To a knitter the term ‘unravelling’ usually means the act of ripping out your knitting. However, if you are lucky enough to be in the London vicinity in February, it can have an alternate definition: the act of attending the Unravel Festival of Yarn at Farnham Maltings. This year, Unravel was especially nice because I went with Emma.

We took the train there which turned out to be easy peasy, much better than trying to park the car once you are there. We went on the opening day, in the morning, so although it was fairly crowded, it was still perfectly manageable to see everything and move around without being crushed.

We had a lot of fun exploring, squishing lots of yarn, having fun conversations with like-minded people, and admiring all of the beautiful hand-knitted garments being worn. We came home with some very nice treats:

If you remember from my last post, I have joined a KAL to knit one of Erika Knight’s Signature Collection garments produced with Walcot Yarns. I chose to knit the shawl called A Walk in the Park, and ordered the yarn in the original colours. I did want to see the shawl in person, and so our first stop at Unravel was to head to Walcot Yarns, where Carmen had brought along samples of all the pieces. Here is Emma wearing the shawl:

I like this shawl, but I was having two niggles about it. The first is that I just don’t like the triangle shape for shawls, particularly for worsted weight shawls. I have a secret plan, however, to change the shape. (You will need to watch this space to see how that transpires.) My second niggle was with the set of colours. I like the dark brown and white, and I love the greens. But, once I had the yarns in my hands, I really wasn’t crazy about the pink. Emma and I spent some time trying out different options and decided to keep the original sets minus the pink, and to replace it with – a stronger pink! Here you can see the originals (on top) and my new set (with the lilac-y pink Fireweed replaced with the fuschia-pink Petunia).

I really think this one change is amazing; it makes the whole thing pop for me. The KAL starts soon, and I am now all prepared to cast-on.

I purchased a skein of very fluffy boucle yarn from Kettle Yarn Co along with a skein of grey Northiam DK in order to make the Beanie Number 6 pattern by My Favorite Things:

Emma tried on a very fluffy, cosy scarf designed by Maxim Cyr called Field:

She then proceeded to get advice from many, many assorted people on which shades of yarn to buy so that she could knit one. The two yarns on the top of our goodie photo are for this shawl, which will combine a silvery grey Fluff yarn with a beautiful DK from Les Garcons in a deep green blue (although it looks mostly blue in the photo). Max kindly posed for a photo with Emma:

We also bought a bunch of odds and ends and haberdashery, including some new Chia Goo Forte circular needle tips, a bottle of Soak, and two little tartan notions pouches.

It was altogether a fun expedition, and to make it more fun, we had a nice lunch afterwards. It was Valentine’s Day and we were surrounded by couples having romantic lunches.

We spent some time winding all of that yarn into cakes:

I especially like the below photo of the two yarns for the hat pattern, perched on top of each other as in the hat:

Isn’t it cute?

I was going to bore you with more photos of the event, but I am worn out, so you will have to imagine it for yourself. Now, despite all of this yarny fun, I have yet to knit a stitch in days, so I am off to remedy that.

I’ve just returned from a business trip to Johannesburg. I was away for 10 days, which felt like a long time. Interestingly, on the very day I left for Johannesburg, Emma arrived home for a visit. Yes, bad planning indeed! She landed at Heathrow only hours before my departure, and by the time she and Doug made it to the house, Emma and I had less then an hour of overlap. Alas, we were like two ships that pass in the night. The good news is that I am home now, and she is still here, so once I recover from the long flight and busy week, I can spend some time enjoying her presence.

I always take a knitting project with me when I travel. (As we knitters know, it takes much longer to pack one’s knitting than to pack everything else.) I took a very lightweight, mohair shawl, the Osaka Scarf, which I had originally cast on in July to take with me to Arizona. It seems to have become my travel project, mostly because it weighs next to nothing, is just miles of stockinette with nothing tricky going on, and fits into a tiny project bag. The shawl is knitted in blocks of colour, with five different shades of Ito Sensai silk mohair yarn.

I didn’t get to knit too much while I was there; a heavy teaching schedule and being super tired aren’t really conducive to knitting. However, I did manage to get in a few hours while sitting in the warm 30 degree sunshine out by the pool:

I am hankering for something a bit more meaty to knit now, something to keep my brain engaged and hopefully block out some of the horrible news of the world. (I am not going to discuss the horrible news here, which just keeps getting worse every day, because knitting is my safe space, so I am endeavouring to keep this a safe space too.) To that end, I have just signed up for a KAL (a knit-along) with Carmen Schmidt of A Yarn Story. The KAL is for any one of the 5 projects designed by Erika Knight for the Signature Collection using A Yarn Story’s yarn, Walcot Opus.

I have to admit that I am unsure about the project I chose from this collection. It is a shawl called A Walk in the Park:

This is not my usual type of shawl. For one thing, it is triangular-shaped, and I much prefer rectangular shawls. It is also outside of my usual colour choices. I ordered the yarn in the same colours as the pattern photo and was surprised when it arrived to discover that the colour I thought was black is actually a deep brown. Emma says she likes it much better with the brown, and that it gives it a beautiful depth. It still feels slightly out of my comfort zone.

Both Emma and Doug were surprised that I didn’t pick one of the pullover patterns from the collection, and maybe I should have. On the other hand, the whole family has been confiscating my hand-knitted shawls lately, and I am in danger of running out of shawls! I do have my mind on some glorious pullover patterns, however, which may very well make it to my needles. The top two contenders at the moment are The Checkerplate sweater by Lily Kate (for me):

and the Liv Sweater by Moreka Knit (for Emma):

Emma and I are planning to attend the Unravel Yarn Festival at Farnham next week, and I expect that some yarn will find its way home with us! So keep an eye on this space for some new projects in the weeks to come!

I’ll end with a photo of a visitor to our garden today:

Perhaps he is interested in my next project too?