Worth trying

A couple of months ago I attended a one-day beginner workshop run by the Fibre Basket Makers of the ACT. We made a little mat - which would also have been the base of a basket, if we had time to learn how to turn the corner. I'm quite happy with my mat, flaws and all. It's like a large coaster, and fits perfectly under my small 2-cup tea pot.

The day was fantastic, I'd been wanting to try basket weaving for ages, and now I want to do more. One day. For now I am letting it percolate a bit - I'm not ready to dive headlong into another craft - and for this one, although a lot of the materials are free or cheap, they take some time and expertise to collect and prepare, and a lot of space to store.

I was speaking with one of the original group members about my fledgling interest in basketry, and how I had a few thoughts about finding ways to combine it with my felting work. Her response was cautionary. She said that people often have these ideas for combining different crafts, but tend to find that it is more difficult than it seems.

I've been thinking about this a bit. To come to a course run by expert artisans with years of experience, thinking you could learn a few basic techniques and then be able to throw them in a melting pot with some other craft, and expect to come up with something brilliant and new.... it certainly could be seen as a bit arrogant, or at least naive.

In my defence, even before the course I had no illusions about how quick and easy learning basketry would be. But the broader point is interesting - combining different crafts/arts, or different media, poses special challenges, and you generally need to have some expertise (if not a lot of it) in each area.

All of this is a slightly over-thought introduction to this.

An attempt at felted beaded knitting. I have quite a lot of beads, and had never really tried knitting with beads. So I thought I would try it in a felting project. At first I worried that the heavy washing and agitation would damage the surface of the cheap wooden beads. And then I realised that I liked the idea of them becoming weathered through the felting process.

And they really did change a lot, and I like the effect.

What I really don't like is the way the loops of wool holding the beads didn't shrink into the fabric the way I wanted them to. The weight of the beads has kept them dangling off the side in a really goofy way. It doesn't help that the design isn't great - I just whipped these up to try the idea, but I don't think a single round of big beads looks much good on these pods. I might try again with smaller beads, but I suspect I'll end up concluding it's not worth knitting the beads in; better to just sew them on afterwards. After all, I really love sewing pieces of felt together or sewing beads on - the thread disappears in a very satisfactory way.

Two small shawls

Earlier, I mentioned my plan to knit a To Eyre shawl during my recent trip to the UK. First, I had to find the wool for it, and I wanted something from the UK, not imported. Of course I didn't really need much excuse to visit as many of London's wool/yarn/knitting shops as I could. And it was worth it because they were all quite different to each other.

I Knit in Waterloo was a pleasant space with a moderate range of yarn and a good range of books. It was a seriously rainy day, and there were only one or two customers in and out while I was there. I looked at their wool for a long time, including the 5ply Blacker yarn that I thought might work for the shawl, but then I just bought a couple of sets of Knit Pro harmony needle tips for my collection, cheaper than at home. Lots of things (but not wool, particularly) were a bit cheaper, mainly because the Australian dollar is strong at the moment.

I loved visiting the tiny, cute and utterly charming All the fun of the fair in Soho. This shop has some wonderful things, with really only a small amount of yarn but lots of great knitting and sewing accessories and cute miscellaneous things. It's in Kingly Court, a lovely centre/arcade full of boutiques and crafty/arty businesses just off the disappointingly sterile Carnaby Street.

Loop, in the upmarket market-y Camden Passage, Islington, is two really full floors, with an extensive range of yarns. I believe it was set up to be much like an American-style yarn store.

I also checked out the range in Liberty - all Rowan - and the John Lewis department stores with their interesting range of knitting tools and other haberdashery. I was tempted by an icord maker, and thought I might come back for it but didn't. Never mind, I actually like knitting icord anyway.

The most interesting shop was Prick Your Finger in Bethnal Green, which only stocks UK-milled yarn. It's also a textile/knitting gallery with a bit of a punk/DIY aesthetic. It was great to talk to Louise, who really knows her wool and the sheep that produce it. After much deliberation I finally settled on some beautiful Jamieson Shetland Spindrift for my shawl. I knew it was a bit lightweight (the pattern is written for a 5 ply) but I thought I could make it work, thinking that I wouldn't mind a smaller shawl anyway.


