Felted Jewellery

I have been making beads from felt, crochet and knitting.
Here's a felted bead necklace, I used metal beads caps and medium sized pearls between each bead. I put them on a thick jewellery wire and made a wire wrapped loop each end.

WWKIPD or World Wide Knitting in Public Day

WWKIPD or World Wide Knitting in Public Day

Yesterday was WWKIPD, so with my friend and her daughter we set off for The London Knit Crawl organised by Stitch and Bitch London We arrived late (eek got on the wrong bus) but we did get there in time to take some pics, sit on the steps and locate other knitters.

Stop No.1 St Paul’s Cathedral 12.00am - 1pm

We than went onto the Tate Modern via the Millennium bridge and the weather was starting to get hot.

Stop No.2 The Tate Modern 1.30pm - 2.30pm

( Sorry got arty for this pic)

We Knitted on the steps of the slope leading into the main turbine hall, which was nice and cool and break from the heat outside. Lauren from Stitch and Bitch gave us some goodies and welcomed us. It was a really nice atmosphere in the Tate, very calming perfect for knitting.

Stop No.3 Knitting on the grass (Jubilee Gardens) in front of the London Eye 3.30pm - 4.30pm

We walked alone the Thames. It was so busy, just like a mini carnival with lots of different types of music, street acts, stone statue mimes, even a small carousel.

We sat on the grassy area beside the London Eye. Lots of knitting, some ice cream eating to cool off (glad I don't bring my coat the sun was so hot) and than we were onto our next and final stop.

Stop No.4 Trafalgar Square 5pm - 6pm

The home of the giant stone lions. This was noisy as there was a protest meeting going on, plus not only was it World Wide Knitting in Public Day it was also World naked bike riders day :O

By this stop we also wished we had remembered to bring some cushions to sit on, the paved floor was starting to feel very hard.

We sat near one of the lions and did a spot of knitting and felt happy with ourselves. We had also heard from other knitters (they had been yarn shopping pre-starting the knit crawl) about a new shop off Carnaby street All the Fun of the Fair , so decided we needed one more knitting related stop.

All the Fun of the fair - Unit 2.8 Kingly Court off Carnaby Street, London W1B 5PW

A little shop of treasures, they specialise in hand knitted cakes and quirky hand knitted items (prefect gifts) they have a good selection of yarns and haberdashery plus crafts and even old knitting patterns.

I purchased a couple of knitting dolly's (for the collection) and yes I did buy more yarn and as it was WWKIPD the very helpful lady (friendly and knowledgeable I will be shopping there again)who owned the store gave us 10% off and even guided us to a tasty selection of bargain yarns :)

A perfect ending to a knitting day :)

Flower loom

OK I am into looms at the moment, this is an old plastic flower loom I dug out when doing some tidying. I was thinking what to do with all this ladder type yarn I bought at a exhibition and found it works really well on the loom (plus its kinder to my hands than the wire). Instead of weaving the inside of the flower with a needle I crocheted it, surface crochet style. Still have a lot of experimenting to do but I am happy with the results so far :)

Wild Alaskan Salmon

As a treat today we had wild Alaskan salmon, it was really fresh so I gently pan fried it with a little olive oil and butter plus fresh lemon grass, ginger, garlic and seasoning (only enough to flavour, I like to taste the fish). I served it with roast potatoes (well a sort of alternative Sunday roast still needs roast potatoes) and steamed asparagus. Very nice :)

(& no that's not my plate, if I eat that many potatoes I would explode!)

Candle cage

The candle cage is an all in one piece made on the loom with a crochet hook (I posted a pic earlier of the loom).

The light sparkles off the glass beads and looks pretty in real life, but it is so hard to photograph. Its a small cage for a tea light candle. The wire was hard on the hands so I will have to play some more with different wires to see if they are easier before making a larger item.

Looms

I have been playing with wire and glass beads, testing out some looms. I am trying (I'll see when I finish) to make a candle cage, this is what it looks like so far.

My friend the Bread Maker

I got time to make some bread today, something I really like doing. Fresh bread smells and tastes so good. When I say I made the bread I had help from my friend the bread maker (I made Soy & linseed bread). My friend does all the hard work kneading the dough for me and does not complain.

I used to make a lot of bread before by hand, but I have arthritis so kneading the dough, while relaxing couses a lot of pain. The bread maker is excellent (and kneads the dough better than me anyway) bread with no hand pain :)

I don't let the dough cook in the bread maker I prefer to put the dough on a baking tray. Make a nice shape, add my pattern, let rise than bake in the oven. I find it makes a much lighter loaf. Plus I can pretend I make it all my self :)