Four Good Corners » craft

Celebrity crafting

Kirsty — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 10:06:43 +0000

Kirstie Allsopp and her Homemade Home series have caused some debate on this blog – our more puritan crafters have seen it as a hollow gesture towards a current fad, whilst other bloggers think that exposure of traditional and new crafts and their practitioners is positive and should be welcomed. In the series, Kirstie showcases different artisans and craftspeople who can provide interesting alternatives to the identikit flat-pack homes that other style and property programmes seem to be shoving down our throats. The intention is good, but, as with any mass media product, it could lead the way to crafting as just another fad to be bought into on mass and discarded just as quickly. Let’s think positively, though. I believe that encouraging anyone to pick up knitting needles, a paintbrush, or any tool that enables them to create something unique and rewarding is great.

I would say that, though – I work for the publishing house that is publishing the book of the series next year. Not only that, but – as the very grainy photograph attests – I am part of the reason that my particular publishing house won the bid. I’ve gained a bit of a reputation at work for being crafty and when the lovely editor was pitching for the book, she asked me to make something that she could give to Kirstie. The results of which you can just about see in the picture. I crocheted a ‘book’ with a little house on the cover and the words Home Made Home. Both Kirstie and the editor loved it and every time Kirstie’s book is mentioned now, someone will say “That’s thanks to the book that Kirsty knitted”. In the beginning, I would say “actually, it’s crocheted” but I got so many blank looks – because it’s made of yarn and you knit with yarn, what is this crochet? – that now I just agree. Either way, it’s a nice feeling to know that something I made is so appreciated. I wonder if my ‘book’ will appear in Kirstie’s book…

Caccaccollo Crafts

Kirsty — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 10:49:32 +0000

Wending our way through the Sacred Valley from Cusco to Ollantaytambo, our guide made a stop at a local mountain community that was working with GAP – the men went off to carry crazy amounts of supplies along the Inca Trail, while the women stayed in the village to produce textiles, which GAP would bring their hikers to marvel over and possibly buy. The village of Caccaccollo is halfway up a mountain, connected to the world by a winding dirt track (that has become a road since GAP’s involvement). The women here raise the alpacas, spin and dye their wool and then make fabulous clothes, wall hangings, and toys, which are displayed in the village’s square. When I say ‘village square’, don’t be getting quaint notions of an English village green with a clock tower in the middle and well-kept herbaceous borders. This village square was a dirt area onto which several shacks faced, with alpacas tethered at various points and pre-school age children making mud pies. The women stood and sat at one end, spinning the yarn and exhibiting their wares.

The women of Caccaccollo spin the shorn alpaca wool into yarn using traditional drop spindles, making their work both portable and social. Noticing a child wandering out of eye range, one of the women handed her spindle to her neighbour and went to retrieve the little boy, plonking him down by the wool and taking up her spinning again. They chatted with our guide in Quechuan about their work.

There was a little hut to the side of the square for dying the yarns. The Caccaccollons (I’m not sure if this is the term, but it works for now!) use all natural dyes – plants gathered from the surrounding area and the cochineal beetle provide a whole range of colours; greens, yellows, reds, and purply greys. On its first use, the dye creates a rich, deep colour; the dye water is used repeatedly to achieve various shades. Ever conscious of water shortage, once the dye water can dye no longer, the water is recycled for cooking, washing, and feeding the animals.

The quality of the textiles was amazing and each piece was a little bit different. I really regret not having enough Sol on me to buy a wall hanging, especially as my husband, who hates wall hangings (”Rugs go on the floor, Kirsty, not on the wall” – silly boy!), was impressed enough to want one. It’s not like this is somewhere I can just pop back to, either…

Poems for weddings (or civil partnerships)

Peter — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 15:43:10 +0000

This is probably not technically craft, but… My flatmates got civil partnershipped back in May. I “did” the invites for them (they bought some card from a stationers, wrote an Excel spreadsheet with addresses, I did a design on Word, mail merged, printed and hey-presto) and they got some lovely tartan ribbon to go on them.

