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Sun
has got his hat on greetings to you
We
hope this newsletter finds you well, finally able to safely stash away
your winter woollies and release your more sunshiney knits into the
wilds of London.
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Our big news is an exclusive
meeting at the Science Museum.
You can blow things up, conduct dastardly experiments, and do Wallace
and Gromit cheesy grins while you stitch.
It’s your last chance
to get in on the Race
for Life fun. We’re racing
on the 6th of May and stitching as we go. You can sponsor
us to knit and race, buy
our almost-free
hat patterns, or just come
along to Battersea Park on the day to cheer us on. We’ll walk faster if
you wave cake.
Competition Time
leaps from the undergrowth again with the shiny new Knit
Café book, we check up on the giant
knitted rabbit with our satellite spycams, and we offer you a the
chance to cover a British landmark in your stitchery.
Also coming up is World
Wide Knit in Public Day, and the giant radioactive city-crushing
Godzilla that is our 2009 Knit Crawl on June the 13th. Put a
big woolly X in your diary now.
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The Royal
Festival Hall saw us forming a knitterly pool in the centre of the main
bar, longing for headtorches as the lights were dimmed, knitting all
kinds of wonders from film strips to future graffiti, and making crafty
friends with the lovely blokes from Skart, whose thought-provoking arty-craftiness can
be seen at the
Space studios right here in
our fair city.
Leon was the usual blend
of whirling yarn and healthful but tastified munchies. Spitalfields
market echoed with the sounds of us doing the two things we do best
(it’s not all about the stitching, you know) as it was warm enough for
us to sit outside at last. Yay!
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Stitch and
Summer’s Nearly Here
Details of the
next meeting:
Join us as we venture
(kinda) outdoors this week at the centre of London’s theatre land.
We’ve previously had musically themed sing-alongs and stitched to the
sounds of string quartets. No doubt we’ll be in for treat once again.
And if it rains, do not despair, we will be completely sheltered from
any possible showers.
THURSDAY 16TH
APRIL
Time: From 6pm
Venue: The Crusting Pipe
27 The Market
Covent Garden
London
WC2E 8RD
Map Website Nearest Tube: Covent Garden, Embankment
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Stitch and Weird Science and a
Knitting Dog
Details of the
meeting after that:
Tonight’s special
gathering brings us to the Science Museum, for the new Wallace &
Gromit exhibition. We’ll be stitching away in the Revolution
Café, which will be serving traditional English grub (plenty of
lovely cheese and fish ‘n’ chips). Yum! And if you fancy it, the
night’s special ‘late’ opening gives you a chance to get interactive
with the exhibition without any pesky kids around.
The museum’s official
opening time is 6:45pm, however, being special guests for the evening,
we can sneak in early, in advance of the general public. You’ll need to
go to the
Groups Entrance (off Imperial College road, opposite the
Mormon temple) for 6:15pm.
Anyone arriving later will need to go to the main entrance to get in at
6:45pm.
WEDNESDAY 22ND
APRIL
Time: From 6:15pm (15 mins later than usual. Pay attention!)
Venue: The Revolution Café (ground floor)
The Science Museum
25 Exhibition Rd
London
SW7
Tel: 0870 870
4868
Map Website Nearest Tube: South Kensington
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Stitch and EVerybody Loves Mezze
Details of the
meeting after that:
TUESDAY 28TH
APRIL
Time: From 6pm
Venue: EV Delicatessen
The Arches
97-99 Isabella Street
London SE1 8DD
Map Website Nearest Tube: Southwark, Waterloo
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Stitch and Bloody Big Bunny
From our S&B
archives we went back to check on our friend the giant knitted bunny…
So picture this: you
are sitting on an aeroplane sipping your glass of in-flight vino, you
managed to sneak your Denise knitting needles through airport security
(yay!) so you’re purling away, you nabbed a window seat to inspire you
with planeside views, you peer down on the world, you see tiny houses,
you see teeny trees, you see a giant pink knitted rabbit, you see…hang
on! What?!
Near the town of
Artesina, in the Italian Alps, lies a GIANT
KNITTED PINK RABBIT! A
group of four Austrian artists called Gelitin have spent five years, and possibly a lot of
pairs of needles, knitting a beast so big you can see it on satellite
cameras.
Think we’re talking
rhubarb? Click
here to go to our blog post
and marvel at the bunny on Google Maps.
The giant bunny will be
lounging on the hillside for the next 20 years (or until a giant
knitted fox comes to eat him), so if you’re in the area you are invited
by the artists to “climb up along its ears, almost fall into its
cavernous mouth, to the belly-summit and look out over the pink woolen
landscape of the rabbit’s body, a country dropped from the sky”. Field
trip, anyone?
