Wednesday 25 March 2009

CUFF TOO SMALL.







Rachael got a free sample of some sock yarn to make gloves but it wasn't the colours she really wanted. Off to a bad start, 'Cuff too small' is being saved by Nikki and Diantha in Tennesse USA.  Nikki taught her 14 year old daughter Diantha how to knit on four needles and she produced this fantastic berret with beautiful decreasing. Well done Diantha.

ST ANNE'S SCHOOL JUMPER.





After Lloyds crash in 1980's Clarissa's parents could no longer send her to private school. Her new state school had a forest green jumper.
Miriam at Simply Knitting Magazine has turned it into a bag!

CANDY STRIPE SHOULDER.






One shoulder of Melissa's camisol top, knitted to go with lilac twin set for engagement party which was cancelled.
Louise is doing a study of this piece by knitting it over and over again in different pinky creamy colours, and then she will join them together to form a most unusual and glamourous garment.

MUSEUM KNIT.

Left in a museum and never come back for, this piece was destined to be an unfinished piece of knit one way or another. Presumably a jumper or a cardigan, this gorgeous deep red two tone coloured double knit piece is itching to be completed.
We are delighted that Elen has taken this piece to Wales to give it some attention.


As this piece was left then found in a museum we have no story or pattern of the intended garment. Neither do we know who the knitter of this piece was or who was intended to wear it.

After lots of thinking and having such a big piece of a huge jumper, Elen chose to unravel the original UFO and recreate the piece in a smaller version of what she thought the original knitter was making. Pairing up the original red yarn with a bright red.

There is a lot of mystery around this piece by not knowing much about it, which carried through to the completion of the piece. But perfectly copying the original pattern onto the small scale cardigan. Elen 'spookily' found that the pattern in the knit fitted the cardigan pattern on front and back in a 2/4/6 sequence. 'It was like it was ment to be', scary!


CROCHET A PARROT?



This bizzare design is strangely enough a piece of a 'parrot'. Started but no where near completion and no where near resemblance of a parrot. 
Rosemary has set her heart on making it fly again.

LINDA'S HERDWICK.








'If you must knit in barbed wire' was what the Lady in the local craft shop commented. When she went in to purchase a new knitting needle to replace a lost one. This put Linda off who was knitting this detailed cardigan for her daughter in Canada. 315g of Herdwick still accompanies this design as well as the original pattern.
Sue in Reading has taken on this lovely project and turned it into a cushion!

DINOSAUR JUNIOR PHASE.








When Rachael left the Dinosaur Junior Phase for the 'Rave' phase in 1991, she left behind this beautiful jumper. Two sleeves and the back were completed in a batch of yarn given to her by Knitwear designer Lois Franklin, and there is still 353g of the original yarn to finish off the garment.
She has decided to finish it herself after seeing it pictured here.



CHARITY SHOP BOOTY.




This half finished baby booty in double knit, with its two by two ribbing detail was found all alone amongst the contents of a bag donated to us by LMB in East London.
Louise took it on and it turned into an arm and a leg, which is what some of us give...

AUNTY LILLYBETS BLUE CARDIGAN.




My Great Granny Gladys seemed to only knit in blue. She left the odd ball of blue/ green or blue/ purple, but mostly it was blue. So most of the family wore blue. She started to knit Aunty Lillybet a cardigan or a jumper. Lillybet lived with Gladys on a farm in Windermere, in the Lake District. Lillybet farmed Jersey cows from an early age and won many prizes for her cream. Lillybet drove a brown escort estate, and always wore a headscarf. She grew raspberries and sweetpeas and made fabulous jam. She had rough hands because she worked so hard, but she could make the most delicate brandy snaps to hold her cream.

These pieces are worked in good quality DK. I sent the pieces to Judith in Leighton Buzzard. This is what happened- Judith said,

"When I received my UFO I studies the pieces and the accompanying history before I decided what to do. The pieces were a left front and the lower part of a right front of a raglan garment. Some of the yarn had faded and there were two moth holes. The body of the knitting was stocking stitch, but the rib sections were in the less common 1x1 twisted rib. The decreasing on the raglan edge was also a little out of the ordinary as the decreases were set three stitches from the edge and sloped towards the seam. I decided to use these details too.
The history told of Great Granny Gladys and her daughter Lillybet. Lillybet sounded as if she was born in the late 1920's; the Queen, born in 1926 was known as Lillybet. That might make Gladys a little younger than my own Grandmother who was born in 1888. I deduced that both Gladys and Lillybet would have experienced the hardships of the depression and World War 2, and both would be used to "making do and mending', and using up all their oddments one way or another.
I decided that Gladys would have liked her garment finished and wearable. I would make one sleeve raglan and the other a set in sleeve to give the garment a slightly unusual shape. I am sure Gladys and Lillybet would approve of me using up some of my stash, most of which is oddments. I would make Dorset Crosswheel buttons with curtain rings and plastic rings saved from medicine bottles.
As Gladys usually used blues and sometimes purples so would I, but I would also use sweet pea colours, and make textured raspberries and cream to reflect Lillybet's interests."

TRUNKS FOR YOUR BOY.







You could not imagine a boy not being delighted with receiving, flesh tone, cotton cashmere, Anchor embossed swimming briefs. He did not quite get the joke, so she did not feel quite like finishing them.
Zara has taken them on and they are becoming something to do with the dinosaurs. Marvelous.

GREAT GRANNY'S ODDMENT CARDIGAN.





This back of a cardigan was constructed by Rachael from Rachael's great granny's sock oddments basket. From a mixture of 4ply blues and greens. 
Using oddments from her own stash, Sara in Stoke Newington has turned it into a Hyperbolic Oddment Halter Neck!

BABY BEBE'S HAT.






Baby Bebe was going to get a nice knitted hat until the weather got too hot for its completion and Baby Bebe did not need a hat any longer. 
Annetta at the Barbican has found a solution. The hat is finished and it will got to an orphanage in Eastern Europe at the end of the show.

DAD'S JUMPER.








I started this jumper for my Dad when I was 15, mis-judged the tension and ran out of wool. My dad is an architect, so I turned it into a building. I asked my Dad about his favourite brick work and then made English brickwork on the right sleeve, Flemish on the left and an Anglo Saxon arch for the neck with Dog roses growing up and over. It means the original blue bits become some sort of tiling or something. I made the arms long because Dads should always have long arms. I don't think my Dad will wear it, but it does kind of look like his studio/shed.