Five on Five

My apologies for the rather unflattering pictures today. My granddaughter  The Little Model is staying and the photos were actually taken to text to her mother so she knew what we were up to. But they do also illustrate reasons to be grateful even if they are a little bit of a stretch but bear with me (or if you prefer pas swiftly on)

Early morning shower and hair wash (I love our new shower, so did TLM, till the hot water ran out)

Making porridge together (I like porridge so much I'm almost glad it's winter)

We made a mobile for a new baby, expected in our family soon.   I'm so grateful to DH who worked hard to convert our garage so that I could have my own creative space

Tea party with the little people. TLM asks whether they prefer milk in first or last  

All quiet and time for some knitting and catching up with e mails

Fourth

Playing with patchwork scraps ready for doing some sewing with TLM tomorrow

Finding all the ingredients I need for a new skirt

Watching TLM at her swimming class

Bedtime story (TLM staying the night)

Colours... Colours just make me happy

Day 3

More signs of spring, a tiny bunch of snowdrops on my kitchen window sill

A new knitting gizmo, a counter that can count three moves at once

My studio mood board

My latest knitting project all done and on the blocking mats (Its Leadlight by Twist Collective)

Signing up for the Six Items Challenge more on the blog next week

Thankful for...

A huge cup of coffee to wake me up in the morning

A present from JTH I am going to buy new colours for this vintage set and use it as I learn to paint  later this year

Watching Testament of Youth today. This VAD's notebook belongs to the family featured in another film about WW1
Tell Them Of Us

Curling up on the sofa with these two lovely knitting books  (I'm on a yarn diet not an all things knitting diet!)

Anticipating the arrival of a new baby in the family in April by making a blanket

xx

c

Grateful

I'm taking a tiny break from my usual sort of blogging.   There will still be photographs of knitting, knitters too perhaps, I promise, but my focus will be a little different.  For the next couple of weeks this is going to become a photo blog as I record the things that bring me happiness. I hope you will excuse the blog becoming a bit me me me and sit back and enjoy the pictures

And here we go!

Sunshine

The first sign of spring in my garden

Finding exactly the right colour ribbon to back the steek in my new cardigan 

Earl Grey tea in my personal tea-for-one set

spending the evening knitting with friends

xx

c

The fourth Element

Who would have thought it? Radio four, the home of Serious Radio, The Today Program, The Infinite Monkey Cage, programs on science, outdoor pursuits, documentaries, finance, was appealing to knitters to post pictures of knitted items that represented their programs. And in January there were interviews and whole programs too - all about knitting. So much fun.

Now this brightens up a winter day, gorgeous Malabrigo on sale at A Yarn Story Bath

But is that all we knitters are? a bit of fun, a bit of fluff? Something to cheer the serious folk up, like clowns on a grey January day?  

Something that keeps me warm designed by Alanis Dakos knitted by me in delicious silk and Alpaca  yarn from La Drougherie

Well we got knitted vegetables, a Jenny Murray and the bull trampling poor old miserable Tony Archer. It seems this is R4's view on what knitting, if it is not 'granny knitting' is all about.  The items they added to their Pinterest board and their website  included a tiny bit of unraveled knitting (Loose Ends) and some slugs (Gardeners Question Time). As well as the whimsy there was a nod to 'grannies' who knit for their grandchildren and an interview on The Today program with an Artist who knitted provocative statements into her sweaters, a Grayson Perry of knitting if you like.

Wonderful Porpoise Fur Fibre in The Red Woman colourway

But there was something missing.

Where were the Indy dyers? The knitters who love hand-dyed specialist fires? Spinners who choose fibre by the breed of sheep? And designers and makers of truly wearable art?  In fact where were all those wonderful people out there who inhabit that space where craft meets art?  Now I have to admit I was miffed that the hat I designed was not featured but that's not the point really.  The point is there are so many people out there who would have followed a similar thought process* to me, and probably have posted similar knitted objects but None Were Featured

My Waterlily from Spring Pompom Mag in fabulous Islington from Kettle Yarn Co

So what is the difference between granny knitting (as defined by R4) and whimsical fruit, vegetables and slugs? By my lights both are fine, if that's what floats your boat.  But I wouldn't really want to wear the former or display the latter.  It's fine too to knit sweaters with radical slogans on them, though if I could afford it I would take a Grayson Perry piece instead, every time. But why do those who influence our opinions ignore those of us who knit something that is (to conflate Wm Morris a little) BOTH useful and beautiful?

something I designed (and knitted) earlier in Rowan Kidsilk Haze

I realise I'm talking to the converted here, those who read this blog are a kindly crew of non-knitting friends who like my work and knitters who also appreciate the Useful & Beautiful. But how about a new campaign for February? Most weeks the figures for hits on this blog reach 500, if you are reading this you can help, specially if you are on Twitter.  So if you would like to have some fun and join in a campaign to have people recognise what we do as something very special, here are a few suggestions...

