Kath's Krafty Kreations

Having a Wheel of a time!!

2011-07-08T21:15:00.003+01:00

Well it's Tour de Fleece time again and yet again I'm joining in with 'Team Raw Power' on Ravelry to encourage myself to spin up some of my fleece mountain with a challenge of preparing and spinning 1lb of fibre or just under 500g to us in the UK!

So far the fleece I've spun this first week has included alpaca (with added angora rabbit), Icelandic, batts of random dyed fleece including Suffolk shearling and Wensleydale. this last lot has been in the form of extra lock dyed locks that I've been tail-spinning which I'm thoroughly enjoying - so much so that I just had to film the process... not a sensible 'how-to' film but a 'watch that fluff whizz round' silly kind of film :)

Not sure if this will work but it amused me at the time!

YarnBombing etc.

2011-06-13T10:16:00.011+01:00

Not only was June 11th Worldwide Knit in Public day it was also International Yarn bombing day. Yarn bombing? A search online brings up loads of pages on the subject and Ravelry and Facebook has it's fair share of items too so it seems to be on the rise. The author of the book "Yarnbombing" Leanne Prane says:

"We consider it positive graffiti, it's not there to be ill-intentioned, or to give anyone a bad day, It is supposed to be a force of positivity in the world."

Who could argue with that? I'm sure that there are people out there who see it a blatant vandalism but hopefully most will see it as it's intended. So in an attempt to add a bit of fun to the world certain people might have joined in!

I did see it getting some interested looks from passers by and so far it's still there. It does brighten up a dull corner of some railings and at least it's making the culprits happy if on-one else!

Lots has happened since I last wrote including rather a lot of knitting. Which is good as my knitting mojo hadn't been good for a while. My mission to knit 11 pairs of socks in 2011 is progressing well - I'm now up to pair number 8 thanks to a couple of socks for my mini-me which take next to no time to knit up especially if you're stuck in the car for 4 hours driving down to Devon! As a passenger of course :) I've also finished off some of my numerous WIP's including finishing off my Haruni shawl which took a surprisingly small amount of time to finish and not as much effort as I'd thought and as a result really made me wonder why it took me so long to pick it back up again.

Wonder Wool Wales was the usual fun day out but the major change for us this year was that rather than stay for the whole weekend and visit both days we only visited one day of the show and travelled back that same day exhausted by it all. I don't feel this was a bad thing - Mum and I were both out of money by then and we'd seen pretty much everything we'd wanted to. I came home with exactly what I wanted which was one of IST's Turkish spindle so I can still spin while I'm camping - while it's not really a flashy fancy wood I love it to bits as it's gleaming black Bog Oak that's thousands of years old and spins like a dream.

I suppose I should finish with a picture of my dress that was occupying so much of my time the last time I wrote - it's not the best one but here you go!

Stop and Look

2011-04-06T12:41:00.004+01:00

There are many reasons to 'Stop and Look' the main one I'd say is when crossing the road as part of our hectic lifestyles. Sometimes the world around us has plenty to offer when we simply stop and look.

It's taking the time to stop and pay attention to what's going on around you. I'm not sure if you've ever done the same but on more than one occasion I've jumped in the car going somewhere or another and been half way down the road before I've realised that my 'Autopilot' has kicked in and I'm busily headed off to work or school when I was supposed to be going to somewhere else in completely the opposite direction.

My time lately has been taken up with an awful lot of sewing and very little knitting at all. The main culprit has been this:

Butterick Retro pattern B6582 - the really full skirted option and not the 'wiggle' dress. I've not disliked the experience - on the whole I've really been enjoying it all and have got the sewing bug again. But my life seems to have been swallowed up whole by this and my brothers upcoming wedding (10 days to go now!!) and as such I've noticed very little else.

Until today when I was out in the garden and low and behold the huge Lime trees that back on to our garden have the beginnings of leaves on them. Not buds but fresh spring green leaves shooting out and lots of them too. Now when did that happen?! I see then everyday from my lounge windows and have only just noticed. Either Spring moves at light speed or really I'm seeing without seeing if you catch my drift.

So I made the time today to Stop and Look and saw with fresh eyes how everything has developed and that the buds on my lilac tree, which I think will have a wonderful display this year, look about set to flower.... right over the weekend of Wonder Wool Wales. Hmmm... I hope there'll be something left for me to enjoy once I get home on the Sunday.

Anyway - if any of you get to Builth Wells this weekend for a good old dose of Wool Fumes like I intend doing, I hope you all have fun. If not then I shall tell you all about it next time!!

I'd best be off now - the other thing I spotted when I stopped and looked was that I need to hover and dust the place!!

Spring is in the Air

2011-03-18T13:00:00.006Z

And doesn't it make a difference? As the weather gets nicer I've been spending more and more time in the garden which has been a bit neglected of late. Gradually it's getting a good seeing too but first off it's a good old hack back of all those died back plants and such. We had a lovely shrub at the end of the yarn which gave a lovely splash of colour to see from the lounge window but this extreme winter seems to have been too much for it. One day it was full of leaves then next they'd all fallen off - it left such a gap as well as such a huge pile of leaves. Out came the rake and once they were gone there was plenty of other emerging plants revealed. With the addition of some new plants relocated from elsewhere in the garden such as bluebells, cowslips and chocolate foxgloves I can at least be promised some colour and interest later on.

Gardening may be hard work but oh how it seems to lift my spirits - seeing all the plants coming up and buds beginning to form is all so full of the promise of Spring and Summer. And the birds seem to think so too. There's a pair of Blue Tit's looking to nest in next door's bird box (conveniently easy for me to see as well) and the trees backing on to our gardens are full of life from fluffy tailed squirrels (grey) to Long Tailed Tits which are so sweet.

We have a flock of them that go from tree to tree searching for insects to eat and I could watch them for hours (if they'd stay still long enough!). Today there was one lonely one along with a Greenfinch hopping about. Still it's enough to entertain me and make me get my slippers dirty for!

My urge to go out and garden may be one reason why my latest knitting project is progressing so slowly. This is pair number 5 of my planned 11 in 2011 - the first 4 seemed to fly by but this one is p l o d d i n g along. I think also I'm just trying to make myself do too much right now. The list is huge and a bit overwhelming. This weekend though Mum is coming up to try and help me out with one item on the list - a pair of flower girl dresses for my brother's wedding. The bride-to-be was going to be coming to help but we managed to pick the weekend of her Hen Party/Weekend so it'll just be the two of us sitting in amongst piles of very pink tuille. Not too complex a dress to make, just time consuming. The complex one on the list of things to do is mine which is a reprint of a 1960's dress which I've some bronze/gold silk for. It's mostly cut out and ready to sew but I'm a bit worried that I've bitten off more than I can chew. Still I've a back-up dress so no real worries!! And I've a month to make it in.... plenty of time?!

I should also add my Thanks to you all for the welcome back to blogging you've given me. It really is nice to be back and to be back reading all yours in return :)

And finally finally I've just got to make some of these - don't you agree?!

Doesn't Time Fly?

2011-03-02T10:34:00.006Z

Life seems to whizz by.

I don't know if having a small child in the house makes it go quicker but it seems as if the weeks disappear as soon as they arrive. I was going to say before you know it it'll will be March.... oh dear! Proof that I am loosing my grip on the awareness of the passage of time if ever I had it!

Of course I do know it was St Davids day yesterday. I'm Welsh therefore how could I not know! Yesterday was also the first time that spring seemed to be marching closer to us (no pun

intended). Seemingly everywhere I went yesterday there were fields being mown, or mowed which ever is right, the smell of cut grass was in the air and the sun was warm on your back.

Shame I can't say the same today, the wind is biting so it'd not quite time to put any mittens into hibernation yet!

This Winter, despite saying that time flies by, seems to have dragged. Now I like Winter, to a certain degree, because as a knitter it is a season that seems to justify the purpose of being a knitter. I will not be cold - I will be wrapped in as many layers of hand-knit woolliness as I can manage for I am a knitter! But after a while the novelty wears off and I've missed those fresh new leaf greens which are only now just starting to show themselves. Still, we're not going to have one of those Narnian Winters that last for hundreds of years, Spring is coming so I shall keep my eyes peeled!

Spring as we know is a time of new life and new beginnings. As I type I'm currently having new glass put in our windows - a new era for our little old house! No more rotten frames! And I've been embracing new ideas and joining Mum in trying out some Art Yarns - no pictures today but really good fun to play with.

