Say it with knitting!

April 22, 2014

Whether it be on your clothes, a cushion cover or a patchwork blanket – you can say it with knitting!

First of all decide what you want to write. Then make a plan.

You’ll need some squared paper which you can buy or make yourself. Each square on the paper will represent one stitch on your needle. So number the squares and then mark out whatever you want to write in knitting. Once you’ve worked out how many stitches wide your whole piece will be you can cast on in your background colour, and have your contrasting colour ready to use when you come to the stitches mapped out on your plan. As you change colours you just string the other colour across the back of the knitting ready to use next time that colour is required by your plan – you don’t cut – just keep changing between colours while keeping all yarns attached until you’ve completed your design.

It’s important to make sure you’re counting from the right direction so that your writing comes out the right way round. Look what happens if you don’t:

This should read NEVER TRUST A MAN IN A SUIT but the words A MAN have come out backwards because the stitches were counted from the wrong direction – ie On your plan, on a purl row the stitches should be counted from the left and on a knit row you count from the right. Let me show you what I mean.

In this picture the purl rows are indicated in purple and the knit rows in red. When you want to produce an image or writing on your knitting you have to remember you’ll be building from the bottom right. So, if you’re following your own pattern, starting the bottom line of your words with a knit row, you need to count from the right. For example, the first stitch for which you’d use a different colour in this example would be the 21st stitch of a knit row which is the tail of the G. Then, on the next row, the first purl stitch for which you’d use a different colour would be the 6th, for the bottom of the V.

Does that make sense?

So that’s it. Be a crafty activist and make your own outspoken jumpers, hats, scarves and blankets 🙂

Oh, and if you don’t know how to knit but would like to learn, here’s a really good video to get you started:

For the right handed:

For the left handed:

Sunday April 13th

April 13, 2014

By Violet's Vegan Comics

It’s National Scrabble Day!

We love a good game of Scrabble as much as the next person but it’s even better when you make it vegan scrabble!

Give your game a vegan theme by stipulating that all the words must be related to veganism! It’s not as narrow as you might think. You could have any word related to vegan food, to nature, to animals, to environment … anything related to veganism and the natural world, however tenuous the link. It can be a real challenge and it’ll make you laugh when you have to try to find a vegan connection to whatever word you’ve managed to make with your tiles.

Give it a go – especially today on National Scrabble Day! 🙂

Saturday April 12th

April 12, 2014

By Violet's Vegan Comics

It’s National Licorice Day!

Here’s something for ya! Click the pic for the recipe.

Raw Carrot Cake

April 7, 2014

By Violet's Vegan Comics

In celebration of …. life!

This is my modest version of Fully Raw Kristina’s Birthday Carrot Cake

I didn’t have all the ingredients on her list, nor the equipment (Vitamix and food processor) so I made do with what I had and made my own version. Making raw recipes is a great idea for children to be able to do on their own or with little supervision because there’s no hot oven to worry about and, in the case of using these manual tools, there’s no sharp blades either.

Hand-crank BL30 manual juicer with different screens and hand-crank whisk.

For the base:

2 cups of carrot juice pulp

1 and a half cups of sultanas

Half a cup of medjool dates

Half a tablespoon of cinnamon

1 teaspoon of vanilla essence

For the icing:

1 and a half cups of raw cashews (soaked for 3 hours -or overnight- in the fridge)

Half a cup of filtered water

Half a cup of medjool dates

1 tablespoon of fresh pineapple juice

1 teaspoon of vanilla

Now, if you have a blender and a food processor, you can follow Kristina’s instructions, but if, like me, you’re making do without, here’s how I suggest you continue 😉 :

First put the carrots through the juicer and collect the pulp. Put 2 cups full of pulp into a mixing bowl.

Then take the juicer apart, rinse it and put it back together, replacing the holey screen with the smooth one. Put the sultanas, followed by the dates (after you’ve cut out the pits) through the juicer. These come out as a stiff, sticky rope of fruity goodness.

