Crafters Against Cuts - keep going guys!

Hi there knitters, crocheters, friends and anti-austerity fans. I haven't done anything for a few weeks as I sort of floundered after the success of the knitted banner and all the work everyone did. The banner went out again on Friday to protest the meeting and nefarious dealings of David Cameron and President Xi in the town hall, by the way. She (she is a she, I've decided) is still fighting away. Good old banner.

At the protest someone secretly attached a crochet poppy to her, I love this! The banner got yarn-bombed!

So. Although the momentum of crafting against cuts might have slowed a bit, I want to keep on going and I hope you do too, a bit.

I started making a blanket out of the leftover squares, here it is so far.

I went for a nice checkerboard pattern.

The blanket is about 110cm square at the moment so I need to make it a bit bigger. I still have a lot of red and white squares left over:

I can probably get 1.5 to two decent sized blankets out of these squares. I also have a few squares in other colours, that I made with the purpose of making blankets:

The original idea was to send the finished blankets to Calais for the refugee camp, and later on I also wanted to donate some stuff to the homeless camps in town. Now. 1.5 blankets isn't going to do anyone much good and I can't do this alone. The thing is that blankets take a fair bit of time to make, and while they are desperately needed, it seems slightly futile to spend ages hand-making blankets which will get ruined fairly quickly and quite likely discarded. So first, I thought maybe hats, scarves, woolly socks would be appreciated and quicker to make - depending on your level of knitting expertise, you could choose what to make. 

Secondly, if we do make blankets, or other things, I thought we could sell them and donate the money for whatever supplies the organisers of Calais trips, or homeless provision, need the most. That way we are making something beautiful that people can use, but aren't spending loads of time and energy when really things are needed fast, and cheap. The money made from a beautiful handmade blanket could buy several like this, or this. Yes, buying fast and cheap carries its own ethical burden... but I'm trying to think practically and do things that can help. I reckon we could set up an auction or something and all the money made will be donated.

So to sum up: I need knitters and crocheters. Again.

You can make whatever you want: hats, scarves, gloves, warm things... which we can send directly to Calais and whoever needs them.

Baby things are needed too and even quicker to make. Blankets, little hats, maybe even toys.

Or, if you're still into squares we can make a load of blankets to sell. Or you could make something else to sell. 

I admit I am not sure what I'm doing here so please, please get in touch if you disagree with my ideas, or if you've got better ones. I want to do the best thing I can, and all I can really do is knit :) I will set up a meeting for Manchester types so we can knit together again, that was nice. But do join in if you're somewhere else too. I will get in touch with other organisations like Knit For Peace that do great work and have a wide reach. I just feel so helpless in the face of all this unfairness and I want to do something, even a little thing xxx

My Hudders Field Trip

Hey lovelies. Just a v quick post today, I am going to Wigan in a bit. Hooray! I went to Huddersfield yesterday to see my buddy Phoebe, and photographed her in a pair of gloves that I made as a late Christmas prez. See, I went to visit her just after Chrimbo and she happened to mention that she had a new job in a VERY cold shop in town, and she admired my long fingerless gloves and wished she had some to wear at work so she could be a bit warmer whilst still being able to type. RIGHT! I thought, since I am rubbish and never get anyone presents, I will knit her some. So I did. Luckily it's still really cold so she will get some use out of them before it warms up a bit.

Here is a photo of Phoebe wearing the gloves whilst drinking a frothy drink of some description.



She doesn't really look like that, but I took a picture of her while she was talking and it wasn't very flattering so I doctored it so she wouldn't be upset. Although now I'm not sure if this is more upsetting. I'm sorry Phoebe.

I decided a plain black glove would be most suitable for wearing at work, and her work uniform is black so it would be pretty subtle, but how BORING, am I right? So I gave the dreaded cable knitting a go. I never do cable because I can't be bothered to count stitches properly and it always ends up wrong. Made a proper effort here though.



They look really nice and she seemed happy about having slightly warmer arms, so I'm pleased with my decision to make them. After our coffee, Phoebe took me to a fancypants shop in the Byram Arcade called Spun.



They have lots of lovely yarn that I rubbed all over my face. Also they do workshops and stuff there by the looks of it, so if you live in West Yorkshire and fancy a spot of communal knitting, you should totally go.

Phoebe is a member of the Intellectual Dinner Club in Huddersfield. I think this is a fantastic idea and am trying to think of my own '12 in 2012' goals for this year. So far I have 2: learn to knit socks and leave the country. How ambitious I am!

Anyway I best be off, hope you enjoyed my blog post today. Have a nice Sunday xxx

Oh, knitting.

Hello. I am writing a post because I am supposed to be doing interview prep, but it's Saturday night and you can't make me, you're not my real mum. Also, I haven't got anything else to do. Hooray, I'm really cool.

