It’s been a wonderful weekend, the kind that makes you hardly begrudge the coming Monday (well, not much). On Saturday my sister and I travelled in on the Tube to St. James’s Park, and from there we braved the wind (this is no joke when a skirt is involved) to reach the Royal Horticultural Halls. We joined a long queue, waited around while it inevitably began to rain, and then were let inside to roam the stalls, admire the architecture, pet the Great British Sheep, and generally have far too much fun.
There was a knitted gingerbread house, raising money for Great Ormond Street Hospital:
Our livestock came in the form of an angora rabbit, which shuffled about its cage quite contentedly. Next to it I saw my first active spinning wheel, although I’m not sure if it was angora fibre being spun.
My main purchase was from the Fibre Harvest stand, which was piled high with skeins of undyed and dyed yarn spun at Coldharbour Mill. Seriously good stuff. I had a fondle of the goods, and then spotted a deep, dark purple amidst the 4 ply. Love at first sight! I’ve been looking around for a rich purple 4 ply to make Garland from Rowan 44 (yes, it has batwing sleeves; no, I care not) but it was proving a fruitless search up til now. It had to be just the right kind of purple, you see. Anyway, this was on sale, and it’s a soft merino, and I bought six (!) skeins, which is probably too much, but I wanted to be absolutely sure I had enough. (Garland is knitting up beautifully.) As an added bonus, it’s also water-wheel spun.
I’ve wanted to try spinning for a while now, and the iKnit day seemed like the perfect place to pick up supplies. There weren’t a huge number of spindles around, but in the end I settled on one from the Wensleydale Longwool Sheepshop stall, carved by a neighbour of one of the women who sold it to me. Thank you to the nice girl - a fellow shopper - who advised me to go for the lighter spindle! I picked up a bag of Bowmont roving from the Devon Fine Fibres stall and had a little chat with the woman who raised the sheep - she was also very helpful, and gave me some good advice about fibre.
Speaking to the sellers, looking at all the local fibre and yarn, I had a wonderful sense of being connected - if that makes sense. Recently I’ve been thinking a good deal about where our clothing, food, and material ’stuff’ comes from. Food is becoming easier, as the shops are now labelling the countries of origin, but clothes are iffy. Technically you only have to sew on a label in this country for the item to be legitimately “made in England”, which is ridiculous. Super-cheap clothes are everywhere, and the resulting quality is equally low. Mass-production means we usually have no idea who made our clothes, too, and this has not always been the case.
Anyway, I think this is something I could go on about for a while, so suffice to say that I am very excited by the idea of taking local fibre from well-kept animals, spinning it by hand into yarn, and knitting that yarn into a garment, custom-fit to my shape and size. I’ll see what’s happening at every step of the way, I’ll have a full awareness of the time and effort it’s taken, and as a result I think I’ll cherish the thing more than anything shop-bought. (I’ll keep you posted!)
The other highlights of the day for me were the Yarn Harlot’s talk and the A Stitch in Time fashion show. Stephanie was so funny I think I cracked a rib laughing, but also thought-provoking and intelligent. I thought I’d enjoy it, but I had no idea how much. She’s a great speaker.
The fashion show was for designs from Jane Waller’s upcoming book, A Stitch in Time, which is inspired by clothing of the 1940s. This is right up my street, of course. The models were beautiful, the knits equally so. I didn’t get any photos myself, but there are some good ones in the iKnit Flickr pool, especially these.
If I’m honest, another part of the day that thrilled me was the knit-spotting. I felt like I should have been carrying a little notebook and writing down ‘Tangled Yoke: 1, Swallowtail Shawl: 5′, etc. Not only did I see some beautiful garments, but some people were kind enough to admire my Rambling Rose cardigan. (Er, I’ve not blogged it here yet! Will do soon.) I was really chuffed, and a little embarrassed, but in a good way. After all, Laura Zukaite designed the pattern, and I just did the easy bit. It was at this point that I made the startling discovery that everyone else was a knitter (or a crocheter, or a spinner). They got it. They knew what I was talking about! Glorious. And that, for me, was the joy of the day: people from all walks of life, getting together and sharing their craft. I can’t wait for next year.
