County Championship

Even a brief glance at my knitting patterns will tell you that Britain is a major source of inspiration for me! Albeit I will be getting rather more exotic at the end of this month when all my African patterns should be being released. Anyone who knows me will not be surprised that there are a lot of Suffolk patterns, since I spend a lot of time there and, as the location of both proposal and (first) honeymoon, it has a special place in my heart (second honeymoon was Zambia with, I hasten to add, same husband). Yorkshire also features, understandably since I am Bradford-born and proud of it (aye, lad, God's own county, my mother & a stick of rhubarb, etc etc). This month a rather more left-field (for me) county is providing the inspiration, Somerset, with the publication of my Glastonbury Tor hat in Knit Now.

I had seen Glastonbury Tor some years ago when I went to Somerset for my friend Sarah's wedding. I was bridesmaid, so came down a couple of days earlier than my boyfriend (now husband; see above) and was a very new driver who had managed to purloin a pool car from work. The fear and excitement of the freedom of the road (read: being tailgated by furious lorry drivers on country lanes) stays with me. I spent my spare day visiting two places I really wanted to see - Glastonbury Abbey and Wells Cathedral. I am a sucker for a good cathedral, and Wells is one of the best. I was also rather geekily excited about Glastonbury Abbey due to my background as a dark-age history student (i.e. I studied the dark ages, not in the dark ages, although modern students who wonder how we managed without mobile phones or email probably think it was). Glastonbury was the home of St. Dunstan, one of my favourite saints (if you study the dark ages, you spend quite a lot of time on saints; technically Dunstan's prob a bit past dark ages). He's one of those people who you read about in the various sources and feels like a real person, even though over a thousand years has passed.

At the time, I wasn't really knitting, so the pattern potential of these two places didn't strike home; but it was thrust upon me (not literally) watching last year's Olympic opening ceremony. Whether it was the juxtaposition of Danny Boyle's vision of Glastonbury Tor with sheep that did it, I don't know, but immediately I was thinking was what a fantastic hat it would make.

 

I spent some months experimenting; and then I saw the Designer Challenge for issue 24 of Knit Now and there before me was the perfect yarn for the job. Erika Knight's Vintage Wool has the squishy texture of a slightly mossy lawn and, nearly as importantly, it's proudly British.

Beautifully photographed as always in Knit Now:

(c) Practical Publishing

And I haven't forgotten Wells Cathedral...

Post Samples, Post Wimbledon...

I've been actually literally too busy to blog for the last 2 weeks! Partly this has been due to actual work. Partly this has been due to Wimbledon (normally would be able to combine blogging & Wimbledon, but my physio has banned me from using my laptop on my lap - hence no blogging in front of TV). Mostly it's been due to 2 knitting-design-related matters - firstly, getting all my patterns tested for Waters of Africa using the Free Pattern Testers group which is brilliant but takes up a little time, and secondly knitting lots of lovely accessory samples for a lovely yarn company in a lovely yarn. More will follow on that...

It's also now preserving season, hence that was just a break to decant redcurrant jelly. I inherited an extra bit of allotment last year and it looks like there may be a LOT of redcurrant jelly - this is only a portion of the fruit on the bushes:

 

 

All of which means I haven't yet blogged about issue 23 of Knit Now magazine, which features lots of picnic-related patterns (finally we have the weather to picnic) including my Aldeburgh tee. It would be nice to say that this was due to a carefully-thought out concept, but actually I found a swatch I had no recollection of knitting in my swatch bag. I thought, "That's pretty!" and reknitted it to make sure I could work out how I'd done it, and sent it off as an idea. Obviously Kate at Knit Now thought the same, and here we have a gorgeous summery top, bee-you-ti-fully photographed:

 

(c) Practical Publishing 2013

There is also a rather more close up pic in the magazine itself, which makes me a bit nervous, as it means my seaming is on display to the world at large :-(.

Very pleased to be celebrating another charming corner of Suffolk with this pattern's title.