Lion Brand Notebook
News, Ideas and Information for Crafting with Yarn
Lion Brand Notebook
News, Ideas and Information for Crafting with Yarn
There are billboards all over New York city for a company called Manhattan Storage. They’re always interesting and often provactive. The current ad feature knitting and reads, “Maybe we make storage too easy.”
I’ve been wanting to get a photo of one but driving down the Westside Highway at 50 mph. makes that pretty difficult. I saw this one on the subway. I was still still in motion so it’s a bit shaky…but you get the idea.
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This is for real! Brigitte Hawley, from Benenden, in Kent, England decided to care for gave the four chickens rescued from the Battery Hen Welfare Trust. She knit them sweaters to help them survive the cold winter and called her creations the “chux tux.” In the end, not only was her altruistic deed rewarded by healthy chickens, but she won a national knitting contest!
View the original article at BBC.
Posted in Knitting, Yarniverse | 3 Comments »
According to this article, doctors are using size 7 crochet hooks in a new surgical procedure to remove varicose veins.
Posted in Yarniverse | 3 Comments »
For some of us (especially New Yorkers), getting 10 plastic bags at a grocery store is not an unusual thing. If you’re doing that every week for a year, you’ve collected a lot of plastic bags. Some of you might not know what to do with all of these excess bags, and some may also want to figure out ways to reduce the wasteful usage of these bags. Luckily, Lifehacker posted an easy solution for this by crocheting your plastic bags to create a shoulder tote.
There are quite a few websites where you can purchase your own recycled bags, such as Reusablebags.com, and there are also some people who are creating some very amazing and cool bags out of recycled material. For instance, Cindy at My Recycled Bags does some absolutely incredible things with all types of materials. She’s given me permission to show a couple of her bags here, and she has some incredibly creative ideas. She even created a VCR tote partially using Incredible, a Lion Brand ribbon yarn!
Crocheted Mini Shoulder Bag (Plastic Bags)
Sling Bag (VCR Tape & Incredible Yarn)
Posted in Crocheting, Yarniverse | 5 Comments »
The Knitted Mile is a project created by fiber artist, Robyn Love, for the exhibition Gestures of Resistance. The exhibition was held at in Dallas Texas, from February 20th to March 22nd.Robyn worked with fifty volunteers to knit a mile-long yellow stripe that was installed in the center of a road in Dallas. The concept was that a knitted median line on a highway interrupts the daily fast-paced movement of life with a lovingly handmade element. Hand-knitting and crafts in general, involve taking ones time and creating one-of-a-kind objects that express our individuality. The exhibition showed that this is an option to mass production, instant gratification and uniformity. The road stripe was knit in garter stitch, 4 inches wide in Vanna’s Choice, mustard color yarn provided by Lion Brand Yarn Company.
Posted in Knitting, Yarniverse | 9 Comments »
Over the past couple of weeks we came across a couple of bloggers who have created some beautiful afghans with our Cotton-Ease yarn.
Bella Dia uses a granny square pattern similar to our Happy Baby Blanket pattern to create her granny square blanket project.
Stardust Shoes takes some yarns and plays around with them to create some VERY cute flowers!
There is also a great group for those of you registered on Ravelry, for people who use Cotton-Ease, called Cotton pickin’. It’s there for anyone and everyone to share Cotton-Ease love and has some wonderful suggestions for new items using the yarn.
Additionally on Bella Dia, she suggests a great way to pick out swatches for upcoming projects using our website.
Posted in Crocheting, Yarniverse | 3 Comments »
The American Museum of Natural History in New York City merged science and art on Tuesday, April 8. Using yarn donated by Lion Brand, they have crocheted an entire coral reef ecosystem and discussed some the current issues facing reefs today, as well as actions that can be taken in the future.
Margaret Wertheim, director of the Institute for Figuring, and Kate Holmes, a marine biologist for AMNH, lead a discussion about the plight of coral reefs, and “hyperbolic crochet,” while touching on handicraft, mathematics, marine ecology, conservation activism, and collective artistic practice.
To learn more about the Institute for Figuring, you can check out the article we wrote in our newsletter.
As someone who is also personally interested in coral reefs and their survivability, I also recently saw an article in The New York Times about some of the efforts being done to rebuild and sustain the reef community. One of these efforts is taking place in Delaware, where they are using old subway cars to create a thriving reef with trains taken from the New York City MTA. It’s very cool!
Posted in Crocheting, Yarniverse | 2 Comments »
