Miss Zarah Savage has shocked and delighted us all in our gallery window this month. In the window hang five intriguing portraits.
The first is a portrait of
'DAN BROWN, THE AUTHOR OF THE DA VINCI CODE, THE WORST BOOK I HAVE EVER READ.'
Enough said in this powerful portrait made in Shetland wool with a gold lurex border and cotton caption.
And never trust a dancing Polecat, even if he says he's the president of France.
Sheep are all very cute and everything but be warned! It might be a wolf in sheep's clothing, complete with axe and blood and a book shelf with lots of mutton recipies. Hang this tricky blindfolded wolf in your hall, and monsters won't dare to enter.
And psychiatrists - you'd better watch out too, because this shark could eat you and there would be no way of gripping your text books, which would float to the sea bed and get caught up in fishing nets amongst the knitted sea currents.
Zarah has also presented us with three knitwear solutions for freaking out our friends and family this winter.
The first of these is a sleeveless upside down top with no bottom in gorgeous pink Shetland wool, with the inscription 'yikes!' on the back. In the middle ages, to say you had bottom, meant you were a grounded person. We love Zarah's creepy thought that if we flipped our world upside down, losing our bottom, the following words might come to mind, which form the label on the upside down neck line on the lower back which reads,
"I wonder if this is what it is like in New Zealand?"
The next piece in the collection is the 'EEK' jumper which spookily foresaw the terror which would come upon it.
And last but not least the shocking 'BOO!' jumper, with googleing 3D crochet eyes, checking out what you are up to.
As all these jumpers were dancing their way through Halloween, they never noticed the horror that lay below them on the dance floor- yes Zarah has crocheted a 'Murder on the Dance Floor' mat, with bleeding tassels made from red chenielle.
We are so proud of Zarah's shamazing collection which was all made specially for the display at Prick Your Finger for this Halloween season. The places she had allowed her knitting to take her have amazed and amused us all.
These pieces are selling fast but for more info and prices on Sarah Savage knitwear, portraits and murder mysteries, please contact the shop.
There will be free darning threads and you can also hear a talk by Noki. We will be somewhere in the foyer bit, from 7!
Louise and Stephen and me, had a sleepy walk around Coney Island in New York. The sunny day, colours and big wheel made me feel like using a brighter palliate when I'm spinning for the shop.
We were laughing over the worst cup of tea we had ever had, when we noticed a scarf on the sidewalk. It wasn't any old scarf. It was hand knitted in garter stitch with a handspun yarn by David Gentzsch from Missouri. Picking it up we formulated a plan. We'd been to a lot of yarn shops and thought the owner might have bought the yarn from Downtown Yarns. We would take it back there, and then put a shout out on Ravelry to locate the owner.
But we didn't need to, because as we approached the station, a woman came running towards us screaming 'my scarf!'.
A colourful array of instruments, a record deck and a computer to made multi-layered folktronic soundscapes and pop, which sounded charming in a wool clad room. Their new album wards off the winter blues and leaves plenty of room for imagination to run wild while you are knitting.
Sleeps in Oysters describe themselves as sounding like 'the things we do on purpose and the things that just happened.' Seeing as that's what usually happens with everything around here, they seemed to make themselves at home.
Mark of 'Mark Knight and the Witches' played songs on his accoustic guitar, in between Sleeps in Oysters songs.
while Lisa made paper aeroplanes, and Taeko helped her throw them at our friends.
There was a strange atmosphere at lunch today. Louise knitted a purple hat in a cashmere lambswool mix and didn't feel comfortable in it. Not long enough, it kept slipping forward and made her feel gormless. Zarah was feeling equally strange in a black berret, bought on the internet, which made her feel like she was wearing a tea cosy.
Danish pickled herrings, pumpernickel and mayonnaise shone light on the situation; Louise and Zarah swapped hats for an instant uplift.
And never trust a dancing Polecat, even if he says he's the president of France.
Sheep are all very cute and everything but be warned! It might be a wolf in sheep's clothing, complete with axe and blood and a book shelf with lots of mutton recipies. Hang this tricky blindfolded wolf in your hall, and monsters won't dare to enter.
As all these jumpers were dancing their way through Halloween, they never noticed the horror that lay below them on the dance floor- yes Zarah has crocheted a 'Murder on the Dance Floor' mat, with bleeding tassels made from red chenielle.
"For tripping to the re-cycling in bad weather"
Prick Your Finger will be proud to present
We are so grateful to Mary Burkett for showing us these beautiful watercolour paintings, made by a 10 year old girl in 1820. We don't know what became of her, but she clearly had a love of textiles. Here she illustrates a trip to the haberdashers; perhaps she was choosing fabric for a new dress.
Then she went for tea somewhere, and people wore more beautiful garments.
And we aren't too sure where she went at 11 o'clock...
and she must have loved this windy walk....
meeting her friends along the way....
and digging on the beach.
Don't worry about your Christmas shopping! Bust's Craftacular is back, for a shopping, crafting and dancing bonanza at York Hall Bethnal Green on Sunday November 28th 12-6pm.
We love Steve Messam's 'Sentinal', made during Wool week, up in the remote Eden Valley in Cumbria. Steve covered a barn in 200 Swaledale fleeces, on no budget with the help of four volenteers. Steve explained to the Westmoreland Gazette that barns, known as 'hogg houses' were built to shelter the year old sheep - or hoggs- overnight or during bad weather. The Swaledale sheep became so hardy that they no longer needed the shelter, hence bringing about the demise of the barns. Steve wanted to shw the relationship between the breed and the barn as points of history of agriculture and the shaping of the landscape.
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