Blankets - a patchwork of error!

For my 30th birthday, my Mum crocheted a lovely blanket for me that now sits in pride of place on my sofa. Today, I moved one of the fleece blankets off the sofa, because with the addition of beautiful crochet blanket, we no longer need 2 fleece blankets out!

It was when I went to put this fleece blanket away in the 'board games and blankets' chest I realised, there are a few more blankets in there that haven't seen the light of day for a while.

These blankets are made up of all the knitting that doesn't quite make it to being a full scarf/cushion/jumper. These are usually pieces that have gone wrong due to machine/human/combination of both error, and I cannot stand to see them go to waste, so I collect them up and patchwork them together.

Here they are taking over the dining room...

From this it seems that the anchor, tape-measure and crayon scarves are the most prone to not getting to the end!

My favourite bit of these blankets is here, where I had 2 of the same cat cushion that had come off the machine in almost the same place so I made a mirror cat.

The story of the rest of the blanket that the mirror cat lives in is not so fun. It's made up of pieces that were destined for an exhibition, but never made it.

Because all my knits are made from lambswool, they need finishing after knitting, which means washing. For the sake of continuity, and speed, I use the washing machine. There is a quick cold wash cycle on my machine that works a treat.....most of the time! 

Apart from the time when the machine decided to HOT wash my knits and yes, you know what's coming SHRINK them. To this day I don't know what happened, the settings were the same as always but when I went to fetch the knits, the washing machine window  was steamy and the knits warm!!! You can see from the fuzzy texture they've gone from washed to felted...

There was no time to grieve the shrunken knits, I had to dry my eyes and jump straight back on the knitting machine. When I finally got round to putting this blanket together, I could appreciate that without that disaster I wouldn't have a lovely and warm knitted reminder of my first solo exhibition. I love finding/making positives around situations like this.

Although I haven't seen these blankets for a while (I'm sure they will all come creeping back out the chest when the weather is colder) I am really glad I kept all these bits and made them. They are a physical record of the designs and mistakes I have made over the years and act like a diary of my knitting. There are pieces from the witchcraft collection waiting patiently to be patch-worked together, I'll pop a photo up when it's done.

Kandy
    

Jumping off a high dive board with my knitting hero - my adventures in Shetland!

If you have been following me for a while, you'll know I went up to Shetland in 2010 for the 'In the loop 2' knitting conference when I had my eyes opened to the wide world of knitting....and met Lucius Malfoy (Jason Issacs).

This time, I knew what to expect from the island a bit more, beautiful scenery, infrequent bus services, lovely people, lots of knitting! And I spoke at the conference, which was 'In the loop 3.5', and this was to be in front of 2 of my favourite knit based artists of all time Freddie Robins and Lisa Anne Auerbach as they were both speaking at the conference too, eeeek. I met Freddie last year at 2 different conferences, we actually have a lot in common and I spent a lot of time with her on this trip.   

Wednesday, I flew up to Aberdeen then on to Sumburgh, I didn't bother going to bed due to early flight, so the conference part of Wednesday was mostly a blur. I plucked up the courage to speak to Lisa Anne, hired a bike, got lost on the way to buy food, found food and settled in to my apartment.
 

Thursday was a full day of conference talks, followed by participating in a huge knitting circle made up of 83 people, a project about the owning and passing of time.  

 



There was a highly recommended chippy near the castle, so we headed there for tea. Me and Lisa just had chips, the others had chips with deep fried Haggis...when in Scotland, right! This was odd, somehow I had ended up eating chippy with not 1 but 3 people whose practice I look up to. We were all due to talk on Friday, I had to cycle back and it was raining so I set off up the hill.

Friday was the last day of the conference and the day I was speaking. Freddie also spoke, in the afternoon, this is one of her slides showing one of my favourite pieces of her work.

Lisa spoke about her most recent project based on the honsestrik knitting style, which was amazing, but I plan on writing a blog purely about that so won't go into it now. I do have a photo of me and Lisa posing though...

Lisa had been telling us about the amazing swimming pool in Lerwick with slides, rapids and diving boards all week, but we didn't have swimsuits. Luckily for us Lerwick has some well stocked charity shops and Freddie and I both got a cheap swimming costume that fitted! So, after the conference, we headed out to the pool and I was not disappointed. There were 2 water slides, a rapids with rings to sit in and diving boards. I sat in a foam ring getting whirled round with Freddie, followed by jumping off the 3m diving board with Lisa, it was a surreal and super-fun experience. It seems that Shetland exists to surprise me, last time Lucius...now this! My knitting heroes are real, lovely people and we have a lot in common.

Saturday I moved to a B&B for the last night of my stay and went on a fantastic walk around the 'ness of sound'

 

 

    
I then went to Mereel where there was an event for Shetland makers to show their work, I met a lot of lovely people with great work but the work of Ella Gordon was right up my street. here she is (on the right) with her work and amazing dress!

 
We ended up looking round people's work and chatting all afternoon, just time for a cheeky one (which complimented my new yellow jumper nicely) before Freddie and I headed over to the restaurant where her friend Lorna works to be made a super-tasty specially invented Vegan meal.

Sunday was the last day, and I had to leave for the airport at 12.30 but we managed to shop and see some sights of the fairisle festival before heading home.

 

Jamieson's - our favourite wool shop, sporting knits from the very same shop!

All the fairisle at the festival,it doesn't get much more Shetland traditional than this!

  

Final goodbye to and celebration of Shetland with some snaps of my new Shetland made knitwear on their amazing white sand beaches!


 

 

Look out Indietracks...here we come!!!

It's SUMMER...that means festival season! I'm not a fan of your average 'giant field full of mud and portaloos' festival, but, a few years ago, I discovered a festival that I do like, Indietracks!

I first went with Seleena in 2010 when we took Sugar Paper to Indietracks and ran a 20 things to make and do workshop. We camped at the nearby campsite, checked out the railway museum, ate lots of super noodles, rode the free mini steam train...oh, and saw some ace bands!

We had a break in 2011, but went again last year (mostly because we wanted to see Go Sailor! who were amazing) when we ran a 'Postcards from Indietracks' workshop, and wimped out of camping due to flood warnings!!!

This year we're back, this time Seleena is running a Radical Cheerleading workshop on Saturday, and I'm doing a pom-pom pets one on the Sunday.

 

I love knitting(obviously), but I love all sorts of other crafts too. Making these pom-pom pets was fun, the tiger is my favourite.

So, if you're going to Indietracks you should come down, do some cheering and make some pets. Also, our pals Amy and Melanie are running a felting workshop which will be ace!
 
Kandy x
 

Hand Knit Pattern Book....OUT NOW!!!

My last blog brought the news that I have written a book, now it's here and you can buy it, hooray!

Turning the 20 products into hand knit patterns was really good fun. I also designed a few new products specifically for this book, a paintbrush tie and small bow brooch. 

Here's a selection of pages from the book, a sneak peek just for you, sorry its a bit small, you can see it bigger on my website...

If you like the look of that, you can buy it directly from my online shop and get an exclusive bonus pattern!

Kandy xxx

Knit and Destroy....gets handy!!!

Dust off your knitting needles and reach for the wool, I've written a book of knitting patterns!!!

I have been working on this project for just over a year and have been itching to tell the world for a while now. I have turned 20 of my favourite designs into hand knit patterns so that you guys can knit them yourselves. There are patterns for everyone from beginners to advanced with a wide range of knitted goodies for you to make! 

The book will be released in July and will be available from my online shop....and it might even come with a bonus extra special something when purchased directly from me!!! Watch this space...

Kandy

Techno - tastic

Hi there

   So, since my last post, I have mostly been doing secret things, or techno things. I have two quite different projects on the go, both still under wraps, and both really exciting....all will be revealed in April!

That leaves the techno things...I am by no means a techno whizz, I know the bare minimum of what I need to in order to make things appear on the internet. Until last year my partner did all the website making side of things, but I figured, he taught himself how to do it, so can I. So, a few patient hours and many cups of tea later, I knew enough to build my super talented friend Seleena Daye's website

As I was making the very simple pages in photoshop and drawing blue boxes round things in dreamweaver I was daydreaming about my own website and what I could do with that now I know the tricks.

I finally got round to making some small changes to my website this month, mostly just adding an 'exhibitions' section to showcase the things I've made for exhibitions...

The other techno thing I did was to update my big cartel shop too, that was fun, it had looked the same for so many years.

I am planning an overhaul of my website to make it more inclusive of the other things I knit alongside the products for Knit and Destroy, it will happen this year so watch this space. Also, if you think you might want to make a simple website or an online shop, just have a go, there isn't that much to it! 

A Crafty Christmas!

Being a crafty kinda gal, I love handmade gifts, every christmas I wish I had time to make more but usually just do a few for my nearest and dearest.

This year, my making and doing was completely outshone by all the handmade gifts I recieved.

 

A fancy pin cushion and bag from my Mum

 

Fairy lights with shades made from coke cans from Tamsin 

 
An amazing notebook made to look like my favourite book prop from the Harry Potter studio tour...

 

..A super rag-rug that will be keeping my feet toasty and cozy in my studio...

 

 

...And a roller skating themed bookmark and cross stitch patch, all from the super-crafty Seleena

 

 A beautiful collection of drawings related to our late cat Sirius from Ben.

 

Now....I'd better start making gifts for next Christmas if I'm going to be exchanging gifts with this talented lot again!