It’s a bit of a festive fest at the moment…

This may be a little premature but I’m getting so excited for Christmas! It’s odd because I usually get much more excited for Hallowe’en at this point but this year I’m full-steam-ahead to robins, elves and penguins.

Here are some Knittynudo Christmas creations! Perhaps you’re partial to a polar bear?

Or are penguins your pal of choice?

And of course, it wouldn’t be quite the same without a few festive robins to cheer us up!

And since it’s knittynudo, there had to be a little something with a mystical, quirky edge:

I’m also working on a little mini collection (like the robins) which are a few little Christmassy animals and birds all together. An ultimate Christmas collection! I’m planning on hosting a giveaway quite soon, so this may well be the prize. Either this or something else quite Chrsitmassy. Feel free to suggest or comment! It may well appear in the next blog…

In the meantime, enjoy Hallowe’en everyone!

C.xxx

Knittynudo Curiosity of the Week!

Little Mustard is dedicated to all of the farm cats you see roaming the English countryside. They’re always so sweet yet you can’t often get close due to the fact they dart away so quickly!

I wanted Mustard to be a little rustic and folksy, so I needle felted the main shape from undyed Tunisian wool roving. This stuff is quite rugged and felts up so nicely (and quite quickly too!) Yet because of it’s rough texture you never really get a completely smooth surface, but that was the look I was after. I wanted Mustard to have a traditionally rural look.

I decided to give Mustard bright green eyes, to create a good contrasting palette and to give the eyes a bit of a wild look. Adding some tabby stripes and a cute button nose finished off the cuteness!
You can see Mustard and other creatures at http://www.etsy.com/shop/Knittynudo?ref=seller_info

Eyebrows, Character and Apple Tree Branches: A Week of Exotic Mental Adventures

Hi All!

With the miniatures I’ve been making this week, I’ve been thinking quite a bit about personality. What is it that gives a little critter or curiosity a character? For me, it’s eyebrows. Or the lack of them.

Eyebrows are uniquely particular to humans really, though certain animals we tend to love the most (like our cats or dogs) most often do have a particular bushiness about the brow, and extra whiskers. If eyes are the windows to the soul, then eyebrows are definitely the curtains! With a slight tilt of the eyebrows you can make something worried, or bashful, or angry, or quizzical, or happy… and the list goes on! I’m a fan of doing smaller than average eyebrows, so that the eyes themselves are emphasised, made bigger, and made more innocent.

I felt like getting about this week, and decided to do a bit of an around the world tour! I’d spend a lot of last week making owls, cats, dogs, squirrls and little woodland cuties, so I felt like a bit more of an exotic challenge. Amongst my better ideas (and there were some pretty awful ones, believe me), I settled on a geisha, a buddha, and following on from that, a lotus flower. The buddha and the lotus are being mentally designed as we speak. It’s a whole different process creating a ‘human’, yet I chose to see them in the same way as the imps and tried to give them a whimsical, amigurumi look. It’s good to stretch myself and try new things… I’m sure I could make nymphs until I turn blue myself, but just like every crafter or artist I’m still learning! About my craft, about me, about the world. I’m still being surprised! 

In my own time, I’ve begun making the wall hanging I mentioned a couple of weeks ago. It’s so therapeutic, but I’m incredibly OCD about how I want it to be. I’m planning on hanging this up for quite a while, so I’d hate to be looking at it wishing I’d layered the colours differently. I want to weave a thin branch through the top too, to keep it straight for hanging purposes (a fab idea by http://www.etsy.com/shop/designtalentedone ) so I’m also on the lookout for a pretty stick. I must look a little odd doing that. Unfortunately it’s been so horribly wet and rainy this past couple of weeks that all the branches out there are a bit damp. On a particularly lovely day, I’ll probably use an apple tree branch from my mum’s garden.

As you can see, the colours I’m using are quite vibrant! It’s going to be mostly multicoloured ribbon weaving, but with sections of sumptuous plum I got from DesignTalentedOne on Etsy. She’s such a lovely seller! She even included some gold and some turquoise in my package just because I liked them! So it’s also going to have panels of those colours breaking it up a bit. A bit mad, but that’s how I wanted it. Full of colour, texture, and splendour. Something touchable. Unfortunately this wall hanging means I have one of the most time consuming and dull jobs to do first - iron the ribbon. I hate ironing anyway, but ironing ribbon?! I feel insane! If you like the look of the multicoloured ribbon there,  there’s another sort I’m using called called Tibetan jewels by Darn Good Yarn - http://store.darngoodyarn.com/product/silk-sari-strip-ribbon-yarn . It’s my absolute favourite sari ribbon. I garter-stitched a skinny scarf with a skein last summer and I wear it whenever my outfit allows. And sometimes when it doesn’t! 

Anyhow, I’ll let you know how that gets on in a week or two. I don’t want to rush it… partly because I want it to be a cathartic and beautiful process, and partly because I haven’t got a wall to hang it on. As of yet.

Speak soon

Caroline xxxx

knittynudo.etsy.com

A Successful Week of being a Crafty Entrepeneur! Hoorah!

Hello!

I’m feelin’ philosophical at the moment about the whole entrepeneuriship thing. A lot of it is hard work, and I don’t deny that those people who succeed have put a lot of blood, sweat and tears into it, but technically is it work when most of it is a sort of cathartic release? The time absolutely FLIES when I felt or knit. (Not yet when I crochet, sadly. I’ve still not managed to think in circles!) What a day job that would be – simply expressing myself day after day surrounded by beautiful colours and textures. The only downside is the threat of having stiff and useless hands when I’m older! At least I’ll know I used them for good, though.

This week has been so darn busy, and my stats have gone seriously wild. Not one for shameless self promotion, I was invited by Nicole Snow to write a guest blog for her beautiful and amazing site, Darn Good Yarn ( http://www.darngoodyarn.com/pattern/knittynudo/ ) which was a brilliant experience. It made me feel like a major player in the crafting community, and gave me the opportunity to tell people what I was trying to do with Knittynudo ( http://www.etsy.com/shop/Knittynudo?ref=seller_info ) . Having some nice comments also helped!

Knittynudo has a Facebook page, Twitter account, a board of Pinterest… So I guess I’ve made a good start in promotions and sharing. But for some reason this week my stats have been flying and I think that’s partly due to everyone’s love of owls!

It seems everyone just loves them! I don’t blame them, they’re my favourite creature, but then that brings up a troubling quondry. If I kow owls are the best search term and bring more people than anything else, then shouldn’t I just make a helluvalottaowls? My litle barn owl (sold on Saturday) made it to the front page of Etsy and got me a few more thousand views I’m not used to, which mentally equated to an excitingly electric buzz which can only be recreated by it happening again or getting my finger caught in a plug socket. Though in an owl-fanatic sense that appeals (the shop full of owls, not certain death), it doesn’t bring with it much of a creative or imaginative outlet. I don’t want to just always make what everyone thinks everyone wants. That’s a bit boring to me. Sure, a few mainstream items are ok, but I get SO much more pleasure from the weird and original curiosities I make, like the druids, the imps, and the nymphs.

These are integral parts of my personality and that’s what it should be about, right? As a creator of art and curiosities? I suppose that means that I’m not going to commercially take over the world but what would you really prefer – endlessly sculpting the same cat or bird like a factory line automaton? Or creating a series of wonderful little original art pieces? I’m certainly challenged everytime I make something new, and there’s the usual mental thought pattern of:

“This is easy… Oh actually, this is completely the wrong shape, I’ll turn it upside down / backwards… Hmm he’s ended up fat again… Should I quit now and start again? Oh what the hell, I’ll keep going… Time to embroider… Et voila! I’m so happy I kept going!”

RESULT: Incredibly smiley face and bruised fingertips.

Though we’re all doing the same thing, we all have different motivations, but I think the most important thing is that we all have a motive, a message to convey. I suppose I’m not going to take over the world, but definitely making a stand in the creative world would be nice, and I think I’ve already carved a bit of a dwelling for myself. I want to encourage everyone to have a go, and more importantly have a go together! Even if crafting and making is something that you’re not going to keep up, you can definitely have a good time trying something new and probably laughing at your companions’ attempts. By selling my own little curios, I think I want everyone to be reminded of a lighter side of life, just that little bit more whimsical. Isn’t that what you’d think with a druid sitting on your work monitor?

Happy Wednesday, everyone!

Caroline xxxx

knittynudo.etsy.com

Seriously stabbed fingers and my inability to think in circles, damnit.

Hello All!

Serious craftin’ and feltin’ has definitely made me pay the price this week. My poor fingers!

Needle felting is a strange art. I always recommend people to try it out, because it’s something you can teach yourself and it’s such fabulous stress relief. What I fail to mention that if you take up this creative outlet you WILL bleed. Badly. You’ll also end up with incredibly tender little digits unless you’re more careful than me (or indeed have better eyesight).

Ouch. At least some beauty comes from the pain!