Ha! You see why I cropped my face out of the other pictures, but this one is so hilariously sad I had to show you. I promise I am not actually THIS sad about my shawl. However, it doesn't really stay on without me holding it like that. Also it's not sitting well around my shoulders, is it?

I knit the whole shawl while I was away. It's a great pattern and ideal for travel knitting. (If anyone has looked at the actual pattern, I did version 2, which only comes in one size. There are now four different versions included with the pattern, partly in a quest to replicate what seem to be several different shawls Jane wears in different parts of the film). Before I was halfway through I became concerned about the size, but it still seemed like it should work as a little scarfy shawl. And I suppose it does, if I scrunch it up around my neck a bit, as in the photos below.

The Shetland is a bit scratchy worn this way, and the frill around the edge seems to have disappeared.

As soon as I got home from the UK, and recovered enough from the jet lag to concentrate for an hour or two, I cast on for the Chadwick shawl by Stephen West. This is from West Knits Book 1, which I picked up at Loop. Although it was the man-shawl styling in the book that really drew me in, I didn't have a man who wanted a shawl. I wanted another shawl!

I used some beautiful Knittery handpainted merino cashmere sock wool which I've had for years, combined with greige patonyle. On 3.5 mm needles it made a wonderful drapey, soft fabric.

It's almost unfortunate just how much I love this one, and how easy it is to wear - it seemed to go with all my outfits this week - because it's made it much less likely I will wear the Eyre shawl in its current form. I definitely want to make that one again, but I'm not sure yet if I will unravel it and upsize the pattern for a bigger one in the same wool (I used less than half of what I bought to make it), or whether I will start afresh with another wool - maybe a 5 ply, or even an 8 ply for a bigger, blanket-y, TV watching shawl. I really don't mind the shetland wool not being super soft, it is so light and warm, and I love the way it looks in the garter stitch. I just don't think I'm very likely to wear it all bundled up around my neck.

I thought it was interesting to compare the two, because they are quite similar in size. It's the unusual shaping of the Chadwick that makes it drape around the neck so easily. That's not just the camera angle, it actually is asymmetrical. And it might annoy some people, but I just love the way the ends curl up when I wear it. I also think the design is clever and funky, the contrasting striped and plain sections work really well to show off a nice handpainted yarn. I will enjoy this much more than I ever would have enjoyed socks made from the wool.

This is not my beautiful house

The work of Bruegel(s), Bosch and Magritte - he has a whole gallery - wasn't the only art we appreciated in Belgium. There was a lot of interesting architecture - in particular, Art Nouveau buildings are something to look out for in Brussels. We had a coffee in the rooftop cafe at the amazing Musical Instruments Museum. Now I wish I had made the time to check out the exhibits as well, but, you can't do everything!

This is the beautiful Maison Cauchie, which we just stumbled across after leaving the Military Museum.


Above, the Brussels-Central Railway Station - designed by Victor Horta.

In Ghent we visited the excellent Design Museum.

The Egmont statue took a bit of finding - we knew he was no longer in the Grand Place, but it turned out he wasn't quite in Egmont Park either, but in another park just across the way.


I also pointed the camera at a lot of street art.

In Brussels

Three of our five days in Belgium were spent in Brussels. One of our first destinations was the Royal Museum of the Armed Forces and of Military History. Some of which looked a lot like the museum at our own Australian War Memorial....



but some rooms had quite a different feel! Some startling relics of colonialism.

They love their comics (sorry, 'BD') in Belgium. Tintin and the Smurfs are everywhere, as both were created by Belgians.

There are several of these large murals on city buildings. The European comics/BD scene seems to have a much more mature understanding of the potential of the graphic medium to tell any kind of story. The mainstream view here (and I dare say, in the US and UK as well?) so easily reverts to tired old assumptions that comics are mainly about superheroes and other topics for children or the childish. The bookshop at the Brussels military museum had a large range of comics about war and history, which is just not something you would ever see here.

The Grand Place (Groot Markt) was grand! Some of the buildings have been cleaned and repaired magnificently, topped with lots of shiny gold. I love the facade cloths used while the building is under repair. I've seen them before - maybe in Krakow? London? - and they never fail to amuse.



