The Festival of Quilts 2018. . .

Last Saturday, I travelled down to Birmingham for the annual Festival of Quilts. I love this show - it's a sensory overload of talent, colour, texture and inspiration. There are over 1,400 quilts on display, plus a large marketplace, but with some comfy shoes and a packed lunch, you can cover quite a lot in one day. 

There were so many fabulous quilts on display but here's a tiny round-up of some that really caught my eye.  I'll start with my favourite of all the artist exhibitions - Pieces of My Life by Shizuko Kuroha.  She sews with mostly vintage indigo-dyed fabrics and her play with shape and colour is exquisite and mesmerising. 

Remembrance of Wind by Shizuko Kuroha

Cosmos II by Shizuko Kuroha

Gifts from the Sky by Shizuko Kuroha

She was attending the quilt show and as I was so impressed by her work, I just had to buy a copy of her book, which she signed for me.  It is such a beautifully designed celebration of her life and work, with some stunning photography and wonderful patterns, not only for many of the quilts, but for some smaller projects too, such as a lovely quilted drawstring bag that would be perfect for some knitting.

One of the best aspects of the show is the huge variety of quilting styles.  I will always enjoy seeing traditional quilts:

Sailing Home by Sue Faulkner

Twinkling by Regina Maier

Ruby Anniversary Celebration - Group Quilt by the Malvern Quilters

Hexagon Quilt 'La Passion' Challenge by Under-the Edge Quilters

Knit and Purl by Eleanor Birchell Hughes

Some quilts I loved for their colour palettes, others for their texture.

Retro by Sophie Zaugg

Green Thoughts by Amanda Jane Ogden and Alison Moore

Deep Blue by Paola Zanda

Japanese Zen Garden by Hanna Farquharson

There were modern and pictorial quilts:

Retorno Al Paraiso by La Flor Y Nata Del Patchwork 

Curled by Charlie Mankin

And the Sky Danced by Jean McLean

What a Relief by Brenda McDonnell

This quilt had an ecological message about our over-use of plastic.

Plastic Ocean by Kathy Unwin

And this quilt actually used plastic as its fabric.

Anthropogenic Wave by Kay McKiernan

Finally, this was another favourite - one of those quilts that looked even more amazing, the further you stepped away from it. The use of fabrics to create shading and colour was just incredible.

Forty Shades of Green by Ethelda Ellis

I dabbled in quilting long before I took up knitting again so I have . . . ahem. . . a rather large fabric stash in boxes under the spare bed. This show has inspired me to take up a multi-year project which I'll blog about in another post.  It's definitely a show to catch if you are ever near Birmingham in August. 

The Lovely Langdales. . .

Despite my many trips to the Lake District, last Sunday was my first time walking among the Langdale Pikes.  It's an area that my walking group regularly frequents (and now I know why!) but we had always been busy whenever it came up in the schedule.

And all I can say is WOW!  This is a post where really all the photos can speak for themselves - we had perfect weather and perfect views. It was a circular walk about 8.5 miles.

From the National Trust parking lot, it was straight up into the climbing, but on a very good, stony-stepped path.  You can see how popular this area is - almost all the paths we went on were well-maintained.

This is about halfway up looking back on the valley. The path follows Stickle Ghyll.

And ends up at Stickle Tarn.  At the opposite end is Pavey Ark and there is a diagonal scramble of a path called Jack's Rake. My partner went up that, but he was on the harder walk - I don't have a head for prolonged scrambling so was happy to just skirt the tarn.

We then started heading up Harrison Stickle with lovely views looking back on the tarn.  You can also see Lake Windermere in the distance.

At the top was time for a break and a bit of knitting. That little round knob of a hill in the middle is Pike O'Stickle which we headed for after lunch.

It looks a little bigger as you get closer.

This was one of those walks where you had spectacular views in every direction. Here on the top, you can just see the top of Great Gable disappearing into the clouds with Green Gable beside it. 

Looking back on Loft Crag.

We then descended over glorious moorland with spectacular views in every direction - you can see Skiddaw in the distance.

I love the dramatic play of light and shadow on the landscape. It was such a stunning day out in the hills.

We then came across these huge bags full of Herdwick fleece.  My guess is that it'll be used in much of the path repairs taking place in this area. The wool forms a good barrier between the bog and the stone path.

Finally we swerved around and returned back along this valley path.  Definitely a walk for the top ten list!

Too Hot to Blog, but not to Knit. . . .

