*We did our presentation for the British Council – it went well and they really enjoyed the film.

*We experienced our first trip in a Sri Lankan Tuc Tuc and headed to Pettah market for an experience of beautiful temples muddled in amongst the hustle and bustle of market life.

*It was Beth’s birthday so we headed to Mount Lavinia Hotel which has a restaurant called Seafood Cove right on the beach – it was amazing fish and Beth’s shrill scream at the waiter when she though he was a wave added to the evenings festivities!

*We wandered round the centre of Columbo to get our bearings, having found the British Council we went to a local cafe type thing called The Cricket Club – which had various sporty names for their food!

*We found a lovely shop full of teas, cards and gifts – which also sold maps – so we can now find our way back to the apartment

*The apartment is lovely, with a big living room/ dining room and even a separate room with a piano in!

Monday 1^st –

After falling into bed at 4am we all had a much needed sleep and woke at the leisurely time of 12 o’clock! We were cooked an amazing breakfast of French toast by Kate (smothered in marmite!) and caught up with her following her amazing trip around India for the last month! Dr Nirmali came and met us at the apartment in the afternoon to talk through our schedules and make sure we were settled in. The apartment is amazing; we have a huge lounge and dining area, a separate piano room (with a full sized piano!!) and the bedroom are simple but with beautiful dark wood furniture and a rocking chair in the corner!

We set off to explore and find some lunch. It was beautiful to walk (although so hot I think I had a permanent water moustache on my upper lip!) in the sun and soak up everything that’s around us – the area we are in is so lovely and right next to the University of Columbo so there’s beautiful pathways and parks surrounding us. We managed to get a little lost but found a beautiful shop selling handmade cards, crafts and batiks, tea and spices (and a good map of the city!) which then led us towards the British Council, where we knew there was a cafe type thing called the Cricketer’s Club (very tailored to the ex-pats) but we had a really lovely meal in the shade, before making our way to the market to stock up on water, fruit and toilet roll! Whilst on our way to the market we spotted the sea and headed straight for it – the breeze was so refreshing and it was amazing to see the train lines running directly next to it, only separated by a metre of huge boulders!

Wandering home we walked down some beautiful roads with huge exotic trees dangling from behind ornate walls – it is so green in some places then the complete opposite when you look in the other direction – from the natural power of the sea to the smoggy building of concrete sky scrapers!

I decided some of my ramblings wern't entirely appropriate for a group blog - as my film choices arn't really top priority for people to know whilst in the amazing country of Sri Lanka - so i'm going to continue to update (sporadically - as theres not that many internet connections available!) on here as well (lucky you!)...so now you can all see my bad film choices!

We're just sat in a nice air conditioned office in the British Council complex after doing our first presentation- but its a little too slow for uploading photos so i'll try again when we head to Mount Lavinia Hotel for Beths 28th birthday celebrations...

Sunday 31^st –

After a 5am wake-up call I was off and on the bus with my ridiculously heavy suitcase in tow, after a slightly wobbly decent down Bethnal Green Stations steps I was away and on the tube all the way to Heathrow Terminal 4! After a quick check-in queue and security scan we we’re standing in the terminal suddenly very aware of how far we were about to be from home! Heathrow has no decent eating places so after a quick Starbucks breakfast we were ready to board the plane! Sri Lanka airways was really nice (if a little worn in places!) and with a blanket wrapped around me and a tv diagonal to my seat I was all set for the 11 hour flight!

I had forgotten how nice it was on long haul flights to have drinks every half an hour and a slightly nicer meal than on short journeys! The salty fruit salad took a little while to get used to – and my ‘marinated vegetable salad’ was left unopened – but the bread and butter was lovely!

 

Rubbish films I watched on the plane –

1 – The Bounty Hunter – words do not describe how bad his film was!

2 – Date Night - I managed to watch it to the end but even then it didn’t enthral me!

3 – Odine – About an Irish Selkie/drug smuggler – good!

4 – A Mel Gibson one – that I never got to finish!

 

Landing was a little bumpy but by that time we just wanted to go to bed. The heat and humidity hit us as soon as we stepped off the plane, and after a queue at Immigration (possibly caused by the very jolly guard insisting on telling us the best places to visit outside of Columbo!) and a slight wait for our bags we headed out to changes some money and hopefully find or driver who was going to take us to the flat an hour away!

It was suddenly starting to feel very real!

The drive to the flat was remarkably quiet (although there were a lot of scary drivers – and our driver loved flashing his lights at everyone!), and it was really interesting to see everything lit up at night without quite so much bustle and loud noise! We drove through a heavily Roman Catholic sector which was brightly lit up and had hundreds of roadside shrines to many different saints. We then spotted a beautiful 20 foot tall gold Buddha in the middle of a roundabout – it was magnificent!

We arrived, met with a very sleepy Kate, who presented us with a beautiful recycled Sari each, and fell straight to sleep in record time!

