White Roses for Jo Cox - can you help?

Here's a little call for help for all you knitters out there! Can you knit a white Rose for a special Jo Cox memorial in June?

Barbara, who works in our shop is helping her niece and the school she works at with this project. We will happily take roses dropped at the Edinburgh shop from local folks. Or send to direct to Barbara from wherever you are:

Barbara Keenan

41 Howden Hall Court

Edinburgh

EH16 6UZ

Here is a bit of information about the white roses and why they need them. 

"On Friday 16th June, 2017 it will be exactly one year since the MP, Jo Cox, was tragically murdered in Birstall, West Yorkshire. The schools (23 primary and secondary schools) in the local area are working together on a project to raise the awareness of all young people about tolerance, equality, diversity, respect and community cohesion. 

The school children are keen to continue the legacy of Jo Cox's work around developing the community to be a stronger place, where people are united and work together to bring about long term, sustainable improvements in terms of employment, education, life skills and much more. Jo Cox had several projects underway about bringing the community together, tackling loneliness and supporting people in the community who may feel isolated as well as people who have mental health issues etc. 

Our schools believe in the values of equality, respect and celebrating diversity. Our ethos is all about Achieve, Believe and you will Succeed. If children believe they can be a better people and bring about positive change, then we are half way there in building a better community and a brighter future both locally and nationally. 

Our learning community at Upper Batley High School celebrates diversity and works hard to tackle stereotypes around gender, cultural matters and ethnicity. Jo Cox worked closely with our school and she was an inspirational woman who really valued education. Our boys are passionate about continuing her work within our community. Jo believed in a better world and she fought for it every day. She believed in equality, tolerance and humanity, and that people should work together to create safe and cohesive communities to provide a better future for ourselves and our children. Our boys are continuing her legacy and are involved in a number of projects ranging from environmental matters, feeding families from poorer backgrounds, supporting hearing and visually impaired children in India to working on local mental health projects such as the Dementia Friends. A key focus of our work in schools has to be tackling the poverty of aspiration and raising the hopes, ambitions and aspirations of our young people. They can be whatever they want to be if they set their mind to it and work hard enough to achieve it. Why not?

There are many different projects taking place this summer  and this school's project starts on 16th June with a PSHCE (Personal Social health & Citizenship) project that runs for 2 weeks in all schools and will culminate in a celebration event on Thursday 29th June where 1000 children, together with volunteers, will walk together through the town. The walk goes to a stadium where the children take part in a range of drama, art and sports activities to all work together around the key principles. It is for this walk that we are hoping to have 100 white roses for the children and staff to wear.  The white rose symbolizes Yorkshire and Jo Cox. We are hoping to be able to re use the roses every year that the event takes place. 

Our community is resilient and will come back stronger, better, more positive and more united following the atrocities of last June, and exciting projects such as this will play a key part in building a better future for Batley and Birstall. This is an exciting opportunity to showcase the talent, creativity and positivity we have in this area."

What a wonderful initiative! I have made one white rose - can you make one too?!

If you need a pattern then here is a link to one. And here is a link to a crochet pattern on Attic 24. Please make sure you include the green leaves so it looks like a corsage - thanks!

Thanks everyone!

The Trials and Tribulations of Regia Teddy

Anyone that follows me on Instagram will have seen this Teddy taking shape over the last 6 weeks or so. But it hasn't been a smooth ride, in fact near the end it got decidedly bumpy and I wondered whether Teddy would actually appear at all! 

So let me tell you a little story, all about Teddy's traumatic birth...

It all started when one of the lovely people at Coats sent me a couple of balls of new Arne and Carlos Regia sock wool and a pattern leaflet. I saw that photo of Teddy above and just fell in love - I had to make Teddy!

I decided to swap the lovely turquoise coloured yarn they had sent for this amazing Kristin Nicholas design, also Regia, which I had in stock in the shop.

I made one leg , just like a mini sock, with my 5 DPN's (double pointed needles), and then the next. Everything was going well.

The legs were joined at the body, two arms followed (even minier socks) and all joined up together on 6 needles! Yes I was using 7 needles to knit for a while - proper ninja knitting!!

Everyone was very impressed but actually it is no harder to knit with 6 needles than 2 .

By the time I hit the neck I was back to 5 needles and it looks like the weather had improved !

So everything had been going well and I was pleased and excited, just the head to do now.

Things did get a little trickier here and it's also looking quite painful for Teddy as his face is created in a slightly Frankensteinish way!

