Young Dye Plant Seedlings

"Wonderful weather for the Bank Holiday." My companion, Elinor Gotland peered into the trays of seedlings that had been carried outdoors to enjoy a day of direct sunshine. "I think your coreopsis could do with a drop of water."

"Hmmm. The Impatiens balsamina seedlings are still damp but it's done them no good, they've all flopped anyway. Looks pretty terminal to me. I think their stalks grew too leggy by the window indoors to cope without a greenhouse. Even in this warm weather." I slid my glasses back up my sweaty nose to focus on the other trays. "No sign at all of the woad germinating. Possibly two miniscule weld plants are sprouting. Or maybe they're weeds."
"Ooo, you've got more than half a dozen Japanese Indigo coming up. That's good isn't it?"

"Not sure where I can grow Japanese Indigo plants if they do survive. When I tried to dig a hole in the garden to put that clematis in, I found a solid foot of builders' rubble two inches below ground. Not exactly a cool moist root run."
Elinor sighed. "The very thought is dehydrating. Get the kettle on, Beaut."

"Fancy a walk?"  Elinor finished the Diabolical Sudoku and put her newspaper down.
"Suppose the dog needs an airing." 
"You could do with some sunshine too, you mouldy old Grouch Bag. Dig your sandals out and let's go and enjoy the lambs in the fields and Spring just bursting up everywhere."
"I'd gladly wear the usual woolly jumper, hat, scarf, coat and bring an umbrella if we didn't have Lockdown. Spring ought to mean going to Wonderwool, shopping for fibre, meeting all my friends and eating cake and I'm just sad that none of that will be happening."

"Chocolate cake! Crack on with the baking Beaut, it's practically Easter." Elinor dumped a bag of shopping on the kitchen floor. "Got all the ingredients for you. Did I mention I've gone Vegan?"
Including avocados in both the sponge and the icing had strangely contrary effects. Far from being cooked in 25 minutes, the cake mix stayed gloopy in the middle for over an hour, by which time the frosting seemed to have solidified. Luckily, it softened up again in an improvised Bain Marie over the broccoli soup. 
I yelped as the tea towel slipped off a hot cake tin when at last I could turn the sponges out.
"Couldn't you just have bought some custard creams, Elinor? They're vegan."
"Never." She looked at me severely over her specs. "The palm oil in them is not sustainably sourced."
"Heaven forbid you should eat an unethical biscuit." 

"No animals were harmed in the making of this chocolate cake." said my companion with great satisfaction.
Sucking the burn on my thumb, I reflected that this was not entirely true. 
Happy Easter Everyone 

The Secret Garden Crochet Pattern - Review

"Look at those foxgloves, Elinor. I am so on trend. Vertical impact galore, my Dye Garden border is totally Chelsea."
"The stems aren't straight though, Beaut. The judges would mark you down for that."
This week, my companion and I have been glued to the TV coverage of the RHS Chelsea Flower Show. Fabulous foxgloves are everywhere and half the designers seem to have been fretting over wiggles in their spikes. My foxgloves are just the ordinary kind, Digitalis purpurea, which self seed every summer. All I have to do is move the young plants to the spots where I fancy having flowers the following year.
Down at ground level, this year's weld and coreopsis plants are settling their roots in. My greatest gardening efforts go into raising dye plants from seed - Dyers' Chamomile is the only perennial in that border.

Earlier in the year, I went sorting through a pile of double knitting wool yarn I'd dyed with plants in previous summers. Lots of single skeins and no two shades quite the same. Small projects are all very well, but I find the preliminary chopping and changing and false starts can become wearing. It's good to have a bigger objective, something to fall back on when inspiration runs short. 

The Secret Garden by Catherine Bligh was a wonderful find amid the jungle of patterns on the Ravelry website. Inspired by Frances Hodgson Burnett's book, the central squares of this crochet blanket show snowdrops and daffodils representing early spring, with successive circuits of squares working outwards to high summer with roses and lilies. Thrilled by the concept and delighted to find the pattern was available as a free Ravelry download, I pressed print and soon realised I'd need a file to keep the whole thing in order. Fifty pages of clearly illustrated and carefully written crochet instructions came spilling out of the printer.

