A weekend in the country

Last weekend I escaped from the heat of London and ended up in rural Rutland for a wonderful weekend.

Not a weekend of leisure but one of KCG meetings; planning for AGM's; report and business plan writing. Sounds boring - the reality was that we worked hard but in one of the most beautiful settings I've ever experienced. The house and hospitality were faultless and the gardens took my breath away.

There was plenty of places to hide

a walk around the village found some of my favourite flowers - I have a soft spot for bluebells ever since living near a bluebell wood as a child

The local churchyard had me thinking of cable patterns

and the sun went to our heads

Day and Night

The lace project may some day end up as this shawl

I say some day as I chose the Arabian Nights version and the colour is very dark, beautiful but dark and my eyes will only be able to cope with knitting it in daylight. The wool feels beautiful, it was a pleasure to wind and there was only one small knot. Threading the beads has been an experience - someone advised me to go the crochet hook route - that is what I've planned to do but even then you need to thread 1600 beads for the beaded fringe!

I think this will become my "Saturday morning project" - the one I do when the sun is up, the world is quiet and I can concentrate.

The night projects will continue to be items for the Hyperbolic Crochet Reef - here's some of my work:

and some of the other wonderful items already donated

The south Bank Centre is launching a Monday evening crochet group from mid-June to run alongside the exhibition and June 21st there's a Crochet Jam that sounds fun!

This and That

I'd planned to post some of my yarn purchases from Wonderwool, then I changed my mind and planned to post pictures of my hyperbolic crochet that I took along to the South Bank tonight. Whilst I was there I took yet more photos of other peoples contributions to the UK Reef - it will be stunning...

so where are the photos? In limbo between the ibook and Flickr, for some reason they are not talking to each other today.

The weekend was spent tidying the garage and continuing to empty my MIL's house ready for sale. The yarn is now all along one side of the garage and needs sorting - I'm saving that for a day when I feel brave as there are 13 sacks of odd-balls plus a few crates. I'm hoping I'll find some buried treasure as I go through them. There is more yarn indoors that also needs sorting not to mention the books, patterns and needles so why did I feel the need to start something new this weekend.

I started by hand winding a skein of 1800 yds of laceweight ( I couldn't find the swift!) that took most of my free time on Saturday and then on Monday I made a start on threading the beads - all 2500+ of them. I'm exhausted after all that preparation so It's now gone back into it's bag until I can face the thought of minute charts!

Wonderwool Wales

Just what the Dr ordered - a civilized weekend in Mid- Wales!

We drove through miles of beautiful countryside, and whilst I spent 2 days at the show Matt got to visit family and spend an afternoon at the Red Kite feeding centre. He has some fantastic photos

I got to meet friends from all over the UK, Europe and Australia; learnt to use my drop spindle and how to ply the yarn I produced; found some new food sources; worked on the crochet reef; and I have some great souvenirs!

I'll just whisper a few of my purchases...

baby camel/silk
cashmere/ silk
wensleydale
baby alpaca
ebony circulars
a drop spindle
merino/tencel tops
mohair tops

and here is one of my favourite show characters

Bedtime reading

After a long and hectic day yesterday it was great to get home and find the new Yarn Harlot book and the Big Girl Knits 2 - even more enjoyable as I had the day off today so read and swatched until I was sleepy.

Today saw a minimum of effort at some outstanding chores and then a visit to I Knit London tonight for some more hyperbolic crochet. I lured Dawn down there with the promise of the Big Girl Knits book and managed to churn out a shape using a 1:5 ratio - it was looking a little flat but soon perked up when I found some red sparkly yarn in the donations box.

IKL had had a new delivery of books so two more came home with me - this time Barbara Walker's Mosaic Knitting and the Melissa Leapman cables book - that took care of my Grand National winnings!

Missing in Action

It's been a while since I posted so I'll try to make a quick summary of the highs and lows...

Work has been stressful with end of year paperwork and the anxiety of waiting for the inspection report. I've had a few visits to the dentist for more work to be done on my teeth - the diabetes is playing havoc with my bank balance!

I've managed to visit I Knit London 5 times in the 3 weeks since they've opened - does that make it my LYS?

I did 2 days on the Relax and Knit stand at Olympia and got to play catch up with old friends and meet new ones. I also witnessed the most compulsive buyer at the show - I've never seen anyone clear the Black Sheep bargains quite so quickly - thank goodness I got there just before her to buy my bargain cashmere! The show was better than last year, I also spent more money! Some of the items were for gifts and others for experiments so you'll have to wait to see the outcome.

A few knitting projects have been started and have fallen by the wayside as I've fallen under the lure of hyperbolica so here's a selection of some of the bits I've created.

