The Domestic Soundscape

See you in August!

I spent the weekend here with Liz, Lara, Kate and Tom. Our temporary tent-village was frequented by the Herdwicks who also live in Sykes Farm and who produce the most amazing variety and quantity of baas around first light. The cows sometimes join in and I have attached a sound file here so that you can hear the joys of the baaing concert.

Lara, Liz and Kate, looking sprightly after the sheep dawn chorus

Herdwicks passing behind our tents

Lara’s amazing Cath Kidston tent

We were camping in this beautiful spot in the lake district so that we could rise bright and early to attend Woolfest, a sheep and wool festival with a fantastically agricultural feel and the opportunity to meet small producers and flock-keepers directly, as well as the opportunity to buy masses of gorgeous yarns from small UK producers. Driving carefully from Buttermere to Cockermouth along winding roads peppered with grazing Herdwicks, I was really struck by the intimate relationship between sheep and the landscape, and — by extension — the bond between knitting and the land. I found myself thinking about how I when I invest in products from UK sheep farmers, I invest in this.

This is not an entirely new idea for me; researching the Yarn Forward article I wrote about Julia Desch and her Wensleydale flock in East Sussex, I began to understand more closely the relationships between land, people, animals and knitting, but the whole experience of going to Woolfest expanded that idea for me enormously, and on several counts. Because of the way that Woolfest is organised and set up, I got to meet many different breeds of sheep and to talk with many different producers of wool.

Shetland

Herdwick

Rough Fell

Manx Loghtan

Meeting these animals in person in the setting of the agricultural auction building where Woolfest is held, it is possible to understand their working life as farm animals, and to witness the animal husbandry — the relationship between man and beast — that lies at the heart of wool production. Watching the incredibly competant and deft shearing demonstration at Woolfest I was struck by the depth of this relationship and its long history.

To shear a sheep competently you must be able to balance it against your body in such a way that its hooves cannot touch the ground, for as soon as it gets any purchase with its feet, a sheep will run away. Firm hands and strong arms are needed to keep the sheep relaxed and assured so that it will lean back against your body as you go over it with the clippers. The Rough Fell sheep being sheared in this image weighs more than the woman shearing it, but with expertise, deftness and a sure hand, she had it shorn in under five minutes. She had to get right in close to this animal to shear it, to anticipate its movements and to know it.

Shorn sheep

The skeins of sanitised, scoured, dyed, pretty yarns that one encounters in a wool shop do not exhibit the rough, earthy intimacy of this connection. The signs of muscle, earth, nobility, mud, rock and power that sheep embody when you meet them are absent from clean, wound skeins, and with that absence, it is also possible to miss the labour and the communities and the landscapes that surround what yarn is. To see the animals in the flesh and to meet their flock keepers and handlers in person is to encounter the deep earthiness of sheep, their affinity with rocks, mountains and rivers, and to witness the ancient agricultural bond between people and animals that has formed the economic backbone of communities all over the UK. I really enjoyed talking to Jean Bennet of the Shetland Sheep Society about her flock. She said she prefers being on the hills with her sheep to knitting with their wool, but was extremely knowledgeable about the beautiful knitwear that others have created from her quality product. I learned from her that she prefers handclipping her own sheep to using electronic clippers and that she often brings fleeces straight from her sheep to Woolfest to sell to handspinners. She told me how in the foot and mouth crises a few years back, her and other farmers fought hard to keep their animals. She pointed out that nobody who keeps sheep does it for the money, but that her animals pay their own way. I bought a postcard from her featuring her own flock and in that simple, small transaction, another gathering of animals on a hillside became less anonymous, contextualised, known.

3 bags full

Handspun, handknitted shetland shawl from shetland sheep fleece

It is possible to see from this incredibly fine handspun lace how the Shetland sheep and its fleece have become associated with shawls that are fine enough to pass through a wedding ring.

And this brings me to another element of attending Woolfest that evolved my consideration of knitting, sheep, the landscape and our connections with those things, which is the role that handspinning plays in our understanding of wool. Someone once said to me that the reason handknit items are so personal is that each individual stitch has passed through the hands. But this is just one level at which yarn is touched. It would seem that the handle, feel, tensility and unique properties of different wools are also felt and understood keenly at the handspinning stage. One of the things that was especially inspiring for me this weekend was having Liz in the car all the way to the festival, knitting up some beautiful handspun she has made from UK sheep fleeces, and speaking of the things she has learned from the Oxford Guild of Spinners, Weavers and Dyers about the specific qualities of each of the different wools that she has spun so far.

Julia Desch also found that it was the work of the Vauxhall City Farm spinning group that helped the Woolcraft with Wensleydale group to understand the specific qualities of the Wensleydale fleece. The knowledge of wool gathered through centuries of handspinning massively influences the way that industrial spinning processes spin fibres. The worsted spinning process that is done at Diamond Fibres mill, for instance, is best suited to wools with long fibres like Swaledale, Wensleydale and Teeswater. In this process, the fibres are carded and combed many times and spun into successive rovings before being plied together. Resulting yarns are denser than those produced by other wool spinning processes — such as the approach adopted at the Natural Fibre Company – which have been developed for processing springy, shorter fibres, and which results in a bouncier, lighter yarn for knitting with. But such knowledge — even when applied at an industrial level — has come from many centuries of handspinning, from many centuries of wool running through clever fingers.

Knowledge of wool is also something that seems to go with our socialising; with our societies and meetings and times spent together. I learn from my knitting friends all the time; we are a sort of unofficial guild, and the time we spend knitting together is often also spent learning. The stitch and bitch phenomenon is like a contemporary system of guilds and I am intrigued by how the urban knitting culture and the traditional craft guilds are increasingly intersecting, with knitters that I know from the Oxford Bluestockings knitting group and the Sticks and String Reading group taking an increasing interest in handspinning and the activities of local spinning guilds.

I want to learn more about the handspinning and I have a suspicion that I will be interested in spinning ‘in the grease’ when I learn. I had a muddy fleece in a carrier bag for years when I lived in Ireland that I amateurishly tried to spin with a drop spindle. I have no idea what breed of sheep the fleece came from, but I liked the muddiness of the fleece, its rich, sheepish smell and the greasy texture of the wool. I liked — and still like — the sense of the earth and the land that inhabit a mucky old fleece from a living animal, and I really enjoyed being able to remember that earthiness at Woolfest.

Of course it was also lovely to touch and handle scoured, soft, clean, beautiful yarns from independent producers, and to fondle skeins of Manx, Jacob, Ryeland, Shetland, Herdwick and other yarns. UK 100% wool has an undeserved reputation for being very rough and scratchy, but this is a very partial truth. Certainly the yarn from the Herdwick sheep is quite rough, but its structural properties and hard-wearing qualities mean that it is perfect for garments that need to be hard-wearing like bags, bowls, or indeed sculptures with stone-like qualities.

Rachael Matthews’ knitted hourglass from Relics of an awesome picnic, made for Love is Awesome from Herdwick yarn

Rachael Matthews’ knitted skull and crossbones from Relics of an awesome picnic, made for Love is Awesome from Herdwick yarn

…and the yarn from the Rough Fell sheep is hardy enough that Prick Your Finger have a shop sign made from it, so it might not make for the most comfortable lingerie. But other breeds - Shetland, Jacob, Wensleydale, Teeswater, Manx, North Ronaldsay and many others - produce a beautiful wool that is soft, comforting, warming, enduring, and a pleasure to knit with.

The Garthenor Organic stall featuring many rare-breed sheep yarns, industrially spun into many different weights including a beautiful super chunky and a very delicate laceweight.

Much of the feel and texture of yarn is determined at the sorting-stage of wool production, when fleeces are gone through — again by hand — and pruned so that only the softest and most high quality portions of the fleece go through to be spun. Smallscale production allows for attention to detail at this stage and I think the nice man at the Garthenor Organic stall (although being incredibly modest about this) is something of an expert at this stage of wool production, since all the wools on his stall were of beautiful quality and the selection of colours (all natural fleece colours) was immense. I had a long chat with him about his favourite sheep and we agreed the Herdwick is very noble, and that the Manx Loghtan produces a gingery fleece, a bit like mellow marmalade.

The amazing Garthenor Organic stall

Liz, Kate, Lara and I all agreed this was our favourite of all the stalls. I think we each left with at least 600m of the beautiful laceweight yarns available, and I also got 3 balls of DK weight for a project I want to begin immediately. I also spent a lot of money at other stalls, but have come away with no Alpaca, no Cashmere and no Merino yarn. Unusually for me I also left without any hand-dyed yarn at all. Something about Woolfest made anonymous yarn from many miles away seem less inspiring than wool from sheep I can actually meet and touch, sheep I can smell, sheep with handlers who talk of the same hills and mountains that I love. And something about the undyed yarns reminded me of the stone and mud and pastureland where the sheep who produce them graze. Articles like this one about cashmere make me think pretty long and hard about what yarns I spend my money on, and what sort of agricultural practises I want to support with my creativity. Although this may sound a little prosaic or whimsical — especially coming from someone raised in the suburbs with only a handful of agricultural knowledge — it seems to be an idea that is also espoused by farmers who recognise the spending power of knitters.

When I got home from Woolfest I went to check up on my favourite blogs in one last-minute dash of Internet Bingeing before July Offline commences, and I read the following line on this post, lamenting the damage that constant rains are doing to the Hay crop in the US at the moment:

I make wool and wool is made from hay. Hay prices will almost certainly skyrocket in the fall.

What can you do? Support your local small farmer. When you pass a farm stand this weekend stop and buy some berries, lettuce or apples. Try to buy more yarn from small farms and less from international conglomerates.

Farmers will survive this rain, as they have survived all kinds of weather since time began. They are a tenacious, never-say-die lot. They don’t need your pity, they need your business.

— Martha’s Vineyard Fiber Farm, US

I couldn’t have put it better myself. I believe that the investment one makes in yarn can be deeper and more involved than merely finding pretty yarns to knit with. Buying wool can be a land and community investment and an investment in farming practises and rural heritage. When I knit with the yarns that I have bought home with me from Woolfest, I will be thinking of the places where the sheep that it comes from live. I will be thinking of the strong arms that shear those sheep and the baaing choruses that wake the farmers who keep flocks. And I will be figuring out how to keep sheep myself one day, and to pass on all the richness of our woollen heritage to successive generations of farmers and knitters.

That is why Woolfest is the best fibre festival of them all.

Thanks so much everyone for all the birthday wishes. It’s really been a magical few days and I am already feeling settled into my 30s. I’ve been busy enjoying my birthday gifts since yesterday and today I made a cyber-zombie from a book called Creepy Cute Crochet which I was given by the rest of the team on the radio show I work on –The Hub, BBC Oxford. I believe the book was written by NeedleNoodles and this particular pattern appealed to me because I feel quite like the zombie looks after three months of pretty much solid editing for the cut and splice podcast series.

I expect the rest of the Sound and Music team can relate to this after all the work they put into the festival. I only got to one evening of the festival but I thoroughly enjoyed many of the performances there and the hard work that went into organising it was obvious. I especially enjoyed Tape That and all the ideas and sounds they explored in their set. They created many little vignettes of sound/performance that reflected a great degree of both humour and observation. I was struck by the details of sounds while watching their performance; the different sonic qualities of masking tape vs. packing tape, the click of an A4 folder spring opening and closing (it’s loud!) and all the other things they had obviously collected for their performance. And I loved The Domestic Appliance Audio Research Society… how could I not? The whole premise for their work is very close to some of my own creative aims.

The podcast series was a very large project for me to take on; the first really academic bit of radio/podcasting I’ve done, and the first attempt to bring feminism/fluxus/experimental sound art etc. together cohesively. The best part of the whole thing has been meeting with or talking to so many fantastic creative people — Mark Vernon, Bob Levene, Karen of Karen Magazine, Jennifer Walshe, Hilary Kneale, Lloyd Dunn, Lise Lefebvre and Bobby Baker’s wonderful people at Artsadmin, who were very supportive of what I was trying to do and gave me the go ahead to include some good Bobby Baker clips in the podcasts. I had a lot of emails with other people and have really enjoyed discovering the works of DAARS, Aki Onda, Erik Belgum and to have discovered the talents of Jason Lescallet and Graham Lambkin through their amazing release, The Breadwinner. I have deeply enjoyed having the opportunity to gain further insights into the creative activities of these practitioners, to consider how it all fits together and to explore the connections between so many disparate ideas.

And now I’m taking a break from my computer to let it all settle in, to let it all percolate, to think about what the final year of my studies will be about, and to get down to some serious handmaking. I am all computered-out.

The first stop for me on my handmake-break is going to be Woolfest. I can’t wait to meet a lot of sheep, load up on fibre and get some knitting on my needles. I find my brain comes up with the very best ideas when I’m going around and around on a sweater. And it’s a good for listening, too. Indeed I took my sock to the Cut and Splice festival and it definitely enhanced the listening experience…

I may post again before the end of June as I am not *yet* offline. I realise that since I worked in an Internet Cafe from 2000 onwards, I’ve barely gone a day without The Internet. The idea is strange, liberating, and a bit scary. I love The Internet. But I am turning into a Cyber Zombie and it’s time to unplug.

In a few days I will turn 30. But since weekdays are rubbish for parties and I’m tied up next weekend with secret adventures, my family gathered in Croydon in my old ‘hood to have the party of all parties yesterday. For some people 30 doesn’t seem to be such a big deal, but for me this is a Major landmark birthday and I was really into celebrating it in a Major way.

My mother’s legendary raspberry/chocolate trifle: a thing of great deliciousness and impressive calorific prowess.

Friends, family and neighbours all gathered for a proper, massive party. It was the best party ever and I felt extremely lucky to be surrounded by so much love and joyousness.

Dear Old Pops.

There was brass music set up by my dear old Pops and the Brass Quintet. From the youngest age I remember staying up late and sitting on the stairs to listen to my parents playing duets on French Horn and Tuba, and the sound of brass instruments has been around me for my whole life. I kissed the whole Quintet when they were done as their lovely playing reminded me of being 5 years old again.

…and there was cake. Much cake. My mother (Bam) outdid herself with a fruitcake with a whole bottle of brandy in the fruit, and Sian (one of my sisters-in-law-to-be) invented this amazing ball-of-yarn cake with many red, strawberry-flavoured shoelaces being the ‘yarn’ and chopsticks functioning as knitting needles. It’s amazing how good lemon buttercream icing and strawberry laces taste together…

Sian’s ingenious yarn-themed confection.

My mum’s old coffee-morning gang were there too. Mary, Bam and Carol used to gather for coffee-mornings when me and my brothers were still very young. As a child I loved interrupting their coffee-mornings as I was certain that all the secrets of womanhood were contained in their chats. Seeing them together over 20 years later I found myself hoping that I will still be friends with my much-loved girlfriends in 20 years time, and that we will be having the same conversations that my mum and her friends still have. It’s amazing to be in touch with the people that saw me having tantrums when I was 7 years old and to meet them more than 20 years later as a fully-grown woman and to say ‘hey, I’m now around the same age that you were when we met…’ And I realise how deep it is to share that kind of time with someone, to share memories that cover so many stages of being alive. It makes me think about what the phrase ‘keep in touch’ means…

The league of red-shoe-wearers who unofficially gathered on the decking at the BBQ: may we all still meet in red shoes and share our news in 20 years time.

Liz, Ruth, Gemma and my grandparents.

My friends who knit caused quite a stir amongst some of the older party guests who began to reminisce about the things they used to make and who were extremely impressed by all the sticks, string and chatter going on around the knitting table. I really enjoyed my Gran - who taught me to knit many years ago - sitting at the table with us and seeing for herself the immeasurable richness that her efforts have given me in my life. Really, some of my very deepest and most beautiful friendships are growing out of knitting. I love all the time that gets worked into all the stitches, the things we share when we knit, and the creativity that goes with the craft. Sian’s mother gave me some of the patterns she meant to knit back in the ’80s which was awesome as well; all adding more family history to the knitting pile.

Liz gave me the most amazing giant knitting needles with which to create giant knitted items and I also got a skein of Malibrigo sock yarn from Kirsty in the lettuce colourway, which is a very beautiful, luscious green and which needs to become some kind of extraordinary birthday sock. My brother Ned and his wondrous partner (and happily soon-to-be-sister-in-law) got me a gorgeous necklace made from buttons.

Ned shows his mastery of burger-biting.

My brothers bought their customary joy to the party. Teg was the king of the BBQ, enthusiastically explaining how he had marinaded the chicken in cinzano, garlic, honey and lemon and that sausages BBQ best if boiled beforehand. The sausages were indeed amazing, as was the chicken and everything else that Teg had been organising for the weeks leading up to the party. Ned provided loads of entertainment for all the youngsters and proved that he still has the biggest beefburger appetite of us all, competing with cousin Denis for the title in the beefburger munching championships that they unofficially organised between themselves. When not eating burgers Ned spent a lot of the afternoon entertaining the youngsters with swingball.

Mary, Fergus and Carol.

Fergus wasn’t initially able to make the party as he couldn’t get leave from the boat that he works on, but at some point in the afternoon we had the idea that we could ‘include’ him in the festivities via the powers of photography and a really amazing rap that he wrote for my birthday a few years ago. He was there for the vital cake-cutting moment and his rap bought some pretty tears of joy and big loud belly laughs to the gathered crowd.

Fergus helping to cut the cake.

Fergus at the decks.

Fergus drinking in a blue dress.

Fergus trying out life as a member of the league of red-shoe-wearers.

Fergus dancing at the party.

etc.

And the Irish contingent - Iz, Caro and Sharon - although not able to make it in person, transmuted their joyousness to the whole event via telepathy and the powers of Cheese. When Sharon turned 30 she had an extended, cheese-themed party of wondrousness and she showed me The Way of The Cheese. I was reminded that this is the true path when some truly smelly and awesome cheese of great deliciousness arrived by mail for me on the morning of The Big Day.

The day was also massively helped by having The Right Clothes. Thanks so much to the wondrous ladies at Prick Your Finger for helping me to organise myself enough to pick up these natty trousers in time for The Big Day.

Thanks, in fact, to everyone. I am so very lucky for all the love I get and I try not to forget ever how beautiful it is to be alive or how amazing it is to have family and friends. They say you spend your twenties finding yourself, but I think I spent my twenties finding my peoples.

Thanks for coming and for making my day so special, and thanks, too, to all those people who drop by and read this; you’re part of the party too xxx

In the same weekend that involved the fishing trip, I also met with knitters at the First and Last Pub in Pembroke Dock, where I knew - courtesy of Brenda Dayne’s magnificent podcast - that people were gathering for some WWKIPD action*.

It was great to meet Angie, Elizabeth, Angela and Andrew and to enjoy the specific blend of knitting inspiration, sunshine and beer on offer. I was very excited to see today that Andrew has uploaded the pink handspun pinwheel cardigan he was working on to his flickr; I am intrigued by the construction of the pinwheel cardigan and am contemplating making one myself. And I was reminded - by Angela’s drop-spindling - of my own green handspinning endeavour, which is quietly waiting in a tin for me to finish the podcast series and get back to it. I hope that Elizabeth’s rainbow sock story has a happy ending (she lost the first one in the recycling) and that Angela’s mum makes a full and speedy recovery. It is always very rich, meeting with new knitters. I think it is rich meeting with new people generally, but the knitting is a door-opener; you can get straight to the stories with knitting and I was grateful to be included in the last hour or so of the WWKIPD at the First and Last pub in Pembroke Dock.

The project I was working on during that sunny day is now finished, ravelled here. I’m not really sure what I think of it; it’s somewhere between a stole and a scarf and reminds me of the dresses Queen Elizabeth I wore with its golden lustre and rich blues. It may be altogether too gaudy?

Upsettingly, when I blocked it, some dye ran out of the golden lurex thread and stained the white stuff in the colourwork a sort of nicotine-esque shade of ick, which I am quite gutted about. It doesn’t really show in the photos, but I know it’s there, and it’s annoying. It’s definitely a synthetics-friendly dye, since the angora and the silk are both totally unaffected, whereas the polyamide white baby stuff is stained! Also, the running dye didn’t stain my hands. Any ideas what might remove it?

The scarf came about because I saw these colours together in my stash, and they are all oddballs, and I thought ‘I’d like to play with these.’

They reminded me of the colours in the joyous jumper I made a while back; all golden fields and radiant blue skies and I thought a matching scarf would be amazing. I initially cast on and began a version of the My so called scarf pattern, but I really wasn’t enjoying the way the blue angora and the gold sari silk were looking together, plus the sari silk doesn’t have much stretch in it for the so called scarf stitch pattern and it was not a pleasant experience trying to knit it. So I ripped that out and started experimenting with other things and I realised the sari silk really needs to be knit on massive needles, to get a big drape and to not be tuggged about too much. Moss stitch wouldn’t s–t–r–e–t–c–h out with the weight in the same way stockinette would, plus the little bumps give a nice detail in the texture, even knit large. So I went for moss stitch in the sari-silk and little gold borders between that and the colourwork sections. I knit all the ends in as I went along, since I hate weaving in ends, and I picked up and knit a border all the way around to stabilise the scarf. That took forever! I gave up trying to count how many stitches but it was taking me over an hour to get around it each time at the end and I did the cast off in stages.

So it was a good exercise in playing/experimenting/adventuring, but only time will tell if I will actually ever wear such a thing. Does anyone have any suggestions of what sort of outfit this excessive stole/scarf could become a part of? An ensemble that it may just complete? I’m really not sure that pairing it with my red dotty shirt is helping me to appreciate its true potential, as an accessory.

*Thanks Liz for texting me the specifics when I remembered halfway to Wales that it may be possible to do some public knitting afterall!

…she’ll eat for a day. Teach her how to fish and she’ll live forever.

Barnacles and mussels: an amazing sound, a tiny fizzing, popping noise as all the miniscule creatures breathe and open.

An island off the coast of Pembrokeshire, where baddies undoubtedly live. Spotted from the good ship Jenny B. Roar of boat engine and surf.

Fish I caught myself, just off the coast of Tenby. Info here. Flapping noise of fish goes quickly quiet, reels make a smooth, clicking noise as they spin round, weight on the line. Sticky fingers.

Mackerel.

Fire for cooking mackerel, fizzpop of damp in logs vapourising, small hiss of steam, pops and crackles of wood. Good smell.

Now the full blaze has died down and the charcoals are consistently hot through, 7 minutes each side. Hissing drip fizzing, juices spill out of the packages onto the earth.

Perfectly cooked, white and firm and succulent and delicious, tasting of the sea where it came from. Big thanks, little fishies. Big thanks too, to the deeply loved person who made sure that one of the things I wanted to get done before I turn 30, (catch and eat my own dinner) actually happened.

ETA: It’s not actually called baddie island, but St Catherine’s Island.

On Friday just as I was wrapping up the week’s work, I noticed that Episode 81 of Brenda Dayne’s fabulous podcast - Cast On - was up. I am more than a little bit thrilled to be included in this episode, as Brenda Dayne is a personal hero for me in terms of the craft of podcasting. The Missability Radio Show, The Fantastical Reality Radio Show and The Domestic Soundscape Cut and Splice series have all - though radically different from Cast On - been helped along by my listening to Brenda Dayne’s Cast On, because her content is always well organised, the audio quality is consistently good, and her series are coherent, thoughtful and expansive. I love the DIY ethos of Cast On, and the sense of creativity and exploration that attend the podcast.

When I first started out listening to Cast On maybe at the very start of 2007 or so, I was unfamiliar with the whole podcast format; I wasn’t sure what I thought about the chatty, cosy tone of the show, and I had reservations about what I perceived as a slightly indulgent exploration of personal-growth and creativity in Cast On. But if there’s one thing more exciting than a project you uncritically embrace and love from your first encounter, it’s a project that actually changes your mind, and as I’ve gradually become a devoted listener, Cast On has definitely caused me to revise my first impressions and to learn about what a podcast does and is, and I’m grateful for that.

The show is cosy. But in the late hours of listening, I’ve realised this cosiness is no bad thing. It’s a cosiness with generosity, with warmth and guts, a cosiness, you might say, that’s real. The difficult emotional realities of losing a beloved friend and many other very human life-events and issues have made their way into Cast On over the years. Real feelings and worries enter Cast On, frankly and thoughtfully addressed between well-researched and edited knitting content and I have come to admire the heartfelt quality of the podcast, its honesty and humanity. I also think there’s something very generous about the way that knitting is contextualised in Cast On by the backdrop of Brenda’s real life, real relationships and real concerns. There’s a skill in striking the right balance between personal address/themed content, and I think Brenda Dayne does a superb job of this. I also think the personal/knitting approach is the perfect route for a knitting podcast to take since the very nature of a local Stitch and Bitch group - and the thing I love about knitting circles generally - is precisely the way that intimate confessions and practical considerations blend together in a no-nonsense mix. I love the way that when knitters meet, the conversations veer between massive life-stuff topics like having or not having children or getting or not getting married, to discussing different approaches to sock-construction. In knitting circles, gigantic announcements drop in to chats between distracted row-counting or the admiration for a lovely colourway, and I think Brenda Dayne reflects this social space of knitting beautifully in her podcast.

And re: the reflections on creativity, the longevity of Cast On and the sheer effort that its making involves mean that - far from being indulgent musings - the questions Brenda Dayne asks along the way are increasingly important ones about meaning, creativity and making. They are questions that all makers struggle with at some point and I have a lot of respect for the public conversation that Brenda has with her listenership and the genuinely engaged way that she reads through feedback and comments and addresses listener concerns and remarks. I have also come to admire her ongoing discussion of the economics of making a free podcast, since the question of money is one that everyone who wants to be a full time creative practitioner has to consider at some point, and it’s one that not everyone is brave enough to address.

So I’ve evolved into a fully-blown fan of Cast On. I think the skillful weaving of personal/political/knitting content together into long, uninterrupted shows of consistent quality is a triumph in podcasting and I am very glad that Brenda takes the time to write, research, make and create Cast On. So last week on a day when I’d vowed not to do any speaking on account of my throat/voice being totally wrecked from all my own podcasting, I instantly revoked the vow in order to answer Brenda’s email requesting a reading for Episode 81. It was an honour to be asked and I look forward very much to hearing the rest of this series, with its timely focus on make-do-and-mend.

Thanks Brenda!

This weekend the views out of my windows have mostly been of grey skies and the swishing sound in the traffic tone tells me the roads are wet with rain so I’ve been busy at home, trying to make sunshine indoors.

This has involved burning loads of lemon and maychang oils in the newly hoovered and tidied living area, listening to loads of summery music, dyeing yarn and boring underwear fantastic shades of jubilant Orange after I found some tins of Dylon dye discounted to 99p each in a hardware shop, casting on an exciting new knitting project and feasting on tropical fare.

I may have mentioned before that my neighbourhood is a haven for Indian, West-Indian, Polish and Middle-Eastern fare? Where I live at the moment reminds me strongly of the early part of my childhood which was spent in Thornton Heath. I absolutely love the local shops and don’t buy much food anywhere else since I moved here. This weekend, in order to combat the rain-induced malaise and to fortify myself for the week ahead, I made Saltfish and Ackee, Jamaica’s National Dish, using ingredients purchased on my street. I can’t recommend Ainsley Harriott’s recipe highly enough; the cornmeal muffins are amazing with the Saltfish and Ackee. Ackee is related to the lychee and the soft, yellow fruits that you buy in tins in this country come from the inner sanctums of a giant big fruiting pod that grows on the tree. Much of this pod is inedible, but the fleshy yellow arils that are exposed when the pod splits open are delicious once properly prepared. They have a sort of scrambled-egg like texture and taste really rich and creamy. Contrasted with the peppers, chillies, tomatoes, garlic and onion that go into the mix, the ackees makes the dish sweet and nurturing. The salted fish, once soaked, skinned, boiled, de-boned and flaked, keeps its shape much better than my rubbish photo portrays and the whole ensemble is delicious and nurturing. After having chilli burns all over my fingers for days after my Scotch Bonnet Pepper debacle last time I made Curry Goat I decided to keep it light with the chilli this time, opting for just half of a comparitively mild birds eye chilli in place of the hard stuff.

I have also been making my Ultimate Sunshine Indoors Spotify Playlist which I think you can hear here if you use spotify: Spotify Playlist Link I am loving Spotify and all the music I can hear through it. How have I only just discovered The Herbaliser and The Quantic Soul Orchestra? How have I only just discovered the Quincy Jones back catalogue? And also - just as relevantly - why isn’t The Original Nuttah on Spotify?

In knitting news, I have become obsessed with the idea of marmalade-themed knitting projects and colourwork. After I saw this combination of green, beige, cream and deep orange in an unruly and gorgeous garden near here I have been able to think of nothing but some intricate colourwork that incorporates all these colours. But for now, it’s on the back-boiler and I’m just warming up with some other colourwork.

I tell you, it’s an obsession. This photo… these colours… what to knit from them?

Not feeling brave enough to attempt stranded colourwork, I am trying out some slip-stitch ideas on a stash-busting and uncharacteristically ornate knitting project that uses up some miscellaneous baby wool in white, some yellow sari silk, a small amount of pale blue angora and some gold lurex which I’ve discovered is the slippiest thing in the world. The idea is to make a scarf with sections of heavy, drapey silk, punctuated by detailed sections of pretty colourwork and golden details. Like this.

Re: aforementioned marmalade obsession, this is some yarn I’m dyeing. It’s in a second bath at the moment but before it went in for some semi-solid Seville treatment, this is how it was looking:

After the amazing Saltfish and Ackee feast, I had fried plantains. To make this I just slice a ripe but still firm plantain into large pieces then fry these in a very small amount of olive oil over medium/low heat. Then, on a plate, I sprinkle a couple of pinches of salt and about 1 tbsp of sugar and mix it up. Then I roll the plantains in the salty-sweet mix when they come out of the frying pan and I eat them.

In other colourful, joyous news, now that my friend Ruth has a blog and has already had her birthday, I can both point you in her direction and blog the yarn that I dyed for her. Ruth has a thing about pink and it was a pleasure to put together these complimentary-colour cats-eye buttons and mixed pinks yarn colourway for her. I called the colourway Tearose as I - naturally - used some tea in the dye to allay super fluorescence in the colourway.

I think it’s become my signature idea with dyeing: Use Tea. I can’t explain the attraction beyond the obvious which is that I love teapots and all things tea. The other day I rather fortuitously found this on the street. It has been washed in vinegar and is awaiting its transformation into jewellry.

I hope you all have found some summery loveliness this weekend either outside or inside.

Today I personally delivered the completed Gansey/Guernsey of Carolyn Rawlinson to Prick Your Finger, in order that it get to The Jerwood Space in time for the Contemporary Makers Exhibition that Rachael’s UFO Project Administration Service is going to be shown in.

Rachael made me take a photo of the rough bit on my finger where knitting all this tough wool has worn a little dent:

Then I made Rachael take a photo of me waggling my arms about in the finished sweater looking pleased with myself for having steeked and completed the two large sleeves:

Then the Art Van and the Art Van Men came and packed up all the FOs that are going to be part of the exhibition. Here are some FOs - formerly UFOs - being taken off by one of The Art Van Men.

Rachael was worried they wouldn’t be able to fit the giant map showing all the UFOs and FOs on it on tiny pins into their van, but the Art Van Men were more than able to deal with this tricky task and the map went in, and we were assured it would be fine. If you look carefully, you can see the Sweater on a pin in Reading!

I have loved working on this piece and all the things I have learned about knitting - and about Carolyn - whilst making it.

Rachael has put together a large book with information in it on all the knitters and their projects involved in the show. I’m not sure how this is going to be displayed yet, but I was really touched to see that my entire write-up of the sweater will be presented along with the work, so that everyone will know the background of this piece.

Thanks to Rachael for organising a project like this where we can all share our stories and work on each others’ projects!

Does anyone remember this? It’s a massive Gansey/Guernsey (could someone more knowledgeable than I please advise re: the correct garment terminology?) that I gained via the marvellous UFO Project Administration Service, set up by Rachael Matthews and due to exhibit from 10th June to 19th July in The Jerwood Space as part of The Contemporary Makers’ Exhibition.

Carolyn Rawlinson’s Sweater

The sweater - when I received it - came with a little bit of a moth issue, about 2/3 of one sleeve and 1/6 of the other, a strange assortment of mismatched needles, and a completed body knit entirely in the round. Add to this the intimidating prospect of steeking the armholes and the fact that the project formely belonged to Carolyn Rawlinson, - co-founder of The Wool Clip, and instigator of Woolfest - and you’ll see that this was a pretty serious sweater. This was a sweater with history; a sweater with technique; a sweater with context; a sweater with presence.

I struggled a little bit with figuring out how best to finish the work and how to do it justice. I didn’t know Carolyn personally, (though I gained a little insight as to the kind of person she was by reading the appreciation of her linked on the Woolfest homepage, and by reading through her own account of The Story of Woolfest) but I got the distinct impression we would have enjoyed hanging out together, and this prompted my decision to stain the unknit skeins of wool in the project bag with tea. This was the only sort of representation of my relationship to Carolyn that I could think up; afterall, if you want to get to know someone, you drink tea with them. I also boiled the main body of the garment in order to eliminate The Deathly Moth from it.

