Category: Badger Makes

Badger Makes

Here be Dragons

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I have a real problem with dragons.
Truth is I’ve always had a problem with them in that despite my age I still love dragons. It is a silly interest, probably a hangover from my obsession with Ann McCafferys PERN books back when I was a preteen (lets not pretend it ended there, I still own all the books and have reread them many many times).

I honestly cannot put my finger on why I love these silly fantasy creatures, probably they are a fascinating animal that never existed, but have managed to manifest in the imagination of so many human cultures. Dragons in human culture is another post altogether and this is about knitting

So it is little wonder that when I came across Dale of Norway and their amazing knitwear designed for the Norwegian Ski teams of the last 50+ years, I was immediately drawn to the one for the Nagano winter Olympics in 1998. It has dragons!


And that lead to a hyper obessive four year search for the pattern booklet, which arrived a fortnight ago. The English translation has been out of print for year and is nigh on impossible to find, but find it I did.

And now, after a week of knitting, I am so very close to Dragons

Badger Makes

Making badgers

adrianLeave a comment

After making my husband his Mastodon, I decided that of course I should make myself a Badger.
Ravelry has been my go to knitting pattern source for years, but I’ve never bothered much with crochet because I was a snob about the way crochet fabric looked. I’ve evolved on that and have come to appreciate the craft more, admittedly I’m never going to crochet a garment because I still don’t like the look, but I have learned to love making crochet things. It’s been fascinating learning how increases and decreases in the right places shape the fabric in different ways.

I found a badger amigurumi I wanted to make, then another, and then another. I fear that I have created a problem for myself, because I know that one way or another, this year I will have to make them all…

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And that’s just the crochet badgers…

The remarkable Claire Garland (Dot Pebbles) created knitted badgers too. https://www.ravelry.com/patterns/sources/claire-garland-dot-pebbles-ravelry-store

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Badger Makes

I made a thing

adrian1 Comment
Mastondon

Making things is my thing.
I’m very much hooked on knitting, but I taught myself to crochet a few years ago and it’s something that I can take or leave, it’s fiddly and I don’t care much for how crochet fabric looks in garments. But, it’s amazing for making toys and bags and things like that.

So when m’husband and I joined the twitter exodus for Mastodon I remembered seeing a crochet pattern for a mammoth, and yes I know that they weren’t the same thing, but close enough for a toy made of yarn…

A month of fiddle-arseing around and counting rounds and putting off the making up (because it’s my least favourite part of any project, I finished off the yet unnamed mastodon for m’husband.

I may make another sometime, but right now I have my eyes on a badger pattern that is making my fingers itch.

Badger Makes

Knitting and me

adrianLeave a comment

I’m a knitter. 
A man who knits, not that that is a strange thing anymore, well not among the knitting community. Occasionally a journalist will find out about a bright young thing (like Tom Daley) who is also a talented knitter and suddenly gasps all around there are men who *gasp* knit! 

Anyway, I love to knit, it is my mindfulness practice. I used to think that I was a project knitter, but I think I’m actually a process knitter, the actual production of the fabric is so much more important to me than the outcome, even if the outcome is nice to wear.

So I’ll be using this new blog to talk about my knitting projects and processes with lot of nice photos that I take to post on Mastodon for the attention it gives.  

Currently on the needles:

St Brigid by Alice Starmore

I recently completed the back, this is it drying after blocking.
There will be a St Brigid page when I get around to it with more photos