My latest book purchase arrived on Friday and I'm dreaming of lace charts - Sharon Miller has excelled again this time with The Lerwick Lace Shawl

I had plans for how to spend Sunday and then woke up and found this view

at least someone was enjoying it!

More hyperbolica

Here's some of the examples that Margaret had brought along to show us. The first reminds me of the craze for Curly Whirly scarves from a few years ago

- wonder where I put my pink creation from 2005

Not everything was crochet - I loved this beaded item

and I'm fascinated by this yarn - it's a day glo jelly yarn and I want some!

There is some possibility of getting hold of some of the plastic dumped in the Thames and I think this would make a very apt statement about the state of our river for the London reef. Anyone planning to join me in making something for this exhibition?

Hyperbolic crochet

I think I've developed a new passion!

Yesterday I attended a workshop run by Margaret Wertheim from the Institute of Figuring at the Royal Festival Hall. The idea was for participants to be inspired to create a London version of the Reef

I admit it I'm hooked!

My first creation was made by finger crochet during the maths talk - I was surprised by how much of that I understood - I must have been paying attention in some of those lessons years ago!

Thank You

Just over 3 years ago I toyed with the idea of a blog. I made feeble attempts to use Blogger but struggled with what to write, how to set it out, how to get photos on etc. I kept this a secret as I wasn't happy with what I had but didn't know how to improve it and didn't have the time and energy to invest in a steep learning curve.

In one of those seemingly random conversations you have with other knitters a friend suggested I ought to have a blog, I let slip that I'd thought about it and told her the name. A few days later I was sent instructions and on 14 March 2005 I made my first hesitant steps into the world of published blogs!

356 entries later I still don't know what I'm doing, photos and hyperlinks are hit and miss but I enjoy blogging. I love the sense of community it generates and the friends I've made through this space.

Today's post is dedicated to the inspirational ATU with many thanks for your continued support.

Glasgow Gals

I enjoyed a wonderful few days in Glasgow for the show. The trip started off well when I got to my accommodation and discovered that my apartment actually had two bedrooms and two bathrooms just for me! There was more space there than I have at home! It was in a very handy location and I've kept the details as I'll want to stay there again and not in a faceless hotel

It is always the volunteers who make the show for me and the trip to Glasgow gives me the real chance to spend time with friends. There are far too many to mention but they came from far (Grenoble) and near (Govan); they were all ages - the youngest was 9 weeks (Hi Duncan) and the eldest 80+. I laughed so much my sides hurt, I knitted two projects and gave them away without taking pictures! I took no pictures of the PicKnit or the Gingerbread house either - in fact I only took two photos in the entire time I was away. I had 5-7 Ravellers on the stand; got to meet up with Rowanettes; played with members of the KCG and got lured into the dark side by a couple of spinners!

One of the things I love about the shows is teaching beginners to knit and crochet but what gives me the most rush is when I see some exciting knit / crochet or get asked technical questions that are a challenge - so I'd like you to meet my biggest challenge yet!

This lovely lady came to ask for advice, before she could voice her question I wanted to know more about her collar - yes she did crochet it herself and she has quite a collection of them.

She then said her question was about knitting so I breathed a sigh of relief and then she produced this

knitted on 1.5mm needles with linen sewing thread - she wanted a knitted collar and had started at the neck edge. The first challenge was that she wanted to use a traditional shetland pattern but realised she was knitting it from the top down so had to reverse all the increases and decreases to get the pattern she wanted (no sweat there then) - the dilema was how to finish off the edge and after much discussion we all agreed that it needed a lace edging so she was off home to pore over the patterns again.

This lady was fascinating to talk to, her work was impecable and I told her I want to be like her when I grow up - she gave me some sound advice - don't get sidetracked into starting Sudoku puzzles they interrupt your knitting time!

At last

time for myself! I took an afternoon off of work this week and headed over to ExCel for a show - not the world's best but I did manage to snag a few bargains.

Matt and I had a night away at Marwell and spent today at the zoo hoping to see the new leopard cub.

She made a short appearance and had great fun pouncing on her mother, making vertical leaps on the rocks and generally moving too quickly for me to get a good photo. We enjoyed seeing how much the baby giraffe had grown since last year and spent ages watching the otters and meerkats until it started to hail / sleet so we ran for the car and headed home

After this I head off to Glasgow on Wednesday for 5 days of fun and hard work at the SECC. I'm looking forward to seeing my friends again and this time round have rented a flat in the city centre so I may see more of Glasgow than the car park!

The Fern Shell is progressing nicely, my gauge is still out of whack but I've tried the top on and it is looking hopeful. I doubt I'll finish it before I go away and it will be too bulky to pack so I need to find some travel knitting - I'm considering the Flutter scarf using a skein of variegated purples that was a gift from a dear friend