March 2021

iinouiio talk

Yesterday we had a zoom talk from John Parkinson of iinouiio. This stands for It is not over until it is over. It was a great talk and he was an interesting and passionate speaker. Passionate about his business and determined to make it work. We also loved his Yorkshire accent! The business is a family business based in Yorkshire and they recycle used clothes into new fibre and yarn - also known as shoddy. He told us a little about the history of shoddy which has its origins about 200 years ago. At that time it was much cheaper to make shoddy cloth as they saved on the costs of new fibre and dyes. This is obviously where the meaning of the word shoddy originated, being thought of as inferior. Nowadays much of the cost of new cloth comes from the processing and it is considered environmentally friendly to use recycled materials - how things change! There's lots more about how the business has evolved and the products they sell on their website. One more thing to say - I love the names of their colours, eg Granny's Best Mash, Singing in the Blues, Daybreak in Dewsbury and lots more! The photo shows women sorting clothes a long time ago!

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Weaving talk on 10th April

Our next talk, again on Zoom will be about weaving, yarn wraps and tips for choosing colours, given by Sarah May Johnsonn. (Our meetings will continue on Zoom until July as far as we can plan anything at the moment) Sarah is a professional artist and freelance designer. She has some beautiful textile pieces on her website. The photo shows a handwoven sample in teal yarn and brass wire made by Sarah.

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My bit

This month I finished Katie Weston's workshop about Spinning for a Purpose. Its really helped me focus on the thickness of the yarn I'm spinning. I find that if I constantly check my yarn with a yarn guage as I am spinning it is much more consistent. I have almost finished my Christmas sweater _ photos next month - I've only undone parts of it about 3 times which is pretty good for me! Even though I knit samples before I start and measure them very carefully I still find that the tension is often not quite right on the actual garment so I have to rip out some of my knitting and do it again. I know there's no point in continuing on something I'm not totally happy with as I would never wear it.
Talking about garments that are not quite right, I'm still not totally happy about my fairisle shetland cardigan (last month's blog). The band wont lie flat even though I pinned it out very carefully while wet. I'm going to retry pinning it and if that doesn't work I might try sewing a ribbon inside.

I've also made my husband a fisherman's top in denim as its his birthday tomorrow. I might make myself one too in a different colour.

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