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Thursday 9 October 2014

How to knit a scarf for a little boy ...

I know it's definitely autumn when I feel that seasonal urge to get my knitting needles out and get busy with some yarn. It's always the same with me: as soon as I feel a nip in the air I want to run for some lovely wool.

Emi was complaining recently about how I never knit anything for him. And he was right: I've made precious little for him, my most precious little person. So I set about remedying the situation. One thing that he needs for the winter is a nice woolly scarf that he can wear when he's not in school uniform.

And this <ta-dah!> is what I've made for the young man:


Don't you just love the Lego sculpture that I've put together to model it? I guess I was inspired by Sunday's Art of the Brick Exhibition.

In my stash I have a huge amount of Hayfield Bonus Chunky in grey (shade 0786) and lime (shade 0785), so that's what I decided to use. I worked on 5 mm, 80 cm loop, circular needles so that the fabric was nice and dense to keep young Emi's neck warm. I've got a thing about circular needles: I love how I can fold them up and put everything in my handbag, but you can use regular needles if that's more your thing.

Cast on 35 stitches in the main colour (grey, in my case) and work 20 rows in stocking stitch (that's knit first and all odd rows and purl second and all even rows).


When you get to row 21 knit this row and row 22 using your contrasting colour (the yellow/ lime colour in my case). These 2 knit rows provide a contrasting stripe, not just of colour, but also of texture as they form a raised ridge that stands out from the smoother stocking stitch.



Now cast on with the main colour (grey) again and do another 20 rows of stocking stitch.



Join with the contrasting (yellow/ lime) colour and do 2 knit rows.


Carry on alternating your colours and your stitches in this way until the scarf has reached the desired length. In this case I worked until it was 115 cm/ 45" long, which involved making 10 stripes in the contrasting (yellow/ lime) colour, and ending with a final 20 rows of stocking stitch in the main (grey) colour.

Cast off and sew in your loose ends.



Easy peasy lemon squeezy!

Bonny x

As shared on Creative Mondays

P.S. If you're interested in woolly crafts why not check out the knitting and stitching show at Ally Pally until Sunday: Knitting and Stitching Fair



Wednesday 8 October 2014

The Alexandra Palace Knitting and Stitching Fair ...

Calling all crafty types!

It's on: the Ally Pally Knitting and Stitching Fair is in full swing from now until Sunday 12th October.


And it's bigger and better than ever before.


I headed up that way this morning, and had a ball.


There was a real creative buzz in the air; everyone was incredibly friendly. Conversations were being struck up between complete strangers all over the place. People seemed to feel a connection through their common enthusiasm for what was on display, which melted our normal British reserve.


Are you a knitter or a stitcher, people I'd never met before kept asking me as we queued for coffee, for the bus, to buy tickets to get in. There was a great atmosphere.


There were luxurious yarns galore. I especially enjoyed seeing some of the fabulous things that had been made up. It's a great place to come for ideas, and to support some of the smaller artisan producers who don't have a large presence in the craft stores.



There was something there for everyone. I've tended to focus more on the woolly stalls, because that's what I'm most interested in myself. 


But, ignoring my own bias, there was loads of stuff for patchworkers, and dressmakers, and beaders, and fabric printers, and embroidery enthusiasts.


In the galleries there were some knock-out displays by the bright young designers of tomorrow. I'm sure  Emi would have found it difficult to not touch this lovely bear if he'd been with me. Isn't he a handsome, cuddly chap?


It was great to see so many textile design students, with so much talent, being given a showcase for their work. I chatted with several, charming young designers who were fizzing with enthusiasm for their craft and who were delighted to discuss how they'd made the items on display. Good luck to all of them.


This exhibition is the biggest that they hold in the UK. If you'd like to go along, they're open every day from now until (and including Sunday 12th October). You can find their website here: 


There are lots of things that have been specially priced for the fair, so with very little effort you should be able to bag a bargain or two to boot. It was interesting watching the folk struggling home to the tube station afterwards. I think we were all laden down with purchases and additions to our various stashes. 



The nearest underground station is Wood Green on the Piccadilly Line, and they operate an efficient free shuttle bus from the station that will take you all the way to the doors of Alexandra Palace. And once inside there are loads of places for coffee/ lunch/ a quick snifter. 

Enjoy!

Bonny x




Monday 6 October 2014

Art of the Brick ... an exhibition in Lego

Art of the Brick, London

Calling all Lego fans:  I’ve found just the exhibition for you.

Art of the Brick, London

It's the Art of the Brick, which is running at the Old Truman Brewery just off Brick Lane until 4th January. 

