Wonderwool 2015 in Wales

Two weekends ago I visited Wonderwool (and Wales) for the first time. Wonderwool is an annual wool and natural fibre festival held at the Royal Welsh Showground in Builth Wells. We rented a remote cottage - surounded by sheep - outside Builth Wells with some friends, and spent a couple days visiting the festival and other sights in the area. The weather was supposed to be atrocious, but in fact we enjoyed mostly blue skies.

View from our cottage

I have been to many yarn and craft shows around the country, so was slightly worried that I wouldn't find anything new and exciting. In fact, my first purchase was from Uppingham Yarns, one of the bulk wholesalers that are a fixture at these shows. I picked up 550 grams of shetland for £16.50 - enough to knit a dress, so a great deal, but not particularly exciting.

Rummaging through yarn bins

I was also delighted to encounter one of my favourite new finds from the last show I attended - Namolio, which I think mostly carries Estonian yarns and notions. Last time I purchased her striped wool yarn, this time I went for the lovely Italian linen lace.

Linen lace for my summer knitting schedule.

But fear not, with a show as large as Wonderwool, there are sure to be things you haven't encountered before. I was quite taken with the Triskelion booth, selling hand-dyed yarns from Wales. Even though I'm trying to buy less merino, I had to get a skein of the Gwyn fingering weight, because it contained merino from the Falklands, and I'm a sucker for yarn from new geographic locations.

Triskelion in lovely jewel tones

Speaking of new locations, there was the Midwinter Yarns booth selling Finnish yarn, familiar from our trip to Helsinki. I still have some yarn left over from that trip, so couldn't justify buying more, but I couldn't resist a couple of skeins of Greenland yarn. Because who's ever seen yarn from Greenland before?

Very wooly Greenland wool

I was even more excited by my next find, Whistlebare from Northumberland. Their yarn is spun from Mohair and Wensleydale raised on their farm and hand-dyed in a gorgeous range of colours. My favourite fibres from one of my favourite parts of the country! Both Mohair and Wensleydale are high lustre fibres that take on colour well, so the two of them together multiply the effect and create beautiful, shiny yarn.

So many beautiful colours to chose from!

By this time, just as I was running low on cash, I encountered my best find of the whole festival, Propagansey's stall of gansey (or guernsey) jumpers and wool.

Gansey's are patterned jumpers, tightly knit on small needles with tightly spun yarn - the better to clothe the fisherman who traditionally wore them. The stall was hung round with old gansey jumpers, which were so inspiring I had to buy enough Frangipani 5-ply Guernsey for my own jumper (or possibly even a dress). I picked up a book of traditional Gansey patterns on our trip to Cornwall last summer, which I will use for ideas. I'm getting to the point where I can knit sweaters without a pattern, so I'll go off-piste for this one.

Sadly we neglected to get a picture of the stall, but this pinterest board has a nice selection of old and contemporary gansey knits.

Finally, to avoid leaving the impression that wool festivals only contain yarn (there's also lots of fibre for spinners!), I'll leave you with a final image of a woolly creation from Rosemary's rag rugs, selling ingenious little felted trivet kits.

Stay tuned for the next blog, when I'll discuss my plans for all this new yarn!

Knitting north to south

As you can tell from my blog posts, I love to travel. This is why I feel lucky to live in Europe, where countries are small and easily accessible, thanks to the European Union's free movement policy, and workers are given enough annual leave to be able to take plenty of holidays.

Although we are more likely to travel to destinations outside the UK, I've also seen a fair amount of Great Britain on various holidays and visits. This summer I was able to attain a British travel distinction - I have now been to John O'Groats and Land's End, the most northwesterly and southeasterly parts of the island of Great Britain. I'm going to claim this travel record, even though one is traditionally supposed to bike or walk the 874 miles between these points.

John O'Groats (Scotland) - 2006

Land's End (Cornwall) - 2014

To add to this record, I have also been as close as reasonably possible to the most northerly part of the British Isles, Out Stack off the Isle of Unst in the Shetlands.

View of Out Stack and Muckle Flugga Lighthouse
from Hermaness National Nature Reserve

 
Naturally, I stopped in yarn stores in each of these far flung places, taking the opportunity to buy local wools. During last year's Wool Week I bought Shetland wool at both Jamieson's of Shetland and Jamieson & Smith. And stopping in Penzance on the way to Land's End offered the opportunity to buy Cornish wool.

I've always wanted to visit Penzance, ever since my mother participated in a production of the Pirates of Penzance when I was a small child. This is no doubt a silly reason to want to visit a place, but I usually need very little excuse to travel.

