A present from Estonia

Just before Felix returned from her epic trip to Estonia I received a highly coloured card which cryptically indicated that a gift would follow. And follow it did. There will be no need for me to knit mittens this year as I am now the very proud owner of a pair of handknit Estonian mittens, dyed with natural colours.



These are so beautiful. I love the combination of colourwork and lace at the cuff and the butterfly motif, not to mention the fact that they are toasty warm.



Of course eventually they will wear out but when they do I can knit my own pair of Estonian mittens from this amazing book.



All the text is in Estonian but since the book doesn't actually contain any patterns, just photos and charts, that's not a problem.



I love the fact that Estonian mitten patterns just consist of the chart, it's assumed that everyone already knows how to knit a mitten.

Feeling the knitted LOVE

I read Kate's lovely post about her scarf earlier and I knew exactly where she was coming from. I too was a recipient of the knitted LOVE last week at my hen day when I was presented with over seven metres of amazing knitted wedding bunting created by Felix, Judith, Gabrielle, Emmylou, Ruth D, Ruth V, Mel from Scotland, Gemma, Jenny, Mikal, Carla, and Mel from Reading. When I opened the tissue paper package I couldn't believe what a beautiful and thoughtful gift all these knitters had created for me so thank you so much all of you.



Each flaglet is knit in a different shade of white, cream, or natural coloured yarn and they are decorated with buttons, beads, lace (including lace from Judith's wedding dress), and embroidery.



The icing on the cake came when, after I'd admired each flag, Felix handed me my very own flag-making kit, complete with vintage Aero needles, pattern, yarn, ribbon, and buttons, and pointed out the spare foot of icord at one end of the bunting on which I could thread my flags if I wanted to. I've already knitted one flag and I'm just about to cast on for a second.

I can't wait to hang up my wonderful bridal bunting in our reception venue on Saturday. If you want to knit your very own amazing bunting you can see the pattern and mood board (so impressed that my bunting had a mood board) here.

Winding up Christmas

I love slightly belated Christmas gifts, they're like a bonus. These, from Lara which I found in the post when I got back home after the holidays, and from Felix when we finally* managed to exchange gifts at Sticks'n'String on Tuesday, have an avian theme running through them.

Firstly from Lara I received these lovely little rubber stationery stamps (featuring an owl, a perching bird, and a squirrel) and two very cute badges (which I'm wearing today). My collection of knitting-related button badges just keeps on growing.



Then from Felix I received a whole goodie bag of pressies



Some lovely British fibre to be spun and knitted up into my British sheep breeds handspun blanket (started, but apparently not really blogged about, at Woolfest last summer).



A fat quarter** of fabric with little cardinals*** printed on it, a felted pin cushion, and a very sweet little owl brooch. I think the pincushion looks either like a bird's egg or a shiny treasure that you'd find in a magpie's nest.

* earlier plans to exchange pressies having been scuppered by swine flu and snow.

** there's just something about the words "fat quarter" isn't there. It sounds like a lovely plump wodge of fabric just waiting to be made into something fabulous.

*** the boyfriend, being Catholic and not really into birding got quite the wrong mental image (mitres rather than birdies) when I described this fabric to him!

Down on the farm

I've just got back from a fabulous trip to East Sussex with Felix and Ruth. On Friday afternoon I met Felix and Ruth at Reading station where we all piled into the Felix-mobile and drove to Beech Hill Farm near Rushlake Green in Sussex where Julia Desch keeps a flock of coloured Wensleydale sheep.



[The Studio (exterior) at Beech Hill Farm]



[Felix and Ruth making supper]

It was pitch dark and raining when we got there but we soon got the wood burning stove going and we had a lovely cosy evening eating butternut squash and ginger soup and watching Autumnwatch. One of the assignments on this week's show was to help the British Trust for Ornithology monitor the numbers of Tawny Owls for their Bird Atlas. When the rain let up later on we went outside to listen for Tawny Owls and were very excited to hear three! I've already added our "hearings" to the Tawny Owl coverage map.

The next morning was gorgeous so we headed out to meet the sheep and get some provisions for dinner at the Redlands Farm shop.



[Happy chickens at Redlands Farm shop]

Julia's black Wensleydales are so beautiful.



I love their mad dreadlocks and sweet little faces. These guys are six month old rams.



And this is Old Grey Owl. He's a bit lame and so Julia is moving him to another field to stop him being picked on by the other sheep.



