Autumn dates in Devon
Friday 8th June 2012
On the evening of Thursday 25 October I am once again doing a fashion show with Martin Storey at The Guild in Bovey Tracey. This is a really fun and informal evening where Martin show-cases all his latest designs and I sprinkle some beads and sequins around the room. But first we have a delicious supper and a glass of wine or a coffee. This event is organised by Spin-a-Yarn in Bovey so contact the lovely folks there for more information and tickets. I am also teaching some autumn/early winter workshops for Joyce at the shop. These are: Thursday 8 November: Shibori Knitted Felt. We will knit practice swatches to experiment with textural, beaded and other techniques, to create Shibori landscapes in felted knitting. All my felting is machine washed, no beating of knitting on a rock by the river required though this is, of course, always an option. Thursday 15 November: New mittens. We will knit a pair (well, we will knit 1, on the day) of fingerless mitten with a fully fashioned thumb. These will be knitted in the round on 4 double pointed needles. If you can knit in the round, great, if not, I will show you. These will be knitted in Pure Wool 4 Ply (I think) and embellished with Kidsilk Haze but I won’t be held to that as I haven’t designed the final version yet. On the day you will use your store discount to buy 1 ball each of the yarns I use – enough to make 1 pair of mitts. Thursday 29 November: Kidsilk Haze at Christmas. Knit lots of tiny decorations, beaded gift bags and similar frivolous nonsense. This course teaches you all about Kidsilk Haze, if it’s new to you, and how to bead, knit with sequins and generally experiment with this yarn. If on the other hand, you already knit with Kidsilk Haze, you can still come and enjoy knitting a host of little embellishments. Using your store discount, you will buy 1 or more balls of KSH and some beads to knit your colour-themed collection. I suggest 2 shades which will make you a lot of little things. I will bring the sequins as my gift to all participants, for yes, I am the Sequin Fairy. For places and information, contact the shop. I hope to see you there.~~
Actually, I taught there yesterday. I designed a new pair of cuffs especially for the event, and we had a really good day. I was inspired by the shade choices of the participants, which were all beautiful and included several combinations I would have – wrongly – over-looked; or just not thought of. I aim to teach as well as I can and with all my energy, to help everyone learn some new skill or gain some new level of confidence – oh and not least, to have a really good time – and whether I succeed or not, I always learn something from my class members, and usually come home with several new ideas that have bubbled up in the day simply as a result of talking to them and fermented into an idea on my drive back home or as I tidy up the workshop room here. After a Court Cottage event I always stay in the room for some hours, sometimes Millington is there too, playing with the beads, or sometimes I just slowly tidy up, get the fire going strong – and I knit until lured out with food and/or a glass of wine…I am not tired, usually, as I have the energy of the departed class to keep me going and I hope they have the same energy when they get home. I have learned a lot of stuff since knitting became a major feature in my life. I have learned the joy of amassing and then gazing at a unfeasibly large collection of stacking bead-slash-sequin storage towers. I have learned to allow myself to see knitting as one of my real jobs, albeit one with no boundaries or regular form, whilst at the same time, avoiding feeling the ‘bad’ pressure that work can often bring (this took a while – and being made redundant or as I prefer to see it, liberated, helped by the way). I’ve learned to simply avoid the (few) people who do not give my work the ‘respect’ I give theirs, just because mine is also a major hobby for so many makers and theirs takes place in a more corporate environment. And the main thing I have learned is that for me, design cannot happen in isolation. I can conjour ideas for a past-time but if I stop having real, valuable time with real knitters, I become less creative. I have never felt more inspired to knit and design than when I worked on the shop floor of John Lewis in Bristol for Rowan, hard though that was at times, yes even amidst the stock room wrangling and system-baffling, I don’t think even now, I knit as much as I did then. So I need to teach, you see.
These are the ‘Joyce’ cuffs that we knitted yesterday. The pattern is written to be either knitted flat or in the round, colour-washed or in a single shade and it will soon be, along with about 4 others, a new kit here.
Glad you are blogging again – missed you! I may HAVE to come on the Shibori course…