Penzance was not quite the quaint seaside village that I expected - the economy, like in many parts of Cornwall, has not recovered from the decline of the traditional industries of fishing, mining and agriculture, and the town suffers from high unemployment and low wages. Nevertheless, there were some picturesque buildings and nice shops, including the yarn shop Knit Wits of Penzance.

Not only was I able to purchase 10 balls of Cornish Organic Wool on sale for the very affordable price of £39, we also got to see the largest set of knitting needles in the world, used to knit a very large wall hanging. I guessed the needles were fashioned from oars, a nice nautical touch in this traditional fishing town.

Wall hanging and Guinness world record

Our summer is rapidly on the wane, and I'm just about ready to start my autumn knitting. The Cornish wool is nice and sturdy, and will be perfect for an outer garment like Amy Christoffers' Catboat Cardigan.

© Savory Knitting

Le Tour Yorkshire

One of the world's most grueling sports competitions has come to an end, and I'm remembering back to the exciting start of t'Tour de France that we attended in Leeds about a month ago.

All of Yorkshire seemed to have gotten into the spirit of things, and everywhere was decorated with yellow shirts and bicycles.

Decorations in the Alwoodley neighborhood of Leeds 

I don't follow any sports regularly, but even so I was swept along by the atmosphere.

Proudly sporting a Tour umbrella

Crowds cheering on the cyclists

The great thing about the Tour is that they can't sell tickets. You just show up by the side of the road and watch it pass by. And Yorkshire showed up in excited droves. More pictures of Le Tour Yorkshire here.

Of course, cycling is not the only thing to do in Yorkshire. There are also yarn shops!

The afternoon before the events kicked off we popped round to Baa Ram Ewe, the yarn shop in the lovely Headingly neighborhood of Leeds. They had a special offer for the Tour de France weekend - 20% off all yellow yarn. And of course they had decorated their shop (and sponsored a Tour bunting knit-a-thon as well).

I didn't really need any more encouragement, since yellow is rapidly gaining on green as one of my favourite colours. I picked up a ball of yellow Jamieson and Smith to knit up a pair of Kate Davies' Ecclefechan Mitts.

I also couldn't resist some gorgeous Titus yarn, a blend of Wensleydale, Bluefaced Leicester and UK Alpaca, locally spun especially for the shop. I picked up some yellow and matched it with skeins of pale and teal blue.

This a new favourite colour combination - and I have a couple skeins of Koigu painters pallette that I could use for a matched accessory set. The Titus would make a beautiful colour affection shawl... but perhaps knitting the same shawl three times would be de trop.

Titus and Koigu in colours made for each other

I should try to design something myself, preferably with a bicycle theme, but I'm probably too lazy. Instead I'm tempted by two new patterns by Melanie Berg - Ashburn and Moonracker. I really like how the plain blocks of garter stitch are punctuated with small hints of contrast colour.

© Melanie Berg

 And what to do with the complementary Koigu? Perhaps a pair of handy podster gloves.

© GlennaC

Aveda and the Eden Project

My sister got me hooked on Aveda over ten years ago, with a wedding gift set of toiletry products. I have fine, frizzy hair, and Aveda's hair products are the only thing that can make me even nominally presentable, especially in humid weather.

No Aveda hair day (Normandy coast)

Aveda hair day (Cornish coast)

 

Aveda - the environmental company

Aveda is a relatively environmentally friendly corporation (to the extent that corporations can be environmental). They don't make a fetish out of organics (though some of the ingredients they use are organic), but instead focus on a more holistic approach of promoting environmental sustainability, including using recycled packaging and wind energy to power their manufacturing facility. But the main reason I use Aveda products is because they work, they smell nice, and ok, I'll admit it, the bottles are my favourite colour - green.

Over the years my addiction has gradually expanded, and now I buy most of my toiletry and makeup products from Aveda. I'm especially a fan of their lipstick, which actually moisturises your lips instead of drying them out, like most other brands.

Quite early on I joined their Pure Privilege scheme, whereby you earn points each time you spend money on their products. Over the past five years of increasing Aveda purchases, I earned enough points to reach tier 6 (the second highest), where one of the rewards was a Cornwall escape. Consequently, this past weekend we enjoyed two nights accommodation at the three-star Cliff Head Hotel in Cornwall, including dinner, breakfast and tickets to the Eden Project just around the corner.