So it's nearly Christmas, oh boy. I have done two craft fairs in the past couple of weeks, and by 'done' I mean I have sat behind tables and occasionally smiled at people. I'm really good at that, I've been a receptionist for ages now which gives me the practice. I was supposed to take photos of my craft stalls, but they always look the same. I did the Chorlton Arts Festival one, at St Clements Church, and I did actually take some pictures but they're useless. Look.



Sigh. Here's some pairs of mittens I made.



Forgot to put the flash on.

I didn't even bother to take any photos at the craft fair I was at today, at the Zion Arts Centre in Hulme (there's no place like Hulme). It was really fun though, I met some lovely craftspeople and there was all sorts going on for the kiddies, like screenprinting t-shirts and general chucking paint about and making a nice mess. So instead I'm going to show you some gloves that I found at my mum's house. You ready?

These are gloves me and my sister used to wear as littluns, fascinating. I have taken these photos Facebook style in the mirror, because there was no one else there apart from my dad and he didn't seem very interested. I don't know why.



I like the second one from the left with his bleeding eye. I wish these fitted me.

Thumb:



Second: interesting design here, they have a miniature glove in the same colours, attached to the back of the glove by a string. Why? Also, in this (crap) photo you can see how my massive hand won't fit in the glove at all.



Third: the best glove/mitten I have ever seen. You couldn't do anything with these on, and why should you? You've got LIONS for hands!! I pretended that the lion was going to bite the cat's face, but he wasn't scared. My mum's cats are hardcore.



Right well, I have done that now, so I best get back to whatever I was supposed to be doing. Eating everyone's Christmas presents in my pyjamas. Bye! Happy Christmas if I don't see you before! Bye! xx

Chrimble Craft Fair-tastic

So I had a stall at the Chorlton Arts Festival Christmas Craft Market (or CAFCCM for short) at St Clements Church on Saturday. It was brilliant fun and I did pretty well! I had lots of visitors too. Thanks to everyone who came down to say hi!

This is my stall. It looks pretty much exactly like the stall I had in May, doesn't it? Except with a Christmas tree. The tree only had two legs so I cunningly leaned it against the wall. Clever.



Just going to show you a few pictures of things I made for the fair, some of which have now been sold. Okay?



Mr Christmas 'narna.



Apple fellow.



This is Corn On The Cob. Hard to tell from the photo.



Christmas hot dawg.



Carrot. Something you might actually eat at Christmas, finally.

Couple of the mini monsters I made. I love these, they are stupid.






This one is Mister Farty Christmas. He has a white beard and everything.



This is a pair of fingerless gloves that I made without a pattern or anything, I just made 'em up as I went along. Can you tell? I really liked them though and so did somebody else because they bought them. Hooray!



Do you like my doctored business cards which had the wrong URL on them? Flawless. I am a DIY WIZARD.



Here are John and Laura having just bought some winter woollies off me. I didn't make John's hat. I made the gloves and Laura's hat which you can't actually see. But rest assured, it's very pretty.

That's like, all the time we have for now. Hope you enjoyed my snaps. Ooh! I will be doing TWO more craft fairs in the same weekend. The first one is on the 11th December at the Nip and Tipple, Upper Chorlton Road, Chorlton, Manchester, I-Don't-Know-The-Postcode. That should be fun and sparkly and magical. I'm sure there will be mulled wine and other treats, there normally is at these things. The second one will be at St Wilfred's Enterprise Centre in Hulme on the 12th. Here is a link. More opportunities to purchase nice things for you there! I think you should come to both of them.

Right bye!

Super awesome cool glove mitten fun stuff

Okayyyy... so I have now completed the not-very-secret project for Bear. It has taken me a million hours because 1) I am slow and 2) it was COMPLICATED. Are you ready? I am!

They are Super Mario gloves!

Here is Mario:



Here is Princess Peach:



I nearly had a nervous breakdown doing these because Bear requested the original characters from Kong, and after I had finished the Mario one I realised I had knitted THE WRONG MARIO. Imagine my horror! If you are as clueless about games as me, you might not know what I'm talking about. Here is a handy guide to the different incarnations. I was supposed to knit the top one, I guess I did the second one. Whoops. I think if you are a bit of a geek, these things matter a lot, so I was all ready to start the whole thing again, but then Bear said he wasn't bothered so I wasn't either. Hooray!

Anyway so that was done. THEN I had to knit some little flappy hood things to go over the top of the fingers, so Bear can mitten up real good in cold weather. Now. When de-hooded, the flappy hood thingies (what would they even be called?) cover the pictures which I had so lovingly knitted, which is obviously RUBBISH. So I decided to knit a picture onto the FHT to compensate for this! Wow!



It's a power-up toadstooly thingypop! I don't know what they're called! Wikipedia doesn't, either.



So here is Bear enjoying his new togs. I have talked about them for way too long now. However, I am getting very excited by this video game/knitting thing. I know everyone does this, but old school pixely images translate really well to knit stitches and I like it. I am going to upgrade to higher resolution knitting, and you are going to spooge.