She’s Come Undone – Nuit Blanche 2012

This is how the night began

At 7:00pm on September 29 we opened our doors to another Nuit Blanche exhibition.  This one (arguably) our most ambitious one to date.

A hand knit doll as big as me sat front and centre in the window.  I am 5 foot 6 inches tall. She has roosters with her.  My research into the beautiful Russian Nesting Dolls showed that the oldest chronicled Matroyshka was adorned with hand painted roosters.
At 9:00, this large lady was unravelled.  Yes – we ripped her to shreds and now she is nothing but balls of yarn on the floor.  It took almost a full hour to disassemble this doll. This is what we found underneath her↓
A buxom white beauty of a doll!
Every time we unravelled a doll we traced the outline of the next doll, and wrote the time she would be unravelled on the chalk board behind.  This chalk outline recounted the tale of dolls past and stood in for their absence.

At 10 o-clock we unravelled the white doll and this is what was hidden inside ↓
At 11pm be unravelled the pink barbapapa doll and this is what came next ↓This doll was a bit shorter so we gave her a pedestal to sit on.  Some of the dolls were unravelled from the floor up, and some were unravelled from theirs heads down.  This one was unravelled from the neck up and from the neck down simutaneously! Iwona took the low road and I took the high road if memory serves me.
At midnight we unravelled her and this is what came next ↓Isn’t she pretty? but not for long!at 1am we unravelled her.  Underneath was this doll ↓  She was industriously knitting herself. When we unravelled her we started with the scarf.I love this picture ↓ with the flashbulb doing it’s work.  You can see the shadows of the small Matroyskas that were also featured in this year’s display.  Have no fear – these small gems lived through the night and are still here to tell the tale.I can not say the same for the Knitting Matroyska though.  At 2am we unravelled her too.  Look what we found↓A doll with two heads!  Well – I never! and never will again. At 3am we deconstructed her too.
If you came by then, this is what you would have seen↑
The next morning looked like this ↓

What a pretty mess!
Thank you to all who helped create the beautiful dolls for the display.  Thank you to all who came and cheered us on while we did our work unravelling our labors.
We couldn’t have hoped for a better White-Night!
Craftily yours
Kristin
ps. there is video of this event on the way, stay tuned.

The day before the night.

The calm before the storm ↓  The “storm” is of course this year’s Nuit Blanche.

I expect that this now empty space will be filled to brimming when the sun goes down.  We will be open all night long making art.  Vive la Nuit Blanche, but thank goodness it comes but once a year.  I like my sleep!
After an appropriate recovery period I will post pictures of the event itself.  My living doll of a friend Katie Kehoe has graciously agreed to video the event for us so expect to see that some time in the future too.
Hope to see you there!

Craftily yours
Kristin

Under Cover

When was the last time you gathered up the blankets and made a fort?
It had been a while for me, but I can’t say the same now, as it was just last week that I made this one →
The building materials came from quadruplet- Noro- blankets.
I thought it was high-time they had their place in the sun especially with the recent and auspicious arrival of Noro Silk Garden yarn to the cafe.

If you were to take up residence and gaze skyward this ↑ is what you would see. The beauty of Noro – it comes shining through! To read more about this self striping yarn check out the Mr. Noro post from weeks past.

Noro is good building materials for all sorts of things (not just forts).

Case in point ↑ The Knit Cafe’s Confetti Mitts takes advantage of Noro’s colour-magic. There are many such examples, too numerous to count. 

In other news…
You can find out about The Knit Cafe’s upcoming plans for this years Scotia Bank Nuit Blanche (all night art event) right here. Only a month to go! Hope you will join us.
Craftily yours
Kristin

wait there’s more

Hello,

The lovely Robbie Eddison has graciously allowed me to use some of her night-of pictures for our blog.  Here you can see some shots of the Knit Cafe’s Nuit Blanche display dans la nuit.
Merci Robbie!

