World Wide Knit in Public Day June 2017

Here we are at our 3rd WWKIP Day held once again in Yarns Coffee Halt at Theatre at The Mill, Mossley.  We held our WWKIP Day a week earlier than the official date because of holidays etc. among the group.  We had our WWKIP Day on Saturday 3rd June.

Our local Hookery Group were joined by some lovely ladies from
the Knitwits Group in Portstewart who went on to host their own WWKIP Day on Saturday 10th June on Portstewart Promenade. Thank you ladies for your support.   Maybe next year we'll travel
to the North Coast and join you for The WWKIP Day.

We also had some friends from Whitehead who joined us again this year. Thank you ladies. 

The staff at Yarns were very attentive as usual and thanks must go to the Duty Manager and to Heather in the coffee shop.  We had 36 folks who came along - women, men, adults and children, some who could knit and crochet and others who couldn't, some who were coming back for a second time and some who were new.

On the table in the photo above you can see some white pieces of work.  It was quite difficult to get a good picture of the white work.  One belongs to Catherine's great grandmother and was crocheted back in the late 1800s.  Catherine's grandmother worked in the local linen mills and she then attached the crocheted pieces to some linen.  The work is so detailed and one can't even begin to imagine the poor light that the ladies had to do the work and also the material is so white and clean.  Another couple of pieces belong to Helena's sister-in-law who crocheted collars and cuffs for Irish dancing tunics.  All of these pieces of work have Irish roses and shamrocks on them.

We decided on a floral theme this year and everyone pulled out all the stops to come up with unusual ideas for crocheted and knitted garments and other items on the theme of flowers.  The photos don't do justice to the work.

Ladder kindly loaned by Mags and the flowers and vines kindly donated by Judith, Niqi's mum.  Judith was tasked with crocheting 'just a few' while she was over on holidays a few weeks ago. 

  Doesn't Ermintrude look well?  This is one of the cows placed in public places around Northern Ireland.  This one is in The Civic Square at Mossley Mill.  Ermintrude's head was carefully measured to ensure a snug fit of her sun hat!

It was a warm day so Ermintrude didn't really need her blanket but there were a few very heavy showers of rain!

'THE Bernard' as it has become known was ceremoniously cast off on WWKLIP Day.  It had been cast on at last year's WWKIP Day.  

This is a very special little flower.  Maureen was teaching herself how to do this pattern when news came through about the Manchester Arena explosion.  After she had finished the flower Maureen decided to put a single pink button onto the flower to represent each of the 22 lives lost.  

 Some other flowers seen on the day.

On trend cacti ....  Have you noticed them everywhere in the shops, in flower shops, on clothes and in the home decor magazines?  Can you see the dinky red watering can tucked away in the background?  

Here's a cheeky little cacti man made by Chloe ....  And a bouquet of carnations made by me.

 The group are making a friendship blanket.  We have all made flowers according to a pattern from Crochet Now but have chosen our own two-tone colours.  Catherine has started joining them together and some of the rest of us will do some more of this.  It is our intention to raffle it off once completed.

 Meet the members of Hookery Group.  Elaine started to crochet in February and this is her first piece.  It's a labour-of-love blanket for her husband.  The Mayor came to pay us a visit too that day on one of his last official visits at the end of his term of office.

 Evelyn's smiley little happy flower, from an Attic24 pattern, resting against Niqi's Sunshine and Showers blanket.

Maureen's sunshine flower.

 We were lucky enough to have one of our Poppy Pieces on display for our WWKIP Day.  It generated lots of discussion from members of the public who were also using the coffee shop that day.

And so to rest ...

The year of the blanket

It all seems so long ago now when we talk about 2016 and yet we aren't quite at the end of January 2017.  How time flies!

Looking back over some photos, for our group 2016 appeared to be a 'year of the blanket'.  Many, many blankets were produced for babies, charity and for oursleves.

This got me thinking and the Chinese celebrate 'years' on a slightly different calendar to us and, on checking, 2016 was The Year of the Monkey and 2017 will be The Year of the Rooster.  So for a bit of a laugh and on the theme of 'the year of' I decided to look a bit further.

