Spring Into Wool - Knitted Leeds

Knitted Leeds - Information

LANDMARK	Width	Height	COMMENTS AND IDEAS	Who?
Arcade (1)			Arcade	Annie
Arcade (2)			Arcade with rotating statue clock	Helen G.
BR Symbol	14 cm	10 cm	Symbolises the railway station. See next page.	Ellen
City Square			Not a rectangle. Statues.	Helen G.
City Varieties	25 cm	20 cm	Inside the theatre, with stage and seating.	Kelly
Corn Exchange	27 cm	17 cm		Bethanie
LGI	27 cm	20 cm	View from Millennium Square	Helen G.
Market	27 cm	17 cm	Inside or outside view?	Annie
Millennium Square	19 cm	20 cm		Helen G.
Quarry House	29 cm	16 cm	Government building - "The Kremlin"	Kelly
Royal Armouries	31 cm	17 cm	The building	Helen G.
St James	32 cm	18 cm		Helen G.
Town Hall	28 cm	19 cm		Kelly
Harry Ramsdens				Kelly
Civic Hall	18 cm	20 cm		Guiseley
First Direct Arena	31 cm	20 cm		Eleanor
Kirkstall Abbey	25 cm	20 cm	Abbey ruins. Plus non-rectangular grounds.	Guiseley
Universities	28 cm	20 cm		Guiseley
Rugby & Cricket	41 cm	22 cm	Pitch, rugby posts, stumps, and players	Janis
Roundhay Park	74 cm	34 cm	Mansion House, lakes, etc.	Roundhay
Oakwood Clock	10 cm	28 cm	Clock tower	Dawn B.
Oakwood Church	?? cm	22 cm	To replace what was called "Houses, Schools, Supermarkets"	Marina
Thackray Medical Museum	22 cm	12 cm	Skeleton, sawn-off leg, etc.!	Roundhay
Countryside	61 cm	13 cm	Fields and sheep.	Roundhay
ASDA HQ	33 cm	10 cm		Jaci
Channel 4 logo	10 cm	10 cm		Clare
Middleton Railway	16 cm	10 cm	Steam locamotive	Sandra
Tetley Brewery	31 cm	20 cm		Jenny
Marshall's Mill			Example of old industry south of river	Marina
Leeds Utd Ground	50 cm	20 cm	Pitch, stands, footballer/s and football	Wendy
Armley Mills	29 cm	23 cm	Mill. Plus non-rectangular grounds.	Wendy
Canal			3 strips of blue. Plus boats, lock, bridge, etc.	Natasha M.
Grammar School	47 cm	13 cm	Would be nice to have a hint of Spring Into Wool	Natasha M.
West Indian Carnival	34 cm	22 cm	Dancers in amazing costumes.	Heather C.
Temple Newsam House	28 cm	18 cm	Mansion house.	Katie C.
Temple Newsam grounds			Non-rectangular grounds.	Helen R.
Chapel Allerton	34 cm	23 cm	Outdoor street life. Or change to somewhere else?	Volunteer needed
Houses			Various housing.	Volunteer needed
Roads			4 narrow strips of grey. Needs some vehicles as well.	Helen R.
Road Signs			2 road signs. Possibly embroidery.	Volunteer needed
Knitted Leeds 2019	22 cm	16 cm	Title and year it was completed.	Kelly
Leeds Coat-of-Arms	36 cm	38 cm	Brilliant job done by Charlotte!	Charlotte
Knitters	?? cm	13 cm	Self portraits of people knitting	Charlotte

DESIGN - SLIGHTLY OUT OF DATE!

LINK TO VIDEO OF KNITTED NEWBURY

Click here to see a 13 minute video of Knitted Newbury

ADVICE AND IDEAS FROM MEETING WITH KNITTED NEWBURY LADIES (28^th June 2018)

GENERAL METHOD FOR A BUILDING:

Get a good photo of the building (preferably head on).
Print the photo so it fits onto an A4 sheet, and has the width and height defined on the plan (or is a little bit smaller).
Create an outline drawing that is the same size as the printout picking out the main features.
Decide which way to knit the building. Since most buildings have a flat bottom and a sloping roof, the first row of knitting will normally be the bottom of the building (because it's easier to decrease later on for the top of the building).
Decide what will be knitted and what will be added later using stitching or with special materials.
Write numbers and code letters (in pencil) onto your outline drawing to show the number of stitches required for each colour along the rows, e.g. "4 g" means 4 stitches of grey (see photo below). The size is crucial so be prepared to undo and begin again with a different number of stitches.
Choose your yarn. DK is often the best to use for the main part of the building. Finding colours of yarn to match the colours of the building can be tricky, so one method is to mix two different colours or use melange wool.
If you use different colours, you'll be winding the wool at the back as you change colours. When doing this, you might find that your knitting gets smaller and smaller, because it's not as loose as with single colours.
As you knit, keep measuring so you know you'll have the correct size at the finish. And always use your own style and creativity to get a wonderful effect.

SOME KNITTED PARTS WERE NOT USUAL KNITTING:

Not all plain knitting, e.g. some trees had eyelets and garter stitching.
Use of non-plain yarns, such as sparkly yarn and melange.
There are 3d knitted elements (like a children's toy) such as a plane, a horse and the Greenham Common women.
Some buildings had padding behind to create depth, e.g. the wings of a mansion and towers. This was stuffed at the time of sewing onto the base.

IT'S NOT ALL KNITTED:

Quite a lot of crochet - including the purple border
Tapestry - e.g. some boats, and the racecourse
Embroidery - to pick out detail e.g. writing, road sign. The Coat of Arms was made with embroidery using leather and gold work. Sewing in detail can be tricky so it's a good idea to back your knitted building with felt which makes the embroidery easier.
Felt - cut out shape for some windows and stitched on the cross
Pompoms - e.g. trees and decoration
French knots for flowers, and Chinese knots
Needle lace technique - e.g. duck
Lace - e.g. for window curtains

UNUSUAL MATERIALS:

One building was a plastic sheet with embroidery.
Windows of another building were cut out from clear acetate with black fabric behind and with use of a white chalk pen to make the wood.
Small curtain rings or washers for rounds details.

CHOICE OF ELEMENTS AND POSITIONING:

If roof is complex, think about knitting the sky at the same time.
It's a good idea to visit the building.
Personal touches, e.g. people knitted their own cars.
When laying out all the finished buildings/elements onto the base, you need to get a good balance of colours, so be prepared to move some things around, e.g. a red car from the left to the right. A good spread of colours is important.
During layout, add smaller elements to fill empty gaps, e.g. trees, ladybirds, birds.
Have several people sewing elements onto the base at the same time - one person in each corner. A large table is important. You need to shift the whole thing to one corner of the table to sew on the elements in the middle.
You can use cotton or wool to sew on the elements. Obviously, use a colour that will blend in (e.g. beige cotton, or wool of the same colour as a building). Some people left long tails when casting off their building so can use the tail to sew the building to the base.
Good idea to have a bag of trees near to fill in gaps.
For Newbury, it took about 2 months for the sewing on. Extra elements were knitted to fill the gaps, such as people, boats, grass, fences and traffic lights.
The border (which was crocheted in purple wool) was added to the base before the buildings/elements were sewn on, so that some elements could overlap the border.