Wednesday 12 February 2014

Six new cashmere cardies

Pretty in grey with chiffon roses by Seonaid Noble
Softest cashmere next to Kate Hackett's ceramics
Nice styling in brown with chiffon detail
Dove grey cashmere jersey with pink chiffon edging
Something new at Hobbycraft
 Seonaid Noble makes these cashmere cardigans from her home near Petersfield. When she brought them in to Handmade Happiness she was telling me that so often knitwear called 'cashmere' has only a small amount of actual cashmere in it. Her clothes are different as anyone who has felt them will agree. 

These beauties are larger in size than the six I had in the shop over Christmas. Everyone loved those ones but at sizes 8 to 10 most women longed for bigger sizes. These are size 12 - 14. There is also a rust brown style and a fashionable singing orange colour not pictured. By the way Seonaid's  name is pronounced 'Shawna' just in case you were wondering.

On Monday I visited Hobbycraft at Havant. I bought a sewing book that I'd had out of the library before and I was curious to see the textile yarn pictured above. I remember when a friend used to queue up at jumble sales waiting to pull from the piles all the cotton t-shirts she could. She would cut these into long strips to make rag rugs with to sell. Now the work has been done for her. New at Hobbycraft are these reels of what looks like t-shirt ribbon to knit with, crochet with or even to make rag rugs with!

Are we being spoon fed like this because women haven't got time any more to make their own raw materials for craft?  Looking round Hobbycraft there's a lot of 'spoon feeding' going on. Make your own cards but first buy all the little bits to stick on your cards from us. Try 'decopatch' but first buy your papier mache 3D shape and the squares of printed coloured paper to glue on to them. (Someone phoned up recently offering the shop decopatched dinasoars.) 

Craft has certainly come a million miles from war time thrift when everything had to be re-used from adult clothes cut down to fit children to laddered stockings and worn fabrics cut to make plaited rugs. Admittedly there was probably more grim satisfaction than fun in making things like that. 

But now when people want to find more time to  get back in touch with their creative side to make things both beautiful and useful, what is more satisfying and fun that tapping in to our own imaginations to come up with something as wonderful and individual as we are!

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