Festiwool 2017

Looking forward to Festiwool this Saturday, 11th November from 10:00 a.m. to 5 p.m. at the Priory School, Bedford Road, Hitchin, SG5 2UR. Hope to see you there!

Channelling your inner avocado ...

Remember back in the day when anyone mentioned avocado in the context of colour and it summoned up images of drab, sludge-green bathrooms from the 1970s? Well, for me, those days are very firmly yesterdays. Now when anyone mentions avocado I start to channel visions of warm apricots, dusty salmon pinks and rose-tinted light browns.

No, I'm not dropping acid. Honest, guvnor.

This is what happens when you use your discarded avocado skins and stones to make a dye bath. And let's face it, with the current vogue for mashed avocado on toast with optional chilli flakes for heat, most of us have plenty of skins and stones that are destined for nothing loftier than the compost bin.

Well, hold onto your re-cycling for just a moment: you've got the makings of the very easiest and most environmentally friendly dye bath since the invention of the colour wheel. The thing is there's enough tannin in them there stones to act as a natural mordant to make the colour attach to the fibre so you don't need to go messing with any nasty chemicals that might go on to pollute the water table.

Reflecting on a seasonal change ...

Last week I was pootling around in the sunshine, feeling as though summer hadn't really gone anywhere, and could safely be relied upon to hang around for the indefinite future.

Happy Halloween!

A very Happy Halloween from sun-kissed Catalonia.

Today Emi has been busy carving pumpkins. The above beauties are all his own handiwork. I should explain that the chap in the centre has just been violently ill, and as a result his innards have been vomited onto an obliging sheet of kitchen paper. The sad fellow on the right has an eyeball dangling out of its socket, whilst his friend on the left has some random stickers that used to spell out welcome - as in ... welcome to the Bates hotel ... or one of the outer circles of Hell.

It's nice to see that the young chap has a suitably ghoulish imagination. I found him searching around on Pinterest and Google images for inspiration.

Dyeing to tell ...

I've been having so much fun. The autumn sunshine has added unexpected joy to the season here in London. And a couple of life-enhancing changes have recently overtaken me, which have also added to my little quota of joy and happiness.

Dealing with a burgeoning yarn stash?

Many of us yarn-aholics have an enduring, perennial problem in the storage department. Our stash has a tendency to grow quicker than our capacity to consume it by turning it into gorgeous hand-knits.

It's a complaint that I hear again and again on the knitting holiday circuit. My guests all seem to have the same nagging problem: cupboards and closets that were not designed to accommodate the outsized proportions of their stash. And, given my own line of business, I've got a yarn stash that would fill a small room.

So, what are we to do?

Well, if you've got stuff that you know you're not going to get to for a while, I may have an answer for you: vacuum storage bags. You can buy them on Ebay from 99p a pop.

Just lay all your yarn out nice and tidy inside the bag. You'll have a deliciously fat, squidgy parcel to start off with.

Just hanging in there ...

Happy Friday!

I'd like to share a fun shot that Mr B sent me yesterday. This was the scene outside his window whilst he was eating lunch at his desk down in Canary Wharf:

London Bridge Sheep Drive and the Pop-up Wool Fair

I'd like to say a big thank you to all my lovely customers from Sunday past, who came along to the pop-up wool fair that popped up for the London Bridge Sheep Drive. The sun shone, the sheep were driven, and everyone had a ball.

Way back in medieval times the Grant of the Freedom of the City of London was a right allowing individuals to carry on a trade within the city. They would have taken the grant, and joined one of the trade guilds that flourished in ye olde London towne. The right to drive livestock across the bridges into the old city without paying tolls was an important privilege that came with the Freeman's grant. And it's a right that is still practised every September, but now the Freemen receive their grants as a civic honour in recognition of outstanding achievement and the event raises money for charity.

Toddler's cardigan - age 3

It's taken me the longest time to get this little cardigan off the needles - and then to get the pattern written up. I started work on it way, way back in May, and I really struggled to get it finished on time for Fibre East at the end of July. Here we are in the middle of September, and I'm only now managing to write up the pattern. There's been an awful lot of procrastination going on at this end. The truth is that I've spent all summer playing a form of tennis called Padel. I've had classes with the loveliest and most patient of instructors, and I've been out on court practising my shots every chance I've got. It's been more than slightly addictive. Anyone who came to visit me this summer has HAD to play Padel. No ifs no buts no coconuts - it's been down to the Padel court at every opportunity. And as a consequence all the patterns and knitting and stuff that normally occupies my time has ground to a halt.

Anyway back to the project in hand.  It's knit in our own-label Costa Brava Knitting 4 ply cotton, working in 2 colours: Post Box (red) and Tangerine (orange) using 3.25 mm needles (US size 3/ UK/Canadian size 10). It knits in stocking stitch to a tension of  [23 stitches x 32 rows] on a 10 cm x 10 cm square. I've taken my sizing from Ralph Lauren size 3T, and knit the jumper to match. You'll need around 150 g of wool to knit this size - 100 g of Post Box and 50 g of Tangerine.

End of season adjustments ...

By now the Sant Feliu summer season is over and most of the tourists have packed up and gone home. Only the locals and a few stragglers remain. The atmosphere in town has changed. During the height of the summer season there's an element of hedonism in the sweep and fall of the day. The repeated kerching! of the holiday trade echoes loudly around the centre of town. Hoteliers, waiters and shop owners walk around with a pronounced sense of purpose.

Sant Feliu de Guíxols, Catalunya

Alien Invasion

This morning we woke up to an alien invasion. Sunny Sant Feliu has been overrun by brown jellyfish - medusas, as they're known in this part of the world. Emi assures me that they're not too bad. For one thing they don't sting as much as the white ones do - or so he tells me.

Sail away with me ...

... to somewhere where it's always summer.

Tragically, I can feel summer slipping through my fingers, and I really, really don't want to let it go.

All the best,

Bonny x