Adornment

Day Seven: Embellish the story.

I can't believe it's the last day of Knitting & Crochet Blog Week again, already! This week has really flown by but it's been a lot of fun and I've very much enjoyed reading the blogs of other crafters taking part too.

Most folks are covering "your knitting and crochet time" today, but as I did a post last year which I feel would be a bit too similar, I have gone for the wildcard topic which will hopefully make for a more interesting read!

I'll be honest here, I don't really do huge amounts of embellishment on my knits as I like them to have fairly clean, classic lines. An obvious example is these shell buttons which finished off a pair of shoes neatly:


There have been, however, have a few memorable occasions where I have had a bit of a play around with some ideas!

When I was working on pieces for my degree show, I experimented with knitting on huge needles and creating my own yarns from strips of fabric sewn together - I decided to make the stitched joins a feature, using zig-zagging contrasting thread:


Around the same time, I also tried various ways of embedding fibres into knitted woollen fabrics, using needlepunch and hand felting techniques:






...and finally: you'll probably think me a little bit nutty for including this, but I'm going to incorporate it anyway for the fun factor!


In case you're wondering, they're meant to be 'textile art' and were made for a Comic Relief challenge project several years back ;)

Yarn Love

Day Seven: 'What a Yarn'

Yarn. Where would we be without it? Well, we wouldn't have very much to wear without any, that's for sure!

I've been mulling over this topic for a few days now and I have to say, choosing just one yarn to mention is pretty tough, there are so many incredible fibres, colours, blends and brands out there in today's marketplace. I guess us crafty types are really lucky to have so much choice. Sometimes perhaps overwhelmingly too much choice, one might even say.

I studied textiles for four years, so as you can imagine I am always interested in hearing new developments in the kinds of fibre available to design and create with. There always seems to be some exciting new kind of yarn to play with, how wonderful. I could probably write an entire novel on my love of yarn (but I won't. At least not here.).


The yarn I have chosen to write about is bamboo. It's a really amazing fibre, and the plant grows exceedingly quickly, making it a truly sustainable resource. Did you know the growth rate of a bamboo plant can be up to a metre a day?! Regrowth occurs from offshoots, thus reducing the need to replant from scratch. Amazingly, compared to an equivalent amount of trees, bamboo produces 35% more oxygen and takes in nearly 5 times the amount of greenhouse gases.

I particularly love knitting with this fibre as it is lovely and soft with a natural sheen to it. It's got a very slinky feel when you wear it next to the skin, almost silk-like. Garments knitted up in bamboo also have a really nice drape too. As if that weren't enough, the fibres are very breathable and they are also thermal regulating!

The shawl above is my lace border wrap, knitted in the lushest blue Bamboo Soft. It's a Rowan Classic yarn and made of 100% Bamboo Viscose. This means it's produced in the same way as viscose, except with pulped up bamboo fibre and then extruded to create a dreamy soft yarn :)

Eyelet lace patterns seem to come out really well in this yarn, giving a nice stitch definition once the finished piece has been blocked.

Crafting for a Cause

Red Nose Day 2009 is fast approaching. So, with that in mind, for every Handmade Felted Sweetheart Brooch I sell from my etsy or folksy shops during the month of March, I will donate the proceeds to the UK charity Comic Relief.



I thought it was about time I did some crafting for a great cause. The money raised is used by Comic Relief to "help poor, vulnerable and disadvantaged people turn their lives around across Africa, throughout the world's poorest countries and closer to home here in the UK."

In 2007, I made this corsage and sold it to raise money for Red Nose Day on my etsy shop. A group of other UK etsians did the same, making other items featuring the colour red - a colour very much associated with Comic Relief and their red noses - in their work. A treasury featuring many of these pieces made it to the front page of etsy, which was great for raising awareness.



For more information about the charity, or to donate, see www.comicrelief.com