MWA HA HAHAHAHAHA HAAAAAAAAAAA! Stitch and Bitch London were lucky enough to drag our members down to the seriously spooky Hunterian Museum this Halloween. A heart-stoppingly fabulous time was had by all. For those who couldn’t make it here’s a quick look at knitting amongst bones and body parts.

Four Spooky Stitchettes (Marion, Emmy and Gerty, Lauren)

Zombie Gerty tries her luck with Mr Robothead

Knit at the Museum

A knitting devil

Wednesday Marion teaches some knitting newbies

Cowboy Stephanie who made it alllll possible. Yeeha!

Stitch and witch

Stitch and bones

Stitch and specs

Marion has stitching in her bones

Zombie Stitchette fight!

Zombie Lauren wins the crafty carrion

After being turned down by Mr Robothead our Zombie Gerty finds love at last

Hoards of undead thanks to Stephanie and Jane at the Hunterian for letting zombie knitters take over their fantasticly creepy cave of wonders.

And thanks to all you shuffling knitting zombies who joined us.

The Stitchettes x

PS Go and visit the Hunterian Museum! It’s amazing.

Image: Crumpart

Run for the hills! The undead are coming! Hang on? Are we knitters or are we mice? (Not that we have anything against mice. There are some very brave mice out there)

S&B Londoners stand your ground! Don’t let the undead push you around. You’re part of a brave tradition of crafty warriors. You have sticks. You have string. Let’s stand, pull up our stitches and kick some undead arse!

We’ve put together a helpful list of how to turn your humble knitting kit into Weapons of Knit Destruction.

Knitting needles: Your average wooden knitting needle is no less than a vampire-busting stake through the heart. Take that Nosferatu! Taste my bamboo 4.5mm!

Grab yourself a handful of interchangable Knit Picks Harmonies and you can take out a whole nest of bloodsucking fiends from one convenient zip-up bag. Knit Picks – when you have to take out every last bloodsucker in the room, accept no substitute.

Tape measure-circular needle combo: There’s a zombie coming!
waits till several minutes later
It’s still coming!
makes cup of tea
It’s almost here!
ties tape measure between sturdy posts or trees at ankle height
Here it is!
watches zombie shuffle into makeshift tripwire and fall on its rotting face
HA!
slices off zombie’s head garotte-style with circular needle
Ewwwww.
washes hand and finishes tea

Stitchmarkers: “Ooooo, get you with your fancy silver stitchmarkers,” they say. “NO SURRENDER!” you scream in their faces as you apply said stitchmarkers to a handy drinking straw et voila! Silver bullets. Take a werewolf down from 20 paces and still have the time to finish your bloody mary.

Yarn swift: The Mummy appears from the crypt. It shuffles towards you. Its ancient dusty hands outstretched for your throat. Duck and in one swift move (the one you practiced while bagging bargain yarn at the John Lewis sale) grab the end of a bandage, attach and start your swift spinning. In no time your Mummy is dust, bones and a neat little ball of fabric. Make yourself a nice rug with him.

UFO (unfinished knitted object): Aliens descend from space. Oooooo ooooo OoooOoOoo! They pull you up towards the mothership with your knitting bag in tow. You whip out your handy UFO. You begin to knit.

Like the commuter who sits opposite you on the tube the aliens are mesmerised. Before you know it you’re holding an S&B in the UFO. Grak is having trouble with rib stitch. Thok and Lunk have just moved onto purling. They get hungry for cake and take the ship down to the nearest bakery for some battenburg.

You use the opportunity to slip away unnoticed – your derriere probe-free thanks to the power of the knit. Future alien abductions reports are peppered with mentions of excellent bobble-hats and armwarmers.

Image: www.CraftyDeb.com

We’ve got a bit of a thing for vampires here at S&B London HQ (“No?! Really?!” we hear you cry). So what with it being Halloween and all that, we thought it high time to feature some Undead (or should that be Life Challenged?) inspired craftiness.

We took our shovel and dug through Ravelry for some vampire find to get your fangs into. If you’re not a member of Ravelry click here to join and see the patterns.

Here’s S&B London’s rundown of the top five bloodsucker-themed patterns. The stakes couldn’t be higher (sorry!). We’re going to stick our necks out and say that none of these suck! (OK we’ll stop trying now!) Just don’t bite off more than you can chew (we really will stop now!). If you crave the undead True Blood charms of Eric Northman and Bill Compton, pine after sulky Edward Cullen, or if you’re a purist and just want Dracula, then there’s something for you…

In at Number Five: he was where it all began. The somewhat blood-curdling Dracula or Vlad. We thought both these patterns were worthy of a mention.

