HORIZON PIECE.

Cecilia Hewitt from the Woolclip in Cumbria has donated this beautiful purple skyline piece. It was knitted by Caralyn Rawlinson, the co-founder of Woolfest - a festival dedicated to British Wool. Caralyn passed away two years ago after a long battle with cancer. Cecilia tells how when she went to clear out her studio, she found a wool lined studio with all the colours of the rainbow sorted in order. Cecilia is not sure what Caralyn intended with this piece, but she says it was designed as a stash buster, using up all the little odds and ends, which included some of her handspun yarns.

We passed this piece on to Miss Sonja Todd who is usually up for a creative challenge.

Here is her update letter, which I love.

"I am LOVING knitting my ufo! It's all I've done for the past week or two - get home, eat, put tele on, knit.

Here are some pics of it, sorry they're a bit blurry.

I'm hoping to have it finished before your show opens or during the show, see how it goes... perhaps I'll pop down for some wool one day soon, I have ribbing plans....

I've learnt and re-learnt so much from Caralyn in the past two weeks! She has taught me how to knit 'properly' (because I always used to do it a bit differently from everyone else, but I thought I'd better re-learn it in order not to screw Caralyn's knitting up!). I've also learnt how to do stocking stitch properly and change colours and add new colours in, and how to pick up dropped stitches and how to thread knitting back onto needles. It's really nice that even though Caralyn isn't alive anymore her knitting expertise is still being passed along. Having lost my own crafty mum to cancer I hope that knitting on this piece will give somebody else some comfort. I don't know if Caralyn has any daughters but I know if my mum had left any unfinished crafts I'd love it if somebody else carried on working on them. I'm turning Caralyn's knitting into a dress (hopefully - if my plans work!).

Thanks for doing this project Ms Matthews.

xxx

P.S. The white line in the knitting is the 'lifeline' you put in, it's helping me see how much I've done and it also really is a true lifeline. x"