Liskeard Show

yesterday was our annual, local agricultural show. For the 2nd year in a row our local knitting group, Liskeard Knit & Natter, had a stall.

Last year we were outside in a small tent and got very cold and wet as it rained non-stop all day. this year we were inside the craft tent. Our aim was to publisice our knitting group and knititng in general. But we did have a sales table

 so that any of our members who sell things could promote themselves. I took a few baskets of yarn

 but wasn't really expecting to see much and I didn't. We had chairs at the front of our stall were we had knitters knitting and nattering all day. My pics were taken before the show opened so that's why it's quiet. We were actually quite busy and got to share what we do with lots of people.

We also had lots of things on display, mainly things made by Hella (our leader and machine knitting expert), Tina Barrett (well-known British designer who designs for several British magazines, and me.

Let's take a closer look at our displays. Here are Golitha Falls surrounded by some of my socks:

Sophia and Midnight Stole:

Snow Queen surrounded by some of Hella's machine knitted swatches:

this table shows a selection of Tina's designs and keen readers of British knitting mags may recognise several items here:

Blossom:

And here's a selection of Hella's machine knitted baby wear:

More of Hella's amazing machine knitted items.

Hella is my machine knitting mentor and such an inspiration. and she'd brought her machine

and spent most of the day showing interested people how it worked, including one of our members, Eileen.

Hella also showed me how to knit fair isle, plaiting and weaving on the macine. I tried to practive last night before I went to bed but it went all horribly wrong and I was too tired, so I gave up. Maybe I'll try again this afternoon.

Tina's husband has been making a selection of spinning accessories including some beautiful spindles and knitting needles. You can find it all on Spin Out's website. You can see Tina's website for details of her books though.

You can see tina's books here too.

Hella made us enter an item into the knitting competition in the domectic tent.

this boosted the knitting class and we got a note from the judge to compliment us all on the big class. And guess who won 1st prize?  I did for the original version of the Midnight Stole.

 I've no idea how the judge can judge such a varied class. All the items there were amazing and as we were all different skill levels, they were a challenge for those who'd knitted them. 2nd prize went to someone not from our group and Hella got 3rd prize for her amazing cashmere machine knitted cardigan using the plaiting technique and reverse stockign stitch.

Plaiting is an amaizng technique were you use on colour on teh front of the fabric and one on the back. One the purl side of the fabric you get stripes like on the cardigan above and on the knit side you get a subtle effect with the colour showing through from the wrong side like on Hella's other cashmere cardigan which won 2nd prize in teh 'gift for a family member' category. Hella also had an amzing plaited jacket on display on our stall but I forgot to take a pic of it.

Eileen entered this category too with her amazing teapot cozy using blue and cream which is used in a popular Cornish pottery line. Look at the cute little teapot on the top of the cozy.

Tina entered a gorgoeus, cute little baby cardigan but because it had a ribbon it wans't eligible to be judged. there was a note left from the judge to say baby items shouldn't have ribbons or strings.

Frances knitted this amazing, beautiful angora rabbit and got highly commended.

All in all it was a successful and fun day and we certainly made our mark on the show. By the way, anyoen curious about what my 1st prize was? I won't £1. yes that's a whole British £1. Not going to make me rich but it was fun.

don't forget the sock yarn sale continues. go and get your bargain.