Homage to Manet

On Friday to Norwich, to take in an exhibition at the Castle Museum entitled "Homage to Manet".  The gist of this seemed to be Manet's revolutionary ways of portraying contemporary women, and how this influenced others, not least female artists such as Dame Laura Knight, Vanessa Bell and Gwen John.
 

 

My eye was caught by this portrait of Virginia Woolf, who appears to be knitting.  It is not so clear in this reproduction where the blocks of colour seem to merge, but the piece of knitting is a deep pink.  Not dissimilar to the piece of knitting I had with me for knitting on the train.

Norwich looked better when we emerged into the sunlight, after the gloomy start on Friday.

We went to eat at Jamie's Italian, in the Royal Arcade.

 

 

 

This strange tree looks like late-lingering fruit, but in fact is hung with red pom-poms - quite striking in situ.


Knitting
Another layette for the Pine Ridge reservation.  Pieces knit up quickly when they are so small, although the sleep sack took two long car journeys.

You ask about the pattern for the cardigan, Liz M.  This is an old Hayfield pattern for a traditional raglan cardigan.  On the leaflet it shows two sturdy infants, almost toddlers, sitting up wearing white cardigans with motifs of rabbits and trains.  Times change.  I may have mentioned before being taken aback when a young colleague brought in her five-week old daughter wearing denim jeans and a brown smock top - the baby, that is.  In this case we were advised to use dark colours as white shows the dirt so badly.

The hat is the simplest possible: Cast on 66 stitches in DK and knit in k2 p2 rib for four inches.  The decrease for the crown by k2tog each row.  This fits a grapefruit, and I am told it will fit a small new-born.

The booties are worth mentioning.  These are from a free pattern offered by Frankie's Knitted Stuff.  It is an ingenious piece of engineering, and looks cute.