I arrived home from Knit Nation on Monday, exhausted but very happy! I met so may knitters and fondled so much yarn that my head’s on information overload. Of course I manage to forget my camera so my photos of the weekend are non-existent unfortunately. You can however see a few photos at Anne Hanson and Clara Parkes websites to get some visual of the weekend. I do however have yarn that made it home with me that I have photos of!

Before the classes started I got to go to the Victoria and Albert museum and have high tea with the other tutors.  I was very honoured to be included with this bunch, which included Alice, Cookie A (the 2 organisers), Ann Hanson, Lene Alve, Susan Crawford, Elise Duvekot, Franklin Habit, Susanna Hansson, Marjan Hammink, Carol & Pete Leonard, Judith McCluin, Clara Parkes, Merike Saarniit and Julie Weisenberger.  I hadn’t met many of them before but they were lots of fun to spend an afternoon (and weekend) with.  Judith lead the tour of the museum and she is just a font of information, it was just a pleasure to hear her speak so knowledgeably on textiles through the ages.

Just before travelling over to London on Wednesday last week I had the start of a sore throat.  Unfortunately by the time I had finished talking for 3 days solid I was sounding pretty croaky.  My apologies to any knitters who had to listen to me on Sunday afternoon, I suspect I was sounding pretty bad!  I had the most wonderful knitters in my class from all over the place with a huge variety of knitting styles.  It’s not often you get English knitters, Continental Knitters, Portuguese Knitters and mirrored backwards knitters (to name a few) all in one spot.  It was very informative to see just how many different ways you can produce the same knit stitch.  Knitting is definitely not a one size fits all kind of pursuit.

The first class I had I got a wonderful gift (just like last year!) from the Portuguese knitters.  It was a little skein of wonderful hand spun yarn, a lavender sardine, pins, a sample of Yarn Adventures yarn and a handmade project bag.

In addition to these wonderful gifts Filomena also gifted me a bag of her wonderful yarn ‘Yarn Adventures’.  You can find her also on ravelry and facebook.

The rest of the weekend passed in a blur, I met some friends from Ireland, met a few other designer friends that I only get to see at different events (including Woolly Wormhead, Ann Kingstone and Marleen van der Vorst) as well as tons of new knitters and designers.  I spoke for a while on the way back from high tea with designer Stephen West who is now based in Amsterdam.  Who knows, we may actually get to meet up again as my sister lives there!  And for anyone wondering, Franklin Habit is indeed as funny as his blog!

With all of this teaching and fun I did get a few chances to slip into the marketplace and pick up the odd hank of yarn..

the first is The Yarn Yard ‘Clan’ in a delicious shade of green.

The second yarn that sneaked into my bag was Easy Knits ‘Deeply Wicked’ in Sands of Time Colour.  How could I leave it behind?

It’s getting really close to my book actually coming out; as we speak it’s being printed!  I brought the cover cardigan from the book with me to my classes (it was the perfect example for top down set-in sleeve designs) and some bookmarks to make sure everyone doesn’t forget the name….

Not too much longer now before you get to see the full book.

I’ve recently developed a great love of buttons.  I find myself in local shops buying up buttons – sometimes to finish a project, other times because I think they might find inspiration. So now I own a box of buttons, plastic, wood, shell, bone (the boys think this one is great!), metal – but don’t have any glass.  I even now own a few diamante ones (for when you feel like that little bit of extra bling).

I was trying to be good about buying new yarn but couldn’t resist a few to try from Garnstudio.   I got few balls of Ice to make a lacey summer shrug (I am finding these so useful, some gorgeous rust coloured Paris (don’t know what this will be yet) and a ball each of Eskimo and Silk Alpaca.  I have a feeling I’ll be getting more of these.  This yarn seems really reasonable for the materials uses….may be seeing more of it!

