Share the love - Valentine's Day Cards

 

Love Heart Valentine's Day Card

I really love receiving cards and letters in the post.  I'm a big fan of snail mail and I don't think I'm the only one.  Particularly this year, when we can't see who we want when we want, it's a good time to share some love.  Valentine's Day, 14th February, is coming up and offers an opportunity to do just that.  Don't feel the need to confine your cards to your true love - how about sending a card to a much missed friend or a family member to show you are thinking of them.  In fact why wait till Valentine's Day?

Which heart would you choose?

In preparation, I have been making some love heart cards using upcycled drinks cans, some fab textured card and paper and a smattering of stitch.  They are now available in my Folksy shop here.

Love Heart Detail

And another thing - picture stamps make a letter even better.  The current lovely stamps are of the nation's National Parks.  There are 10 different first class stamps.  If they haven't got them at your local post office and it seems to be increasingly difficult to get them locally, you can buy them online from Royal Mail here.

So, go on, make someone's day, send a card and share the love!

Big Knitting Creates a Rainbow

Big Knitted Rainbow and Little Knitted Rainbows

I recently knitted some little rainbows, that are currently hanging in my window but which will be heading along to the Rainbows for Rowntree Park yarnstorming project in due course. Offering a visible thank you to the NHS, they were also fun to make, look very cute and definitely contibute a positive vibe which is much needed at the moment.  So, what next? I decided I'd like to make a big knitted rainbow.  My big knitting needles are 20mm in diameter so need some big yarn.  I save colourful old T shirts in case I might be able to recycle them for a craft project and here they came into their own!  I didn't think I'd have a rainbow's worth of colours but it turned out I did...

A Rainbow's Worth of Old T Shirts

So I got to work preparing some upcycled T-shirt yarn.  You fold your T shirt not quite in half lengthways and cut strips not quite to the edge. Then unfold and at the edge where it isn't cut through make a series of diagonal cuts to produce a continuous piece of yarn. You can use the sleeves as well.  I cut my strips about 1 inch/2.5cm wide.

Fold T shirt Over and Cut Strips

Unfold T shirt to Reveal Cut Strips

You can find a great YouTube video from Sustain my Craft Habit showing you exactly how here.  All my adult T-shirts produced over 20m of yarn each...

Big Needles and T-shirt Yarn

I cut up 2 red T-shirts in different shades of red as I knew I would need more than one T-shirt's worth of yarn for the red section of my rainbow. Next I started knitting...

Casting On With The Big Needles

The pattern I used was from Knitting by Post and was the Easy Medium Sized Knitted Rainbow knitting pattern.  I only knitted with half the number of stitches as my rainbow wasn't going to be double sided. Here it is knitted up...

Big Knitted Rainbow

Next I attached it to some plastic fencing using some of the T shirt yarn and some clear fishing line.  Then I made a whole load of cloud coloured pompoms in different sizes...
 

A Suitcase Full of Pompom Clouds

 
and attached them to the bottom of my rainbow.  The finished item was up on my railings in time to "Clap for our Carers" where we show our appreciation with some hearty applause for the NHS and all the key workers keeping things going during the pandemic.

Finished Big Knitted Rainbow

My big knitted rainbow is about 1 metre wide and 0.5 metre high.  I don't think you'll miss it if you're passing by!  Why not hunt out your old T shirts and have a go?

York's Bloomin' Marvellous Flowerwall in Bloom! - Part 1

Part of the Flowerwall at York Explore Library

The Bloom! festival in York over the last few days has made the city look even better than usual.  From the 5-8 July 2018,  the festival celebrated the 250th anniversary of the Ancient Society of York Florists - who have held an annual horticultural show since 1768.  This blogpost is dedicated to the York Learning community art flowerwall at York Explore which was magnficent.

Flower arch at Bloom!

You may remember that I went along to take part in one of the many York Learning flowerwall workshops given by Deborah New - read more here.  Then I told the Fairfax Court Yarnstormers all about it and they decided to get involved - read about that here.  Fiona Dixon & her group Sew Chatty also contributed fab flowers to the project...

Sew Chatty Flowers courtesy of Fiona Dixon

See if you can spot them in the flower wall...

Green flowers

York Learning put on lots of flower making workshops for people to go to. Workshops weren't only held at the library.  Claire Douglas (project leader) & Kerry Roberts took workshops into New Earswick, Skelton and St Barnabas primary schools and Karen at Lakeside primary ran after school workshops for parents & children.

Some people made them at home or in their craft groups.  Sue Clayton worked with older learners & Kat Wood, created lovely flowers from plastic bags with crafty folk at Chapelfields Community   Association & Foxwood Community Centre.  Other groups (including Haxby Methodist Church Hall, Clifton Library & Blossom Women's Group) and individuals (especially Cheryl Pickard & Hannah Savage) also made lots of bloomin' flowers...

Green Flowers

There was such a great variety of flowers - fabric, paper, plastic, willow, stitched, knitted, crocheted and they were all displayed in groups of the same colour...

Blue Flowers

Blue Flowers

Purple Flowers

Red & Orange Flowers

Fabulous Flowers

Yellow flowers

White flowers

White flowers

It wasn't just the outside of the library that was blooming...

The Stairwell is Blooming

Inside the Library

It all looked fantastic.  And Claire Douglas, Deborah New, Donna Taylor & Karen Winship did an amazing job putting it all together.  Thanks to York Learning and everyone who took part for creating such an amazing display!

York Learning Flowerwall

More about the Bloom! festival in another post!

 

Upcycled Shirt - Now a Cushion

Wool Shirt Cushion

Recently I spotted a rather nice grey shirt on the reduced rail in my local charity shop.  It was only 50p and it was 80% wool.  I thought it had potential so I snapped it up.  After pondering (briefly) about the possibilities I decided that its fate was to become a cushion.  One reason for this was the rather nice placket it had down the front, covering the buttons - an instant opening for the cushion pad.  Also, I liked the shirt pockets (with flaps) on the front - excellent places to secrete Freddo bars for some secret indulgence whilst watching a favourite TV show or DVD.  

So, I set about the transformation.  It was quick & inexpensive to make - no fraying edges to finish off, ready made opening for the cushion pad, just the corners to trim and hey presto it's done.  (It'll even match the #Wovember Big Knit Pumpkin Pouffe - http://hippystitch.blogspot.co.uk/2014/01/wovember-project-finished-for-christmas.html).

And on top of all that I still have some bits left over to make other things:

Leftover bits of shirt for future makes

I did throw a few bits away but not many.  Why not have a go?

Another "How to make ..." - Paper Decorations - Valentine's Day 3D Hearts & More

Those of you that have visited the "How to make ..." page on my blog will know that there have long been instructions on how to make pompoms.  You'll be pleased to know that I've recently added another quick make in time for Valentine's Day in the form of some upcycled 3D paper heart decorations.  They can of course be used for other occasions and can be easily adapted for more general use.  I did make some round ones in time for Christmas - and made some map based ones for the Geographers I sometimes hang out with, and one for a Iorek Burnison fan (featuring Svalbard of course!). You can string them together to make bauble bunting - great for any celebration.

Paper Bauble Bunting

Hope you like them - have a go it won't take long and it could use up some of your recycling waste!  The link is here:

http://hippystitch.blogspot.co.uk/p/how-to-make_15.html