The Bath Crafting Cranny

Raining wool?

Unlike Gerard from IKL, I'm afraid I'm just not a Alan Titchmarsh fan. But, why, you ask? Well, it's pretty much for the same reason that the fairly innocuous James Blunt manages to get up some people’s noses…

Actually, my pseudo-aversion comes from the fact that he seems to be the David Attenborough replacement and, as for his geology-based programmes...well, don't get me started. The fabulous Aubrey Manning would have been a far better choice (a hark back to my cheery Edinburgh days) or the masterly and merry Richard Fortey (but, then, I am biased). Luckily, BBC seems to have realised the error of their ways and are starting to recruit the wonderful Iain Stewart instead.

John watched his 'Nature of Britain' on Wednesday while I battled with a sock heel - and Alan did actually make me ears prick up. He tells us, such were the concentration of spiderlings hatching one year, that 'it rained wool round about the stronghold of Compsa (note 147: Pliny the Elder, Natural History: A Selection.' 77AD)'. Raining wool! Excellent! (This is the earliest known written reference to spider silk, by the way...)

As ole Alan has the irritating ability to pop up on every radio, TV, website and newspaper (often concurrently) and shows no sign of abating, I guess I will have to learn to love him. I promise I shall try.

Bath Christmas Market time again!!

Hurray! It's the time of year again! I've resolved to buy one of Donald Yule's beautiful clocks this year - after drooling over them for the last 2 years! He makes house signs too...

Hysterical knitting :0)

Julie Stewart is a knitting writer and is working on a sitcom based around a knitting group! As she would like it to be UK based, and aimed primarily at the UK market, she is now approaching almost 100 UK knitters for participation. I’ve pasted some information from her email below:

'I have been knitting for 40 years and I am also a writer. I am currently writing a sitcom based in/on a knitting group. I intend to write a light, hearted, fun, family show and to do for the images of knitting, knitters and knitting groups what "The Vicar of Dibley" did for female clergy. That is, I want to explode the stereotypes but also make us stand out as the unique types that we are!

I have created the main group of 6 characters, and I have planned a series of episodes. My next job is to layer the content, to enrich it and to decide on some story arcs for each character. At the moment I am working on the pilot and have set myself a deadline for end of January.

Initially, I would like to hear from any groups or individuals who would be interested in collaborating on this project by sharing anecdotes, special things individual knitters or groups have done/achieved, happy/sad knitting related stories, successes/failures - anything, even if it is just a short notion of 20 or 30 words or so. I have set up a private forum: http://purltwotogether.makeforum.org. Please sign up to this project and share it with other knitters who I may not have contacted.  Even if you cannot think of any ideas just now, you may do so later. If not, you will still have opportunities, via the community that I shall build, to contribute your opinions. I have added some content - and will be adding more about the proposed characters, plot synopses and ideas for episodes. Members of the forum will have access to the scripts. All, and any, ideas - however insignificant they may seem - will be welcome. So any ideas, catchy knitting-related phrases, stories and experiences, weird things people have knitted etc etc etc will be welcome. I shall also discuss directly with individuals the use of their contributions and let them read any scenes/episodes in which their contributions feature and discuss any points of interest or other issues with them. Anything that is used will be credited.’

I wonder if she might be interested by my near demise-by-knitting-needle??

THIS THURSDAY!

Get a discount from the Cath Kidston shop on Thursday! It's current store is on Bartlett Street.

I think it's opening a new store near 'Stone the Crows' shop and St. Christopher's Inn and it looks bigger than the current store.

I do love Cath K - and her background is interesting! But somehow I find myself wishing she'd not widened her niche. In her early days her items were selective but well-made and I was willing to pay the difference. When I went to her (enormous) store in Brighton I found myself disappointed with how eclectic the items are with her name on now...it's like she'd filled every possible branding opportunity and the items didn't seem very well-made at all...

On a related note, a couple of years ago I was going to buy some of her fabric to make a knitting needle-holder. And then her knitting collection came out...it is interesting to note that her needle-holder was going to cost a third of the price of the fabric alone and included a few pairs of needles too. That, surely, says something about the low cost of the labour for the making-up of her items...or the amazingly overinflated price of her fabrics? But I still can't resist her.