My lovely knitting friends have also been dragged into this era of newness with a little bit of dying as Birthday treats. Both recently had Birthdays and a hand-dyed present seemed a novel idea and something they were excited to try. So last Sunday we invaded Nadine's kitchen and got the dyes out...

The results are lovely and each of them are happy with their efforts (I dyed one as a demo and then let them dye their own) and rightly so. I think there may be some people buying dyes at Wonder Wool later this Spring :)

And the new skill learning didn't stop there. Last night Jude tried out spinning with a spindle after having tried, and not enjoyed, spinning with a wheel. And she went for it!! The concentration was immense and before long she'd nearly filled the spindle. I think there might be a new spinner out there now!

The only thing we could do with now is more practice, both in spinning and in skein winding....

I'd like to say that Tilly the cat helped but I can't! Still it looks lovely wound into a cake and is now ready to knit which is all that matters.

On a final note I'll go back to it being St Davids day yesterday. One of the items in our Etsy shop was featured in a St Davids day treasury which is a lovely compliment and I love how it looks in amongst all the other lovely green Welsh themed items.

So to my Welsh readers (if there are any other than my Mum!) I wish you all a belated Happy St Davids day and to everyone else Happy Spring watching!

Been Busy.... Naturally!!

2010-07-05T20:20:00.008+01:00

What a weekend!! Mum and I have been doing some natural dying and have managed to dye huge amounts and achieving a wealth of colours. The dye pots have now been exhausted... and so have we!!!

We started on day one with vats of Logwood (soaked in water for a few days previously), Cochineal (bashed before soaking) Alkanet (again soaked for a few days in water), Madder and Weld. We didn't really give the weld enough time to develop a good colour and got impatient so in went the (ordinary) onion skins with the weld! By the time the yarn went in we realised our mistake - next time the dye stuff really should be in old pairs of tights!! So many bits to pick off later!

Logwood is fantastic - beautiful purples! Cochineal gave good pink results, alkanet not so good greys (want to try again with the addition of vinegar), Madder gave good orange shades and the onions gave beautiful golden yellows as always.

Day 2 - The cochineal and alkanet were exhausted by now having had yarn in over night. The logwood had more dyestuff added (in a stocking) to recharge the pot and today we added a pinch of tin to brighten the colour. New dyes today were Brazilwood and Chamomile. We did try Purple Elder leaves which had been soaked in water for a few days and looked a promising colour which gave only a dull beige to the yarn. Also given a try was Golden hops (stems and leaves used fresh) which gave a wishy washy yellow to which the chamomile was added resulting in a far better yellow. Late on we added a pinch of tin to this and the Brazilwood which had been giving orange colours before but afterwards gave a lovely red shade. The madder was slowing down by now despite its added powder so it had a pinch of iron which gave us nice browns. Oh and how could I forget our red onions which have yet again given us a lovely green shade and after having a pinch of tin gave yet more rich tones of greeny yellow.

After all this were we done? Not at all!! Out came the indigo vat and in went what seemed like tonnes of fibre and yarns all coming out a beautiful blue. It really was magical watching the yarns which came out yellowy slowly turn blue - true alchemy! Still it dyed things blue and we got to the stage where we were tempted to throw our clothes in too but resisted mostly - Mum found a white top she wasn't keen on and we did a little tie-dyeing the results of which are still to be seen as it's still sitting in the vat with us too tired to do anything about it!!

Footnote - Must wear waterproof shoes next time and not cloggies!!

Don't Panic but...

2009-06-30T13:34:00.007+01:00

I'm posting again!! That's twice in one month! It is amid a post-WoolFest excitement that I'm posting but never mind! We had some fantastic weather all weekend and the Thursday night on the campsite there were some lovely clouds and the sunset was truly lovely and kept us all entertained for ages - at one stage it seemed streaked with almost fluorescent pink. And there were shapes in the clouds for us to try and identify too - top left below I sure is a footballer leaping to head the ball!

We started off well with a large group gathering without organisation on an empty pitch next to Mums camper van and this photo shows the evening off well! It was lovely to meet up again with so many familiar faces especially Kath, Becky and Carrie Anne who I'd not seen for 2 years - we will definitely have to do better next time and meet up sooner! The last ones finally called it a night around 11pm - wonder who they were? ;)

And of course we were all excited and woke up early the next day ready to hit the show!

Clockwise from top left: Tony learns Long Draw spinning,

Skye in the van, sheep shearing, the Happy Weaver,

Nadine learns hand-carding, spinning on a Great Wheel, Nadine spins on a Lendrum.

As always there were a load of animals to see and I finally managed to see the sheep shearing which was worth the wait. The lady doing it had a pen full of Rough Fell sheep (the ones with the speckled faces and horns in the feeding trough pictured below) four of which were Hogs (one year olds) and the fifth a large ram with huge spiraling horns who unsurprisingly she left until last! She really did seem to wrestle with the sheep and managed to give a full commentary with all of them other than the ram - definitely a tough job to do. There was also a lady from Denmark doing a workshop on 'Knitting directly from Spelsau fleece' who was fascinating. Pity we couldn't get on her course but we did end up leaving with a bag of raw Spelsau fleece ready to be knitted up at the next Knitting evening - I can't imagine the reaction with myself, Chris and Nadine all sat knitting from bags of fleece but it'll be fun!

Top row, left to right: Angora Rabbits, Rough Fell sheep, Katmoget

Shetland sheep, Herdwick sheep;

Centre Row, left to right: Manx Loughton sheep, Gotland sheep, Hebridean sheep;

Bottom Row, left to right: Angora Rabbit, sheared Alpacas, more Gotland sheep.

The stalls as always were a riot of colour with plenty to inspire and temp you with as always. 'Oliver Twists' were there and after seeing them at WonderWool I knew exactly what I wanted and got it - a sumptuous dyed silk brick in toasty burnt reds on oranges, yummy! I was pretty restrained with my spending coming home with only 1 fleece, some more dyes, a shetland batt, some dyed merino for some felting projects and the softest grey Alpaca/BFL lace weight from 'UK Alpaca's bargain bin - at 70p and 80p per hank I couldn't say no! The only downside to the day was the heat (I was stupidly pig-headed and insisted on wearing my hand spun Green Gable - it was not the day to wear wool!) and the crowds. The aisles do seem narrower than at WonderWool which seems to make the difference in being able to get around the show with ease but at least I wasn't hampered with tonnes of shopping - see being frugal has it's good points!

Clockwise from top left : Wensledale lock Wedding dress,

WoolFest anniversary cake, Freyalyns handspun exhibit,

Shetland 'chocolates' and 'cake', weaving, FeltStudioUK, handknit waistcoat, Oliver Twists,

WoolFest 'shed', handspun yarns.

Nadine and Chris were there from the New Brighton Knitters and I ended up going back to the show on the Saturday with Nadine before picking Chris up from her course. Its was fun going round the show with a 'novice' spinner (she is improving daily!) and seeing her face light up with it all and pointing out all the bargains and stopping her unintentionally shop lifting in Winghams although it was pointed out that most people would try to steal cashmere rather than light grey herdwick!

But for me the bits of the weekend which were most fun were spent sat at the camp site knitting and spinning with like minded people and making new crafty friends even if it did involve late nights!

All in all a really fun weekend which I'd happily do all over again as long as the temperature was turned down a bit! There has been more knitting completed and started but I'll not go into details with those now, after all that could be the basis on my next post!

In a Rut

2009-06-17T20:37:00.010+01:00

There are times when I feel as if I'm in a bit of a rut - whether it be lifestyle-wise chasing round ad infinitum after a lively four year old or creatively. I've certainly had Cast-On Fever or Startitis lately and right now I've more WIP's than I care to think about and some of them are so silly.

Why for instance haven't I finished DD's little aran waistcoat? All that needs doing is picking up stitches for the collar, I'd converted the pattern to knitting in the round so it's not like there's much sewing up to do. I did start picking up stitches but got all in a tangle when going to answer the phone and managed to rip out all the stitches I'd picked up. It was put away in a sulk I'll admit but why I haven't finished it off which is no more than a days work I could not tell you.

