Fantasy Fish Statistics

At last - Fantasy Fish in the sunshine with the added bonus of ducks!

     
This is a quick round up of a few interesting statistics from the Fantasy Fish Yarnstorm.

Lots of people made fish and other creatures, pompoms & plantlife

The installation was made by over 130 people of all ages. We held three workshops in May 2016 as part of Voluntary Arts Week & Craft & Design Month in The Winning Post, The Golden Ball and Rowntree Park Cafe.  Five groups took part - The Fairfax Court Yarnstormers, Sew Chatty, The Good Humour Ladies Club, Year 6 pupils from Hob Moor Primary School and the North Leeds Rebels Craft Collective.  Most #fantasyfish were made in and around York (#fishfromYork) but we had #fishfromafar swim in from Holme on Spalding Moor, Leeds, London, Cambridge and Berkshire to #increasetheshoal too.

Jellyfish

The fish range in size from around 7 centimetres to over 2 metres and there are about 530 of them.  And there's also over 30 other creatures including hammerhead sharks, jellyfish, starfish, octopuses, a whale and a seahorse.  Then there's the plantlife on show together with more than 50 pompoms on display.

Fish, seahorse, hammerhead, octopus and starfish

We used about 200 metres of fishing line to hang the fish, and about 30 metres of finger knitting for the text, arrow and plantlife.

Just taking a coffee break

Deborah hard at work hanging fish

It took 18 hours to put up and that's after most of the fish had been strung together (which took a couple of days and was finished to the sound of Coldplay at Glastonbury - but fortunately didn't involve squelching in mud).

And it's all still there to be enjoyed if only for a few more days.  If you pop along on Sunday 17 July between 1-4pm you can see them and enjoy the Rowntree Park 95th Birthday Party at the same time.

But please don't forget to come along to the fish sales which aim to raise funds for the York Flood Appeal.  From 10am to 3pm on:

Saturday 27 August &

Friday 2 September 

you'll find us near the cafe, selling fish.  Do come and buy or you can donate now here (please mention fantasy fish in the message box).  We need your support!

Big Knitting & Fantasy Fish

Big Knitted "Stripey" Fantasy Fish - 75cm long

      
Having completed my extreme knitting fantasy fish I quickly moved on to a bit of big knitting using these needles:

25mm diameter big needles x 580mm long

and choosing from this recyled material that I used for yarn:

Selvedge edges make good ribbon like yarn

I picked up the "yarn" at last year's Knitting & Stitching Show in Harrogate from The Starbeck Cone Exchange.  This is a Betty's & Taylor's community recycling project based in Starbeck, near Harrogate.  Here, people deposit their unwanted materials which are then sold as craft materials to support the Yorkshire Rainforest Project.  I bought some colourful reels of what looked like selvedge edges of a synthetic shiny fabric which knitted up a treat with my 25mm needles.

Silver & Navy "Fat Fish" Underway...

     
I've started on big fantasy fish no. 2, this time using the fat fish pattern, in silver & navy.  If you fancy knitting a big fish why not come along to one of our Fantasy Fish workshops in May 2016 and find out all about this year's Fantasy Fish Yarnstorm!  We'd love you to join in and if you can't make it to the workshops you can find Fantasy Fish Knitting Patterns here.  Send #FantasyFish from York (#fishfromYork) or send #fishfromafar.  Do post photos of your fish if you use social media.  Fish can be dropped off or sent to Fantasy Fish Yarnstorm, c/o Rowntree Park Cafe, Richardson Street, York, YO23 1JU


 

Extreme Knitting & a Fantasy Fish

Beached Fish

You may have read about this year's Fantasy Fish Yarnstorm which will be on display in Rowntree Park, York, later this year.  In preparation I have been doing some extreme knitting to create a large fish (over 2m long!) which will swim along and join the display.

Extreme knitting to scale

Anticipating the possibility of bad weather on a recent trip to Scotland I took my extreme needles and some yarn with me in case I was stuck indoors for a while.  Actually the weather wasn't so bad but I managed to fit in some extreme knitting anyway.  I had some yarn left over from a previous project - I think it might have been from those big jerseys from the Knit a Bike Installation.  Anyway I soon ran out of that!  However a quick trip round the charity shops for wool blankets and the local household store for some dye yielded positive results ...

Starting with a cream wool blanket

Nice bright coloured dyes

Add to the washing machine

Excellent results

 
Having got some lovely colours I decided to have a pink stripe in my fish and as I'd already started with yellow I decided to continue in that colour.  I cut up my blankets to form more yarn - 1.6kg of yellow and 900g of pink and then I was ready to carry on.

More yarn ready for extreme knitting

After all that I needed a break - did they know about my fishy theme?
 

A well deserved break - coffee and a chocolate fish!

When I returned home I just needed to make an eye ...

Finger knitted fish eye with pompom pupil

Now it just needs stabilising and it'll be ready for display - but that's a job for another day!

If you want to join in with our #FantasyFish project, details of the workshops are here.  If you can't make the workshops you can find Fantasy Fish knitting patterns here.  We would be very pleased to receive #fishfromafar as well as close by!