Ambridge knitting circle

You may remember, back in the dim and distant days before our wedding, the absolutely fantabulous evening when we went to the pub for knitting group, only to be presented with a knitted cake (from Staines knitting group) and a blanket, made by the Ambridge knitting circle. Yes, I know this was a million years ago now, we have after all now been married for a  whole nearly 7 weeks.

And I promised that I would post pictures of the blanket in all its glory up on here, only it's taken me a while to do it.

This is it on Monkey's bed. I should probably provide some background. The Archers is a totally wonderful radio soap that has been running for at least 1000 years on BBC radio 4 (to which I am also addicted). It's meant to be an everyday story of countryfolk, or rather that's what it used to be. Now it's apparently a contemporary drama in a rural setting. (?!?!) Anyway. At some point in my life that I now can't remember I started listening to it. And quickly became addicted. Then I joined Ravelry and discovered that there wasn't an Archers group on there, so way back in August 2007 I set up the Archers Listeners group. The group has grown to 378 members and is friendly and nice (we haven't got any rules or anything similar and everyone trundles along very happily even though people have some very different views about life).

Following a discussion about a hypothetical Ambridge Knitting Circle on the group some of the others got together in secret online and set up AKC1 knitters on Ravelry, to organise knitting a blanket for our wedding. And this is the result:

These squares are: Interwoven (plots), Lakey Hill with sheep, wedding heart and Jimmy Prentice's ploughed field.

Then: Openwork Daisy, Grange farm turkeys (from Gobble dishcloth by Elaine Fitzpatrick), "Softie" square and Cupid's bow and arrow (although I think someone posted on the list that it was the Archers too?)

Then below is: Waters of the Am, Bee stitch in local mohair/wool (Jill's bees), Ambridge cricket and the single wicket and Solid square (often lacking in Ambridge).



Then we have: "Puss-cat" (Lilian), Wheatsheaf pattern, the Flower and Produce and Tricolour square (Blossom Hill Cottage).

And: Two colour star stitch in local mohair/wool, in memory of Phil, twining vines (Lower Loxley), tractor, Double hearts

A pint of Shires, Peony - spring in Ambridge, field of daisies (for Daisy) and ploughed field.

honeycomb stitch, in local mohair/wool (Jill's bees), the diverted footpath (theme idea by Dollydolittle), Granny in the middle (take your pick!) and Adam's strawberries.

St Stephen's church (Alan & Usha), Traditional Granny (Jill), textural tractor and "Tiger" (Matt).

And Tying the knot, Tom's sausages, St Stephen's church (and Phil: organ pipes pattern), centred square (if we only had more of these in the Archers!).

And the final row! Hayfield, the twists and turns of village life.

Twisted granny (Vicky), The Bull at Ambridge - pub sign.

Opposites attract cable (Kathy and Kenton). And Daisy motif for Daisy.



Isn't it incredible?! The makers of the squares are: adminannie, brigidhj, dollydolittle, doodles, dwynwen, foggyknitter, greensideknits, hotterthan, Kristoemily, lilyofthevalley, thefrog and Wibbo, all of whom can be found on Ravelry. They also each included a postcard from where they live. Thank you to all of them!

And the whole thing was co-ordinated by greensideknits, who also put it all together, dyed the yarn for the borders and knitted them!