Eshop update this evening, Thursday 4th May at 8pm Edinburgh time.  There will be a selection of over twenty bags: small, medium and large project bags; and a couple of bucket bags.

Well, that’s the Edinburgh Yarn Festival over now! And, what a wild Woolly occasion! Sold out of all our Shetland wool bags; and all our bags with handles!

So, a huge thank you to everyone who stopped by the Woolly Originals’ stand.  It was wonderful to meet up and chat to so many amazing knitters, crocheters, crafters and yarn shop owners; and meet in person the prize winner of the “Guess the Weight of the Bag” competition! 

Also, a huge thank you to Jo and Mica of EYF for organising another fantastic creative community event.  Finally, a big thank you to my two assistants, Jo and Fu for helping me prepare and run the Woolly stand. Love you both!

Hoping to restock my e-shop next week! Details will be announced in advance. Meantime, happy crafting!

I’m delighted to be attending the Edinburgh Yarn Festival as a vendor this year. I shall be at stand C1 in the main exhibition hall. I’ll be selling a range of my bags including: small project bags; DPN bags; project bags with individual skein holders; and two of my Joan Eardley inspired bucket bags. 

The fabric of my bags is machine knit on my vintage knitting machine using either: wools spun at Knit Rennie in Aberdeenshire; or 1-ply Shetland wool from Jamieson’s of Scotland. My bags are lined with linen or cotton fabrics from Scottish Linen in Kirkcaldy, Fife.

If you’re coming along to the Festival, please come and say hello and show me what you’ve bought, what you’re knitting, or what you’re planning! See you there!

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Knit Rennie Wool Bags

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Jamieson’s of Shetland Wool Bags

One of my favourite trees is the Scots pine, botanically known as Pinus sylvestris. This native conifer can be found across Scotland, and in particular throughout Glen Affric to the west of Loch Ness in the Highlands. The photos below were taken over Easter 2013, on our last family holiday to Glen Affric. Our first family visit was in 1999, and we’ve returned on more than seven occasions!

When I came to design a new pattern for my bag fabric, the Scots pine immediately came to mind. Once I had drawn up a design using my knitter’s graph paper notebook from Rowan Morrison, I started swatching. Eight pattern revisions later, I was finally happy with the design which features both mature trees and saplings! 
   

The woolly fabric is machine knit using beautiful 1-ply Shetland wool from Jamieson’s of Shetland. The first bags using this design, and lined with linen fabrics from Scottish Linen in Fife, will be for sale at the Edinburgh Yarn Festival in March 2017.  

Being an avid handknitter, I decided to design and make a bag with handles that was large enough to hold, for example, a jumper or cardigan project. On 5th June 2015 I made my first small bag with the intention of sizing up rapidly. Twenty months later, I am finally happy with my design; I don’t like to rush these things!

The bag’s outer fabric is machine knit on my vintage Knitmaster.  The lining and handles  of the bag are made out of linen from Scottish Linen in Fife.  I wanted the bag to be able to hold separately two skeins of yarn. After seven design revisions, I finally produced the skein holder I desired! It is also made from linen and is elasticated at the top to keep the skein secure.  Each of the two holders per bag are attached inside the project bag by a button/buttonholed system. This means that they can be easily removed, and also washed if needed. 

The project bag is wide enough to fit a Woolly Originals’ tool case or small project bag alongside the skein holders. The knitting or crochet project itself can be placed on top when not being worked.  

The photos below show a bag in Woolly Originals’ Nordic Rose pattern.  The first batch of these projects bags in Nordic Rose, Scottish Wildflowers and Bandit Brioche designs will be for sale in March 2017 at the Edinburgh Yarn Festival.  They will then be for sale in my e-shop by late March. 

Copyright of Woolly Originals, 7th March 2017

So, confession time. I knit a brioche cowl this week using my friend Fu’s beautiful alpaca/Jacob sheep yarn known as the Bearford Flock. Hours after posting a photo of the cowl on Instagram, I put on a load of washing at 40 degrees. Unbeknown to me, I’d also scooped up my cowl that was drying on the floor beside my laundry basket! It came out of the wash approximately half the size and heavily felted! I was horrified: firstly at wrecking the cowl; and secondly at mistreating my friend’s gorgeous yarn from her equally gorgeous animals that she tends with love every single day!

So, what could I do? Well, I started knitting a second cowl straight away with the leftover yarn, and thought about what to do with the now unwearable one. A bag! I’d make a bag! And, that’s just what I’ve done. I decided not to cut the cowl but use it as a single piece for the exterior of my new bag.  To line the bag, I carefully measured and designed an insert. I had the perfect material for this: the dark grey Burel woollen fabric I’d bought in Lisbon last November. So, here are a few photos of the whole process, and the finished result!  I’m delighted with the bag which I’m going to treasure! And Fu, I’m so sorry!!!