I’ve been knitting very slowly for the last few weeks.  I have enjoyed and really want the items I’m knitting to be finished but I haven’t been so excited by them that I have been in a crazy rush to finish them.  Life seems so busy right now that knitting is playing a very small role.  However I’m sure that won’t last for too long!

I have finished Wisp for my mother’s birthday next week.  Unfortunately it is not perfect – it took me quite a while to stop dropping stitches at the start and a lace mohair pattern is not too forgiving of that!  They are very carefully concealed for the photo but hopefully she will turn a blind eye….

And I’ve finally settled on what to use my Rowan Tapestry for …. a Clapotis

This was my progress as of last week before my camera died – I have actually just now finished the straight rows so I should be finished but the end of the week.  I am so in love with this – I love the colour, the feel of the yarn and how soft it is.  It will be perfect for the freezing cold spring we are having.  What are the chances though that by the end of the week we will have sun splitting the rocks??

I think that it is knitting so slowly as it isn’t very involved knitting.  Great for in front of the tv!  I think I need to get my teeth into a cable or lace project.

I’ve been playing with a few more knitting designs some summer tops and cardigans, I’ve got a few skiens of Araucania Patagonia that I think that could make a really good summer cardigan for our Irish summer.  Must get thinking and swatching.

I got the Zoe Mellor ‘Adorable Knits for Tiny Tots’ for Christmas last year and have been dying to knit it for my youngest.  However the Rowan Cork yarn has been discontinued.  I managed to pull a few balls of it together from Ebay but not enough for the pattern – I think I might try it without the hood, should just about scrape by.  (However will probably have to wait until next winter as we are nearly in Feburary!)

I got 10 skeins of Berroco’s Memoirs yarn from Elann a few months ago.  It feels so nice I’ve been trying to figure out what to knit with it.  I think that I’d like to do something with some lace work,  the subtle colours would work best with that I think.

Another lovely yarn that I’ve got stashed here in the office is the Rowan Tapestry in Pot Pouri.  I love the colours and the feel of the yarn and I’m trying to figure out what to use it for to do it justice.  I guess that’s the problem with having such special yarn, you find yourself almost afraid to use it as the end product needs to be a beautiful as the yarn.

I am so pleased that I have eventually finished this sock. I know it’s not much of a birthday present, but surely one sock is better than none! The finished product feels very substantial but not sure I’ll be choosing Lana Grossa again. I need to psych myself up to get started on the second one now. Please send words of encouragement my way.

As a slight diversion I have started on another pair of socks – this time for my 2 year old ds. There was some of a ball of Opal yarn left from last years socks for my mother and I have been meaning to make him a pair since then. I just love working with this yarn, it knits up so effortlessly. Maybe by the time I have the second one finished it will give me the courage to get started back on making the mate for the above sock.

After the last several weeks spent knitting for Christmas presents I’ve had a chance to get started on a project for myself this week. I got some Rowan Chunky print yarn in a lovely dark chocolate and have started on the Blackberry shrug from Knitty.

I am knitting it from the top though with a few more changes. Having recently gotten a copy of Barbara Walkers ‘Knitting From the Top’ I am finding as many excuses in my knitting to work from the top down. Especially when it is for yourself it means that you get a great fit. (Not so important if you don’t have the person around who will be wearing it …or if that person doesn’t want to try it on daily for fitting!)

I have put in a slightly different cable on the arm and left out the bobbles. Also I am tapering the arms a little more and increasing the length of the arms and body. I think I’ll probably do some short rows at the back of the next, I like cosy necks. Will post some photos as I start making a bit more progress.

I have finally managed to make it into the blogging world!  I’m new to all this so it will probably take me a while to get used to keeping it updated regularly but I’ll try my best.  Last month I had my first pattern published in Knitty called Doddy
This pattern really came about by accident, I had a couple of balls of Knit Picks Shine Worsted delivered to me from the States and it felt so soft I couldn’t wait to get knitting.  However I couldn’t think of anything I wanted to knit so I just started making interesting shapes.  Before I knew it I had knit this: