A true fibre feast

As I mentioned last week we went to Fibre Feast SA. I've been to a few fibre festivals around the world, from the insanity that was Edinburg Yarn Festival to a local festival in a scout hall. This was somewhere in between. It was held in a fancy private school. There was a general market on the front lawn, and then an open sided gym and an inside gym full of yarn sellers. As well as some of my Victorian friends, there were lots of local sellers, and an heartening amount of yarn that was sources, spun and dyed locally.

So, what's in the bag?

My first purchase was very local, from the Yarn Trader yarn shop. It's Højtid Single from Circus Tonic Handmade. I bought it Blanko pattern by Lone Kjeldsen, a large poncho style jumper that will be so snuggly and delicious knit in the merino, yak and silk blend.

Then I found some beautiful grey yarn from Aveley FinnSheep. I'm obsessed with making an ordinary, slightly boxy grey cardigan. I did also buy the buttons for this project - so complex and pretty.

One of my main shopping missions for this market was some yarn for the Richmond Knitter's Sheep Show jumper. Every year we choose a pattern or theme and knit it up for Bendigo sheep show. This year we chose Wool & Honey by Andrea Mowry. I knew I wanted to knit it out of something woolly, like Jameson, and in a light pink. Well, I found the perfect yarn:

It's a Shetland yarn from AveleyFinn sheep, naturally dyed. Beautiful.

I also bought a skein of orange The Wonderful Wizard of Sock from Stranded in Oz, who is one of the first yarn people I bought from back when I was a baby knitter. Her sock base is amazing and it was good to see her.

Prior to all these lovely purchases the stash was 13592 metres. Now it's a healthy 18,269 meters and I've got yarn for three projects I am very much looking forward to knitting - and one single skein of incredibly pretty sock yarn.

Comments

Linky Wednesday - the one with the pause

In meditation it's said that the pause between the in breath and the out breath is a gap, a space to rest. Well, I'm in that in-between space for reading, listening and knitting. This is a random photo of a highlight of my week - I filled up my lolly jar. These are just supermarket party mix. During the lockdowns, we sources a great pick-and-mix delivery service, but at some point they started sending from the UK, which is a bit silly. Rachey messaged me a new one she found, and I impulsed purchased a kilo of mixed lollies, and then she sent me a link to the biggest lolly shop in Melbourne, which also delivers sweets by the kilogram, so i think I'm sorted for the rest of the year! In reading I've just finished The Beckoning Lady by Margery Allingham . It's the second last book in the Summer of Mystery, and I have to admit, having now read nine Margery Allingham books, that they are OK. I wouldn't have read them if they were not connected to this club, but on...

Geogradiant MKAL Part 1 - that was unexpected (spoilers)

Stephen West released the first MKAL clue on Thursday night. I started knitting it without looking at spoilers. When I got up on Friday he had sent through an "alternative" clue one. I then went and had a look at the spoiler thread to try to work out what was going on. Which was that some people thought the pattern looked like a "German hate symbol". I knit on anyway, since I was half-way through. Then he took down the original clue, replacing it with a mitred square in garter stitch. The Ravelry forums and Instagram are a complete shit-show, even though Rav is being moderated. It's been a bit disheartening, having something that is usually quite light and fun weighed down with all this. I admire Stephen's quick and sensitive response to this drama. I also feel that anything can look like anything if you squint. To me this looks like a Celtic knot. I think mine is pretty, and I'll knit on through all crises.

Why Andrea Mowry, why? (A rant and a rather nice finished object)

As mentioned, prior to our hiking trip I suddenly, and rather randomly, decided to knit Andrea Morwy's Traveler Shell . It's basically an open fronted rectangle in a knit purl pattern. The pattern is FOURTEEN pages long. Why is the pattern 14 pages long? Because, instead of explaining the ten row repeat and then putting the shaping on top of that (e.g. decrease while continuing to knit in pattern), she writes out the entire ten row knit purl sequence every time something changes. Additionally, most of the time she starts with even number being the right side and wrong numbers being the right side,which is just plain odd. It's confusing and it's like she wants to keep you looking at the pattern for every row, rathe than following the very intuitive stitch pattern, which I had memorised after one repeat. The instructions for the band just say 'pick up x number of stitches'. No ratios, no acjnowledgement that different bits of the band have different ratios. Afte...

What I made, by Sharon

Search This Blog