KnitWit

Not everything is as easy as yarn shopping

Recently one of my friends got married and the saga that became my wedding outfit was a bit epic. Many things were tried on, bought and returned to various shops. I cursed and gnashed my teeth, wishing I hadn’t stained the dress I meant to wear and wondered whether I could somehow just make an outfit.  On one particularly cantankerous day I found myself thinking “yarn shopping is soo much easier”. Maybe I could just wear wool to the blooming wedding and then I found this....
<enter sounds of heavenly choir>

I *heart* everything about this dress. It has seed pods on it.  The wedding was excellent fun...
In other news, I appear to be obsessed by mushrooms – this is a shaggy inkcap.

 I think it is an excellent specimen of a ‘shroom, I love how it looks. Apparently it is edible but I wouldn’t fancy my chances – it looks quite evil. I did in fact even start looking longingly at a field guide to mushrooms in a bookshop the other day and am excited that Autumnwatch* has done a downloadable fungi guide. NB. It appears that the 'Have Fun with Fungi' guide has been removed but there is still a very exciting  sounds of the night guide still up.

 Also my mum decided that key to her recuperation was beating the credit crunch through log fires – so J, my sister and I spent an afternoon stacking neat piles of logs all round her house. 2 cubic metres of logs makes quite a few piles! The toads will love it although I managed to look like I’d been up a chimney by the end of it. (I have an amazing capacity for dirt!)

Last night I watched the Picture Book programme about children’s books which I loved. (I have to point out that I was eating a bake using one of the Jamie Oliver pasta sauces, Red Onion and Rosemary, which was very tasty indeed and did add bliss to the event) I didn’t know that A.A. Milne served in First World War and was really affected by it so retreated to Ashdown Forest to write Winnie the Pooh after he was discharged. Also I recently discovered that Raymond Briggs' depiction of "blooming" Father Christmas was the first time a working class Father Christmas had ever been depicted which I thought was really interesting.

*For Autumnwatch viewers - I'm so happy that Nemo survived!

Banishing the grey days

Last week I was feeling decidedly lacklustre about the weather and the Iknit event on Saturday proved the perfect antidote to a grey long week. It was lovely – I went on the knitting hut minibus with my mum and my sister and a great day was had by all.  I managed not to take any photos of the entire day so excited by yarn, fashion shows and bumping into familiar faces. There was giant knitting, dutch knitting café with amazing socks and biscuits, the knitted landscape photos, an angora rabbit (who didn’t look very happy, I’m sure we should have been able to liberate/stroke/take it home to play ), and this sheep which Holly kindly photographed for me.  

The vintage knitted swimwear in the Sitch in Time Fashion was simply great and would love to be able to style myself in a 40s fashion from time to time. The slightly curled hair is just fabulous but possibly might not work with my hair.

 I wish I had seen Jane Sowerby speak but I had got bit overenthusiastic about having coffee and had failed to read my programme correctly so missed her talk. I did have a lovely chat with her afterwards about Prism yarn and looked at her shawls, they are breathtaking in real life and I might have to acquire her book, Victorian Lace Today, in the near future. 

Oh and the Yarn Harlot was very funny indeed as expected. I found myself slightly freaking out by the fact everyone was knitting around us and by the end felt compelled to start knitting. It was like an strange spell fell on people and people who didn’t start of knitting were certainly knitting by the end. One of the most fun things was spotting what people were wearing – I don’t remember doing this last year but I kept seeing stunning shawls or cardigans that were clearly handknit and making notes about things to look for on Ravelry. I’m sorry if you saw me staring!

The marketplace was similar to last year in that most of the stalls were local, independent enterprises and so buying from them really felt in someway like supporting a cottage industry.  I purchased a skein of variegated sock yarn from the Natural Dye Studio which caught my eye and was on my list of allowed purchases. It is a bamboo-merino mix which will be interesting because I’ve long resisted bamboo as a fibre. (Doesn’t feel right to me somehow).  The variegated colours of the Natural Dye Studio were stunning so I’m sure I’ll be purchasing some more in the future.  Quite fancy trying their Dazzle range.

However my main obsession was this lovely gorgeous black stuff. It was from the Heathland Hebridean stall which I spent a lot of time – the wool is undyed, as it comes from the sheep and has a fantastic colour which reminded me of peat.  It is quite rough so I think felting is probably its best use. But most of all I love the project that the wool supports. Heathland Hebridean is a conservation grazing project in Sussex where the rare breed flocks help manage the lowland heathland. Buying wool is protecting a unique biodiversity and help manage the landscape as well as sustaining a rare breed. (Looking at their website you can also buy sheep and mutton). I ended up buying about 6 skeins for felting projects and also revealed myself as a big biodiversity geek – apparently I was the only person to start talking to them about the importance of sheep grazing for nature conservation!

I ended the day buy buying a Herdy mug – it is going to accompany me into meetings. The profits from the mugs go to Herdwick Sheep breeders and Tourism and Conservation Partnership in the Lake District.

On the way home I was struck by the fact that most of my purchases reflect my new interest which is looking at the relationship agriculture has in shaping and conserving the natural environment.  I was really struck when I read a recent post on Crafting for a Greener World that biodiversity is an area which gets overlooked in the whole eco-crafting debate quite often and wool production for instance impacts the landscape and ecology quite a lot. I’m interested to know more so if other people have read interesting blog posts, articles or books on this subject I'd love to know more!