And there's another jumper for DD languishing in the WIP pile due to lack of concentration - I went wrong trying to knit this at knitting group and decided to start again but again little has happened with it since. Small jumper, big wool and needles - quick project (theoretically) so what's stopping me?

Poor 'Laminaria' was started last year to take with me on holiday - fat chance that it will be ready for this years holiday in 5 weeks time. It's lovely soft Posh Yarns Cashmere which isn't exactly a hardship so if someone could lend me a brain to work with (Clarabelle shawl queen might be the one!!) then maybe this could get finished. I think this has been sat there because I'm too lazy to start thinking once little Miss has gone to bed.

And I'm half way through another pair of 'Monkeys' and my heart is not in it. I'm on the heel flap for the second sock and I just can't bring myself to knit it. Even though I know I could make short work of it once the heel is done.

Yet I've have managed to spin a small mountain of handspun, much of it Alpaca (there does seem to be a theme!) which is thanks to this new wheel which is a real production wheel - new yarn seems to just fly off it! I did volunteer to represent my guild at North Wales's 'WoodFest' which was great fun and a whole day (10am til 5pm) virtually continually spinning as well as explaining how wool was made to all the kids and answering technical questions from the men. Out of all the people we saw that day (dozens and dozens) only four correctly guessed my spinning fluff as alpaca, one little girl thought the fluff came from 'carpets'. And I'm eagerly waiting to see Winghams stock another suggestion 2 other children had: 'fox'!

I've managed to knit, and finish (until I decided I'd changed my mind and wanted it longer) a handspun version of 'Green Gable' as well as a birthday surprise for a friend, who may or may not read this hence no photos. And I did knit myself a new jumper which I'm happy with as the yarn has been sat there for ages and the project lurking on my Ravelry queue for ages - so some progress with destashing (partially as there's lots left on the cone) and working through my queue.

So right now I think my creative spirit exists for the new items I knit and not the old but soon enough I'm going to really have to bully myself into finishing things off, especially if the worse comes to the worst and I can't get to WoolFest next weekend and the Tour de Fleece looms so these lamented WIP's are really doomed!

Feeling Glum

2009-05-22T15:37:00.005+01:00

We had to have our cat put down on Wednesday at the ripe old age of 13 and I'm being a right old misery guts without him. Silly though it may be he was always a comfort when I was feeling sad - a good old cuddle with him always lifted the spirits.

Still my latest knitting - some hand spun alpaca plied with fine mohair - is black which is showing up his lingering white hairs beautifully and I'm resiting the urge to pull them all out.

I shall return with more details and other stuff when I'm in a better mood.

Wonderful Wonder Wool!

2009-04-29T10:39:00.007+01:00

Well I've not been terribly successful at keeping up with my blog lately - too many other bits to be getting on with I suppose!What better way to get back in the flow of things by giving a review of the wonderful weekend that's just finished namely Wonder Wool Wales down in Builth Wells. And it really was great fun - so much to see, so much to buy and so many people to catch up with and meet! As always we didn't mange to meet everyone, some like 'Remote Knitter' we've been trying to meet with for years now and still failing miserably - must try harder I think!!

It was a real riot of colour which always gets me excited and inspired - 'Oliver Twists' stand was like shopping in a rainbow and was just so stunning it made you want to buy it all! The fantastic Prudence Mapstone was there again and as well as being so lovely her work makes me want to grab a crochet hook and yarn right away and start freeforming something!

I could go on all day telling you about all the lovely things there were on show and the stands too - highlights included 'Artists Palette's stall which was a wonderful show of colour with her fibres and yarns (including some stunning silk yarn which I'd have loved to rehome!) and also

Spindlefrog's stand which as well as being a blaze of colour had the lovely Helix who I was so pleased to catch up with as she's so nice!

There were so many people I bumped into, some old friends, some new and I'll try my best to remember names! First off was No1AliCat, followed by Wye Sue, AmberMoggie (and Mr Mog of course!!), Laal Bear,the lovely Freyalyn and Sarah (YarnSpider), bloggless lurker Katie (who was surrounded at one point by three of her bloggers she was looking for without realising it!), CraftyMandy, the aforementioned Helix, Toffees Mum, Bluefaced Andy and Fybrespates Jenny as well as members of my spinning guild and Mum's spinning guild. I could go on and I'm afraid my brain is failing me - I knew I should have written down who I'd met! Sorry if I haven't mentioned anyones name it really is down to my shoddy memory!

There were some livestock on show as well which is always lovely to see but not as much as in WoolFest, mind you more sheep will have been shorn by then and I'm sure that would make the animals more comfortable in the show - the Wenselydale and Teeswater all looked rather warm! Compared with last years purchases I have come home with less but this year it's quality rather than quantity - plus they were more expensive buys! Main buy was a fantastic new Majacraft Suzi Pro which I am loving every second of and in no way regretting buying! And of course to go with it I needed a new (competition!) lazy kate and 2 more bobbins. That blew most of my budget so the rest didn't last long after buying a Corriedale/Ryland cross fleece from Olwen Veevers called 'Polka' (lovely knowing the name of the sheep your fleece came from!), some alpaca rovings from UK Alpaca (chocolate, coffee and white!) and some dyed kid mohair from Freyalyn. Feels like there should be more with the amount I spent but there you go! No pictures of my goodies - I'll sort that out later!

As with last year I'd run out of money by the time I got to the MidWales Mouthful section which is a real shame as there was some great looking food on show including some highly tempting Scotch eggs! And I had to take a picture of Dr Who's 'house' (as DD says) on top of the BBC Cymru building to amuse DD.

All in all it's a long weekend with all the driving but the atmosphere, colour and most importantly the people more than make up for being stuck in traffic getting there! Plus I'm going to have to keep an eye open for when Google Street Map updates as I was caught on the road between Newtown and Llandridnod Wells - permanent proof of my drive to Wonder Wool Wales! Maybe I'll have to get a screen shot of it (even if I do know what my car looks like!)

I'll be back (hopefully with less of a gap than before) with an update of all my knitting, spinning, etc as soon as I can stop playing with my new wheel!!

Update - some of you may ahve seen someone elses pictures instead of my Wonderwool ones - not sure what happened there but I've now replaced them with ones that shouldn't dissapear!

2008-12-18T13:27:00.002Z

Just a quick post for now in between getting ready for Christmas. Take a moment to have a look at CherryRed's blog where she's having a prize draw to raise funds in memory of her Mother who passed away recently due to Cancer.

It's a really worthy cause and is something that touches many lives and in this seasonal time of giving is something worth a little of anyones time to give a little. Not nagging or anything but thought it would be nice to have a little pause for thought in amongst al thoughts of turkeys and presents.

Will be back soon with a proper post soon!

And Baby Came Too!

2008-10-22T11:14:00.006+01:00

I'm ashamed to say that I've forgotten to tell you something that I've been really excited about but somehow seem to manage by the time it comes to blogging. I know I really should do this whilst I'm wide awake and not when I'm half asleep and that way I'd not forget the exciting bits and inflict you with a load of waffle instead. Well, I'm awake now so you'll have the news (as well as some waffle!).

A month or so ago I took part in a Spinners Swap on Ravelry, my first ever swap and I had a whale of a time picking out goodies and dyeing stuff up for my swap partner and after sending out my parcel I almost forgot about that fact that someone else would be sending me a parcel in return! And when I got my parcel I was thrilled with the goodies inside which 'Manicgirl'
from Sweden sent.

As well as some beautiful hand dyed merino and some luscious hand dyed silk hankies were some beautiful hand spun yarns which I'll have to find something special to use in. The middle item in the photo is the one I'm most impressed with as it's so beautiful it's almost a shame to use it! It's some flax tied in the traditional Swedish way which really does look fantastic and the smell is wonderful - my Grandad would have been interested in this I'm sure as he was from Belfast where a lot of linen is produced.

I've decided to dedicate this post to my spinning as there's been a fair bit going on lately as well as all the dyeing I've been churning out for the shop. This first yarn was from some Fybrespates fibre, I can't remember what it is as it didn't have a label on but it's lovely and soft and has a lovely sheen. I plied the singles with some rayon thread in a toning shade and there's enough yarn here to make myself another Forest Canopy shawl!

This one is a blend of Alpaca, Mohair and Wool from the lovely 'Wool For Brains' etsy shop and it was a lovely fibre to spin and there's just possibly enough for a pair of socks by I'm going to spin something complimentary for the heels and toes I think to make the yarn go farther. The colours in this are really lovey and don't really show well here.

