close knit finale

After what felt like an impossibly long wait the Brisbane festivals Close Knit program finished up in a big way this Saturday with a cherry picker reaching to the high limbs of this gum tree to create the most spectacular sight- a knitted tree!

The Close Knit project has been a beautiful community project-life affirming,
joy giving and funI know a few people who think yarn bombing is a waste of resources and time but for me it's a way of elevating the status of both womens work and yarn work.
And I just love the way the colours work, it's such fun to see people noticing, seeing, stopping and examining something familiar because it's been wrapped up in wool.
I love yarn bombing!

It was amazing to look up and see all the individuals work joined together to form a whole.
Knitting and crochet were the traditional skills which provided for the various communities involved in the Close Knit project to come together, to share conversation, create, learn and reach out.
The tree is a perfect symbol to me of the beauty of healthy close knit communities-they are well grounded but also extending, growing and a part of larger systems.

Who(hoooo?) would think yarn could be so useful? ;o)
xKate

My creative space

You can still enter my giveaway here, so do that, then read on...

All of us women in the back row of this photo are wearing a scarf...one very long scarf!!
We all contributed to it, part of our efforts towards the Close Knit project,
for the Brisbane Festival.
(I am fourth from the left wearing a a black top and happy grin!)

Brisbane readers may want to keep the 25 of September free because we will be presenting our crochet creations as yarn bombing artwork at the 'Into Africa' event in Yeronga.
There will be a market, dancing, a choir of 200 singers, cute sleepy babies in slings to fuss over and more...I can hardly wait!

And with her big blue dancing gumboots and blue crochet hat on Petronias' angelic daughter sure looks excited and ready too!

On the dash robin crafting side of things I am heading in for the Village life market at Northey street in Windsor this weekend.
I love the place and am rapt to be able to attend. I will be there my lovely friend Angie, who some of you will know from the Avid market.

Over the next few days I am going to use some more of the caramel coloured wool (dyed with gum tree bark) to make more brooches to take in.
I have been busier than ever and thought I might like a break today from crochet, an actual day off from all work related pursuits...

but the beauty of loving what I do means I still yearn to do it in my spare time too.
I am absorbed by the fun of coming up with new ideas, trying different techniques and I get to keep myself busy, contented and my creative mind active.


Oh and Brisbanites also keep an eye out for an upcoming TV special-its a Great South East episode on the close knit project.
I may possibly be in it, in a blink and you'd miss it kind of way, the real draw card is the lovely women of a Sandgate aged care place.
I have been volunteering there and enjoy working beside these amazing women, some in thier nineties, striken with arthritis yet the knitting they do makes me green with envy. Hopefully the show will highlight how thier beautiful, wrinkled, soft and delicate hands can still wield knitting needles or crochet hooks with amazing results.
xKate
P.s-if you do watch it let me know what you think...I have no interest in TV so never hooked mine up, ha, ha, irony!
I also slept through my abc radio interview (it was on at 5.30 a.m) so I have to rely on more reliable viewers to keep me up to speed...:o)
more creativity here

yarnapoolooza!

Wow! I am so excited right now because in about 2 hours time I will be creating loopy playful fun in the abc Brisbane radio studio. As part of the Brisbane Festival close knit project the abc studio is being 'yarn bombed', which means it is being covered in woolly goodness, wrapped, decorated and hopefully beautified by the presence of some lovely crochet creations.

I have been busy making up some new pieces for market and this event as well as teaching crochet to people participating in the close knit workshops...it is wonderful to realise I can teach even without a common language.
Yesterday I worked with people of french and south American heritage and I have been working with women from Burma and all over Africa; Burundi, Liberia, Ethiopia, Sudan, etc...crochet has opened my life up to so many rich experiences, I could never have dreamed of!
My market stall was fun to set up this Friday once I had conquered my anxiety...it is always tricky when I haven't had time to plan it out.
I had been making lot of new hand crafts, little tree, nest and bird brooches and was intent on finding a way to show them well.

The market was wonderfully atmospheric and I will share some more pictures and words about it tomorrow!
xKate

my creative space

My crafty Wednesday friends spotted this gorgeous fella...cute recycling isn't it!

I want to find time to make things to just place about the streets, don't you?
I am working from one extreme to the other in crochet...
small brooches at home ready for tommorow night(Avid Market)...

And huge crochet with a size 10 hook and tripled 8 ply yarn. This is a motif for the yarn bombing project the close knit group and I are working on...such fun.

By the way that milk bottle behind the crochet is not off milk, but ginger beer.
Utterly disappointing sickly sweet and only slightly fizzy ginger beer at that.
I will ring my mum tonight and get her recipe and tips
(which I should have done in the first place!)

XKate

http://www.kootoyoo.com/

P.S- When my son saw the pale yellow bottles of ginger beer stored for brewing,
he rushed to me and proudly declared,
'I know what you have got in them!'
'Really? Tell me...'
'Cats wee for your garden!'
...if I ever thought I might sometimes come across as a eco loon to my kids
there's my proof...I haven't laughed so hard in a while!