Tag: knitting

Happy New Year & lackadaisical resolution

Hi everyone! As you’ve gathered by now, I don’t blog or post often – too busy doing, making, creating, collating, advertising and sometimes even selling, to let you know what I’m up to. Which is, as I keep being advised, counterproductive.

So, here’s a summary from 2018, along with a well-meant resolve to communicate more often this year:

Knitting Lots of knitting, which you can see on my little brother big brother website, and buy from my online shop, bronzart.felt.co.nz. Knitting for my family – including the grandsons who star as my “little brother and big brother” models – and a trip to South Korea to visit them. “Little brother” asked me to knit him “a red scarf and mittens to wear on my head!” I made him a red scarf and hat for Christmas.

Also quite a lot of knitting for charity, including Foster Hope and the Otaki Health Camp, renamed STAND, soft hats for cancer patients at the regional hospital. And currently, for “Operation Brighten“, a challenge for the Creative Fibre Wellington area members, to create colourful winter clothing and accessories for women at Women’s Refuge.

Beading and jewellery I’ve made and sold jewellery this year, including some steampunk inspired things! Also enjoying a fortnightly group, part of Kapiti Arts and Crafts Society, where we learn new techniques and help fundraise for the society by repairing jewellery for members and others. We sell our work as individuals or on behalf of the group in the society’s Gallery and Shop.

Card making and selling I’ve set up a new online shops to sell cards made by my daughter and me; mostly her cards listed so far, as I need to make some more! You can see my bronzart and her azolloza ranges at lozabronz.felt.co.nz

Creative writing and publishing Produced the second in a trilogy of “Spirit and Faith” poetry and liturgical resources. You can buy both “Something new to say” and “You who delight me” from my website. My third book will be published in 2019.

I continue write and publish the occasional liturgical work on my Words of spirit and faith website, which you can follow, as well as via my spirit and faith Facebook page.

Conference admin This year I’ve been occupied, and preoccupied, with admin—committee secretary, marketing, website, bookkeeping, registrations—for NZ’s 3rd Progressive Spirituality/Christianity Conference in September, hosted this year by St Andrew’s on The Terrace Presbyterian Church in Wellington. It was a successful event, despite the organising committee’s initial trials as not one, not two, but three guest speakers were unable to make it, one dropping out after we’d begun marketing. The overall theme was environmental—“Creation: ecology, theology, revolution”.

I ran a workshop, “Creating down to earth prayers” for people who don’t believe in a literal, interventionist God but still want to participate in liturgy of an inclusive, progressive kind. I plan to publish the workshop notes as an ebook.

I’m also involved in fundraising for refurbishment of the church’s unique pipe organ.

Gardening As we come to the end of 2018, the gardens are flourishing—it’s been a great spring and summer for lovely, lush flowers and now the veges (lettuce, beetroot, beans, courgettes etc) and fruit (apples, plums, figs, grapefruit, raspberries and currants) are abundant. The downside of growing your own produce is the amount of water (we’re on water meters now and seem to pay per drop) needed to wash strawberries and lettuces to get the slugs and sand out. It’s great to have a prolific lemon tree—my husband’s limoncello is delish!

Early Christmas Presents Finally, our apartment in central Wellington sold. We plan to use a wee bit of the proceeds on refurbishing our place here in Kāpiti—new carpet, some painting etc. And maybe a little overseas travel…

For early Christmas presents, we’ve bought each other brand new laptops, with Windows 10 and all, which has taken up an enormous amount of time wrangling all the downloading, synchronising and general looking up the how-to stuff online!

Web spinning and FB page admin In case you’re wondering, I’m admin of my 4 personal websites, several Facebook pages and 3 online shops, as well as web-spinning the Progressive Christianity Aotearoa website and media presence. I create monthly posters for Kapiti Arts and Crafts Society to promote exhibitions, manage its 3 Facebook pages and this year will probably take on the role of webspinner, as the website needs a bit of TLC.

Discount OFFER! If you’ve read this far, and there’s anything you’d like to buy from my ranges of knitting, jewellery, cards, publications etc, QUOTE “BLOGGING SELLS” in your subject line or order form for a 10% discount on any one product of your choice.

I do get around to posting on Pinterest, LinkedIn and Instagram, and tweeting from time to time. But if you’re wondering why I don’t post more often… I’m probably doing this:

Operation Brighten project

 

 

Another Gorgeous Scrumble Shawl

Nanna says she’s really happy with her snuggly scrumble shawl. We knew it would be blue! (And purple. And a bit of bright green.)

When she wore her shawl to church, Nanna says, lots of people admired it! That made her happy! She says she’ll take orders, if anyone wants her to knit one for them.

It’s not to everyone’s tastes, says Nanna, but if you like big and bold and totally unique, scrumbles are great! And if you get tired of it, you can make it into a carry bag and even felt it.

Colours of the ocean for a friend

Nanna says she couldn’t think what to get her oldest friend for her birthday. Then she said she’s not the oldest friend she’s got, but they’ve been friends for over 45 years, and we think that sounds very old.

