Purpose

It's my first post of 2017 and my word of the year for 2017 is 'purpose'.

I chose a word for 2016 and that was 'kindness' - you can read about my word choice here. 

As I wrote when I chose my word last year, New Year resolutions are often broken a few days into January but a word is just a word.  I'm not making a promise to anyone or saying I'll do anything spectacular.  I'm just creating a focus for the things I choose to make and, who knows, perhaps for my life in a wider sense.

So, what about my word for 2016?  How did I incorporate kindness into my crafting and what happened as a result?

I contributed two crocheted squares to this Kindness Blanket Project I saw on Instagram.  The predominantly blue blanket was being created by Sarah-Louise Roberts to raffle in aid of Mind, the mental health charity, and her colour choice reflected the charity's logo.  Sarah-Louise received enough squares following her Instagram appeal to make two blankets, one of which is pictured above, and the raffle raised an excellent £604 for Mind when it was drawn in May.

I knitted a few hats to give away to different causes.  Two premature baby hats went to the Special Care Baby Unit at Raigmore Hospital in Inverness following an appeal by Louise on her Caithness Craft Collective Podcast and which I handed in at Edinburgh Yarn Festival in March.  The pink hat went into my Christmas gift shoebox for Romania, an initiative undertaken every year by my local church.  I made a couple of hats for fishermen, the black and maroon ones pictured above, to send to The Mission to Seafarers but will wait til I've made a few more before I send them off.

I crocheted a sheep for the Yarndale Wooly Sheep Project after reading about it on Lucy's Attic24 blog. Yarndale is an annual fibre festival held in Yorkshire each September.  This creative community project in 2016 saw all 700 of the donated knitted and crocheted sheep from 32 countries being sold in aid of Martin House Children's Hospice and raising over £3100.  Each sheep received was documented and recorded on a set of Pinterest boards here and I was able to find my wee sheep amongst them in the top row of this board.  Hope someone is loving owning her!

I donated these knitted mice to Battersea Dogs and Cats Home as toys for cats awaiting rehoming and received a lovely letter of thanks from Joe at Supporter Services.

My final make for charity in 2016 was a hot water bottle cover for Knitaid following an appeal by Helen of the Curious Handmade podcast.  She released a free pattern so that covers and bottles could be sent to Knitaid as part of their consignment of warm knitted goods to help refugees in Greece.

I'm also counting gifts I made for others as part of my 2016 personal kindness project.  I made and gifted these three crocheted shawls.  I wrote about the Thousand Kisses Shawl (pictured left) here and the Fortune's Shawlette in the middle, here.

And here's a round-up of all the other knitted items I made and gave as gifts this year.  A few of the hats and neck cosies appeared here in my previous blog post as I knitted them for Christmas.

The big picture shows a hat I knitted for my friend Vicki and she's wearing it in the wee black and white photo.  Her hat is made from Wool/silk from the Dye Ninja that I purchased at Edinburgh Yarn Festival and is gloriously soft.  I also love the pattern Koru by Truly Myrtle who, like Vicki, is from New Zealand.  Designer Libby (aka Truly Myrtle) says 'The lace and cable panel is reminiscent of New Zealand’s baby ferns, delicate and gently uncurling.' 

Finally, I made a wee hedgehog for my brother-in-law... because... he likes hedgehogs.

And if that isn't a kind thing to do, then what is?

Past Presents - Future?

The calendar indicates that I'm about to become another year older and that Christmas is only six weeks away.  In the last 12 months, I've been the grateful recipient of several gifts for both my birthday and at Christmas that would quicken the heart of any yarn lover.

I wanted to share what had become of these presents, not least because I hope that my generous family and friends will see that gifting yarn gives great pleasure to me, the maker - and perhaps also to others.

My friend, Caroline, gave me a knitting kit for my birthday from her local flock, Strathearn Fleece and Fibre, which comprised their own yarn dyed in this vibrant pink, chunky wooden circular needles and the pattern to make this hat.  Some chilly days here lately were just right for a cosy knitting session.

The hat was a quick, fun knit but not in a style which suited me - so I gifted it by placing it in my Christmas shoe box bound for Romania.  There's still half a ball of lovely pink woolliness left for me to incorporate into another project too.

I've never joined a yarn club before so was delighted when my husband gave me a three month subscription to the Ripplescrafts "Yarn Notes from Assynt" yarn club as a surprise last Christmas.  Independent yarn dyer, Helen Lockhart, is based in Lochinver in Assynt, a beautiful and remote part of the North West Highlands of Scotland.  I was fortunate to meet Helen and attend one of her knitting retreats there in 2015.

I received a skein of yarn in January, February and March.  I really enjoyed finding a surprise package each month in my mail box.  The colours in each skein were inspired by a photo taken by yarn dyer extraordinaire, Helen, and each was accompanied by an essay written about the inspirational location by her husband, Stevan, a knowledgeable local historian.

