Pink and Green and a Comp

Posted by Sonia Knits in Sonia

Let me cast your memory back to this little surprise post where I was taken aback by the amazing dye job undertaken by some talented women for my birthday.
The fibre is BFL/Silk. The fibre itself was beautiful, but the colour made it all the more delicious to spin. Now I have to work out what to make it into. It’s saying ‘cowl’ or ‘mitts’ to me, any other ideas?


Announcing our first ever competition!

Become a follower to our blog and you’ll be entered into a draw to win a skein of my handspun! The fibre is IxChel’s Cashmere Fling! It was soooo soft to spin and even more delicious after it was washed. The content of Cashmere Fling is: Cashmere 5%, Tencel 40%, Glitz 40% and Bamboo 15%.

All current followers will be entered into the draw. Prize will be drawn August 19th.

As If We Never Said Goodbye…

Posted by knitickyboo in Jen

Sadly I left my darling Richmond Knitters this year to go and have adventures on the other side of the world. And I miss you all so much!

But last month a little piece of home came to visit me in the form of the travelling Sharon. We caught up and had a delicious breakfast at my favourite cafe before she headed off to see family in other parts of England and then on her and her other half’s return we saw the AMAZING production of Sweeny Todd that’s going on here. (Michael Ball and Imelda Staunton. DO IT if you’re in London!)

So Wednesday dawned quite lovely for the Summer we’ve been having here (England, you’re doing it wrong) and we met up for a late and lavish breakfast before heading out on our excellent adventure…

Even though she had lived in London before, we decided we would go on a yarn crawl. Like a pub crawl, but woolier and with less chance of a hangover. We started at a little shop that’s walking from me in North London called Nest. I realised on our way there that i’d actually walked past it before and not gone in! BAD knitter!

It’s a gorgeous little shop and they stock a lot of lovely (and reasonably priced!) yarn!

Sharon will have to jump in here and show you the goodies she bought, but she was very restrained! just one skein of laceweight!

A knitter in a yarn shop – far happier than a kid in a candy store!

From Nest we headed back towards central London and stopped in at my favourite, the incomparable Loop. Stupidly I forgot to take photos since i was totally distracted by the yarn and having a chat with Juju who is one of the resident designers there and a regular at the Thursday night knitting group . I try to go to that group, since they’re ALMOST as nice as my Richmond Girls (but not quite) but i keep getting to scheduled to work Thurs afternoons. Boo. So i chatted while we examined buttons and laceweight and fingering weight etc etc and Sharon exclaimed that there was a whole other floor… Good times…

Moving on, we were running short on time, but Liberty is a must, as much for the building itself as for the FULL collection of Rowan. Rowan may be problematic, but it is still so lovely and impressive to look at the full range in one place.

Just a BEAUTIFUL historical building.

Sharon also bought some buttons here whilst i snapped up my ONLY purchase for the day (so restrained!) which was some Cotton Glace on sale (£30 or so for 10). I’ve already started putting it to good use as a Petal Pullover.

There was one more compulsory stop before Sharon had to meet her hubby, so we crossed the river and popped into I Knit. For those who don’t know, it’s the worlds only licensed yarn store… yep, you can buy a beer while you shop for yarn – sounds like Sharon’s kind of place!

I Knit has a resident chihuahua, Pandora, who has recently acquired a little friend! I’ve forgotten his name in true distracted-by-the-yarn style, but he was SUPER cute and we both got lots of cuddles. he also thought my toes under my maxi dress were quite fun and the staff are working on making sure he knows yarn on bottom shelves is for customers, not him!

The shelves are a bit empty since all the in-store dyed yarn was on its way to wool-fest – which is where Sharon was also headed, so not TOO much of a loss.

We had so much fun, and it was wonderful to have a whole day to talk with another hard-core knitter – haven’t found any in my day to day life here yet. My Richmond girls started as a group to get together and share a hobby with, but honestly, the core group are amongst my best friends, and i miss that crafty clique!

And just to reinforce that bond i have with the Richmond crew, Sharon brought me a little present…

Now I can display my loyalty everywhere! Love you guys and MISS YOU!

Jen

Ta da!

Posted by Sonia Knits in Sonia

The moment has finally arrived. In recent weeks Tony’s scarf has been completed behind the scenes. Chris used her patented blocking technique on the scarf and I have to say, it looked like a million dollars!

Some gratuitous modeled photos:

Tonight was the night of the hand-over. Poor Tony didn’t know what hit him!

So here’s how it happened. Melanie called Tony over after he had delivered one of his amazing hot chocolate drinks. She began by saying how the Richmond Knitters had been coming to Kojo’s for over 2 and a half years.

CLICK (that was me taking a photo, I am my mother’s daughter, I didn’t want to miss a thing) Tony I think was rather unsure about what was about to happen…

And then Melanie did a wonderful job of presenting Tony with the scarf and also a Richmond Knitters mug.

Thank you Tony for taking care of the Richmond Knitters each Monday and for putting up with our requests for turning the music down and turning the lights up. We truly are lucky to have such an accommodating guy.

Richmond Knitter / Kojo burger

Posted by Melanie in Melanie and tagged with

The Richmond knitters have a great relationship with Tony,the owner of Kojo Browns, our knit night venue. Come rain or shine, every Monday we turn up and eat, drink and knit. So recently I cheekily suggested a recipe that I had made up for Australia day BBQ to add to the menu.  Tony and the chef were enthusiastic and agreed to put it on the menu. The recipe was for a burger and I like to serve as an open faced burger topped with Welsh Rarebit. He’s been serving it for 2 weeks now and Sonia suggested that it would be a good idea to share the recipe on this blog. So without further ado…

The Kojo Burger

1kg minced meat (I’ve done it with all beef and 50/50 beef/pork, both were good, Tony uses minced Wagyu)

1 onion finely chopped or blitzed in a food processor

1 beetroot, finely grated

1 carrot finely grated

1 egg whisked

1 generous tsp horseradish

a couple of sploshes of Worcestershire sauce

some finely chopped thyme and/or parsley

salt and pepper

Put all the ingredients in a bowl and squoosh up with your hands, there really isn’t a better way to amalgamate the ingredients.

Make evenly sized patties and then obviously you grill or fry them. You can serve them with whatever you like to serve your burgers with but I do love Welsh rarebit and only discovered the affinity by happy coincidence. One day there was no cheese in the fridge to top my burger because it had all been used up in the welsh rarebit. Luckily there was some welsh rarebit leftovers in the fridge.

To make Welsh Rarebit I generally follow a recipe from this book. An excellent read that I can highly recommend full of delicious recipes.

warm 100mls milk and 50 mls ale in a pan.

Melt 25g butter in another pan then add 25g plain flour to make a roux (like a béchamel sauce)

Whisk the milk and ale into the roux and continue whisking for a few minutes. The mixture should be thick and glossy and bubbling.

Then add an egg yolk, 150g grated strong flavoured cheese, a splosh of Worcestershire sauce (1-2 tsp) and about 1tsp-1tbsp mustard (any type English/Grain/Dijon) depending on how mustardy you like it. Put a generous dollop onto of your cooked burger and then put the topped burger under the grill until the rarebit is bubbling. Then serve your burger anyway you like.

Fun things

Posted by Sonia Knits in Sonia

My first CafePress order arrived this week in time for my birthday. I’m now fully kitted out, so there can be no mistake about which SnB I frequent. I got a variety of items, so that I could judge the quality of the items before / if anyone else chose to buy from the store. I also like stuff with my knitting group’s logo on it!

When placing my order for a gi-normous mug, my dear husband said wouldn’t you like two? So you can have one for home and one for work? I do love his thoughtfulness at these times.

I love this hoody, it is light-weight and comfy and could possibly come to the gym with me in the chilly mornings of winter we’ve got coming up.

I also teamed up the pink logo, with the pink 3/4 sleeved top. I hope you all like pink! You do have a choice of other colours in the sleeves, but the logo is currently the one pictured for this top.

My most favourite item of all I think is the tote bag (badges sold separately). It is a good heavyweight canvas, perfect for carting things to knit night!

If there’s an item you want to see in the store that’s not there, I’m taking special requests. Make sure you check out the sizing guidelines for each of the clothing items if you’re going for a T-shirt etc, the sizing might vary from the sizing you’re used to. I’m bringing these things to knit night tonight, if you want to check things out.

Knitting with Love

Posted by Susanne Haake in Susanne

There is a little bit of love in all we knit. We consider the recipient, choose the yarn and pattern with great thought, agonise over whether we have made the right choice and then stop periodically to reassess. The hours we spend gift knitting is an act of love in itself – for the craft, for the fibre and for the recipient. Knowing all that we have knit in the past, look at this amazing project. What an extraordinary gift and a real heirloom.