Add the mushed sultanas and dates to the carrot pulp and mix well. Your food processor is your arm and a large fork. Really get stuck in and combine that stuff! It’s not easy – I had to sit down! – but think how much you will have earned that cake when you’ve finished! 🙂

Then add the cinnamon and vanilla and mix well. When you’ve got a moist mixture with all the ingredients and flavours well-combined you’re ready to mould it into a cake shape.

Cut a circle of parchment paper to fit the removable bottom of your cake tin. Then cut a rectangular piece to line the sides of the tin. Spoon your mixture into the lined tin and press it down so that it fills the bottom evenly. Place the tin in the freezer for an hour to help the cake set in this shape. While it’s setting, wash up your juicer and bowl and everything so that you can use it all again to make the icing.

Put a little fresh pineapple or lemon if you’ve got it, through the juicer (using the holey screen) and put aside 1 tablespoon of juice. Then change to the smooth screen and put your soaked cashews through the juicer (after draining and rinsing with fresh filtered water). Put the mushed cashews into your mixing bowl.

Put your pitted dates through and add the resultant sticky rope to the cashews. Mix well -and again this is going to require some effort – with a fork. Add half a cup of filtered water, plus 1 tablespoon of the juice you made and 1 teaspoon of vanilla essence. Mix it all well with your fork. You will notice it’s not as smooth as Kristina’s but as long as you’ve got all the flavours well combined it will taste just as delicious. To make it as smooth as possible I also gave it a good whisk with my hand-crank whisk.

Put this mixture into the fridge and wait until your cake has been in the freezer for a full hour.

Now, this is the exciting bit where you see all your hard work come together:

Take your tin out of the freezer and carefully push the base of your tin up to remove the cake. Slide the paper off the base of the tin and onto a plate. Your cake should now be standing proudly, unsupported, on your plate.

Take your soft nutty icing out of the fridge and cover your cake. Add decorative nuts or fruits if you like.

And that’s it! 😀

Slice it carefully, and then remove each slice with a pie-slice (triangular thing) if you’ve got it, and share it with lucky family and friends. Keep what’s left, if any, in the fridge.

This is delicious and incredibly sweet – though my family says “absolutely not too sweet!”

And I can now confirm that it tastes even better on day 2, and sooooo good on day 3. After that it was all gone 😉

This looks amazing!

April 6, 2014

By Violet's Vegan Comics

I am dying to give this one a go – will my BL 30 Manual Juicer be up to doing the work of a vitamix blender and a food processor for this spectacular recipe? Well, it hasn’t let me down so far. I’ll give it a try and let you know 🙂

Look what I’ve found!

April 3, 2014

By Violet's Vegan Comics

Remember when we had a go at growing our own apple trees from seed? (They’re still going strong by the way). Well, I’ve just come across this brilliant site which shows you, step by step, how to grow all sorts of different trees from seeds you’ve collected yourself!

I can’t wait to have a go!

It just makes you want to plant stuff!

Make some sugar-free jam – you know you want to!

March 2, 2014

By Violet's Vegan Comics

If you want jam but not sugar (nor other added sweetener either) then this is the recipe for you!

In the inventor’s own words “This recipe for strawberry jam does take some time to make in the absence of sugar or a natural sweetener, but the end result is pure strawberry goodness. It is definitely sweet enough and has an amazing buttery smooth and creamy consistency. I guarantee that if you like fresh strawberries, you will love this recipe.”

So go on, pop over to this website – Living Healthy with Chocolate dot com – and give it a go!

I know I’m going to! 🙂

Ladybird Ladybird

March 1, 2014

By Violet's Vegan Comics

Ladybirds are good for the garden as they will eat the insects that hurt your plants. A ladybird house, as well as planting things they like (like dandelion and fennel), will encourage ladybirds to stay in your garden because it provides them with a safe roosting place during cold and frosty nights in early spring and a safe place in which to hibernate in winter.

