Last weekend was the Unravel festival at Farnham Maltings, a favourite yarny event. On the Friday, Doug and I had tickets to a show at Ronnie Scotts in London, so we spent the day in London instead of heading to Farnham to buy yarn. We had a fantastic day, the trains were all working (shock!), we had a terrific lunch, spent hours walking and people watching, wandered around the Royal Academy of Art, and had a great time at the concert.
Unravel was open on Saturday and Sunday, too, but having taken Friday off, I opted to work all weekend. As it happened, I was very productive on the weekend and saved lots of money to boot (it is not possible to go to Unravel and not spend money).
I have just returned from a teaching trip to Helsinki. It was a quick trip, in on Thursday, teach all day Friday and out on Saturday morning. I could have carved out two hours before catching my flight to head to a yarn shop, but I woke up with a cold, and Helsinki was very cold and grey, so I opted to stay inside and work instead.
Two great opportunities for yarn buying missed! My wallet will thank me, but I do miss the camaraderie of hanging out with knitters. To make up for that, I have been participating in a KAL, which has a zoom meeting every Monday night. It is an hour to chat with a bunch of knitters while working on the Pressed Flowers Cardigan. I will not be even close to finishing this by the time the KAL closes, but I am managing to knit 2-3 rows a day, and it is turning out gorgeous:
I am kind of gob-smacked at how beautiful this pattern looks in these yarns. The Main Colour is Buachaille by Kate Davies, and the Contrast Colour is Road to China Light in Rhodolite. Together with my Piping Hot Sweater which is still waiting for sleeves, I have plenty of knitting on my plate and therefore don’t really need to be thinking of new ones. I have found, however, that whenever I have little free time available to knit, I covet new projects. My brain refuses to listen to reason. I am trying to decide whether to purchase a kit for the Polina pullover by Teti Lutsak.
I also cannot stop looking at the Karla Cape, by Anne Ventzel:
When I was a teenager, my mother knitted herself a jacket which I thought was the height of cool. Below is a photo of my mom wearing it in 2012 – 40 years after she knitted it. It is still cool! (I wrote about it in this post, twelve years ago.) Special shout-out to my mom: Sending you lots of love, Mom!
For some reason, the Karla Cape sort of reminds me of Mom’s jacket. It has a lot of differences, but it has the same kind of feel to it. It might very well end up on my needles later this year.
I don’t want to end this post without signposting this article in the Guardian, which tells of a nearly pristine 200-year old Faroese sweater which was found at the National Archives. It had been sent in a parcel on the ship, Anne-Marie, which was seized by the Royal Navy in 1807 during the second battle of Copenhagen. The package has only recently been opened and the sweater is beautifully preserved. It is simply stunning!
Your Pressed Flowers is beautiful! That is a pretty fabulous jacket – now I kind of want to knit it too! It sounds like you had a lovely day in London with Doug even if it did mean missing out on some yarn shopping. There will always be more yarn!
Doug and I both needed a break, so it was, dare I say it, more restorative than yarn.
More than yarn? Wow – that is really restorative! 😉
I love the Pressed Flowers Cardigan and have it in my queue. A friend has knit it and it’s just so pretty. Someday…..
It is really fun to knit, and so far, it is very relaxing. As soon as you realise that the flowers are knit in stockinette and the background is in garter, the pattern will be completely intuitive.
Something Pressed Flowers in my future, too, I hope. Yours is looking great. I like the projects with highly contrasting yarns but have seen some lovely examples with yarns close in colour. Lovely photo of your mother. Royal Academy and Ronnie Scott’s – sounds like one of my ideal London days. Thanks for posting, always enjoy your words and photos.
Thank you, Beth; I always enjoy your comments! Nearly everyone in the Pressed Flowers KAL is using Spincycle, and they are raving about the changing colours. But I am really enjoying knitting this with two solids. For me, it is the different textures of the two yarns that is giving it depth.
The pressed flowers is beautiful, I’m wondering if I don’t like the Polina because of the colours used…would it appeal to me if it was in the same colours you have used on Pressed Flowers that I really like. Your mum looks great in her cardi and I can see why the other pattern reminds you of it. It would be a great one to snuggle up in with that length.
I agree about the colours in the Polina: they are so not me. But the kit I am considering has a beautiful green for the CC. If you look at the projects, people have made this in all sorts of combinations with colours that suit me better. Still, this is sitting firmly in the “maybe” category.
What a great idea to have regular Zoom meetings during the KAL. Your Pressed Flowers is looking just beautiful.
I think the Zoom meetings only work for smaller groups. This KAL has about 36 participants, which is manageable, but I know there are some KALs that are massive. This one is run by the yarn shop and not by the designer. They also have a Facebook group that accompanies the weekly meetings, but I am not on Facebook so I ignore that part.