Crochet may not be my forte, but even I can be gently led through the steps to create these delightful squares. The amount of work that Catherine Bligh has put into documenting and sharing her patterns is breathtaking. I sighed with satisfaction.
"I love this blanket, Elinor. Each flower is a new and absorbing puzzle."
"It takes you all evening to make the first one and by the time you've got it cracked and knocked out a few squares, you're on to a new flower."
"Wonderful, isn't it? I'll never get bored. A perfect way to celebrate my dye garden in a blanket of naturally dyed colours."
"Yours is hardly a Secret Garden."

Elinor remains far from convinced that it has been a good idea to take out more and more hedges and fencing to let in more sunlight. I'll admit, the neighbours do tend to stare at the sight of a small grey sheep doing yoga on the back lawn.
"It'll be more private when the sweet peas and beans have climbed up the trellis."
My companion sniffed.
"The central square of this blanket is supposed to show a key, but you don't even lock the back door at night."
"I shall adapt the daffodil square and make a camelia with silver birch bark dyed pink yarn. That's often the first colour we have in the garden as well as my first dye of the year."

"How are you getting on with your round of crocuses? Got that pattern sorted yet?"
"It took a few goes, but I can do the little squares by memory now."
"White ones, yellow ones ... you've done an awful lot of blue ones. What about the purple crocuses?"
"You know I don't grow any purple dyes. I'll have to miss them out."

"What's the next round going to be then?"
"Primroses and delphiniums."
"No delphiniums in this garden."
"Well, the same pattern square could work for other tall flower spikes that I do grow."
"What, like foxgloves?"
"Yes, exactly."
"Purple foxgloves. I thought you couldn't dye yarn purple." 
Lucky for me some of my foxgloves came out white. Lucky for me that Catherine Bligh is such a skilled and generous soul. It will take me a while and the finished blanket will be a hotchpotch of different yarns, but I'm enjoying crocheting every square, learning a lot and grateful for every page of instructions she wrote.

Knitting Modular by Melissa Leapman - Review

In January this year, Storey Publishing released Melissa Leapman's latest book and posted a review copy to me. 
My companion, Elinor Gotland, watched me unwrap the parcel at the kitchen table.
"What's this one about, then? Mmmm, 'Knitting Modular Shawls, Wraps and Stoles.' Not the punchiest title, Beaut." 
I grabbed the book back and read the opening pages.
"The title tells us what we're getting. Looks like a 'module' is a triangle of knitting, Part One shows how to fit the triangles together with edges and borders in order to knit all sorts of shapes of shawls, wraps and stoles."

Turning the pages, I was soon drawn in to examining the written patterns, charts and photos of knitted triangles. Sitting back with a sigh, I found my tea had gone cold.
"When you consider that there are 185 stitch patterns in here, this one book must contain an infinite number of shawl recipes. Not that I need another shawl, of course."

My companion offered me the last flapjack on the plate.
"Don't fight it, Beaut. You may not need one, but you're no more likely to resist those shawl patterns than you are this biscuit."
I tried not to get crumbs on the book as I studied the Seven Steps to Shawl Success described in Part One.
1. Choose a Silhouette 
2. Choose a Stitch Pattern 
3. Choose a Background Texture 
4. Choose an Edging 
5. Choose a Cast On Tab 
6. Choose a Border 
7. Choose a Bind Off
Part Two forms the main body of the book, expanding upon the practical construction of all seven steps, with fully illustrated instructions for knitting different edges, wedges, horizontal and vertical insertions and lower borders. It is all clearly written in an encouraging, informal style; easy reading which soon gave me confidence I'd be able to put together a whole shawl pattern myself. 

If only I could get past  Step One. 

"Truth be told, Elinor, I don't really fancy any of the shawl silhouettes. Long, narrow crescent shawl shapes appeal to me much more and you can't make one of those out of triangular modules."
My companion tapped a hoof on the description of how to sew four wedges together to make a long, paralellogram shaped wrap.

"You don't have to start knitting all your wedges at the same time with spine stitches in between. If you decide to knit them separately and then sew them together, there's nothing to stop you using a dozen little triangles to make a scarf." 

"Ooo, brilliant idea. I can try out lots of these lovely stitch patterns and it won't matter if I use different coloured yarns. I'll knit one triangle every evening." That proved a bit optimistic. It took a ridiculous amount of titting about with tabs and edgings before I realised all I needed to do to knit a single triangle was to cast on three stitches and start straight in on any of the wedge patterns.

Although all my triangles were in the same brand of double knitting yarn and all were 60 rows deep, knitted on 4mm needles, the various stitch patterns pulled in or spread out the fabric, making their finished dimensions look quite different. Happily, washing and blocking did equal them all out once I was finished.

There's a quick reference index on the right hand margin of each page, showing the number of stitches in the pattern repeat featured. I chose whichever pattern appealed most from the wide selection of 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 14 and 16 stitch multiples. Though I struggled to keep a two stitch pattern right, it was actually easier to see where I was when knitting the higher stitch multiples.

Whether geometric, bobbled or lacey in style, once blocked, each 60 row triangle measured about 20cm deep and 35cm long. I didn't realise they would turn out quite so wide when I decided to join ten together to make a cowl. Keeping the live stitches of five triangles on each of two circular cords, I crocheted all the sloping edges together to form a continuous loop.

Although following the triangle patterns had gone smoothly, I got stuck with perpendicular border 177. I kept finishing the repeat one stitch short to start the next :( 
The deeper perpendicular border options knitted up fine, but were going to need far more yarn than the scraps I had left. In the end I gave up and borrowed a narrow perpendicular border from a free shawl pattern online.

For other technical help, the glossary at the back of the book was excellent. It's not just a list of terms, it has drawings and descriptions of each stage of each stitch. I thought I already knew the basic ssk decrease, lucky I just checked, as Melissa describes another way of doing it for a neater finish.

The Ten Triangle Cowl is long enough to loop three times around my neck and yes, it's a right hodge podge of styles, but I like it. The yarn was all plant dyed with weld or meadowsweet on white or grey wool and I think the colours are comfortable together. All in all, I'm delighted to own Melissa Leapman's book. As I remarked to my companion on our walk today, it's going to be a wonderful resource for future projects.

"I might sew four triangles together to make a cushion, or knit all 118 triangle stitch patterns and crochet them up into a big throw or a blanket."

"Easy, tiger. It's taken you all month to finish that cowl. Which is yet another ill planned item that has come out far too big."

"Perfect timing for this snow, though. And there's room for two in here, if you like."

Elinor and I continued on our way through the frosted fields.

"I think knitting modular is a brilliant concept, it's got so much potential."

"I was right about the title though, Beaut. Too short to do the book justice. Should have been 'Knitting Modular Shawls, Wraps, Stoles, Scarves, Cowls, Cushions, Throws, Blankets and Probably More.'

ISBN 9781612129969

Hardcover Price £23.99 also available as an ebook.

Midwinterwol - A Dutch Festival of Fibre

As BG and I approached the first stall at Midwinterwol, I wished I had made the effort to learn at least a few words of Dutch. Not that we had any blank or reproachful looks, time and again, exhibitors, traders and other visitors smiled away my apologies and greeted us in English.

Many were surprised we even knew about their fibre festival and curious as to why we had travelled all the way from Wales to the north of Holland. In truth, the trip was inspired by our friend Jill Shepherd, aka Wrigglefingers, who is the small spinning teacher pictured here attempting to hide behind a silk handkerchief. Jill has been leading workshops at Midwinterwol for some years and earlier in 2018, tried to explain to us why she keeps returning to the town of Winschoten, how lovely the Dutch people are and what great fun this national event is, though it isn't run on the epic scale of Wonderwool Wales. Recklessly abandoning our Christmas preparations, BG and I decided to pack our bags, leave home and find out for ourselves.

The journey looked daunting, but the Dutch rail system was very easy to navigate. Arriving late on Friday night, the comfortable and exceptionally friendly Hotel Royal York was immediately opposite the station with a vintage bus service laid on to take visitors to the Manege de Dollard, a complex of stables which has one big ring given over to the Midwinterwol festival. As we hovered in the entrance, though the show didn't look huge, it turned out to be packed with interest and the Saturday proved barely long enough for us to see everything.

