I was up in Edinburgh last week and took some time out to visit a delightful exhibition at the Dovecot Gallery on Infirmary Street. Called Taking Time, it is all about slowing down to appreciate traditional crafts. There is really cool knitting wall where you can add your own yarn-related piece of art. So I knitted a piece of Shetland Lace and left some instructions for continuing it with the address of this blog. So, if you find it and add to the wall, do post a comment and let me know! You can see some more images of the wall here: |
| Edinburgh Knitting Wall |
AND WHAT'S WRONG WITH SCARLET?
In other knitting news I managed to complete a Debbie Bliss baby jacket with matching shoes for a work colleague who has just started her maternity leave. The jacket was fine but the bootees, which I have made before, caused me some grief. The knitting is straightforward but the sewing up does my head in. I really thought I'd cracked it this time and was feeling very smug when I completed the first shoe correctly. Then I made a mistake with the second one and had to unpick it. I managed this successfully with no snipping of a knitted stitch by mistake and set about re-doing it. By now time was running out as I wanted to hand them over before heading up to Edinburgh. So I carried straight on with it - and did it wrong again! At this point only a disappointed knitter can probably understand how distraught I felt. And of course, what I should have done was put it down for half an hour and come back to it later.
But of course I didn't. Carrying straight on, again, inevitably I snipped in the wrong place and cut through a stitch. Disbelieving AND distraught - not a good combination. The only way out was to carry on snipping, which I did with great satisfaction. And then sat right down and re-knitted and re-assembled the second shoe, finishing about midnight (the stubbornness of the Reece clan is legendary!) I won't say I can laugh about it now but I do feel satisfied that I carried on and completed the project. Hopefully the new baby will appreciate it!
I took some comfort from Elizabeth Zimmerman's words of wisdom in the February section of her Knitter's Almanac which is called "Some Babies' Things". She writes: "Although babies rarely, if ever, express their pleasure at being dressed in wool, it is surely manifest when you dote on a small plump person soundly and contentedly asleep" in it. My friend asked for bright colours - and I took her at her word. So I was pleased to note that EZ also suggests using darker and less delicate colours for babies, ending with "And what's wrong with scarlet?". Indeed - it looks good to me!
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| Scarlet Knitting |
