On Friday I went to a workshop (with my mum) on Horst Schultz’s Patchwork Knitting techniques with Rosie Sykes in Marlow. It was wonderful fun, and we covered lots of different ways of knitting small modules and then knitting more modules onto them.

Rosie was a great teacher, very patient and organised, and we covered all sorts of things, including handy edgings which are easy to pick up stitches from, which I must remember to use in other projects not just patchwork knitting.

Here is an example of the first sort of patchwork squares we were knitting. I have had a go at this sort of thing before, but it was really good to have a reminder, I feel inspired to try out some more experiments with this kind of thing

I really like the effect that baxcraft has achieved with these kind of squares, by knitting with black as the foreground garter stitch stripe, and a multicoloured yarn as the background stocking stitch stripe. I definitely see more playing around with these techniques in my future! Although hopefully with some slightly nicer coloured yarn (you will be pleased to know that the worst horrors of my yarn colour choices aren’t being featured on the blog!)

Later on, one of the shapes we had a go at were leaves.

One of the ladies who had been to Horst’s workshop last year had brought along a lovely jacket she had knitted using these shapes, very inspiring. I would definitely like to have a go at a scarf using this shape, done in autumn colours. I have a lovely collection of cones of Shetland 4ply which would be just right for this. I am currently knitting a variation on Alice Starmore’s Henry VIII in these yarns though so I want to finish that first. After all I would be incredibly annoyed if I made a scarf with some of the yarn and then discovered I didn’t have enough left to finish the jumper!

Last of all we had a go at some shells shapes, similar to those done by Maureen Mason-Jamieson. She has a free pattern for a bag using these shapes on her site, but I don’t seem to be able to link to it directly. You can find it by clicking on freebies at the bottom of the main page and then clicking on Shell Purse Pattern. Rosie had brought a sample she had knitted in this pattern which was really effective, a lovely choice of colours, and the shapes tile together in a very pleasing manner.

All in all the day was wonderful, if you have a chance to go on a similar workshop definitely jump at it. Marlow was lovely too, we had a little walk around at lunchtime and saw some of the sights. Jill organised the day to perfection, with breaks for tea and coffee just when we needed them (have to fuel the brain cells after all!). I am hoping there will be another one next year, and in the mean time I shall be thinking about what to knit with the techniques I have just learned.

Mummy and Daddy left this morning, so the washing machine is on full blast recycling the sheets for when they are back again in two weeks on their way on holiday! I think I shall be good and knit a bit more of the to-be-felted bag while I wait for the washing to do, and for the weather to cool down a little. We went to Wisley yesterday and bought a couple of nice plants, I think hopefully in an hour or two it might be cool enough to venture into the garden to plant them.