So why not make one?

Put your bug house under a shrub or against a wall where it is warm and sheltered but not hot.

And if you’re feeling a bit more ambitious look at this! Amazing!

Don’t use chemicals in your garden, encourage nature to do the work for you 🙂

Don’t forget to wave

February 27, 2014

By Violet's Vegan Comics

Prompted by our new and exciting interest in growing our food we’ve found something garden-related for you to enjoy 🙂

And if, after that, you’re feeling inspired, as we are, to indulge in some forest gardening, take a look at this gem of a blog I found yesterday – Of Plums and Pignuts – it’s choc full of inspiration. This post in particular gives you that “anything’s possible” excitement that makes you want to just get out there and do it! 😉

Grow your own apple trees

February 19, 2014

By Violet's Vegan Comics

One day we caught the bus into the city and on the way, in the middle of nowhere, the bus stopped to pick someone up. Right next to the bus stop, on the wide grass verge, was a large apple tree. It was full of apples. An apple tree, in the middle of nowhere, by a bus stop, apparently not belonging to anyone. Free apples for anyone who chose to help themselves.

“How brilliant!” we thought. We should all plant fruit and nut trees at every opportunity, and provide free food for foragers. Food that will keep being produced year after year without any help from us.

So, we looked up how to grow an apple tree from seed (turns out there’s seed drying, seed damp-wrapping and seed cooling to be done, plus some weeks of waiting) and began 🙂

This was taken in January of our first seedling

And this is what it looks like now

So far we have 3 little apple trees going strong, all different varieties as advised on wikihow

It’s very exciting to watch them grow 😀

According to wikihow these trees, grown from seed, will be big (so we’ll have to carefully consider where we plant them) and it will probably be 10 years before they produce any fruit – but so what? We’re planting for the future, and that’s very cool! It doesn’t cost us anything and it’s a very positive thing to do. Why don’t you have a go? Here’s how

Fancy growing other types of tree from seeds you’ve collected? No problem – just look at this brilliant web page

UPDATES:

Look here to see how our little apple trees are doing 14 months later 🙂

And look at them now – after 2 and a quarter years 😀

And the year after that! (2017)

And in 2019!

Re-knitting UPDATE

February 6, 2014

By Violet's Vegan Comics

The hoodie is done! See Re-Knitting in Things to make and do

Violet’s Animal Quiz

January 9, 2014

By Violet's Vegan Comics

This game is simple. You can play alone or with friend(s). All you have to do is turn over the question cards (play the videos 🙂 ) one at a time.

Either write down your answers (if you’re all answering the same question) or say your answer aloud (if you’re taking it in turns and only one of you is answering each question).

Then check the answer by turning the answer card for that particular question. If you got it right you get a point – someone should keep score 😉

The person with the most points at the end is the winner 🙂

By the way, I got all the information for this quiz from here, here, here, here and here so if you don’t know the answer and you don’t want to guess you can look it up

🙂

Question 1:

Question 2:

Question 3:

Question 4:

(you can have a point if you get close to right answer on this one)

Question 5:

Question 6:

Question 7:

Question 8:

Question 9:

Question 10:

Question 11:

Question 12:

Question 13:

Question 14:

Question 15:

Question 16:

Question 17:

Question 18:

Question 19:

Question 20:

Question 21:

Question 22:

Question 23:

Question 24:

Question 25:

Question 26:

Question 27:

That’s the lot for now, but we will continually add more questions so do come back and pick up where you left off 🙂

Feeling Crafty?

December 27, 2013

By Violet's Vegan Comics

How about making a snowman?

At Red Ted Art they’ll show you how to make lots of cute snowmen out of toilet rolls and old socks and then you can play skittles with them!

And you don’t need to use plastic goggly eyes or felt – you can draw on the eyes and buttons or stick on some actual buttons that you’ve got lying around at home.

