SOPHIE MADELEINE - THE KNITTING SONG

AMAZING MAZES.

My parents have been lost in mazes. They are a good team with Dad drawing designs on canvas and Mum stitching. This is a cushion  based on a maze in Williamsburg, made in green and cream carpet yarn, in loopy rug stitches. There are more mazes on the way and we will be selling them as kits once I have printed the designs onto the canvas. Mazes are amazing. Some of them are quite spiritual places and designed for pilgrims to crawl around on all fours in deep prayer. However hooking with wool could be a lot more comfortable, and a wonderful way to loose oneself. 

LOUISE'S EMBROIDERY.

Kool, psychedelic embroidery transfers coming soon.....

HOW WE MET MARY JANE.

Thank you Miriam Zadik Gold for introducing us to all the Mary Jane's. It is lovely having them a to stay in our shop window!  There is a Mary Jane for every mood, and our customers have been grooving with the headphones all week. Here we see Louise grooving to Nick Drake's Mary Jane and Linda grooving to Mary J Blige.  Each scene gives us a lot of detail, many clues, all beautifully crafted, sometimes on a minute scale. Miriam had the idea after her aunty found and gave her six doll's heads. Miriam was crocheting her daughter some Mary Jane shoes and the six dolls heads looked down from the shelf and said 'Who Is Mary Jane?" 

I have a different favourite every day, but here is Nick Drake's for you to enjoy.

WHO IS MARY JANE?

Miriam Zadik Gold has been exploring this question since she sat down to knit her daughter a pair of 'Mary Jane's'. Who is Mary Jane and why does she appear in so many songs? 

Miriam has made six scenes where you can meet Mary Jane, complete with MP3 players for you to listen to the appropriate  song.

Our friend Polly describes the show very well on Amelia's Magazine site.

Please come for a Mary Jane drink between 6.30-9pm tonight where you can groove to the play list atatched below.

The Monkees – Mary Mary  ***   Run DMC – Mary Mary ***  Mary Jane Girls – In My House ***  Mary Jane Girls – All Night Long *** Mary Jane (All Night Long) – Mary J. Blige ***  Mary Jane – Rick James ***  The White Stripes – Now Mary ***  The Beatles – What’s The New Mary Jane ***  Creedence Clearwater Revival – Proud Mary ***  The Faces – Sweet Lady Mary *** Janis Joplin – Mary Jane ***  Ike and Tina Turner – Proud Mary ***  Everly Brothers – Take a Message to Mary *** Nick Drake – The Thoughts of Mary Jane ***  Del Shannon – Mary Jane ***  Kasentetz-Katz Singing Orchestral Circus – Quick Joey Small *** Jimi Hendrix – The Wind Cries Mary *** Supergrass – Mary

 

RHUBARB AND CUSTARD.

Juice of 2 oranges,

6tbsp golden caster sugar

1kg rhubarb, trimmed, split down middle and cut into lengths

500ml double cream

1/4 vanilla pod seeds scraped and set aside

6 egg yolks

1. Put orange juice in pan and add 2tbsp sugar and rhubarb. Stir and bring to simmer. Cover remove from heat.

2. Make custard. Heat cream with vanilla pod and allow to simmer 5 mins. Meanwhile, beat egg yolks, 3tbsp sugar, vanilla seeds until pale and thick. Pour hot cream into egg mixture, strain if its got lumps, discard pod and whisk together.

3. Return to gentle heat in a clean pan. Stir constantly until thickens, keeping heat gentle or it will curdle and turn to scrambled egg and you don't want that.

4. Serve with rhubarb.

5. Cast on in PYF hand spun angora mix rhubarb and custard yarn.

ELLEN'S CARDIGAN.

Here is Ellen's first cardigan, which she started on March 6th in beige stocking stitch with one lemon shoulder and finished with beautiful hand stitched labels.  We are sure this cardigan will have an interesting life and we can't wait to see what she does next!

