Friday 16 October 2015

Conkers


I don't often repeat posts, but it is that time of year again. When I showed this before there was quite a bit of interest in the game of conkers. So apologies if you have already seen this, or if you live on the other side of the world, and are looking forward to Spring.


Conkers are the fruit of the horse chestnut tree. Finding a spikey green case,  slightly split open, and removing a shiny conker from its white cushion, is one of the pleasures of Autumn. But it has been on my mind that my pattern did not include the conker case. So I have reworked the pattern adding a shell section. So now you can make a lovely little home for your conkers. The new pattern is available on ravelry and Craftsy.



The shell is knitted on just two straight needles and in two pieces: green and cream. So the only sewing up is joining the inner and outer shells. There is some short row knitting to create the curves. As you will see I have made two variations: a half shell, which is how I often find a conker on the ground, or the two halves sewn together so you can have your conker just peeping out.




The game conkers is played between two people. A hole is made in the conkers, and they are threaded on a piece of string. They take turns hitting each others conker with their own. Each player holds their conker out in front of themselves, and the other player takes a swing at it with their conker. The conker that breaks the other one is the victor. The dangers are that you can be hit by swinging conkers, which are quite hard, or being hit by flying shards of conkers when the hit is successful. Hard conkers usually win, but it is considered cheating to harden your conker artificially.  Apparently Michael Palin of Monty Python was disqualified from a conkers competition for baking his conker and soaking it in vinegar.

Then there is the whole business of scoring. A conker that defeats another is a oner, etc. But if a conker beats another conker, it also takes on that conker's score. So if a twoer beats a threer, it would become a fiver. It is that conker that takes the title, not the human swinging it! 



 Happy Autumn Conkering




22 comments:

  1. Well done !!!
    Have a cosy weekend !
    Anna

    ReplyDelete
  2. I love the detail in this knitting project.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Never heard of conkers! What fun that you knitted a conker case. You are truly amazing!

    ReplyDelete
  4. I salute you for making such pretty things!


    Here is my ​post

    ​​

    ReplyDelete
  5. Lovely! I like how you put the prickly one in there to show us the real thing....thanks for sharing. Here's MY SATURDAY SNAPSHOT POST

    ReplyDelete
  6. Well, that's cute! I never heard of them (no chestnut trees where I live) but looks like fun.
    :-)

    ReplyDelete
  7. wonderful as always! thanks for sharing on craft schooling Sunday!

    ReplyDelete
  8. This is right up my street, I love the shiny brown conkers, they look great piled up in a bowl and your knitted variety are adorable. :)

    ReplyDelete
  9. They are great fun:) Love the added shells.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Amazing! Such a neat little shell and it looks so much like the real thing!

    ReplyDelete
  11. This past spring, I also repeated a few posts. After one has blogged for years, older posts can get buried. Plus, there are always the new visitors to consider. ;-)

    I've never of conkers before. Thanks for the education and the pretty designs!

    ReplyDelete
  12. ah. So probably where the term "conked on the head" comes from..? ;-}
    Anyhoo, INGENIOUS Work as always! - Seriously, if you can KNIT like this, CROCHET will be a breeze!
    :-D

    ReplyDelete
  13. Love your knitted conkers they look great. I'm a beaver scout leader and we had a conkers session last week, are older scouts also participate in the world conkers championships. And we actually have a world champion in our scout group.

    ReplyDelete
  14. The knitted leaves and conkers are so good, well done

    ReplyDelete
  15. They are fabulous, we spent a happy afternoon hunting for some in the park last weekend.

    ReplyDelete
  16. Oh those are adorable - and much less likely to inflict good bruises than the original game! I went to school just down the road from the conker championships so they were a constant of my childhood autumns :)

    ReplyDelete
  17. Argh these are excellent, and much bigger than any conkers I found this year I bet! :)

    ReplyDelete
  18. You make mazing things! I love your knitted conkers. And thank you for showing a real one next to it. I really had no idea what the outer covering of a horse chestnut looked like. And I guess never been curious enough to look them up. Love your soft ones. ;^)

    ReplyDelete
  19. Such clever ideas you have with the conkers and all your other creative idea's. Thank you for sharing with the Clever Chicks Blog Hop! I hope you’ll join us again next week!

    Cheers,
    Kathy Shea Mormino
    The Chicken Chick
    http://www.The-Chicken-Chick.com

    ReplyDelete
  20. I am really struggling with the spike part on this pattern. Can you clarify the five stitches that are knitted extra are to be cast off immediately from the last stitch or from the new stitches made. I have done this a few times now and the end of this first line does not add up. Can you clarify the first spike line on this pattern please I am unsure what to do next.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yes, to make the spikes you cast on 5 stitches, and then straight away cast 5 off. So overall you should not have gained or lost any stitches on the row. Use knit for the spikes, not purl, even if you are on a purl row.

      Delete