At Number Four, and only recognisable to you Twilight fans out there, are Julie P. Miller’s Eclipse Socks. Simple and understated, but to those in the know, so Team Edward!

This year’s Number Three is Edward. Yes, you can possess the most sought-after 17-year-old dead guy in the world. He’s our own brand of heroin…

At Number Two: wear your fang marks with pride with Krysten Lewelling’s Love Bites scarf. Inspired by True Blood, and Sookie’s vampire-loving! You’ll be fangtasising (oops!) about Bill or Eric…

And at Number One, the bloody fangtastic (sorry – couldn’t resist!) Twilight Finger Puppet Pattern. Not only could you have your own Edward, but a Jasper, Alice, Carlisle, Rosalie etc at your fingertips.

Join us next year for the freshest patterns from the coffin!

Stitch and Bitch London would like to apologise for the awful puns in this article. We’ll get our cloaks!

We were invited along to Jamie Oliver’s Fifteen restaurant to hold a special Stitch and Bitch London meeting to promote Fifteen’s ever so fabulous limited edition Knitting Kits.

Fifteen is Jamie Oliver’s flagship restaurant in London’s Shoreditch. It’s the place where every year 15 disadvantaged young whippersnappers are shoved into the kitchen and turned into apprentice chefs, which changes their lives in all sorts of lovely ways. Their four restaurants around the world are also part of a mission to inspire global entrepreneurship in young people, as well as teaching them to rustle up some wicked grub.

We took five of our lucky members along for some pukka eats and a bit of a knit.

Lots of pukka yarn

Oooo, fancy!

"Go on! Knit me!" said the yarn

The Purple Purler's table

Gertrude greets new arrivals

Lovely jubbly!

Sliced pork and roast shallots? Go on then.

Roast figs with melted cheese and almonds? Don't mind if I do.

Roasted fennel in all kinds of herbs. Easy tiger!

Four sneaky Stitchettes up to no good

The very lovely knitting kits

A yarnstormed "Cheers, guvnor!"

Please note: there are no people pics as I was too busy troughing the lovely grub and having a good old knit. Also I didn’t like to stick a camera in people’s faces while they tucked in. A lovely, tasty time was had by all though. We promise.

You can also listen to the delicious knitting fun on Hoxton Handmade’s Electric Sheep podcast.

You can buy one of Fifteen’s ever so fabulous limited edition Knitting Kits on their website.

Thanks ever so much to the fine folks at Fifteen for having us along. We’d loved it.

*burps*

Alexandra Palace, the Knitting and Stitching Show 2009. It was packed to the seams with stitchers of all sorts. Everywhere you turned were buttons and bows, the must-haves of the crafty accessory world from fine wooden crochet hooks to supercomputer sewing machines, enough books and magazines to keep you busy for the rest of your life and yarn yarn yarn as far as the eye could see.

But you had to fight for it. That’s a lot of knitters, a lot of yarn and not much elbow room.

Lauren and Marion took along the Macmillan Comfort Blanket that you lovely S&B Londoners have been busy knitting to hand over to the Knitter and Macmillan, and these are a few of the things we saw…

Catch it! Escaping knitting on the grass outside Ally Pally

Blanket meets knitting show

Ahoy! A knitted nautical vessel

A seafaring fibre feline

The world's most fabulous shoelaces

Marc and Stephanie - handknit heroes

Oooooo shiny buttons

The S&B London Macmillan Comfort Blanket arrives at last

Huge thanks to everyone who helped contribute to the fine cosy comfort blanket. You are, as always, utterly fabulous and ever so kind hearted.

Also big hello to all you yarnsellers at the show who were to utterly lovely to meet and talk woolly shop with.

See you all again next year.

Do you ever feel envious of those lucky, lucky recipients of the carefully knitted gifts that you give them? Do you secretly wish that you could have something soft and woolly and handmade to open? Well, here’s your chance.

1. Make one present.
2. Your present should cost approximately of £5.
3. Your present can be ANYTHING, as long as it’s knitted or crocheted or at least handmade.
4. You must make your present before the S&B London Christmas Party (in December, date and venue to be confirmed).
5. Turn up at the S&B London Christmas Party with some Christmas cheer and your present wrapped up.
6. Place your Secret Santa present in the magic sack.
7. At present-giving time pick a gift from the magic sack.
8. Open your present and squeak with excitement.
9. Model your present proudly for the rest of the night looking a bit smug
10. Eat (cake), drink (insert booze of choice here) and be merry.

Picture by Mirvettium

A fine woolly beast awaits you

Who wouldn’t love to hang out with cuddly faced alpacas and knit in the surrounding green of the English countryside? Course you would! Well now you can.

