C&G at the V&A

Yesterday, I met my fellow C&G knitters at the V&A for a great knitting day. Some new and old faces - we are all at different stages of course completion - a lot of beginners and one or two near the end. I'm kind of two thirds of the way through.  We met in the magnificent entrance hall, near the glass 'bauble' lamps.

Then we made our way to The Sackler Centre, where we could talk about the work in progress and listen to course tutor Loraine.

It's always very valuable to see work done by others - particularly this time for me, with some great examples of Fair Isle knitting.  Everyone seems to have some kind of issue with this ...

Front and back of a Fair Isle Snowflake - one of the course exercises - the back has to be as neat as the front 

I really enjoyed the next part of the day, where we went out into the galleries to find inspiration for knitting. First up we looked at some brass rubbing - this technique features a lot in the course as it's a good way to make textures easily, which can be used in design work.

We made great use of this brass knight inlaid in the floor!

On to some discoveries in the Medieval Galleries.  These details of a padded quilt would make some great aran style knit designs.

As would this panel ...

And this one ...

Loraine is an expert at finding things and explaining how they might be used ... I sometimes find it hard to 'evolve' things in this way, but I am getting better at it!  I really love these wooden columns ... Lots of inspiration ...

And these stone carved boxes ... 

Managed to get some sketching done too, of some little drawstring bags, which I'm aiming to use in the 'design a fashion accessory' module.

The day wasn't entirely about knitting though.  I really couldn't resist the shop and found some gorgeous historically inspired fabric in the sale, along with some 'marguerite' earrings and decorative zip.  Look forward to using that zip!!!