Some comic knitting ideas

Lovely Carol from work (who's taking me to Dick and Debbie Mather's 'Crafts at Home' tomorrow) lent me a wonderful book called 'Wild Knitting' by Angela Jeffs. It was published in 1979: does that help to give you some idea of what delights this post is going to dazzle you with?

So here are some of my favourites! The Armadillo Wrap (upper left); the knitted lipstick! (upper right); the sardine tie (left). There's some more pictures on Monster Crochet (check out the duck-feet socks)!

The farmers' jumper has a pipe-cleaner fence and pompom sheep. The bobble hat has a yellow bobble as the sun! (right). Just wonderful!

Tuesday's knitting merriment (even with a limp)

About time for a post with photos, I think!

Tuesday was a good knit-knatter - nice to meet Sarah and Nikki! I was a little fragile - post-knitting-needle-injury - and got soaked by a lorry whizzing through a lake on the Bathwick Street. Humph. But tea and knitting cheer awaited :0)

Peter's been working on his tubular knitting and, in particular, the problem of short rows. Here's his work on the wrong side (above, left) and right side (above, right). He's going to put all this tubular brain-work online in the new year...I'll give a link to it when it's all up and running..!

Helen's been battling with her pair of socks on one circular needle (left). (Beware: this way lies madness!) But they look excellent and this is one way to truly solve the deaded SSS (second sock syndrome). I think Helen's getting a bit bored of continually moving the work around the needles (one of the sides of the work is especially fiddly). I'm sure it'll all be worth it in the end!

Jackie's in the midst of knitting Pudsey (and here's his nose; above, right)! When it's completed it's going to auctioned here for Children In Need, so keep a beady eye open...

Ravelry wonder

A month of bouncing up and down on my seat - and I'm in! Hurray!

And what a bag of wonders Ravelry is! I'd played in it this morning but had to sign out after half an hour: my eyes were nearly bleeding with overload.

Some porridge and a mug of tea later and it's all seeming a bit more manageable. The functionality is great. You can work in the following categories: projects (WIP, ordered by 'happiness'!! chortle!); stash (what you have/want/are selling); queue (Grand Ravelry Plans for the future, and you can save other website patterns in here too!); favourites; friends (to find people in your area, etc.); groups; needles and hooks (to make a list of what you own! Surprisingly useful); and books (Amazon wish list-esque for knitting).

Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful!!! And now I really need to lie down. I can see the vortex of my life being sucked into Ravelry for every spare future minute of my life...but it will be fun!

Happy weekend fun

I’m off to this happy event on Sunday (see their Exhibitions page)! Yippee!

I was introduced to Debbie through a friend from work that lived near her. Debbie crochets lovely garments and accessories and Dick is involved in woodwork and woodturning. I bought the most wonderful cherry wood bowl from him last year: carved from a donated tree from Marshfield vicarage.

There’s an entrance fee of a couple of quid (which goes to charity) and this also entitles you to a glass of mulled wine and a mince pie! It promises to be a lovely weekend!

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Crafts at Home
Saturday & Sunday, 24th and 25th November, 2007
11am to 4pm
A selection of crafts for Christmas in our own home (see their Contact page).
Our work, plus the work of some invited friends.
Entrance fee to include mulled wine and mince pie. All profits from the event go to CLIC Sargent.

Yarn shops in Bath Spa and the West Country

We've been talking about where to shop locally for yarn - so here's a wee list of yarn stockists in Bath Spa and its surrounding area. It's undoubtedly not comprehensive; please email me with details of ones I've missed!

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Bath Spa and immediate area (central marked with *)

Edna's: 4 Brookside House, High Street, Weston BA1 4BY. 01225 423058

Sew 'n' Sew*: Stalls 11-18, Guildhall Market, BA2 4AW. 01225 482648

Janeen: 43 Upper Bloomfield Road, Bath. 01225 833240

Wright's Wools: 94 Mount Road, Southdown, Bath BA2 1LN

Wool: Old Orchard Street, Bath

Bristol and area

Get Knitted: 39 Brislington Hill, Bristol. 0117 300 5211 [HUGE store, with lots of choice, get the X39 bus from Bath].

The Crafty Stitcher: 83 Quaker's Road, Bristol. BS16 6NH. 0117 975 9004

The Ball of Wool: 47A High Street, Bristol BS37.