Eden - the environmental project

The Eden project is a garden created in an old china clay mining pit in Cornwall. It has outdoor gardens and two greenhouse structures, or biomes, the largest (in the world) for tropical plants, the other for warm temperate and arid plants.

Eden Project biomes

A unique feature of the Eden Project is their environmentalism. They use sanitised rain water to humidify the tropical biome and wind energy to power their facilities. In addition, one of their aims is environmental education focussing on the interdependence of plants and people. So unlike many gardens, they don't just grow decorative plants. I really liked being able to see everyday plants like rubber, rice and coffee in the tropical biome, and olive and fruit trees in the Mediterranean biome. And ok, the decorative flowers were also wonderful.

Hibiscus Schizopetalus (Japanese Lantern or Coral Hibiscus)
in tropical biome

Bougainvillea in Mediterranean biome

But I'd have to say that my favourite part of the visit was seeing the hemp plants growing, because hemp is one of my very all time favourite eco fibres. Here's a nice little educational video from the Eden project.

And finally, Eden also has the longest and fastest zip line in England, so my husband spent much of our visit trying to take pictures of the crazy people flying by overhead.

If I keep buying Aveda at the same rate, within ten years I may have enough points for the highest tier prize, a three-night stay at the Sugar Ridge Antigua resort. Though I'm probably more likely to go for the other tier 6 travel prize - two nights at a hotel in the Lake district. After my reaction to the temperature in the tropical biodome at Eden project, I'm not sure I'm up for those kinds of temperatures anymore.

Public drinking fountains in Europe

Returning from another trip to the continent, I was reminded of one my my pet peeves in Britain - the lack of access to free drinking water.

Now, before I get accused of being the ugly American expecting everything to be the same as in the US, I would like to point out that, while I do often miss the ubiquitous American water fountain, I have been a UK resident for over 10 years, and now when I do my comparing I hold the UK to higher, continental standards.

Also, I generally try to focus on the positive when travelling. Instead of bemoaning all the familiar things I can't find in a foreign country, I usually come back from a trip wondering why things at home can't be more like abroad. And when it comes to free public drinking water, the UK could definitely learn some lessons from her neighbors.

I'm not talking about getting free tap water in restaurants. Despite the complaints of some travellers, in my experience this is not at all difficult to achieve, though you might want to remember the translation for tap water to avoid confusion.

I'm talking about drinking water fountains. Travellers to the continent should note, drinking water is not usually dispensed from an American style fountain (and Americans, can you PLEASE stop asking if you can drink the tap water in Europe? Seriously, people already think we are a bunch of ignoramuses, don't give them more proof). Water bubbling from an attractive piece of street ornamentation is fully as potable as water from a fountain spigot. Probably more so - some of those American style fountains require you to get so close, I wouldn't trust them not to be slobbered on by someone.

When I'm out and about on holiday, I don't want to have to stop in a café every time I get thirsty. I usually follow a pretty intense sightseeing itinerary, and don't have time to sit around gawking at passersby. I sit around enough at the office - and if I do need a rest, I'd rather take one on a park bench. So I'm always happy when I can refill my bottle instead of wasting money and plastic buying bottled water.

We encountered a couple of lovely water fountains on our last trip to Germany, where they were much appreciated, as the weather was a scorching 30c.

Boar fountain in whimsical Marburg

Robber baron Friedrich von Hattstein's fountain in Limburg.
Water is supplied from a hand spigot on the side.

And in Paris I have learned to keep an eye out for the elegant, green Wallace fountains. (For sparkling water fans, the city has actually begun installing 'eau gazeuse' fountains!)

Public drinking fountains designed by Charles-Auguste Lebourg

Imagine my surprise to learn that these fountains, of which 80 of varying sizes are scattered throughout the city, were financed by a 19th century British resident and philanthropist, Sir Richard Wallace. It makes me wonder - where are Britain's water philanthropists of today?

Perhaps the British feel their country is generally not hot enough to require public drinking fountains, but personally, I find visiting museums and theatres to be thirsty work. I was quite apoplectic the last time I attended the National Theatre in London - we came out at intermission quite parched, but of course there were no water fountains, and the pitchers of water put out by the bar quickly succumbed to the scrum of thirsty concert goers. I went to the toilet to try to fill my water bottle, but as is invariably the case in British public toilets, the tap water was so scaldingly hot I could barely wash my hands, much less drink it.

Airports are also bad at providing water to their customers, which seems very mean, considering we can't take full water bottles through due to security regulations. Though I did manage to find a fountain at Stansted airport before our flight to Germany.