There is more hand spun to show but I've not take any pictures of them - one of which I'm really happy with is a three ply Alpaca/Nylon blend yarn which is destined to become socks - and there's plenty of yarn for them!

Recently Emily has been getting involved with spinning too. Firstly I took her to the Frodsham Friendship Day which was help by one of the Cheshire Spinning Guilds. She was really excited when we walked in to the main hall which was full of loads of spinners and their wheels and asked if she could start spinning there and then! She even decided which wheel she wanted and virtually claimed someones Louet wheel! We met up with the lovely Jackie and her girls, who Emily loved, and I was surprised that Emily didn't protest and let me stay nearly all afternoon!

By the time we left she was very tired and upset that I'd left 'her' wheel and her new friends behind!

After such a successful day out with her I tried her out again with a trip to the Abergele Guilds spinning afternoons which again she was most impressed with. Even after packing some snacks (bribes really!), jigsaws and colouring bits I didn't see myself being able to do much in the way of spinning but to my amazement she let me get on with it. I can't say that she let one of the other ladies do much spinning, Lynne became a temporary childminder and seemed to enjoy herself being taken on riverside walks and walks on 'squelchy' fields. And the final vote of approval from Emily came when she saw our tea-time cakes - I think I'll be allowed to go again with her and the other members didn't seem to mind her at all either!

So now Emily wants me to teach her to spin, we've a spindle all ready for her but I think I'm more likely to get eyes poked out rather than yarn spun so far! I think Emily really wants to have a go soon - she's been sitting on my lap and 'helping spinning'. I don't think she's quite ready yet but she thinks she is!

I'll leave you with a shot of yet another small person who's been 'helping' me to spin - not sure if he's ready to learn or not either!

Playing Around

2008-10-17T10:18:00.003+01:00

It's funny what you can find on peoples blogs which are a great way to kill time with! I was reading GoldfishGirl's blog and found this from Wordle and it's a fun thing to do with your blog and interesting what words it pick up on!

One Hundred Posts Old Today!!

2008-10-12T20:39:00.003+01:00

Maybe it's just the time of year but I've kind of fallen under a spell of the blues and as a result I've kind of been hiding from society (OK - it may be online but it's still a society of sorts!).
Only some lovely kind words from a certain Sarah made me realise how slow I've been at updating lately and that I needed to get out and post something!

The thing is it's not as if there aren't any FO's to show you - I've been knitting and spinning like mad (that's the hiding from society bit!) and have a fair old pile of stuff on the finished pile. I should also add that there's still a pile of stuff on the WIP pile too but then who doesn't have these on going projects?!

I decided a montage shot would be less bother to post rather than inflict a load of photos on you and was surprised how many things have been done since I last posted - five finished objects and another new one on the go! Well I'm impressed at least but I suppose it is cheating of sorts as they're all small projects really.

As the days have been growing colder and darker (and then warmer again - silly weather!) my thoughts have been on making warming layers for DD. It's not that I don't want anything for myself (I don't think I'll even attempt to start a list we could be here all night but I might just mutter 'Wisteria' under my breath!) but I keep thinking she ought to be wrapped up against the cold (when it gets here for good!) so there are slipovers and tunics galore on the 'to knit' list ready for Winter. Most of the following have been made for her - OK all bar one! Hubby is still grumbling that his project isn't finished yet but that hasn't been photographed and I'm making the pattern up as I go and can't find my notes (I blame him for tidying!)

I suppose I should start with the current WIP which is a Sirdar pattern (details are on Rav - I don't do details well, that's what Rav is there to remember for me!) for Miss Emily knit in some Sirdar Sunggly Aran (which is as the name suggests!). Even though it's a simple waistcoat with very little sewing up to do I'm reducing the sewing further by converting it to (I was going to say in the round) a one piece job. The cables are really lovely looking and make for a nice think fabric but it's not the challenge for the grey cells I was wanting - the cable pattern was learnt before I'd finished the first repeat. Still it's working quite quickly (when I actually knit it) as I can get away with doing some of the cables sans cable needle! Does it look like I'm content with doing the pattern the traditional way (blind following)? The urge to 'tweak' is strong!

The Rainbow Beret (can you guess which one that is in the montage? Do you need a clue?!) was another pattern I wasn't content to follow blindly. The initial try was too pointy for my liking and more elf hat than beret. So it was ripped back and I made it up, increasing stitches like a mad thing - nothing written down of course so I'm doomed if I want to recreate it! Plus the pattern (again details on Rav - can't remember where I found it other than through Rav!) was for a 2 year old so I played and guessed whilst DD was in school and cast off with no head to double check on. As a result there's no real need to know what I did with this as there's plenty of room for growing here! As part of the developing trend the yarn for this (Colinette Cadenza - I do remember some things!) was lovely and soft to knit with and is nice and snuggly too!

Before the beret came the BSJ - do you need details or do those three little letters tell you all you need know about the pattern?! OK, for all that Elizabeth Zimmermann wanted people to not follow patterns blindly I did with this. The maths and the whole construction of this little beauty of a pattern still befuddles me even after knitting this second one - I really couldn't conceive of thinking one of these up from scratch! If you haven't tried this pattern out yet I urge you to try just for the fun of trying to work it out and then once you've figured out how it goes together making others try to figure it out themselves! Hours of Fun!! Anyway this was for a friend baby who technically is still not due but who in reality arrived on the 3rd of October (Mum's Birthday too!) seven weeks early and coincidentally my Baby Surprise was finished the day before - I know Mum has said about being Welsh Witches but really?! Expect to see more mini knits with this same yarn (Fabel from Garn Studio - lovely yarn and great colours!) as this only took just (and I mean just - half of the last row and casting off done with the second 50g ball!) over 50g to knit and no girl is fully dressed without matching booties and hat now are they?!

Bored yet? Nevermind! Still on the list is a Sirdar aran jumper (strangely enough also knitted in Sirdar yarn - not a usual trend having the 'right' yarn for the pattern!) again converted into being knitted in the round and a baby Kimono from Lion Brand done in Mad fluffy slubby wool which was an insanely quick knit. Well, as this is turning into a huge essay I'll keep it brief on these two and move on to one of my favorite FO's and a first for me - a Crocheted FO!! I don't expect many of you to have heard of it but the little white beastie is a Totoro from the Japanese animated film called 'My Neighbour Totoro' a really lovely film for little ones (and handily dubbed in English). Totoros are woodland spirits fond of gathering acorns and disappearing when they want to hide away and this one is a 500 year old 'baby' one. Seriously this film is worth looking out for for those with little ones to amuse, it is a bit bizarre (I'll just say 'Cat Bus' and leave it to your imagination) but is a lovely gentle film, not a lot happens but DD adores it and many others from the same makers 'Studio Ghibli' Japans equivalent to Disney. Anyway this is the first ever crocheted creation I've done, other than a little freestyle dabbling, and it was only by the time I'd nearly finished and was doing the tail that I figured out how to count crochet stitches and how to follow a crochet pattern properly. The stitches are wonkey and not necessarily what the pattern wanted (or where it wanted them!) but it look like what it's supposed to and I love it as does Miss Emily! And that's what matters!

I was going to show you some hand spun I'd done but my back is aching sitting at this computer and I think I've inflicted enough waffle for one night for you. Plus it gives me something to start my next hundred posts with doesn't it?! Will try and touch base with you all and gradually rejoin society - see you out there!

Oh I do Love to be beside the Capital of Culture!

2008-09-04T22:03:00.006+01:00

Whilst I wouldn't want to actually live in Liverpool (being too much of a country girl at heart!) it has been great being on the doorstep of this City during this year of Capital of Culture. There have been so many wonderful events that have been wonderful to watch and feel part of. My favorites have to have been the Tall Ships Race, photos of which can be found here and the 'Go Superlambananas' sculpture trail which involved over 120 Superlambanana sculptures dotted around the City (as well as Runcorn, Euston and Moel Fammau in Wales). What fun we had chasing all over the place finding them all (not sure if our feet agreed with all the walking but still!) and since we couldn't make it to Euston demands were made by Hubby to his company (who sponsored the Euston Lamb) to bring her back home to Liverpool, a fact he is mightily pleased about (even if his middle name in work is now 'Lambanana'!). And Emily has really enjoyed hunting them down too - that's her at the bottom hugging one of them!

