My creative space: Welcome to the guerilla knitting wedding tree

This is a project close to my heart.

As you may know, Craig & I are getting married this October.

Now, once you decide to get married, usually this involves planning a wedding of some description. And it can be very hard to get away from the wedding magazines and the white dress and the fancy cake and flowers. You start out with a clear head and a determination to do it your own way and as much as possible stay away from the wedding industry. But it's virtually impossible, and in moments of weakness (& sometimes clarity) you realise that no, you can't be the bride and cook for 100+ guests. It's just not a good idea.

So you take a deep breath and think about what's important about this day. And you go back to the notes from that brainstorming session you had way back when you convinced Craig we had to think about what we wanted this day to be, and the notes say 'handmade' and 'community' and 'participation'. And 'intergenerational dancing'(!)

Around the same time, I was reading a lot about guerilla knitting and yarn bombing (& even doing a little myself). I think what I love most about it is that, ultimately, it is a gift. It may be making a political statement or it may be just to make people smile, but someone has thought about it and spent their time and effort to make something that other people can enjoy. For no tangible reward. For people they most likely don't even know. I think the pure fact that this happens is enough proof that our economic system, which values competition and maximising personal utility at the expense of others, can never work in the long run. But that's another topic for another day...

So, what do you get when you cross handmade community participation with guerilla knitting?

You get this project, which aims to create a yarn art installation on a tree at our wedding, to celebrate the talent of our family and friends (and anyone out there who wants to participate, you will be welcomed with open arms!) and to create something that one person could not do alone, but that needs community, and is better for it.

Here is the tree. As you can see we have a big job ahead!

It also aims to tie in with the Go North Arts Festival, which is held in the Swan Hill region in late October. So if you would like to join in but you won't be at the wedding, your work will also be exhibited at the festival, which is a great chance to visit Swan Hill.

The 2010 festival theme is 'Journey'.

I will be following the project here, at least weekly, so send me your photos and your thoughts and I will attempt to record how things are going. I will also feature stories from guerilla knitters around the world, knitting (& crochet) tips, and whatever else evolves along the way. I am excited to see what will unfold.

The task for week 1 is: a new project name! Tentatively, this is the guerilla knitting wedding tree project. But that's a bit long and boring. Any ideas? Knitted Journey? A marriage of yarn? River red gum yarn story? Something else? Send 'em through, I have a prize for the best one.

I have kind of cheated this week and made this my creative space. Maybe if you have landed here via Kirsty's you might like to follow along? I would really like that...

If you've never been here before and you don't know who Kirsty is, then you're missing out. Every week she hosts 'my creative space', and 150+ crafty people play along and show the rest of us what creative things they've been up to. Go check it out!

My creative space: can't...get...ahead

Woken by the garbage truck and realized we hadn't put our bins out. Again.
A mad dash down the stairs, a quick check to see if they'd gone past our house yet. No. Hurrah!
Quick, back to the courtyard, move those bins, quick, quick. Half asleep.
Bins tangled in hose. Try to move it and it snaps off the tap. Water gushing everywhere.
Quick!
Down the lane, bumpy, noisy ride over the cobblestones. Waking the neighbours. I tense my jaw as if that will make it quieter (why do I always do that?).
On the kerb. Success!
Should be happy but instead I'm just crabby I missed that extra hour in bed!
Stayed up too late watching 27 Dresses on TV. And making this little save the date postcard for our wedding (we visited the venue on the weekend and I took this pic)...
...and hence I wasn't doing all the jobs I should be doing. Like trying to work out where all my socks have disappeared to! They must be somewhere.

Rode to work in odd socks (which if I am completely honest I have probably been doing for the past 6 months). But this was the first day I'd ridden in odd gloves as well. I think that might be a bad sign.

Hanging out for a weekend at home to get on top of it all. Hopefully by the time I get to Brown Owls on Sunday I'll be a domestic goddess. But somehow I doubt it.

To see some true crafters, head on over to Kirsty's.

Happy birthday SF

Again, I'm a bit behind - admittedly the gift was late, but not as late as others (and that's not even mentioning those still in progress - eek!). But I had to wait until it was safely received before I could show you:



It's made from lovely fine Empire 4 ply merino from Morris & Sons, who have been in their Melbourne store now for about a year. Great friendly staff work there and they are always interested in whatever project you have on the go. I have managed to go in there without spending money, but not often.

Anyhow, my gorgeous and talented writer friend is the recipient of this cushion. She has a burgeoning writing career, even being published in the Age newspaper last week! Check out her blog here. Happy birthday Sare!

Guerilla knitting: getting in on the act

Spotted at a train station in Melbourne's north...

(I also have a bigger project in the pipeline - watch this space)

My creative space: my first quilt

This creative space is a bit retrospective. And the reason for this is also the reason this blog has been a bit sketchy lately, and why the posts that have appeared have been light-on in the photo department. You see, some less fortunate souls decided our house was an easy target, and late one January afternoon decided to help themselves to our tv, laptop, ipod, camera and worst of all my touring bike, which is like a dear friend.

When someone steals your electrical stuff it's irritating, but when they steal your bike it's different. It's personal. Which means that I am now constantly on the look-out, making a quick assessment of every bike that goes past to see if it's mine (what I will actually do if I see it, I haven't quite thought through. Let's cross that bridge when we come to it...).

The point of all this is that I have a new camera (a Canon G11, to replace the brand new Canon G11 that disappeared). And so I can finally show you my new(ish) quilt. Ready?


I really love this quilt. Some of the fabric is opped, some I picked up new but heavily discounted, and a couple of pieces were worth paying full price for.

You may notice I started hand stitching the quilting (in a sashiko pattern). Knowing this was a big task when I took it on, I persisted - for a while... then (yawn), I grew a little bored. The quilt was relegated to a guilt inducing pile on top of my bedroom drawers. It taunted me, "you never finish anything", "come on, stop starting new projects and just finish me already". So I did.

The hand quilting went out the window, and within a few hours I'd stitched in the ditches and attached the (cheaters) store-bought binding. But it was finished. Well... sort of. Really I should unpick the handstitching, but it seems a bit of a waste. And it's a nice reminder that aspiration is great, but sometimes you get more satisfaction when you respect your limitations...

For loads more creativity, launch off from Kirsty's.

do shopping centres scare you?

Today I watched a program about anxiety, phobias and physical responses. There was a woman who had agoraphobia, and had barely left her house in years. One of the treatment methods was for a therapist to 'expose' her to situations that triggered her anxiety. There was footage of them in a shopping centre. She was training her brain to adjust to the environment.
Now, not for a minute am I suggesting agoraphobia or other anxiety disorders are not serious. Quite the opposite. I think the more sensitive people in our society, the ones who are more often prone to mental health issues, act as our societal barometer. They detect when things aren't quite right.
My point is, in many ways, this woman was right. A shopping centre should induce panic. The fact that they don't, and we are building more and more of them, is the real cause for concern.

image credit: avlxyz

Do shopping centres scare you?

My Creative Space

today it is anticipation of creativity... for I just ordered Jinny Beyer's 'Designing Tessellations'. If you are interested in pattern design (and let's face it, that probably means you are a bit of a maths nerd), this is a really excellent book. It has lots of detail about all the possible combinations of repeating patterns, which can each be traced back to a unique building block. Once you know the fundamentals, a whole world of pattern design opens up before you...

If you are interested in this book, I can tell you there's a copy in the Brunswick library in Melbourne, which has spent a fair proportion of the past year at my place. Borrow, renew, renew, overdue, return, borrow, renew... soon I will have my very own copy.