Many years ago, when the internet was mostly made of text and your website host complained if your site went over a megabyte in size, I paid a rather exhorbitant price for a lift-out from a 1968 Australian Women’s Weekly in an out of the way antique shop in rural Victoria. Alas, when I went to knit the toys, the front page had been torn in half and was nowhere to be found. To say I was miffed would be a massive understatement.
Groovy knitted toys from the October 2nd Australian Women’s Weekly, 1968
(Re)Introducing: The Mod Menagerie of Beasts and Birds including, The King of the Beasts, Carrot-Power Cottontail, Cat of Super Colors, Mopsy Bird, Hippie-Potamus, Wiggy Bird, Flower Bearing Bruin and Bangle Bell Bossy. They’re all knit at 3sts to the inch to make them super groovy and super fast.
Have you ever gone diving through your stash, only to feel horribly guilty about your unfinished projects that you know will never be worked on again?
Well don’t, because you can always donate them to your local charity shop where someone like me will find them and consider them treasure!
All of which is a very ’round about way of saying, “look at the really cool thing I found at the op shop yesterday!”
It’s an unfinished patchwork quilt made from 1970’s fabrics. It looks like two different people worked on it as half has been finished in a single piece
Unfinished house patchwork made from 1970’s fabrics
and the other half have been quilted as a quilt-as-you-go quilt.
Quilt as you go house block with red gingham roofQuilt as you go house block with green frontQuilt as you go house block with striped roofQuilt as you go house block with quilted surprise
I had intended to take apart the quilted blocks and finish it in one piece with a square of 1970’s patchwork hexagons as the centre but then I found this:
Surprise snowman!
and I’ve now totally changed my mind. I’ll be taking apart the piece with four squares and making it all quilt-as-you-go instead 🙂
I just can’t bring myself to kill the poor innocent snowman.
I wonder what I have that will look good as the two missing doors…
My first two finished projects for 2015! One made from knitting and one a complete travesty. Er, I mean sewn.
These were finished last Friday (January 2nd) after a mad dash to Spotlight for a bag of stuffing. I accidentally came home with a bag of stuffing, a seam roll, an ironing mitt and a new hook for Charlie’s Rainbow loom. Oops. My truly awesome daughter also bought me a copy of “Gertie Sews Vintage Casual”. I’ll review that in a future post when I’ve had time to have a look at it). Here are some links to it on Amazon and Book Depository, in case you’d like to take a look. (For the sake of transparency, those are affiliate links).
So, what have I made?
All sixteen colours of sheep in MinecraftThe Minecraft Wool stash. Obviously the most important part of playing Minecraft.
Um, not that. Yes, I have a herd of every colour of sheep in Minecraft and a chest full of stash. Shut up.
Speaking of Minecraft ~cough~ I knit a Creeper for my son Charlie.
Hand knit Minecraft creeper and his friend, Hopper the pig.
Now I want one. Except the damn things keep blowing up my house. Heaven forbid they should ever let the sheep out.
I used the creeper pattern from Angel’s Knitting Blog, sadly now defunct. I figured out how to do the face by looking at other people’s projects on Ravelry.
There are quite a few comments about the foot section of the pattern being incomprehensible but it’s actually a very clever way to eliminate a few of the seams that toys need to keep their shape. The trick is to not read the pattern first. Knit, trust that it will make sense when you get to that part and it does. Or at least it did for me and seemingly the other people that finished it 🙂
I’ve made many toys over the years and developed my own techniques for stuffing without lumps. I made this video about it a few years ago, in case anyone would like any tips.
Charlie and I also finished this monstrosity charming fellow made from an unfinished (unstarted?) and incomplete teddy bear I found at the op shop.
Meet Mr. Bread WoodenHead.
Mr Bread WoodenHead the bear
Charlie arranged all the pieces but the fabric was pretty tough to sew so I had the honour of stitching him together. Charlie finished him off by sticking on a range of sparkly plastic thingies for his face, ears and paws. Truly, um, unique. It’s staring at me right now from the seat next to me. I’m pretty sure it’s planning to eat my face.
O.O
My next project is already in the works, in fact I started it on the Tuesday before Christmas and have been stitching away on it every time the Xbox gets too hot in our Summer heat.
From The Cumberland Argus and Fruitgrowers Advocate, Saturday the 8th of June 1918
“KNITTING!”
“And the girls are ever knitting — still are knitting”— we might parody Edgar Allen Poe. At church socials, like that of St. Andrew’s, Parramatta, on Wednesday,  on the chairs around the hall at the War Chest hop, in the trains and trams, in the streets as walkers take the air and the sun, even on the holy Sabbath; old women knitting, girls knitting; men (at times, not often) knitting; boys knitting. It is one of the sights of the age, one of the few things that bring a little color to life, so to speak, in these dark days when everything is so clouded with doubt and uncertainty. At any rate, our kith and kin are bearing ”service.” And those piles of socks for our boys are growing!
Most of these knitting tips are as true now as they were in 1933! I’m not sure about the seaming tip though. I prefer a whole stitch in from the edge unless an edge to edge finish is needed (for example, if there’s a seam in the sole of a sock that was knit flat).
From the Muswellbrook Chronicle, May 19th 1933.
KNITTING.
When you are knitting remember – Never stretch your wool by winding it into a hard ball. Wind it loosely over three fingers; changing their position frequently, and a soft, loose ball, delightfully easy to work will be the result. Knitting is often spoilt because it is carelessly made up and finished off. In joining edges, be careful not to draw them too tightly. Use the same yarn as the knitting and a coarse, blunt-pointed needle, and take up the end loops only of each edge.
When changing from one colour wool to another twist the two wools together to avoid a gap in the knitting. Avoid joining the wool in the middle of a row, but if the design demands this, try to do so as neatly as possible.
 and 
