Drop by and see what I'm working on at the moment!
Bundle!
It’s all kicking off on the Ravelry boards … words flying, comments censored, needles aimed … the cause? A post submitted by someone working with Vodafone in Ireland on a ‘Cheer Up Ireland’ campaign which involves a bit of urban knitting (although there’s no mention of the project on their website.)
The idea is not a new one but started out with the best of intentions by Eilish Tuite, a third year sculpture student in Limerick school of Art and Design. She is working on a project called Urban Knit, the aim of which is to cover a disused building in Limerick City. The cover will eventually be chopped up into smaller blankets and donated to St.Vincent’s Charity (hopefully washed and repaired after much exposure to the elements?), although as DeadlyKnitshade points out in her post, the charity don’t seem to be asking for knitted blankets, more “help financially and/or by giving of your time”.
Eilish has been calling for contributions of wool since the beginning of February, and I’m not sure whether Vodafone approached her after the project had been initiated or if it was the other way round.
Then a post popped up on Ravelry yesterday encouraging people to submit knitted squares. The contributor who started off the thread (under the username of Slkav) had joined Ravelry the same day - no profile, no knitting projects, no other contributions save this post. Their email address suggests they work for a company called Simply Zesty - an online pr and social media agency who frankly should know better.
After a few initial encouraging messages, the mood has changed as knitters have started to voice their resentment at the attempt to lure them into a corporate campaign.
Knit Me, Trafalgar Square
Looks like it went well! Congrats Kat, and good luck with your show.
Knit me flier
Kat Hall has organised Knit Me, a collaborative knitting event in Trafalgar Square this Saturday 14th March - as each person turns up, they have to join onto the main piece of knitting using their own needles, wool and imagination.
An unfeasibly excellent thing to do, although sadly can’t make it myself so am looking forward to seeing the outcome.
14th June apparently … you know it makes sense, whip those needles out and do it in public. Or in my case maybe just browse their website and think about doing it, really convince yourself you’re going to do it, but probably won’t get around to it, so maybe next year? Actually, like, I knit in public A LOT not just on one particular day okay?
Yeah and my thumbnail pictures are bigger now, what of it?
Okay I was wrong … craftivism is alive and well in the UK too, in the form of the GlittyKnittyKitty girls! Their credo is “We, the Knitted Terrorists, are committed to knittivism through the systematic and systemic use of knitted accessories, short rows and felt.”
They’ve also made me feel better (well, a bit anyway) about my crap handmade gifts … “by making, giving and receiving hand made things, you can say No to mass production. You can embrace individualism, and you can create something imbued with love.” Cheers comrades, I’ll send you some handmade soap!
The International Fiber Collective has issued a call to arms to knitters, crocheters and sew-ers (erm … not the drainage type) to “come together from all over the world to express their concerns about their countries extreme dependency on oil for energy”.
They’re asking for contributions of 3 foot square fibre panels to cover abandoned gas stations (next deadline due March 15th 2008), expressing how we feel about our dependency and the growing crisis.
There are some nice examples of submitted entries on the site, including one panel knitted together using 120 plastic bags as yarn which is a pretty neat tie-in.
I was thinking of submitting a panel using a combination of sewed and knitted elements, just better make sure I hand-sew instead of using the machine - kind of defeats the object!
Get knitting …
Oh blimey, got carried away and lost in interweb tangents when I should have been doing other things … there’s so much great new wave craft stuff happening out there, I have problems sleeping at night thinking of all the things I could be making and doing, and trying to work out how I’m going to fit them all in.
Most of the stuff seems to be happening in America but I could be wrong here - maybe they’re just getting better press, or write about it more, or maybe us Brits just take one look at the plethora of cool and inspiring sites and think “why bother?” Whatever, they’re great, they’re needed and they’re fun.
Feel completely inspired by the Knitta group based in Houston - they call themselves a graffiti knitting crew and tag things like street lamps, public statues, handrails, gates etc with impractical hand-knit cozies. I love it - cooler than Banksy and less pious. They use street name aliases like PolyCotN, LoopDogg and The Knotorious N.I.T. (my personal fave). Wondering whether to start up an East Sussex chapter - will anyone else be interested? Should it matter? Might give it a go … get inspired here