A Selection of my favorite SuperLambananas!

And now, after the SuperLambananas have left the city a new creature has emerged, disturbed by all the renovation work Liverpool is undergoing - 'La Princesse' has arrived courtesy of 'La Machine'!!

Boy she is big! 37 tonnes and 50 foot high - so big my arachnophobia said 'Get real!' and didn't engage. DD and I spent the morning watching as she was craned down from the building where I used to work (which actually I'm glad I wasn't in as a Giant Spider crept past the window!) and on to a lorry taking her down to Albert Dock ready for this weekends excitement.

Exactly what 'La Princesse' will do is unknown, maybe she'll spin us a tale! It's all being kept secret but it will be a great extravaganza and we shall enjoy as much as we can! I will leave you with one more shot - that on the police bike that was genuinely part of her escort... co-incidence or not?! LOL!

Please can we have more hours in the Day?

2008-08-31T13:20:00.002+01:00

Doesn't time seem to fly by relentlessly? There are so many things I'd love to be getting done but they just don't seem to happen! We've had a busy old time of it here lately - last week has been spent comforting Emily which has taken so much time.
She'd been ill early Saturday morning and seemed better on the Sunday so we went out to watch the motor racing with my Dad at Oulton Park in Cheshire. By the time we got there Emily wasn't well again and managed to sleep through a noisy race which our friend was driving in. So we decided to head home and pop in to Borders on the way to see if the latest Interweave Knits was out yet.
After a successful trip clutching IK for Mum we returned to the car only to see a familiar face parked next to us! Well, I recognised the yarn in her cardi before I noticed it was none other than WyeSue up in the area for the weekend - and a lovely surprise it was too! Anyway the point being that it made me realise that I haven't managed to keep up with any ones blogs for ages and feel quite out of touch with everything.
Now Ravelry is one big black hole that does seem to consume huge chunks of the day and Emily is the other, especially this week. Take Bank Holiday Monday for instance - were we passing the time of day doing something fun for her? Not at all, what should have been a quick trip to the out of hour doctors ended up as nearly six hours in the Children's A&E next door. Now there was nothing seriously wrong, other than a Urine Infection (which is bad enough), but having to wait for four hours for a sample was torture - no knitting, nothing to read (other than kids books - I'm talking of course of the brand new IK sitting at home!) and a child who doesn't want to drink her orange juice and wants to know why the hospital doesn't have apple juice? Argh!

Thankfully she is now loads better and is back to her energetic self and I'm dedicating more time to knitting again and trying to get round some blogs (bear with me - every time I tune out a little every ones blogs seem to grow by dozens of posts!). There is even a new FO to show, when I sew the button on and DD sits still long enough for a photo! Plus my Laminaria, long neglected, is finally growing again and is nearing the end of the Transition chart.

I haven't even had time to dye more bits for the shop or the Spinners Swap I'm taking part in over on Ravelry and there are lovely bits of hand spun for that that can't be shown yet without spoiling the surprise! Still Mum has uploaded some natural dyed rovings to the shop so I'll leave you with a picture of some pretty roving so it's not too boring a post!

Wowee!! Does this mean we're famous?!!

2008-08-20T12:11:00.002+01:00

I take one little break from the dye pot and what do I find?
Only a sooper dooper mention on Lime&Violets' 'The Daily Chum'!! Seeing as we haven't been going that long I am so touched and thrilled to have been listed here - it's a good thing I'm on my own in the house today as I squeeled good style when I saw the post!

And Mum's away on her holidays - typical! I'm now heading back to the dyepot to restock the shop with more fibres and there she is with a house full of dyed up beauties ready to list. Talking of which, have you checked out her blog to get a sneek peek? Don't you just love them all? I know I do and would sorely love them all, especially those natural dyed ones - heaven!! And I think Mum will find it hard going putting those up for sale too!

NEWS FLASH!!!

2008-07-28T23:51:00.003+01:00

We're finally open for business!!!

Find us here!

All I want is a Tall Ship...

2008-07-24T15:14:00.005+01:00

... And a star to steer her by.

As you may or may not know Liverpool recently played host to the Tall Ships Race which was absolutely fantastic and stirred my soul making me want to run away to sea again. Last time they were up was in 1992 and I did run away to sea as it were by signing up to sail with the Sail Training Association that August and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I think maybe the family history of sailing and working at sea helps the appeal but I don't think there could have been many people who'd fail to be impressed with the ships that were berthed in Liverpool this last weekend. And there certainly were loads there to see them all too!

Anyway enough of the Capital of Culture report for now and back to our usual topic! There has been knitting, spinning and dyeing activity a plenty over the past few weeks, as the blue fingers and blue smudges over the computer keyboard will vouch for! And little Emily has been the lucky recipient for a lot of it. For her birthday this year she had a toy kitchen but she's hadn't got a lot of food to go with it so I decided to fix that by knitting her some more food and I've had a load of fun doing them too as most of them could be churned out in just one evening or less and the huge smiles on her face has been encouragement enough plus they're good little stash busters! So far she has a slice of Battenburg cake, an iced bun, an ice-cream cone, two cupcakes, a cheese sandwich and a chocolate biscuit. I must admit that my favorite is the ice-cream which is really cool, even if it's blue - which Emily chose and who am I to argue!

I almost forgot that Emily also had some new socks ready for Winter using Gilraens Micro Monkey pattern and some Garnstudio Fabel which has lovely bright colours for little feet and is reasonably priced too. A nice simple pattern to knit, the only work is making up the heel and toe numbers to fit as you go. So that's one pair down ready for Winter and more stashbusting socks to go as these only took 28g of wool and I'm sure I've plenty of leftovers for more!

Also for Miss Emily on the knitting front is a really easy knit (again busting that stash!) using just 100g (with leftovers!) of James Brett's Kool Kotton cotton blend DK yarn and a pattern I found on Ravelry here but I modified it slightly to get the ruffled edge which is really cute and girly. It was a quick knit as well and only took 8 days to finish.

Next on the needles will be for Emily as well and is a cable jumper pattern from Sirdar, can't remember which one right now so will give the details later! As for the dyeing they'll all be uploaded shortly to our etsy shop 'Mam a Mi' and boy do I wish I could keep them all!! And, if you hadn't have guessed already, one has got some luscious blues in it!!

The Sorry Tale of SABLE

2008-06-26T12:16:00.006+01:00

A friend of mine from our knitting group died this week quite suddenly which obviously upset us all but it did much more than that. This loss has made us all start to really think about our stashes and how SABLE (Stash Aquisition Beyond Life Expectancy) comes into the picture.
You see our friend 'L' left behind her a house full of wool. Now I know lots of us say we've a house full of wool but with 'L' I really mean it. Now I'm not directly involved with helping to clear this stash our but my close friend is and I can see how hard a job she's faced with. How best to dispose of bag upon bag of knitting needles; hank upon hank of cross-stitch threads (we're talking huge full carrier bags worth) before you even get round to the yarn itself which seems to have virtually filled rooms.
All in all it's left me feeling sad for the loss of a friend and the realisation that we barely knew her in some ways - we only ever saw her knit with acrylic yarns and yet her house was full of lovely yarns such as Rowan, Yaeger and Debbie Bliss which will probably have been there for years untouched. It's so sad to think of her sat all alone surrounded by all that wool. We will never know what drove her to gather all this wool together but I'm sure we've all been left with the huge lesson of knitting what we've got.

My stash seems to have changed over night from a growing thing to something to be used and enjoyed but with the emphasis on Used. The thought of buying new yarn is strangely unappealing as I know I've certainly enough yarn for a dozen or so socks (not including stash busting left over socks!), probably a dozen jumpers or cardigans in varying weights and half a dozen shawls. Surely that will be enough to keep me busy for the foreseeable future? And of course I'm spinning new yarns as well so the stash does grow...

So I ask you - How do we know when we've reached SABLE or at least when to stop feeding the stash? For me I think I'm there and have no intentions of adding to the pile. Now I'm sure I will fall of the wagon at times, don't we all!! But I'm certainly going to make a definate effort to knit what I've got and try to ignore the siren call of unpurchased yarns.

And on a lighter note I will leave you with the first of the great stashbusting projects - a stashbusting memorial flower garden for 'L' which we will keep in 'Made' in Wallasey, where the New Brighton Knitters meet so that 'L' will always be there with us for our knitting evenings. And quite probably some of her stash will also make it into the garden as well.

I will post again soon about our lovely holiday and try and remember to take photos of the flowers (which are really fun to knit!) but I'm not really feeling up to jollyness right now. The photos in this post were taken in 'The National Botanic Gardens of Wales' which are lovely and well worth a visit and will be the only holiday photos for now.

Buzz, Buzz, Buzz...

2008-06-05T16:31:00.006+01:00

... Busy little Bee!! Apologies for the photo heavy post that follows!

Well my spinning wheel has been keeping me busy lately and the garden has been calling too. Poor neglected knitting - Yeah playing with fibres!!

Been busy chucking various fibres and bits at the drum carder and then having fun with the results, plying with whatever was to hand (namely sewing thread) and 'boufant boucle'ing the yarn - definitely fun after spinning 75g of Merino silk blend and producing 256m!

Primula Vialii

Aquilegia 'Norah Barlow'

Look at those yummy swirls of snipped silk threads!

Octopus and Jellyfish boucle tendrils!

More Jellyfish tendrils of boucle coils - full of sparkle and glitz!

Finest yarn I've ever spun - 256m approx from 75g of Merino/Silk blend!

260 Miles and a Whole lot of Fibre!!

2008-05-10T20:16:00.007+01:00

Okay, I'm in writing about it but I managed to get to WonderWoolWales (via Mums house and travelling in convoy!!) at the end of April and boy was it Fun!! Needless to say I returned home laden with new fibres and yarns and a head full of ideas from the lovely Prudence Mapstones workshop. The atmosphere was lovely there - so relaxed and plenty of space to wander round in - not as claustrophobic as WoolFest seemed last year.

And as that's nearly a month ago now some of that lovely pile of new yarns and fibres have been played with and knitted up. I've been wanting to knit up a Forest Canopy shawl after seeing one of Joy's lovely creations back at the Ravelers meet-up in Colinette all those months ago! And having acquired some pretty Posh Yarn Lei at WonderWool (shortly before meeting Joy again as it happened!!) it seemed the right time to have a go. And what a great pattern it is! Such a quick and satisfying knit that I can see why Joy has knit up so many and I can see myself knitting more too!

The colours don't really show up well there but they really are more jewel like and similar to oil on water except on a green background (if that makes any sense!!).

And is one shawl ever enough? Never!! I'd dug some Jaeger Alpaca 4ply out of the stash to knit up Norah Gaugan's modular shawl from Vogue Knitting's Winter or Spring issue (can you tell I can't remember which one!!) anyway the details are here. It was a fun knit too and nice to knit modules even if it needed more construction in the end. Plus it tested my crochet skills so all in all a good project and finished in plenty of time for our holiday which is what I intended it for!

Not the best photo but you get the idea! The plan was to possibly dye this a different colour if I ever work out what colour I wanted in the first place but I've actually come to love the creamy neutrality of it - at least I goes with everything!!

Another quick knit (and again fiddly to assemble) was a little something for Emily's birthday. Meet Joanna knitted from the 'Knitted Babes' book complete with 2 outfits (so far!) and I'm pleased to say that Emily loves her. So much so that Joanna already needs surgery to put her arms back on!! Serves me right for forgetting to actually sew them on properly!! Plus I think her hair is too heavy and her neck under stuffed so there will be the possible addition of some cotton wool buds to act as a spine for her neck!

I think I got carried away with the accessories but then why shouldn't a girl have some bling ear-rings and a feather boa?!!

The last couple of months seem to have been crammed full of spinning, dyeing and knitting which is why the blog has been neglected (plus that naughty Ravelry keeps distracting me too!!) and my favorite thing was the dyeing session that Mum had at her house with myself and Christina. Great fun was had by all and lovely coloured yarns were made using both naturals and chemical dyes. My favorite does have to be the red onion/weld combination though which is destined to be..... why another shawl of course!!

Red Onion (green) and Weld (yellow) natural dyed Alpaca Lace weight

Cochineal natural dyed merino lace weight

BFL sock yarn dyed with Landscapes dyes, over dyed with blue Easy Peasy dyes

Assorted hand-spun yarns - top to bottom:

Fyberspates Alpaca rovings; hand-dyed BFL fleece; Teeswater plied with Cotswold/Texel blend

Brushing the Dust Off!

2008-04-16T13:25:00.009+01:00

It seems odd not having posted for ages but I've been contentedly knitting and spinning away and blogs have been far from my thoughts. Maybe it's the faint promise of Spring and the lengthening of the days that's drawn me back but here I am (admittedly it's too cold for me here so I'm wrapped up with Agatha!).

I've always wondered how some people can manage to knit so many socks in relatively short periods of time so I surprised myself by knitting and casting on for three pairs of socks in three weeks. Admittedly there are only 2 pairs and one lonely Elfine so far but I was distracted as I'll explain shortly. Obviously if you've read my previous post you'll know about the first of my finished socks which are my hand-dyed Plumkin Pie Chevrons. The pattern is one of the Chevrons from 'Sensational Knitted Socks' which isn't to hand right now or I'd give you the exact details! Nice comfy socks - shame about the bit of pooling around the heel flap but other than that I'm really pleased with my home made self- striping socks even if they are a bit like tiger feet!!

Next up was a first try of my Colinette Jitterbug stash in the Gauguin colourway which I got on holiday last year in Devon. The pattern is 'Lorelei' from 'Lets Knit!' a month or so ago which was done in the exact same colourway so I thought I may as well give it a go and try and avoid the odd pooling the Jitterbug sometimes seems to do as the socks in the photo looked great. And mine done on the same size needles? Weird purple stripe that turned into blobs on the soles of my feet (a Paul Simon song if I'm not mistaken!!) which made me think of either birthmarks or grape pickers feet! And the pooling on both sock was different to the other. But as for the sock - lovely and squishy and comfy but I think I'd have rather do them on smaller needles for a bit more of a snug fit but that's just being picky!!

Finally the aforementioned 'Elfine', a pattern I've been wanting to knit for ages now and have have wool set aside for ages specifically for it. I'm of a mind that I need the right colour sock yarn to go with a pattern sometimes and Elfine screamed greens to me. Now my wool looks nothing like the photo below the blues and purples are more vivid than shown but as Mum rightly says you can't really see the pattern for all the variegation of colour. All the same it's pretty and I like it. It also happens to be a good variation for me (like Lorelei) in that it's a toe-up sock but this time using a figure of eight cast on which is a bit fiddly to start but lovely and neat. the trouble is I need to be fully awake and have my brain in gear before I start the next one and lately I've just been that little bit too tired of an evening to gear myself up for a bit of work.

I'd finally decided that it was about time that my Japanese Feather Stole was finished off as it was far too simple a pattern for it to be neglected. So Elfine number two was delayed for the moment whilst I slogged on with the stole which grew quite quickly once I paid it some attention and thankfully it's that straight forward enough of a pattern that I was able to do it whilst DD was around which says a lot seeing as she's definitely going through the Terrible Two's (BTW what's next - Frantic Threes; Fearful Fours?) and I could even knit it at our Knitting evenings albeit slowly!!

I'm not sure if it's a Spring Thing but I've cast on for another shawl with Summer in mind. DH mentioned how many weeks it was before we'd be off to sunny Pembrokeshire for our hols and I decided to cast on to make sure it's be finished in time. It's Norah Gaughan's Medallion Shawl from Vogue Winter 07/08 which involves knitting up 15 separate hexagons which is actually quite satisfying to knit up. So far I've 9 knitted up in some Jaeger Alpaca 4ply in a cream shade making it look like little snow flakes (so much for a Summer shawl!!) and 6 more shouldn't take too long to do but I think the crocheting together of them all may be a bit testing of my meager crochet skills!

I shall leave you with photos of the extremes of the month. First off is a shot of the mountains from the moors behind Mum's house (one is probably Snowdon but I'm not too great at remembering the names of them from a distance) which was taken this Monday. And the final shot for you are some Dog Tooth Violets which appeared in one of my plant pots last year and are providing a beautiful shot in today's bright sunshine - definitely a month of mixed up weather!

Anyway I'm surrounded with piles of raspberry fluff to be spun up so I'll leave you for now and attempt to return with more news as soon as possible, hopefully within weeks and not months this time!

