Knitters in the News

Last night I managed to get to the Kings Arms Knitters Club thanks to the very welcome lift from Charlie. I went, armed with my cushion, as sadly the Arms does not boast the comfiest of seating for my recovering back. It felt so good though to be out of the house and back to a bit of normality again. The big ocassion was the official unveiling of the knitted chandelier. I can't take any credit for this as the ladies of the club made this totally without a single contribution from me - oh shame on me! Last night a photographer from the Manchester Evening News came to photograph the chandelier and all of the knitters. We had a very good turn out and he took several photos. There will be an article appearing in the paper, possibly tonight, but you can relax as he didn't point his camera in my direction at all. (Maybe because I was crocheting?) The article has apparently already been written from a telephone conversation with one of the ladies so I have no idea what has been said until the article appears.

I also got news yesterday from the Bolton Knitting Noras group that I joined quite a while back. Lisa has been organising the knitted garden and if you have read my blog then I have mentioned this joint effort in the past. Several Noras made fruit, veg and aniumals for the garden and have been to festivals lately and taken the garden with them to display. Once again I was a sad participant and only made a few crochet mushrooms. The ladies have been offering their services (relax - purely as knitting tutors) to anyone at these festivals who might be interested. Apparently there was an article in the Guardian newspaper mentioning the merry band of knitters.

Pick of the week: Rock and pop
The Guardian,
Saturday August 16 2008
Article history
Solfest
South Bay Beach, Wigton
Friday 22
Strangely wonderful mix of hula-hooping, knitathons and willow-making workshops among the likes of Supergrass and Róisín Murphy. Not at the same time, mind.

I have not made it to any of these festivals as I am allergic to camping under wet canvas. That's my excuse anyway. In actual fact I am just too flipping old for tents and hard ground. I have a millionaire's taste in holidays on a pauper's purse and if my camping doesn't involve a luxury caravan with hot running water, clean shower and toilet then quite frankly count me out! I am old and therefore I am allowed to be pernickety! I haven't been away for years but until I can afford to go in style I will join the fashionable stay at homes once again this year. If I ever get that winning lottery ticket then luxury holiday here I come!

If anyone is interested in viewing photos of these festivals and the knitted garden then visit Eadaoin's Flickr site (where you can also view her beautiful hamd made jewelry)

http://www.flickr.com/photos/eadaoinflynn/

and the Bolton Knitting Noras Flickr site with photos of the ladies and the festivals.

http://www.flickr.com/groups/815584@N24/pool/

I am still progressing with the Blue Curacao shawl and I have hopefully made no further mistakes since I completely restarted it. I have had to add more rows of pineapples than stated on the pattern. Doris used much thicker wool in her version so this one was lacking in length when made exactly to the pattern. I am working out if I have enough wool for another set of pineapples plus the fan edging as it does need to finish on a pattern repeat or it will look very odd. I am sure that Vicky J will block it down to a better length once it is finished. I have seen the before and after blocking photos on Ravelry and the shawl does "grow" considerably. I think that it would look nice semi blocked as some of the shawls pictured have been very overstretched but I will leave that to Vicky's judgement.

Today is another wet miserable day. I know that I need to keep up with my little walks for exercise but it isn't very inspiring when the days are so wet. Half the channels on my Sky TV are still missing so it looks like I might have to give in and call an engineer sometime soon to sort it all out. I think I will tough it out though until I get the tree sorted out first. I still have plenty channels to watch just not always the nature, home improvement and documentary programmes that I like to watch. The junk channels are all still there - typical!