Sample experiments evolve...

After nearly a year of trying, I've finally got a knitting machine that does what I want it to do - fair isle!

Oh how I love it so much.

It didn't really take me that long to figure it out, but it did take that long to get a teacher, realise that the machine I was given wasn't capable of it, find another one, service it, work, go away for work and have a baby....

This is where I thought I'd be in March, starting experiments, making fabrics. I did feel a bit thwarted at every turn for a while, but now all is good.

These were fair isle samples that I turned into stuffed fishie creatures for the babies in my bump club. They've got a magnet in them so they can stick to things (my sewing table for example) or later on, they can go fishing for them with a magnet on a string (I loved those magnetic fish games..)

They are suggestive of fish, I think the last one looks like a speedy dog fish, and the second one looks like a fat slow whale fish. It's the only one with a stuffed tail, and I'm not sure about it. They're prototypes and are whatever shape I made the rectangular piece, but they're for babies, so I'm sure they won't mind that they are a bit wonky.

I used cotton from cones that I'd had stored somewhere, and I thought I'd give them a quick wash before wrapping, and since today was a stinking 39 C, I thought they'd dry quick as a flash, but unbeknownst to me, outside it was becoming muggy, and now it's kinda raining. Hence the fish on the fan.

The textured tails felt quite nice wet, and I was thinking they could be a bath sponge toy maybe. (if I did the whole thing in a tuck stitch). not sure...