Wells

Wells Knitting Centre/Mandy Wools: 5 Mill Street, Wells, BA5 2AS. 01749 677548

Yeovil and area

Enid's: Church Street, Yeovil, BA20 1HE

Good Yarns: 38 High Street, Wincanton, BA9 9JF

PS., and more here...

The great outdoors...

I was very pleased to see that Bath's Tim Gatfield has a honourable mention in the last week's Observer! Great stuff. Read more about Cherry Wood project here...

On an outdoor note: we've been expanding our allotment this weekend! I've been playing with the tools I got for my birthday! You can see our allotment progress here (soon to be updated with photos from our summer glut..!). I won't post too much about our 10 rods of land up here...far better to leave it to the Wiltshire experts: My Tiny Plot and Veg-plotting.

Oil your needles: there's a competition!

Apologies for not giving you more notice! (Beverly Evans emailed the details of this to me back in September. Ooops.)

Good news: the deadline was on the 10th December but has now been (unofficially) extended to the end of January!! Debbie Bliss will be judging the entries in early February.

Details are here: Download competition_leaflet.pdf!!

Knitted phone (k)natter

For the person that has everything?

On a related note, a friend lent me a 1970s knitting book - so there's more odd knitting ideas coming up - watch this space..!

POSTSCRIPT: see here too for woolly weirdies...

The Big Knit 2007

'Innocent' (those yum little drinks) are at it again!! :0)

Here's their press release:

'The Big Knit has arrived. Over the last few months, people have been busily knitting little hats for our smoothie bottles. And these behatted bottles are now available in Sainsbury’s – for every one sold, innocent and Sainsbury’s will give 50p to Age Concern. If we hit our target of 400,000 hats, we’ll raise £200,000 to help keep older people warm this winter. Good eh?

So why are we bothering? Well it's simple. Almost 25,000 older people died of cold related illnesses last winter, and we wanted to do our bit. Age Concern will use the money raised to provide support to older people in winter, including hot meals, blankets and advice on how to keep their houses warm.'

It's absolutely freeeeeeezing out there now! Their news blog is here and get some inspiration here!

And there's a comical video..!

Beautiful voice...and buttons

I heard Ruth Notman on Mike Harding's Radio 2 show last night and was bowled over: her voice has a beautiful purity (not dissimilar to that of the wonderful Alison Krauss). And, with a album cover like this, (right) what's not to like?! You can read a review and hear her dulcet tones here.

Project paralysis

I'm at the end of my pink cotton socks and need to think about my next cast-on. But, the thing is: despite being completed over-excited (in a magpie-in-jewel-shop, kid-in-lolly-shop kind of way) about my vast stash, I now also feel strangely immobilized.

It’s as if I had sped up with projects as I neared the end (or, at least, end-ish) of my stash and now the huge number of awaiting projects has completely discombobulated me.

I wonder if I can find a circular needle long enough to cast on every single waiting project so I can knit them concurrently, like Helen's pair of socks??!

For impatient souls like me – knitting is a tricky pastime. I have to stick to my house rules:

• only 3 projects on the needles at any one time;
• write down any pattern-changes as I go rather than relying on the dubious idea that I'll remember them all;
• less haste, more speed;
• when I make an error, however small, I must rip-back rather than make-do; and
• stop trying to inhale patterns immediately, take the time to read them slowly and ponder them first.

What are other people's knit-rules?   

Someone sit Helen down and give her a cup of tea please!

Helen and I crawled home on the last train after some debachery in Leicester Square (we'll not talk of the bus not turning up at Swindon and the National Rail having to put us in a taxi to Bath - I can feel my jaw clenching already). So, we got home at around 2am on the Sunday morn and met up again some 12 hours later for the Sunday SnB meeting.

The only things I had done since I'd last seen Helen was: sleep, take a Berocca and clean my teeth. Helen, on the other hand, had nearly finished her second glove (above; note that her nails (deliberately) match her yarn! hehe!); wound up her Easy Knit's 'plums and custard' yarn; thought to bring me lots of exciting pattern books to borrow; and very kindly bought me a lovely sewing-box for my birthday! :0)

And there's more..! She's been battling the drop spindle (above) whilst repeating the adage of 'practice makes perfect', and plans to dye it golden with onion skins once it's spun! I've played with mine a little but am a bit too preoccupied with sniffing the practice wool (it smell so delighfully of baby, fluffy sheep).

