Knitty Nora strikes again!

This time it's for charity though.
.
You may remember me talking in the past about my lovely friend Nicki from Switzerland, she makes cushions, quilts and anything else for a childrens charity here in the UK called Kid's Company. Well being the angel she is, Nicki has been on another mission alongside her other great work, and that is to "Wrap up a kiddie", or keep a kiddie warm this winter.
.
Many of the young kids that this charity helps, have little or no warm clothing, so they are after people who can knit or sew items for the kids......enter one new male knitter!!! :)
.
Although i am not as fast at knitting as many here, i now have a first batch to go out to Kids Company...
.

.
I've done 5 of the larger scarves that will be fine for the older ones there, and today i made two smaller ones for the toddlers. I will be getting these sent off tomorrow, and will start on some more this week, especially the scarves for the little ones.
.
I've really enjoyed making these, knowing they will be going to kids. I hate seeing my kids cold, any kids not wrapped up in fact, so these were a pleasure to make. Good practice for me too.
.

.
If anyone out there is interested in helping out with this, here is Nicki's website that tells you all about what she does, on there you will also find the wrap a kiddie page.
.
Thanks to Nicki for her ongoing inspiration, apparently there is 24 hours in a day, but i swear a certain person upstairs must have given Nicki many more in order for her to do all she does!

Like my new white Bind It All?

Well not quite new......some of you may remember me moaning like a goodun about the "pinky" nature of my new BIA a while back.

I stored it in the window of my craft room for the summer, and the sunlight has faded the colour just about completely off! It's kind of an off white.

I'm thinking about inking it, but might just keep it as it is......it's better than girly pink anyway :)

Cool eh?

A recycled mirror, fit for two princesses.

Yes that's my hand getting in on the action! :)

Here is a really quick project i did for my girls bedroom, took just one night of drying paint, and a few minutes of adding some pretty bits to jazz it up....oh and of course a saying fit for the moment....

.

.

This is actually the second time this mirror has been recycled. First time, a few years ago, Maddy's daughter, Sophia rescued this cane mirror from the local rubbish dump. It was bare and battered so she gave it a makeover with cans of spray paint and then covered it in fairy lights and paper ball lampshades. She gave it to my girls, who loved it had it in their room for a few years.

.

However, like most stuff in a kids bedroom, it had seen better days, so recently i sanded it down to the cane again, stuck a coat or primer on it then a couple of coats of white matt emulsion paint on it. I just love how the cane looks now it's painted, simple, yet effective.

.

.

Add a few blooms and ribbon here and there for extra femininity, and hey presto....

.

.

Probably the quickest thing I've altered ever, not much too it really, but it will see them through a another couple of years of doing their hair and slapping on make up!

.

.

Thanks for looking. :)

A creepy inking session!

Yes i know, slightly odd i know. :)

It's been a while since i used my beloved alcohol inks on anything, so i decided to finish a project i started a couple of months ago. An alcohol inked skull.

My inspiration, although much more attractive to look at than my mess here, was a piece of art by the artist Damien Hirst. "Cornucopia" as the art is entitled, is a group of skulls painted in many colours with gloss paint on plastic skulls...here's the exhibition piece at the British Museum...



I loved the way he took a normaly morbid item, and made it a pleasure to look at, so i thought i'd have a go with what i had in my craft room.

Well you are probably thinking, "how hard can it be to ink a skull?" Very hard as it happens! First i painted the skull white with white Stazon ink...lots of it! Then i needed to get layers of clear ultra thick embossing powder onto the skull evenly. For those of you wondering what i was doing with a skull in my house, it was a resin one i got from ebay.

Not as easy as it sounds, lots of dabbing with an embossing pad, until i realised the pad was not up to the job, so i painted embossing pad ink onto the skull. Now when you melt the powder with a heat gun on card, it's flat, on a skull however it runs everywhere. So i had to hold the skull with either my hahds or pliers (depending how hot it got), and gradually add the ink colours and extra layers of UTEE.



It's like coloured glass, and like all alcohol ink projects, i love the way the colours are unpredictable when you apply them. You just never get the same effect twice.



The whole thing took me probably took about a week in total, i kept going back and forth to it as it was a nightmare to do.



Damien Hirst's work is most definately an aquired taste, and a lot of his work i bit macabre, but Maddy says he has always been that way. It is a small world indeed, Maddy used to go round his house when she was younger, she was good friends with his sister. She says he had his artwork all over the place and he was really good. He seems to have done ok for himself anyway.

Whilst my effort may not fetch the many millions of pounds that Damien Hirst's go for, i like to think it will grace the shelves of my craft room for many years to come, and one day maybe make at least £2.50 at a car boot sale. :)



Thanks for looking, i hope you like the colours, it just goes to show that there is little you cannot ink!

And a couple more....

Wow this is addictive!!!



Once i sorted out the right needles and adjusted the width slightly, i did two more scarves yesterday, so now the girls have a couple to choose from.

I have started one with different colours, it looks better than on screen, it would make a nice mans scarf maybe.



Maddy says she has become a knitting widow, she says i came up here to help her through the cold snap we've had here in the UK, but instead ive just knitted lol. I'm sure it's not like that at all, and it's not like Maddy hasn't been sat right next to me knitting away like a mad woman as well!

I think i'll have a look around the net tonight to see what other nice wool there is, i'd like to knit the girls another scarf but with something a bit more special, funkier even. Any recommendations most welcome.

Bye for now. :)

My first ever piece of knitting!!!

Well here it is....after many attempts to get the hang of knitting, i have finally done it! For a few years now i have gone through phases of trying to master the art of knitting, just to make something for my girls really, but until now it has always got the better of me.

So this week, after much help from Maddy and her daughter Sophia, i have managed to complete a basic scarf for my youngest daughter. Using chunky wool it allowed me to get somewhere quicker with the results (thanks Sophia for that tip), and i really enjoyed it.



I need to learn to relax a bit more when i knit, i think thats why the scarf feels a bit stiff, and my needle holding technique is "interesting" to say the least, but it seems to work ok for me at the moment.

I'm looking forward to making a few more scarves for my girls, and at least now they can choose their own colours.

Thanks for looking.:)