Art of the Brick, London

Mr B and I headed off to check it out on Sunday afternoon with Emi. Emi (age 8) is a huge Lego fan, and he was really excited by the idea of a Lego art display.

Art of the Brick, London

The first thing that I must say is that the exhibition is really good fun. It doesn't take itself too seriously, and I found myself smiling at the playful ingenuity of what had been built.

You're welcomed into a classical gallery with a collection that includes Rodin's Thinker and Michaelangelo's David, all faithfully rendered in little plastic bricks. In the case of David it took a total of 16,349 bricks to put him together.

Art of the Brick, London

 The detail achieved with the clean straight lines of the bricks is impressive, and they are beautifully displayed with bold backdrops and perfect lighting.

Art of the Brick, London

There are about 80 works on display. The artisit, Nathan Sawaya, has been exhibiting his Lego sculptures all around the world since 2007, and to date over a million people have been to see them.

Art of the Brick, London

Yesterday afternoon lots of children were bustling around with cameras taking photos that would no doubt inspire a raft of work once they got home.

Art of the Brick, London

Everything has been constructed from standard issue, go-buy-it-in-a-toy-shop Lego, so, in theory, there was nothing on display that those busy little people wouldn't have been able to produce at home.

Sawaya, after working for a while as a corporate lawyer, decided that what he really wanted to do was go and explore the creative, artistic possibilities of the Lego brick. I loved the fact that he had used such a familiar, everyday toy to create his installations. It made the whole thing feel a bit cheeky and irreverent, almost as though he were sending up the art-world and its tendency to take itself too seriously.

On the other hand some of the work on display felt quite serious. The yellow man above was captioned: Ever have those days when you've given so much of yourself that it feels like a hole has been left in you? That message and his open torso felt a bit eery and surreal given how the sculpture was incongruously made out of cheerful yellow Lego bricks. It made me pause and think for a moment.

Art of the Brick, London


These huge faces (below) were real show-stoppers. The detail of their features was almost hypnotic. The red one had the most amazing - and impossible to photograph - eyelashes. The blue face is a self portrait.

Art of the Brick, London

One of my favourite installations was the swimmer. Using a clear perspex table and with some artfully positioned mirrors and discarded bricks for surf the illusion of someone moving through the water was complete.

Art of the Brick, London

Emi was very impressed with the huge T-Rex, but I'm not sure that he's got the 80,000 beige bricks that he'll need if he want's to build one in the front room at home.

Art of the Brick, London


Mr. B liked the huge pencil that had written yes on the carpet; he likes to embrace the positive.

Art of the Brick, London

And then there were the  Lego Beatles. There was also a Lego One Direction, but let's not go there ... .

Art of the Brick, London

I enjoyed my whistle-stop tour of the art world.

How do you like the Lego version of Monet's San Giorgio Maggoire at dusk?

Art of the Brick, London

Or how about Van Gogh's starry night at Saint-Rémy-de-Provence?

Art of the Brick, London

Maybe you'd prefer the Mona Lisa ... 'cos he's made her too.

Art of the Brick, London

Personally I liked his rendition of Munch's Scream. I think it's better than the original!

Art of the Brick, London

All three of us really enjoyed the exhibition. It's not specifically aimed at children, but lots of parents brought their little folk. My poor child gets dragged along to everything because I have some crazy idea that it'll help develop him into a rounded person. But I'm guessing that a lot of other normal people felt that, because the exhibition was made using their children's favourite toy, it was cool to bring them along. And for me that was just great. I could hear lots of mums and dads explaining patiently to their little ones that this was the Mona Lisa, who had a certain, lovely smile, and over here was a Van Gogh ... he cut his ear off, you know ... and so it went on.  Lots of children were getting their first introduction to the art world, and it was through a medium that made everyone feel comfortable, and in some ways empowered the parents to go into explanations that they might not have felt able to speak aloud in the hushed and disapproving silence of a normal gallery.

If you'd like to check it out you can find all the necessary details at the website: The Art of the Brick.

All the best,

Bonny x


As shared on Image-in-ing and Our World Tuesday

Sunday 5 October 2014

Highgate Cemetery ... an autumnal walk amongst the tombstones ...

One day last week I took a tour of the most famous cemetery of them all. I'd expected it to be amazing ... and it certainly didn't disappoint.

Highgate Cemetery is divided by Swain's Lane into the East Cemetery, where you are free to wander around on your own (after you've paid the £4 entry fee) and the older, West Cemetery, which you can only access on a guided tour.