Then I dried the skeins and wound them on Rachael’s ball-winder, and I dried the body of the sweater, which - through its own weight, when wet - grew disproportionately in length. The tight fabric of Carolyn’s knitting relaxed also, but the fabric is still solid and firm, oweing to the no-nonsense characteristics of the Philosopher’s Yarn that I believe it to be knit with.

Then the sweater sort of hung around my bedsit looking accusingly at me and I tried various things with the sleeves, picking up and knitting on, then ripping out until I eventually got something close to Carolyn’s gauge. Then of course I was absorbed in making the podcast and I found all the counting of those diamond things in the pattern wasn’t really offering the mindless release from editing that I needed. And then the deadline for getting it finished started to come in, thick and fast, as time will when you are in a hurry and don’t have enough hours in the day.

So I resumed it, with a determination that surprised even me, and commenced to knit like the wind (to use Brenda Dayne’s phrase) on those sleeves. And that’s when I really started to think about who this Sweater once belonged to and whose project it was.

The yarn is sticky and scratchy; you wouldn’t wear it next to your bare skin. And it has tiny little bits of straw in it, and smells faintly of sheep. But I love this yarn, and I love the sweater it’s becoming. It’s the sort of sweater you would wear over some other layers on a bitterly cold but sunshiney winter day, and it would keep out the wind and give you a sort of armour against the elements. Working on the sleeves I began to marvel at the way the wool attaches itself to itself, its short, bouncy fibres easily entwining and staying neatly in their loops once knit. It’s rough, waxy texture running through my hands made a slight shucking sound as it went around and around the clickety needles, and the sleeve in my lap began to feel a little awkward, a little heavy. But the more I knit on, the more I began to find a wild, earthy comfort emanating from this project. I began to picture the sweater hanging off the back of a chair, near a fire or an aga, steaming gently as snow or a bit of light rain dry off it. And I began to see the Wellington boots that would be worn with it, and the good, thick socks. Perhaps there is a fine shirt that goes underneath for hymn practise in a chilly church, and a pair of trousers with a deep pocket for scissors, measuring tape, and a needlekit. I saw the sweater being chosen on fine days in March when it’s too hot for a coat but too cold for just a shirt. Saw the sweater being taken off its hanger, or out of its drawer, or off the back of its chair, or from the hook on the backdoor, and thrown on again and again, year after year, enduring abuse and time in the way that only a certain, hardy kind of wool can.

When it came to time for the steeking, I was less afraid than I initially had been. This is a sticky yarn, a strong yarn, a yarn designed to keep things together, a yarn you can depend on in a storm, a yarn from sheep who live in harsh, mountainous conditions. So by the time I had finished the first sleeve, my confidence in its suitability for steeking had grown considerably. I read and re-read the stuff Cecelia very kindly copied for me on steeking, and then I visited See Euny Knit for further edification, then I commenced with The Steeking.

I went with crochet reinforcement as there was really no way of getting this through my sewing machine and I couldn’t see how sewing it would be as good - in this case - as a sturdy line of crochet stitches. I believe I was actually meant to do the crochet lines of reinforcement closer together, so that only the purl bump* of each central knit stitch (the part you cut) would be left between the reinforcement lines, but I decided that cutting in between those stitches in the middle would mean there while was a little bit of frayed knitting on each side, there would be no loss of structural integrity. Plus it was 3am and I didn’t want to have to rip it out and crochet it again.

Then I cut the central purl bump in the middle part of the steek, and I picked up stitches around the armhole to correspond to the number of stitches at the top of the sleeve.

Then, using 3-needle bind-off, I attached the sleeves to the body. Then I turned the sleeve inside out and carefully folded the steeked edges back on themselves, and whip-stitched along them, so the inside of my seam looks like this:

Then I admired my handiwork.

I am really, really pleased with the join, and with the subtle gradations in colour between my knitting and Carolyn’s. (It’s all that tea, you see.) The brightly-coloured crochet reinforcement was my way of putting some humour into this garment; it struck me that I don’t know a single knitter who would disapprove of this secret use of inappropriate colour, hidden away inside a seam that looks so neat from the outside.

So there’s a whole other sleeve to finish, and the neckhole band to complete, but I am loving working on this UFO. I feel I’ve been taken to a different knitting world, one of sturdiness, practicality, warmth, outdoor knitwear and thick, hardwearing fabrics. I would never have started a project like this of my own volition; I gravitate towards very different knitting experiences, yarns and approaches. But through working on this and picking up where Carolyn left off, I’ve found a new way of doing things, new techniques, a new sort of garment to strive and labour for, and new things about yarn and how it behaves that I didn’t understand before. So I feel like I’m really learning from this project and I think it’s befitting for someone like Carolyn - who did so much to share her knitting knowledge and enthusiasm in life - to leave a project like that behind.

I don’t know what will happen to the jumper at the end of the exhibition at the Jerwood, but I hope that one day it will get worn out on a long, blustery walk in bright sunshine through all the places where Carolyn liked to spin and chat and knit and work and play when she was alive, because this is a sweater that needs to be worn outdoors.