Exhibition and Patient Knitting

Good morning! Its Friday and not only is the weekend fast approaching but tonight sees the opening of an exhibition which is being held in "I Heart Art" in The Galleria, Aberdeen. I will be exhibiting (and selling) a selection of my jewellery there and it is all pretty exciting! There will be a range of other artists/makers there too so if you are in the area (and free) come along! It begins about 7pm and there will be some nibbles and wine. Don't worry if you can't make it though as everyone's work will remain up for one week. So go have a look! You can find out where it is by going onto I Heart Art's website. http://www.i-heartart.co.uk/

If for whatever reason you can't make it along, here is a taster of some of the things I will be exhibiting. Not everything on these photos will be there but fear not if you see something you like (and it doesn't get sold) it will be making an appearance on my folksy shop very soon!

Now it's time to have a nosey at what I have been working on this week. Ok I say this week......this project has actually been on a go for a while..........how long exactly?..............um...........shall we say around 2 years...... you may have guessed I'm not the most patient of knitter's! Like a lot of crafts people I like to have my fingers in a lot of pies so to speak. Something else comes along that looks interesting and I just CANNOT RESIST giving it a go. Off the knitting goes into the knitting bag (or in my case a classy Tesco carrier bag) and off my hands are to try needle felting or sewing bags or something else. I have to say I suffer from this a lot which you probably already guessed from my blog. However I do eventually go full circle and back to the beginning and in the case of this jumper I have done just that!

One day my mum turned around to me and said "Camilla, I think it's time you knit something more challenging than a scarf" I gulped in fear, rectangles were all I could knit, the thought of doing something more challenging was a bit scary, but I knew I would have my crafty mum on side to help me when it all went wrong! So I began to look around in magazines and see if anything caught me eye. Quite quickly I found a pattern I loved! It is in Issue 2 of The Knitter (to give you an idea of how long ago this was they are on issue 29 now!) It is a Fair Isle style jumper designed by Belinda Boaden and I just love it, the colours are so lovely not to mention the pattern itself!

I'm probably not supposed to put these up but I wanted to show you what it will hopefully look like. I love it and one day when it is finished I'm going to write to The Knitter and show them!

 So not only will I be knitting a jumper but I'm going to learn how to do Fair Isle, perfect! This will certainly be a step up from a scarf. As I have already mentioned I love Fair Isle, maybe it has got something to do with my mother's side of my family being Norwegian. My Grandmother and my Mum have both knitted me wonderful cardigans which I love so it would be good to follow in their footsteps!

To give you a brief over view the knitting of the jumper (although very slow) has been going well, will relatively few mistakes! I am really enjoying doing the Fair Isle pattern, its exciting to finally see the pattern emerge! I would like to think I am almost done, well i am almost. Here is where I am up to at the moment.

The back of the jumper

A close up so you can see the Fair Isle pattern in detail

An even closer close up!

A well used pattern chart!

The front of the jumper, still in progress!

I am almost finished the front of the jumper, I only have a few more centimetres to go and then I'm onto the neckband. Of course there are still the sleeves to go, but I have been working on them at the same time. First one was completed a while ago and I only just finished the second one on Sunday. So hooray I'm almost there! I ALMOST have a jumper...............hold on Camilla, don't start the celebrations yet.........

So after I finish my second sleeve I decide to compare the two together.......ok......why are they not the same size???? Why is one a lot smaller than the other........what has happened???? why why why???????

"Did you remember to change your needles after the rib?" asks my mum

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Another schoolgirl error! I forgot to change the bloody needles over.......its only 25mm of a difference in size. Hmmm maybe I can stretch it a bit.............maybe I can sew some of it in........maybe I can start a new trend with odd sleeve sizes.........

Mum tells me the worst thing ever, "Camilla you need to unpick it and start it again"

Start again?!?!?!?! But I was so close! I could almost see me wearing the jumper, it was so so close and now I have to start the sleeve again?????

This is where the test of patience comes into play.

"You only have to unravel it to the ribbing"

I guess that makes it slightly better...........................so I'm not quite there yet but hopefully my train trip to Glasgow this weekend will give me plenty of time to sort out the sleeve!

The moral of this story??? Read your pattern and pay attention, not all patterns are suitable to do whilst chatting! Opps............

Mess of wool!