And don’t worry if you haven’t got any toilet rolls saved – make the cardboard rolls out of whatever you’ve got – cereal boxes for example.

And here’s how to make your own glue

Keep it vegan and recycled and you can’t got wrong!

Have fun 😀

Easy Vegan Christmas Treats

December 25, 2013

By Violet's Vegan Comics

Crack some lovely nuts

Chop the nuts into little bits – or big bits, it’s up to you

Chopped nuts

Grab some gorgeous vegan organic fair trade chocolate

break it up and put it in a small dish

Float your small dish in a big bowl of hot water – careful not to scald yourself and don’t get any water in with the chocolate. Let it sit and melt.

Add a good portion of sultanas – or whatever dried fruit you fancy – to the chopped nuts

Put the fruit and nuts into a larger clean bowl and when the chocolate is completely melted pour it in with them and mix well

Line a baking tray with greaseproof paper and spread your chocolate fruit and nuts over it. Bung it in the fridge.

When it’s set hard, break it into chunks

Put all your chunks into a dish and return it to the fridge.

See – easy! 😀

BUT BE WARNED – THESE SWEETS ARE SO GOOD THEY MIGHT NOT LAST LONG!

HAPPY CHRISTMAS 😀

Open House Part 5

October 13, 2013

By Violet's Vegan Comics

And now the 5th and final part of Violet’s Veg*n e-Comics’ Open House – I give you …

Things to make and do!

Here you will find a collection of fun activities like games, puzzles, recipes and crafts (kind of – is making things out of old card a craft?)

Now, should I include a picture? Why not. Here’s one of ….. how to make the ‘Helping Venus’ game:

veggie kids

and here’s another one of some gorgeous vegan flapjacks you can make:

veggie kids

oooh, I’m hungry now …. see ya 🙂

Oh, clicking on these won’t work, just go to the ‘things to make and do’ link at the top.

Oh yes, words for google to notice, erm …. vegan, vegan children, veggie kids, vegetarian children, vegan comics, Violet’s Vegan Comics, vegan comics for children … that’ll do.

Re-Knitting

September 9, 2013

By Violet's Vegan Comics

Knitting is a very enjoyable hobby as well as being a very useful skill. To be able to make your own clothes, toys and accessories is a brilliant way of being self-reliant and can also be eco-friendly.

As a vegan shopper you won’t want to buy wool or alpaca or silk, but as an eco-minded shopper you won’t want to buy acrylic. The problem is that organic, eco-friendly, natural yarns are very expensive.

So what do you do if you can’t afford the eco-stuff? Simple – you Re-Knit!

Browsing in charity shops and second hand shops you’re bound to find knitwear that is a pretty colour, but unattractive design. If you buy it, wash it and unravel it, you can re-knit that colour into something beautiful. It’s just another way to recycle, or upcycle if you like, and it’s very enjoyable and satisfying. Here are a few things we made with unravelled yarn and oddments:

This matching hat and mittens was made by acrylic yarn unravelled from 2 different machine-knit jumpers. The problem with unravelling machine-knits is that the yarn is cut at the end of each row, it's not continuous like with hand-knits. So the ends of the yarn had to knotted together as each row was unravelled. Quite tedious and time-consuming but it results in interesting balls of yarn which, when knitted together, produce a unique effect. Leaving the dangling ends of each knot untrimmed creates a shabby chic effect .

This matching hat and mittens was made with acrylic yarn unravelled from 2 different machine-knit jumpers. The problem with unravelling mass-produced machine-knits is that the yarn is cut at the end of each row, it’s not continuous like with hand-knits. So the ends of the yarn had to knotted together as each row was unravelled. Quite tedious and time-consuming but it results in interesting balls of yarn which, when knitted together, produce a unique effect. Leaving the dangling ends of each knot untrimmed creates a shabby chic effect .

