Yarn Bombing at Acorn Bank

Acorn Bank is a National Trust property very near to Penrith and the Lake District. Having read on the UK Hand Knitting website about a community project located there I was eager to visit. People had been asked to knit natural things to decorate the trees! Unfortunately there is not a lot to see in the house itself although there are hopes for some restoration work in the future.

Acorn Bank has lovely gardens and a working water mill that grinds flour. Unfortunately the day I visited was very wet so I didn’t spend too long looking around, instead venturing into the woods to find the knitted creatures and plants.

The bluebells were all out and as they are one of my favourite flowers I had to get a quick picture 🙂

Knitted pieces had been created by lots of different people, the name of the contributers could be found in a book inside the house. If I had more time I would have loved to have joined in, but we have our own Yarn Bombing project set to go up at the end of this month so needed to concentrate on that! Here are some pictures of the things we saw.

At first I wondered why there were playing cards hanging up but then I realised that this is an Alice in Wonderland Tree and from a previous post you will know how we love Alice in Wonderland!

After getting rather damp in the woodland we rushed into the cafe for tea and cake (any excuse!) and this I can thoroughly recommend. I had a truly delicious slice of gluten free almond cake.

Dice Knitting Pattern and Yarn Bombing Derby Feste!

This past weekend was Derby Feste and Anne organised to once again Yarn Bomb Derby’s Silk Mill. Many enthusiastic individual knitters and knitting groups got involved and between Anne’s wonderful patterns and everyones hard work (many a knitting needle was worn out) they managed to produce this wonderful tribute to everything game related!

Unfortunately the display was somewhat obscured for part of the day by a giant blow up snake (interesting planning on the part of the event organisers there) but when it was visible the yarn bombing was hugely popular with adults and children alike. All the contributers came along to visit and there was a general feeling of pride that their combined efforts had managed to produce such a wonderful display. Unfortunately it had to be removed at the end of the day but it is due to decorate the local hospital over the next few days.

Knit A Dice

The dice were particularly popular with the Feste visitors so I am very pleased to be able to share Anne’s knitting pattern with you all here today.

Using double knitting yarn and size 8(4mm) needles.

Cast on 20 stitches and knit every row.

Knit until it makes a square, I had to knit 34 rows (this may very on how tightly you personally knit).

Cast off.

Knit 5 more squares in the same way for the other sides of the dice.

To Make Up:

Firstly sew 4 sides together.

I found it best to sew the cast on edge of the first square to the side edge of the second. The side edge of the second was sewn to the cast on edge of the third and then the cast off edge of the third was sewn to the side edge of the fourth.

Sew the first and fourth pieces together so that all four pieces are joined.

Now attach the fifth square to start making it into a cube. Again stitch a cast on edge to a side edge and sew around all four sides.

When stuffing the dice I wanted it to look as square as possible so I used foam cut to size, each side measured approximately 8.5 cms. I had to use several pieces of foam to form this particular cube.

Once it has been stuffed with the foam attach the last side.

I cut circles of black felt to make the spots. They were roughly the size of a 20 pence coin.