Craft-work

Hi everyone!

We had another busy evening this week, with a nice mix of long-standing city knitters and newcomers. We also had a nice mix a knit and crochet projects on the go - it's really nice to see a mix of crafts coming together!
We saw a range of cardigans underway, including Knitty's Serrano pattern knitted in black and an elegant design in cram Rowan summer tweed yarn, and the finishing touches being put to an extremely pink crochet cardigan from the Stitch'n'B*tch book. We also had a new trim being added to purple cardigan which made it's first appearance at the first ever "City Knitty in the daytime" meeting!
We had a range of socks, including a toe-up sock being knit in shades of orange, a bright multicoloured sock, and a first pair of socks in autumny colours.
We also saw a diagonally striped scarf nearing completion, and experiments with crochet and knitted cable patterns. We saw some new developments in the field of recycled carrier bag knitting too, with a collection of carrier bag hats!
Finally, we saw one big unfinished object getting quite near to completion now!

Happy knitting, and see you all soon!
Hugh.

Oh, innocence has passed you by...

Hi everyone!

We has a really big crowd this week, and once again took over half of the Chai teahouse.

Following on from the Knitting in Public event last week, we had lots of knitters working on Innocent smoothie hats. People seem to be having lots of fun with them and enjoying experimenting with lots of different designs.
We also saw a range of scarves underway, including one lacy design, a diagonal rib pattern, and a Mobius strip, as well as a purple 'Kashmir' shawl in Sirdar silk yarn and a 'Diamond fantasy' shawl in dark blue.
We had several crochet projects, including a green handbag and a pink cardigan from the Stitch'n'B*tch "Happy hooker" book. We also got to see some amazingly fine crocheted doilies.
We saw the return of the medieval hose, a hat in multicoloured chunky yarn, the sleeves of a blue cardigan slowly approaching completion, the beginnings of a stuffed snail toy, a baby blanket in pastel shades.

We also saw a cool book of mathematically inspired cushion designs!

Hope you're all having a good week, and happy knitting!
Hugh.

Let them eat cake!

Our picnic on Saturday for world wide knit in public day was very successful. We ate a ridiculous amount of cakes, a few more savoury things and drank lots of smoothies that were generously provided by Innocent.


Despite a gloomy start to the day it turned out warm and sunny and felt like the first proper summer day. It was so warm that we had to go and find an ice bucket to try and keep the smoothies cool - after someone started talking about how they had been known to ferment and explode! Sun screen was also a necessity, although even with it my arms are kind of burnt.

There were lots of knitters coming and going throughout the afternoon. Some familiar city knitty faces, some from Rachel Henderson's knitting group and others who we have hopefully now recruited. Rachel even brought along her own film crew, who were rather bemused by the whole knitting in public thing, but happy to help eat our cakes. I think they were making a documentary about Rachel and her knitting group.


HandKnit had put together adorable kits with yarn and pattern to make hats for the Innocent smoothie hat campaign. Aren't they cute?




More photos of the day gathered together in our shiny new flickr group. You are of course welcome to join and add any photos you have of city knitty events.

It became pretty apparent on Saturday that there are lots of knitters in Edinburgh who have no idea this group exists. Several showed up because they'd heard about it from HandKnit but didn't know about us, while I've also had some comments on my own blog from people who wished they had known we were meeting sooner. It seems like we need to do some publicity and let knitters know what we're doing.

Hopefully I'll see you tomorrow and if you didn't make it on Saturday I think someone will be bringing some leftover smoothie hat kits along.

An ever expanding circle

Tonight was one of those nice nights where more and more people keep turning up and we slowly expand out further and further. There was plenty to look at too. One knitter came with a marvellous golden-burnished patterned bag which they had made themselves and then proceded to pull out of it a book of elegant Louisa Harding patterns and some deliciously soft Sirdar Baby Bamboo for a skinny lace scarf. She wasn't the only one with eye-catching yarn though. A multi-coloured bulky yarn in nice deep colours was on the way to becoming a pair of really cosy socks or slippers and a nice soft fuzzy green-turquoise-blue Gedifra yarn was cast on to become a Stich'n'B*tch Sparkly hat with reflective disc beads.

There were a couple of Rowan patterns on the needles this week with a simple elegant cardigan from the new Cotton Jeans yarn and the Kashmir lace shawl design in a cashmere merino silk yarn. There was more lace to be found in the Flacon doilie pattern knit in a subdued pink yarn and more cashmere was present in a diagonal rib scarf from a teal cashmere and wool blend. An old favourite, Cotton Tape, was becoming the second sleeve of an appealing bright blue cardigan.

There were plenty of innovative and unusual traditional skills present. Carrier bags were cut into long spiralling strips for knitting into scarves and two person 15th Century fingerbraiding made its first appearance at City Knitty. Following instructions from a manuscript written by a 15th century englishwoman a chevron and then a broad cross and eyelet pattern were created. These were the techniques used for the bookmarks in books of that time. It looked really good fun.

Have a good week and please come and join City Knitty and HK as we knit and picnic on the Bruntsfield Links for World Wide Knitting in Public day this Saturday (June 9th) from noon onwards. We shall be knitting for the Innocent Smoothie Help the Aged campaign among other things.

See you there,

Clare

Tales of a knitted earth

Hi people!

We had a big group this week, a good mix of projects and the return of some knitters we haven't seen for a while!
Cardigans seem to be a firm favourite at the moment, we saw two heading towards completion, with sleeves in purple and blue underway, as well as a child-sized cardigan with some very nice coloured stripes, and a Bolero(which I'm reliably informed is a kind of cardigan).
Another favourite just now seem to be socks, and while I didn't note down many details, there was a whole range of them in progress.
We also had a good few scarves, including a colourful garter stitch scarf, a complicated-looking lace one(who's pattern is now being spread around the world by our globetrotting visitors), continuing moss stitch embellishments to a green garter stitch scarf, as well as the return of the recycled carrier bag scarves. We also saw a black shawl knit from ribbon yarn with a cool fluffy trim.
We had the finishing touchs being put to a toy snail too, and I got helped with crochet edgings for a lacy doilie - thank you to people for helping with that!

Thanks to everyone for coming along, it was a really fun night and I hope to knit with you all again soon!
Hugh.