And while I’m thanking folks – to all the owl makers: Aurelie, Carol, Ellen, Heather, Iwona, Jamie, Jill, Kathy, Maurie, Ray Robbie, and Sarah

Merci!

Après la nuit

2011 Nuit Blanche Exhibition by the Knit Cafe
“Tecolote”

Pictures today. Words to come another day.

craftily yours
Kristin 

Nuit Blanche countdown

Only 2 more sleeps till the night of no sleep.

Get your knitting projects ready for a knitting marathon.  If you so choose you could knit from sundown to sunup this Saturday Oct 1 at the Knit Cafe.  We will be open for an evening of arts and crafts.  It is Nuit Blanche 2011! Our knit art exhibit will be opening at 6:59 pm.  We will be closed for a few hours before hand for set up, so try not to stop by between 5pm and 7pm.
If hands tire over the night you may want to spend some time with these↓
Free! What? 
Yes , free to those who have the chutzpah to sift through the plenty to find  just the right sort of buttons for their project. Thank-you’s go to Kate for donating some of her collected buttons

What is this?

This is what you would see if you wandered into our basement today.  It is the result of a day spent lumbering with power drills and paintbrushes.  It is the shoulders that will bear the weight of our entire Knit Cafe Nuit Blanche extravaganza. Here’s hoping that it remains stalwart and true. It is a long night.

You are cordially invited.

Craftily yours
Kristin 

night owls to take over the knit cafe! read all about it!

Nuit Blanche comes but once a year.  It takes about that long to come up with a project worth doing and then to execute with crafty conviction.
For those who are not familiar: Nuit Blanche is an arts festival that  is celebrated in many cities around the world.  It began in Paris, hence the frenchie name and for the last 5 years Nuit Blanche has been part of the cultural life of Toronto too. This year on Saturday October 1rst the city will be taken over by all manner of artistic endeavors.  The fun doesn’t start till 6:59pm  and won’t end till sunrise (approximately 6:59am) so eat your Wheaties! See the Scotia Bank Nuit Blanche web page for details about the event.  See below for a preview of the Knit Cafe’s plans for the night.
Stitch wizards  have been crafting these little buddies!  They will take center stage for the Knit Cafe’s 2011 Nuit Blanche exhibition called Tecolote (the spanish word for owl).  These night owls were created by a host of talented folks.  In the picture the one on the left was made by Iwona and the one on the right was made by Ray.  Ray’s owl was knit in Noro Silk Garden.  I think I may have let loose a squeal when I saw him for the first time, but can you blame me?  He is going home with Iwona so don’t get any ideas …but I digress.

Ray’s owl and his owl friends will be celebrating the Day of the Dead starting Oct 1 at 6:59pm.  You will have to come by and see exactly how this is done but until then here is another sneak peak into our preparations.
 Mexican Paper Flowers made from bright colours of tissue paper!  Yesterday there was even more paper arts then needle arts at the Knit Cafe.  Many happy flowers were assembled for the big night (this coming Saturday).  Thank you to all who came and helped out!  Cameron was especially helpful as you can see.If you would like to make your own tissue paper flowers, and you might as they would be a great project to do with kids or with kids of all ages, and they would bring joy, joy, joy to any party planners heart!  There are some good tutorials here and here.The Knit Cafe will be open all night long on the night of October 1.  Come join us and see our knit installation; bring your knitting and stay a while.  Coffee and treats will be served all night to boost endurance.  If you are not available to come and see us during Nuit Blanche you will be able to check out Tecolote on your own schedule.  It will be our window display for October into November.

If you would like to know about the Knit Cafe’s Nuit Blanche exhibitions past have a look at Knit City, Cirques des Hiboux and Knit Magic, unfortunately there are no pictures available from our Late Great Pom Pom Event from 2007, but maybe that is really for the best.  Some things are just too fluffy to document.

Till soon
Craftily yours
Kristin