Craftbomb!

If you go down to Glasgow Botanic gardens today you might just have a surprise!

This week is voluntary arts week, and to celebrate this there has been a craft explosion at the botanics.  The Arctic terns have flown in specially.

I even got reunited with my tern briefly!

There are crafted birds, carp, kites, pompoms, flowers, bugs, stars, to mention a few.  And there is my watering can, pouring over everyone who walks in to the Kibble palace!

You can see more pictures of the craftbomb over at Voluntary Arts Week.  And I'll share how I made the watering can soon.

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Arctic Tern

After I finished knitting my Arctic Tern (which may have involved some knitting in public & alcohol). It needed a beak and some feet.  The request was to used to recycled materials where possible, so I put on my thinking cap and got to work. 

 My beak, all the better for poking you with.

For the beak, a cotton bud wrapped in some material (from a rather holey pair of tights). For legs I cut some handles from disposable razors to size, and using embroidery thread and 2.75mm knitting needles, I knitted some red leg warmers for the bird.

I am legless.

 Here comes the hotstepper.

The feet were cut from a margarine lid, and covered in felt.

Ah ha! Great web design.

 A very, very hungry Arctic tern.

And just before migrating off to Mull my birdie said goodbye to Jeremy!

Bye Bye Birdie!

Seabirds...

In the post I have received the ingredients to knit an Arctic Tern.

The project is organised by Deirdre Nelson in response to the changing migration patterns of seabirds across Scotland's islands.  These knitted 'lost' arctic terns will be arriving on Tobermory Pier in Mull soon, and will then migrate over to the Dovecot studios in Edinburgh.  The yarn has been supplied locally from Ardalanish, Isle of Mull weavers.  It is a rich, tweedy, Bluefaced Leicester, and I can't wait to get my bird started.  As preparation for knitting an Arctic Tern, on Saturday I actually got to see some!  We went on a boat from the Scottish Seabird Centre in North Berwick, out to the Isle of May. This is me preparing for a life on the ocean wave!

The island is currently home to puffins, eider ducks & ducklings, kittiwakes, shags, fulmars, guillemots, razorbills, arctic terns and many more. On the way back the boat took us round Bass Rock, which was literally covered in gannets (and it smelt like it too!).

It was great fun, and perfect research for knitting an arctic tern!