Stitches and Thrills

I love crafty contests. They challenge me to think out of the box and try new things. In a Dutch magazine Handwerken Zonder Grenzen there is a contest to make a design for a yarn called Hoooked zpagetti . This yarn is a tube of jersey made of rest materials from the fabric and fashion industries. Since I didn't have the yarn at hand I made my own version to get a material with similar properties. I cut up 2 t-shirts in two long bands of jersey yarn. With this I knitted my design in dropped stitches on needles sz 10. And here's the result: a " Stads-Kat " (="City-Kitty") It's a cozy for the small poles you find in a lot of Dutch towns. I did it in red and white because many cities, like my own, have those as their town-colours. And the candy stripe effect makes it an original decoration for the upcoming holidays! If you do like it you can vote for it here !

The lovely Annette of Dragon House Of Yuen interviewed me for her blog . You might remember her of an earlier post , when I won one of her Arabella bags. She's a real star, I love how she weaved in the photo's of the rescue animals waiting at the animal shelter Stevenshage for a new home now. Her questions really challenged me to describe the artistic development as well as the animal charity goal of my project. About the latter I am used to talk, but my creative side is less structured and outlined in my head. So it was a real pleasure to talk to Annette. The whole interview can be found HERE .

Last sunday the fashion designers Victor & Rolf were guests on the Dutch tv programme Zomergasten ("Summerguests"). They were invited to show excerpts from movies/television and explain why they wanted to share these. The first film of their choice was a part of "Cinderella" by Lotte Reiniger. The interesting opening scene with scissors and the strong black silhouettes were a clear connection with the work of V&R. For me this was a first introduction to Lotte Reinigers work. Lotte Reiniger made silhouette movies in the early 20th century. She used shadow puppets and a stop motion technique. Truly amazing! I tried to find a fragment of the same Cinderella on YouTube, but unfortunately I could only find a version from 1954. Apparently the folks in the fifties thought a silent movie was "so 1920s" so they decided to add a narrator. I preferred it with just music. However I did find a part of a documentary, and a beautiful movie "Das Lebende Marmo...