At last his snout was finished! This happened quite late at night when my sister, my cousin and my husband were all in attendance. Delightedly I turned Ted around to greet them...

And they just laughed and laughed!!

They became quite hysterical laughing at Teddy. I tried to cover his ears (but he didn't have any yet so it wasn't a problem) and massaged his head to look more 'teddylike'. But still they laughed - I must have done something wrong they said, he looked more like a badger than a teddy!

I was heartbroken, poor teddy... he didn't deserve this! I had been planning on making him for my husband's birthday as he had been quite taken by the photo on the pattern. But Jonathan was particularly cruel, calling Teddy a mutant. I told him I wouldn't give Teddy to him now! He would go to the shop to advertise the wool instead!

Over the next few days I stared at Teddy and at the pattern - what had I done wrong?! Maybe his head did look a bit weird...

I couldn't bring myself to finish him. I kept him safe in my bedroom and left the pattern, remaining wool and needles on my sewing room table. The next day I woke up determined to tackle Teddy.

But something terrible greeted me in the sewing room!

One of my cats (I strongly suspect Simon) had been sick all over the Teddy pattern! So much so that it had dissolved in cat sick and was unreadable! And another cat (I strongly suspect Hector) had chewed the ends off 3 out of 5 of my DPN's!! Were the cats trying to tell me something? Did they hate Teddy too?!

In desperation I took Teddy into my shop to show my colleague Jane. Jane is a much better knitter than me, maybe she could help me rescue Teddy.

And she did! She took one look at him and said he was absolutely fine as he was, he just needed his ears and his face. To illustrate she cut out some paper ears and pinned them to his head and pinned on some button eyes and a nose too. And he looked exactly like the pattern!!

Teddy was saved!

I did then take me another few weeks to knit the ears and then another few days to build up the courage to sew them on, I was so worried I would ruin him!

Luckily the pattern is available online - here.

And just look at him now - a really cute Teddy!! He does have a bit of a floppy neck (I am thinking a scarf might help), and there is no way a child is ever going to get it's hands on him, but other than that he is perfect and I love him!

Teddy is now embarking on a new life living at the shop, wearing a tiny placard and helping to sell the Regia wool!
(Actually I lied about the tiny placard).

Patchwork knitting bag and needle roll

It's been a few months since I had any projects featured in Love Patchwork and Quilting magazine so I am excited to share my patchwork knitting bag and needle roll with you!

Issue 22 is out now and my bag even made the cover inset shot!

The snowball pattern is meant to resemble balls of wool. You can also play 'spot the difference' between the bag in the photo below and the one in the magazine.
Anyone?
Yes that's right - different coloured handles. The magazine painted the wooden handles before photography, and they look much nicer now. I took these photos before I sent the bag off.

I also designed a needle roll to go with it. This was more of a challenge than the bag, but I tried to make it really practical.

The button closure means it's expandable without using ribbon ties, which I find look a bit frayed and scrappy after a while.

The flap at the top keeps all the needles safely in the roll. There are 2 sets of pockets, the shorter ones are for DPN's, circular, cables and even crochet hooks.

The little pouch is detachable and stores your row counters, stitch markers, etc. The pouch was the hardest bit as I wanted it to be fully lined (I have a morbid fear of raw edges!).

I had a little trouble designing the knitting bag too as the original one I made turned out rather large. I like to carry around a fair amount of crochet blanket in my knitting bag so it looked good to me. 

But after a few derisory comments from members of my family I thought I better just check with Jen, the editor, that it was okay before attaching the handles.

Jen sent me back an email that included the immortal line "most designers have a ‘giant knitting bag’ type moment, but at least you’ll get use out of yours!".

So I made a smaller one...

Here are mummy and baby bags re-united at last, and you can see here how truly gigantic the original bag was - what was I thinking!? I finished it off with a pair of bone hoop handles I have been wanting to use for ages, so it all worked out.

And large bag has been invaluable for carrying around all the wool I need for my Sophie's Universe CAL 2015. I'll be posting an update on this amazing crochet project soon!

A new use for quilts

As I am right in the middle of making a new quilt with nothing much to show you at present, I thought I would catch up on a couple of little projects I finished around Christmas time (better late than never!).

This first one is a tiny mini quilt for my eldest son Felix, the orange-clad travelling hippy (as we call him).
Felix wasn't meant to be home for Christmas as he is travelling until next summer, but he surprised us by turning up at the door unannounced a few weeks before (one of the loveliest days of my life so far).
Of course I hadn't bought him a Christmas present and when I asked him what he wanted he said, "can you make me a tiny quilt like the one you gave Jacob. I need it for re-charging my crystals".
Well I bet you didn't know you could use quilts to do that!!

