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

the true meaning of #mousebiro

Yo yo, hope you are having a happy new year so far. I am distracting myself from a job application which is taking forever.

anyway I have been meaning to write something about this for ages, because it's great. Ages, ages, and more ages ago, I read somewhere that mice can squeeze through a gap the width of a biro tube (a quick google search reveals that this may or may not be true anyway, my favourite is this yahoo answers post - good old yahoo answers. 'What is a biro')

because I am a dumbo I took this to mean that mice can fit THROUGH an actual biro TUBE, like down the inside of the whole tube. Stupid. Anyway years later me and Maddern submitted it to Salle Pierre Lamy for their first ever (?) SPLARPY, check it out here (number 008). I was the clear winner thanks to the number of #mousebiro drawings generated, people were obviously incensed.


Check it, largely nicked off SPL's website:

 Oly (I suspect)

Anne-Marie

Me

Ellie Larke 

 Emily

 Joe List

 Joe Morris Jnr

Maddern (aka MOUSEBIRO DENIER)

 Llinos

 Marie

Karen (my favourite)

Mike (at v interesting work meeting)

Me again

Bryce

Ruby

Sophie

Laura (aka rolaricho, check out her drawings MAINTENANT)

French Amazon

Awesome yes? So I won the argument and therefore mice CAN fit through biros, in your face science.

I wanted to make something mousebiro related and still do, but I haven't yet, I am cooking something up. I am NOT cooking a mouse, I don't mean. Mice have appeared sporadically in my work, since I was at uni and the whole 'people disguised as mice/mice with suckers on their feet' thing I was obsessed with, that doesn't make as cute a hashtag, but this is the sort of thing:

I only have crap photos but anyway. 

Okay so if you've been paying attention you know I made Maddern #mousebiro socks for Christmas:

And and and! Oly, my good buddy from work, MADE me the most awesome #mousebiro picture for my not-very secret Santa present! Oh my lord. Look at THIS

Whoooooooo yeahh! Now all I have to do is get a REAL one from wonder-taxidermist Fiona Campbell. I asked her to make one, and she said she would :) 

Okay ENOUGH but you have not seen the end of this phenomenon. It's BIG

xxx

sock roundup 2012

Hey guys

Sure soon enough I'll be able to show you all the monsters I've made in the run-up to Christmas, now that it's all over and it won't give the game away. Right now though I thought I'd show you all the socks I've made, because it's exciting and shutup.

First ones were the Longpigs socks, which you will find here. They look crap now that I've got the hang of it, but I still love them.

Second I made #mousebiro ones for Maddern for Christmas. If you follow the work of Salle Pierre Lamy you might know what the mouse biro thing is about, and I will discuss it in more detail later, but here is Maddern on Christmas day opening his pressies with his fancy new socks on.

As you will note, they look a bit insane and it is unlikely that they will ever get worn much. They took me FOUR DAYS to make, dude. but what's more Christmassy than novelty crap and simmering resentment?

MACRO FUNCTION:

a job well done.

Finally I made these socks over Christmas at the Maddern residence, it was pretty much all I did while I was there besides eat things and look at the telly. My mum asked for nice wool socks but she wanted ones that she could wear under normal shoes, not big chunky ones. So I used needles a size down and 4-ply wool, I found some in my stash that has actual wool content (gasp)

I like to call this colour scheme 'Metrolink'

I wouldn't necessarily have used yellow and grey together, but those were the colours I had in the yarn I needed and I think it actually looks nice. Funnily enough, I ran into my bro Gav on the train from Flint who said that the first time he went on a plane, the carrier was Lufthansa and he thought air travel was hugely glamorous. So he associates yellow and grey with luxury, the colours of pure luxury.

So there you go, I do have other socks on the go but they're not finished so I can't tell you. I'm a sock fiend!

Well goodbye, I hope you've all had fulfilling and beauteous Christmasses, and that you have wonderful new years and keep all your outlandish resolutions.

Buh bye xxx

Longpig socks

Hey

So I'm in the midst of Christmas monster making frenzy, which is cool but it means I can't post any photos of anything I make until after Christmas unless it gives the game away somehow. I wanted to show you these though.

I made my first ever pair of socks!

Hand-knitted socks always look so cosy and nice, and I always wanted to learn how to knit them, but double-pointed needles have always foxed me. If I can avoid using them, I would always rather use straight needles and just sew a seam, I don't care if it's not as nice-looking. I WILL learn one day but so far: nope.

So I was excited to find a pattern for socks knitted on straight needles and sewn up at the end. I couldn't figure out how to convert a DPN pattern, because the heels looked confusing (they aren't). I got the pattern from a book called Fab Feet and Cosy Toes by Anna Tillman, available from your nearest discount bookshop. Most of the patterns are stupid, like socks with a little pocket you can put a teddy bear in, but there's only so much mileage you can get out of ordinary socks I suppose. Anyway I thought this pattern with the pigs was cute and it was a pattern I could understand: jackpot!

Can I just say that this is the first ever pattern I've followed to the end without deviating at all, I even used the same colours and everything. I didn't use the right yarn though and they turned out kind of enormous, but they are cosy and nice which is what I wanted.

Here look, the pigs go all around the back of the sock so you get little pigs parading over the bottom of your feet as well:

I'd like to try out this weird pose where my body looks a funny shape, yeah!

That's why I want the socks to be Longpigs. The name of the pattern in the book is something like 'the whole hog', sigh. Here have some nice 90s crap, you're welcome. I used to love the Longpigs.

Anyway well done me, I have warm feet.

Bye! xxx