HRYC

While we're anxiously anticipating new stock (Ashford Tekapo and Malabrigo of all kinds!) I thought i'd take a moment to share a few snaps from my Easter weekend away. 

It isn't often I get the chance to escape to the family bach in Arthur's Pass - but it is always a joy to be there. Arthur's Pass is a village in the middle of the middle of the South Island, between Christchurch and Greymouth. It holds a lifetime of memories and lots of little crafty details. I find myself looking around and wondering if we should put in thermal backed curtains, or buy new frying pans. But the perfection that is the family bach is in its imperfection. Everything is worn, or old, or has been made to fulfill a purpose. Old fabrics will do for cushions, worn out cutlery is all you need for dinner here. 

It is a place where you don't need much, just some craft and a book and some good food. Grandma* made the crochet blankets (she says it's a good rest for hands when they're tired from knitting), and there's a spare Ashford Traveller wheel that I finally decided to make friends with. I can now say that I can spin on a wheel, one of those goals i've had for a long time but needed the quiet isolation to focus and get on with it.

How was your Easter weekend? Did you have any craft goals that you wanted to achieve? I hope it was restful and relaxing!

*yes, Grandma is Margaret Stove, but it feels a bit weird name-dropping when she is Grandma to me. 

 The second session of Crochet Blanket Addicts (anonymous) is tomorrow. Already! So soon!

Since the last session, our addicts have been busy. There has been talk of spreadsheets to plan colour arrangements, obsessive pinning of finished circles and squares and hexagons. I've also been witness to some very tricky colour decisions.

I, too, have turned into a crazy crocheter. The lack of large knitting project on any of my needles means that some serious work has been done on my granny stripe blanket.

From small beginnings

to

a selection of grey, blue and green tones

to

obsessive colour planning

to

wanting to work on it so desperately I took it to the pub

and now

it has seriously grown.

Crochet Blanket Addicts (anonymous) meet in the shop once a month to blabber with delight over hooking blankets. If you want to join us - please do! This month it is on Saturday 23 March (tomorrow at the time of posting) from 11am - 1pm. 

Hooray!

 For a long time my knitting ambition was to destroy stereotypes around the craft. To demonstrate that it wasn't simply for old people. That knitting is a pursuit for everyone, that the patterns are no longer awful and the yarn no longer scratchy. Knitting is a meditative pursuit that brings many great joy.

In line with this ambition, I want to prove that knitting isn't the exclusive domain of women. It's not. I know a bunch of men who knit. No, they aren't all gay. I've heard stories of husbands who took up knitting to deal with the stress of PhD study; men who spun yarn for their wives to knit up into jerseys. Men were the original master knitters - as with artists, carpenters and weavers, knitting used to be an industry populated by professional men and governed by a guild system. 

So. The challenge is on - is it possible to destroy another stereotype? Are men 'man enough' to knit? 

To be honest, i'm extremely skeptical. They say 'build it and they will come' - but will they? Is the average New Zealand man ready to pick up sticks and string and make fabric? Ready to accept that knitting is a craft for everyone? 

Man Made is a series of 6 sessions, covering all the basics (and then some) of knitting. Taught by Mike Dickison - a man knitter, ukulele player and bird expert. There will be craft beer. And finger food. And the tools you need will be supplied.

Prove me wrong. As much as I want to be optimistic and think we can get this series fully subscribed, I doubt it. I don't think men are up to it. I don't believe the average man has the balls to help prove that gender associations with knitting are a load of rubbish.

Here's the details anyway:

And to make it easy for you, it's possible to book online. No scary day time shop trip necessary.

Hello!

We do save blogging for the longer groups of words we have to say and think about and share with you. But Holland Road can be found in all different corners of the internet. To make it easy for you to find us, here's a quick round up:

Facebook!

Ravelry!

Pinterest!

Twitter!

instagram!

and....Flickr!

Wow. That is quite a few places. Pick and choose where you'd like to get your Holland Road Yarn Co info - we share love between them all. Because the internet needs more knitting (and cats).

Below is the first in a series from a person many will call crazy. I do. When Awilda first messaged me, I thought 'Awilda, YOU CRAZY!'. But i'm all for crazy and ridiculous plans, so how could I turn her down? As our discussions progressed, we agreed that this absurd project needed to be shared with the world. 

Here you are: the first in a series on Awilda's epic project.

 It all started with an act of kindness—a group of friends and I were putting together an auction to raise money for a friend who was having a hard time around Christmas. I have always enjoyed making things for other people, so I decided the best thing I could offer for the auction was myself as a knitter for hire: the winner could chose any pattern they’d like, and I would make it for them. The winner chose the Doctor Who TARDIS Afghan, a colourwork blanket of epic proportions. It was a bit intimidating, but I do love a challenge, so I enthusiastically agreed to take it on. Not make it—take it on.

I had a pattern, a recipient, and unlimited time… all I needed was the yarn. The pattern calls for worsted weight yarn to make a bed-sized afghan. My recipient didn’t want something that big and heavy, and if I was going to spend half my life knitting something, I wanted to do it in a yarn I love. Something that would stand up to months of being carried around in my bag and life as a well-loved and well-used blanket, and still remain as bright and gorgeous as it was in the skein. 

For me there was only one choice—I would make it out of Knitsch. The sockweight size would allow for a more manageable lap blanket size, and allow me to make it out of a yarn I love. After some excited Ravelry messaging with Tash, we decided on a colour palette and how much yarn would be needed to take on the TARDIS blanket: Five colours (Tennant, Silver Lining, Pencarrow, Dark Side, and two skeins of undyed base for white), 40 skeins, 6680 meters. 

The afghan is 569 rows of pattern; I’m currently on row 45, and that’s not even to the base of the TARDIS yet. That doesn’t start until row 87. The only change to the pattern I’ve made is adding a 10-stitch seed stitch border to the edge, to give it a bit of texture and keep it from rolling. So far, the only real difficulty has been keeping the balls from tangling, which I have been successfully managing by separation: I leave one ball in the project bag and putting the other in a yarn bowl. We’ll see how well that continues to work when I’ve got five going at once!