2020 in pictures and knitting.

There is a sharp dividing line separating the early, pre Covid part of the year from March onwards and lockdown. I started the year with various commissions; patterns and text to finish for a new knitting book, ‘Moors and Mills’, commissions to paint the sheep that made the wool that started the book, paintings of Armley mills where much of the historical research for the book was done. I also had commissions to paint York Gate Gardens in winter to complement the series of summer paintings I did for them. I had plans and lists and schedules mapped out for the whole year. Then the Covid lockdown happened. My paintings, when I had the chance to do any between plant deliveries, were about weekend walks with flasks of coffee and forgetting everything on uplifting runs. There have been Spring walks to local haunts then summer walks at the coast. My run paintings, mainly of Ilkley Moor, try to capture moments of sunshine, warm breeze and pure joy. My knitting was for relaxation, something I’d not enjoyed, for many months – a much needed Pegasus jumper for myself, endless characterful (ie. Less than perfectly symmetrical ) stuffed toys and a Godzilla jumper for my sister in law. I can see that being a top selling pattern for ladies around the world when I get round to publishing it!

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Growing Vegetables in Isolation.

It’s no surprise that I’m a massive proponent of gardening for physical and mental health. Fresh air and exercise is a cliché but there’s no arguing with the science that proves it. Growing your own food adds another dimension entirely to these benefits.
Home grown vegetables, especially organically grown, are 20 – 40% more nutritious than
supermarket, non organic veg. The antioxidant count is higher, the time from picking to eating is so much shorter, the vegetables don’t have time to deteriorate. Not only that, they always taste better.

At a time, when our health and that of our families is so much at the forefront of our minds, there’s never been a better time to start. Here are a few tips to newbies to veg growing and those with limited space, based on the FAQ’s that have recently been filling my inbox.

EASY TO GROW:

• Swiss chard (perpetual spinach/leaf beet) is really versatile and you can harvest a
  few leaves at a time all season.
• Kale is one of the most nutritionally dense foods available and is basically a loose leaved cabbage so again, you can pick off leaves all year.
• Cut and come again lettuce is also a long cropper.
• Beans of any kind can produce meal after meal .
• Beetroot is another superfood with numerous health benefits that’s easy to grow. Beans of any kind are usually prolific croppers and easy.

SPACE SAVERS:

If you only have a small garden, or even just a patio or balcony, there’s still ways to
grow your own. In a small garden, slot in the occasional veg plant among flowers or shrubs. Scarlet kale, Ruby chard or frilly lettuce are all as pretty as flowering plants. Grow things vertically on a support structure like a bamboo cane or wigwam. As well as climbing beans, there are courgette varieties that suit training. Certain varieties are bred specifically for containers such as trailing tomatoes or dwarf beans and peas, but regular strawberry varieties will happily grow in a hanging basket, and most leafy green veg will be happy in a big pot. Even potatoes can be grown in an old compost bag or big tub.

You might not consider yourself a gardener, but I urge you to give it a go! That first bite of a sweet, home grown cherry tomato and you will be hooked!

Greenscapes Nursery is still open and providing a local delivery service.
If you live near the Nursery (Leeds LS17 9JH) but are self isolating, get in touch and I will deliver plants to your doorstep. That includes veg plants, herbs, bedding and perennials.
If you are shopping for a neighbour who is self isolating, I can box up plants for you to collect and drop off to your neighbour.

Silver linings to the current COVID 19 situation.

I am facing a real challenge to my usual glass-half-full outlook on life during these unnerving and uncertain times. Part of me feels guilty and glib even trying to see a lighter side to things but, if nothing else, the pandemic has made me realise that we don’t know what the future holds for any of us, so more now than ever is a time to live in the moment and appreciate any little thing we can.