And, if that wasn't enough for a Monday, Helen's started knitting up her 'plums and custard' yarn into a pair of socks. And I do mean just that: one pair of socks. On the same circular needle (left). The mind boggles...

I'm going to ask her if she'll put a wee tutorial up on here - this is far beyond any of my knitting capabilities...

But I am assured that: (1) it is possible; (2) it involves a lots of needle manipulation (3) it looks impossible; (4) it is fun; and (5) she's not sure if it will ever flow..!

Helen wants to email Jon of Easy Knits (above right, with Easy Knit Roy and me) a 'progress report' so the pressure's on - don't forget to sleep, Helen!!

IKL Big Day Out

The knitting group/shop 'I Knit London' (IKL) hosted the UK's first official Stitch 'n' Bitch Day last Saturday and Helen and I were happy partakers. Meeting at the train station at 7am was a rather auspicious start to the day – but it rapidly improved. We managed to pour over the street-map for a good few minutes trying to work out where the hotel was – before realizing that we were standing next to a massive sign for it… I’d like to blame it on the early start to the day but, frankly, it’s just because I’m rubbish at directions.

We popped next door for a quick coffee and sugary victuals to give us some shopping energy…and then, suddenly, it was 11.30 and we’d managed to miss Jane Waller’s ‘A Stitch in Time’ and Debbie Stoller’s workshops. Damn. So now I have no sense of direction and no timekeeping ability. I did have a browse through their books though – and they’re both definitely on my Wish List. Furthermore, all the woolly gems in the market pulled us in and meant we also missed the crochet flower workshop by Jane Brocket (AKA Yarnstorm).

Anyway, less of what we managed to miss and more about what we did do! Erm…shop. And fiercely! And lots of: “ahs”, strokes, squeezes, rummaging, planning, envisaging and “ooohs”. 

There were lots of stands selling wares. In a mere 60 minutes, Helen and I managed to notch up the following...

Skeins of: Manos Del Uruguay silk (very top left, I recommend clicking on the photo to see its full glory); Natural Dye Studio's Mirage (very top right) and teapot cosy kit (right); Fyberspates' wool in a gorgeous bluey-teal and their reversible 'Wave' pattern (can you tell what my favourite colour is yet..?; upper left); Easy knits' Liquorice yarn (upper right) and the spectacular Plums and Custard (left); drop spindles and lovely wool tops from the lovely lady at Fibrelust; and lots of goodies from Garthenor Organic pure wool (bottom left and right).

More about Easy Knit and Fibrelust later but just a wee word about Garthenor Organic wools. All their yarns are unbleached and undyed from traditional and rare breeds of British sheep. They sell oiled and washed versions of their yarns so you can experiment...My biscuity-coloured wool (the 50g balls in the photo) is a blend of a brown and white spotty breed (I love this thought - I'll giggle whilst I knit with it!).

Chris King was really helpful and informative and his son helped me find the right wool (I asked him if he'd got roped into helping, to a little nod...I said that I hoped he was getting a treat after, to which he whispered 'pizza!' Tee hee!)

All my rules about buying yarn only for planned projects went completely out of the window. I did consider hiding my wool in a cupboard and producing it in small batches so John wouldn’t notice the sheer volume… But, anyway, I am convinced that this splurge will get me through the throes of ferocious winter-knitting and out clearly the other side...

And, thankfully, we did keep an eye on the clock in time to see Betsan’s wonderful presentation about the therapeutic effects of knitting. You can read more about her work here. There was so much in her talk to fascinate - and I'm going to share it soon - but, for now, enough woolly-waffling. I'm off to wind my Liquorice sock yarn and drink wine. The best way to spend a Monday evening...

Knitting before breakfast..?

I'm an oats-&-yoghurt kind of girl but when my brother came to visit we had to get something a bit more sugary...(this is the lad who eats sugar cubes by the handful...). We brought Shreddies for him (and got a glower for not choosing the more sugary Frosties...humph...)

