and Sons are having their occasional-but-increasingly-annual October Sale right now. This is kind of a weird one for me. It’s their first sale in five years that I haven’t been involved with in some capacity. All I did was send through instructions for updating the website. On one hand I guess it’s good that the system I set up works well and the training I’ve given them over the years has paid off. They can run it all themselves. On the other hand… they don’t need me anymore! It’s a little sad. But the sale looks good, so you should totally go.