They also asked me to do a reading at the wedding, with 48 hours notice; they had to be vetted by the Registry Office beforehand, just in case I insulted any evangelical Christians who happened to be skulking about waiting to be deeply offended by any reference to “wedding” or “marriage”. Luckily, one of the corners came up trumps with a beautiful poem. On the day I almost blubbed my little eyes out reading in front of the assembled families. The respective mothers liked it so much they asked for copies of it. Et voila:

Basically two £1.99 picture frames from Poundstretcher, some card, printed copies of said poems and some of the leftover tartan ribbon. One Scottish version and one über Scottish version and a whole hour’s work. And hopefully the poet won’t mind me posting it here as well:

This poem was written by one of the other Corners here. It must not be quoted elsewhere without their express permission.

Crochet Rainbow Cushion

Em — Sat, 16 May 2009 16:36:58 +0000

Hello all! I am another new corner for this fabulous blog. My name is Em, although I am known online as Fearful Penguin. I am based in Saltaire, West Yorkshire and I love to craft! I try my hand at all sorts of crafts and love learning and experimenting with new techniques. My current loves are sewing and altering clothes, of which I am sure you will see blog posts about in the future!

Today, however, I wanted to show off the rainbow crochet cushion I made as a present for a friend. I’m not particularly fast at crochet and this is the biggest item I have ever crocheted. It was mainly made on the train whilst travelling to and from work – this is what I love about crochet, it is one of the few forms of craft that you can easily do anywhere – I crochet on trains, buses, in cafes and even in pubs! It was made by making five different squares (one large, four small) and then fastening them together using single crochet, which meant that whichever part I was working on at the time was easily transportable.

This cushion has taken me over a month to make, but I am very proud of the final product – it is perfect for my friend and she loved it!

A new corner

Peter — Fri, 01 May 2009 13:37:15 +0000

Hello, I’m Peter and I’ve been invited to become another corner to broaden membership and hopefully provide some interesting bon mots on crafty-things. A bit of background – I live in Edinburgh and I’m studying for a PhD (in my final year, writing up). I probably won’t post that often as I don’t have time for a lot of crafting – I promised one of the other corners a hand-sewn draught excluder a couple of years back for their birthday in the middle of the year. Suffice to say, they eventually got it by Christmas. But I do cook quite a bit, so expect posts about that

I thought I’d start off with some information about why and how I got into craft. I’m nowhere near as serious about it as some of the other corners, but I will readily turn my hand and make things if I’m in the mood. I’ve made homemade Christmas cards for the past two years for a start.

I was thinking about this at the weekend, and realised that for the years when I was about 11-17 I had a model railway (not at all as good as the one pictured). As I moved to my later teens and got a part time job, my wee Hornby set grew to be a model town, 8′ by 8′, which I christened “Havinge”.

I took it very seriously – I didn’t just buy the stuff ready-made from Hornby. Oh no, I was all about making stuff from scratch from card and plastic kits. My bedroom was a world of polystyrene cement and PVA glue.

I recall I once bought a pack of 100 little (about 2cm tall) plastic people you had to paint yourself. I set too with my paintbrush with one bristle left on it. After a few women and men in civilian clothes, carefully painting individual blouses and jackets, I got very bored and realised there were a lot of uniformed men in the set. Dunking their bodies in khaki paint, dunking their heads in flesh paint and then dunking them in khaki for their caps was a lot easiery. It was then that Havinge started preparing for war! I got so confident in building things that I’d adapt shop-bought kits. I got a buffet and restaurant car set, and since the LNER used to run articulated rakes of coaches, I articulated these two carriages on one bogey (train speak, don’t worry) all by little ol’ self (although they struggled to take corners at speed). I was most proud when I made my own railway station building and signal box based on the clean lines of 1930s modernism, like the De La Warr Pavillion or Midland Hotel in Morecambe. As I was at school at the time, a woodwork teacher gave me some scraps of wood veneer which I used to line the inside of the station building, constructing little ticket windows and chairs and tables with it.

I think doing all this, although it was a bit odd for a teenage man to be sat in his bedroom playing with tiny trains, has given me the confidence these days just to dive into to crafty things and do them – the chances are they’ll look alright. And it’s the process of making, more than anything, that’s enjoyable about craft. Oh, and I’m brilliant at papier mache. So long as you want a tiny hill or a railway cutting…