For me, it has been a rare treat to have time to spend in my own garden in Spring. Usually I am so snowed under with Nursery propagation, teaching and design commitments that my feet barely touch the ground from March to June. This week though, I’ve had time to get out in the sunshine and enjoy a bit of weeding and to marvel at the change of season. Perennials are emerging in a burst of new growth, a truly uplifting sight full of hope. The sunshine, the fresh air, the exercise and colour of the garden are a welcome distraction. I have already made the decision to keep the Nursery open, even if it comes to a self service situation with no contact with other people. I feel that because it’s a large, outdoor space, it doesn’t pose any danger of close contact with other people.

Already, I have had customers come in just to look around as a welcome change of scenery or to buy veg because growing your own food has never been more pertinent. For those who don’t have a garden and are isolating, I would encourage you to do something else creative. Try painting, drawing or crafting. I’ve had to cancel my weekly art classes but have started online whatsapp groups to keep in contact and to make use of enforced time at home for creative pursuits. It’s about making the best of a dire situation. We all feel anxious about ourselves and our families but by focusing on something positive in the here and now, and supporting each other as best we can, it is more bearable. The glass is at least a bit half-fuller!

Falling off the wagon.

My name is Ruth and I’m a yarn buying addict. That’s how I’ll have to introduce myself when I find a help group for this specific addiction. This is not social buying. I can’t get one ball and walk away. No, this is hardcore.

This week I received a huge bag of lovely wool from Doulton Border Leicester Yarns plus a parcel from Unique Yarns co, both for commissions to design and knit projects for them. It’s very nice to feel in demand, but the list of knitting and pattern writing stretching out in front of me, as well as my existing yarn mountain waiting to be transformed into Christmas presents, is making me a little stressed.

The antidote? Retail therapy in a local charity shop buying, you’ve guessed it, yarn. I’m not sure where it all came from but there were crates and baskets full of individual balls plus packs and packs of mohair. How many warm, but slightly scratchy jumpers do I need? Apparently about 20 or more. 

Maybe I could knit it all then felt it into a new shed to store my wool.

Intarsia – the work of the Devil!

For the uninitiated, intarsia is used when you want to knit large areas of different colours or multiple colours in each row. This is different to Fairisle/stranded colour work, where there are only ever two colours used at a time. I love Fairisle, I love the design challenges it offers, I love the orderliness if it and the structure to it. Intarsia, on the other hand, requires multiple mini balls of wool (bobbins) to be hanging from your work all at once.

Foolishly, I decided it was time to confront my aversion to intarsia and designed a woven look checked scarf knitted across ways on a long circular needle. I neatly wound the 11 bobbins required to travel vertically over the working colours onto cardboard inners with little slits into which to lodge the yarn and stop it unravelling. What could go wrong? I was already mentally chastising myself for avoiding intarsia projects for so long as I cast on and looked forward to a nice relaxing evening of scarf knitting.

It was only a matter of minutes before I found it intensely annoying to have 11 balls of wool dangling and bobbing around as I worked. The jiggling also loosened my yarn from their cardboard bobbins and it wasn’t long before working yarn was tangled into bobbin yarn and the springy circular needle. It got even worse when I stood up to make a calming cup of tea and the whole messy web of yarn somehow followed me across the room. My entire, vast and varied vocabulary of expletives were used on a continuous loop of enraged muttering. Watch this space to see whether I take the shears
to the whole miserable mess, or whether I refuse to be beaten and finish it!

Keeping it real at Yarndale

I’m pleased to say that I’ve finished my Horticultural Hats pattern book and published it on Ravelry. Time for a rest and some stash busting projects for myself. At least, that’s what I thought as I was knitting the last one. As it happened though, it was exactly then that I met Ellie from Doulton Border Leicester who was in need of a couple of patterns designing. A couple of patterns soon turned into plans for a pattern book, open days, workshops, meet the sheep days and a full range of patterns centred around the super star of the flock, Sam the Ram Lamb. My goal was to get two jumpers and a couple of accessories done for Yarndale this weekend. That done, I knitted a couple of Sam the Ram Lamb Christmas decorations to make Ellie chuckle.

Whilst knitting the under side of one of them, I thought it would be a good idea to use my Aran bobble making skills to good use for anatomical correctness for the sire of numerous prize lambs.

