Knitographical: A month of A to Z

Showing posts with label A month of A to Z. Show all posts

Sunday, 30 December 2012

Z is for Zoo

I'm going to finish up my month of A to Z posting with a little A to Z goodness. Z is for Zoo. Here is a zoo you can take home with you and cuddle, guaranteed not to produce a mountain of manure, escape and eat your family or break the household food budget. (You might need a slightly bigger house though - eight foot tall giraffe anyone?) Here is a zoo of cute, cuddly and amazing animals. The criteria being that they are fiber-crafted.

A is for Armadillo. I love Armadillos. They look like little armor plated tanks or miniature dinosaurs (with ears).

By Felted Friends on Etsy

B is for Badger. These badgers are by Fluff and Fuzz Knitting and are off to school.

C is for Chameleon. Wouldn't it be cool to be a chameleon and be able to change your colour at a whim? Hanging out on shoulders would be cool too.

Pattern by Roman Sock

D is for Dingo. Dingoes have bad street cred in Australia. After the whole dingo took my baby and dingoes harassing tourists on Fraser Island, there reputation as cute dogs is shot. Here's a needle felted Dingo puppy by Eyes of Time.

E is for Elephant. I have quite an extensive elephant collection, but strangely enough no knitted or crocheted ones. This elephant was made by The Mermaid's Muse on Etsy

F is for Fox. I'll admit to a soft spot for foxes. Meet Foxy Loxy by Roman Sock.

G is for giraffe. This giant argyle giraffe was made by Lion Brand Yarns and displayed at their booth at Maker Faire Bay Area in 2010. It is over 8 feet tall and is supported by a steel skeleton.

H is for hippopotamus. Here's a cute little needle felted hippo from NeedleFeltedLove on Etsy.

I is for Iguana.(I can't find a makers credit for this sadly).

J is for Jaguar. It has been really hard to find handmade jaguars. This is a jaguar head Christmas ornament by Wool Sculptures on Etsy.

K is for Koala. Want to make a cute little baby Koala amigurumi? Please note that real koalas are not cute. Here's a free tutorial and pattern.

L is for Lemur. This is Hococo the Lemur is a free pattern by Alan Dart. All proceeds are going to a charity for children in Madagascar. Lemurs are so cool. It's all about the eyes and that tail.

M is for Mink - you know the animal mink coats are made from. These days, mink are being used much more sustainably with their underfur being used as yarn. No minks are killed for modern mink yarn. They are brushed instead. Read a review of mink yarn here.

N is for Numbat. Numbats are one of those underrated Australian native animals. Why do kangaroos and Koalas get all the press overseas? I'm standing up for numbats who should be much more popular than they are! They are extremely endangered. This little crochet guy is a pattern by peggytoes. His head is crocheted around a milk bottle cap.

O is for Orangutan. Baby orangutans dial the cuteness up off the scale. You can buy the pattern to make this gorgeous little guy from bvoe668 on Etsy.

P is for Panda. My favourite animal at the zoo is the red panda. They are just sooo adorable! I really want one to take home with me.

Needle felted by Handmade by November on Etsy

Q is for quoll. Quolls are predators, sort of like cats and share a similar niche is the Australian ecosystem. They may look sweet but they tend to have a natsy temperament. This is a needle felted tiger quoll by Cretur Fetur on Etsy

R is for Raccoon. This is a knitted and then felted kit from the Backyard creatures collection by Crafty Alien. There is also a crocheted version.

S is for Sloth. For some reason, I know quite a few people who really love sloths. They even have long lists of reasons for why sloths are so loveable. This is why S is for Sloth. This sloth was crocheted by Judy Van Button.

T is for Tapir. Tapirs live in jungles and are browsing animals a little like pigs. They have long prehensile noses almost like a short trunk. Baby tapirs are striped.This little baby tapir was made by Tapirgirl on Etsy.

U is for Unicorn. Hey, I'm running this zoo. Mythological creatures are allowed. My rules. The pattern is Hermione the Unicorn by Dawn Toiussant, a free pattern. This one was made by Abundance.

V is for Vampire bat. Here a cute and sophisticated one by Alan Dart. Clearly he's off to a swank party. (The animals in my zoo are also allowed to wear clothes).

W is for Walrus. If my hubby was an animal, he would be a walrus. I think it's the mustache. This was made for a window display for Lion Brand Yarns. I love how the walrus tusks are giant knitting needles.

X is for ... Let's face it, unless you want to go and play with scientific nomenclature there are no animals being with X. So X is for X-ray. In honour of my daughter and her teddy bear hospital exploits, here is an X-ray of a teddy bear who I think is in need of a trip to teddy bear hospital.

