Coraline

I know it’s creepy but it is supposed to be. I’ve been to the Coraline website, to the Other Mother’s workshop and buttoned my eyes of course. It’s fantastic – you can choose from several types of button.  The website is really cool.  I can’t wait to see the film.  I should probably explain that Coraline is a young adult book by Neil Gaiman about a young girl who discovers another world through a disused door in her house.  Through the door she finds the Other Mother who is perfectly wonderful except she has buttons for eyes and wants to do the same to Coraline.  It’s been made into a stop motion film by the guy who did The Nightmare Before Christmas and James And The Giant Peach.  There’s even a knitting pattern on the website in Coraline’s bedroom.  In the film Coraline wears a tiny blue sweater/jumper with stars on that was knitted in beautiful tiny scale by a lady called Althea Crome and they have put a pdf for download of a person sized version of Coraline’s sweater/jumper.

Fabric Squares

At the Knitting and Stitching Show in October I bought these fabric squares.

My mum (a quilter) was given a box as a challenge by a fellow quiltmaker and made a little landscape quilt with the squares.  When we saw the german lady selling these (she dyes the fabric and sells it but then uses the offcuts to make these little boxes, which she sells for a couple of quid) at Ally Pally, mum told me of the challenge and we thought it would be an interesting thing for me to do.  So I bought two boxes, one green and one white/black.  Over the last couple of months I have examined the green selection several times and then, not being struck with an inspiration they have been put away again.  This afternoon I did the same and finally the light bulb of inspiration went off – ping!

This is the result so far.  I have sewn them together in columns and then sewn the columns into a block and I’m going to add a border of an indeterminate colour for quilting at a later date.  I shan’t tell you what it is yet just in case I change my mind.  But it is a picture of something…

Crafty catch up

Merry Christmas!! I hope you had a nice one and ate waaaaay too much food – I have.
Quick update as I’ve not blogged for a while mostly due to getting ready for Christmas and my camera being a pain in the ****.

Korknisse knitted on Christmas Day from this pattern because I saw them on Elliphantom’s blog last year and thought they were really cute.  I used a champagne cork though so I enlarge the pattern from 15 stitches to 20 round and knitted the body slightly longer.

This is a cover for a diary that I made for my friend Keirsten.  It’s vilene painted with Early Learning paint and Stewart Gill Glactica paint and then embroidered.  I did try to stamp leaves on it with some dark blue paint but it really didn’t work.  Below is the notebook that gave me the idea.  I made it in a workshop taught by Janet McCallum in 2007. 

Finished Clapotis – modelled by my mum at Avebury. 

We went for a walk around the stone circle this morning and it was very chilly.  I did enjoy looking at everyone’s hats and scarves though.  I think mum had the best scarf on!! I cast on a Clapotis with some Noro Kureyon Sock yarn colour 182 for me on Christmas day.

FO Hot Water Bottle Cover

I cast on the hot water bottle cover from here on Sunday 30 November and finished it on Sunday 7 December just in time for bed! It fits perfectly and does the job exactly as I intended. I can fill/empty the bottle without removing the cover and it taught me how to knit cables. 

I adjusted the pattern slightly as I had some dk acrylic to use up ( it’s the same yarn that I used for my Elizabeth Zimmermann Percentage Sweater ) and the pattern was originally knit in a chunkier yarn.  I did a little gauge swatch on 4.5mm needles and then measured my HWbottle.  Then I subtracted 8 stitches to get the cast on figure.  I attempted a tunisian cast on but gave up after a couple of attempts and used Judi’s Magic Cast On that I use at the start of all my toe up socks (Widdershins Pattern) instead.  I did the knitting on two 4.5mm circulars as I had a small one and a long one and neither could be used on their own!! 4 increase rounds later I had the right amount of stitches to go around the HWbottle and I began the cable pattern.  Rachel’s pattern called for a twist cable but as I had extra stitches from using thinner yarn I dug out my stitch dictionary and found a 3 plait type cable knitted over 12 stitches with 2 purl stitches either side and used that instead. And I got to use the great cheese stitch markers that Erin sent me!! I didn’t want the cable to be too narrow in the middle of a great expanse of stocking stitch.  The 12 stitch cable plus 4 stitches meant it was about a third of the width of the cover and I decided to do one on the back as well to truly instill the art of cables into my brain.  I only made a couple of mistakes in the cable and luckily found them before it got too late to tink backwards and repair them.  Top of the ‘body’ decreases for a few rows and then knit 2×2 rib till it’s long enough to fold over the top like a roll neck jumper.  Cast off loosely and sew the end in and voila, a hottie cover!!