Fast forward to Yarndale where I joined the Doulton team for a couple of hours as the new in house designer. I had my best professional game face on, a pocket full of business cards and was giving my serious designer advice to anyone who would listen. What I hadn’t reckoned on though, was Ellie having customers in stitches by not only proudly displaying knitted Sam the Ram lamb’s Crown Jewels, but crediting me for their creation.

That’s one of my jumpers on the Doulton Border Leicester stand at Yarndale.

My orange jumper in the background.

Near disaster typos.

I have recently finished my ebook of 8 hat patterns, ‘Horticultural Hats’. Once I’ve written the pattern, I have to upload each one individually to Ravelry and then add the link to the book. It really felt that I was nearing the finish line as I typed a few notes about each one onto Ravelry. I think in that moment of euphoria my concentration must have lapsed because I made a couple of typos, both of which involved me quickly deactivating the pattern, desperately try to remember how to change a pattern once it’s live and then re-activating them.

The first one was brought to my attention (and horror) by an observant Ravelry reader. On my Lavender growing hat, I’d meant to wax lyrical about Lavender’s moth-repelling properties. Instead, I’d typed ‘mother-repelling’. I had an instant mental image of myself waving a bunch of Lavender at my Mother like some crazed witch shooing her out of the house. The second one, on my Fuchsia hat was even worse. I planned to say how these hats combined my passion for plants with my knitting design. Instead, I typed, ‘these hats combine my passion for pants with my knitting design’. Instant mental image of wearing my underwear on my head. That was the speediest re-edit seen on Ravelry!

All my patterns are published on Ravelry. Check out my page here.

Mindfulness and Mind Fullness

Mindfulness is such a brilliant premise – staying in the moment, focussing on the now, not dwelling on the past or the future. I’ve been trying to achieve this for a long time. Twenty years of yoga classes and mindful meditation in an attempt to still my chattering mind. Success rate? Poor to truly dreadful and I blame knitting. For example, on a Monday morning I plan my week including what designs I want to do and what knitting I want to work on. Then I go to yoga class and whilst we are beginning with relaxation and bringing our minds into the now, an idea pops into my head for a hat design. One idea always leads to another and before I know it, I have half a dozen ideas spinning around my head, and with no means of putting them onto paper, I start devising ways to remember 6 different ideas. By this time, we’re maybe in pose like warrior two. Or rather, the rest of the class is in warrior two and I’m still in tadasana composing a poem that incorporates 6 different design motifs just so I remember them until the end of class.

I’d like to say that I wrote this mindfully with total concentration, but it’s taken me way, way longer than a few lines should because of this shipment of 4ply from Doulton Border Leicester yarn just waiting to be transformed into numerous colourful creations, all of which are vying for a place in aforementioned, not-remotely-focussed or in the moment mind.

Doulton Border Leicester yarn

If you’d like to see some of those patterns that dance around in my head whilst at yoga, check out my Ravelry page here.

Etsy logo. Courtesy of Etsy.

Little Things

I have gone miniature this last week. After my holiday I set my art students a project on working on a small scale. Half the size of a postcard was their maximum limit – the size I’d used in my holiday sketch book. I worked alongside them during parts of the lessons and found myself getting addicted to the instant gratification of completing a painting in ten minutes or so. Soon, I was reducing the size in half again. And again. The final series of pictures were approximately 15mm x 8mm. “This is the way forward!” I proclaimed to my Friday group. “I’m going to specialise as a doll’s house original artist and make my fortune! I’ll soon be a millionaire”. As usual, most of the class didn’t look up from their paintings, but one student kindly student patted my arm and said very gently, “That might be a bit of a niche market Ruth. You might not make as much as you hope”

Undeterred, I have seen the wisdom of knitting little things. I recently finished a commission for Knit Now magazine of a Baby Aran jacket. Despite the fact I’ve had to knit it in a rather dubious yellow ochre rather than the grey I planned, I love how it is so little! Sleeves done in a couple of hours! Seams 15cm instead of 50! I need to keep things in perspective though. I’m wondering if this little knitted teddy and doll are a step too far…