There were raw fleeces and washed, carded batts of wool from Dutch breeds of sheep. Zwartbles and Texel were familiar, as there are flocks living in the UK, others were completely strange. Happily, the traders were small farm producers keen to share their understanding of the breeds, well informed about handspinning the fleece and generous with their knowledge.

As well as several stalls selling raw, carded, handspun and millspun Dutch alpaca yarn, I met three of the most charming and sympathetic alpacas who ever toured a showground. Despite the miserable state of sterling, prices in euros were very reasonable and it would have been rude to go home without buying some deliciously fluffy alpaca in at least a couple of natural colours.

There were weavers and felters aplenty, showing and selling looms, bags, hats and braidwork. I bought considerable quantities of indie dyed silk and wool tops with a view to making more wet felted soaps and needlefelted fairies. Maria was busy demonstrating weaving yet still made time in her break to explain how she had felted her fabulous boots.

It was cold enough in the stables to make her layers of woollen footwear very wise, so cold in fact, that BG and I had to pop in for regular cups of coffee by the fire. Then eat chips with mayonnaise for lunch. Back into the fray of the show ring, I shopped for three skeins of Pelsuld yarn, spun from the summer wool of lustrous Gotland sheep.

The natural, multi-toned grey Gotland base made these purple and green skeins sing out to me. Hand painted porcelain stitch markers from Spolletjes were obviously the perfect souvenir of our trip to Holland. Chatting away about life in the UK while I tried to decide whether to choose a design of windmills or tulips, the maker let me buy one packet, then gave me the other as a gift.

Such extraordinary generosity of spirit did not end with the show. On Sunday, new friends and fellow wool enthusiasts Joop and Riet drove us out to see a Dickensian Christmas Market in the nearby town of Beerte. Snow had fallen as if on cue, a choir sang carols, we ate hot apple doughnuts and shopped for round Oldampt cheeses and smoked eels.

On Monday, BG and I just about managed to drag our bulging suitcases on and off the trains back to Amsterdam Centraal Station, taking a quick look at the Christmas lights before the last leg of our journey home. I have now learned a few words of Dutch, ready for Midwinterwol 2019 - dank je veel.

Filoplume Shawl by Bex Hopkins - A Review

A Tale of Two Filoplumes.

Hearing the hoofsteps of my companion, Elinor Gotland, I clicked off the Ravelry page and opened my email. She leaned over my shoulder.
"Can't fool me, Beaut. You've been looking at shawl patterns again, haven't you?"
I stopped pretending to renew the car insurance.
"I haven't knitted a shawl for ages and all my friends are talking about the new designs. Really, I'm just trying to use up my stash - there's a couple of variegated skeins of yarn just crying out to become something lovely."
Elinor was unmoved.
"You don't need another shawl."
"I'm thinking of Christmas presents."
A remorseless hoof prodded me toward the kitchen.

"You've already given at least one shawl to every woman you know who would wear one and several who wouldn't. Anyway, engage brain, think about your priorities for just one moment. Start doing beaded lace knitting now and it'll take you til Easter to finish. If you've got enough spare time for Christmas preparations, you can defrost this freezer." 

The worst thing about my companion is her good advice. Of course, I sneaked back to the computer later on, just to catch up with the gossip on Ravelry. When I saw that Bex had published a new shawl pattern called Filoplume, I was intrigued by its angled spine. And the name - a filoplume turns out to be kind of tufted feather, specialised for sensing a bird's flight speed and the wind direction. Donna had test knitted the shawl in a rainbow gradient as glorious as a peacock's tail display and it proved quite irresistible.  I pressed that 'Shop Now' button and Elinor arrived just in time for the printer to drop the pattern onto her head. She picked up the sheets of paper and gave me one of her 'disappointed but not surprised' looks.
"It's not lace, this one's an easy knit, Elinor, I'll have no trouble getting it done before the holidays." I sprinted upstairs to fetch my prettiest yarn.

Two false starts later, I wished I wasn't such an impulsive wool shopper.
"I might have to buy one of those cakes of gradient yarn, Elinor. This more subtly variegated skein just looks muddy in garter stitch ridges and the vibrant one I tried first was too lively all by itself. No-one could wear that much zing, I think I'll have to save it to be an accent on a solid background. Maybe I should buy some soft mid-grey."
"You are NOT buying any more yarn. What about all your handspun skeins, keeping them as a Christmas treat for the moths, are you?"
"A shawl has to be supersoft and luxurious. My spinning is mostly ... well, characterful yarn from British breeds of sheep."