ALTHEA CROME- MINIATURE KNITTER.

OUR JAPANESE FRIENDS.

Yesterday we waved goodbye to our Japanese friends, who made the last two weeks both a joy and a mystery. We have all been lost in translation, but our deep rooted love of textiles knitted us all together, and we have had a lot of laughs.  They were very jolly characters and how they organised the food for the party, I'll never know.  What we did understand, is that we all want to be together again, so watch this space.... Meiko and her crew will be back! 

STREET TEXTILES.

Half way down White Cross Street, near Old Street, you will find an old Venetian blind, carefully woven between some railings, to create a private corner.  It is very subtle. 

On Friday lunch time between 12-3pm,  White Cross Street is a bustling market with food and the Fordham Gallery Stall. 

Fordham shows a different artist every two weeks. It gives you food for thought and you can meet the artists and all their friends. 

SABRINA'S SWEDISH SHOW.

Congratulations Sabrina Gschwandtner on making some beautiful work for the IASPIS organisation in Sweden.  It's 3 pieces hung in the windows of the gallery. Each one took  about a week to make and they are all sewn together with clear polyamide thread and 16 mm films recently "deaccessioned" from FIT's collection. The films are mostly educational shorts about various forms of women's work, like the processes of quilters, the history of Peruvian weaving, how to look for surface design inspiration in the world around you, etc. The titles of the 3 pieces are taken from the films  used for each piece. She designed them thinking about string quilts, that form of quilting wherein narrow strips of leftover scrap fabrics are used. The
diamond in the third quilt is actually a log cabin-style square, a popular quilt design since the mid 1800s.

Beautiful.

CALM BEFORE THE PARTY.

Ellen took this beautiful picture of PYF before Meiko's Lizard party on Friday. So peaceful.

ERECTING A SIGN.

This week Prick Your Finger is two years old. To celebrate we washed our hand knitted shop sign at 40 degrees, twice in the washing machine. 

On discussing our birthday celebrations, we concluded that all we really wanted was a handsome man to come and put our sign back up, preferably wearing tight, short shorts.

We called our friend Gary. 

He knew exactly how we needed to be entertained, and his performance was also enjoyed by five ladies in the pub opposite, and two passing traffic wardens.

Thank you Gary, that was really kind. x 

HATCHING.

Things are hatching all the time round here. Please come and celebrate with us, tonight at 6pm.

BIKINI SOLUTION.

It really feels like the end of term. Tomorrow (Friday) we will install the show at the Jerwood Space (which opens Wednesday) and celebrate our second birthday at Prick Your Finger by showing Meiko's 99 Knitted Lizards. Do come to our party, it's from 6-9pm!

Hopefully the day after I will sun bathe.  Here is the 'Cheap and Chic' vision of a bikini.

" It's silly that the tiniest bikinis fetch ridiculous prices when it is so simple to create your own. It's just a twist of a wrist and two scarves. The ones shown here are 58 by 15 inches.  For the bottom, cut the scarf on the solid line and fold on the dotted lines to make the back and front triangles.  Fold the remaining materials in thirds to make a long triangle which is stitched in as the crotch; tie the corners at the hips and you have bikini pants.  For the top use a similar scarf, same size, twist it in the centre and tie snugly in back or at neck."

FLYING LIZARDS AT PRICK YOUR FINGER.

This week Prick Your Finger is two years old.
We are delighted to have 99 crochet lizards to help us celebrate. They were made in Japan by our artist in resident Meiko Yoshieda. She has knitted the 100th Lizard here.
Please come to our party on Friday June 5th from 6-9pm and in the meen time enjoy this wonderful tune by the Flying Lizards.

POSTCARD.

My Mother sent me this postcard, which arrived today. On the front was a slice of Post-It Note which pointed to the lady far right and said  "What is she knitting?"

Something seemed to happen to the lady in the middle though, she's doing something wild...