I sometimes think that if they ever changed the British naturalisation process and included an additional requirement of community service to the citizenship test, I would get involved in a campaign to improve public access to potable water. Perhaps starting with the scalding water in public toilets, which seems hazardous as well as being inconvenient. I understand health officials believe that hot water is necessary to wash hands properly, but I wonder how many people are doing only a perfunctory wash or eschewing washing altogether to avoid burning their hands. In any case, due to the prevalence of separate taps for hot and cold water in Britain, most people are probably washing their hands in cold water at home anyway. Of course, if British sinks were built like American and European ones, with both cold and hot water running from the same tap, you could chose your preferred temperature. But the British seem impervious to reason or change on this issue, so they are probably best left to their own devices.

There might be more potential for progress in the area of public fountains (and anyway, these are preferable to getting water from public toilets). The Drinking Fountain Association (originally the Metropolitan Drinking Fountain and Cattle Trough Association est.1859) might be a place to start, though their website gives the impression that they aren't currently very active. There is also the Fountain Society, but they seem to focus mainly on decorative fountains. Perhaps they could be convinced to add practical to their mission of "campaigning for the creative and artistic use of water for the public and private good". The city of London seemed to have a plan to install a number of drinking fountains in the Square Mile, but the last report I could find was from 2008, so perhaps it has been abandoned. There are some design competitions for public fountains, but generally there doesn't seem to be much public concern about the state of drinking fountains in Britain.

This is sad, considering the ridiculous number of plastic water bottles we consume, compared to our forebearers, with their community-minded construction of public fountains. I would start my activities by campaigning to restore the Walton Well Road drinking fountain in Oxford, erected by Oxford Mayor William Ward in 1885. It is nicely located to serve all the walkers and picnickers on Port Meadow.

Public water fountain. According to the plaque
it is located on the site of a former spring 

While making an effort to reduce the proliferation of plastic bottles, we could ensure that the work of Britain's former water philanthropists doesn't go to waste.

Gendered toys and German craftsmanship

These days you hear a lot about gendered toys. Pink for girls and blue for boys - with shops such as Boots colour coordinating the placement of toys on shelves to make it easier for shoppers. Boots has recently stopped this practice due to consumer pressure, but other stores still persist.

I was lucky enough to be born in the 1970s, when the pinkification of girls was not as prevelant as it is now. My sister and I were occasionally given the same toy in different colours, and I invariably went with blue while she chose red. I was virulently anti-pink, and while I played with dolls, I also had a collection of matchbox cars, a whole zoo-full of animals, and lots and lots of legos (with not a single pink block among them). Some of my favourite toys were a tool kit (with a saw that actually worked), the Fisher Price castle (which did have a pink dragon, but otherwise encouraged such ungirly behaviour as dropping all the characters in the dungeon and the alligator-filled moat), and the Fisher Price parking garage (complete with car elevator and petrol pump)*.

Notice the matching outfits of the king and queen
and prince and princess. Not a hint of pink.

Garage equipped with elevator with ringing bell, rotating platform
on the top floor and hydraulic lift for the cars. Bliss!

However, despite the lack of gendering pressure from my toys, I was highly covetous of one of my sister's possessions: a miniature closet containing a full complement of German-made, natural wood and metal cleaning implements (with real soap included). She was kind enough to let me play with it, and I spent many happy hours sweeping with the tiny broom and sloshing soapy water around with the tiny mop and pail.

I suppose an interest in minatures and cleaning are not necessarily gendered. Even in the 1970s my father shared housework duties (he did the 'manly' tasks: taking out the trash, vacuuming, and mowing & raking the lawn. My mother cooked and did laundry, my sister and I cleaned the bathrooms, set & cleared the table, washed & dried the dishes, and dusted). And given that my father is probably even tidier than my mother, I suppose my interest in cleaning could arguably come from both sides.

At any rate, I am still very fond of miniatures, and still a compulsive cleaner, so while on a trip to Germany, upon passing a shop dedicated to wooden cleaning implements, I absolutely had to stop and take a look.

Hintz - Bürsten shop in the lovely university town of Marburg

I oohed and aahed over the brooms and brushes of every shape, size and function, all made of natural wood and bristles. But I balked somewhat at the prices (10€ for an espresso brush? Gulp). Until I saw, miracle of miracles, a miniature cleaning set! Not quite as impressive as my sister's, but this one had the added bonus of a set of tiny clothes pins and chamois cloth. I bought the green set (of course).

Cleaning set - containing the same fragrant soap as my sister's

I briefly considered which friend's lucky daughter would receive it, but as one shouldn't, after all, encourage gendered toys for children, I decided I would just keep it for myself.

