Gardens, Cooking & Knitting to Extremes with an Irish American flavour

 Gardens and Donegal make interesting bed fellows! The majestic but mountainous terrain doesn't always have 'grow flowers' written on it! Yet the 2014 Donegal garden trail boasts 23 gardens.
At Knitfield we already know the power of flowers goes beyond their colour or scent. Flowers are good business creating an ambience more pleasant for customers and for us. Of course we're partial to wild things from the surrounding fields.

When invited to present the 'Crafternoon Tea Event' as part of the Northwest garden show, now in it's 5th year, we at Knitfield jumped over our needles with ideas. The venue for our part in this community led event was The Irish Garden for the White House, an exact replica of the Diarmuid Gavin designed garden built in the grounds of the White House with many Irish - American references.

Our location for the Northwest garden show weekend was the beautifully designed stone built oval room, central in the White House garden

Edel MacBride would lead the Knit craft activities over the garden show weekend, May 2014

  

Knitfield made it to the White House after some vehicle difficulties by 'borrowing' the van from the business next door, MacBride Bros Joinery

Some work in the branding department and we were ready for the large crowds that annually attend the Northwest garden show from North and south of the Irish border.

Roses are made daily at Knitfield and never need watered, even if the models do !

Late the night before show opening and it's starting to look the part

#socialgardener & gardener with BBC radio foyle, Gareth Austin takes a break from the allotments to relax with some knitting! He learned at school and you never forget how to hold the needles even if the blackberry stitch here was a little ambitious ?

That's the little girl from Omagh with her mum's 1970's weekend case full of magic circle knitting yum yums for the Crafternoon tea display

 Rita extreme knits by the White House garden pools with our Knitfield blanket wool

If knitting honeycomb wasn't for you even after Edel's Aran demonstration you could follow Joseph to the real honeybees

                                                                                                                 Or make new friends?

 Or even get very daring with the falconry display from Glenveagh, if birds are your thing. We're just after their lovely feathers at Knitfield for head pieces.

 Our most fashionable family at Crafternoon tea undoubtedly and great helpers at the Sunday afternoon extreme knit demo with Edel

Jemima puddle duck finds a frog in the garden pool!

 

The Tin man in the sensory garden designed by Janice Campbell had loads of lovely plants too from Dunwiley nurseries

 We loved the green octopi growing in the natural designed garden by Tim Austen

 

Irish TV loved our big colourful wool too and we look forward to seeing Edel's interview on soon and the coverage from the garden show. Little Eilish kate's lovely hand knit by Bogbean in the picture here.

Maggy from Knitfield with baby Eilish Kate both wearing Edel MacBride, never needing bribed to wear mum/grannies clothing line. The cardigan is available as a knitting kit called RITA, in 2 sizes and a choice of colours with beautiful hand covered buttons, here in French lavender

 This exhibitor from the Juice bar booked an early morning Crafternoon Tea having witnessed how impossibly packed the room was the day before. All that China and we didn't hear a piece drop in 2 days, check out the beautiful knit flowers on the mantle behind by a fellow Knitfielder, beside our letter from the actual White House

 A close up of our letter from the White House now IN the White House garden, Thank you too Hillary!

 You can eat this! wonderful colour in vegetable land

 We loved all the hot pinks and reds of flowers we didn't know the names of

           Colourful inspiration is everywhere at the White House garden

 

Donegal's Rose for the #rose of Tralee this year is Tamara and we found her loving our floral buttons from Knitfield 

 It helps to be prepared especially where cooking live in front of an audience is concerned. Edel takes up a twitter challenge from the #nosaltchef to cook a surprise dish if he learns to knit

Brian the #nosaltchef is all set to Knit with the extreme needles

  Time for a little cooking brush up with the #nosaltchef master himself RTE's Brian McDermott in the live cooking theatre

 

Remember the weekend case....we got into it!

 McCrearys made sure Sundays live Donegal game could be viewed by visitors

 Elaine in Edel MacBride iconic Gold beret takes bookings for Knitfield courses coming up soon, check them out at the edel macbride.com site

Michael Carlin and Edel MacBride
Organiser Michael Carlin can take his hat off to the best Northwest garden show ever by Sunday afternoon and the weather behaved pretty good too!

We loved the ethically made 'Bogman' hats handknit in Donegal by Anna at Bogbean designs

 

We found our Spring intern Kathleen Craig in entrepreneurial fashion selling her wondrous fudge

From colourful cakes to big bold colourful yarns, all rich with homemade goodness. Sharing technique and conversation.

 

Edward showcased our knit Bow tie with oodles of charm

AND we are back to crochet roses after a fantastic weekend, made fantastic by the massive interest in our yarns and kits and patterns and demos and workshops and everything!