"What about that cashmere you blended on a board years ago? That was lovely and soft. What became of that?"
"I spun it three ply, lace knitting is better with two ply."
"You said this wasn't a lace shawl."
"No, but I can't remember how much yardage there was in those balls of cashmere."

"That doesn't matter, look, the Filoplume pattern tells you how to weigh your yarn so you have exactly enough to finish the shape for any size of shawl."
"But it's BORING BEIGE yarn. I did start knitting with it years ago and lost the will to go on. It's all in a bag somewhere."
"Fetch it out and use it up."
"Ohhhh. This shawl will be small and dull and no fun at all. Is that ringing any bells, Elinor?"

The Filoplume pattern is well thought out and highly satisfying, as I said to my companion while showing off my progress.
"I love the nifty trick with two stitch markers that means you never have to count rows to find out when to make the increases and you can see at once where you've got to when you pick your knitting back up."
"Shame you've purled a row back there and spoiled the garter stitch."
"Oh, bugger." I stared at the flat line of the accidental stocking stitch row. "Actually, I think I'll do that again. With such a bland yarn, I can afford to vary the texture."

Even with smoother stripes, my mottled beige yarn wasn't going to highlight the construction, so I added a few garter stitch ridges in dark brown alpaca. Section one forms a symmetrically expanding arrowhead shape.

Here's where I had got to just after the weight of the yarn remaining told me I had to move on to section two of the pattern.

The finished item aka 'The Cashmaplume' had 15 increases in section one, the whole thing measures 140cm across the long side and weighs 116g. A few more stocking stitch stripes and alpaca ridges show how section two develops asymmetrically to resolve the shawl as an obtuse triangle.

"I'm so glad I decided to go with a neutral colourway."
Elinor did a double take. 
I went on. 
"You do realise I haven't knitted an undersized shawl, this is the ideal shape and length to be a rather classy, formal, cashmere men's scarf. Himself has already taken a fancy to wearing it under his coat. I think I'll knit another one for my brother. More casual, thicker and bigger, a scarf to wear with jeans and jumper. I'll use some of that double knitting merino yarn I dip dyed in an indigo vat last summer."

Here's The Indigoomaplume, modelled on the dogwalk, rather than the catwalk, knitted in dk on 4.5mm needles, 9 repeats in section one, 160cm long and weighing in at 150g.

I recommend the Filoplume pattern unreservedly, not just because I know Bex and she is lovely. Thanks to her, I have had fun knitting, got two Christmas presents sorted remarkably quickly and quite a bit of stash used up. I might even have to go wool shopping again soon. 

In the Footsteps of Sheep by Debbie Zawinski - Review

A signed copy of 'In the Footsteps of Sheep' by Debbie Zawinski came to me as an unexpected gift at such a fraught time in my family that I even forgot to send a thank you letter. Life has only really settled back toward normal recently and as is the way of things, instead of relaxing and enjoying the headspace, I've been irritable and uptight. In my hands, even the finest merino and softest silk have been spun into stringency. After a couple of abortive attempts to begin new projects, I went digging through bags of unfinished knitting and rediscovered this book.  

In The Footsteps Of Sheep, Debbie Zawinski journeys to the places in Scotland most native to its indigenous breeds of sheep. Often free camping in remote spots, she forages for bits of fleece that the sheep have shed about the countryside, then packs up her gear and walks on next day, spinning the wool into yarn using only a stick. Engaged by the immediacy and honesty of her writing, I was wrong to assume that this kind of enterprise would make a worthy, but soporific bedtime read. Morning found me waking late, walking the dog and talking with my companion, Elinor Gotland, enthusing over the whole notion and keen to try it myself. 