But, I'm now a convert...the little side-labels of ours says that they are knitted by Dotty! :0) And look at the back of the box -------->

(JohnBoy is a one of those lovely people who actually listens to what people say and stashs it away in a brain-folder somewhere: but I was slightly shocked to see how much he listens to my whitterings. 'Isn't the granny's tension a bit tight if she knits something so small from such big needles??'. Er, yes, Dear. (Blimey!))

Gloves to keep those knitting hands toasty

Helen's lovely, lovely gloves ('cuse the flanking beers) are made from Louisa Harding's Kimono Angora (shade #8). I absolutely love this yarn and ordered some today from Cucumberpatch *little bounce*

The pattern was inspired by Iris G's Malabrigo Gloves, but with a 3+1 rib cuff and the fingers are left open-ended. 

I reckon the second glove will be finished on the train by the time we get to this Big Day Out! (providing we don't fall asleep - we're getting the 07.15 train on a Saturday - bleugh).

Widcombe Studios, Bath

Widcombe Studios are having their Open Day at the end of November (I think it's the 30th Nov-1st Dec). Details are coming soon so I'll keep you posted...

A friend from the Bath Publisher meetings, Richard Lawrence, has his printing studio there: he has a wonderful treadle press and an amazingly-old hand press there, all in use. When I last visited, he was in the midst of printing beautiful hand-printed flyers for the Edinburgh Fringe festival. It really is a step back in time.

I'm desperate to visit the Type Museum in London: but it's under development, with limited access to the collections at present. I excitedly emailed them and I was told they don't know when it will re-open to it's full capacity - but will keep my beady eye on its website...

Stash increase!

Stash, a lovely yarn shop near my parent's house, are having a massive Autumn yarn sale: hurray!

I'm looking forward to popping in there over Christmas...if anyone wants anything picking up, drop me a line!

I'm told patience is a virtue

Ravelry is - I've heard - a wonderful forum for all thing knitty. Will I get to #1 on the waiting-list quicker if I stop checking how many people are ahead of me all the time??

• You signed up on November 1, 2007
• You are #51643 on the list.
• 9177 people are ahead of you in line.
• 2726 people are behind you in line.
• 77% of the list has been invited so far

Happy knit-natter...

Last night was lots of fun... Elizabeth has been beetling over her Griffin embroidery and it's well on target for a Christmas finish! And, Helen's fingerless gloves are amazing! (How does she make it look so easy?!) Look at that yarn...mmmmmm.

It's just a wee shame I have to leave a little early on the first Tuesdays of the month - I nip over to The Raven for a natter with fellow publishers. If there are any other logophiles out there we meet at 20.30 on the first Tuesday of the month upstairs to talk about all things wordy and drink beer. There's a lovely mixture of writers, graphic designers, editorial/production folk, artists and even a Bard!

Three of my favourite things in one night: wool, words and wine. Yippee!

Oh, what clever knitty inventors!

This is going straight on my Christmas list! The knitzi enables you to keep all your sock needles safe and tidy. I've already ruined one pretty fabric bag when they stabbed through it, removed countless eyes when I've peered in my handbag and spent hours untangling the yarn horror from the other things in my bag...this should solve all that. Knitzi = absolute genius!

Mittens for mantids

I've already been terrified by the mini-knits some people make. Here's a lady who knits mini-things...that are small enough to clothe bugs. You can read the full article here.

N.B., Another microscopic artist's work can be seen here: absolutely breathtaking!

At least these help those winter sniffles...

Look what I've found! I got them in Vintage to Vogue: if you haven't found this wonderous shop already, I urge you to snoop it out. Probably my happiest non-knitting retail pottering has been in here.

Each one was about a pound (price is dependent on age and lacework) but they save me a fortune in Kleenex and (my daily FOE email tip tells me) help save the planet.

Brighton & crafting fun

John and I went to Brighton last weekend and I tried to get some good Brighton sea air to help my bronchitic teabag-sized lungs (it didn't work).

It was fabulous! We went to Brighton Pavilion to feel suitable tourists, played in the arcade (the games are impossible as an adult - how are you supposed to win if you're six years old and your fingers are all gummed up with candy floss?) and then a long lunch in the Mock Turtle cafe with its doilies, sticky buns, homemade jams and pretty plates (John was given a knife and fork to eat his jam doughnut, it was so big).