Blanket made by sewing together little knitted squares

The yarn from these saggy old hats was unravelled and knitted into …

… this gorgeous beret

An enjoyable way to give new life to old knitwear and keep it out of landfill 🙂

Don’t know how to knit? No problem – watch this brilliant video:

And for the left-handed:

UPDATE:

I’ve just finished the hoodie I was knitting in the photo at the top. I wanted a warm chunky knit but didn’t have any thick yarn so this is knitted with 3 strands of unravelled DK acrylic; lots of different colours and oddments. It’s so soft and warm, like wrapping yourself in a blanket before you go outside. Now I’ve just got to find a zip for it 🙂

Further update:

I’ve just finished another one here and if you would like to make one yourself, the pattern is at the bottom of this post 🙂

Lovely Pink Pyjamas

September 4, 2013

By Violet's Vegan Comics

Eve’s been having fun with our Reflecto Girl paper doll. She decided she needed some pyjamas 🙂

Reflecto Girl Paper Doll

August 27, 2013

By Violet's Vegan Comics

Make your own Reflecto Girl paper doll 🙂

All you need is some cardboard (maybe from an old cereal box); some paper (I used the back of some sketchbook pages I’d already used); a pencil; some paint or crayons and some scissors (careful with those!)

First draw a picture of Renee in her underwear (include a semi circle at the base which will form part of the stand)

colour her

cut her our (remembering to cut around the semi-circle at the base, not around her feet)

cut her out (remembering to cut around the semi-circle at the base, not around her feet)

You might find at this point that she flops over a little when you stand her up. If so, you can draw around her on another piece of card, and make her stiffer by sticking that to the back with a little water-based glue

Now draw her some clothes. I chose to draw her Reflecto Girl costume and her dungarees which she wore over her costume in episode 3 – but you can make any clothes you like, and as many as you like. Place the cardboard doll on a piece of paper and draw round her. To draw where the feet and neck are on your clothes, hold the paper over the doll against a window and trace. Once you have the outlines drawn, you can use your imagination in drawing the clothes. NB You must also remember to draw the tabs that will be folded round her body to attach the clothes.

Colour them in and cut them out.

Now you need to get her standing up by herself. To do this you need a strip of cardboard into which you cut 2 slits (half the length of the width of the strip), the same distance from each end. Then cut 2 slits of equal length in the semi-circle base of the doll (close but not too close to the outer edges).

Slot these pieces together like so. And there she is, your own Reflecto Girl!

Now you can dress her …

... and dress her again (and yes I have noticed that her feet don't quite line up with her shoes, but nobody's perfect, so let's not worry about it.

… and dress her again (and yes I have noticed that her shoes don’t quite line up with her feet, but nobody’s perfect, so let’s not worry about it).

We hope you enjoy making your own Reflecto Girl and if you do we’d love to see photos 🙂

And whenever you feel like it, you can make her more clothes and accessories.

Miranda wanted her to have some pyjamas and a doll to sleep with:

Make Your Own “Helping Venus” Game

August 25, 2013

By Violet's Vegan Comics

Venus works hard trying to clean up the rubbish in the ocean in order to save the animals who are being poisoned and ensnared by it. But since 80% of the rubbish in the oceans originates on land, it’s impossible for her to keep her beloved sea clean. So, the rest of us need to make sure that all our rubbish is properly disposed and not littered. More than that, we need to actually pick up other people’s litter in order to protect wild animals and help Venus.

Yuck! That sounds like a dirty job, and it’s important to take care not to pick up anything dangerous like broken glass or needles (ask a grown up to deal with that stuff) but if we don’t do it, who will? Of course it would be better in the long run if we stop buying things that don’t degrade harmlessly in the environment – namely plastic – and then this nasty litter problem might be solved.

Anyway, I’ve invented a board game that you can make for yourself and all you need is paper; something with which to draw or paint; stones or buttons or whatever little things you’ve got lying around to use as counters; and a dice pinched from another game.

