World Cup Yarn Bombing Hits UK Beach Town

The knitters of Saltburn in the UK love decorating their pier for all sorts of occasions, such as the 2012 Summer Olympic Games and the Queen’s Jubilee.

This time the Yarnstormers have stitched up a tribute to the teams participating in the World Cup. There are characters and symbols for the represented countries, such as Swiss cheese, a hot dog for America, Russian dolls and a Frenchman complete with picnic basket and a string of onions (yes, national sterotypes are played up to a big degree here).

You can see more pictures, as well as highlights from other yarn bombs from Saltburn, at Love Knitting. The one shown is in honor of Spain’s victory at the last World Cup.

Would you ever take part in a giant installation like this? It’s kind of amazing.

[Photo via Love Knitting.]

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Linen stitch is one of my favorite knitting stitch patterns that, every time I use it in a project, I think about how I don’t use it often enough.

It’s an easy stitch to make, with slip stitches done with the yarn held to the front of the work on the right/front side and to the back on the wrong/back side, which makes the strand of yarn a visible part of the pattern.

It also makes a fabric that is thick and looks kind of like a woven fabric.

I recently used linen stitch to make a double-thick pot holder, which I worked in a kind of interesting way. I didn’t want to have to do any sewing on the project, so I started it from a crochet cast on and picked up stitches from the side of the cast on to make the hot pad all in one piece in the round with the edge sealed.

This requires working on two circular needles, which is another technique I don’t use that often and am always reminded how much I like it when I do.

The combination of double thickness and the stitch pattern makes for a hot pad that’s already pretty thick, but I also added a bit of old towel to the inside before I closed up the end to make it super thick and extra protective for your surfaces.

I found the engineering challenge of this construction method to be a lot of fun, but you could also just knit it as a tube (casting on twice as many stitches as I did) and sew up the ends by hand when the knitting is done. Either way you’ve got a useful and pretty addition to your kitchen, whether you work it in a solid color, stripes or as a stash busting project will all your cotton odd balls.

You can grab the pattern over at Our Daily Craft, or check it out on Ravelry.

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