We got lost in Kensington Gardens and we bought a beautiful John Dilnot print from Appendage.

And then we found the wonderful Snooper's Paradise. I nearly didn't get out - there are so many corridors of delights that the Exit is easy to lose. I got a squillion old knitting needle pairs for a couple of quid, lots of bags of buttons and some vintage knitting patterns (left). I love the patterns! But mostly for their comical value... (I'll bring them to the next knitting group so we can have a good giggle!)

In the loop

Wendy drew my attention to this. It's too late to submit abstracts for posters/presentations but the meeting should be really interesting and I'm sure there'll be tea and biscuits.

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CALL FOR PAPERS

In The Loop: Knitting Past, Present and Future
A Three-day Interdisciplinary International Conference
Winchester School of Art, University of Southampton, 15th-17th July, 2008

Keynote Speakers:
Barbara Burman
Sabrina Gschwandtner
Sandy Black
Liz Collins

In response to the resurgence of public interest knitting has enjoyed in recent years, this interdisciplinary conference proposes an exploration of knitting from a broad range of theoretical and practical perspectives. Proposed abstracts that cross geographical or chronological boundaries in the following areas are of particular interest:

      - knitting narratives including film, literature and the internet
      - knitting, fashion & the industry
      - knitting culture including subversion, gender, tradition and stereotype
      - knitting, technology and the future

We welcome abstracts from practitioners, knitters, historians, conservators, theorists, educators, curators, technologists and the industry. Abstracts will be considered for formal 20 minute papers or poster presentations.

Selected papers or visual essays will be considered for publication in the 2008 edition of the Textile Society’s Annual Journal Text.

Deadline for abstracts: Monday October 1, 2007.
Notification of decision: Monday November 5, 2007.

300 word limit to abstracts for presentations of 20 minutes or poster presentations.

Enquiries and abstracts to the Conference Administrator: [email protected]

Organising Committee: Linda Newington, Maria Hayward & Jessica Hemmings.

Who says you can never get something for nothing?

This is my fourth week of The Lurgy of 2007 and the novelty of being poorly is, frankly, wearing thin. Sigh. But when I got home tonight there was a big box of cheery, FREE wool waiting! :0)

This is our reward for being Simply Knitting's Club of the Month back in late summer. There's 5 x 50g balls of 5 different types of Bergere de France yarn. Lucky us!

Clockwise from top:

Toison (pink-red): 77% acrylic, 20% worsted wool, 3% polyamide; 50g/70m; 5-6mm needles

Caline (baby blue): 60% acrylic, 20% worsted wool, 20% polyamide nylon; 50g/180m; 2.5-3mm needles

Tweedine (grey-green): 30% worsted wool, 70% acrylic; 50g/150m; 3-3.5mm needles

Sport (sky blue): 51% worsted wool, 49% acrylic; 50g/90m; 3.5-4mm needles

Cotton nature (ecru): 100% mercerized organic cotton; 50g/115m; 2.5-3mm needles

I'm not sure exactly how it should be divided up: any suggestions? Everyone needs more than 100g to knit anything socky, hat-like or little person-ish and we can't have 2.5 balls each...so I think we should have five 3x50g bundles and five 2x50g bundles of each wool type (so, enough for 10 people). I'm going to suggest a good ole Democratic division: if you've been to the Bath SnB meetings and would like some free yarn please email me by the end of November...and then I will draw 10 names from a hat. How does that sound?

Sad, sad news...

Dina Rabinovitch - the Guardian columnist and candid voice of breast cancer died on Tuesday 30th October. After the Guardian changed their format, her weekly column shifted to a blog (linked on the bottom, left-hand side of this one and it's wonderful). I started reading her column back in 2004 and was hooked. She still published the occasional piece in the Guardian and her last and most moving article was published there last Monday. She gave a wonderfully human voice to the horrors of cancer, often with a black-humoured approach.

Ironically, October - the month of her death - was also Breast Cancer Awareness month. Her death will undoubtedly raise awareness of breast cancer and raise sponsorship too: a fitting tribute.

Two things I will do today: buy Dina's book, which has been on my Wish List for months, and plan my next Keyring Knit for Wendy Else. If you could find time to do likewise, I'm sure it would be very much appreciated...