"That Debbie sounds like a nutter to me, Beaut." 
My companion gave up objecting and found herself a sheltered spot for a smoke on the headland while the dog hunted rabbits and I scrambled about in the gorse and brambles, collecting whatever wool had not been blown away by gale force winds.
"On the contrary, my dear Gotland." I plumped myself down beside her and started to pick the thorns out of a handful of fibres. "Debbie Zawinski has kept exactly the clarity of purpose I have lost. Once upon a time, my heart's desire was to spin fleece from local sheep and knit in natural colours."
"Fair play, you did try. I remember the Huxtable jumper - so thick and heavy you could hardly move. And the Welsh Mountain - what a rainbow of canary stained cable that was. Then there was a Blue Texel. Didn't you turn it into bath mats in the end?"
"Hmm, well, me wearing a handspun, native wool jumper has plainly turned into an abandoned dream. I've been running astray, shopping for indie dyed, mill processed luxury fibres, forgetting why I started spinning in the first place. Look at this wool, rain washed, imbued with local character." I held it out to show her and yelped as a couple of gorse spines stabbed into my thumb.

Elinor examined my salvaged fleece as we walked on. She turned to me.
"Imbued with your very own DNA. You've got blood on it now. Will you listen if I tell you you're going astray again? Think about it. This month, Gethin the shearer is working himself into the ground and your friend Mary will give you as much Speckled Face Beulah shearling fleece as you want. Here you are, wasting time on kempy old crap off the back end of some random crossbred ewe." 
"In Scotland, they call these bits of wool 'henty lags'. Come on, I'm going down the beach to find a driftwood stick to learn to spin with."

Spinning on a stick is simple, portable, satisfying fun. There are so many things I enjoyed about the book. The little maps showing routes taken on ferries, buses and of course, on foot. The evocative pictures of places and people, Shetland, Hebridean, Scottish Blackface, Boreray, Soay, North Country Cheviot, North Ronaldsay, Castlemilk Moorit, Cheviot and Bowmont sheep. The best thing of all is Debbie Zawinski's style. OK, she is earnest in her heartfelt responses to landscapes and her fascination with the creatures which inhabit them, yet her courage and determination to travel among them is never cast in heroic mould. Speeding across the sea on a small ferry to St Kilda 'is a symphony of sound and motion, almost a ballet; rhythmic, hypnotic. I catch myself dozing, head lolling backwards and mouth hanging open; hopefully no one has noticed.' Time after time, I caught myself smiling in recognition and fellow feeling.
At Spinning Camp last week, I read a chapter aloud. 'Here on this desolate and rugged chunk of metamorphic rock with thousands of clangourous sea birds for companions live a flock of feral sheep; the Boreray sheep." Spinners fell silent hearing Debbie's daring plans to collect fleece from Boreray island, all of us could empathise with her fears as she was told she would have to swim or climb the last part of the approach. My copy of the book was handed round and added to several wish lists.

Finding no valve in my air mattress and spending the first night in my tent turning in a rotisserie of pain on the cold, hard ground, reminded me that however much I might like to identify with Debbie's self sufficiency and back to basics willingness to physically involve herself with both living and spinning in the wild, I lack her steel. Laying aside my driftwood stick and henty lags, after shopping for a new air mattress, I did spin a substantial amount of a Black Welsh Mountain lamb's fleece.

Each chapter of the book ends with a knitting pattern 'ten pairs of very different socks, each geared to the perceived needs of the recipient, the particular characteristics of the fleece I was working with and inspiration from their attendant story'. All look beautiful and have directions for sizing and making up with commercially available yarns.

Temporarily forswearing beaded lace shawls, reading the book at camp renewed my motivation to complete a pair of toe up Speckled Face Beulah socks, part dyed with yellow cosmos, which have been occupying my best circular needle since well before Christmas. Intending to finish with a flourish by copying the cable turnover given in the kilt sock pattern, I overestimated my powers once again. Simply switching to cable pulled the cuff in far too tight for the human foot to pass through. Still, here are my primitive socks, finished in ordinary ribbing and here am I, content with ordinary Welsh fleece and working toward a Black Welsh Mountain and plant dyed Beulah handspun jumper. Whether that turns out well or not, I thank Debbie Zawinski for reconnecting me with the significance of homegrown handspun. 

In The Footsteps of Sheep
by Debbie Zawinski
Published by Schoolhouse Press
printed in the USA
April 2015
softcover
ISBN-10:0-942018-38-9

Edited to add - I hear you can buy direct from the author here and have a signed copy :)