Plodding Along!

2008-02-13T12:23:00.005Z

Believe it or not I did actually start another post in January. Admitedly it was the end of January so no real rush to post but it ground to a halt. There were even photos. But then I thought the best thing to do would be to start again. So here I am, waiting for a delivery and putting my time to good use!

I have been busy, admitedly with a lot of none knitting related bits (like potty training - Fun!!) but also with some new knitting to show you all. There was a birthday deadline to meet to start with and I decided to make socks seeing as I'd not managed them for Christmas. Not content with knitting a pattern I knew and was happy with the results I decided to try a new pattern from Garn Studio which I liked the look of. Knitted up using 2 strands of yarn together on large needles (for socks at least!) it was a fairly quick knit once I'd got my head round the instructions. Not having done short row heels for ages as they're not my favorites my brain refused to comprehend what was going on for a couple of attempts but it got done in the end with fairly neat results. I'm happy with the finished socks and most importantly my Aunt is happy with them and they fit - what more can you ask?! Oh yes, the funny thing with these socks is that despite having 2 different yarns (both self-striping but different colourways) both of them got to a similar colour band at the same point resulting in obvious stripes in the midst of more random colours - weird hey?!

It's funny but knitting these socks and knowing they weren't for me has given me an urge for new socks of my own so no sooner had I cast off the Birthday socks then I cast on some for myself. The pattern is from Sensational Knitted Socks and is called Chevron (so simple to remember!) and I'm using some Blueface Leicester sock yarn I got in WoolFest that I dyed up during our big Dyeing Week and my Mums. Now I don't normally name my hand dyed yarns but this one screamed 'Plum-kin Pie' to me with it's shades of orange, brown and plum.

I have progressed a lot further than the photo shows now but then that it because I've been slow getting these posts done! So far I'm really happy with these, especially as Mum didn't recognise the yarn as stuff we'd dyed up and wondered where I'd gotten it from! Talking of Mum in connection with knitting, this next FO comes with many grateful thanks to her. Last birthday she gave me a skein of Posh Yarns luscious Cashmere aran weight which I'm ashamed to say I'd just not gotten round to knitting up sooner. This neck warmer is lovely to cuddle into and is based on a pattern for a whimple Mum found somewhere on the net - if I ever find the link I'll let you know!

DD is going through a phase of asking what I'm knitting for her everytime she sees my knitting something which is rather annoying as she doesn't seem to want to wear anything I've knitted for her. So I decided to knit her something she might play with instead and found this sweet pattern in amongst the huge pile of 'Golden Hands' craft books from the 70's. So far it's been a success.
And despite being a bad blogger and posting erratically Cyndy has kindly awarded me with the 'You Make My Day' award - Thank You!! so it now falls to me to return the favour and spread the award! To quote from Cyndys blog:
"Give the award to 10 people whose blogs bring you happiness and inspiration and make you feel happy about blogland. Let them know by posting a comment on their blog so they can pass it on. Beware you may get the award several times."

Where do you start?

My Lovely Mum - I may be biased here but she always makes my day and makes me happy, except when she's feeling poorly and down because she's so far away and I can't always be right there in person for her.

Kendra - because of all the beautiful things she makes and the fact that she'd designing a new lace project with a young baby - now there's dedication for you!

sheephappens - well I have to support another February 70's child! And she has lovely pics!

Jazzycrafts, CraftyDramaQueen, Piglottie and Nicola - for always being so busy with assorted projects.

Woolforbrains - and not because she louses things up but because of the amount of things she knits up with her own handspun (yes I know she's already had the award but nevermind!)

Jo - for pretty handspun pictures.

hpny knits - for pretty pictures and projects.

Well there are 10 for you who may or may not have been awarded already. Oh and if you haven't seen Cyndy's blog before hand hers always makes my day as well because of her beautiful nature shots which sort of make up for the lack of snow we've had here!

Oh and just before I go I feel I ought to let you know that I've fallen off the 'Knit from Stash' waggon already - Ooops! I blame birthday money burning a hole in my pocket and having a knitting group in a LYS but there is new yarn and new knitting books to show you and I'll try to do this sooner rather than later!

New Year, New Post

2008-01-09T16:33:00.000Z

Well it has been a while and I can't honestly think why I've not gotten round to posting since November! When I posted about 'Blogging without Obligation' I really had not planned on a break like this! There has been knitting, spinning and dyeing a plenty - I even had a great title for a post all ready for a quiet moment at the computer. I suppose a whistle stop tour of the past couple of months comings and goings will be in order and a selection of photos for you to browse through!

Those of you who read Artis-Anne will know that we had a grand spinning and dyeing week without Little Miss Emily and I was all set to tell you all how:

"I Dyed and Berried Myself!"

OK the picture is a little blurred but it does give you an idea of the colours we dyed up. Actually all of these ones are my selection with a small glimpse on the right hand side of our natural dyeing as well which Mum has more details of on her blog. The overall colour theme with me seemed to be rich berry and purple colours and 'tomato soup' orange! Here's another shot of that purple which is some luscious Teeswater fleece in the process of being carder with the very scary looking English Combs which are fantastic for preparing long fibred fleeces if you're careful!

The Christmas knitting didn't progress very far and really put me off knitting for a while. I think it was the whole idea of having to knit things and the pressure of a deadline. December seemed hectic enough without adding to it so I only ended up making 2 presents - the cable socks for my Dad and a scarf for my cousin. That's not to say I didn't knit anything in December - just not for Christmas presents! After finding some Sublime Merino Angora yarn half price I decided to treat myself and made 'Agatha' which is a faroese style shawl and such a lovely pattern to knit up and quick growing to boot! 'finished in time for Christmas it's lovely and warm and the yarn is so soft and squishy even if it is almost too fluffy (grr angora!).

And the latest issue of Knitty had quick temptations as well for the Christmas period that were ideal for using up some of those stash yarns (this years resolution - knit from stash or spin something suitable!). The results of this was a Toasty Topper knitted up in some of my early hand spun and a virtually finished Quant using a ball of Noro Silk Garden. Now I'll admit that the Silk Garden has failed to live to my expectations - bitty and uneven though the colours are nice. Typically though Emily won't wear the hat/scarf but that's no surprise as she doesn't really wear anything I've made for her even if she does constantly ask what I'm knitting for her.

The latest FO hot off the needles is a stash buster using some unknown chunky yarn recycled from a jumper I no longer wore (sorry Mum!). It's one of Garn Studios patterns which was quick and simple to work but then again it could have been such an enjoyable knit thanks to the Christmas present from my beloved DH - some ever so pretty Knit Picks Harmonies!!

On the needles right now? Well for once I'm knitting something that DD might actually be glad of and make use of - a dress for her dolly!!

Right am off to knit and will make a definite effort to get back into blogging and will try to work my way round catching up with everyone. Finally I'd like to wish everyone a very Happy New Year and Happy Knitting!

November already?!

2007-11-04T20:28:00.000Z

I guess you could say I've been a bit lethargic of late when it comes to knitting, blogging, etc and I really hadn't realised quite how long it's been since I blogged last. Recently I've not been doing much knitting at all anyway and have been reading instead some of my favorite books from childhood, namely Susan Cooper's 'Dark is Rising' series which I found again in the attic last month. There have been glimmers of creativeness here and there but I think the whole 'must knit these for Christmas' deal is putting me off it all and so I'm pulling the breaks on and have decided that I will knit things for people and they'll get them when ever but more likely after the festivities!! I also forgot that MIL already has her present of lace weight merino and a pattern so there's one less thing on the list already!!

Autumn finally seems to have arrived here and has lead to my current obsession with photographing mushrooms and fungi.

And my Aunt finally introduced me to her charges - 15 adorable Ryland sheep on the Formby Dune Heath which she 'watches' one day each week (counts them and feeds them and checks they're OK). They're on holiday from the Liverpool City Farm which has lost some of it's funding and so is unsure if these sweeties will be coming home again or not. They are such friendly little things and, with no rudeness involved, just look at those furry little bottoms - like mini Alpacas!

They did actually come up to you and were strokeable. Emily really enjoyed this but I told her she had to be quite with them and say 'Good Morning Mr Sheep' which she obediently did - can't get her to tidy up but say hello to a sheep? Of course!! Definitely a spinner/knitter in the growing!

