Gorilla Knitting....

Gorilla knitting - a cuddlier version of guerilla knitting (apparently)! Fancy dress outfit optional.

 

Led by the unstoppable and ever enthusiastic Sharon of Jumbuck Carding (the Tasmanian Queen Of All Things Woolly), a group of gorgeous crafty ladies got together in the fabulous garden of the even more fabulous artist David Poole. David is opening up his garden for viewing as part of the Auckland Summer Garden Festival - 'Heroic Gardens'.

Look at the size of Sharon's needles - don't sit too close!

 

Heroic Gardens is an annual Auckland charity garden show which is held over the weekend March 6 and 7 and the funds raised will go to Hospice New Zealand.

Anyway, our objective is to cover this tree with random pieces of knitting, crochet, felt, wool roving, pompoms etc! Its already looking extremely colourful and hopefully people who visit David's garden on the days of the event can come and have a go with a bit of knitting to add to the tree - or even try their hand at some Tunisian crochet!

 

By the way - it is seriously sunny at the moment here in New Zealand!

Xmas Tree Light Yarn update!

Yay - I soldered the lights back onto the battery pack and must have got my +s & -s round the right way as my yarn lights up! I plied some more of the same colour wool with glow in the dark thread to give me something easier to knit with.

So far nothing has caught on fire! Bonus.

I am imagining a hat knitted from the top down, so finishing with the lighted part as a trim - as it will be a bit more difficult to knit/crochet. Or maybe a cowl? The 3 x AA battery compartment I will cover with a felted pocket (using the same coloured wool) and maybe add some kind of brooch to it?

Plus I want to experiment with building a smaller battery pack, now that I remember how to solder & calculate the currents/voltages/resisances (vaguely)....

Corespinning my Xmas Tree Lights!

I haven't been pracitising my spinning for a while now as I've been up to my armpits in felted soaps as they are going down well as Xmas gifts.

And then the day after Halloween we put up our Xmas tree (for the kiddies of course) & it got me wondering if I could fit the lights through the orifice of my spinning wheel and then, if I spun them into a yarn - how would they knit up?

So I gave it a bash today - using the Xmas lights as the core thread and then spinning an overspun single around it as 'supercoils'. Now I must locate a soldering iron to connect the wires back to the circuit. Its just a small(ish) 3 x AAA battery pack, so portable. I think I can make the supply much smaller by wiring a couple of those flat circular batteries together instead? I did an engineering masters degree way back in a previous life, but it is all rather vague & mainly involved concrete.


I will post another picture of the yarn all lit up - my soldering skills permitting. If you don't hear from me again, you will know it didn't work out too well.

Hopefully - I can then knit my Xmas tree lights into a nice hat! Or will the elecromagnetic radiation fry my brain?