Amazing Summer!

At times it has felt totally surreal. It has been immensely rewarding, and although very tired I know I am also very happy!

Firstly I had a lovely week camping in Northumberland with my family; hubby, our boys, my twin-sister, her hubby, and their son and daughter. Cycling, visiting ancient monuments (Hadrians’s Wall is awesome!), relaxing…  if only I hadn’t had classes to prepare and patterns to write…!

And then to Knit Camp. This was the really surreal part! I spent a whole week with lovely, lovely people who have a shared passion. It was Knitting Heaven! I also got to spend time with some great fellow designers, a complete treat for me as for the most part designing is a lonely occupation. Deserving of special mention are Pat Ashforth and Steve Plummer (Woolly Thoughts), Woolly Wormhead, and Carol Feller. A delightful crew; friendly, full of fun, and wonderfully generous with excellent advice for this less experienced member of the crew.

The biggest highlight of the week for me was participating in the sheep to sweater challenge, an attempt to break the world record for the fastest time to spin and knit a sweater from from raw fleece. Usually the event starts with a sheep and a shearer, but we didn’t have a shearer so had to take a time penalty (the rules allow for this). The fleece was a Shetland fleece donated by the Provost of Stirling, an amazingly knowledgeable and talented man. Here he is with the team which included Miriam Tegels (from the Netherlands and Guiness world record holder as the world’s fastest knitter), Angela (Germany’s fastest knitter), Astrid (also German and an excellent spinner and knitter), Sandra (Shetland knitter, working at impressive speed with a Shetland knitting belt), Susan (also a Shetlander and a great spinner), Freyalyn (previously chair of Bradford spinners, weavers and dyers) and yours truly. :0)

Although we didn’t manage to beat the record we achieved a very respectable time (a little over 6 hours) which would have placed us second in the main international competition in June. Plans are afoot to reassemble the team for another attempt now we have practised together! ;0)

Another highlight of the week, again spinning related, was the spin-night on Thursday evening. This was led by Liz Lovick (Northern Lace), and Oliver Henry (managing director of Jamieson and Smith). A wonderful talk by Oliver about the history and characteristics of Shetland fleece was followed by a video of Liz demonstrating all kinds of spinning techniques with Shetland fibre. Liz also did a great plug for the excellent new (and only) British spinning magazine, Yarnmaker. We both have articles in it; a pattern from Liz for ‘any-size mats’ and a photo-story from me about dyeing with Japanese indigo leaves.

Whilst I was at Knit Camp a pattern of mine for stranded socks appeared in the latest edition of The Knitter. They are called ‘Lovely Socks’, and I’ll finish this post with some pictures of them for you to enjoy: