I can hardly believe that it’s already Tuesday again. The weeks are spinning past. Sometimes I wish I had a regular structure to my blog as my wife does. She always starts with what the morning smells like, describes the photo she is using to accompany her post, writes her main section and finishes by sharing a poem. However, my blog doesn’t have that regularity of form. It’s more a ‘this is what I’ve been doing and this is what’s coming up’, which is useful for me (and hopefully for you!), but also can make it hard to know at times where to start. So, I’ll start by telling you what I’ve been doing.
Sunday was Stollen and Wolle at the RiverKnits studio in Weedon Bec, Northamptonshire. It’s a lovely venue and there were five visiting exhibitors (including us) plus RiverKnits’ own yarn for visitors to peruse. It was lovely to see the familiar and friendly faces of Ishrat (Fruitful Fusion), Christine (Rauwerk), Rachel (Skein Queen) and, of course, Becci and Markus of RiverKnits again. The chap from Yellow Bourbon was kept busy all day providing visitors with coffee, gluhwein, stollen and cake. Two of the cakes were vegan as well (carrot cake and blackcurrant and apple crumble/flapjack) which delighted us! And to top it off, Susan Crawford of Susan Crawford Vintage was there. She had a lovely stand with her yarn, books and samples and gave a 1 hour talk in the afternoon which was absolutely fascinating and included her handing knitwear round the audience for us to look at, handle and even inspect on the inside (if you’re a knitter, you’ll know this instinct!). One of the samples was the first sweater she had ever knitted which was an impressive picture knit (using intarsia technique) of a Roy Lichtenstein image worked in cotton. The re-worked sweaters made from studying samples in the Shetland museum were incredible, as were the stories that accompanied them – especially of how knitters from Shetland were ‘breaking the rules’ of Fair Isle knitting even in the 1940s. I was excited to meet and chat with her.
We had originally planned to do the whole journey in one day, but once we realised that would probably mean getting up at 3.30am, we decided to stay in Daventry the night before, giving us just a 6-mile journey to the studio to set up and get ready. The set-up was quick as we had stripped it right back, bringing only 28 patterns (a few were doubled up in the pull-up stands), the pull-up display stands and the relevant samples.
It was the first outing for the height extension on the 3-foot rail and I have to say I am very pleased with that. It doubles the hanging space and makes it easier to display the samples. The other benefit to stripping back the set-up was that it all fitted in Sue’s little Aygo! That was the first time I had been driven to a yarn show we were exhibiting at and it meant I could relax and even do some crochet in the car on the way there before it got dark. It was lovely. Despite Storm Claudia lashing large parts of Wales on Friday and Saturday we were luckily unaffected and the journey was smooth with clear weather.
Our next event will be the last one of the year – Yuletide Yarnies at the Shrewsbury Flaxmill Maltings on Saturday 13th December. Opening hours are 11am-4pm, tickets are £5 in advance and £7.50 on the door – so if you are coming, I recommend buying an advance ticket! As well as this I am teaching my Introduction to Two-Colour Brioche workshop tomorrow at Shaz’s Shabby Chic in Buckley (there are still spaces available if you want to come!).
There is lots of singing happening too, what with it being the run up to Advent and Christmas and I need to decide the running order for the songs at the first Christmas market that is in 11 days time!
I’m also working through the modules in the tech editing course that I’m taking – I’m enjoying it and finding it appeals very much to my sense of order and logic.
All of this sounds as though life is swinging along smoothly, but Mum has spent most of the last three weeks in hospital and so I’ve also been travelling down to the midlands much more frequently and for longer to visit her. It’s been a worrying time as you might imagine.
So, my 4ply What Do Points Make? remains unblocked, and while I’ve done some of the website updates I haven’t done them all yet. But, even if I haven’t done these things next week I will able to tell you about a new design of mine that will be in the next issue of The Knitter which is due out on Nov 27th. Until then, take care and I hope you are able to do something that makes you happy this week. K x