The BIG Knit BIG reveal

Gosh - over 75 knitters making nearly 400 squares, aiming to make a blanket in a day and we did it!!  

Cathie and Claire who did ALL the sewing up

More than that we have enough squares for 3 more blankets which the Basingstoke Knitterers and Natterers will be sewing up (well probably crocheting) in the next few weeks, with breaks to get on with our own knitting.  The blankets are for our local Hospice, St Michaels.   We collected money too but I can't tell you how mush as we haven't counted yet!

As we set up on Friday, transforming this neat but dull space

into something more knitterly and festive

with a banner,

bunting

wool chains

tubs of yarn

and needles

We were a little worried that we would not have enough people.  That was the least of our worries...

These ladies were busy planning and knitting by 10 O'clock.  And soon we were looking for more chairs!

We had a visit from the Mayor

and the Little Model

The atmosphere was lovely. Some people even met up with old friends or colleagues they had not seen for a while

Lots wore their favourite knitted items, 

I loved this scarf

Also spotted, flowery brooches and hair slides, cardigans and shrugs 

As the squares piled up

Cathie and Claire got out their crochet hooks

With all the coming and going, how did we keep count?  A book circulated for peoples contact details, we have 75 e-mail addresses. 

I-pad artist Sue Howe transformed photographs into beautiful portraits

We had requests to do this again and we will.  We are also thinking about other events that would bring our town's knitting community together.  So watch this space

And Facebook 

And Ravelry

If you belong to neither but would still like to be in the loop e mail me your contact details (my address is on the About Me page)

BIG thank you

Firstly to the knitters, obvious really but we couldn't do it without you.

Then Festival Place, for lending us the space and for all its lovely staff who helped us find tables and chairs, let us dress their penguin waste paper bins in scarves..

and were so hospitable on the day, checking we were all OK

We also had help from other people in the town. The manager at a nearby cafe (Ed's Easy Diner) very kindly lent us several chairs when we had people standing.    We were given coffees by Cafe Nero, Costa and Pure independent local bar.  And when the technical assistant (AKA my son Ed) had problems with the slide show of pictures by our artist in residence Sue Howe which we were showing on a big screen TV, the manager of our local Sony store came to the rescue.

Well, that's enough excitement for one month, I'm off to cast on a cardi

xx

c

mascots K1P1 and SSO,
hung around Festival Place with labels advertising the BBK

Bunting

I'm knitting bunting.  It's for a big event that my friend Jenny are organising in the Summer.  It's not our event, it's a world wide event, but we are organising something locally and (we hope) persuading as many people as we can to join in.  We aim to have fun and do some good for a local charity.  More details later and back to bunting, we are going to need a lot and it will take a while to make, so we need to begin now.

Instructions

Materials
a quantity of double knitting yarn in lots of bright colours plus one ball of similar yarn in aran or chunky weight (I am using stylecraft special double knitting and chunky as it is such good value for projects like this)
one pair of size 4mm needles
one long cable fitted with a 4mm point at one end and a 5mm point at the other (the odd needles are not essential but you will see later in the instructions how this helps)

Abbreviations
K - knit
Kfbf - knit into the front, back and front again of one stitch (makes 3 stitches)


knit the first pennant
Cast on - Make a loop with a slip knot and knit one stitch in this loop, pull the loop tight and turn your work.  Continue as follows

row 1:               Kfbf (3 sts)
rows: 2,3,4:       knit
row 5:               K1, Kfbf K1 (5 sts)
rows 5,6,8:        Knit
row 9:                K2, m1, K1, m1, K2
rows 10,11,12:   knit
row 13:              K2, m1, Kto last 2 stitches, m1, K2


Repeat rows 10 - 13 until you have 31 stitches
knit 8 more rows straight
next row: cast on 30 stitches and slip all 61 stitches onto the cable*

Knit as many pennants as you need slipping each one as it reaches stage * onto the cable in such a way as the pennants are separated by the cast on stitches. Join them together as follows

Hold the work on the cable needle with the cast on stitches to your left and using the DK yarn cast on 30 stitches.  You will now have all your pennants hanging on the washing line of your cable with a set of 30 cast on stitches on either end.

Using the 5 mm needle and the chunky (or aran ) yarn cast off all the stitches in one go, when you come to the join between the pennants k2tog to make sure your line is strong an secure

If you are knitting the bunting as part of a group you can each make a section and tie them together

xx

C

PS I have finished my Marmalade Sweater, more photos on my Ravelry page