I commend this wool to the House...

It's not often anything woolly (other, than occasionally, the thinking) makes a foray into legal London. Other than the occasional post-Inner London/Blackfriars trip to I-Knit, wool and my job don't tend to come together - the wigs are made of horsehair, not wool. So on finding myself with an hour or so to kill in Chambers it was a delight to find that Woolhouse, the Campaign for Wool's exhibition had landed just down the road at Somerset House.

First plus point - Sheep in the courtyard!

 

 

Frankly I'm a sucker for any event with a herd of sheep outside. I didn't know quite what would be inside - I knew there would be a spot of very impressive crochetdermy, and some chairs. But it was all just fascinating.

 

Compared with your average exhibition, it was very tactile. So much fabric and wool to handle, and of course it's utterly amazing how different woollen fibres can be - one moment thick and sheepy, the next light as air. The exhibition has four bits, sort of - art (fleece tapestries), handcrafts (spinning, lots of balls of wool, dyeing, and Jason Collingwood (http://www.rugweaver.co.uk/) weaving amazing rugs (WANT ONE!!!)), fashion, and furnishing.

 

(That was a complicated sentence.)

 

I was pleased to note a large display of Rowan Purelife British Sheep Breeds in the handcraft section, including the Mid Brown Jacob yarn I used for my Capstan Cowl in the extremely well-timed Best of British edition of Knit Now. Made me feel sort of part of things...!

 

The fashion section included a room full of Savile Row suits. If you have ever invested in a 25g ball of Arctic Qiviut, you may like to speculate on how much an entire bespoke Qiviut and Cashmere suit would cost you on Savile Row. It seems such things are available.

 

Furnishing is probably the biggest section with a suite of sample rooms put together by various designers using wool for walls, floors, furniture and accessories, ranging from traditional:

 

 

 

to ultra modern:

 

 

 

Probably my no. 1 most desirable object was this chair..:

 

 

 

It was in the bedroom section but the not included on the list of suppliers on the wall! Again... WANT ONE!!!

 

There's also a fab kids' bedroom by Donna Wilson - beware of taking your children - they will also be bellowing WANT ONE!!!

 

Everything was fascinating - everything was desirable. But what's this? There was NO SHOP. I heard some ladies asking on the way out if there was a shop and they were told "No. A lot of people are asking about that, and they did consider it, but they wanted to be completely uncommercial".

 

Totally uncommercial - and in the heart of London. That's what I call a breath of fresh air. Although I did in fact want to buy nearly every exhibit.

 

The exhibition is free, and on until March 24th. There's a LOT more to see than I've covered here. Anyone who likes fashion, design, textiles, wool or sheep will love it.

 











Capstan cowl thoughts!

I'm so proud to say I have a pattern in Knit Now's new issue, in the shops this Thursday, which is their Best of British issue!



photos (c) Dan Walmsley for Practical Publishing

Look, there it is - not the main picture, but the cowl being worn by the lady in the nice purple coat. It's called the Capstan Cowl and is part of this month's Designer Challenge, which involved Rowan Purelife British Sheep Breeds Chunky.

The yarn, which is thick, textured and comes, without wishing to refer to a novel I have no intention of reading, in several shades of grey. It made me think of ropes, and harbours, a bit like this:

 

Source: flickr.com via Miranda on Pinterest

So, the yarn itself is twisty (like the ply on the ropes) and the ropemaker twists it into a rope (like a cable) and then the sailer twists it again around his capstan... maybe I could do that!

And of course anyone with a passing interest in the history of British knitting knows how entwined our knitting and nautical history is.

The finished piece is a small cowl - more of a spring or autumn piece than a full blown cosy snow-replling cowl - and takes literally a couple of hours to knit (Yes, there is still time for mothers day, just). It also doesn't use much yarn.

When you're knitting it, you may find yourself a bit concerned that it will look very weird, as the cable unravels. But fear not! Even if you are opposed in principle to blocking, this is one pattern where a very simple blocking process will weave magic over your cowl. If you haven't got fancy blocking stuff, don't worry. All you need is a towel, some safety pins and maybe a biggish book.

Soak your knitting in lukewarm water for 15 minutes or so. Roll it in your towel to remove excess water (If you've used the recommended yarn, you will be AMAZED by how quickly the water goes. Wool is remarkable stuff). Then pin it out, pinning each cable out flat, onto the dry bit of your towel.

 

Fold your towel over it (especially if you have a pet who is inclined to sleep on blocking projects). If you like, sit your heavy book on it. Leave it to dry.

 

Unpin, then take half the length of your cowl (easiest way to measure is to fold it in two) and pin this into a loop:

 

 

Then wind the loose end 3 times around the loop (3 is the right number. I tried doing more and it just got too twisty and lost the effect of the cables). Make sure you are winding in the same direction as the cables.