Highgate Cemetery, London

There were a number of other people there when I arrived, not many, but enough for the whole thing not to feel too uncomfortable. Call me a numpty, but I was glad to have the company of the living as I walked amongst the massed ranks of the dead. The sun was shining, and the leaves were gently tinged with autumn. A small funeral party were bidding their last farewells to an elderly relative whilst a silent multitude of stone angels watched from every corner as we all went about our business.

Highgate Cemetery, London

The West Cemetery was opened in 1839, and the East Cemetery was added in 1860. Most of the funeral architecture is high Victorian, and packed full of symbolism, with more than a little bit of middle-class snobbery on display too. In London they say that only three things matter when it comes to property: location, location and location. And that rule also seems to have applied to the Victorian dead. The objective was to bag yourself a plot on the edge of a main path, and then build something that was more eye-catching than anything the neighbours had put up. The plots further back were much less desirable given the greater likelihood that your mortal remains would languish unseen and forgotten in the shadows: eternal oblivion in obscurity was definitely not the way to go; gone but not forgotten was the credo.

Highgate Cemetery, London

Death was an opportunity to show-off. The Victorians loved the Grand Tour and were in thrall to classical culture, so many chose to demonstrate their learning and refinement by borrowing symbols from antiquity for their graves. There are any number of classical funerary urns, broken columns and obelisks. Over in the West Cemetery someone has gone the whole hog and built themselves a pyramid; admittedly it's not a very big pyramid and, sadly for them, it's set back just a little too far from the main path for it to be unmissable.

Highgate Cemetery, London

In the West Cemetery the Victorian love affair with the world of classical antiquity reaches its climax in the Egyptian Avenue and the Circle of Lebanon. These two features are truly spectacular in a very other-worldly, this-can't-possibly-be-London sort of way.

The Egyptian Avenue, Highgate Cemetery, London
The Entrance to the Egyptian Avenue, Highgate Cemetery, London
Lining either side of the Egyptian Avenue, like terraced houses, are a series of private vaults, where whole families were laid to rest. Some still display their street addresses in life: one announced proudly that it was the final abode of one Jeremiah Dummet of Bayswater House, 34 Porchester Terrace.

The Egyptian Avenue, Highgate Cemetery, London
The Egyptian Avenue, Highgate Cemetery, London

It's a sombre place, with each vault pretty much the same as its neighbours. This sameness made it a slightly less attractive option for the Victorians who relished making their final resting place as unique and individual as possible.

The Egyptian Avenue, Highgate Cemetery, London
The Egyptian Avenue, Highgate Cemetery, London

This part of the cemetery feels like a remnant of some long-forgotten civilisation. It's got a touch of Karnak or Pompeii or Angkor Wat about it: like it belongs in a different place and to another time. 

Each door of the Avenue is adorned with two up-turned torches of life, symbolic of the lives that have ended. 
The Egyptian Avenue, Highgate Cemetery, London
Tomb door, The Egyptian Avenue

The Avenue leads on to the Circle of Lebanon, which also has the air of an abandoned city, forgotten by time and misplaced in North London.  

The Circle of Lebanon, Highgate Cemetery, London
The Circle of Lebanon, Highgate Cemetery, London

In my mind's eye I could see the very grand Victorian funeral cortèges of long ago driving up to the outer gate of the Egyptian Avenue, where the coffins would be unloaded and borne by pall-bearers the last few yards to their final resting places in this amazing necropolis.


The Circle of Lebanon, Highgate Cemetery, London
The Circle of Lebanon, Highgate Cemetery, London

The magnificent Cedar of Lebanon in the centre is thought to have been there for more than 100 years before it became the focal point around which the circle was constructed.

The Circle of Lebanon, Highgate Cemetery, London
The Circle of Lebanon, Highgate Cemetery, London

The Circle of Lebanon, Highgate Cemetery, London
The Circle of Lebanon, Highgate Cemetery, London

Not surprisingly, given that the Victorians were responsible for the Gothic Revival, there's quite a lot of Gothic funeral architecture on display. The most impressive of all is perhaps this amazing monument on the Mears family plot over in the West Cemetery.

The Mears Memorial, Highgate Cemetery, London
The Mears Memorial, Highgate Cemetery, London

The Mears family owned the Whitechapel Foundry from 1781 until 1865. The foundry had been established way back in 1570, and still survives to this day, making it Britain's oldest manufacturing company. It was there that the Liberty Bell of Philadelphia and the hour bell of Big Ben were cast.

