All Sorts

Well, I know I've been quiet for a bit but lots has been happening. On Saturday, we had our fourth meeting of Maidstone Knitters and, despite receiving apologies from two of our regular members, we still had eight people turn up including five new members being Mary, Jackie T, Tricia, Margaret and Jackie B! Just to prove it really happened, see photo below, in which you can see six members (Jackie T had to leave before the photo was taken to attend to her animals and I was taking the photo). Mary-Lou is going to knit some hats for the Cancer Charities Craft Fair and, Cecilia, some wristwarmers. I had the idea that we could have a Knit and Relax area such as that at Ally Pally and other craft fairs but I need to get the organiser's agreement first and will bring it up at the next meeting in May. If you're interested in reading more about what we got up to at our Saturday Maidstone Knitters' meeting, have a look at Maidstone Knitters' blog where Mary-Lou has posted all about it.


Below are the latest additions to the bear collection. The mottled bear was found in Beales (not by me) and, apparently was in need of a good home, so was delivered to the bear sanctuary. The large bear tin, having been emptied of biscuits, is now my button tin. The medium sized one has also been, ahem, emptied of biscuits and is good for intarsia bobbins and such like and the numerous small tins ... well, most of them still have jellies in ... and not all of them are mine. There are six different types and I wanted to keep one of each for my collection. The rest were to be given to members of Maidstone Knitters as stitch marker holders. The only problem was that due to the unexpected numbers of people turning up (which was obviously a really good thing), there weren't enough to go around. Luckily, after the meeting, DH and I went to Nottcutt's and bought the last of their stocks so there should (or, rather, might) be enough to go around next time!


Project Spectrum's colours for April are orange and yellow and I'm just going to do a quick reflection on the colours this time. Orange and yellow are the colours of the sacral and solar plexus chakras respectively. They are also both colours to do with sunshine, summer and citrus fruit. Yellow is the colour of hope and, in the past, yellow ribbons were worn as a sign of hope as women waited for their menfolk to come home from war. Yellow ribbons are still used to welcome home loved ones ergo the song, "Tie a Yellow Ribbon Round the Old Oak Tree". Everything has its polarity, as in yin and yang, and the other side of yellow's coin is yellow's association with cowardice.

On Sunday, I slobbed out in my jimjams all day and did my bit for Project Spectrum by knitting these three orange and yellow corsages whilst watching the Chronicles of Narnia DVD. They're for the November Craft Fair but may be used as embellishments on bags, etc, rather than corsages per se. My monitor makes the yellow corsages look cream-coloured but they are, in fact, yellow (lemon yellow as opposed to bright yellow).

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I also almost finished the lace scarf in Debbie Bliss's Pure Silk from the Pure Silk Pattern Book which I'd cast on and frogged at Maidstone Knitters due to not being able to concentrate on what I was knitting and talk at the same time. As you can see, it's a skinny scarf and will be perfect for the summer. Again, the colour hasn't come out too well in the photo but it's the light green shade of Pure Silk.


I've decided to participate in the One Skein Secret Pal Exchange after seeing it mentioned on Katie's blog but, even though I enjoyed SP7 immensely, I've decided to give SP8 a miss so that I can concentrate on other things.

My yarn stash steadily grows and has been added to by this Ice Yarn from Yarn Paradise. I bought six balls of each of these and each ball cost only £1.55 even after taking shipping costs into account. The two greens and the turquoise are mohair with sequins, the vivid coloured variegated one is a mohair/acrylic mix and the pastel coloured variegated is what's called screw wool.

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I've also ordered Jan Eaton's 200 Ripple Stitch Patterns book after hearing very good reports about it from several quarters including Mary-Lou at Saturday's meeting although she forgot to bring her copy for us to look at (slapped wrist!) The beads for the butterfly stitch jacket I'm designing have been ordered from Earth Faire as well.

Unfortunately, I still haven't quite got around to doing those last little bits to finish the Nono jumper (I mean Noro jumper) but I have been working on a knitting bag following the Fibonacci principles as explained in the current Knit Simple magazine. I'm knitting it in different coloured stripes and in numbers of 1, 2, 3, 5, 8 and 13 garter stitch ridges randomly occurring. It's a great way of using odd bits of yarn up and I'm knitting on the bias for added interest. I bought some very nice lining material for it at C&H Fabrics on Saturday and I plan to give it wooden handles and place some vilene inside the lining to give it added structure (photos to follow).