July has come and gone and it's still hot and the UK still needs some prolonged rain.  How have you handled your urge to knit amidst the sweaty hands and a pile of wool sitting on your lap? I've been lounging under a leafy tree in my back garden and it's been fine, especially in the mornings. And, when I tote up what I've been working on last month, I've been surprisingly productive.  Probably because with the heat, I haven't had the energy to do more physical things, such as housework.  At least that's my excuse.  It probably helped too that I was glued to the telly for a good chunk of time - World Cup, Wimbledon and the Tour de France are all excellent opportunities for knitting. 

I finished my Anni and this cotton top has gotten a lot of wear.  It was really quick and fun to knit. I love how the colours work with each other, I used some deep stash and I still have several balls of the grey and olive so another top combining the two may be in the works. 

I made a few modifications including knitting an extra pattern repeat and also creating a split hem.  I really hate weaving in ends with cotton, so I left off the ribbing on the sleeves too - they had nice slipped stitch selvedges and I think it looks fine.  I did recently come across an excellent article by Kate Atherley on weaving in ends with a few techniques that I've not tried before, so if this is something you dread or procrastinate on, check it out here.

July was also the month of mystery knit/crochet-a-longs.  The Skimming Stones crocheted shawl is finished and this is my version.  I found each clue a bit similar each week so wasn't as engaged with it as I could have been.  I finished off the last bit - those ripples at the end - in the main colour rather than the mini-skeins as I just couldn't bear to weave in any more ends.

Ysolda Teague's Gloamin-Tide mystery shawl by contrast has been a completely engaging and intriguing knit.  I am just now finishing the last clue which is to fill in this square in the middle. I have certainly never constructed a shawl this way before and have thoroughly enjoyed working on this.

I still need more summer tops, so have cast on a Talavera from Pom Pom, Issue 13.  I am using an interesting yarn for this - the Scheepjes Woolly Whirl 4ply is a blend of cotton and wool and is a gradient with various marls in the colours. It comes in balls of 1000 metres, plenty to make this top but I will have to get a bit canny with matching the colours when I divide for the front and back.  Fortunately the colour changes are quite long but weaving in ends in lace is the worst! We'll see how this goes. . .

Look, two sleeves!!!!  These belong to Bressay, by Marie Wallin and are part of the Nature's Shades KAL from the Knit British group.  There are 22 rows of colourwork on each sleeve before you join it to the body and do the yoke.  Best motivation of all to get the boring bits of the sleeve done.  I'm now a few rows from finishing the body and hope to join them up next week.  Yarn is all from stash - the main colour is a luscious Wensleydale from John Arbon and I'm using bits of Zwartbles, and J & S Shetland Supreme for the other shades. 

And finally,  I am on the bottom hem of my Lotta dress.  I can't see the need for a woolly dress anytime soon, but this feels like an epic knit and I can't wait to get it off the needles.

Knitting in a Heatwave. . .

For the last couple of weeks, most of the UK has been living with an unusual heatwave (unusual in its length).  There's been very little rain, the usually green grass is parched everywhere, sadly there are fires burning on the moorlands near Manchester and Bolton (those firefighters are heroic!), and for once it's been far too hot to be knitting with wool.

This has hampered a few of my ongoing projects. No way am I crocheting a huge wool rug with the majority of it lying on my lap.  And my rescue attempts from Sleeve Island are also being hampered. Most of my wips involve picking up stitches and knitting the sleeves down from the rest of the sweater which means constantly turning all that wool around and around.  It's not going to happen. 

I did however, finish the one project where I could knit the sleeves separately and then seam them to the body. Here is my finished Spin Me Round top by Francesca Hughes.  I made a lot of modifications to this pattern - I knit it several inches longer, omitted the patterning from the back and the sleeves and changed the neckline.  These changes were all necessary because of the yarn that I chose - West Country Tweed by Blacker Yarns.  I absolutely LOVED knitting with this - the fabric is smooth and soft and the rainbow flecks of colour are fun but subtle enough to keep this a neutral top.  Knit at the pattern's gauge, the fabric comes out much thicker and denser, giving it a very different look from the original, but I think the unusual cable/lace pattern shows up well and then the plain stockinette allows the yarn to shine too.  I am very happy with the result, although I could only wear this for the minute it took to snap the photo - it is a really, really warm top. 

Time to turn to cotton and something more loose and airy.  I have cast on Anni by Gina Röckenwagner from the summer issue of  Pom Pom Magazine, using some deep stash - two colours of Rowan Pima Cotton DK and then a skein of Sugar Bush Cabot, leftover from my Pabaigh top.  This involves a lot of slip stitching on 6mm needles so it's knitting up quite quickly. 