 Highgate Cemetery, London
 Gothic Memorials at Highgate Cemetery, London


Within the cemetery there is little uniformity, but there is a common symbolic language used in the architecture to express the feelings of loss and bereavement of those left behind.

Take a look at this beautiful, grieving widow. She's laden with symbolism.

 Highgate Cemetery, London
The Grieving Widow at  Highgate Cemetery, London
She is carrying an inverted torch, symbolic of the life that has been extinguished. She holds a funeral wreath, a symbol of the circle of life, and she leans against a wreathed urn, which symbolises the soul of the deceased with the draped material marking the divide between life and death. With all these different accoutrements she is a classical image of grief and mourning.

Some of the graves have been inspired by matters closer to home, and bear representations of what the deceased did in life. The man buried in the grave, shown below, with its plinth and rather sad-looking horse, owned a knacker's yard where horses were put down when they were no longer able to work.

 Highgate Cemetery, London
The Knacker's Memorial,  Highgate Cemetery, London
The knacker's grave sits in a corner of the cemetery where they seem to have been very taken with plinths and urns. They all looked rather splendid amidst the autumn leaves.

 Highgate Cemetery, London

In a similar vein the concert pianist, Harry Thornton, who died in the Spanish Flu pandemic of 1918, has a tombstone over in the East Cemetery that represents his occupation very nicely.

Harry Thornton's piano memorial, Highgate Cemetery, London
Harry Thornton's piano memorial, Highgate Cemetery, London

And then there's the grave of a famous bare-knuckle boxer called Thomas Sayers. Sayers had been a hugely successful prize fighter. By the 1850s he was the undisputed English champion. The sport of bare-knuckle boxing was illegal, but, driven underground by the authorities, it remained enormously popular with substantial amounts of money being bet on the outcome of each bout.

Thomas Sayers' memorial, Highgate Cemetery, London
Thomas Sayers' memorial, Highgate Cemetery, London

Sayers' most celebrated encounter took place on 17th April, 1860 when he took on the American champion John C. Heenan in what many regard as boxing's first world championship. Sayers went into the fight as the underdog. The other man was eight years his junior, 40 pounds heavier and 5 inches taller. Early on in the competition Sayers lost the use of one arm through injury, but he carried on regardless. Heenan was dealt a nasty blow to the face, which blinded him in one eye for the duration of the fight. Undaunted by their injuries, the one-armed man and his half-blind rival slugged it out for 42 rounds before the contest descended into chaos. The crowd waded in, fighting amongst themselves and the police had to stop Heenan from strangling Sayers with the rope that encircled the ring. The fight was declared a draw in the end.

Thomas Sayers' memorial, Highgate Cemetery, London
Thomas Sayers' memorial, Highgate Cemetery, London


Sayers never fought again, and he died five years later. He was an enormously popular figure, and 100,000 people attended his funeral. Given that he had fallen out with his wife, his beloved bull mastiff, Lion, played the role of chief mourner, riding alone in an open carriage directly behind the hearse. A beautiful statue of Lion guards his tomb to this day.

And then there's the grave of the menagerist, George Wombwell, who must go down in history as one of England's great eccentrics. Wombwell started out as a cobbler in Soho, but one day, acting on a strange impulse, he bought a pair of boa constrictors down at the docks from some sailor, newly arrived from South America. By this stage strange and exotic animals were being brought into the country from all corners of the globe, and the public were curious to see them. Wombwell started showing people his snakes and charging them for the privilege. Business went well, and he added some other creatures to his collection. By 1810 he had given up shoe-making and founded Wombwell's Travelling Menagerie, which quickly grew to become a successful business. By 1839 he was touring the country with 15 wagons packed with exotic animals, and accompanied by a full brass band.

George Wombwells' memorial, Highgate Cemetery, London
George Wombwells' memorial, Highgate Cemetery, London

Many of his animals suffered in the comparative cold and damp of the English climate and, when they died, the indomitable Wombwell sold their bodies to taxidermists and natural scientists, who were keen to dissect their cadavers. On one occasion when he was attending the annual Bartholomew Fair in London his prize elephant died. His rival, who was also there with a menagerie, seized the initiative and put up a sign informing the public that his display had the only live elephant at the fair Not to be outdone, the resourceful Wombwell quickly produced a sign announcing that his menagerie was exhibiting the only dead elephant at the fair. The ghoulish Victorian public were much more taken with the idea of poking a dead elephant than feeding a living one, so Wombwell did a roaring trade whilst his rival languished with scarcely a soul coming his way.