On Saturday afternoon we had a spinning lesson with Wendy. Ruth and I are already pretty good spinners but wanted to learn to spin thicker yarn. Felix was more or less a beginning spinner so this was a great chance for her to get some 1-1 coaching and lots of time to practise on the wheel. I think she's hooked now.



[Felix on the Ashford Kiwi]

Ruth and I both had a go on the Ashford Country Spinner which is for spinning really thick yarn. Ruth managed to ply some of her yarn using it but I just couldn't get used to the weighted wheel which kept going after I stopped treadling.



[Ruth on the Country Spinner]

What I could get used to is the double treadle Ashford Kiwi that I used. So much easier to control the speed than my single treadle Wee Peggy. Having used a wheel with Scotch tension I'm now inspired to sort out the Scotch tension on my own wheel. It can be used with both double drive and Scotch tension and so far I've only tried double drive. I just need a new spring and to replace the existing thick twine with some nylon thread I think.

By the end of our session I felt much happier spinning a thicker yarn and had spun and plied three skeins of grey Romney from another local flock. I'm really looking forward to spinning some more heavier-weight yarn on my own wheel.

Today, once we'd tidied up at the Studio, we headed over to Lewes to spend some of our English pounds. The weather had turned bitterly cold overnight so we were more than happy to keep diving into the lovely little shops that we passed on our way to the Needlemakers craft centre. It was a good thing for our wallets that the patchwork shop was closed but Ruth and Felix still managed to spend a fair amount on buttons, I Spy books, and an incredibly hammy radio dramatisation of The Sea of Adventure which kept us in stitches for the first half hour or so of the drive back. Personally I was most tempted by a near complete set of Arthur Ransome first editions - the former property of an F. C. Baden-Powell of Hinksey Hill, Oxford - but couldn't quite kid myself that I could afford even one. If I was a collector then I probably wouldn't blink at £30 for a first edition but it's a bit much for a book that I just want to read (and re-read). I did get quite a way into We didn't mean to go to Sea whilst Felix and Ruth were browsing and I may have to make a quick trip to the bookshop tomorrow in order to finish it!.

I don't have any photos of the Aladdin's Cave that is downstairs at the Needlemakers but I'm sure Ruth will be posting hers soon. After all that rummaging we were very ready for a lovely lunch followed by cake at the cafe upstairs before heading back to the car for the drive home.

I did get some, although not much, knitting done over the weekend - there were about equal quantities of knitting and ripping - so there'll be a couple of finished object posts coming up in the next day or so.

To market, to market

I spent yesterday with Felix and Ruth (who came along for moral support and the knitting) at the Sunday art and craft market at the Oakford Social Club in Reading. I was so pleased with the lovely display that we were able to make for the owls using the luggage tags and stamps that Felix had brought along.



I like that the stamping prevents any of those awkward questions about "what is it supposed to be?". Business was pretty slow for most of the afternoon - I think largely due to the absolutely miserable weather in Reading for all of Sunday lunchtime (constant drizzle is not good going out weather) - but Felix made quite a few sales by the end of the afternoon and I sold two owls (one of them to a complete stranger).

At least the fact that we weren't rushed with customers gave us lots of time to get on with our projects. I finished the big moss stitch scarf (one mass of bulky yarn moved from the stash to the FO box) and got started on a simple hat in Rowan Purelife British Sheep Breeds chunky in Grey Suffolk. I had purchased a single ball of this along with some needles in John Lewis as I realised by the time I reached Oxford the station that the remainder of the scarf would not keep me busy for the whole of the day. I cast on on 48 stitches in the pub with the intention of making either a neck-warmer or a hat - depending on whether or not it was fitting over my head after a few rounds. Felix was working away on the mansweater - luckily Mark was on hand for occasional fittings - which is now looking excitingly close to being finished. By the end of the day Felix was raring to be getting home in order to check out the instructions for steeking the placket.

I really enjoyed my afternoon at the art and ctaft market. The guys in the pub and the other artists were really friendly and I had a lovely time sitting and knitting with Ruth, Felix, Mark and Phil (the latter two not knitting) and eating the Oakford Social Club's yummy sandwiches. I might go back again before Christmas but in the meantime I will be taking the owls along to the OGWSD meeting next week for the sales table and also looking into a way to sell them online via the blog.

I'd finished the hat by the end of yesterday evening (hats in chunky weight yarn take no time at all) so there will be pictures of hat and scarf and probably a pattern for the hat coming your way in the next post.

The wonder of Woolfest

I'm a little late off the mark with my Woolfest post and it's mostly because I've been finding really tough to compress all the events of a truly wonderful weekend into a single, readable blog post that's not too blithery.