On Twitter - Using two hash tags, #knitR4 and #beautyandutility and tagging @BBCRadio4, post photographs of fibres, yarns and knitted objects that illustrate  the fourth way. 

On your blog - If you blog write about something useful and beautiful and tweet the link with the hash tag.  You can also link to other knitters and dyers. The photographs I have used today include some of my favourite indy practitioners

In the comments here -  please give a shout out to your favourite indy crafter

Wonderful Countess Ablaze whose last years colours were inspired by the Twelve Caesars (this one  is Too Many Rulers Are A Dangerous Thing)

My promise is that I will visit your blogs, comment and retweet your tweets, let's make this big and make the media aware of the full picture

My Suggestions for #beautyandutility awards? - its all in the photographs (the links are there too).  And then there are Asa Tricosa and Kate Davies for their amazing design work.  I could go on... And on...

xx

c

At Prick Your Finger special purchases are wrapped in vintage paper patterns

*My process is just mine and not a set of instructions but here it is. 

1. Inspiration, person, poem, place

2. Deciding, what shal I make, shawl, hat etc. what do I want to say, theme, technique

3. Thinking, this takes almost as long as making

4. Designing

5. Choosing yarn ( unless this is the inspiration then it's at 1)

6. Begin to knit

7. Don't be afraid to change your plans as you knit

8. Take photographs

My Mother-in-laws go-to pattern for a baby shawl knitted in more grown up colours

Midsummer in Winter

There must be some keen knitters at BBC Radio 4 to come up with the idea of a knitting challenge to cheer up the grey days of January.  I certainly hope it does have a general cheering effect, it's certainly got knitters in a flurry.

The challenge is to knit an item that references R4, anything from bits of radio equipment, to characters and journalists, or even whole programs.  Now you might be forgiven for thinking that my new year's resolution to knit from stash this year, including a pair of socks a month, is quite enough for one body but how could I resist?  So I reposted the R4 Facebook plea on my timeline and asked my friends for suggestions.

The one I liked best was "Gardeners Question Time" based on the lines from A Midsummer's Night's dream

I know a bank where the wild thyme blows

Where oxlips and the nodding violet grows

Quite over-canopied with luscious woodbine

with sweet musk roses and eglantine

And so I give you the Midsummer (in Winter) Hat

kindly modelled by TLM (who was wearing a high pony tail today)

This is how I set about making it

A dive into my stash for some suitable colours (in Drops alpaca), my book shelves for books on colour work and the internet for some photographs of the five flowers I need to represent.

 I decided that the thyme was well enough represented in words  and that I would knit woodbine (honeysuckle) and eglantine (dog-rose) in stranded colour work and oxlip (cowslip), musk-rose and violet in 3D

A bit of planning with pencil and paper

The lettering template is a free Ravelry download, the pictures from google images and my lovely notebook with squared ruling is by Clairefontaine the brilliant French exercise book company

Some messy swatching

The hat is for TLM so I needed a slightly smaller head circumference than my own and the stitch count needed to allow for the repeats in the flower motifs.  However perfunctory, swatching is a must when winging a design.  I got 30 stitches to 10cm with the Drops Alpaca 4 ply on a 2.75mm needle.  As always with such a simple shape (a tube sewn at the top into three points) I planned to go off piste for the most part but these are the instructions I gave myself

• Cast on 126 stitches and join in the round (I knit in the round with two shortish cable needles but the hat is just as easily knitted in magic loop fashion or with DPNs)
• Knit 2 cm in K
• 4 rounds P
• 1 cm in K1P1 rib
• 4 rounds P
• 2 rounds K
• knit the words the wild thyme blows over 10 rounds K (filling in the space at the end of the words with little flowers)
• 2 rounds K
• 4 rounds P
• 2 rounds K
• Knit the woodbine (honeysuckle) pattern over 15 rounds K

• 2 rounds K
• 4 rounds P
• 2 rounds K
• knit the words I know a bank where over 10 rounds K (filling in the space at the end of the words with dots)
• Knit the eglantine (dog rose) pattern over 15 rounds (I know that gardeners question time listeners will tell me the flower has 5 petals but knitters may agree with me that five is a tricky number in stranded colour work!)
• 2 rounds K
• 4 rounds P
• 4 rounds K
• cast off
• sew cast off edges together to make three points
• knit three flowers (Oxlips, voilets and musk-rose) and sew one to the end of each section

a bit baggy and bumpy

It is better when knitting in two colours to keep the work a little too loose than too tight.  It looks bumpy at this stage but it will even out when soaked and blocked

close-ups of the flowery top-knot

The flower stems are i-cords and the leaves and flowers are a combination of crochet and knitting.  I consulted the flower patterns in Knitted Edgings & Trims then rather heavily adapted them and the crochet petals of the (over large) violet and cowslip I made up as I went along

xx

c