I have also embarked on two mystery shawl projects that should see me through the month.  This is the Gloamin-tide MKAL by Ysolda Teague. It uses three colours that ideally should fade into each other, although mine are a little more defined. Again, going deep into the stash, I pulled out these skeins all from Northbound Knitting. Two of them were part of a yarn club a few years ago so have a similar, complimentary tone.  This photo shows the shawl at the completion of Clue 2 where we suddenly increased stitches in an interesting way. I'm excited to see what happens next.

There is some subtle but lovely slip stitching in this pattern too.

And then I've started my first ever mystery crochet-a-long.  This shows the first two clues finished of the Skimming Stones shawl by Joanne Scrace of the Crochet Project.   Each clue is supposed to take only three hours, but I confess to having had to rip back a number of times as it involved some new-to-me stitches and it took a while to get the hang of it. I'm enjoying the challenge now. Fortunately two of the members of my knitting group are also doing this and they are very good crocheters so have helped me with that tricky center stitch. It's been fun to see this grow, but because there isn't a ravelry group for the Crochet Project, most of the discussion is going on over on Facebook and I'm not on it, nor plan to be. I still think it will be a lovely shawl though and it's allowing my crochet mojo to return.

Maybe it's time to finally crochet the sleeves on this longstanding cardigan wip?   

Stuck on Sleeve Island. . .

What is it about sleeves and my aversion to them? In theory, they usually aren't hard to knit, especially if they don't have a pattern beyond some ribbing at the cuff. If it's for a seamed garment, they are a perfect portable project to take to knit group.  Same if it's a sleeve knitted in the round that will later be attached to the body before knitting the yoke.

And yet.

A recent rumble through my various wip project bags turned up all of these. Notice something they all share in common?

I'm embarrassed to admit that at least two of these projects were started when I still lived in Toronto. That was over six years ago.

And so I am committed to a Summer of Sleeves (SOS) and rescuing these poor castaways on Sleeve Island. If I can just knit ten sleeves this summer, I will have five lovely new garments for the autumn months. Heck, I'd be happy with three.

SOS has not been without its pitfalls.  I started with my Spin Me Round top.

The sleeves are knit flat, starting with some ribbing at the cuff and then I decided to omit the pattern and just knit the rest in stockinette. I dutifully cast on and knit almost up to the armhole. It was only then that I remembered WHY I had abandoned the project at the sleeve stage.  I didn't have enough yarn to knit two full sleeves and I wanted to re-write the pattern so I could knit it from the top down and stop when I was sure I could finish both of them with the yarn I had left.  I ripped it out and started again.

I now have one sleeve done.  It will stop just before the elbow which is a nice length.   I have absolutely loved knitting this with Blacker Yarns' West Country Tweed. It is so soft and yet creates a really firm fabric that I predict will relax and get even softer with age and washing. I think it will feel like a favourite, comfy sweatshirt to wear against your skin.  Very excited to be nearing the finish line on this one.

But let's face it, sleeves can be boring. Part of my strategy to get these sleeves finished is to alternate between projects so that I am at least working in different colours and yarns. This may backfire and I'll be back in six months showing a bunch of one-armed sweaters that still aren't finished, but let's see how it goes.

I approached my Dorothy. I actually really like the sleeves on this - you pick up stitches around the armhole and then knit a band of the same lace pattern that is around the neck, before knitting stockinette in the round with decreases until you reach the ribbing on the cuff.  They aren't even full sleeves!

And so I knit down to the cuff. And then tried it on.  And realized that there is far too much material under the arms for my liking. It really bunches up.  So back to the drawing board - I'll need to rip back and pick up fewer stitches and try again.  I'm just not having a good sleeve week; you can see why I've been avoiding the darn things.

Of course it isn't helping matters that while struggling with sleeves, I've also been casting on some new patterns. What is the best procrastination project of all?  Why, to knit a dress in 4ply of course.  This is the Lotta dress by Marie Greene from the latest issue of Laine magazine.  It's a very clever design. Knit top-down, there is a pleat that incorporates all of the extra fabric that you'd normally need for your hips. So once you've reached that point, it's just plain stockinette until the rib at the bottom. No increases or decreases to worry about.

I am knitting mine in deep stash - some Swan's Island organic merino in their Indigo Watercolours Fingering.  I am using a darker indigo yarn from the Border Tart for the horizontal dividing line and also the ribbing.  This is the perfect project for watching the World Cup.  But please do notice that I have finished the sleeves.