Saturday 27 October 2018

Shetland Wool Week 2018: Day 10: More about Knitting


More about knitting: Tues Sept 18

Tuesday, so Victoria’s Tea Room would be open, so we would visit. We drove round to some different birdwatching places, where hopefully I would be able
to have some more lace knitting time and make real progress with the shawl.
We fitted one in before the coffee and delicious cake break at Victoria’s. I sat by Balatasound post office and spent time taking in the view, it was misty and quite atmospheric and for the record took another photo, to me the view is just as beautiful if it is misty or even wet. 


The mist  mist rose and fell and it was all wonderfully atmospheric with some lovely reflections.




The first bird report of the day: 
"Having got Janet settled with her knitting in the van at Baltasound shop/PO I walked up to Halligarth Woodland.  It is the most Northerly wood in Britain and was planted in the 1840s by Dr Laurence Edmondson, a keen naturalist who wanted to study the birds that he knew would come as the wood grew.  It was very quiet on this particular morning but finally a warbler did appear in the canopy.  It seemed determined to keep out if view but I eventually decided it was a Wood Warbler."


I called at the Heritage Centre again and noticed a shawl, quite a large one for sale. It had been placed second in the Highland Show, so a very nice one. It was priced at £600. This made me think about pricing such exquisite pieces, to me it seemed not enough. How did I come to that decision- the Dunella shawl I am knitting, is not my design. I will not sell it but if I wanted to sell a shawl it would be my design, so add in the time of designing it and knitting a trial run. But let us do a calculation for the shawl I am doing. I complete 10 rows an hour, and that is without any time allowed for ‘taking out’ mistakes....so the shawl is 652 rows in total. If I divide that by  I0 get 65. Now even at £10 an hour and I would say this is not beginner knitting, more like advanced but this makes £650. The shawl I saw is as an estimate at least double that size. So to say these fine lace shawls are priceless is to me nearer the mark.. Would it ‘make more’ presented as a fine art piece of textile art, probably but the challenge is to tap into the right market. But us ‘lace addicts’ do it mainly because fine lace knitting is what we do.

We drove up to Norwick beach and Michael walked to Valyie, this is what he noted in the second bird report of the day: 

“Norwick beach and surroundings are wonderful places to be at almost any time of year.  The beach had Ringed Plover, Sanderling and Redshank on this morning.  A walk along to Valiye produced a Shetland Wren which was keen to make itself known and in the garden I spotted, Willow Warbler, Blackcap and possibly, a Spotted Flycatcher.  How wonderful was that!” 

I continued to knit and have managed 22 rows. I need to keep up this rate, or preferably increase it as I am beginning to visualise myself wearing the scarf! 

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