Review: Spin + Knit 2017, a Spin-Off special issue

Although it's a year or two old now, I learned about this collection of patterns via Kate Larson's blog post about her visit to Shetland, which is a good read.

During that visit she bought a pack of Shetland wool in various shades, which she spun and made into the North Road hat, her own design. The hat is featured on the cover.

I don't generally buy pattern books but I have a few. Usually there are only a few patterns in each that I would actually make and only one or two that I end up making. But it's unusual to find a collection of designs specifically for spin and knit and as usual there were a few that I could see myself making. I almost always spin for a project.

The print edition is sold out, but the digital edition is available. However, it's $14.99 which seems very pricey.

It contains 20 patterns and a number of articles. You can see all of the patterns here. There are hats, mitts, scarves, cowls and shawls. They tend to be smaller projects, which you'd expect in a handspinning collection, but there are a couple of bigger projects too, a colourwork bag and a cardy. I really like the Basketcase Cardigan and it's one of the projects that I have firm plans for.

It has 120 pages and the articles that accompany that patterns are well-chosen for a spinner/knitter. Or maybe even a knitter who's curious about spinning, because there's a good 'Spinning Basics' article by Maggie Casey. There's plenty for the more experienced too including several 'How to's and a long run-down of sheep breeds.

Here's the link to Kate's blog post once again, and here's the link to buy the digital issue.

Makers' Month at Norwich Forum

Makers' Month at the Norwich Forum has become an event to look forward to each year.

The forum has a very large open space with a gallery and also within the building are places to eat and drink, BBC Radio Norfolk's studios and the library (remember those?)

During Makers' Month it's filled with demonstrations, 'have a go', bookable workshops, art and craft exhibits and this year the Woman’s Hour Craft Prize Exhibition. They sometimes have fibre contributors such as alpacas for you to meet but there were none there on the day that we visited this year.

Here ares some pictures that I took this time.

On the theme of 'nostalgia', the centrepiece is a life-size sculpture of her Majesty (coronation era) in mixed media (mostly knitted).  She was made by Petal and Purl, a craft group from Caston, Norfolk. The dress was originally white satin and included seed pearls, crystals, silks and gold and silver thread. This replica has been crafted from knitted strips, fabric painted emblems, crocheted leaves, pearls, beads and threads of many sorts. The facial features are needle felted.

 This knitted scene contains characters of all sorts, good and evil!

 This huge crocheted mandala topped the roof of the 'Nudiknits' cinema. Yes, they were showing the Nidiknits film and there were many of us old people giggling at that. The mandala was best viewed from the gallery.

 Also from Petal and Purl on the theme of 'nostalgia' this mixed media 1950's scene has flowers, cakes, sandwiches, even flying ducks on the wall

Plant Dyes for All Seasons 2017 Calendar

Fran Rushworth of Wool - Tribulations of Hand Spinning and Herbal Dyeing  has sent me a copy of this wonderful calendar for review.

She has been learning about plant growing and dyeing by trial and error for some years and blogging about her successes and failures on her website. With this calendar, she aims to create what she would have wished for when she started out.

The first thing to say is that Fran has made the copies of this calendar herself. I don't mean that she's sent her photographs to the printers and chosen a boilerplate layout. She has actually printed*, spiral bound and hole punched it all herself. This, along with her choice of a good matt paper rather than gloss, gives the calendar a 'homespun' look, which is appealing and in keeping with the subject. Personally, I think I'd like to have seen glossy card used on the front cover, for a slightly more polished look. But the paper is good quality heavy stuff and the matt finish works really well for the rest of the content, for reasons that I'm about to move onto.

The second important thing to say about this is that far from being a dozen nice glossy pictures to hang on your wall, which is what I'd imagined when Fran told me that she was producing a calendar, she's written what amounts to an instructional booklet.

If you follow the succinct instructions that are revealed each month, you'll learn a lot about natural dyeing and have fun along the way. projects include bark, leaves & flowers, galls & acorns, solar dyeing, contact printing. Sowing, planting out and harvesting are covered at the appropriate times.  It has as much to do with experimentation as how to get the perfect result. At the front is a page of suggestions, things to buy, things to save,  things to gather in preparation for your journey.

Oh yes - it's also a calendar.... a month filling half of the A3 spread means that there's room to write important notes about those important dates.

The calendar is available for £7.50 plus p&p. For no extra charge, you can have a personal greeting printed on the back, conveyed by Fran's companion, Elinor Gotland.

More shots and information about how to grab yourself a copy of this original and appealing item are here.


* Update, 15 Nov. Because of a surprising response to her initial blog post, Fran has had to ask a local print shop to help with the actual printing of the pages, using the same weight paper that she had already been using. She's still putting the calendar together herself.

Fibre East 2013

July 27 and 28 saw the third Fibre East and the first to have an indoor venue. Anyone who visited the 2012 event won't forget the mud, although this year has been warm and dry. Redborne College became very hot at times according to some stall holders. We can't beat our fickle British weather!

The 110 stands were distributed among several rooms inside the college plus some marquees outside.

One lovely surprise was to see that Paul Brittain of Classic Carders now has his electric drum carder ready! Here he is standing beside it.

The day wouldn't be complete without the Sheer Sheep experience, here's Michael doing his stuff. A great day for sitting on the grass with a picnic. He talked about the qualities of the wool from various breeds and how they've been mixed over the centuries.

He was shearing to order and letting spinners choose their fleece while still on the sheep.

My own haul included some long-sought-after blocking wires, some alpaca walking socks and as if I needed more fibre, 'Northern Lights' wool/silk from Freyalyn and some amazing black alpaca from Longdrawjames.