After my Fiber East post, Probably Jane commented that, along with Nickerjac, she's part of a knitting group that meets at Stepney City Farm.   Jane mentioned that the farm has a large farmyard to run around in, toy tractors, great cake and kittens (real, actual kittens) , so I decided this would be a way of combining knitting and boys during a summer holiday morning.

The kittens were friendly and cute beyond words. We also fed sheep and patted donkeys, noshed bacon sandwiches and ate the chocolatiest-ever chocolate cake. The knitting group was the best bit though. Nic and Jane were so welcoming, helpful and chatty. 

I've done a lot more swatching than 'end product' knitting over the past year. Luckily I like swatching. Clara Parkes talks about swatching as 'taking your yarn for a walk' - not just as a means to check gauge, but as a way of getting to know it, to see if you're going to get along and where your yarn might best be employed. I've been 'taking my ideas for a walk' over the past year and it's been fun - sometimes frustrating, sometimes rewarding - and there's still more exploring to do.

So I've made very little this year, apart from a big pile of colour-clashing swatches.  As much as I've loved it, I've been itching to get an actual thing on my needles, some tangible proof of my efforts with contoured intarsia. 

A good knitting friend's thirtieth birthday gave me the opportunity, though a May birthday excluded anything too cosy and I decided on a bag.  She's a fellow cat-lover, so I wanted to incorporate a cat motif that I've been working on.

And I used a diamond pattern on the back:

There's a definite texture with contoured intarsia that isn't there with traditional intarsia.  I have to admit to blocking these with the quick and effective treatment of placing a wet tea-towel on the knitting and blasting it with a hot iron. The blocking works its magic, but the texture isn't completely tamed. I see it as part of the charm. 

What do you think? I have loads of ideas for what to do next, but I'm currently doing more swatching, with cotton this time, to see if I can persuade an inelastic, less forgiving fibre to work with this technique. I'm not convinced yet, but I'll keep trying because I have a summer top in my mind that won't go away.

Wendy x

It was my birthday last week. I felt like the luckiest girl in the world, not least because we had a party at Knit Night, with a delicious, flamboyant cake and prosecco. The girls wore badges professing their love for me.  I was very embarrassed and a little flattered, just as they'd planned. 

I was also given this:

My very own hand-knitted Muddy Sheep! And he is knitting!

Receiving any knitted gift is always wonderful for me. As a knitter I can imagine the trials and emotions invested in that gift:

I imagine the knitter's mind wandering as they knit, thinking what the recipient will say when they see it, and maybe chuckling inwardly at the thought.  

I imagine the apprehension the knitter feels that it might not look as good in reality as it does in their imagination.  
 
I imagine there's a good chance that the knitter underestimated the time it would take to complete - despite having underestimated many times in the past already (or is that just me?). So I imagine them cursing as they find themselves knitting at break-neck speed to get it finished in time. 

And finally I imagine the satisfaction when it's done: when that perfect button has been located, the mattress stitch has worked its magic again, and all the fiddly ends are sewn in.

I knew all that in my heart when I was given that gift, and now I've put it into words.  Thank you to all my Knit Night friends for a wonderful party. And for my Muddy Sheep, thank you Karen.

Wendy x