Those born under The Year of the Monkey are ambitious and adventurous, helpful and confident, love to talk and are sociable.  Monkeys are also thought of as being crafty and so are we although we hope it stems from a different definition of the word crafty!

People born under The Year of the Rooster are energetic, generous and hardworking, compassionate and talented, talkative and are happiest when they are surrounded by others.  They also make very loyal and devoted friends.

I think that these qualities just about sum up the Wednesday evening Hookery ladies, don't you?   The Hookery group is very talented as is evident by the vast array of crocheted and knitted goods they produce.  They are also very community aware and honour efforts and sacrifices made by others as was shown by their Poppy Project.  Many of us in and through the group have made, and also revived old, friendships.

It is the group's work with Pauline and John Tuff who are based in Tanzania which reveals their caring and passionate nature.  Each year for the past 4 years the ladies have sent out initially hand made blankets and and then wool and needles first to a leprosy village, Samaria, where the women were taught to knit with the wool and accessories.  Lately the blankets have gone to a children's home in Kazima, north of Taboro in Tanzania also run by Pauline and John.

I hope you enjoy looking at the colourful blankets below.  Apologies for the poor quality of some of the photos but a mobile phone was used to take the pictures in some cases.

For babies

  

For charity

For ourselves

A beautiful mermaid's tail

 

 

Sunny summer's days?

Well I don't know about you but I'm certainly not experiencing a great British Summer!  What has happened to our weather?  So far we've had six days of our family holiday on the North Coast and five of those have been days of rain!  Warm rain I might add - very sticky and close.  But at least it gives me a chance to hook .....  One friend had similar weather in June when caravanning in Dublin and Cork.  Some of my other hooking friends are in England for their holidays, hopefully experiencing just a little bit less rain than me.

I'm working on the Zooty Owl Seaside Winter Blanket CAL at the minute which is my token gesture to a British summer.  I have been very good by using up DK greens and blues from both my stash and my odds and ends box.  Confession - I did buy three 50g balls in shades of blue for highlighting purposes alongside what I already had in my stash, but I'll not publicise that too loudly!

The squares have been named after seaside areas in South Africa - Umzumbe, Ramsgate, Umtentweni, Margate and Scottburgh so far, with Port Shepstone being released on Friday 15th July.  Zelna, who IS Zooty Owl, seems to be doing about 7 different colour versions of the blankets and she has posted patterns for two different sizes, babyghan and afghan.  As you can see, I initially joined the squares with a contrast colour but then frogged and replaced it with the same mid-grey of the borders which makes the patterns in the squares stand out a bit more.

It's really good CAL and quite easy.  It's very interesting seeing the colours other ladies have been putting together and connecting with crocheters from South Africa to Scandinavia, Australia to America. This is week 6 which means we are half way through and we've seen some beautiful work.  I've been watching all the pics of other people's work and I'd really like to try the CAL in another colour scheme.

I have also taken one of the patterns for one of the  squares, Umtentweni, and have repeated it 6 times (in Aran) to make a cover for a large roll cushion.  I'm just ready to join the squares and come up with two circles for the ends.  I've bought some lovely large, chunky wooden buttons in Mullan's Fashions in Portstewart to use with it.

Looking ahead, I have two things to ask -

Firstly I hope you have all been remembering to take pics of your holiday WIPs? Lots of knitting or crochet in unusual places?  Who can take the most unusual pic?  The funniest?  Who can take the furthest from home pic?  We'll post them all at the end August.

Secondly would anyone be interested in going to the Ulster Folk and Transport Museum's craft day at Cultra on 11th September? It's a while since we've had a field trip.  Check the link and let me know what you think.

I had planned to head off this afternoon to a local wool shop to see if they had anything interesting in pinks/purples for my second version of the Seaside Winter Blanket afghan.  Instead I went back to Mullan's and bought wool for the Liquorice Allsorts afghan in Crochet Now, issue 3......