Y is for Yak. Here is a hand-knitted yak from Shokay, who specialize in making luxury items from yak down. Shokay means yak in Tibetan. Do you know you can buy yak blend yarn to knit with?

Z is for Zebra. This incredibly realistic needle felted zebra is by Teresa Perleberg of Bear Creek Felting.

(Apologies for the extreme overuse of the word 'cute' in this post!)

Saturday, 29 December 2012

Y is for Yacht

I have a confession to make. I hate sailing and yachts. "So what?" you say. Well it was my Dad's hobby. We owned sailing boats for most of my childhood, mostly "trailer-sailers". Dad even christened the boat after us girls. We had the Bar-B-Jo and the Bar-B-Jo II.

I vividly remember the incident that triggered my "I don't like sail boats" phobia. They lean and this means they can tip! Dad's first boat was a Heron. When he first got it, he took me and my sister and my mum sailing with him on the Yallourn Storage Dam. We were all correctly bundled up in our life jackets. We got to the middle of the lake and we tipped over and he couldn't get the boat right side up again with all the sails up. We had to tread water in the middle of the lake till one of the ski boats from the local ski racing club came and rescued us. I can remember it was cold and I had a wool jumper on. The wool went all wet and squidgy and I was so heavy. Great first introduction to sailing! You can understand why I never warmed up to sailing with a start like that. Needless to say my Dad got much better at it.

Yet as I was sitting and watching the start of Sydney to Hobart Yacht race on Boxing Day following in Dad's family tradition, I realized that I do sort of miss it. Yachts are an inextricable part of my childhood. This is the first year we won't be going down to the caravan on the Gippsland Lakes in 30+ years. With my Dad gone and all of us getting older and at the stage where our kids have summer jobs, we weren't using it anymore. So Mum sold it a few months ago. Ends of eras are always sad.

This is the first Bar-B-Jo. It was a Hartley TS16. When I looked at the back of the photo as I was scanning it, this is April 1978.

Here's me steering the boat down the Mitchell River one sunny day that same year. I was happy enough to go on the boat when we weren't sailing and just motoring along. You can see there are no sails up on this photo. In fact, Barbie is asleep on the jib.

This is such a Dad shot. Dad the skipper, calm, confident and relaxed.
The Bar-B-Jo was a plywood wooden built boat and looking a little shabby and the hull was starting to leak so in the winter of 1981, it got a total makeover. I remember my Dad and my uncle stripping it to the bare bones and rebuilding it in our driveway. It got a paint job too and the Blue Hartley is the yacht of my teenage years.

Eventually the Hartley rotted to bits and Bar-B-Jo II came along. This was a Boterill Explorer 16, and was a fiberglass clinker built boat. My Dad felt he had sold out slightly because it wasn't wooden. This is the boat of my littlest sister's childhood. My youngest sister has Cerebral Palsy and very iffy balance. Dad used to strap her in on the slippery fiberglass so she wouldn't slide overboard when the boat leaned.

Boats were a lot of work. Here's Dad cleaning the hull on the Bar-B-Jo II. We used to keep the boat moored to a buoy the entire summer and wade out to it.

This boat is also the boat my husband and children remember. I remember epic runs catching skippys (Spickjacks) trolling off the boat with my husband in our early married years. My son was the last person to sail on Bar-B-Jo II with my dad, when my Dad was sick. I think the boy was about 4. After Dad died, we inherited the boat. We sold it and it became the money for a new kitchen. I think fondly of it and Dad quite frequently when I cook now.

In the last couple of years of his life. Dad was looking for a new sailing challenge. So he bought and restored a Flying 15. This is a racing yacht with trapezes out the side. It only really got a chance to be sailed once after its restoration before Dad got too sick. He painted it red, 'cos red goes faster. He named this one the Will-Mark after his first two grandsons. In hindsight, I think this was his mid life crisis red sports car. My sister and her family inherited this one. She was always a much better sailor than me.

I had great fun raiding Mum's photo albums on Christmas Day to find the photos for this. It was a nice end to another epic Christmas dinner immersed in childhood memories.

You may wonder, why I don't also have a phobia of woolen jumpers after the 'treading water in the lake in wet wool' incident. I worked hard to overcome this but the sound and feel of wet wool makes my teeth itch still. I can still appreciate a good wool jumper but avoid getting wet wearing them.

Vintage 10983 Polo Ralph Lauren "Big Yacht" jumper from ResaleVintageCloset

Monday, 24 December 2012

X is for Xmas Owls

My sister was sure that O would have been for Owl. But really I was saving it up.

My sister and my nephew gave me a special owl ornament for my Christmas tree a few weeks ago. Xav was supposed to give it to me when he came to build the gingerbread house but he dropped it on the concrete and is smashed into smithereens. So my sister bought me another one. Here it is on my tree.