Hi everyone…
Haven’t been around for a while – my complicated life got more complicated and then in-between the needs and demands (all rehearsed and repeated here often) I managed to get a weekend away attending Plug and Play Pembrokeshire 2012 (P3 for short).
This was a workshop weekend run by Brenda Dayne who is a Podcaster, Knitter, Designer and Teacher extraordinaire, along with Amy Singer who is the editor of Knitty.com who also happens to be very gifted in getting ideas and concepts across to eejits like me whose brain is often not being in the same room as my hands.
These two characters were just as great in real life (as opposed to internet existence !!), and along with all my fellow knitters (who I am missing quite badly already….) I felt I had made some new friends for life (or fellow conspirators…).
The theme this year was about textures and we certainly had a lot of those….along with an amazing goody bag from which to swatch and think about creating from.
I am going to write a bit more about this in the following weeks, as I am currently working through the wealth of material, along with carrying on some of the projects I sampled/started… You can find them in my Ravelry notebook, which also has more detail.
Despite being a hive of activity, I did manage to do some painting, and became rather obsessed about a particular tree. The gardens at Beggars Reach are rich, verdant and beautifully landscaped and framed by some spectacular aged trees.
Since I got back I have spent this week trying to clear (well actually find !!) my poor, forgotten and neglected desk in Bristol, so that before the magic and inspiration wears off, I can absorb myself with some designing work and finish off a few more of my works in progress…
This hasn’t quite happened, and as I am writing now, I am very conscious that I am losing the day, and next week is one of “those” weeks which I know will rattle my brain. This amount of stress stifles the little shoots and sparks of imagination, and causes much frustration.
I became quite engrossed in sampling and pattern writing at the workshop – the latter because it was a real challenge to me.. always has been. I only skim read anything, and my memory is really poor nowadays, so patterns just don’t “stick” as they ought to.
I decided earlier in the year I was going to have a go at writing down some of the family knitting patterns for my granddaughter(s), so treated myself to some software to make it easier. Since then I haven’t had a chance to really work at it, nor the inspiration to be honest.
Now though I want to get into a format which I can access, the designs I am working on currently, and also transfer them to another project that was partially started. The Staghorn pattern above for example I am now working into my Welsh Autumn Jumper I started before the course. It is very rustic and being made from wool that I dyed and spun before the chaos of the last couple of years took over. The pattern works well on the top of the front and the back, framing the armholes really well.
Finally back to “my” tree. I caught this amazing image from my bedroom during the sunrise on the Sunday morning… a perfect moment…and an image to hang to.
DyeVerse 