Reasons I’m not a professional baker #1

Kirsty — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 09:30:29 +0000

It’s my man’s birthday today and I spent all yesterday evening in the kitchen, slaving over… well, this. In my head, it was going to turn out better. Perfect, in fact, as things always do in my head. You see, there’s a reason I’m not a professional baker and the reason is, well, this. It’s wonky and a bit playschool, but I think it’s recognisable. Please tell me that you can tell that it’s supposed to be the Mysterious Cities of Gold (and please tell me that you remember that fabulous 80s cartoon). My husband loves this cartoon and we’re going to Peru in five weeks, so I thought that it was a very apt cake-make. I’ve spent all week sourcing yellow (tried for gold, but no luck) food colouring and thinking about the logisitics of stacking smaller and smaller squares of cake on top of each other. I’ve told everyone that I’m making the cake to end all cakes. I baked yesterday and deocrated today. I’ve done my best. If it ends up on cakewreck, I would be a little disgruntled. At least the sponge tastes amazing…

P.S. That is the Golden Condor in the corner…

One down?

Kirsty — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 22:07:51 +0000

So, my two crafty resolutions this year were to knit a jumper and to learn fair isle and/or intarsia. I’m intensely chuffed with this tiny little cardigan I’ve just finished for my cousin’s baby – isn’t it adorable? – but I don’t think I can count it as a tick on the resolution list. You see, I know that I’ve got the technical ability for a jumper, it’s the patience aspect that gets me. This may be the first jumper that I’ve ever completed, and the long, long rows on the frill took some willpower, but I think that I need to make a grown-up jumper for it to really count. Maybe I’ll practice with some more teeny, tiny baby clothes before I take the plunge and go full size.

Frank’s Big Brother

Kirsty — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 10:51:10 +0000

It’s been a while since I’ve updated you on Frank’s progress, which, being deepest darkest winter, has been slow, but looking at the photos, significant. I thought that Frank might get a wriggle on and add a few more millimetres to his stature if he had someone to look up to, a mentor, a big brother. So, some green wool and an empty seedling pot later, I presented our little cactus with a towering example of what a grown-up cactus should look like. Well, almost.

I’ve seen knitted cacti in All the Fun of the Fair, but I decided that amirugumi style crochet would also create a cute little plant and would probably be more straightforward. I’m a bit rubbish at writing down the pattern when I make something off the cuff like this; I just kind of guess at how many stitches to start off with and then feel my way. I think it went something like this:

:: chain four and join
:: work five single crochet into the loop and join
:: work two single crochet into every stitch (10)
:: work two single crochet into every stitch (20)
:: single crochet into every stitch (20) to desired height (about four inches)
:: single crochet two, miss one all the way round for base (14)
:: join sand colour and work two single crochet into each stitch (28)
:: work two rounds of single crochet and bind off
:: weight the seedling pot (I used blu-tack and a heavy screw I found)
:: stuff the cactus and glue into the pot

The New Adventures of Sackboy

Kirsty — Sun, 01 Feb 2009 19:46:22 +0000

After some rather dubious attempts, I’ve managed to make a Sackboy that looks mostly like he should do. While Simon says that he liked the blue one I made him for Christmas, it was pretty poor. That’ll teach me for trying to create my own pattern – I’ll stick to designing scarves for a while longer. Once I got the right pattern, though, this was a fairly quick and easy knit. The fingers were a bit fiddly, but everything else was straightforward.

My next project is a knitted cactus and, after that, I might just attempt a jumper…

Hold onto your socks, London!

Kirsty — Sat, 24 Jan 2009 09:00:16 +0000

My mum and grandma are coming to visit today – three generations of crafty ladies are firmly securing their shopping hats* and rolling up their sleeves for some serious yarn and crafty bits purchasing.

This has got me thinking about family and craft and family craft and crafty families. I know that I’m incredibly lucky that there are five generations alive in my family right now, from my great-grandmother to my cousin’s four-year-old daughter (we narrowly missed out on six, as my great-great-grandma only died a year or so before Kim was born) and there are a lot more women in my family than men (I’m not anti-men, I’m going with something here), so I’ve always been surrounded by strong, intelligent, creative women. My grandma taught me to knit, my auntie (a fellow lefty) taught me to crochet, my mum has helped me contend with countless crafty disasters over the years. It’s nice. Our menfolk roll their eyes, but creativity is something that we can always rely on that we share, and not in a schmultzy way, just in a practical, friendly way. There are things that I do that are very personal to me, like writing, and things that I do that make me part of a community, like knitting, and it’s comforting to have that divide. I don’t think there’s anyone who crafts in complete isolation, it’d lose half the purpose. So, here’s to my crafty ladies!

* How great would actual shopping hats be? Probably not that great, actually.