Maybe that should be no time to knit, or very little knitting done? I’ve had a bit of a hectic social life of late and whilst I crave the opportunity to get out and about, I really would just like to have a little free time to knit.
Of course, there has been knitting and making of sorts and much of it has happened whilst socialising. Love me love my knitting! The only problem with social knitting is that it does have to be quite plain, or at least it does for me. Sometimes I struggle to count up to four if I’m deep in conversation, which is why my Hermione’s Everyday Socks are still languishing in a project bag somewhere 😳
The day of my last blog post, I was lucky enough to be going to Kilkenny with some of the other members of the Cork Handweavers Guild. Our itinerary included a trip to Cushendale Woollen Mills and a visit to the Zwartbles Ireland Farm. It was the first excursion I’d been on since becoming a member and I enjoyed every minute of it. Whilst I loved the opportunity to visit the mill and the farm, I most enjoyed listening to the other guild members talk about their work and reminisce about previous days away. I often joke that I’d love to bottle their shared knowledge and can only hope to ever learn some of what they know between them.
Our Kilkenny expedition has become the subject of the guilds first blog post, which sees us moving forward with an online presence in the hope of welcoming some new members. Please pop over and have a read and help us to spread the word. The guild is a lovely welcoming group, that amount of creativity is infectious and I come away from our meetings with my head buzzing with possibilities.
As you can see from the photo above, I was pretty restrained for me as things go. Whilst I did purchase at least two sweet treats over the weekend, the only yarny purchase was in the form of a ball of Cushendale Woollen Mills Boucle yarn and that was for a friend. My treat to me was this lovely wine glass from the Thomas Mosse Pottery Shop and Cafe. Not that I’ve had the opportunity to use it since mums taxi is needed at all times of the night, especially over the weekend. It’s a proper hefty glass, much more like a goblet and therefore less likely to get broken. Fingers crossed I might get to try it out with something other than water soon.
Oddly enough, I’ve been in Kilkenny three times over the last few weeks.. The week after I was at a meeting and the week before I attended a Batik workshop in Thomastown with Deirdre and three of our friends. Tande Toth was teaching the workshop in the wonderful Grennan Mill, a creative space unlike any other I’ve ever been to before.
We spoke about the workshop in our last podcast episode and Deirdre wrote a blog post for Olann and. It was a pretty intensive day and I know I wasn’t the only one to arrive home exhausted. The nature of the craft means it takes quite a bit of time and Tunde had mentioned that she’d usually teach her class over two days. So you can imagine how much work was involved and why we were a little frazzled after.
We created two pieces of cloth, the first was like a practice sheet, although it’s probably my favourite of the two.
The second, was something I struggled with a little, purely because I’m not so great when it comes to working with abstract. The finished piece is ok, but in truth, that’s because I went mad with the cornflower blue and what’s not to love about that?
Whilst discussing what we could make with our fabric, good friend @doctorsock suggested a project bag and so, whilst the idea was fresh in my head, I ran one up that week. Not wanting to cut too much of my Batik, I used some contrasting cotton fabric either side of the panel to create a larger piece of fabric to work with. Using a video tutorial for an envelope bottom bag on YouTube by the Gourmet Quilter, I set about making a deep project bag. It’s lined with light blue gingham fabric and I’ve used wadding to pad it, so it stands up by itself.
It’s the first time I’ve made an envelope bottom bag, I usually just make the standard wedge shaped ones. It will make an ideal gift for one of my good friends, who knits using only long straight needles. Many of the project bags available are more suited to those of us that work with circular needles so this will be perfect for her.
FIRST CHRISTMAS PRESENT FOR 2018 (that’s if you don’t count the washcloths)
Talking of washcloths, I’ve only made one more since my last post. I think I might need to get a making soon if I’m ever to catch up. It’s Wednesday, so that does mean I get to meet up with my knitterly friends, so I could be good and only take my washcloth knitting bag with me?
The Knitted Diary is going well, I’ve even started sewing some of the strips together. My plan of selecting the number and therefore the colour every day is working, but for a while there I had ten days of actual knitting to catch up on. That really didn’t work for me and now that I’m all caught up, I intend to stay that way. In fact, I’ve already drawn today’s colour and I intend to sit down and knit it up after I’ve published this.
There have been other cast on’s, namely the two pairs of socks in the photo at the top of this post and a shawl, I’ll be sure to talk about those in another post. I was also in Dublin this past weekend, so there was yarn, just a little, but it’s so pretty that I’ll just have to share it with you.
For now, though I’m off to get today’s diary made up and to drink a much-needed cup of tea. Chocolate Hob Nob anyone?
Happy Making
Confessions of a Fibre Strumpet 