 

 

Pin the ends together, then join it using backstitch (you need a good strong seam). If you squiggle the twists around, the join won't show at all. If you don't like seaming, you can use a provisional cast on and join by grafting or 3 needle bind off.

 

It would also make quite a funky headband.



Little lost sheep

The other morning, I got to Ealing Broadway station. As usual, the first tube out was already full. I sat down on the other, put down my bags, opened my Metro... and realised something was missing. My precious Kate Davies Sheep Heid. My first Fair Isle project, AND a birthday present from my mum... Well, for that hat I get off the tube and hunt. Back down the platform and out. I know the most likely place I left it is on the E8 bus. There's still an E8 parked over the road. The driver lets me on to have a look, but I've got a feeling it's not the same driver as on my bus before. Either way, no hat; nor does it seem to be anywhere on the ground. I've got form for loss of hats, but I'm particularly upset about this one.

I know there's no point phoning the bus garage yet, but I use my phone to register on the TFL lost property, and head for Stratford magistrates court, rather later than I was intending, as the tube I had been sitting on is of course also full.

End of the day, no reply.

Have my sheep gone for good?

Next day, I call Brentford bus garage. My husband has just texted me to tell me he is taking me for dinner in Richmond to cheer me up. Man at the bus garage "What colour is it?". Me "It's hand knitted. It's got sheep on it." Him (repeats) "What colour is it?" Me "It's all different colours..." (I am clearly going to need to settle on a colour) "Brown". Man "It's here"

Hurrah!!

I stop off en route to Richmond that evening (bus driver kindly lets me stay on the bus as far as the depot, rather than getting off with the very drunk men and walking up Commerce Road).

And here we are, reunited, on the train to Richmond:

Whether I will ever dare wear it anywhere again is another question...

Maltingly good!

Last year, when I first came to Unravel, the fabulous knitting festival at Farnham Maltings, I didn't really know what to expect. It had come highly recommended by my knitting friend Mandy, but I hadn't had much experience of knitting festivals other than a slightly underwhelming visit to Olympia. I was also mid my bout of vestibulitis (in fact before I'd really been diagnosed) and not altogether enthusiastic about crowds/standing up. I drove down, feeling I have to say as if I was not  altogether well enough to do so, and managed to get lost, arrived in the Wagon Yard carpark around lunchtime and found myself a space.

Once I entered I found myself in a brave new world of knitting gloriousness. A day and a half later I left laden with yarny loveliness and having even managed to do a workshop on dyeing (therefore also slightly laden with dye). A year and a few hand-dyed skeins later and my anticipation was MUCH greater.

I arrived earlier, partly due to being rather healthier and partly because this year I wanted to try & get it all done in one day - Bradford City having rather unexpectedly made the League Cup final on the Sunday. It had proved utterly impossible to get tickets for the match itself but I still had to be safely home and on the sofa (clad in my Bantams Beanie) by 3.30 and with one thing and another Sunday wasn't looking terribly practical for Unravelling. I wasn't doing a workshop this year either - would have loved to do the needlefelt hare workshop but it was all booked up by the time I looked at it. I arrived in Farnham pretty much exactly as the last space in the Maltings carpark went, so my first 10 minutes were spent finding somewhere else to park. The next 15 mins were spent walking to the Maltings, coming in, buying a coffee, panicking I hadn't locked my car & walking to the car & back to check. (It was locked. I am not as stupid as I think I am.)

The good thing about this is that I did get to say hello to the Well Manor Farm sheep outside the Maltings three times.

The place was PACKED. It felt MUCH busier than last year. I had arranged with myself to do one complete circuit before I bought anything, examining the produce and getting my little notebook and doing various bits of maths as to how much it would cost to make various garments and planned projects. Some rooms were virtually impossible to navigate, and some stalls I couldn't get close to.

However, the Unravel crowds are some of the nicest you could hope to find yourself crushed up against! There was also the chance to see how many people's sweaters I recognised from their project pages on Ravelry (particularly excited to see the person I guess was Rhian Drinkwater in her Dalek Fyberspates Challow). Met up with my friend Mandy at lunchtime - she had been on Alison Ellen's workshop in the morning and had been nearly expiring with excitement about this for some weeks.

My favourite stall, probably, was Well Manor Farm aka the Little Grey Sheep. I had made myself the nicest shawl from their Gotland Aran last year (which I wore throughout Unravel with pride) and was keen to use the same yarn to make Ann Kingstone's Hild. I had checked the yarn weight before the show and it seemed to be fractionally too heavy - but on looking at the stall it seems they've got a new spinner and the yarn should now knit as exactly the right tension. If anything it's also even more lustrous and touchable than it used to be (I know this, as I spend the Bradford City game winding it into balls). It also smells gloriously, unashamedly sheepy - if you spotted someone standing in the foyer inhaling yarn during Unravel, that was me.