Wombwell was the first person in England to breed a lion in captivity; he called it William after William Wallace. The lion on his tomb, incidentally, is not William, but another chap called Nero, who was a bit of a star for being so docile that they were able to offer children rides on his back - for a fee, of course.

One day Prince Albert asked Wombwell for his advice. The prince's dogs kept dying for no apparent reason. Wombwell discovered that their water supply was being poisoned. A grateful prince asked Wombwell what he could do for him in return. As it happened Wombwell had his eye on some of the timber that had been salvaged from the Royal George. Once the largest ship of the line, the Royal George sank whilst  anchored off Portsmouth for some routine maintenance. Over 800 lives were lost making it one of the worst maritime disasters ever to take place in English coastal waters. The prince saw to it that Wombwell was given some planks, from which he had a coffin made. His coffin was then rather sensationally included as an exhibit with his menagerie for a number of years before he needed to use it. And it is in this coffin, made from the timbers of the famous warship, that he rests in his grave today.

 George Eliot's grave in the East Cemetery is, on the other hand, marked by a rather understated (by the standards of the day) obelisk.

George Eliot's memorial, Highgate Cemetery, London
George Eliot's memorial, Highgate Cemetery, London


She's not very far away from Karl Marx. His funeral, on 17th March,1883, was a small affair attended by only eleven people, one of whom was has friend Frederich Engels. He was laid to rest in his wife's grave, which was in an unobtrusive spot on a small side path. However, in 1954, the Communist Party launched a memorial fund for him, raised a ship-load of money and had both bodies exhumed and reburied in an altogether grander and more prominent tomb beside the main path. I’m not sure that Marx, the great communist, would have approved of all his new-found grandeur; I’ve got a feeling that his first, modest plot may have been more to his taste.

Karl Marx's memorial, Highgate Cemetery, London
Karl Marx's memorial, Highgate Cemetery, London

That corner of the cemetery holds a number of other notable Communists. Yusuf Dadoo, the South African communist and anti-apartheid activist, Claudia Jones, the Mother of the Notting Hill Carnival and Mansoor Hekmat, the Iranian Marxist theorist are all close neighbours of Marx.

I was taken with the gravestone of the artist, Patrick Caulfield. Caulfield designed it himself, clearly intending for it to stand in stark contrast to all the sentimental ostentation of his Victorian neighbours.

Patrick Caulfield's memorial, Highgate Cemetery, London
Patrick Caulfield's memorial, Highgate Cemetery, London

And then there's the headstone of Douglas Adams, author of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, a triology in five parts. People in the cemetery were asking whether the pens and pencils were meant to be there ... . I understand that fans come to his grave and pay their respects by leaving pens in the pot in front.

Douglas Adams' memorial, Highgate Cemetery, London
Douglas Adams' memorial, Highgate Cemetery, London

Malcolm McLaren's headstone feels very modern. I wonder if that’s the way he used to doodle his initials on the back of his exercise books at school. I'm not sure that I go along with his epitaph: Better a spectacular failure, than a benign success, but it certainly made a statement.

Malcolm McLaren's memorial, Highgate Cemetery, London
Malcolm McLaren's memorial, Highgate Cemetery, London

One of the most beautiful headstones has to be that of Philip Gould, the labour peer.

Philip Gould's memorial, Highgate Cemetery, London
Philip Gould's memorial, Highgate Cemetery, London

I was also impressed by the exquisite headstone of the Austrian sculptor Anna Mahler, daughter of the composer, Gustav Mahler. It's a copy of one of her works.


This wonderful place fell into neglect during the middle years of the last century. The appetite for ostentatious memorials died in the wake of the First World War. It seemed self-indulgent to make such a song and dance about a single death after people had witnessed mass slaughter on an industrial scale. Cemeteries and funeral architecture became more uniform and subdued, influenced no doubt by the war cemeteries. 



As a result Highgate was largely abandoned. Vandals broke in and colonised the tombs. The undergrowth grew out of control, and the place came pretty close to being lost forever. The Friends of Highgate Cemetery, a group of volunteers united by their love of the old cemetery were formed in 1975. Since then they have run the cemetery and have managed to turn things around with an extensive programme of repair and restoration. 



In my view they're a bunch of heroes who have saved a unique and wonderful part of our heritage. They are not government funded, and instead rely heavily on the money raised through their paying visitors. So please, if you've enjoyed reading about the place do go along, have a look round for yourself and give them your support. 

You can find the website for Highgate Cemetery here: Highgate Cemetery



All the best for now,

Bonny x


As shared on Our World Tuesday and Friday Finds