It's Knitting Week!

Happy Knitting Week,  fellow crafters! 

I never really need an excuse to knit, as you can imagine... but all the same it's nice to celebrate the ancient art of fashioning things conjured by artfully manipulating two sticks and some fibre into something new.

There are *lots* of knitter-friendly things going on this week!

Here are my picks:

• Free knitting patterns on the UK Hand Knitting Association website - here.

• Knitting as a spectator sport? Well believe it or not, it happens in Norway!

• Win a fabulous knitting holiday in Shetland (yes please!)

• Fancy a freebie? How about a nice ball of Bergère De France yarn? (info here)

It also happens to be Wool Week here in the UK as well (how convenient!). 

If you're in London or Edinburgh and fancy learning a new skill or want to boost your knitterly abilities, check out the Knit Nation events (including workshops and drop-in sessions) hosted by John Lewis stores and run in conjunction with the Campaign for Wool folks as part of Wool Week. Did I mention they're free?!

The Knitting Olympics!

Yep, you read that right - a fibre-enthusiast's version of the Olympic games, known as the 2012 Ravellenic Games :D

If you are wondering what on earth I'm on about, well, it's basically a bunch of keen knitters/crocheters/spinners/fibre-dyers getting together to form teams on Ravelry and competing in different imaginatively & humorously-titled yarny events such as the Frogging Trampoline, the Hand-dye High Dive, the Felted Freestyle, WIP Wrestling (*love* this!) and the Lace Longjump. There's even an event for participating machine knitters, entitled Rhythmic Machinastics! So as you can see, they all relate to the names of real events...

In the Frogging Trampoline event, competitors are encouraged to "frog" (a knitting term for recycling, essentially!) a project which has been languishing in their stash for too long - meaning completely unravelling the knitting and rewinding the yarn back into balls to knit anew for a future, more promising project.

Obviously the "Ravthletes" don't receive a fabulous gold, silver or bronze medal with Nike, goddess of victory on it like the athletes at London 2012 do, but there is definitely a sense of achievement that goes with successful completion of a project when competing in one of the events nonetheless. You also get a virtual medal so you can celebrate in cyberspace!

Needless to say, I decided to get involved as it seems like the perfect accompaniment to watching the events unfold on the TV. If you're a ravelry member, just check out the Ravellenic Games group to see what all the fuss is about :)

Classic Cola Craftsmanship

Images via Creative Review
Cola and craftsmanship...those are not two words you'd perhaps ordinarily expect strung together, but then again, I have personally always viewed the curves of a traditional glass Coke bottle as a true design classic.


I recently read about the making of an old-school Coca-Cola sign back in 1954, intended for display in London. The details of the design and construction of their first neon sign for the city's Piccadily Circus are described and recorded in a book which was featured in a recent installation at the Design Museum, celebrating the company's design identity and 125th anniversary.


There can be no doubt about the craftsmanship which has gone into the making of it when you see the design drawings.


I also believe that there are some really nice elements of graphic design and typography at play here too.


See the Creative Review article here for the full story.

Travelling

Well, well. It's been a busy few weeks since my last post.

I had a nice time at the Etsy retreat in August, which was held at Queen Margaret's School, in Escrick near York. It was essentially a weekend of crafting of all kinds! Plus lots of chatting and there was a good amount of cake (mostly made by the lovely Marmalady) consumed. Definitely no bad thing, and it's always nice to meet other folks who 'get' etsy and who are creative too - equally good to be able to put faces to names, as it were.



How pretty is this ^ school?! It was our home for a couple of nights, as we stayed in one of the boarding houses there and crafted our little hearts out in the art block during the day. Uninterrupted. Bliss.

I travelled even further away from home for a few days in London last month. I always get so excited about going there, and as ever, I had a list of things I wanted to do which was much longer than I could possibly have managed!

It ended up being a very arty weekend, as I visited the Tate Modern and also saw my good friend Beatie Fox's MFA Degree show at Wimbledon College of Art. She's a talented artist, do check out her website and sketchbook-style blog.

My visit to the Tate was quite fruitful too, though I was a little disappointed to discover that the Mark Rothko room wasn't around. I did, however see a few thought-provoking works, including Robert Therrien's 'Red Room' - a little room filled, or rather, crammed, entirely with all things red (crayons, red converse, baskets, blankets, painted wooden furniture...) - and also 'No Title (Table and Four Chairs)' which was an interesting exploration of scale. It's a sculptural work which consists of a giant-size table and chair set, which you can walk through and around. I had the feeling of being very small whilst exploring it!