Birds of a feather us knitters, gardeners, cooks and folks

If you'd love to make roses that don't need watered contact Elaine at Knitfield, she'll have just the option for you!

Good bye from us at the White House and back to the Knitfield in Convoy and our lovely wee shop at the Derry Craft Village, see you soon!

THANK YOU to the organisers of the Northwest Garden show for the invitation, especially to Karen Murphy who connected with us on Facebook and got the ball rolling ! Karen manages the very successful Trashnfashion event at the garden show and you'll find lots of info on Facebook.

More images of Knitfield at the garden show 'Crafternoon Tea' on www.facebook/knitfield page.

To buy Edel MacBride - Knitfield kits or to book classes go to www.edelmacbride.com

For more information on the garden show go to www.northwestgardenshow.com

At Knitfield /EdelMacBride we are available on landline at 00353 74 9147508 10 am to 5.30 pm Monday to Saturday.

We LOVE washing wool, here's why and how!

 

 

  

Once upon a time, there was time, for gathering and connecting, by the river, washing ourselves and our clothing. We still have the river at Knitfield, but our busy days see little enough of it, let alone to gather there and wash our beautiful knitwear.

 

 

The Deele river, in Gaeilge 'an Daoil ' or in old local stories 'Burndale'

 

When things go wrong.....

Edward not happy and sweater most sad, Emma is in trouble!

Facing our fear, which looks like this, shrunken wool and totally unnecessary unless desired.

What went wrong? temperature and powder, TOO much of both.

 

Almost all of the beautiful 100% merino wool here at Knitfield, spun in Donegal and knit for the Edel MacBride brand is washed inhouse before sold !

Washing adds to the beautiful soft 'handle' and in the case of merinos which are still in 'oil', is necessary to finish the wool correctly, setting its loftiness and fullness.

 

We machine wash it!

Green merino hand knitted Aran hooded sweater line drying at Knitfield.

 

Good country air is good for sweaters too. Better without too much sun and particularly if your woollens are white or natural, beware of sun streaking or 'yellowing'. Yes sun is not so kind, but a dull and breezy day or even an Irish misty one and your wool will dry sweetly.

It seems in wise times a good trick was to dry things on the hedge itself. We'd love to hear any of your stories or memories of that?

 

 

 

 

 

Veronica poncho by Edel MacBride (also available as a Knitfield kit with pattern, yarn and buttons).

 

While we don't wash all of our woollen products, it is fun to compare the results. 

These high quality hand knits were machine washed in the wool cycle (30 degrees).

Loving an experiment we are open to using the following and all with positive results: Woolite, fabric softener on its own or Wool Wash from Kerry Woollen Mills (our latest experiment). One common denominator, regardless of the solvent, we use all of them sparingly. Approximately an egg cup at most and maybe a little more if using a fabric softener alone.

Cashmere hat for Eilish Kate with merino rose in crochet.

 

Some things are so precious or small, like Knitfield's new grand daughter born five weeks early and

her preemie wardrobe. Wool machine cycle for her first beret here in cashmere made by nana Edel ? Perhaps not !

 

 

Small things for small folks or those diligently, lovingly, hand knit socks are best uncycled!

 

The sink (basin) is good too and here we used Johnston's hair shampoo, the blue one.

This polamide yarn used in our 'Rosa' cardigan style machine washes very well but can also be hand washed. Rinse well, squeeze dry and roll in a light or similarly coloured towel to remove moisture. Then dry near heat. We never use tumble dryers for wools with the occasional exception of cotton.

 

Hanging out to dry.

 Whether hand crochet or handknit a breath of air does woollens good,

just mind that sunshine!

 

 

Even our famous wool bow ties got pegged up in a Donegal sky

Or old style on the fir tree

The shocker!

 

 We debated to tell or not to tell... once washed, rinced and excess moisture is thoroughly removed, heat is fine, even radiator heat. These beautiful hand knit scarves were wool machine washed in a small amount of woolite and dried on warm radiators with beautiful 'handle' results. The same yarn as Edwards orange merino sweater, washed in water at a lower temperature and we suspect with less detergent.

 

We have had those moments of truth, precious things boiled by accident and the debate of whether it will now make a nice bag. Unrecognisable to it's previous owner perhaps?  When something gets ruined why is it that it was always someone's 'favourite thing'. So we recommend checking that dial once, twice and three times.

It cannot be undone!

 

This is a beginning to one of our favourite subjects, we will be back with our secrets of washing wool at Knitfield

 

 

www.edelmacbride.com

 

(c) edelmacbride1987-2014

 

Thanks to Edward and Emma for the real life story and the spontaneous photography on what was a tough day for their relationship we can only surmise. Emma is Edel's daughter and Aunt to Eilish Kate who at four weeks old is already showing a preference for Donegal wool,.