Gleeful contemplation of my very own cleaning set, at long last.

*Tragically, my parents gave the Fisher Price toys away when my sister and I went off to college. I am considering sourcing replacements from ebay.

Kaffe Fassett at the American Museum in Bath

The American Museum in Bath is hosting an exhibition of Kaffe Fassett textiles and designs until 2 November 2014. We took a trip down over the bank holiday weekend to check out the show and visit friends in the Bath area. The show, called the Colourful World of Kaffe Fassett, was an excellent antidote to the dreary weather we've been experiencing lately.

Tree decorated with pompoms and lanterns
made from Kaffe Fassett fabric

Kaffe Fassett is a master colorist, working mainly in the medium of knitwear, quilts and needlepoint. He has had a long relationship with the American Museum, and the exhibition included several needlepoints and drawings based on pieces in the museum. The pieces on display were delightful: bright, intricate and inspiring; everything you would expect from Kaffe Fassett.

Recreation of Kaffee's working space? Some studio!

Warm reds

Moving on to the blue room

Making the most of contrast colours

Getting inspiration from Kaffe's swatches

complementary knitwear and quilt

Quilting, knitting, needlepoint and painting.
Is there anything Kaffe can't do?

I find Kaffe Fassett knitwear to be visually attractive, but not particularly appealing, or even wearable. The knitting requires fiddly techniques using too many colours to be practical. Also, the shapes are typically oversized 1980s - not my favourite style.

I was more drawn to the quilts and needlepoint. The quilts were mainly in wild, vibrant colours, and Kaffe has a whole line of quilt fabric, so it would be pretty easy to recreate the Fassett effect. The needlepoints often used more subtle tones. I'm very tempted to try to recreate some of the beautiful vegetables in purples and greens.

Vegetable tapestry

Beautiful beet needlepoint

Bringing the garden inside

Some of Kaffe's needlepoint patterns are available for sale from Ehrman Tapestry, but not the vegetables. If anyone knows where I could find them, please let me know!

And don't neglect to visit the rest of the museum (the only one dedicated to American craft outside the US), because there are other Kaffe Fassett treasures scattered throughout.

Flowers and fabric swatch

Amsterdam yarn stores

We took a city break in Amsterdam a few weekends ago. The main purpose of the trip was to celebrate our 10 year wedding anniversary, see old friends, and visit the recently reopened Rijksmuseum, but of course yarn shopping was also high on my list of activities.

Penelope Craft

Our first port of call was Penelope Craft at 117 Kerkstraat. Upon entering we were greeted with the sight of a crochet covered bicycle, quite appropriate in this city of bikes.

Penelope Craft carries some of my favourite Danish yarns: Holst Garn supersoft wool and BC Garn (as well as other favourites: Cascade, Madelinetosh, Malabrigo, Quince and Co). I couldn't resist some BC Garn laceweight silk in my new colour obsession, grey and mustard. But being in Amsterdam, I was particularly interested in discovering Dutch yarns.

Unfortunately, the offerings are not as plentiful as in Denmark. There was a selection of locally hand dyed fingering weight yarn, but I went for some natural undyed sheep breed yarn instead - organic and sustainable Gotland lambswool raised in the Dutch province of Brabant, and the native Dutch breed Texelse Schapenwol from the island of Texel. It is a lovely woolly wool, but the sheep is mainly known for its meat - we had enjoyed a delicious meal of it the night before - so I was delighted to find a versatile (and local) sheep breed.

De Afstap

After a pleasant and scenic stroll north along the canals we arrived at De Afstap on 12 Oude Leliestraat. Upon entering we were greeted with more Danish knits - the shop's loft is filled with Christel Seyfarth garments.

I was very tempted to get one of the brightly patterned shawl kits, but they are quite expensive, and we decided we better save our money for some Delftware instead. De Afstap carries a very wide range of yarn - a big selection of Rowan, plus Noro, Lotus, ITO, Araucania, Mirasol, Regia, etc. I didn't buy a skein of the Swedish Mora Redgarn lace - I figured I could leave that until we visit Sweden. But I did buy some Belgian Bart & Francis undyed quivit/silk.

All in all I was quite pleased with my discoveries. It is nice to find a few new yarns, but my stash still needs to recover from Shetland, and really doesn't need a massive influx of yarn at the moment.

In keeping with the Dutch theme, as a souvenir I picked up a kit containing the Fiesten mitts pattern from Penelope Craft. Nothing says Amsterdam like a bike.