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VW Combi Van Binca Cross Stitch Table Runner – Finished Project

January 10, 2015 Embroidery

I don’t usually embroider cross stitch but I have fond memories of a binca kit my Mum and Dad once bought for me when we were on our Summer holiday, with red fabric. I was very disappointed when the things I made promptly unravelled, but it was a late 1970’s craft kit for ten year olds, with instructions to match (I.E. lacking in finishing details of any sort)!

On the Monday before Christmas I found a green piece of vintage binca fabric at the op shop, just like the one from my kit all those years ago, so I brought it home. I immediately knew I wanted to make a Christmas table runner with it, and finished on the 7th. Just in time for Christmas, um, next year 🙂

Cross stitch Christmas table runner with VW vans and snowflakes on vintage binca fabric.

Nothing says “Christmas” quite like a table runner with VW Combi Vans and snowflakes, don’t you think? Our Christmas table cloth is orange, and our favourite Christmas serving bowls are light blue with lobsters on them so it fits our Christmas decor perfectly. As my daughter put it, it’s weird so it’s “us”

It’s stitched entirely with thrifted embroidery threads (I have a problem with “rescuing” almost every discarded embroidery thread I find, so I have a large stash of many different kinds). I made up the border and the snowflakes off the top of my head but the VW van chart comes from Hancock’s House of Happy Blog where you can download it for free, just like I did 🙂

I have some more modern cream binca fabric in my stash that I’m going to have to play with. I was thinking of just having some fun with it and see what I come up with. I’ll let you know what happens!

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Make Your Own Knitting Needle Keepers from Nuts

January 9, 2015 Knitting

I really want to make these. My stitches are always falling off the ends of my needles when I’m knitting socks. Probably because they sit in my work bag for several years at a time 😉

From Queensland Times, Ipswich Herald and General Advertiser, December 30th 1899.

Knitting.

Most people who knit have experienced at one time or another the annoyance of stitches dropping off the needles when the work is put down for a few minutes. Knitting-needle holders prevent this, and are extremely easy to make. Bore a hole, quarter of an inch in circumference, in the bottom of two hazel nuts. Remove the kernels, and with a red-hot knitting needle bore two small holes at each side of each empty shell. Run together (at both edges) two pieces of narrow ribbon, not quite half an-inch wide and three-quarters of a yard long. Then draw through the casing a narrow black elastic, two inches shorter than your knitting needles, and stitch each end of elastic to the small holes in nut, drawing the ribbon over the ends of elastic to hide the stitching. Tie a small bow at each end to cover fasten- ing, and the needle-holder is complete.

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Economical Knitting for Children

January 8, 2015 Knitting

From the Goulburn Evening Penny Post, July 8th 1936

Knitting

When knitting pullovers for several children, use wool of one colour. When the jumpers are partly worn and shabby, unravel, and wind the wool from the strong parts, and use again. Children’s jumpers can be unravelled and knitted into a fresh-looking pullover for a boy of twelve, a pullover for a boy of five, and perhaps two smart berets for school for miss nine and miss eleven. There is usually enough wool left for darning these articles later on.

Free Knitting Patterns for Some Super Groovy Toys

January 7, 2015 Knitting

Many years ago, when the internet was mostly made of text and your website host complained if your site went over a megabyte in size, I paid a rather exhorbitant price for a lift-out from a 1968 Australian Women’s Weekly in an out of the way antique shop in rural Victoria. Alas, when I went to knit the toys, the front page had been torn in half and was nowhere to be found. To say I was miffed would be a massive understatement.

Imagine my surprise all these years later to find the exact patterns available in Trove, the Australian National Library’s online digital archive.

Groovy knitted toys from the October 2nd Australian Women's Weekly, 1968 — Groovy knitted toys from the October 2nd Australian Women’s Weekly, 1968

(Re)Introducing: The Mod Menagerie of Beasts and Birds including, The King of the Beasts, Carrot-Power Cottontail, Cat of Super Colors, Mopsy Bird, Hippie-Potamus, Wiggy Bird, Flower Bearing Bruin and Bangle Bell Bossy. They’re all knit at 3sts to the inch to make them super groovy and super fast.

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Thrifted Treasures

January 6, 2015 Sewing

Have you ever gone diving through your stash, only to feel horribly guilty about your unfinished projects that you know will never be worked on again?

Well don’t, because you can always donate them to your local charity shop where someone like me will find them and consider them treasure!

All of which is a very ’round about way of saying, “look at the really cool thing I found at the op shop yesterday!”

It’s an unfinished patchwork quilt made from 1970’s fabrics. It looks like two different people worked on it as half has been finished in a single piece

Unfinished house patchwork made from 1970's fabrics — Unfinished house patchwork made from 1970’s fabrics

and the other half have been quilted as a quilt-as-you-go quilt.

Quilt as you go house block with red gingham roof

Quilt as you go house block with green front

Quilt as you go house block with striped roof

Quilt as you go house block with quilted surprise

I had intended to take apart the quilted blocks and finish it in one piece with a square of 1970’s patchwork hexagons as the centre but then I found this:

and I’ve now totally changed my mind. I’ll be taking apart the piece with four squares and making it all quilt-as-you-go instead 🙂

I just can’t bring myself to kill the poor innocent snowman.

I wonder what I have that will look good as the two missing doors…

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