We packed so much into the weekend. There was a road trip to start with. Felix, who was five kinds of awesome the whole weekend, drove a round trip of 782 miles to get us all to Cockermouth and back, didn't lose her temper once, and provided fresh leaf tea at the service stations. We got to visit Lara's mum's place en route for a second breakfast of pain au chocolat and delicious (but to me deadly) full caff coffee. We had a wonderful picnic of M&S goodies and Neal's Yard cheese by the lake at Stafford services.



Real tea at Stafford

Finally we reached the gorgeous village of Buttermere and set up our wonderful camp in a beautiful campsite with a view of the lake and a bunch of marauding Herdwick sheep (my favourite sheep breed).



We loved the beautiful (but quite noisy) campsite sheep



Lara is very happy that she has the prettiest tent in the whole campsite

Once the tents were up we settled down with some crisps and a bottle of Viognier, ostensibly to have a picnic, in reality to guard Tom and Kate's pitch until they arrived as the campsite was absolutely rammed.



Felix and Lara wave their pointy sticks at anyone threatening to nick Kate and Tom's pitch



Felix and Lara are very excited to spot Kate





Felix and Kate exchange birthday gifts

Once they had arrived and whisked up their tent in a trice we headed to the pub for a swift pint before last orders. I can really recommend the Buttermere Bitter (or Butterbeer Mitten once you've had a couple of pints). Despite the wine and the beer I was still feeling the effects of the coffee first thing and didn't manage to get to sleep at all all night. As compensation I did get to have the campsite to myself for 2 whole hours between 4 and 6 when I sat outside by the stream with the sheep and knit on the garter stitch blanket I had started in the car and just watched the last star disappear and the sky get brighter and brighter.



The campsite at dawn.

Once everyone else had woken up we got breakfast on the go and then headed off to Cockermouth for Woolfest.



Making porridge on the primus

As a sheep and wool festival, rather than just a fibre vending event, Woolfest provides an opportunity to think about our relationship as knitters and spinners with the people and animals that provide the raw materials of our craft. It was fascinating to talk with actual flock keepers about the breeds that they keep and to be able to feel a real connection with the origins of the fibre that they had on sale and display.

I really wasn't prepared for the extent to which I (and really the whole group) was bowled over by the gorgeous, natural coloured, British yarn and fibre at Woolfest. Unlike Felix and Lara who had carefully gone through their Ravelry queues I'd not had time to think about what types of yarn or fibre I would be looking out for but I think I imagined that I would be going for some indie dyed sock yarn combed tops. Instead I found myself drawn to the rich palette of creams, greys, and browns at the coloured sheep stands.

The only dyed yarn I bought was a single skein of dk weight Blue Faced Leicester in terracotta from the lovely folk at Artisan Threads.



Terracotta by Artisan Threads

My main purchase was at the Garthenor stand where I bought two balls of fingering weight Shetland in fawn and cream and a 600m skein of Manx/Wensleydale laceweight. Chris King (who we all agreed was delightful) talked to us for ages about how he sources and spins the yarns which are all from organic British sheep breeds.



Gorgeous Garthenor yarn

I have big plans, not only for the Garthenor yarn that I bought, but for future purchases. I really want to encourage the farmers of British sheep breeds in the only ways that I can, through buying their wool and (hopefully) designing patterns their feature their yarn. There's nothing wrong per se with alpaca and merino but I would hate for their success in the handknitting market to be at the expense of our indigenous sheep breeds.

Aside from talking to the sheep breeders my favourite part of Woolfest was the sheep clipping demonstration given by Cathy Wainwright. It was amazing to see the dexterity with which she clipped and turned the Kendal Rough Fell sheep which were about the same size as she was. The sheep were so docile under her hands but their strength and weight were apparent as soon as she let go of them and it took two men to shepherd them out of the ring.



Kendal Rough Fell sheep before shearing



After shearing

Finally it got too hot even to want to think about wool so we headed off to the Bitter End in Cockermouth for bitter shandies and lemonade to debrief and view each others purchases. Although we had frquently gone around separately it looked like the same things had called to each of us. We had all bought mainly natural coloured yarn from British sheep breeds and the only dyed yarn that Kate and I had bought was from Artisan Threads.







We continued the sheep theme right to the end of the day with a wonderful dinner of Cumbrian lamb. British sheep really are the best!



If you want to read more about Woolfest do check out Kate and Felix's beautifully written posts.