Camp, eat, knit, love

Enjoying every blessing of the recent days when the weather remembered it was summer, this yurt was our home for the past week, courtesy of Secret Cloud House Holidays. While there were admittedly some challenges (anyone tried to get small children to sleep before ten at night when the light is still streaming through the canvas walls?), we nonetheless had a wonderful time, cooking food on barbecue or woodburner like this:

In addition to exploring the nearby Peak District, there was more than a little of this:

Those of a tender disposition please excuse the rather exposing, not to mention unflattering angle! But you get the picture. While I had daylight (solar powered fairy lights and headtorches do not make for happy knitting, so it was early nights and early starts) this was very much a knit-working holiday.

My main intention for the week was a whole heap of swatching, using the little pile of loveliness above, which included two weights of Fyberpates Scrumptious and three shades of Eden Cottage Bowland DK. Here’s the resulting stack of idea-sparkers:

As you can see, I’m in a very textured place just now. This in itself isn’t unusual, but lace rather than cabling or knit/purl based patterns is less familiar territory for me. I particularly like the way lace patterns show off the lustre of silk blend yarns like the Scrumptious, and while some silk yarns set my teeth on edge, I love both the feel and look of this and Manos Silk Blend.

Also on my ‘to-do’ list was a whole heap of sketching for submissions- it’s funny to be dreaming up ideas for what people might want to make in January and February when your sketchbooks is sitting on your bare legs and the sun makes it almost too bright to work on white paper, but that’s just how it works. Another wintry job was finishing up my Holla Knits Accessories sample- which is all done bar the finishing touches. More on these soon.