Showing posts with label Knitting and Crochet Blog Week 2012. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Knitting and Crochet Blog Week 2012. Show all posts

Friday, 27 April 2012

3KCBWDAY5 : Something A Bit Different: A Knitting and Poetry, er, Mash-up!

I'm always at home with Something A Bit Different, so - no photo of knitting today - but instead, to celebrate Knitting and Crochet Blog Week 2012, I've, er, written a poem. The first poem in which I've mentioned knitting, I believe!


What Shall Remain of Us Is Love

This bright paper

The slow burn of chemicals as the image comes to light

Her shoulder against yours

Faces smiling towards

The sun of that day on the cathedral.

Though the paper curls

The sepia tint holds that day –



But let it go – the paper quills into a little scroll –

Rolls to the back of the drawer.

Buttons, candle-ends, playing cards

Crowd in front,

Old loose pins nudge and rust.



Those strong hands are gone –

But this scarf stays stitched, this gift

From those fingers

Which felt the slow twist of the yarn,

Pushed the stitches along the bent needle.

Carried on.

Thursday, 26 April 2012

3KCBWDAY3 - Knitting and Crochet Blog Week 2012, Day 3: My Knitting Heroine


This is by far the easiest Blog Week post to write, so far - I've been looking forward to it!
 My Knitting and Crochet Heroine is my grandmother, knitting away here on the beach on the left, in her deckchair. She is notable also as the only person who is not wearing anything like 'beachwear': she didn't really like the water, and couldn't swim! The picture was taken  at California Cliffs, near Hemsby, Norfolk, in the summer of 1953, before my mother (far right) had met my father, or had me. My Grandma could knit beautifully, and Mum tells me she knitted patterns up professionally for publishers to check their accuracy- - we need to find out more about this! She knitted us clothes, but also made fantastic outfits for our teddies and dolls. She knitted the dolls themselves, too, 'by sight' - just making their little bodies without a pattern. She could also crochet, making it look very easy. I still have three cardigans she knitted me when I was in my twenties, and my childhood teddies are still wearing their knitted cricket jumpers.
My Mum should be a Heroine, too, as she, along with Grandma, taught me to knit and crochet, and she does lots of knitting, rootling and rummaging with me in wool shops wherever we find them. I am very pleased and grateful that I had these Heroines teaching me these skills - I hope other parents and grandparents are passing them on!

Tuesday, 24 April 2012

Knitting and Crochet Blog Week 2012 Day 2: Photography Challenge! 3KCBWDAY2


Now, clearly my creative brain needs exercise. I loved the Lego picture @eskimimi, but have gone for a symbolic shot here - my aim is to show what knitting and crochet respresent to me at the moment! The mug shows the social, fun aspect, as it was a birthday present from a friend at Stitch 'n' Bitch, and the sparkly crochet hook  - in fact being used as a spoon - was a present too, from a lovely Prym set of many coloured glittery hooks. This reminds me of all the present-giving that these past-times have led to. Taking this picture, I remembered that TS Eliot line, "I have measured out my life in coffee spoons" and am wondering if you can measure out your life in crochet hooks or knitting needles! There is something so nice about being at home, drinking a nice coffee and making something - so perhaps measuring your life in crochet hooks or knitting needles would be a more pleasant standard than coffee spoons.

Monday, 23 April 2012

3KCBWDAY1 : Knitting and Crochet Blog week theme: "Colour"


A rather abstract theme for me, but here goes:
These colours say all that is lovely about the seaside, to me. Lovely bright beach huts, deep blue sky, the grey of the rocks against the blue of the sea . . . not the kinds of colours that fabrics or yarn can reproduce that easily, however.
But seasons do have their own colour palette: magazines at the moment are full of leaf green accessories for the home, or ice-cream pink mixed with lilac or blue. Winter knits are often chunky textured but also darker coloured, in moss green, purple or maroon.
The absence of a true colour can have quite an impact: black and white photos still have a peculiar charm, contrasts still visible among the shades of grey. We often blend a bright colour with a 'neutral', too, to heighten its effect.
I sometimes tease my Lady Friend about the time when she Had Her Colours 'Done' - since she was told that "leopard print never leaves the high street" and "red = power". But I do see that certain colours held up against the face do bring out the colour of the eyes and so do 'suit' us, in the right light. We have our favourite colours, too - often the same since childhood, and somehow as  important a question to ask a new friend (when you are 3 or 4) as "What is your name?" Some of us can practically be identified by the colours of the clothes we 'always' wear.

Final thought about colour: two mothers, Abi and Emma Moore, run the PinkStinks campaign. they protest and campaign against the way that colour is used to designate gender in marketing by toy and clothing companies. A particularly alarming example on their website at the moment is a toy cleaning trolley, packaged in pink, aimed, surely, at a female market.

Clearly, colour isn't all about hand dyed yarn and beach huts - used to define and influence children, it is a potentally damaging tool.




Friday, 20 April 2012

FO Friday! One Debbie Bliss knitted mug cosy complete!


Just a quick post  -  but it's not often I have a Finished Object on a Friday, or at all, really - so I just had to post today! You can see this on my Ravelry page, too: it's from Debbie Bliss, The Knitter's Year, though I had to adapt it a bit to fit my sister's travel mug. It's called a Mug Cosy - but I prefer my sister's term, mug-hugger! She sits and drinks from this while my nephews play at the park or on the beach - aaaah.

This weekend, my WIP is bootee number two! Was rather relieved to see Victoria's WIP bootee at Cafe Knit this week, as mine was looking rather odd. Now I see it's all going to work out fine ;)

Also planning some blog posts for next week's Knitting and Crochet Blog Week 2012. It's the first time I've done this, so I need to think it over.

So, plenty to occupy me this weekend!