Woolly goings on...

So what's been happening? 

K1S2 goes from strength to strength; we had a special event to celebrate Wool Week kindly hosted by The Smithy Studios. There was much knitting, tea drinking and sheepy cake munching.

We are making little sheep to go on our Festival Christmas tree - cute or what?

Speaking of cute, the swift and ball winder were out the other day when the children came home. Audience seats were obtained and the show began. 

I can see a great future ahead for my two little handle-turners. Someone (and I can't remember who) once told me that it wasn't slavery if the children were your own!

Kirsty's knitting lessons are continuing, she has completed her first project and is now working on a matching hat. Slow and steady but that's what wins the race sometimes. At this rate she'll soon be joining in the workshops I'm teaching - 'Lace Knitting' and 'First Steps in Socks' at The Smithy - get in touch if you fancy coming along. 

Scramble!

"I met a friend today...she's got too much yarn...if you want to have a look in the boot of my car..." 

We didn't need to be asked twice. Within a matter of seconds, the contents of the boot were transferred to the pub and were being examined enthusiastically by K1S2ers.

Some of it was labelled, more was not and there were several cones of similar seeming yarn but in different colourways. We resorted to basic science to investigate...

Research Question 1: Is the blue yarn the same fibre content as the red yarn?

Research Question 2: Are the blue and red yarns cotton or acrylic.

Investigative strategy: Visual and physical examination followed by burn test.

Apparatus: Source of ignition and associated safety equipment. (The researchers gratefully acknowledge the contribution of Jo behind the bar.)

Method: Following detailed inspection and handling of the yarn samples by an expert panel, a burn test was performed against a known standard (white yarn pictured, 100% cotton.)

Results: The red and blue yarns were very similar in appearance but both were more lustrous and more difficult to break by hand than the white yarn sample. Both the red and blue yarns burned rapidly (a shade too rapidly, resulting in minor burns to the Lead Scientist) whereas the white yarn burned more slowly. On extinguishing the flames by means of rapid exhalation, the white yarn was observed to smoulder whereas the other two yarns were extinguished immediately. 

Inferences: The red and blue yarns are likely to be the same fibre content. This is likely to include man-made fibres. 

Conclusion: The red and blue yarns are suitable to be included in the same project and could safely be re-homed to a single knitter. 

Identification of random yarn would be a fun topic for a future workshop!

 

Lent was long...

So when they said it couldn't be done, I knew that it would be. I would give up knitting for Lent. All of Lent, even the days that don't really count (Sundays, Good Friday and Easter Saturday). Yep, that's right. Me...not...knitting. At first it seemed easy and somewhat refreshing, a relief from the self-imposed pressure of completing projects in the shortest possible time. Crochet, sewing and dyeing could provide creative outlets, and if all else failed there was always housework. 


Indeed there was some highly successful crochet

Sewing...

and dyeing...

as well as quite a lot of spinning.

Now although I love all those crafts, I hadn't realised quite how much I love knitting and how much I would miss the effect it has on my brain. Whether it's the repetitive nature of it, or the counting, or the following a pattern I'm not sure. Crocheting amigurimi (animals made up of a simple stitch) was the nearest thing I found.

I'm not one to give up on things (!) so I didn't actually lapse at all. The nearest I got was when un-knitting a hat for a fellow K1S2 knitter, it would have been very easy to knit a few stitches in the guise of 'nursing' - after all, this was permitted for the sake of my fellow knitters. I am pleased to say I resisted.

Easter Sunday approached. What to knit? Something simple, something complicated, something old, something new (or borrowed, or blue for that matter). The observation that the number of UK servicemen killed in the Falklands conflict (255) had only two factors (15 and 17) to which my knitterly mind said 'blanket' had set in train an idea for a commemorative project. Fairfield Mill had yielded some rough military green and khaki yarn...perfect. So it seemed appropriate to begin afresh with a swatch for the blanket.

The moment arrived, and although I had wondered whether I would have forgotten how to knit, my worries were unfounded. Casting on was like returning to a much loved and comfy sofa after a long and difficult journey. Soon I was surrounded by stitch dictionaries, debating the merits of granite ridge or nubbly moss. More about the blanket next time.

Excitement...

And then there were three...designs of mine on Ravelry! The second was a man's tank top, and the third is Scoresby, a lacy shrug. It's made as two sleeves which are then grafted together, stitches are picked up around the opening to make a ribbed collar, and a lacy edging sets it all off nicely. It uses about 600m of 4-ply (fingering weight) yarn, e.g. Jamieson's Spindrift. So far I've been delighted with the response to it, so much so that I'm planning to make another sample in a different colour and get some better photos done. In the meantime, it looks like this:

Yours for the princely sum of £2.80 via Ravelry here...


Yes, shameless advertising I know, but I think my own blog is probably about the only place I can get away with that! Oh, and apparently I'm in the local paper, having been interviewed a couple of weeks ago about Knit1Sip2. Yet to read it myself though...