I completed a pair of plain socks from January's turquoise wool inspired by the picture of "winter on the road to Assynt".  My second pair, the Evergreen Socks are in progress with February's inspired skein "scots pines by moonlight" and the pattern features a tree design along the cuff.  The final very colourful yarn, inspired by "Loch Borralan", is just waiting for the right pattern to pop up on the internet!

Prior to Christmas last year I signed up for a yarn swap organised by The Golden Skein.  We had to send 100g of hand dyed sock wool, a decoration and a treat.  Here's what I received  from my swap partner - the vibrant sock wool she chose for me by Edinburgh's Ginger Twist Studio rejoices in the name "Gorblimey".

I was able to team this with yet another Christmas present, this time from my sister-in-law.  She and my brother visited Orkney on holiday and she bought me some jolly North Ronaldsay wool from The Little Orkney Dyeshed.  Together they made a great combination for Fair Isle fingerless mitts which I just love and wear a lot!

Also in my stocking last year was some beautiful Canadian Koigu merino-silk yarn, a present from my knitting buddy, Alison.  As I've travelled up and down to London a couple of times lately, I chose to knit these ankle socks on the seven hour train journey.

So far I've shared all shared my knitting triumphs with you from these recent gifts - successfully completed projects and works in progress with realistic possibilities of becoming finished objects.  In the interests of balance, I feel it's only right to acknowledge that not everything goes according to plan every time.

Last birthday my daughter, Eilidh, chose this moody Rusty Ferret skein named 'Dark Beyond' at her local independent yarn store "Fluph" in Dundee.  Rusty Ferret is hand dyed by the shop owner who's renowned for her quirky style.

Though I started my chosen project, the Winter Wander Shawl by Helen of Curious Handmade with great gusto, and managed to insert beads as instructed with the tiny crochet hook, I'm going to have to liberate my beautiful wool and rip the whole thing out!  I made a basic rookie mistake and ran out of the contrasting yarn which has since been discontinued, ironically the only wool in this blog post I actually bought myself!

On the plus side, I'll have even more fun crafting another project from this lovely wool in 2017.

Little Creatures

I do like a bit of Talking Heads but I'm not sure that my little creatures are quite what David Byrne was singing about in 1985.  Recently I've knitted, crocheted and felted a variety of small 'critters' for a variety of reasons.  I'm happy to be able to include some of these in the personal  Kindness Project I've embarked upon this year in which I use my making to help others.

Meet Bo - the little sheep I've made for Yarndale, an annual wool festival in Skipton to be held this year on 24th and 25th September.  The 2016 festival's community project involves the creation of lots of crocheted and knitted sheep which are going be sold in aid of Martin House Children's Hospice. This pattern was created by inspirational crochet blogger Lucy at Attic24 and I found her pictorial step by step Wooly Sheep tutorial quite easy to follow.

I'd a major concern that my sheep looked more like Dobby, the house elf from the Harry Potter films, but my finished item looked just fine so I posted her off to join the Yarndale flock.

Each maker has to include her (or his) name and where the sheep was sent from so a list of 'shepherdesses' can be compiled.  I'm sure together they'll be a colourful spectacle, as at previous Yarndales, and I hope they raise lots of money for the hospice.

I'd made myself an owl keyring in February as a prototype for a possible crochet class project using this pattern  by Rachel who creates under the name Yarnartists.  She's generously shared her pattern and it's free.  Thanks Rachel!  Sadly my owl 'flew away' (ie got lost somehow) so I recently made another.

Such a quick and easy project which uses tiny amounts of leftover wool and the pretty heart buttons which come attached to the labels on my favourite White Stuff knitwear.

These knitted mice are off to London! I found this pattern for Mischievous Mice on the website for Battersea Dogs and Cats Home and decided to make some for the Battersea cats to play with while they wait for their new owners to come and take them home.

Here's my own cat, Marble, carrying out essential quality control checks.

It's a few years since my husband gave me this book and I'd never tackled a three dimensional needle felted project until my friend, Noelle, said she'd like to give it a try.  She really wanted to make a dog and I had the necessary equipment and materials so we spent a happy morning together chatting and making doggies!

Noelle was following a pictorial guide from her Woman's Weekly magazine and she made a super job of the brown and white dog on the left.  My 'Westie' was pretty sheep-like until I gave him a nose!

So with elf-like sheep and sheep-like dogs I may give little creatures a rest for a while and, same as Talking Heads, I think that's OK.

Fruitfulness

It's the jam season.  The trouble is - we don't eat that much jam in our house so I'm always on the lookout for alternative ways to enjoy the fruit we grow.  Whilst I'm partial to a little homemade jam on my pancakes...

...and perhaps on toasted fruit bread or a hot cross bun, I usually end up giving it away!  