1. Paint an aerial view (map-type) picture of Venus’s home town (it doesn’t have to be the same mine, you can use your imagination 🙂 )

2. Add places to visit, like shops and cafes

3. Then add ways to score points like picking up litter; refusing to buy plastic items; recycling what you’ve found or bought; and freeing animals who have been trapped in cages.

4. Finally add stepping stones which link all these places on your map.

Now your picture should look something like this:

game 2 — IF YOU CLICK ON THIS PIC YOU WILL MAGNIFY IT SO YOU CAN SEE IT BETTER

NOW YOU’RE READY TO PLAY!

Imagine you have come to visit Venus and are staying at the campsite (place all the counters at the campsite to start). But Venus is out diving, cleaning up the rubbish in the sea, so while you’re waiting for her you can explore the town.

Each person rolls the dice and the one with the highest score starts.

When you roll the dice you move that number of spaces (stepping stones) from the campsite. You can go in any direction but you can’t change direction in the middle of one roll.

The idea is to go around the town, accumulating points by landing on the award-giving spots. You have to roll the exact number to land on the award-spots (and that doesn’t mean the stepping stone next to the award-spot – you actually land on the award-spot).

You can go around the town as many times as you like and land on the same awards more than once, but if you go back to the campsite the game will be over.

In other words, the game can last as long as you like. As soon as the first person gets back to the campsite, the game is over and you add up all your points. The person with the most points is the winner (not the first person back to the campsite). So, you need to be aware of when you are in the lead on points and then get back to the campsite as quick as you can before someone else overtakes your score.

It’s fun and very easy to make 🙂

Home Made Vegan Monopoly

December 21, 2012

By Violet's Vegan Comics

Cut out a large square of cardboard from your cereal box or whatever and draw a line inside the outer edge to create a border. Then divide the border into squares like this. A traditional Monopoly board has 40 evenly-sized squares altogether, like this one, but if you want you can have a random number of different-sized squares. It’s up to you!

Each square represents a place, so think about places in your town, or places you wish were in your town and put them in – include places like veggie/vegan cafes and shops like ‘The Loving Hut’ and ‘Infinity Foods’ in this one, and places you enjoy going to like the cinema, the park and the pier. Don’t forget to put ‘GO’ in one corner and a few ‘chance’ squares. The original Monopoly also has fines on some squares like ‘income tax’ but you can make up your own like we have with ‘bus fare’ and ‘new shoes’. Just free your imagination and run with it!

You need play money for monopoly so you can make some fake paper money or you can make coins. We made coins by finding whatever coins we had lying around and making rubbings of them with our crayons. Then we stuck them on cardboard and cut them out – or the other way around but that’s twice as much cutting!!

We found an odd assortment of coins including a commemorative £5 coin and an out of date ha’penny – anything goes when you’re making it up yourself!

Now that you’ve finished your board and you know what each place is, you need to make property cards – one for each place (don’t include fines/go/free parking/free cup of tea and the like). You need to decide on a purchase price for each place and a landing fine to be charged to other players that land on it. Bear in mind what denominations of money you’ve made when you decide on prices but don’t be too serious about it – we went crazy and our landing fines were often higher than the purchase prices! Just have fun with it.

There are also in Monopoly ‘Community Chest’ and ‘Chance’ cards. Your game doesn’t have to have these but it’s good to have some kind of ‘chance’ spaces around your board (as indicated earlier) which you can give any name you like. In our game these spaces are called ‘Family Treasure’ and ‘?’. Now you need to make cards for players to pick up if they land on these spaces. You can write something good or something bad on these cards (for eg the player has won something, or has to pay something) – but again, just use your imagination, it can be anything you want.

Crossword Answers

December 20, 2012

By Violet's Vegan Comics

Violet’s Veg*n e-Comics Crossword

December 19, 2012

By Violet's Vegan Comics

There’s no need to print this out. Just save the picture; then open it in ‘Paint’ or equivalent picture editing program; increase size if necessary to make it a comfortable size to write on; choose a suitably-sized font and fill in the answers using the text tool.