Not knitting but dyeing

Posted by teopea in Teopea and tagged with ,

Around the Richmond Knitters group any occasion is a crafting occasion.  Pretty much any excuse will do.  Someone’s getting married?  Group blanket.  Baby?  Definitely a blanket. It’s Monday?  Go on then, I’ll do a bit of knitting if you twist my arm…

This month, Sonia’s birthday proved to be an excellent excuse for a bit of surreptitious craftiness.  A throw away comment that she’d got a bit bored of spinning single colour tops and a knowledge of her love of pink and green led Melanie to hatch a Cunning Plan that involved spinning fibre and acid dyes.  As most of the pretty-much-communal Richmond dyeing kit was in my possession because I’d got a bit over excited about making blank skeins pretty colours recently, Melanie and Sharon came over to my place over the long weekend and we got dyeing.

Over the course of the afternoon, along with some other bits and pieces, we turned this batch of BFL and silk tops (pictured here somewhat damp after being soaked in water and white vinegar to start with):

Into a colourful plastic wrapped roll of pink and green:

At this point we had absolutely no idea how it was going to look when it dried out, but going on faith, we steamed it to set the colour, rinsed it out and let it dry and Melanie had plaited it up nicely for photos and presentation, and low and behold, it turned out we’d managed to produce this:

I’m a little stunned we managed to make something this pretty!  I was not convinced when we rinsed it because being wet makes it all rather flat and sad, but as it dried up and regained it’s lustre and bounce, it began to look absolutely gorgeous.

Sadly, I wasn’t at RichmondKnitters on Monday to give it to Sonia too as I was rather ickily ill on Monday night and decided not to go and spread it to the rest of the group.  But I’m reliably informed that she loved it which was the aim.  Cunning Plan accomplished.

I don’t know about you, but I’m really looking forward to seeing how it spins up now.

Happy Birthday Sonia!

Bendigo

Posted by Sonia Knits in Sonia

There, I’ve said it. Just the mention of the name of this regional Victorian town still ignites excitement in me five years on. I dwell on Bendigo like I dwell on Christmas or my ehm-hem, birthday.

For the uninitiated ‘Bendigo’, is the premier Sheep and Wool Show of the year. It’s the Aussie’s version of Rhinebeck (probably on a smaller scale, but I can’t be sure of that… I’ve never had a holiday based on a fibre festival… yet) The show is held in July at The Prince of Wales Showgrounds, Bendigo each year. For the fibre-obsessed, you really can’t miss it.

There are sheep, lots and lots. There is yarn, miles of it. Fibre, so much you can’t see for the fumes. It has everything, well most things (I’m trying to talk it up here). Despite all these amazing things, which should be reason enough to make you want to attend, my favourite things about the show, in order of bestestness.

1. The Storeholders/fibre farmers: They are passionate people, they are passionate about what you’re passionate about. And they want to talk to you, lots.

2. The Sheep Dog Trials: Call me juvenile, but I find these hil-ari-ous-ly funny and fascinating to watch at the same time.

3. The Storeholders (once again): This is me blissed out spinning on the Majacraft stand, whilst engaging with the maker of my future wheel. I could have stayed all day, and they wouldn’t have minded, not one bit.

4. Catching up with friends you don’t get to see all year round: With the yarn fumes this is really fun. You’re dizzy, happy and relaxed and the squeeing goes on and on (you have to be there to appreciate that).

5. The fibre and yarn is pretty good too. This goes without saying. I arrive on the first day each year, because I’m afraid the best stuff will go first. This isn’t necessarily true, just don’t come between me and the yarn/fibre I have my eye on…

So why am I telling you all this? It’s only April! Preparation, people, preparation! Which day/s are you going? Are you day-tripping, staying overnight or all weekend? What’s your budget? What are you looking out for?

Luckily this only happens once a year…

Why we knit

Posted by Susanne Haake in Susanne

I am thrilled that Sonia has the Richmond Knitters ‘stuff’ up on CafePress. I am slowly collecting a range of CafePress items but my favourite so far runs the tag line “iKnit so I don’t kill people’. I have this mug prominently placed on my desk at work and it gets a few nervous looks from students who wonder whether sitting down across my desk is really such a good idea. While I genuinely don’t have homicidal thoughts, knitting certainly helps keep my frustration with the universe (and people) at bay. There is something about the focus that knitting requires that means that you need to push every other little concern aside. So while it is true that I knit so I don’t kill people, I knit for many other reasons too, not the least of which is that it puts me in touch with the knitting sisterhood that is very special indeed.

The store is open

Posted by Sonia Knits in Sonia

I declare the Richmond Knitters CafePress store is now open!

A few of you have expressed interest in buying ‘Richmond Knitters’ stuff. I hope I’ve covered all of your needs! If not, make a note of product/colour/style etc and I’ll do my best to accommodate.

p.s. I’m not charging any mark-up on any of the items in the store, I’m not making a penny out of it and nor do I want to! I hope you enjoy 😉