However, I do enjoy making jams, jellies and chutneys.  There's something very satisfying about picking our fruit and preserving it to be enjoyed long after its season in the garden is over..

I love seeing rows of jewel coloured jars with their pretty labels.

I printed these myself after finding a lovely selection of free downloadables on this site for jar labels.  The ones I used were created by Yours-Is-The-Earth and The Elli Blog.  As well as blackcurrant jam and jelly, I've made several blackcurrant cakes, so tangy and moist using ground almonds instead of flour and lovely, plump berries.  I followed this recipe by Sarah Raven from a lovely book my Mum has.
Whilst the blackcurrant bushes were prolific, our strawberry crop was poor this year - too much rain I think - or possibly the plants are just getting old.  This photo is of last year's fruit!  Berries which maybe aren't as pretty but still taste fine are ideal for this cake.  It's called Fantasy Cake and I made a couple of these.

Let's not forget the rhubarb - I've been cropping our rhubarb since May.

I prefer to bake my rhubarb - it holds its shape better being baked in the oven rather than stewed on the hob - and I've made lots of rhubarb pie.  Pastry is not at the top of my list of kitchen triumphs so I'm not ashamed to admit that I use bought pastry cases - sweet for fruit pies and savoury for quiche.

We've just started eating the batch of rhubarb chutney I made a month ago.  Now chutney is something we really do enjoy.  I've also made some gooseberry chutney for the first time this year. Our gooseberry bush was only planted two years ago and produced little in its first year.  What a difference a year makes - gooseberries galore!

 This puree is in the freezer now in batches to be brought out and made into gooseberry fool at some future date.  I can also heartily recommend this gooseberry crumble cake - an excellent way to enjoy this often underrated fruit.  My recipe was taken from a well-thumbed 1980's recipe book by Katie Stewart but here's a Gooseberry Crumble Cake recipe by Nigel Slater which is pretty similar.

Really delicious!

Kindness

Last autumn I discovered knitting podcasts.  I like to listen as I make things and I got fed up with my regular radio shows and wanted something more than music or TV.  Crafting along to a podcast is like having a friend with me who is as enthusiastic about creating and fibre as I am!  I am now an avid listener and subscriber to several channels and have quite a few favourite podcasters.  I get so excited when I learn they have uploaded a new episode!  I love that I can listen when I have time to knit or crochet or felt or embroider....

At the beginning of 2016, instead of making resolutions, there seemed to be more of a trend amongst the creative podcast community to chose a word for the year.  Helen at Curious Handmade, Louise at KnitBritish and Jo at Shinybees are some of the folks who chose inspirational words for 2016.  I liked the idea of a special word as we all know how easy it is to break a resolution by January 3rd! The word I chose was 'kindness'.

My neighbour gave me this pretty wee handmade picture as a thank you gift a couple of weeks ago. She said when she saw it that she knew she was going to buy it for me.  I was so touched.  I was also delighted to see the word 'kindness' appearing in this unexpected way.

Last year I took part in my first crochet along (CAL) and made the Spice of Life Blanket by Sandra of the blog Cherryheart.  It was a lovely experience and I learned a lot of new stitches as well as having the discipline of the weekly CAL updates to keep me on track.  I always intended to give this blanket away and I sent it to the charity Woolly Hugs for its Christmas Charity auction.  

I loved the blanket but donated it as I already have a crochet blanket which spends most of its time folded over the chair in the bedroom!

Look!  There it is in the background.

So, in the spirit of my word for this year, I decided that I would use my crafting skills to make something each month and give it away.  A random act of kindness - but made of wool!

In January I started crocheting a shawl for a very lovely lady called Phyllis.  Each day when I am working she brings me a cup of tea.  She never asks - it just appears.  I am due to finish this job in June after 6 years so I am giving Phyllis this shawl as a thank you after she admired a similar one I was wearing.  Here it hers as a work in progress.

Through Instagram in February I learned about the 1000 Kind Minds Campaign which is raising money for Mind, the mental health charity.  A lovely lady called Sarah Louise Roberts is creating a crocheted blanket from donated squares which is then being auctioned.  I decided to make a couple of squares, in blue as she asked, and donate them to her project.  Tickets can be purchased here on Sarah Louise's Just Giving page.  They cost £2 each and she hopes to raise £10,000!  Here are my squares.

In March at Edinburgh Yarn Festival I handed over the premature baby hats which were requested by Louise of the Caithness Craft Collective Podcast and which she is donating to Raigmore Hospital Special Care Baby Unit in Inverness.  Here's the wee hats I made.

So now it's April and I have to decide what to make to give away this month.  As I've been using yarn I already have for all these projects so far, I think I'll go and take a look at what I've got in my wool stash.  This list  by the UK Hand Knitting Association is inspirational too.  I'll let you know what I decide!