I’ve also been thinking of the unique nature of having a craft business. It’s a community. Unlike other sectors which are subject to huge competition, angst and quite often segregation, marketing your handmade art is much more welcoming. There’s a strange love between sellers and buyers of handmade, and a recent friendship struck up with a buyer of Knittynudo has brought this home to me. When it comes down to it, it’s all just so personal. And in a lovely way too. The fact that someone appreciates an object you have thought about, planned, created and listed is a very intimate thing. I know for a fact I feel a link with every single creature or piece of art that I make. I feel incredibly responsible for where each piece goes, and have been really lucky so far in that every little curiosity I have posted off into the unknown has gone to a loving home. I’m not sure if it’s this personal for everyone… Maybe it’s just me!

Since my fingers are in needle of a spring break, I’ve become enamoured again with the possibilities that come from knitting and crochet as fibre art. Crochet has definitely now become my nemesis – one that I will surely defeat (hopefully). For some reason it’s taking me absolutely ages to get my head around it. The all day workshop at the Knit Studio definitely helped (with big thanks to the lovely Anne Makepeace!) but for some reason I just can’t quite take hold of it. I remember the spike in my knitting development where all of a sudden I just ‘got it’ and understood what I was doing. From that day I had the power of yarn-visualization and could knit random shapes just straight off the cuff. What a great feeling! No longer would I be grimacing at a disgustingly long and confusingly written knitting pattern, I would just imagine! Like sculpting the skin of a creature. I just can’t seem to get that with crochet. I suspect it’s the same reason as I find it just so much more difficult knitting in the round – I think in straight lines.

The reason I’m trying to grasp it even more now is because I’ve become slightly obsessed with the possibilities of crochet jewellery and wall hangings. At present I can easily create my critters by felting or knitting, so I can wait patiently to master crochet amigurumi. My current personal project (as well as that noro cardigan that’s been going on for about 2 years now) is a wall hanging, crocheted and weaved from sari silk ribbons, sari yarn, and banana fibre. I want to design it myself, so it’s exactly what I want, and I need to master crochet in order to do this properly! So frustratingly typical that I’m limited by my ability to think in circles (that also must be why my sense of direction is so terrible).

My wall hanging will probably take quite a bit of time, most of the materials for it are being ordered from the US. I’ll keep you posted on it! Perhaps if it’s a success I might make some for Knittynudo, and continue the eco-art and fairtrade goodness!

Until the next time, happy creating and have a great day everyone.

xxxx

Busy Busy Business Week (with a huge Chameleon)

Phew.

Wowee it’s been a busy week. How is it that I seem to be much much MUCH more busy when I’m not at work? Everything seems to have a time and place during the usual routine… Go to work, come home, do a bit around the house, graze on some easily grabbed food, do some craftin’, eat tea, maybe watch a film… And of course overlapping all of these things to fit them into the timespan of one evening.

When I’m on holiday, time gets distorted! I spend hours spring cleaning, then hours and hours knitting at a time, then I’ll spend what feels like an age grocery shopping and trying to carry a ton of fruit and veg back to the nest. I seem to get half as much done in twice the time and it always makes me wonder whether I’ll be able to survive when I go back to work. And then, as usual, I do.

This week however, I’ve been very productive. It’s been a week of paperwork, and buying technology that can keep up with my various editing, writing, and posting! It’s most definitely my new toy. Maybe I should venture into knitted or felted laptop covers? I’ve got a few skeins of banana fibre yarn handy, perhaps I should get on with it!

Knittynudo has been doing fine this week too. It’s been an inevitable period of sorting out the business-y side, but now I can get on to doing some more actual crafting! I’ve managed to find time to make a little needle felted pet rock and knit a rather large chameleon from recycled sari silk, which ended up somewhat bigger than I’d intended, but isn’t that always the way with organic creation? The only problem with that item is it is pretty darn difficult to photograph! I can’t seem to quite capture the detail of the legs and swirling tail. Hopefully, it’ll go to a loving home nonetheless.

Speaking of ‘Darn’… I’m going to be a quest blogger for Darn Good Yarn, simply the most wonderfully beautiful purveyor of fair-trade goodness. I’m addicted. The lovely owner (Nicole Snow) is simply a gem. Once that’s going, I’ll definitely let you all know! I can’t wait to be associated with such a successful and feel good organisation! Check it out at: http://www.darngoodyarn.com/ but be warned – once you’ve made your first order, you’ll be addicted. I am.

Anyway, onto more designing and crafting. I’m in the feeling to create more imps and nymphs. Since selling Little Guava I think more magical creatures need to show their faces!

Speak soon

xx

Welcome to Knittynudo!

Hello! Hello and welcome to my blog, the home of Knittynudo!

If any of you are new to Knittynudo, you can follow the link to knittynudo’s home – Knittynudo Shop

I’ve started this blog to share with you all what I’m working on, what I’m learning, and to show which direction Knittynudo is going.

I’ll be back soon with more info – stay tuned!

Xx