This is the tiny quilt I gave his brother. I made a few different versions of these about 5 years ago and mounted them in box frames and sold them in the shop. But I could never bear to part with this little Amish one.
Jacob should have had a full-sized quilt for his 21st birthday last August, but due to my tardiness and to his inability to give up control of even the simplest thing *sigh* I have not even started it yet. So for his birthday I gave him this tiny quilt instead, just until I had made the large one. Though actually he says he is not going to give it back now anyway, as it's 'cool'!!

So for Felix's 'crystal re-charger' I made a tiny rainbow Dresden Plate and sewed it to a piece of Hometown fabric which featured quite a few places he had visited. The eye fabric came from one of my remaining pieces of Alexander Henry, Frida Kahlo fabric I have been hoarding for years. Some hand quilting, blanket stitches and French knots finished it off.
Here is the quilt at work...

...and here is the back - some Essex Yarn-dyed in black.
He is off again now and this is travelling with him. Well, you mustn't forget your re-charger when you are travelling ;)

Last Christmas I had great fun knitting my first pair of socks and I was looking forward to another go this year.

I found this Regia sock yarn amongst my wool stash, I had bought a 100g ball years ago to crochet mini owls (remember them anyone?) and still had plenty left.
It is the most amazing wool, which makes you look like you are a really good knitter who knows how to do fairisle and such like. When actually the wool just does it all for you!
And look at my heel - I totally worked out how to do it properly this time!

I don't think I can really express how much fun it is to knit socks. It is like magical 3D engineering with wool. I just love it!! And I wear the socks all the time (and last year's pair), they just go through the washing machine and the tumble dryer over and over again. They fit me perfectly and are so warm. I would encourage anyone to give it a try, they really aren't that hard, especially with this fantastic book, Getting Started Knitting Socks by Anne Budd, which I thoroughly recommend.

I am desperate to knit more but I have been suffering with tendonitis in my left hand due to knitting that Noro jacket (too heavy apparently), so I have had to give up all knitting and crocheting for a bit.
Hopefully I will be back spending quality time with my 5 DPN's very, very soon! That's double pointed needles for your non-sock knitters, and really why wouldn't you just become a sock knitter after everything I've just said!

I made this all by myself!

Yes, I knitted this jacket! I am ridiculously pleased with myself :)

I started back in September and have been labouring away in the evenings over the last few months. I don't do lot of knitting, in fact I had a good 10 year break when I zealously crocheted and wouldn't even have looked at a knitting needle - pah!

But then we started selling all this gorgeous wool in the shop and I got very tempted. So I dusted off my very limited skills and last year I knitted a jumper for my son and some socks for myself. I felt very proud when I finished the socks.

This year we started selling the amazing Noro yarn from Japanese. Obi is a new aran/chunky yarn in the most incredible colour palettes. This pattern book full of beautiful knitted garments accompanied it. I could resist no longer and started to knit the jacket on the cover in the same colour.

I've never really gone beyond stocking stitch and rib so the lacey bit on the border proved to be quite a challenge. There was a lot of sighing and unravelling before I finally got the hang of it. But, like everything, practice makes perfect (or at least passable!). The Obi is wonderful to knit with and lovely and warm on your lap during cold nights.

I also had to tackle picking up stitches for a button band (difficult, will try harder next time) and using a circular needle (suspiciously easy).
I finished it at the weekend, just in time for the weather turning colder.
Jonathan took some photos of me in front of the beech hedge...

...swinging around so you could see all the gorgeous colours.
In some ways you can't really go wrong with the Noro wool, the texture (Obi is wool, silk and mohair) and the way the colours change mean anything you knit will look stunning.

Still I am very proud to have finished something so big and (for me) challenging.
And guess what? I have already started my next pair of socks ;)
Oh dear I feel an obsession coming on!!

New Applique and Colour Theory workshops

We're going to focus on the rest of our new 2014 classes at myBearpaw Craft Studio in this post.

First of all I have a new Applique class. For the first few years I offered a class where you decorated a tote bag with needle-turn applique. I have now updated this class so that we decorate a tea towel instead.
There will be a choice of the 2 designs above: birds and leaves, and flower garden. I've included some yo-yos and a little embroidery to the flower garden design. The applique is along a band at one edge of the tea towel. This is such a lovely hand sewing day and one I always look forward to.

