Category: newest

Beady business

I’m trying to focus my jewellery-making on high end, complex floral pieces – although at the Saturday market, it’s the kids’ bracelets that sell!

This month I’ve added several sets or template pieces to my bridal and wedding party collection; you can see details on my BronzBeads website, and check for new listings in my Bridal.Beads online shop.

Here are a few, to give you an idea of what I’m working on:

Merged websites

Because I’m concentrating on fibre art and jewellery-making, my knitting has taken a backseat lately, and I’ve concluded it no longer needs a dedicated website. Fortunately, it’s easy enough to merge WordPress sites, so many of the pages from my little brother big brother website are now here on my showcase. It’s given me the chance to refresh some of the pages, and – although it’s a work in progress – keep the knitting pages up-to-date.

Check out my two main ranges, with themed accessories and links to my online shops:

BronzArt – women’s accessories

little brother big brother – quirky knits for colourful kids

Bright Stripes for Little Brother

Nanna says she’s started Little Brother’s pullover and it’s looking good so far. She thought the colours might be a bit much, but they seem to be working. Little Brother really wanted triangles, and Nanna says she’ll try to work some in, but in the meantime, he thinks the stripes are cool.

(By the way, Nanna says you can see Big Brother wearing his Charcoal & Mint jersey here.)

This is what she’s done so far:

Charcoal and Mint (updated)

Nanna says she’s finally finished Big Brother’s jersey. She started it last year! Nanna says it was finished because it was a vest but Big Brother insisted he wanted it to have sleeves – and Big Brother is very good at insisting. So it had to wait until all her other stuff was done.

Now she’s gonna knit a jumper for Little Brother and Nanna says she’ll let him choose the colours. His favourites right now are blue, orange and red. He’s gonna look like a wonky traffic light!

Nanna says Little Brother is just the sort of Colourful Kid she likes to do her Quirky Knitting for. But she loves the colours Big Brother chose, too.

She’s also “stash busting” which Nanna says means using up all her old wonky wool. The orangey green thing might be a bag.

quirky knitting website refresh

Since I’ve been doing more knitting and stitching for adults – especially women’s scarves, hats and purses – I’ve updated my kids’ knitting website to show off all my knitwear. I’ve modified my Instagram and Facebook pages to reflect the change and consolidate my knitted things, too.

So the website address is still littlebrotherbigbrother.com but the headline is now Quirky Knits for Colourful Kids (and Adults).

Come on – we’re here! Have a look at the crazy things #NannaKnits!

We’re back – and Nanna’s knitting again

Big Brother and Little Brother were living in Australia for a couple of years, and before that, they spent a year in South Korea.

“In Queensland, we didn’t need warm knitted clothes, so Nanna stopped knitting for us. But now we’re home in New Zealand, she’s been knitting again. See our bright stripey scarves in the colours we chose!”

Nanna says when she’s finished stitching a fibre artwork, she’ll knit some more – for us, and for you to buy. There are still cool things in her online shops, littlebrotherbigbrother and electicyarn on the Felt platform.

You can see more photos of us in Nanna’s knitting on the knit knack paddy whack page.

We thought she said ghostly

Nanna says she’s knitting a new cardigan to sell on her website, because she’s made some sales lately and needs to restock her shop.

She showed us the jersey when we talked on Skype. It’s got orange and blue stripes but she says it’s not as ghastly as it sounds. We thought she said ghostly – Woo, woo!

Now we live in Queensland, Nanna says we’ll be too warm to need her to knit things for us. But Big Brother said it gets cold sometimes, and he’d like a jersey in cool colours.

Nanna said, “Is red cool?” Silly old Nanna!

Big Brother told her that cool colours are blue and green and purple, and red is a hot colour. Little Brother would probably like a red or orange jersey but Nanna says it will take a while because she’s quite busy just now. She said maybe by next winter…

Shawls and scarves and news for you!

Nanna says it’s been a while since she posted anything on this website. She says she’s been very busy with other things – like making jewellery (you can buy it, too) and tapestry and stitched canvas work – and helping us move to a city in Australia.

Earlier in the year, Nanna made a new scrumble shawl as well as several scarves. She says it’s a good time to let you know about them, because it’s winter in New Zealand where she lives. (Last year we lived in South Korea where it was sometimes very hot and sometimes freezing cold. Now we’re in a part of Australia where the Nanna says the temperature in winter is a lot like the New Zealand Summer. Nanna says she’s going to spend a lot of time with us in the middle of the year!)

So here are photos of the newest knitting – and a couple of older things, just to remind you they’re still in Nanna’s bronzart shop on the Felt website for you to buy:

vintage mummy

Here’s a jumper Nanna knitted for our Mummy. She wore it to school! Nanna says it’s a poem to the ’80s. We don’t know what that means.

After a while, Mummy wouldn’t wear the things Nanna knitted for her. All she wanted was bubble gum jeans and an acrylic navy blue sweatshirt.

Now she loves Nanna’s crazy knitting and dresses us in all Nanna’s “chaotic creations”.

Nanna says, “Sorry about the exposure. I’ll try and take some better photos soon.”

Tricky rascal raspberries

Nanna says some colours are really tricky to photograph – especially if they’re blue hues.

Boo hoos!?!

Haha, Nanna says it’s enough to make you wanna cry, the way the camera turns pink things red or orange but not bright dark pink like the real wool she was knitting with.

She says the wool of the scarf she’s made for “Operation Brighten” (we told you about that last time) is a bright raspberry pink.

Last year when we were staying at Nanna’s house, before we moved to South Korea, there was a raspberry bush in the orchard; that’s what they call down the back where all the fruit trees are. Late one night, Granddad heard a noise at the back door. When he went to see what it was, there was Big  Brother coming inside again… with red on his mouth.

”Nanna was asleep,” said Big Brother, “so I went in the garden and ate some raspberries!”

Nanna and Granddad thought it was very funny. But after that, the back door was locked very tight. Continue reading “Tricky rascal raspberries” →