It's All Silk and Ribbon Round Here!

Two skeins of lovely sari silk came through the post this morning. This is grade one sari silk, beautifully soft and also very reasonably priced. One skein is for the Floribunda curly whirly cravat for Sue's daughter and the other one is for moi (not sure what for yet but I liked it so much I thought I'd get another!)


Saris seem to be figuring a lot in my knitting these days as I've just started the Button Wrap from Louisa Harding's Accessories Collection in Impressions and Sari Ribbon. Here's a photo of the Button Wrap from the pattern book.


I've got another Louisa Harding project on my "to do" list that I've already bought the yarn for (Orchiz) which I'm going to be knitting in green sari ribbon. So, rather than duplicate the green, I decided to opt for a different colourway than that shown in the pattern for the Button Wrap and chose Impression in the red colourway and Sari Ribbon in petal.

The sari ribbon edging should be 4-6 inches long according to the instructions. At present, it's six inches long but I may trim it down to four inches when I'm finished depending on how it looks. The pattern also calls for three buttons which I, personally, think makes it look a bit too busy (button-wise)! To me, the Button Wrap does seem to have a sort of quaint olde worlde type look about it so I think I'll go with the antique style larger button and another smaller one but omit the smallest button.

Turning to the subject of Yuletide Gnomes, I've almost finished the knitting part of number one gnome (just one arm, beard, and nose left to do) but I've a feeling that the sewing/stuffing part may prove to be quite time consuming. As it's less than four weeks to go till Xmas, I'm going to have to get on with it if I'm aiming for a family of them!

Isn't it great that, as well as stimulating the market so that we now have loads of yummy yarns to choose from, the resurgence of interest in knitting and other crafts has also meant that there are a lot more yarn shops to choose from some of which are providing workshops and venues in which people can relax and knit. One of the more recent yarn shops to open is The Knit Tin in Olney, Bucks, and they've organised a schedule of workshops covering different aspects of knitting and crochet. I missed out on the beading and embellishment workshops scheduled at C&H Fabrics in both Canterbury and Tunbridge Wells because, by the time I found out about them, all of the places had gone. To compensate, I've booked for the Intarsia and Beaded Bag Workshop with Debbie Abrahams (of '25 Cushions to Knit' and 'Blankets and Throws' fame) on 10th December at the Knit Tin. Okay, it's quite a way to travel for a workshop but, hey, I'll be able to check out a new yarn shop, meet new people, and make an intarsia and beaded bag into the bargain so I'm not complaining. Of course, the fact that there's a 10% discount on all purchases on the day of the workshop for those attending has nothing at all to do with it.