Of the Time and the Place

There is a plethora of new knitting books, magazines, self publishers etc in the knitting world right now all across the world. This is great and a real change from from when I started  buying books and magazines. I eagerly awaited the Rowan collections because apart from the knitting designs they were so wonderful to read and look through.

I buy books for great design, new techniques to learn and for the joy of adding them to my knitting library. I enjoy going to the libraries in London and searching through the vast collections held.

But life is changing it is no longer the privilege of the  large yarn companies to hire a designer to create with their yarn then put a publishing team in to produce the book or a pattern leaflet.

Now we have the producers of the yarn, the farmers of the flocks the people passionate about restoring and keeping land in top quality in this Time and in this Place wherever that is.

The Little Grey Sheep and the family behind this venture are on a journey in their time and place and through Instagram and Knitting Festivals knitters get a peep into that world and an opportunity to buy the product. It’s not just knitting wool it is so very much more.

You can imagine my delight when Emma and Neil mentioned their book to me and I could sense in every word spoken this was not just a ‘knitting book’ this was a huge part of the journey. The setting of the farm is idyllic the history abounds and is palpable and the passion is tangible and real.

Emma is a magician with words speaking to her readers and inviting them in to her world and to sharing and enjoying the journey.  In creating this yarn and then producing colours which speak of the landscape and history is more passion and we can then produce our piece of history with wool that has total Provenance.

Provenance is my passion,  be it in the food I eat, the clothes I wear, or the fibre I work  with. More and more young people are feeling the same in this busy over productive noisy world we live in and it is a joy to behold.

So my utter pleasure when my book Sticka arrived. The day had been busy and it was late when I arrived home but after fires and food had been accomplished I sat down to undo my tissue wrapped parcel.

It is everything I hoped it would be, the weight, the paper, the print, the colours, but more than that it is all a perfect publication of truth in the time and the place. The hours passed and the fire became low but every page needed to be savoured slowly.

The images are not plucked from the ether, they are the farm where the flock are born and cared for so lovingly and yarn is produced so passionately,  the rolling misty scenes of the farm are the farm and the wool is the wool.

The designs and the names too are of the time and the place and will take a rightful moment in the history and restoration of this place.

We have Lodestars for travel in this world of ours, I now hold Sticka as the Gold standard in being eveything a book representing provenance, skill and passion for the place and the time should be.

Emma it is fantabilucious my funny word for it is ‘Eveything & More’

Congratulations my friends.