So I finished my wool quilt, named it “Moth Buffet”, drafted up the brief statement needed, re-read all the directions one last time, and sent in my entry with fingers X.
One of the entry requirements is that what’s visible on each side of the quilt must be at least 60% wool. I was pretty sure that by making the hanging sleeve out of the black coat fabric (70% wool) ensures the back side complies, but to be quite certain I added a couple of ~15cm black patches to the larger red (50%wool) sections. It’s an unusual layout for me, I know – but remember, both black and red fabrics came from unpicking two old wool coats, and the back is patched together from the most useful of what I had left.
It was quite fun to do, and I felt a bit naughty to be chopping into knitted woollen fabric. In my first post on this project I considered the role of wool in my background and why the mentality of “… but I don’t work with wool” had to be conquered.
When I was given those knitted samples, my first reaction was to unravel some of one and crochet or knit some elements to use on the work. However, my arthritic hands and lack of practice these last 30+ years soon made it obvious that approach would be needless torture. My needles these days are large hand sewing or machine ones, depending on the task at hand, and so I took a deep breath and cut into one knitted sample. The results were so exciting, the fabric unravelled beautifully, and there was no going back.
Unravelling this sample to knit, I abandoned that idea after just a few rows – but found the yarn easily separated out into 6 fine strands, and those turned out to be marvellous to stitch with.
English
Fascinated by this finished piece. I’m 70 now and have been knitting for over 60 years. I knit a bit every day, even when my “mojo” is low. I am blessed with good hands — no arthritis (yet). Would be happy to knit something for you to use if you do something similar in future. Just let me know.
I only just saw this comment, Margaret- thanks for the kind offer, but as we’re at opposite ends of the earth and despite I like the idea of knitting for others, I’d suggest you might do well to find some closer recipients 🙂 I know several people here, down in Montevideo Uruguay, who organise knitters and yarn to get together for community projects – one organises people to knit layette sets for young mostly very poor mothers who have their babies in one of the large hospitals here, and another organises people to knit 9inch plain squares that other people join up for rugs for poor elderly people, wheelchair bound etc.. The knitting samples I was given were an unexpected result from the call I put out that I was looking for woollen fabric – though of course, it is fabric. My first instinct was to unravel and re-knit or crochet, and though I hadn’t knitted anything for years, and ditto crochet, both of which I’d been good at, I could have persevered and made some pieces to use in the same way I used what I eventually cut from a couple of the samples. However, that also wasn’t as obviously ‘recycling’ or ‘repurposing’ – that could have been done with newly purchased wool, too! Anyway, I had ben going to hand on to one of the knitting organiser friends what I didn’t use – but now I think I’ll hang on to them and think about the next wool quilt entry in 2 years’ time. Thankz for commenting – cheers