A major highlight was spending time in the Bruegel room in the Museum of Ancient Art (part of the Royal Museums of Fine Arts). They have a couple of paintings by Pieter Bruegel the elder, and some of his sons' paintings and copies. All wonderful - it's easy to see why these paintings are so popular and well loved. The scenes of peasant life are charming and real, along with bits of torture and misery, partly due to the Hieronymous Bosch influence. A few rooms away there was also one Bosch, a copy made by his own workshop I believe. I have Rolf to thank for first introducing me to the Bruegel family. Thanks Rolf.

Another way you could do it

When I packed for my recent trip to the UK, I took only one knitting project. The honeycomb lace scarf was small to carry and more than enough knitting to keep me going. It hadn't gone so well on an earlier trip to Melbourne, but after weeks of messing it up and a fair bit of tinking (undoing knitting, stitch by stitch), I had established enough of a rhythm with the pattern.

I usually go for fairly easy, boring knitting for travelling, or any time I'm knitting with other people. It should be something without much counting required, and that I can put down at a moment's notice. That used to mean plain socks in the round, but I've gone right off knitting socks for now. The honeycomb lace is not at all boring or easy, but I felt that I had settled into it sufficiently. I really wanted to make some progress on it during those long flights (and in the end, I did).

But I wasn't really committed to only knitting on one project for almost four weeks. I saw Jane Eyre not long before I left, and came home with the desire to make one of those basic, slightly daggy garter stitch shawls. It was quickly pointed out to me that Sunday Knits had already written a pattern for the shawl(s) worn in the film, with several variations.

So I purchased the pattern and brought a copy with me, as well as a Knit Pro cable and a couple of sizes of interchangeable needle tips. My plan was to buy some suitable wool to knit it while I was away.

What I didn't take (though I considered it for a moment) was any of the double pointed needles that I use to knit pods and pears in the round.

So, when I found myself wanting to make and felt a little pod from some souvenir Welsh wool, I had to improvise. And I am here to tell you that it is possible to use your Knit Pro needle tips as DPNs! It was a bit fiddly, the stitches wanted to slip off, especially as the stitch count increased. This was partly because I only had four needle tips (two 4mm and two 4.5mm) and I normally use a set of five DPNs. It would have been much more difficult with the slippery nickel ones.

Unfortunately I forgot to take a photo of the finished pod.

I took a lot of photos in Ghent

This amazing building houses a Laura Ashley shop.



It was a very warm day, and we didn't see many of those, so it was great to see people out in their summer clothes. We took a canal tour which was excellent value. Unlike the Amsterdam tour boats, these ones are open to the elements, they just have a bucket of umbrellas ready. I was very glad not to have to use those.

I found a picture of you

Goodbye Wales. For now.

We stopped *somewhere* along the road, in mid-Wales. After rain all day yesterday, it was a great sunny day for driving.

Goodbye Welsh mountain sheep. There were sheep everywhere in the mountains, including on very steep slopes, often wandering contentedly quite separate from their fellows - contrary to the sheep stereotype. And of course I found a bit of Welsh wool to bring home.

Y Ddraig Goch ddyry gychwyn

(The red dragon leads the way)

Hello from north Wales!

Unfortunately, I don't seem to have any photos here which capture the amazing northern Wales mountain scenery, though we have driven through a lot of it. I just love being in alpine country.
Wales is littered with railways of varying gauges, some continuing to operate as tourist attractions and many abandoned. Yesterday we took the Snowden Mountain Railway, which takes a one-hour journey from Llanberis to the summit of Mt Snowden, allows half an hour to get out and look around, and then descends. Except, apparently, when conditions at the top are too windy. We only got about three-quarters of the way there, and didn't have an opportunity to get out. It was a bit cramped and noisy in the small, tightly packed carriage, and I really could have used a bit of air and leg stretching time. However, the views were completely amazing all the way, so it was well worth it.

All the signs are bilingual and you do hear the locals speaking Welsh a lot. Many of the place names look bizarre, but once I hear how they are pronounced, they make more sense. I'm still probably making a mes of it though!

While waiting for our train ride we took a short walk uphill to see the ruins of Dolbadarn Castle. The castle may have only been in use for less than 100 years, and yet there it is, still standing, and it probably will be for many years to come.


These last two shots are from the town of Llanberis.