crafty day

I got my own sewing machine at the beggining of the month. I havent had the time or the space to be able to get it set up and actually do somthig with it. I finally found some time today and I've been sewing and crafting since midday.

I started with trying to fix a little bag I had bought at D-con 2011 that was put together very strangly...

It's lined but the seams are not inbetween the layers

I unpicked all the stitching and then pinned it all together ready to sew then promptly got confused and forgot what I was supposed to do to sew it up without sewing the top up.

While waiting for that knowlage to return I did some work on a skirt I have been wanting to make for a while but haven't had either the time or access to a sewing machine. The only thing I don't like about doing these is he level of gathering that needs to be done. I also find the hems on thse skirts to be a bit dunting as they just go on and on for several meters all of which needs to be pinned and pressed to make sure it is all straight and it doesnt come apart when under the sewing machine.

after puttting in the stitches for the gathrs I had a look at the bag again and had another go at it. three hours and numerous mistakes later I decided that it should be left until tomorrow (it is currently inside out and sewn up in such a way as it is impossible to turn it out).

I'm probably just going to knit for the rest of today (and watch The Hollow Crown). Currently I'm working on a light but really warm scarf.

The yarn is Wendy Wisp in Cinder and Carbon

  It knits up so quickly but it is very easy to drop stitches when using a very loose tension (I somehow managed to go from the twenty stitches I cast on to sixteen stitches less than half a meter into a project with a single ball of this).

Book Reveiw: Keep Calm and Cast On

Keep Calm and Cast On is a pocket sized compilation of quotes, facts and generally good advice put together by Erika Knight. It is published by Quadrille and is part of a series of books in a similar style. The others in the series to my knowledge cover gardening and cooking.

"knitting is the saving of a life" Virginia Wolf (1882-1941)

The book is hardback bound in fabric giving it a very vintage feel similar to the other things in the "Keep Calm" style it also has a built in ribbon page marker.

"You don't knit because you are patient. You are patient because you knit" Stephanie Pearl-Mcphee, 2008

I find it good just to have on hand so when I'm bored or looking for inspiration or people have been telling me I shouldn't be knitting I can just pick it up and flick through it and find quote or pointer to make me take up my needles again and lose myself in the stitches.

"I like making a piece of string into something I can wear." Anonymous

The book also contains quotes and information about Stitchlinks, an online group who aim to utilise knitting and other similar activities as a form of heathcare. They mainly target mental and emotional problems such as depression and have been researching the idea that knitting can help with delaying the onset of dementia. More information can be found on their website.

"I was a foolhardy lover who has always been prepare to throw his loyalty and devotion at the feet of Mistress Knitting." James Norbury, 1904-1972

I got my copy from waterstones. It can be found on amazon here (ISBN: 978 184949 095 5).

"Remember It's only yarn and yarn can be reknitted. So you can always rip out a few stitches or rows, trace back to where you were in the pattern and start knitting again."

Polar Bears and Other Such Things

Over my winter break I went to the highland wildlife park. I saw a polar bear there and got closer than would be safely possible with one in the wild/a town in the Arctic circle. 

The bear who is currently there is called walker and his favourite toys are hard hats like this one

the bear that was there before was called Mercedes and she was a repeat offender in the act of coming into the town of Churchill in Canada where they have a polar bear prison

the prison operates in a three strike rule. if they catch a bear in town they knock it out and take it to their detention building where they are released when winter starts and they can hunt on the ice again.  if a bear is caught a third time they are put down as it means the prison is not working as a deterrent to them entering the human settlement.

Mercedes had been caught a third time in the town and either had to be put down or sent to a zoo. Edinburgh zoo had a lone male at the time and offered to take her as a companion for him.  The car company Mercedes sponsored her travel from Churchill in Canada to Edinburgh in Scotland so her name was changed from "number 39" to Mercedes.

Mercedes stayed in Edinburgh for many years before coming to the highland wildlife park in 2009. The first winter she was there she saw snow for the first time since coming to Scotland and was apparently very confused by it.

Unfortunately Mercedes had to be put down last year because she was in severe pain from arthritis but the other polar bear, walker who joined Mercedes from a zoo in the Netherlands in November 2010 is still up there but many visitors call him Mercedes because they don't know that it's not her.

The wildlife park has other animal such as tigers, wolves (who were displaced by Mercedes), Arctic foxes, wildcats, monkeys, beavers, a capercallie, three types of owl and red pandas (who were sooooo adorable!). 

Polar bears (Ursus Maritimus) are mostly found within the Arctic circle and are the only bears who will actively hunt and kill humans for food. This is one of the reasons they are so dangerous when they come into towns and villages.  People living in areas with polar bears all carry rifles when going anywhere near the edge of town and are completely prepared to shoot a bear.  The reason polar bears are endangered is not as a result of hunting but rather from a loss of habitat as they can only hunt when there is sea ice covering the majority of the Artic Ocean.


You can find out more about the Highland Wildlife Park here and more about polar bears in general here.

I feel really bad for not taking more pictures but the SD card in my camera was completely full up by the time I got round to the tigers.

I got most of my information from these sites:
BBC News article Mercedes death
STV News on the same story
Mercedes' Life story

Some nice pictures can be found at:
Guardian Newspaper website Walker Joining Mercedes
A Flikr users shots of Mercedes first snow