Fish and chip babies

Here we have the results of our knit group's time spent knitting for Fish and Chip babies in Africa. That's such a great name for the project - how could anyone forget a name like that? The idea behind it is that if no one knits for these babies, many of whom have AIDS, they'll go home from hospital wrapped in newspaper for warmth. Like fish and chips.

Check out the link above for UK contact details - a small donation towards the cost of shipping would be appreciated. (All details are on site.)

You can see from this picture that one knitter forgot the request to knit in dark or darkish coloiurs. Yes, it was me.

British Wool Weekend

Well, I nearly got sidetracked into a rant about the Halifax deli I visited with friends at dinnertime, but no, I'm going to control myself on that score, even tho' my mood on leaving after lunch was much less buoyant than it had been on my arrival. And that's not meant to be the case when you've been looking forward to your posh butty. Anyway, no matter, there are lots of other eating places.

But no, let's talk of jolly fibre-y things! And I just love British Wool Weekend: it's so lovely and full of gorgeous wools and crafty things and it's so close to where we live - Harrogate being just a few dozen miles up the road - and it's on over the whole weekend so I can go. I'd love to go to Woolfest but I think it takes place over Friday and Saturday. There's possibly an excellent reason for that, but if you have a one-man-band kind of wool shop, how do you get there without losing a whole day's takings?

I got sidetracked again. British Wool Weekend. Here are a few photos.

The Sheep Show man, with Nobby the ram.

The Clervaux Trust got into the spirit!

Aren't they gorgeous?

There was so much else to take note of..I loved the Teeswater Wools hand-dyed hanks and the lovely, muted colours of the wools on Woolly Chic's stand. Cuter still were the photographs of the individual sheep from Brough Lea Farm - how could anyone resist buying gorgeous British wool when they've also seen a picture of the actual sheep it came from? And when they've been told its name? That's practically forming a relationship.

I only bought 300g of tops and two end-of-line balls of 4 ply (I have a wool shop!!). But what I really wanted was a drop spindle. Very nice man selling them was doing a roaring trade but I was too anxious to approach - maybe he'd ask me questions about my spindle needs that I wouldn't be able to answer? Maybe he'd, even more scarily, offer me the chance to practise in public? Some folks would think that was a good idea - find out what suits you, make sure you have a chance of doing a half-decent job... Not me. I just want a spindle to play with in private, without embarrasing myself. I don't mind admitting I'm useless at stuff; I don't need to confirm it by public demonstration. Oh no.

British Wool Weekend will probably be held around the same time next year. I'd go if I were you.

Debbie Bliss Paloma

I want to post later today about British Wool Weekend, which was fab, but for now I'm just putting it out there that, to link in with our recent newsletter, Debbie Bliss Paloma is currently £4.50 at Three Bags Full, both in the Piece Hall shop and online.

This is a special price till the end of September so if you love soft, light, beautiful, luxury yarns, this'd be a good time to treat yourself.

You don't have to subscribe to the newsletter to get the great price, but if you'd like me to send it to you 3 or 4 times a year, just email me on threebagsfullwoolshop@googlemail.com and I'll add you to the list.

The best part of this job...

...is opening the parcels that arrive thick and fast this time of year, ready for the main winter knitting season. Yesterday the first instalment of our recent Designer Yarns order arrived. Inside the box were some new colours of Debbie Bliss Rialto DK, some new shades of lovely, mohairy Angel, some Angel prints (the multi version) and the fab, new scarf yarn, Bolero.

The photos aren't great, but here goes:

My favourite Angel shade is the rich gold, which is squashed down at the bottom of the pile, but they're all pretty. We've held the price at £8.25, despite a recent rise in the rrp.

On the right are the six shades of Bolero that we bought, along with the sample scarf I've started knitting up. It's kind of like Rico Loopy, but with a gipsyish edge to it. One 100g ball of Bolero makes a scarf and it costs just £5.95.

Later in the week the Adriafil should arrive and then more Designer Yarns and then...I love this time of year!

Scarf-without-a-name pattern

I looked for the scarf pattern for the scarf I uploaded a couple of days ago and this is what I found:

Useful, huh?

You might find this clearer:
Using 4.5mm straight needles, cast on 44 loosely with DK yarn.

Row 1: Slip1 purlwise, knit to last to stitch, ktbl.

Change to 4mm needles.
Row 2: k2 *yfwd k1, k3, ssk, k1, k2tog, k3, yfwd, k2. Repeat from * to end of row.

Row 3: purl all stitches

Repeat rows 2 and 3 till your scarf is as long as you want it to be.

Change to 4.5mm needles. Knit one row. Cast off loosely.

When knitting scarves, I usually slip purlwise the first stitch of every row and knit into the back of the last stitch of every row. It makes the edges uniform, altho’ I’m not sure it’s any more neat than just knitting (or whatever) the edge stitches. Sometimes it looks better, sometimes it doesn’t; see what you think – it’s easy enough to change edge stitches if you decide to.

The cast on and cast off edges will be slightly at odds with each other – one’s wavier than the other. I suppose if that really bothers you you’d have to knit two halves and sew them together or knit a three needle cast off or something.

A new scarf or two

Every so often on ravelry there's a 'someone stole my pattern!' thread. They vary from people caught selling photocopies of someone else's design (downright illegal) to people taking a little more inspiration from a previous pattern than was wise (bit cheeky) to two designers having very similar ideas at exactly the same time. That's not so unlikely, is it? But how wonderful is this? I was flicking through a new pattern book from Designer Yarns two days ago - I'm not sure if the pattern book's even been released yet - and saw 'my' scarf!! This one!

Okay, so the pattern isn't really for my scarf. But it is for a scarf that looks similar to this one above, which I put together in July with a view to selling. I didn't have a good look at the book; it was the rep's copy. It could be - okay, it's pretty likely - that the professional version is way superior to mine. But mine's okay too. For a second or two there I felt like a budding designer. Then I remembered it's a scarf, for heaven's sake. Just a little scarf. (And also yes, there's an element of not being fit to lace whoever's boots - look, I was just tickled, that's all I'm saying!)

Anyway, I'll post the pattern when I find it so you can make yourselves one if you'd like. Alternatively you can buy one of these two from my folksy shop when I sort out the listing.

The girl can't help it

A few more new starts!

Hot on the heels of the ice-creamy chevron scarf and the blue chevron scarf, we now have...

a browny one, and...

a mixed greys one.

Oh, and there's now also this:

I can't tell you how much better this looks in the flesh than it does on this flash-ruined photo.  It's mostly different shades of sludge - blue sludge, red sludge, plain old grey sludge. And yes, it's going to be a shawl! I've never made a shawl before and, while loving to gaze at other people's gorgeous lacey creations, I'd never seriously wear one, so this is very much a sling-round-your-shoulders-without-feeling-pretentious kind of thing.

I haven't even photographed the dress I'm making as a shop sample but I will tell you the pattern is called Meredith, it's knit in the round and it's available for free at present on the Let's Knit website here. You can find more of designer Ruth Maddock's lovely creations on ravelry.