Well, I'd made it to Woolfest... and it was fun, no, I mean really FUN!
I also got to see the Kerrie again and meet Brooke (such a cutie), Cameron (oh my heart be still) and Wayne (another good-natured, supportive knitting hubby). Funny thing that, Heather recognised Kerrie by Cameron and Brooke and once she opened her mouth, I knew she was THE Heather. I also got to see a few other Rowanettes prowling the yarn stalls. There was India, Jill and Brigid... and of course THE Emma arrived with Oliver (adorable, sweet he even held my hand... ) and Allan (another good-natured, supportive knitting hubby... who carries the shopping too!).
I saw Web of Wool's stand and went to look for Rowanette Anna. Unfortunately, there was a nice young man there and I bought some wool, but no Anna to be found. For the record, this wool is not displayed below because it is a gift and it would be churlish to ruin the surprise. I should really had looked at my programme earlier but the sight of all that wool overwhelmed me for the 1st hour, as I went around orienting myself (finding things like the café and loos and the 4 legged creatures).
Yes, I bought myself some raffle tickets too. Sadly I was disappointed to learn that none of these guys were prizes. The angora bunny was so popular with the children that I just could not get in close enough to get a photo.
Here's a second photo of Brooke, she's got a drop spindle in her hand and she's not a afraid to use it. This is one crafty young lady. I do hope that Wayne realises that one of these days, she's going to have a stash of her own.
I tried to get Oliver to pose in a photo with Sasha Kagan, but he wasn't having any of it.
OK, look away if you're trying to be good or you're on a yarn diet diet.
My bargain of the day. Undyed camel hair. It's so soft and has excellent meterage. Someone mentioned that a bit of dye might not hurt get rid of the poo brown colour (it's a proper colour description found in the public library.)
Not so much a bargain in terms of money, but something that I want to do, but didn't know that I wanted to do it, until I saw it. The lady at the stand spent ages with me telling me that the technique was different from fair-isle. That it is easy to do. How perfect they were for commemorating special occasions that I went back and bought the kit, eventhough (1) the pattern is available on the internet for free(2) £15 is quite a lot of 2 balls of yarn, history booklet and the pattern. Sometimes, people are so nice and inspire you so much that you don't mind paying a little more to make sure that they stay in business and be there to inspire other people like you. As you can see, I did not opt for the traditional colours. Anyone can knit black and white sanquhar gloves, but mine are going to lilac and cream.. and if I like them, I have some alpaca that I can use too.
I also stopped by J&S and bought myself a few balls of wool and a shade card, to swatch my Poetry sweater. I still plan to knit it with the orginal wool, but thought that swatching with colours from the family that I'm thinking about might be a good idea. Considering that these colours go really well together, but even from the shade card, I wouldn't had put them together.
Then, I went to House of Hemp and bought the Hemp Hugs booklet and a 500g hank of phew to make me a hybrid sweater.
I'm going to make the pattern on Cara with the length and sleeves of Margaret...a flouncy short cardigan. The designs from Hemps Hugs are more inspirational than anything else, so beware about buying the booklet (it's £15) if you are not comfortable with (1) resizing patterns (2) altering patterns to suit you. The booklet contains, hand and machine patterns, all in 1 size. Most of the finished sizes are approx 39 inches wide and come short. (well, midriff skimming) Hemp ain't that fun to knit with either but the resulting fabric softens considering after washing. The fabric feels so wonderful and cool that I'm going to learn to like knitting with hemp.
You can order directly from House of Hemp's website and my past experience with them has been very good. Just take my advice and don't buy the undyed stuff. It's way to harsh to knit with and will put you off of this material for life.
Margaret
I also found a lovely gentleman selling these yew carved and waxed tapestry needle holders. OK, it does look phallic, but I'm hoping that I'll never have to fish around for my needles anymore. The top just pops off.
Added later:
The yew tapestry needle holder was carved by J. Williamson Tel Fax 01664 812320 - Wheel Lodge 159 Main St. Asfordby, Melton Mowbray, Leiestershire, LE14 3TS. You need t contact them by phone. I took down the details since he makes niddy noddy's too and might make one a custom size for someone that I know.
I couldn't resist not cropping the photo, esp as my plants were all looking so colourful.
I also found some old Rowans.
and a few Starmore too. They were expensive but much cheaper than what you'll find at ebay. I love the British Isles one, there seems to be quite a lot of knitting history in there and I bought it to read since most of those patterns would need a bit of updating.
Don't you wish you were there? I meant to take more photos of the stalls but once I starting chatting with people, I was like a run-away locamotive and I forgot all about the photos.
It's not easy growing attractive plants, but when the plants are in full bloom, don't you feel a bit sad snipping off flowers to enjoy indoors? I do, but just a little bit. Flowers are the ultimate luxury.. so taking a little bit of the garden into the house just lifts the spirit. The roses are a David Austin variety and the petals are delicately scented. At ATU, we treasure plants that not just looks good but smells good too.
With the warm weather, it's not always easy to pick up something big and woolly to work with, especially as air-con is not the norm in the UK. So, this little blue cotton bag was made from some left over mercerised cotton, from a bag done in 2003. (Raise your hand if you also tend to keep odd balls of left-over yarns).
I knitted this little bag really tightly so that the dry lavender inside would not come out of the stitches. In the end, I did as Alpaca woman suggested and cut a teabag, filled it with lavendar, sewed it up and stuck it in the bag. This little thing was only 4 inch by 4 inch and used 96 beads. Easy-peasy, and looks nice tucked into presents.
To give you a sense of how big the bag is and to show that I've got flowers from my peony, 2 years in a row....
Of course, photographing a navy bag is rather challenging, so what better colour to photograph it against than the yellow corydalis. This little plant is really pretty but seems to self-seed itself rather liberally in my garden.
Some more wonderful things to show you. Here is Alpaca Woman in her fruity. Well, I think that it looks nice on her, but she's not sure... hence the wry expression on her face.
An interesting conversation on how long the sleeves need to be. If you measure from under-arm to wrist and it tells you 18 inches. The sleeve is 17.5 inches, how do you end up with a sleeve that too long? The answer is in the ease. If the armhole is exactly at the point the you measure, it'll be fine. With the ease, it does tend to be longer (as the garment's armhole might be a few inches lower than where the armholes are).
The alpaca woman (called so because of her fondness for alpaca yarn) loved working with the cashcotton. Like me, did not like the fit of the garment on her and is also not sure whether it would get much wear. The yarn is gorgeous. There are flecks of green in the brown.
Thanks to Dawn for taking the photos and for Sharon, for being such a good sport. The photos were taken over a week ago but I've just gotten around to writing about it.
Q&A, etc.
From Linda - Why was bomber frogged?
As far as I knew, there was nothing wrong with the pattern. I had finished the back. I'd just decided that I didn't want to finish it and didn't want it sitting on my desk staring at me. Sometimes it's easier to frog than to finish. This year has been bad. Lots of new things cast on and put aside for one reason or another. I think a bit of frogging might help focus me.
From Nerete -Tell Sissel to smile next time for the photos..
Hear that Sissel? you need to should us your beautiful smile next time.
If you can only find a round peg for a square hole ...
Seeing Tracy finish her first and start her second Poetry in Stitches sweater has inspired me to try and come to gripes with fair-isle. Flipping through my Poetry in Stitches, I was innudated with choice, which is not always a good thing.
I looked through all the charts to find one that was most manageable. My problem with fair-isle has always been tensioning between the floats, resulting in puckered (and very ugly and uneven stitches). So, prime consideration was finding a design where the floats were short (and where there were long floats, the pattern would be amenable to slight adaptation). I've never steeked a sweater as well, so I thought that a pull-over would be less nerve racking. In the end, I'd decided that I really want to do the bride cardigan, but as a pull-over, with fewer (and much less pastel) colours. (phew!)
My colouring doesn't tend to work with the light blues, mustard yellow and all that white (I am definitely too untidy for white)... but recolouring from a colour chart on a computer screen isn't easy. So here are my picks and a request for advice... which ones would you use?
I'm going to order the colour charts since I have been staring at the monitor for so long that I'm starting to see stars. I think that I link the grey and blue (B) combo best, rather like the Light and Darkness design from Norsk Strikkedesigns. (Yes, I like Scandanavian designs, want to make something out of it?)
Here are the original colours
Did I mention that I'm going to covert the neckline to a round one. Yes, this is going to be a LONG term project.
Denim Knit-along Update
Some time about a year ago, I started hosting the Denim Knit-along. Some of the participants have finished not one but 2 projects.... while I was and still am stalled on bomber. (For the record, I've recently decided to send that project to the frogpond.)
Rowanette Sissel from Norway (aren't all these Norwegians just gorgeous, sulk, sulk) has finished Voyage. It looks absolutely stunning on her.
This was Sissel's first Denim project and she had admitted to watching the washing machine foam and turn the water blue. Is that sad? I don't think so. Kay probably does that too ;0).
Sissel started this last May...but was stalled when she ran out of beads and it took 2 months to get more in stock. Inspired by Dawn's stashbuster, this was picked up and started again.
I've included Sissel remarks because they would be extremely useful for anyone else attempting or interested in attempting this pattern. I always google a design to see what people have to say about it before starting it, so it won't surprise me if lots of other people do too.
