In Memory of Linda

On the Tuesday before I was due to travel to Woolfest, I got some bad news.

Linda, one of our fellow knitters from the Tuesday evening group who had been in hospital for a few weeks had passed away the previous Sunday. She had been dogged with recurring health problems but none of them life threatening so it came as a shock to many the swiftness of her passing. At 59, she was vivacious and full of life and whilst I didn't really know her outside of the knitting group, she will still be missed there.

Linda was a prodigious knitter, she knitted exquisite 4ply sweaters on circular needles that looked as neat as machine knitted stitches, we envied her talent whilst marvelling at the amount of time and trouble knitting such a garment. She had a great sense of humour and her love of all things yarny was well known as she seemed to pick up a new pack of yarn almost every week.

What was not so obvious at the time was quite how large her stash was.....

On visiting Linda in hospital, a fellow knitter, Caroline, who lived locally to her and had popped into her flat to bring her some yarn, commented on what she thought was Linda's stash (and the thought that she'd like to have sneaked a look!) and drawn a laugh from her. In a twist of fate, it was down to this selfsame knitter to sort through and otherwise dispose of Linda's stash on her death, a far more onerous task than anyone had originally anticipated. Linda's sister, having a lifetime of her sister's "hobby" wanted nothing to do with it.

The unpicking of someone's life is never a pleasant task, I can remember my own responses to helping clear my grandmother's (dad's mum) house, she had a huge room-wide fitted wardrobe crammed floor-to-ceiling with every concievable garment, shoes, slippers, even torn sheets and towels used as rags! It was my first experience of such and the mounds of clothes that had never been worn, the '80's black dress with the white peter pan collar that would never be worn again, it was all very sad, the sum total of her life.

Linda, too was a hoarder. Instead of clothes, she fell on her crafts like a lifeline. Aside from the original visible stash, many other hiding places were found. There were piles in each room, many many WIP's, some so near to completion that they will be going to their intended recipients, sweaters expected for birthdays and Christmas, huge varieties of oddballs and many, many packs of yarn.

This plucky knitter has spent days working through the stash and finding suitable homes for it, contacting local church knitting groups to donate sacks of yarn to worthy projects, working through mounds of cross-stitch materials to donate a large parcel to Mind, a mental health charity. With the help of another knitter, Pam, Caroline sorted through the packs to produce a "gift" for each of the knitting group, something that they thought suited knitters the best. In a twist, my gift was enough yarn to knit a Pampas coat in a pattern I already had but didn't have enough yarn for and a pile of gansey 5ply, both which will be knitted up once life is a little less hectic. A great choice for me though!

Despite all of this, there is still half a room full of packs of yarn and I have been given two huge bags of Cross-stitch Aida to list on Ebay. There are hopefully 3 knitters in the group who will be listing and any proceeds will be going to the NSPCC so after all the heartache of clearing her stash, it will at least have a positive impact on many lives.

Her funeral was last Thursday and through an error (no doubt due to the emotional impact of the whole thing), we were all unfortunately given the wrong time for it, arriving to wait outside and listen to its ending which was sad. Neveretheless, five of the knitting group still arrived showing we wanted to offer our support. It has been a salutory lesson though.

As this episode closes, it pulls into sharp focus the effect of someone's stash on the person who is left to deal with it once the knitter passes on. What may be a source of variety, colour and texture may be a millstone to someone else. I know that both Pam and Caroline have been affected by the whole experience and it does make you look on your stash in a different light. Planning can no doubt help, setting out on a regular basis a number of people who you would like to gift certain yarns too (changing when the item is used, obviously!) but I'm hoping it may make me think twice about future bulk yarn buying. There's a distinct possibility that I might have a little extra destash of my own but I'm not doing that straight away, act in haste, repent at leisure!

Anyway, moving on, here are some more pic's from Woolfest, the first a view over the hills from the campsite...

...Amazing needles...

...Wooly friends...

...The poor old Wensleydales were definitely suffering from the heat by Saturday!...
...shoppers...
...more shoppers...
...and a pretty rubbish picture of ginormous knitting needles made, I was told from lengths of drainpipe!

Onto knitting and other crafterly pursuits, of the Summer of Socks, I will speak no more...for now. Being a lazy soul, I'd forgotten to clear my camera's memory, so, in order to get the piictures above, I had to clear its memory entirely, only later realizing I'd lost the picture of the Monkey socks I'd knitted and passed on, D'oh! Still, I carried on regardless with the Rivendell socks...which are now totally rewound after frogging them for the umpteenth time. First I cast on, did an inch of rib then decided I should go up a needle size so frogged and started again. Then I misread an instruction and had to frog around 3". Halfway down the foot (the first time) I realized the pattern was on the wrong part of the leg so it had to be frogged back to the leg again (that hurt!) but I bit the bullet and did it the first night I was away and got back to it again after my return. So it was the last straw when I first tried it on in order to work out where to put the toe shaping and found the beginning of my leg, despite going up a needle size, would still cut off the circulation in my leg...there was no option, it was rip, rip and rip again.

There is three weeks of solid spinning to salve the wound and I will attempt it again after that. Yes, the Tour De fleece is in full flow, I have managed to cram in a few hours spinning yesterday and hope to get a reasonable stretch in today. Here's some of my not-particularly successful stuff pre- TDF...

From the left, Alpaca navajo plied to free up a bobbin pre-Woolfest, a cobweb Gotland Navajo plied (badly) and a Merino top 2-plied (badly). The problem occurs because it takes so long to fill a bobbin with laceweight or finer, it loses its energy so it may look fine when piled but as soon as it is washed, it goes loopy! I will run both through the wheel once again to tighten up the twist and hope it doesn't over-energise them in the process.
From the top, as warm-up before Saturday, I spent Friday spinning 2 of the batts which Mel bought for me as our swap set-up. I know I haven't shown you the rest yet, have patience, it's been a frantic week! It's Sockstuff from Freyalynn, a wool/nylon blend and I've navajoed it once again to keep the stripes of colour. It looks about right thickness wise but I'm having problems working out what thickness my yarns fall into. The two white yarns are what I managed to spin yesterday, I was aiming for aran (worsted). The top one on a wraps-per-inch tool comes out at anywhere between 19 (laceweight) and 12 (aran) whereas the fatter one might be aran or bulky (and definitely more difficult to get even). I have some leeway to get this right but consistency has never been my forte so wish me luck! I could just aim for the first one consistently as it looks the best, we shall see.

So I will get back to spinning, maybe by the next time I post there'll be more new yarn to see. It's all about learning for me so three weeks will definintely see some improving, watch this space!