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Stitch and Mine’s a Latte:
Greetings From Knit Café Competition
Its competition time
again! This month publishers STC Craft have given us 5 copies of the delicious Greetings
from Knit Café which
5 of you jammy dodgers can win.
Los Angeles. Home of
people with very white teeth, a city that has a HUGE sign with its name
on in case it forgets it, and a fabulous little place called Knit
Café.
Greetings
from Knit Café
includes 30 California style knitting projects ranging from hiking
socks to a bikini, cute lace skirts to a red carpet gown. This is mixed
in with stories about how the real Knit Café, on Melrose Avenue
in LA, came to be and the range of customers including actors, surfers,
doctors, and directors that gather there. This is a really lovely book
and even has a few favourite recipes from regular customers included.
If you can’t find anything you want to make in it we’ll eat our hats
(providing they are made of cake).
So, to win a copy,
simply answer this brain-taxing question:
LA is home to a
famous place called The Knitting Factory. What kind of place is it?
a. A giant yarn shop
b. A music venue
c. A place where Nannas knit Shreddies for a living
Email us at stitchettes@stitchandbitchlondon.co.uk
with:
The subject "I am a
yarn-and-cake-aholic"
Answer A, B, or C
Your full name, email
address, and contact phone number (if you have one)
The deadline for the
competition is Wednesday 22nd April at 10am. The 5 winners
will be picked (by our clever Winner-Selecting Angora Rabbit) from all
correct entries, and notified by email or phone within 48 hours.
A quick reminder that
yarn and cake bribes will get you nowhere! It’s as easy as choosing
your answer, emailing us, and then sitting back with your double shot
cappuccino and rocky road slice for the results to come in. Good luck!
Competition rules: 1.
One entry per person. 2. Competition ends 22nd April 2009 at
10am. 4. Winners will be drawn from all correct answers, and notified
within 48 hours via email or phone. 5. If winners don’t reply with
addresses within two weeks of closing date then new winners will be
chosen. 5. No cash alternatives. 6. Book will be posted to winners.
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Stitch and Bridging the Gap
The Skye Bridge links
the Isle of Skye with the mainland in the West Highlands of Scotland
and is a vital part of life for those that live on either side. Luib
na Lùban, a new
textile art group in Skye and Lochalsh invites you to take part in
their ambitious project to cover the entire Skye Bridge in knitting.
This rather large
piece of guerrilla knitting is being made as part of Highland
Homecoming 2009, which
celebrates 250th anniversary of Robert Burns’ birth as well as
Scotland’s great contributions to the world. But you don’t have to be a
Scot to join in with the knitting.
You are invited to
knit or crochet large panels, scarves, or smaller rectangles to specific
dimensions, which will be
joined together to cover the bridge. The project will demonstrate the
knitty links that exist all over the world, which in turn emphasises
the link that the bridge represents to the residence on either side.
The deadline for sending
in your contribution is the 25th September and all sections will be
auctioned off for charity at the end of the project. Find out all the
details at their website and we promise to keep you up to date with how
this mammoth project progresses.
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Stitch and Knit Me Baby One More
Time
Kat is giving us
another chance to contribute to her fab final year design project, Knit Me.
If you couldn’t join
us at the Trafalgar Square event, or would like another go at the
massive collaborative project then why not pop along on SATURDAY 18th
APRIL to the RFH and add your creativity to this growing artwork?
SATURDAY 18TH
APRIL
Time: 1pm - 5pm
Venue: The Royal Festival Hall (1st
floor by the glass lift)
Address: South Bank Centre
Belvedere Road
London
SE1 8XX
Website Nearest Tube: Waterloo, Embankment
You can find out how
we got on at the Trafalgar Square event on the blog.
We hope to see you there
with the most random yarn you can find.
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That’s all we can possibly
squeeze out of the knitting world for you this time. We hope to see you
cheering us on at Race for Life, whipping up a hat or two for cancer
fighters, and enjoying the springiness of London in the spring. Whilst
you are busy doing this please spare a thought for all those involved
in the horrific earthquake catastrophe in Italy, where one brave knitter has
survived with the power of the knit.
May the stitch be with you,
lovely S&B Londoners.
The S&B London
Stitchettes x
stitchettes@stitchandbitchlondon.co.uk
www.stitchandbitchlondon.co.uk
JOIN
US ON RAVELRY
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S&B
London promise not to
share your email address with anyone, not even if they ask us nicely
and
offer us sweet, sweet cake or cashmere. S&B London is a non- profit group and we do
all this
for no payment in our spare time, so please be patient if we make
mistakes.
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