Unravel rewind

Gosh, I can't believe it's Thursday already! Maybe it was all the excitement of the weekend, or I'm getting old but I don't feel quite recovered yet...

That is not to say that it wasn't a lovely weekend, because it certainly was. Friday felt a little frantic as we'd come down from Wales, set up and started trading all on the same day - by the evening we barely had enough energy to stumble across the hotel car park for dinner and were in bed by 9.30, but Saturday brought a very solid breakfast with endless coffee refills and we arrived at the Maltings to find our stall bathed in sunshine.

We met so many wonderful and enthusiastic people and really enjoyed hearing the response to our yarns. The Linus shawl was a big hit again, as was the Gotland wool which left us by the armfuls.

Maddy stopped by to show off her carefully coordinated Harvest cardigan in thick Pirkkalanka:

and Mark got a lot of admiration and encouragement for being a Man Who Knits:

For me, by far the hardest part of yarn shows is watching everyone parade their beautiful knits in front of me all day long! I have a project list as long as my arm and then some, but I just kept seeing wonderful ideas that I want to cast on immediately...
I tried really hard to contain myself, but eventually succumbed to John Arbon's bargain basket which was right under my nose tempting me all weekend.
I snaffled up all their beautiful Viola yarn in underweight hanks, unintentionally replicating a colour combination that seemed to be the theme of the event: blues and teals with mustard

and then, in a fit of madness, I picked up 4 bags of broken Superfine Merino tops because what I really need right now is to start spinning a whole new sweater project. In black, midnight blue and anthracite. yup.

I blame the lady in the hand spun Vitamin D. This is her doing.
Were you at Unravel? Did you pick up anything fun for a new project? Or maybe just planned one from home?

Easy like Sunday morning...

Pattern: Kynance Cove by Isabell Kraemer

Yarn: Filcolana Gotland Wool in Cocoa, Deep Sea Green and Vibrant Green

Needles: 4mm

The perfect, perfect lounge sweater! I am so very pleased with it!
The yarn is light as air, only 550gr for a loose, long sweater in 53inch bust size, and the hairy mohair aspect typical of the Gotland sheep makes it feel completely different from all my other woolly garments. It's just loose and lovely and comfy and warm.

The pattern is very well written too, and clever: the sleeves look set in but the sweater is actually worked top-down, which means there is some utter witchcraft going on at the beginning, but keep with it because it eventually starts to make sense.

Can't wait to show it off at Unravel next weekend now :)

Giant Granny (no grannies were injured in the making of this post)

Pattern: Half Granny Square Shawl
Yarn: Thin Pirkkalanka, one skein each Raspberry, Denim and Moss
Hook size: 4mm

After playing with the Pirkkalanka colours last week, I decided to make a new show sample to show off the brighter, springier side of the range. I also wanted to try using the Pirkkalanka's generous meterage for crochet rather than knitting and I must say I'm delighted with the result. The yarn is really easy to work with a hook and gives a nice crisp result, and once blocked, the fabric relaxes and drapes nicely, making for a huge, warm shawl!

The pattern is essentially half of a giant granny square - I added an extra chain on the 3 chains at the row ends to keep the edges loose, and a little shell border as a finishing touch. 

           

Playing with colours

Unravel is now only a few short weeks away!

 I am so excited for the show season to start again, getting a chance to meet so many other people passionate about yarn and wool and crafts and just being surrounded by yarn all weekend long. The exhibitor list looks so inspiring and I know that as ever I will struggle to stay put at our stand in the Great Hall and not go running off to look at all the shiny things! 

In preparation for the show, I did a stocktake of some of our yarns this weekend, among them our beautiful Pirkkalanka wool from Finland, and while I had them all out, I had a little play with some colour combinations. 
The joy of the Pirkkalanka is the richness and vibrancy of its colours. This pure wool yarn is dyed onto a marled grey base rather than plain white, giving so much depth and life to the colours. It has a really crisp feel and bounce and comes in both fingering and worsted weights. The fingering weight in particular is fantastic in garter stitch, such as Veera Välimäki's Colour Affection, which really allows you to play around with the different combinations. 

Rhapsodie in Blue: Stonewashed, Denim, Navy

Glorious jewel colours: Teal, Jade, Raspberry

Subtle frosty shades: Blushed, Seafoam, Frosted Lime

And of course, Midwinter's retro shades: Moss, Deep Orange, Natural Pale Grey

All of these and many more will of course be available at Unravel - hoping to see you there!

Sea Dragon

 

 

Pattern: Sea Dragon Shawl

Yarn: Ullcentrum 2ply Gradient in Blue-Green-Purple (2 hanks)  + Filcolana Gotland Wool in Peacock Blue (50grams if that)

Needles: 4mm

 

 

 

Shamelessly inspired by Linnea's version in the Fall colourway, I was so excited to knit this to show off Ullcentrum's beautiful Green-Blue-Purple gradient!
The Sea Dragon is a great, quick knit - I was a bit confused by the short row instructions at first but once you have a few more stitches on the needles it starts making more sense, and gradients are so addictive to knit anyway....you just want to keep going that little bit further to see the colour change!

I would recommend working 15 wedges - I worked the full 16 of the large version but I really barely had enough yarn. It's a huge shawl anyway so 15 wedges will be plenty :)

In which Mark knits a shawl and I want to steal it

You may remember back in the summer when Mark was shamed into learning to knit. He learnt on a little garter stitch cowl and, as it was the height of summer at the time, went straight for linen for his second project. And today.....he cast it off!

So, very proudly, introducing Mark's first ever shawl!

Pattern: Boneyard by Stephen West (sort of)
Yarn: Midwinter Yarns Lithuanian Linen, Silver Sage and Grey (held double)
Needles: 4mm
Hours of Sci-Fi series watched while knitting: Many

The shawl is so fresh off the needles that it hasn't even been blocked yet, but the nature of linen is such that it barely needs it. It is actually quite wearable as it is - the doubled up linen has a wonderful weight and drape to it and having been painstakingly worked through novice hands, it's already lovely and soft too.
One of the most interesting things about the shawl is seeing the progression of Mark's tension. Linen is famously unforgiving due to it's lack of bounce, in fact, the Knitting for Dummies book that he has advises him to stay away from plant fibres altogether until he learns to control his tension (meh) but it does mean that you can see a distinct difference between the more...uhm...."organically" shaped stitches at the beginning of the work and the nice even tension he developed towards the end.

So next time those kind bearded gentlemen in Brighton ask him what the linen is like to knit with....he'll be able  to tell you!

Shows Shows Shows

I appreciate that it can sometimes be tricky, as a customer, to shop for yarn online when  you haven't had a chance to stroke and squish the yarns yourself, especially when they are perhaps slightly more unusual to the market like our yarns are. Therefore I think that we are incredibly lucky to have so many knitting and wool shows here in Britain where you can come and have a feel.....and this year, Midwinter Yarns are going to ALL OF THEM*

*ok, not quite, but not far off

So please find the list of confirmed shows below - there are still a few to come and I will of course update as and when.

20-22nd of February - Unravel, Farnham Maltings

14-15th of March - Edinburgh Yarn Fest

25-26th of April - Wonderwool, Builth Wells

15-16th of May - iKnit Fandango, London

30-31st of May - Proper Woolly Show, Holsworthy, Devon

25-26th of July - Fibre East, Bedfordshire

11-13th of September - Bristol Wool Fair - more details to be announced

We really hope to see you there to show you around our Scandinavian yarns and have a chat about your knitting ideas!