Next up is a colour theory class. This has been requested by a few of my students who have been struggling with choosing colours for their quilts. I think everybody does. I often find one of the most time consuming bits of quiltmaking is the fabric planning.
I have to say that I approach colour very instinctively so it was difficult for me to think about the theory behind it. But I have been taught to use the colour wheel in a painting class I took years ago and I do find myself mentally referring to it sometimes. So in this class we will be looking at how the colour wheel works.
Instead of printing out or painting a colour wheel. I decided to make a 12 petal Dresden plate mini quilt as a teaching aid. I found a relevant quote by John Ruskin and embroidered this to the centre.

We will also be looking at colour values, and then will be putting our theories to the test by making lots of 8 inch wonky cross blocks, each a little colour study in itself. These are so quick and easy to make, I made 18 in a few hours and hope to make more soon and turn these into a rainbow quilt for the class.

So those are my 'all new' classes. But I am also turning the Fabric Origami class that I did for the Stitch Gathering into a full day class, where we will have more time to play and I will introduce some new Japanese embellishments. This is a corsage I made as a second class sample, it's got a bit squashed in the peony area! That sounded a bit rude...
We are expanding our craft classes in the New Year by building a new, bigger classroom in a different part of the store. This is enabling us to put on an even wider range of classes and bring in new teachers.

Our Bag tutor, Naomi Crowley, will be taking a 5 week evening course in making a Weekend bag. This is already proving really popular and I would love to attend too, if only I wasn't teaching patchwork at the same time in the other classroom!

Our cushion and Roman blind tutor Clare McDonald has developed this fantastic new workshop for making alphabet cushions. This will be a real masterclass in soft furnishings, by the time you have finished you will be a piping ninja!

And Fiona Calvert from PoppyMakes blog is revising another of the Stitch Gathering classes by teaching a full day workshop in Jelly Roll Quilts, using this gorgeous quilt she made for Creative Quilting magazine.

And I am very pleased to bring a new tutor in to the fold. This time for knitting.
Katherine Lymer is a very experienced knitting teacher who works for Rowan Yarns amongst others. She will be taking 3 knitting workshops: learn to knit, professional finishing techniques for knitting, and introduction to knitting with colour.
Knitting classes have been a bit neglected at myBearpaw Studio but these should give them a good kickstart. The finishing techniques class is already one of our most popular for the new term after only a few days!
And in my next post you may find out why I have become a bit more keen on knitting...

Meanwhile you can check out the full list of classes here. And as the workshops are a full day and in such a lovely city even those of you who don't live so close could make the odd one (just saying...).

crochet bags and knitted...

A few weeks back I showed you a sneak peek of some pastel African Flowers that I was crocheting for a future project.
Well I can now reveal that they were for another magazine project!  This is Creative Bag Making.
The cover above is just a mock-up as the bags are all still to be studio shot, but they have produced this cover as it is now available to pre-order. It is a special one-off mag that is crammed full of bag patterns, including a project from Katy (Littlest Thistle) and Bearpaw Craft's bag making tutor Naomi Crowley.

I have provided full instructions to crochet the African Flowers, to join them, and to then construct this pretty bag. It's a different version of this bag made last year, more summery and more suitable for a wool project bag.

So that's lots of reasons to purchase this very good value publication (only £5.99!). Creative Bag Making is available to pre-order here and is due for publication in August.

And I have even more exciting magazine news to share with you later in the week!

But for now let's have a bit more wool action.
We recently got some gorgeous new wool in from Chilian wool company Araucania, including this amazing 100% llama wool above. At £9.90 for 100g it's at a great price for such a beautiful, incredibly soft yarn.

I was really fascinated by the way it had been dyed and was desperate to see how it would look knitted, but I wanted a really quick project (after spending months on Felix's jumper).

This is how it looks if you knit quite short rows (25cm), it produces random bursts of stripes. I would love to see it knitted into longer rows for a garment.

But what could I make from such a small rectangle? Well, take some co-ordinating fabric and a 20cm zip and you can make your very own...

 ... knitted pencil case! Every girl needs a knitted pencil case. Especially when she has a Quilt Retreat to organise!!

Yes, I hope you didn't think you were going to get away without a mention of THE STITCH GATHERING!

We had a wonderful response to our ticket launch last week, with over two thirds of the tickets now sold! But that does mean there are still some left if you are at all tempted - head over here for more info.
And for those of you who have bought tickets and have a blog, you can 'grab that button' at the top of the page to let everybody know you will be attending!
I'm off to start a Stitch Gathering Flickr group now, more info about this later in the week!