If you look at the back you can see that it differs slightly from the picture in the Denim People. The chart for the beading is different. I very often use the pictures as a guide, but decided to go with the chart. (I wonder if they left out the chart for the beaded version because of space limitations.)
I think it looks equally good though. Also on the fronts I did the beading all the way up to match the back. The pattern doesn't say you are to stop at any point, but you can clearly see from the pictures in the book that they have stopped the beading in the area where the pocket flaps are. I wasn't sure I wanted to add the pocket flaps anyway. The cardigan looks good without them, and I really don't need more padding in that area. They're on for the moment, but the jury is still out.
Doesn't that just inspire you to get those denim designs knitted up?
All those loose ends have been sewn in.
It certainly felt that it took as long to knit as to finish, but well, it's finally done. Let's say I LOVE knitting with the cash cotton. The yarn is buttery soft. The jury is still out about wearing it. The shedding is a bit of an issue. Cash cotton is a warm yarn. I see myself wearing this in early spring and autumn, but can't imagine it seeing much usage during summer. Which brings to mind a discuss between Rowanette Jill, Alpaca Woman and me on how Rowan can launch this as a summer yarn. (For the record, we also felt calmer, and ASC were not really for all seasons... jury is out on summer tweed. I think yes, good for summer, but there was dissention on that opinion).
So here are the close-ups that Rowan did not show you, preferring to waste good pages in the magazines showing artistic pictures of grass.
The neck edging on the original sweater was achieved by picking up x number of stitches and casting off on the following row. I thought that the edging looks unfinished and did 3 rows of garter before casting off.
The sleeves are really bell-like. Measure to make sure that it's not too long for your arms. I reduced the length of mine by about an inch. I should had reduced by another 1/2 inch. (usually, I don't need to adjust the sleeves in the rowan patterns)
The edges on sleeves and body really don't roll after blocking.
Here's another finishing shot
And more ....
But what??? where are the pictures of me, in my sweater? Well, after all that hard work, I'm not convinced that it was flattering to me, so I took it to see the girls to see what they think.
This is how I think that sweater should look. Kristine is a glamourous and slim 6 feet tall blonde. The green on the jumper is very complimentary to Kristine's colouring.
On Amelia, the sweater was humungous. You see the elbow on the right? It's me, kneeling down behind her, holding handfuls of fabric in.
I didn't want my photo taken beside Kristine
But we don't care. I might not be the gorgeous blonde, but she's still my friend.
Added later: The scarf around my neck is Caryl's kerchief, knitted by Rowanette Jill and 'borrowed' by me. It was so pretty that I sort of took it off her neck and swanned around with it for half an hour. The yarn is Koigu
OK, ok, here's how it looks on me
So, Amelia and Alpaca Woman, can't wait to do the group shot when you're both done.
(many thanks to the wonderful Jacinta for taking these pictures... why do I always have a big zit on my face whenever the camera comes out?)
As much as I would had liked a lazy Sunday, you know the kind, leisurely thumbing through the paper, savouring a nice cup of coffee and then getting comfy on the couch with current knitting project, I'd decided that a bit of physical activity was required. So, off we went to the Kew Bridge Steam Museum.
The Museum is housed in a 19th Century Pumping Station, built to supply water to West London for more than 100 years. It has 5 Cornish Beam Engines (which are enormous), 2 of which are fired up on the weekend. The Grand Junction 90 is the largest working beam engine in the world.
Compared to the beam engines, the triple is a much more modern design and is the most common type of pumping engine built for waterworking after 1900. It represents the intermediary stage in development between beam engines and internal combustion engines.
A visit to the Kew Bridge Steam Museum is highly recommended, especially if you're interested in Steam or Water works.
..and we ended our day out with a visit to the Bell and Crown. How appropriate that it had a view of the Thames.
Now, that was fast! The Go with the flow socks are done! I used just over 1 skein of Lorna's Laces to do these socks. I could had made it with one skein if I used contrasting toes or heels. So much more economical than I would had thought.
This lace is very stretchy and measuring it can be a bit of a challenge. I purposely took this picture to show the difference between blocked and unblocked sock. The darn thing is stretchy.
The cuff lace and the leg lace were very easy to memorise. You can't really see the lace very well in the picture in the magazine, so I tried to take a close-up here.
This is a great pattern, easy and fast to execute. I wasn't sure how the sandridge colourway from Lorna's Laces was supposed to look, but I rather like the striping effect.
If all patterns were as sweet as this, there would never be second sock syndrome.
Want to see more Go with the Flow socks? Check out these:
C from Knitters anonymous
Cari from Dogs Steal yarn
Anna from Amelia Raitte: My Fashionable Life
Mimoknits from Another knitting blog
Rebekah from Knit Knack