Purl Alpaca Designs would like to invite you to one of their Knitting Workshops on their farm near Cambridge. Dates are 24th of October, 3rd November and 14th November.

You can hang out with the beasts by getting up close and personal with the original fibre providers, enjoy warm welcoming coffee and home-made biscuits at Scotland Farm, and get knitting with a unique Purl Alpacas design and benefit from one to one tuition from the designer.

Talks, chat, good company and home-cooked lunch are all included along with a Purl Alpacas knitting pack.

Price: £95 per person.
Time: 11am to 4pm
Price includes:

• Knitting pack with 5 balls of wool
• Home-cooked lunch
• Biscuits, tea and coffee
• Knitting tuition
• Alpaca tour and talks (from people, the alpacas can’t talk)

Scotland Farm is just outside Cambridge, very close to the A428 at Dry Drayton. Ample car parking available and full directions provided on booking.

For more workshop info see the Purl Alpacas shiny new website

The world’s first giant knitted poem is coming together. S&B Londoners have helped with the sewing but there’s still more to be done. If you have any free time this weekend (Sat 3rd and Sun 4th October 2009) get yourself down to The Poetry Society Studio and be a part of something fabulous at the Last Ditch Stitch.

The Poetry Society say:

Fair Isle Sock, Scotland, 1969

The Victoria and Albert Museum is possibly the craftiest museum London has and it’s been an S&B London favourite as long as we can remember. This autumn they’re offering a  series of ‘make do and mend’ practical courses that will help you kick the credit crunch, and get you crafting your way to Christmas.

You can learn some of those old-fashioned skills and translate them into creative designs for today, and you can start with unravelling the mysteries of knitting with guru, Trudy Healey Potter and the V&A Knit for Victory course.

Whether you have never cast on a stitch in your life or have already grasped the basics of knit one, purl one, Trudy will simplify the tricky world of tension, yarns, and patterns.

SPECIAL OFFER: The V&A are offering S&B Londoners 20% off full course price. Our exclusive price is £184 (Full price £230) Quote: Knitting offer when booking

INDIVIDUAL SESSIONS: Stitch and Bitch London members are also being exclusively offered the chance to purchase individual sessions at £35 per session. (Quote: Stitch and Bitch when booking)

The course includes all materials, a tour of Waterloo-based shop I Knit London shop, and 10% discount off shop purchases.
The course is suitable for beginners.

That’s a whole lot of knitting for your money, and how often can any of you say you learned stitching skills amongst a collection spanning 5000 years of art and craft. Certainly beats sitting at home squinting at a book.

Suitable for beginners

Knit for Victory – Knitting for Beginners

Sessions:
Tuesday 29 September
Tuesday 6 October
Tuesday 13 October
Tuesday 20 October
Tuesday 27 October
Tuesday 3 November 2009

Venue:
Victoria and Albert Museum
Seminar Room 2
Sackler Centre
Cromwell Road
London
SW7 2RL

Time: 14.00-16.30

Price:
FULL COURSE of 6 sessions £184 with 20% S&B London discount (Quote ‘Knitting’ when booking)
SESSIONS £35 each (quote ‘Stitch and Bitch’ when booking)

To book call +44 (0)20 7942 2211

For full details visit www.vam.ac.uk/events

S&B London love bees. We really do. So we thought we’d pass this one on:

Seasalt is a friendly little Cornish clothing company. As you may know, last year we ran a project called Go Knit! that raised nearly £3000 for charity. The campaign involved members of the public donating hand-knitted scarves for us to display in our shop windows which were then sold with all proceeds going to a chosen charity (last year we donated to The Cinnamon Trust).

The campaign is back for its second year, this time to support The Bumblebee Conservation Trust, a lovely charity that is responding to the plight of the declining population of our bees and we wondered if you could help?

If you could donate a scarf we would really appreciate it. Alternatively, if you could pass on our message to anyone you know who might like to help that would be brilliant too!

Each of the scarves will have a large ‘hand-knitted by…’ tag which is clearly visible to everyone passing the window. The knitter’s name (and optional website information) can be written on the tag, giving the knitter recognition here in Cornwall – and of course helping us to help the bees! The link to our website is www.seasaltcornwall.co.uk

If you would like to support our campaign please send any scarf donations to:

Kathryn Wild
Seasalt
1 Church Street
Falmouth
Cornwall
TR11 3DN

The scarves will be displayed throughout October, sorry, we know it’s short notice! It would be great to have any scarves by the 1^st October, or soon after as we will continually re-stock the charity window as scarves arrive.

If you would like any more information please email us.

Many thanks,

Leigh, Chloe …and the bees!