Unravel 2017

I’m starting to really love my annual trip to Unravel at Farnham Maltings with my lovely friend, and this year was no exception.

I enjoyed a good squish of many different yarns, and delighted as usual in the vast array of colours and patterns available for purchase, and those being worn by all the yarn-addicts wandering the rooms and manning the stalls.

I largely failed to get any photos, mostly everywhere was too packed with people to get close enough to squish, let alone snap the gorgeousness.

My split needle was very kindly replaced free-of-charge by Knitproneedles.co.uk. I was less successful on the quest for extra yarn. The lady at Debonnaire Yarns was as helpful as she could possibly be, but unfortunately (and unsurprisingly) she didn’t have any more yarn that matched my original grey. She has actually completely changed her yarn ranges and didn’t even have anything that came close to that same colour. She suggested using a contrast colour for the edgings, but I’m not quite convinced that will look right. She said she’d have a rummage back at base for anything that might do, but I think I may have to do something a bit different with the sleeves. I have just about enough yardage between the two colours to complete the cardigan, but the sleeves may need to be more predominantly done in the contrast colour, rather than striped as per the patten. Frustrating, but not entirely unexpected. I knew I should have bought 3 skeins of the grey in the first place.

As for everything else, it seems I was very drawn to grads this year. I particularly loved the Sweet Georgia yarns, and their Party of Five grad mini skeins, which I realised afterwards were the ones Cassy at Knitthehellout recently used for her daughters latest tunic. But I was very good and resisted the temptation to stash without plan. I need to finish my Crazy Stripes first, which was my Unravel 2015 yarn purchase, and then I need to use the grad I purchased at Unravel 2016 for the shawl I’ve been planning for years. After that I can start a new project and buy some more pretties.

Even my friend was very restrained. She was rather taken with a pair of socks she spotted at Hand Dyed by Kate, but since she also has projects on the go from the last two years of Unravel, she also resisted.

So, instead of indulging any further, once we’d thoroughly explored the festival, we headed for home, and spent a rather enjoyable afternoon sitting on the sofa working on our respective WIPs, feeling very virtuous for having resisted the call of the yarn! We’re off to the Knitting and Stitching show in a couple of weeks, so we can always indulge then if we feel we’re missing out on something!

 

 

Snags

My lovely Knitpro symfonie needles have started to split along the grain, so they’re snagging every stitch as I try to slide it down the needle. Disaster! I’ve had to stop knitting mid-row as it was just impossible.

Fortunately, it’s happened at just the right time (if there can be a right time for such a thing!), as tomorrow I am off to Unravel 2017. Unravel is the annual yarn festival hosted at Farnham Maltings. I believe this is the 9th year it has run and it will be my third visit.

Since I am currently working through my yarn purchase from unravel two years ago, and haven’t touched last year’s purchase yet, my shopping list will be short and sweet. New needle tips and an extra skein for my cardigan. Anything else will be strictly squish and leave only!

Anyone else heading to Unravel this weekend?

And relax…

There’s nothing better than curling up in a comfy armchair in front of a roaring log fire, pj’s on, glass of wine to hand and the time to knit for however long you want to.

I got to do quite a lot of that this weekend. My folks offered to have the boys for a few days so we took the opportunity for a quiet child-free, post-moving-house de-stressing weekend away.

We stayed in a fabulous folly on a large country estate, which has been beautifully restored by The Landmark Trust and is now available as a holiday let.

We slept in late, had leisurely breakfasts, went for long countryside walks and ate pub lunches. The rest of the time we lazed about in the folly, chatting, reading and of course, knitting.

I have now passed the point where I had to rip back a couple of weeks ago and it’s good to see it growing again. It was so nice to have some time to dedicate to it. I need a weekend like that more often. I definitely think we’ll be heading back there at some point!

Rrrrrrripppppp!

Wah! My grey stripe seemed quite wide and I still had a couple of rows to go. I counted and found that I had two more rows than I expected. Oh dear, time to rip back a stripe.

Then I counted the rows on the previous teal stripe. Two rows too many. Waahhhhh!!! Fortunately the grey stripe before that is correct, but I have to rip back 40 rows and do it aaaaaaall again. *sigh*

Crazy developments

The stripes are getting crazier. I laid out the cardigan on my lap the other day and was confused as to why it wasn’t lying neatly. It took me a moment to realise it was because it’s asymmetric and that’s pretty much the point. I adjusted the position and just look where I’ve got to!

I’ve reached the end of my first ball of grey and so have spent my afternoon standing in front of the TV catching up on Call the Midwife, hand winding a new skein of yarn using two dining chairs as a sort of makeshift swift. It always takes so much longer than I expect, but now I can get back to my stripes.

I’ve also had my sewing machine out at long last. My box of sewing stuff hadn’t even been opened since the house move but I dug it all out yesterday. Pumpkin has been begging me for the last week or so to take him to ‘Smiggle’ to buy him a pencil case because all his friends at school have them. I’ve steadfastly refused (what a horrible mother!) So he’s been trying numerous ways of outsmarting me. “Daddy can take me shopping and I’ll ask him to buy me one”, “I’ve asked Tilly at school to buy me one”, followed eventually by “I’m going to make one when I get home. Out of paper!”

I politely suggested that paper may not be the most suitable material and he promptly suggested fabric as an alternative  and “can we make one using your sewing machine, Mummy?”

We found some fabric and I set him to work unpicking the zip out of an old school book bag, and then there I was trying to cook tea, referee the children and follow a video tutorial for how to sew a zipped pouch at the same time. I don’t think I’ve ever sewn a zip in my life but 5.30pm in a Tuesday evening is as good a time to start as any, right?!

I used this excellent tutorial from Mellysews. http://mellysews.com/2015/02/sew-zipper-pouch.html and after a slight battle with right sides and wrong sides and a zipper foot I got to grips with it and even Pumpkin had a go on the machine with me and we got it done.

He was bouncing off the walls with excitement when it was finally done and declared it way better than Smiggle and all his friends would want one like his now! Pickle is certainly next in line for one so we’re going shopping for fabric and a zip later this week.