Do you know about Soul Craft Festival? It's in its second year of online life, (after 1 year in-person, pre-pandemic) and it's happening through October!
Over the past week, I've loved logging in to the Soul Craft portal to listen to the latest conversations and presentations. Soul Craft's mission is to present a festival of ideas celebrating craft and connection and I believe it does just that. Even though it started last week, you can still buy a pass and join in, and the content remains for you to watch anytime for 6 months.
One of the components this year is a "make-a-long project" with my friend Elizabeth Barnett. It's an embroidered project bag, and Elizabeth supplies a video tutorial and a downloadable pattern so you can make your own. I have enjoyed making along with the group and in the first photo above you can see my half-made bag – I just have a little more embroidery to do before sewing it up. The idea is that we can use up scraps of fabric sewn together, and I've used pieces of linen dyed over time with avocado, so all the pieces are a slightly different shade.
For the embroidery, I chose a range of plants and also some "marks", inspired by one of the festival talks ('mark making with Rachelle Toimata.')
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Another make-a-long happening this month is the Stephen West Mystery Knitalong which is taking place on Ravelry, mostly, but also shared on various social media platforms. This is my first time taking part, and even though I probably have too much life stuff happening this month, I decided to sign up to inject a bit of fun and playfulness into my knitting practice. I've always found that I learn a lot when knitting Stephen West patterns because he uses interesting shaping and texture techniques. I think he has a very special gift for imagination and teaching.
The pattern requires 5 skeins of fingering-weight yarn, each a different colour. I looked through my stash (a plastic tub that lives in the wardrobe) and pulled out the fice yarns you can see in the second photo above, without too much thought. I hope they'll work well in my shawl – and if not, I do love all the colours, so I'll probably still wear it!
If you're interested in checking out the Stephen West Mystery Knitalong, you can click here for more information (Ravelry link) including where to buy the pattern.
I'm looking forward to showing my progress in my next post!
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Other things I've been working on lately include a bit of crochet. I've shared a picture of a crochet facecloth I made to try out a new stitch – scallops! For this, I used a free pattern from KnitPicks called the Jazz Age Washcloth. You can download it here. There's also a YouTube tutorial if you prefer that for learning (I do, I must admit). I love the finished piece and I think these would be lovely to give to mates at Christmas with some nice soap or something.
My youngest sister is expecting a baby very soon. Happy days! I had to break out the baby knits, of course. I made a wee set for my niece-to-be from a full skein of BC Garn Biobalance yarn, which is a blend of cotton and merino. Should be nice for her early spring and early summer days. For the hat, I used the pattern 'barley light' and the booties are 'Hodge' – both free patterns on Ravelry. I made up the vest pattern myself, inspired by the 'seashell mitts' design I published earlier this year. More details for this little set can be found here on my Ravelry page.
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Finally, because I think we can all do with some more softness and sweetness in our lives, I'm drawing your attention to this favourite chocolate chip cookie recipe. I made a box of these for a friend, and thought you might like to do the same for someone…? Or yourself.
Take good care, my friends,
M XX
tiny happy 
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