 

A little premature as there won't be any updating of the blog until we've landed, slept and had lots of lovely adventures but I thought i'd post the blog we will be updating on a regular basis (when we have internet access!!) whilst we explore Sri Lanka.

We are going in conjunction with the British Council and London College of Fashion to spend four whole weeks in the beautiful country of Sri Lanka, diving head first into what promises to be an amazing adventure! Working with the University of Moratuwa as well as some huge corporations and factories, exploring what Sri Lanka has to offer the fashion world of today. We received our itineraries a few days ago and i'm now packing and sorting ready for the delights of Heathrow airport!

http://www.connectsrilanka.blogspot.com/
 
 

After a bit of unintentional sheep herding on the drive up to the farm (it was a family affair today as my lovely mum drove me, my sister and a whole lot of wool around due to the same sisters badly timed write off of our lovely car!) I was allowed to drive away 20 beautiful fat lamb fleeces, ready to be taken to the mill for spinning! We had an amazing time (with my mum and sister learning how yarn is made for the first time!! - my sister picked up a pair of needles when we got home - she's yet to get past the first row - but we'll see!) being shown around the mill again - I think I learnt at least five new things on every machine all over again! So after finding out about some amazing new fibres (who knew milk fibre would be so beautiful yet so strong?) I left my yarn in very capable hands! 
I can't wait to get restarted on more hand knitted samples, to match up to some of the designs I have been working on and get a better idea of how they may look on a larger surface area!
I also have a THINK ACT VOTE t-shirt all ready to be customised, which i'm excited about preparing and covering in lovely knitting!!

The reason I fell in love with knitting/yarn in the first place was the fact that I am a total control freak and perfectionist!! (only in work related fields i'm afraid - my room as many will testify is an expanse of layered mess) and I love the fact that you are creating the fabric, silhouette and texture all in one - I have absolute control of how the end design turns out - If I decide I want it fitted at the waist I decrease a few stitches, Or I want longer sleeves - I just keep knitting a few more rows!
 
This is what excites me - no matter how many times I use the same technique each end piece is completely unique - the rows where I got slightly distracted so held the yarn a little tighter than usual add a new element to the pattern, the centimetre of yarn exposed that didn't dye properly because I tied the knot too tight adds more textured colour to the final outcome...

SO with this in mind I decided to force myself out of my designing rut by building on what I have always enjoyed - layering and creating essentially a number of options from one design - revolving around the idea of deconstructing the elements that make up a single wool fibre (which gives wool its unique benefits) the overlapping cuticles that envelope and surround the cortex structure underneath. As the documentation and details in the whole process from field to garment is integral in my projects objective, I want to use the journey and transition of the fibre in the design process.

With this in mind I decided to look into the journey of my garment - each element serving a purpose aesthetically as well as altering its functionality, transforming from a simple staple structure to a more experimental piece.
 




 

Heres just a few of the colours i've been experimenting with, all neatly bundled up to try and gain some sort of order - they also look really pretty like this!! I have also just finished writing on the measurements for amount of dye, simmering time etc so I can hopefully use it as a reference for later dyeing projects!





They look much deeper and brighter in real life - that will teach me to take pictures on my phone!

 

To Do Lists a plenty today - this is the day of organisation, reading, quoting and generally straightening my head out before it all becomes too hectic! Chop Chop...

And let the needles fly

You will be surprised

How lovely hours

Go slipping by

Bring your knitting out

And keep your fears at bay

Every stitch

Is one step nearer

To the happy day"

Waller, J. (2006) Knitting fashions of the 1940's - Styles, Patterns and History Wiltshire The Crowood Press

I appear to have bypassed the lovely sunshine and hot weather and brought a rainy, dull sky to London again (just my luck!) - but it does make it easier for me to do work when i'm not being distracted by the heat! 

In the last couple of days i've been travelling quite a bit - I went to visit the British Wool Marketing Board in Bradford again, which was a lovely catch up, and also shed some precious light on hard data and academic studies I can use to back up my project ideas (all I have to do now is get my brain into gear!)

From there I headed even more north to Newcastle for a lovely visit to the other-half's home, with lots of lovely food!

We then travelled back down to Bolton together, with a few country stops in the form of the lovely village of Richmond, and Wensleydale. Where we stopped at The Wensleydale Longwool Sheep Shop - a beautiful countryside haven filled with the most beautiful yarns and patterns, along with a really lovely range of lanolin products - from soap to lip balm, we had a really nice chat with the lady in the shop about natural dyes and different wool properties - before braving the country roads to find the motorway home!

So from Bolton back to London for a really great catch up with some of my lovely MA friends (who's projects are looking really amazing!), it was great to chat, bounce ideas off each other and get an outside perspective on our progress! Looking forward to next weeks one already!

 So today i'm being half domesticated (washing is about to be put in the washer!) and half book worm and list writer as i've decided the only way for me to work effectively (only three weeks until I leave for Sri Lanka...aaargh!) and get everything I want to be done finished is to break it all down into tick boxes and work through them! We'll see if thats easier said than done later!

Here's a quick photo of my pattern experiments with french knitting...