Some places, I just couldn't make my mind up. Despite declaring my intention to purchase Fyberspates Vivacious, I found I could no more make my mind up at Unravel than I could in I Knit last week. Nor could I settle on what exactly I wanted or would do with Elisabeth Beverley's gorgeous plant dyed merino and cashmere. Instead I bought some new stuff, or stuff I hadn't seen before - sparkly pink and grey yarn from A Stash Addict, delicate handspun rose-coloured sock yarn from Shearer Girl, and a couple of skeins of the spendidly-named Buffy from Juno Fibre Arts. (Can I design socks with stakes and crosses? Surely someone has done this already.) Plus a bit of UK Alpaca. I was also very impressed by the handsome range of beads at Moon Beads (some of which found their way home with me).

The final stop of the day was at Judy Hardman's stall, where Mandy, who has taken up spinning (hence lucky old me got a hand spun/dyed skein for my birthday) purchased the fleece of a sheep called Bertie, which needed to be transported back to Hanwell while she had me & the car, and therefore no need for Bertie to impart his aroma to others on the train. Although I strongly suspect the trains out of Farnham that day would have had a little scent of sheep...

Pom-Pommery and my first yarn love...

Making the pompom for Bob's Beanie was quite a nostalgic experience; I realised I probably haven't made one for about 30 years... I remember a time when my sister & I were obsessed with making them (or was it just me?) probably because they were dead easy and didn't involve any PATIENCE, unlike knitting! I haven't got the faintest idea what we did with all these pompoms.

I know I did occasionally manage to knuckle down and finish a project for someone bigger than a Sindy - I remember making booties for a cousin, and a whole Postman Pat intarsia sweater for another cousin. Not that I had the foggiest what intarsia was or how to do it. I dread to think what an unholy mess the finished object probably was. However, I tried to make some legwarmers for myself in the early stages of secondary school (humour me, it was the 80s) and never finished them because I found the 2x2 rib too boring. I would polish them off in an afternoon now! The yarn was fantastic though - bright green with a multcoloured slub running through it. I think I only knitted as much as I did for the joy of getting to the fattest bits of slub. I've got no idea what it was called and where it came from. I've still got bits of it left, mostly in tiny, sometimes unravelled balls and it's been used in various mini-projects and so forth over the years. Even now, looking at my gorgeous stash with Qiviut, alpaca, silk, BFL, hand-dyed little somethings etc, that green, almost certainly acrylic, oh-so-80s yarn still inspires feelings of love.

Knit your way to a healthy heart!

Speaking personally, I made a lot of my best friends when I was at university and one of them is the rather wonderful Alex, with whom I shared a hideous Young Ones style flat, all leaky pipes, no heating, overflowing ashtrays and interesting cultures growing in abandoned coffee mugs.

So when Alex announced that she, as part of Team Bob, would this June be walking 100km from London to Brighton to raise money for the British Heart Foundation, I had to help in the way I would most enjoy... designing a knitting pattern to raise some more funds for the walk, and help publicise it around those lovely generous knitting people.

I contacted the marvellous Jenny at Artesano Yarns, who provided yarn support in the gorgeous, squishy, warm shape of Artesano Aran, and designed a hat in the British Heart Foundation's colours, and finished it just in time to get it modelled by Alex when she came down for my 40th birthday party (part two) last weekend:

 

 

You can download it for £2.50 at http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/bobs-beanie

 

All profits go to Team Bob (after PayPal take their cut...) and therefore to the British Heart Foundation.

 



All hail the mighty Bantams...

I've got a few things to talk about - most recently a trip to Nice which was absolutely jam packed with inspiration, as well as blue skies & cheese. I'm also approaching a "significant birthday" in a couple of days... ulp... had my first party (I'm having 2, Queen-style) on Friday. The winning combination of vast amounts of sparkling wine, cheese and classic 80s pop (99 Red Balloons, Tainted Love, etc) was good fun at the time but meant I spent yesterday feeling distinctly unwell (and occasionally saying things like, "I've just realised I had a Jagerbomb last night...")

I'm going to do a seperate Nice post - but what I've been doing is getting probably foolishly excited about Bradford City getting to the League Cup final on 24th Feb. If you're not a football fan you may not realise what a spectacular achievement this is - they're in League 2 and beat 3 Premiership sides, including Arsenal, to get to the final. So obviously I've had to design myself a hat to wear, and stray into the dangerous realms of stranded colourwork design.

The team logo is a Bantam, so it could be enjoyed by any random chicken lover. The pattern's free in my Ravelry store - Bantams Beanie

I will get a photo of it on my head, but it's too wet to go outside at the moment...