In the end, Nanna says she decided something “handmade with love” would be the best present, and because her friend spends a lot of time fishing and sailing, she’s knitted it in colours of the ocean.

On one side, the scarf ends in a V or triangle shape, and on the other side there are six steps, one for each decade.

We think it will be a great present, don’t you?

Nanna sold a jersey…

…and knitted a couple of new ones!

Nanna says she’s very happy someone bought her “Jump for Joy” jersey for their little kid  and also some kids’ ugg boots.

We got beautiful yarn for Nanna for Christmas, and she’s nearly finished knitting a cardigan/jacket. The wool we got her is twisted blue and purple, and she’s knitting in some of the matching blue “for added interest”, she says.

We wonder what lucky little kid will get to wear it? Nanna says it’s probably too small for either of us, coz we’re big kids now.

Scrumbles – you never know…

When she finished knitting a vivid stripy scarf, Nanna says she hat lots of bits of colours to play with. So she’s doing freeform knitting, making scrumbles.
We don’t know what they’ll turn into. Nanna says she doesn’t know, either. But she’s got some ideas… Nanna always says “I’ve got an idea!” (Little brother says, “So does Maisie Mouse!”
What do you think it will be? (We don’t think it’s something for us to wear, but Nanna says, “You never know!”

can you guess what this is?

Nanna’s knitted a LOT OF HATS but they’re not for Little Brother – who doesn’t like hats, anyway – or for Big Brother who already has a snuggly purple hat.

The hats Nanna’s been knitting are to give away to kids who don’t have a Nanna or Mum who knits for them; or who need to stay at someone else’s place and don’t have time to take their clothes (Foster Hope). We’re lucky coz we’ve got lots of clothes at home and some at Nanna’s house, too.

So, can you guess what Nanna’s been knitting just now?

Here’s an idea: Nanna says it’s similar to – that means, kind of like – another one she knitted, but this one’s smaller. We’ll show you:

Littlebrotherbigbrother.com
Littlebrotherbigbrother.com

It’s going to be a hoodie!

It’s a bit like the tunic Nanna’s finished, that’s ready to buy:

 

3 funerals, no weddings, not-so-new website, not much writing…

So since I last posted here, I’ve been to three funerals – each one totally different from the others in style and content – and missed another funeral and a memorial service because I was just all “funeralled out”.

I’ve been knitting a lot, and blogging about knitted items on my not-very-new website www.littlebrotherbigbrother.com and for sale via bronzart shop on felt.

The past year or so hasn’t been great for creativity, but I’m getting back into it now. Here are my plans for the next few months, so you can check on me if I don’t get onto them:

  1. Check out converting my book “you who delight me” to an ebook and selling online.
  2. Self-publishing another collection of writing as an e-publication (rather than through brilliant but costly publishers).
  3. Revisiting a novel I haven’t worked on since 2005. I kept copious notes, timeline, character descriptions etc – but I didn’t think clearly about plotting and need to find a resolution and meaningful ending.
  4. Keep on knitting: items for sale, winter woollies for my grandsons, and for an exhibition of the Kapiti Arts and Crafts Society, whose Facebook pages I curate.
  5. Take more photos. I mean, apart from the hundreds of my grandkids who are just too gorgeous and cute and smart and charming (of course!). I’m beginning to take cityscape and quirky images again. I’ll post a few recent ones here.

And I think that’s it for First Quarter resolutions.

If you’d like to check out my occasional knitting blogs, written in the imaginary voice of my real grandson, you can follow my Nanna Says posts.

And, depending on your hemisphere and beliefs (or lack of): Happy Easter – Blessed Samhain or Eostre – Shalom Pesach!

Blessings and peace. The light will return…

 

she’s knitting for us, this time

After making quite a lot of things to sell, Nanna says she’s knitting winter jerseys for us just now. She’s nearly finished one for big brother, and then she’ll start on little brother’s one.

When they’re done, she’ll post photos of us wearing them. If you like them, you could commission one.

(Nanna, what’s comishun?)

It’s a brothers thing.

Nanna is knitting a tunic with the wool she got with our Christmas voucher. It’s for a grownup lady.

Nanna says we should try and say “woman” not “lady” but she thinks it’s a losing battle. We don’t know what that means. We aren’t fighting (right now). Sometimes we fight about who plays with the bus. Or the garbage truck. Or whatever one of us has that makes the other one want it. Nanna says there are heaps of toys to play with.

She doesn’t understand. It’s a brothers thing.

Nanna says turquoise is tricky to photograph, and the wool is really the colour that the mug looks like in these photos.

Little brother says, “Nanna jink. Hot. No.o.o.o”. He means Nanna’s drink is too hot and he’s not allowed coffee anyway.

I’ll just grab the truck while Little brother isn’t looking…

at Nanna’s, being rascals

2016-11-18 021.JPGA word from Big Brother: we are staying at Nanna’s place at the moment. She’s busy knitting something but won’t tell us what it is. She says we take up so much time, and we’re not to mess with her wools like rascal little kittens! She’ll be back to show you some more photos soon.

Bye bye, Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.