The knitting revival

Although we are now well into January I seem to have done no textile work at all since New Year. I am still considering whether I am going to do the CQGB Journal Quilts this year. I have done them every year since the project began (three years ago) and it has been great fun but a bit of me feels it would be nice to have a rest from deadlines. On the other hand deadlines are also spurs to action. I know I am not the only person who spends hours deciding on the subject and techniques. Actually making the quilt is often comparatively easy! So I am thinking that if I could come up with titles for all twelve quilts and an overall theme that I will stick to, life might be easier. I still have a couple of weeks in which to make up my mind and a couple of themes in mind so wait and see. Instead, what I have done this month is knit myself a thick pullover.

I haven't done any knitting for some years and I didn't even own any needles. I couldn't find a pullover to buy so in December I decided I would have to knit something. Knitting with three cats, two of whom are not quite a year old, is something of a challenge, however, and in the first three weeks I did about ten rows. I found a large zip up bag in which to keep it all but one of the cats is a wool 'thief' so when I left the bag open for a couple of minutes I came back to find my work in progress dragged halfway along the landing. Another day she got hold of one of the very large balls of wool and dragged it so that it all unravelled but suddenly the cats tired of eating the wool poking out of the bag and I managed to make the whole pullover in three weeks, aided by Aran weight wool and large needles not to mention six hour train journeys to London and back.

Yesterday afternoon I was in St Ives doing my monthly volunteering slot at Tate St Ives. It was a beautifully sunny afternoon and when I arrived the light was wonderful. By four o'clock when I finished the sun was rapidly sinking behind the hills at the top of the town. I walked down to the harbour. St Ives in January is wonderful because it is so empty as you can see from this photo of the harbour beach.

The boats that carry holiday makers round the bay in summer are pulled up on the pier for the winter. You would probably not normally notice the name on this one.

The town looks grey and cold at this time of year but this is part of its charm.

And there were more interesting photos of details that I could use for design.

The new exhibition at Tate St Ives is very good so I will do a separate posting on it during the coming week.