What a Busy Week!!

Well I've been to visit Mum to cheer her up and my what a busy week we had. No sooner had we put little Emily up for her nap then out came the felting equipment, dyes, spinning wheels and so on! Considering we only had a couple of Emily free hours each day we managed to get loads done and here it all is for you.

First of all is this felted necklace that was made mainly by Mum with bits by me as well - what great fun it is squelching bits of fleece in soapy water and trying to form shapes with it. It takes a bit of time and effort but was well worth it!

Next of all I plied my 'Icy' hand spun with my beaded thread. Now that was fiddly - it took ages to thread all the beads I had (approximately 1200 seed beads) and then trying to ply that thread with the 2 strands of hand spun whilst evenly spacing the beads, trying to get and even ply and getting used to Mums wheel (hers is double treadled whilst mine is single treadled) was quite a task but between Mum and I we got the job done.

Now although there is only 100m worth of yarn I really should have had more beads on the thread. Also I would try to use a nylon thread rather than ordinary sewing thread as the beads tended to stick on this and had to be freed every now and then. It's certainly a pretty effect and I can't wait to see it knitted up but I think I should have practiced first as this is not quite as well plied as I would have like it to be as you may well be able to see in the following close-up shot. Still I love it though and have now decided that it looks more like sea foam than iceberg colours as I initially thought. I doubt you will have too long to wait before you see the finished knitted article with this as I love it so much!

And what crafty idea was being cooked up next?

Well Artis-Anne has the finished results posted on her blog but I thought you might like to see the progress shots. And having seen what hers looked like spun up I fancy having a play with mine and think I might start off with this one:

So that's it for now - I'm off to try and remember where I tidied my hand carders away and have a play with some of that sheep fluff.

I will at some point show off my new yarns, I haven't forgotten it's just not really a very good light to be able to photograph it well for you so I'll try to pose it nicely for you in a better light tomorrow. Sorry to be fussy but am getting bored of photos of stuff on my dining table! Anyway, back to this sheep fluff.....