Back to the glimmers of creativeness - I've found a 'local' Spinning guild. I say 'local' as it's about an hour away near Abergelle in a fantastic spot and in my first meeting we did rush weaving which was great fun - can you tell what it is yet?

It's a mat of course!! A bit holey and bumpy but I love it and I'd love to do more again. The lady who taught us was Mandy Coates and she had some wonderful creations on show with her made from both rush and willow and apparently goes to a lot of shows in North Wales wearing her woven hats so do look out for her! I've been back to the guild since for a spinning afternoon and the next meeting for me will be a show and tell - eek!! Will have to prepare myself for that one!

Talking of SWD guilds you may remember Mum has done some weavings with her guilds, the name of the lady escapes me now but I'm sure Mum has note of it somewhere on her blog. Anyway I had a little go at one as well way back when she did her first one but hadn't got round to finishing it off for ages. Now I can finally present it to you all:

Maybe there should be a prize for the person who can guess what it's meant to be. DH had trouble even seeing it in the flesh but then he does sometimes have trouble seeing things right in front of him - bless him! He was also the cause of a woolie mishap when my Twillies Freedom Spirit tank ended up in the wash. Poor DH hid it thinking I'd go mad with him (a bit annoyed granted but I've not killed him for it!) and when confronted with the felted mass he said 'Can't you frog it?' which impressed me with his knowledge of knitting terms - can't go mad when he's learnt that much, there is hope he may learn more!!

My knitting course progresses all 8 weeks of it including homework one of which is this bag in Sirdar Bigga which was an insanely quick knit but needs lining at some point before I call in properly finished.

Right, I'm weary now - coming down with a cold and having a tiresome few days (and nights) with a poorly DD who not only is full of cold and coughs but has nasty big back teeth coming through as well so lots of sleepless nights and whingey days poor love. Will try and get my knitting mojo back but the old knitting/tennis elbow is still bothersome at times so it may be dribs and drabs. Oh, that reminds me - I've a new link in the side bar for 'Knitting without Obligation' which I found from a comment on ArtyFartyKat's site which seems a really sensible approach to blogging which fits my mood lately and I've decided to try not to make this blog seem a chore and blog when I feel up for it. I will try and catch up with you all as soon as possible but it seems to be the hibernating season for quite a few blogs lately - maybe it's the time of year! Catch you all soon!!

FO Flashing!

2007-10-06T21:24:00.000+01:00

Well as promised I would give you all the full details of my latest knitting as soon as it was finished and here you have it! It was finished last Tuesday/Wednesday and I'm pleased with it - it really is warm but being such a heavy chunky wool has given me a case of Knitters Elbow with my left elbow and wrist being painful. So there was no knitting for a few days to ease the ache!
The pattern comes from N.Y. Yarns but mine has been modified due to lack of yarn. The original had a fold down collar which I didn't do. Instead I did some short row shaping around where the collar would have been and I also added another button hole to stop the from gaping open quite so much. In these pictures there are only 3 buttons because I didn't buy enough (typical!).

I went to visit Mum for her birthday the other week which was the perfect chance for a photo shoot! Mums treat was a pic-nic to a local beach, Black Rock Sands, where we had chip in the camper van. We had a great time going for a walk as well even if it was a wet and blustery day.

And I even braved the weather to 'flash' my FO!!

Mum called this my 'Norman Wisdom' pose!

Well in my defense it was cold and wet!!

Here's a 'normal' pose for you! It had a brilliant test drive on the beach - it's lovely and warm and cosy and I've been wearing it loads since! Definitely a success which I'll be knitting up again but will try and spin enough for a collar as well next time!

Sorry it's a bit short and sweet this time. I'm feeling a bit anti-computers lately and have been avoiding it a fair bit. Yes, even avoiding Ravelry. No Computers, no blogging, no Knitting even - what's come over me? I think it's a case of the blues right now but DH has promised me a week away at my Mums without Emily at some point in the near future!!!! Bless him, he's good and I certainly feel due to escape and switch off for a while! Right I'd better go and get ready for week 2 of my course - so far so good. I promise I will try and be a good blogger this week and attempt to catch up with all your blogs ASAP, thanks for sticking with me!

Edited to add: The yarn I used was my own chunky handspun Merino/Silk from the giant batt I got in WoolFest. I'd decided to set myself a challenge of spinning enough yarn for a garment and knitting it up before the 31st October as that will be a year from when I first had my spinning wheel and I thought it would be a good way to see how much Id learnt in that time! I am really pleased with the result and the thought of spinning for garments now doesn't seems as daunting anymore!

I'm In!!!

2007-10-01T10:04:00.000+01:00

Hurrah!! My Ravelry invite has arrived and I'm all set up - if you're on I'm KraftyKath, come and find me!!

What a great way to loose hours - I've been meaning to post here since Saturday evening but have been lost in Ravelry until all hours of the night. And at least I know I'm not alone, a certain Piglottie was also on there near midnight on Saturday!

Anyway - there has been knitting going on as well which is another reason for the lack of action here. I've been putting a determined effort into knitting up my merino-silk hand spun after the fiasco that was 'Lacy Waves'. I did start off with one of Sirdars 'Peru Naturals' patterns but decided I'd do something else before I'd even completed the back.

I've nearly finished this now - I'm just picking up 222 stitches round the front edges after sewing the shoulder seams. I never really enjoy picking up stitches so the thought of 222 is not fun. It's a really simple pattern, just a k4, p2 rib with rows of reverse stocking stitch every now and then and as it's knitted up on 6mm needles is a quick grower. You'll have all the details soon when I do the final reveal!

I had a bit of a surprise on Friday in work when I was asked to go on a course for them today at short notice - could I get a baby sitter? Well - how hard do you think I would try to get a babysitter so that work could send me on a knitting course?! So I will be off this afternoon to head office in North Wales to join all the other paying customers in Abakhans very first 'Advanced Knitting Course'! My boss did add that she knew I could knit well already but she thought I might be interested in the chance for a free course 'to improve the service we offer our customers'! Who am I to refuse?! And Mum thinks the instructor is a lady from one of her Spinning guilds - small world!

Anyway I should go and get myself ready and stock my knitting bag in readiness! Full report to follow!

A Measure of FO's

2007-09-22T21:11:00.000+01:00

There are times when I am in love with my Finished Objects and there are times when I wonder why on earth I even bother knitting at times. 'Lacy Waves' has been finished but I'm sorry to say that it has a tale of woe for you.

For once I actually decided to block all the finished pieces out to the stated measurements before I even started sewing 'Lacy Waves' up. I was so pleased with myself for being professional (so I thought) and taking the time and effort to do things properly. I did make a little adjustment to the pattern in that I did a three needle bind off at the shoulders and was pleased with the result. It was when I washed the pieces that I had a bit of a surprise - the wool decided to grow despite all my careful washing. The body length up to the armhole had grown from the 14" I'd knitted to 17.5" and the body width was also larger than intended. The arms were longer but I wasn't bothered by this as in the pattern photos they did look like 3/4 length and I rathered longer sleeves. And at any point in my careful blocking did I realise what lay before me? Not at all.

Lace Insert detail.

Impatient for everything to dry and realising that Emily would soon be back from Nursery to trample over my knitting blocked out on the floor I started sewing the damp mass up. At this stage I was still pleased with how soft the washed wool was and how neatly I was sewing the garment up but as I sewed the last seam it dawned on my that the stupid thing looked massive. I knew the pattern wasn't going to be my usual fitted garment anyway but this was bigger than it should have been.

The fitted sleeves were loose and baggy and the body was overly wide threatening to fall down all the time. Admittedly I had yet to crochet round the neck but at this stage I knew that 2 rows of crochet were not going to save this. 'Lacy Waves' had drowned to become a Bagpuss jumper - saggy and baggy but not loved. Well, I lie - I did/do love the lace insert which was a clever piece of textural knitting combining lace and cables but the rest of the jumper is an utter waste of time. And what cheap and badly behaved yarn was this knitted in? Jaeger Matchmaker DK so I can't even blame that. What happened with the tension square you may very well ask? I hang my head in shame here and know my downfall - no tension square. It was the right sized needles - why bother?

With no smaller size 'Lacy Waves' pattern I'm not sure what I'll do now about reknitting this again. And the yarn itself worries me a little - will it grow again after reknitting? So far the plan is possibly to knit 'Daphne' the lovely little cardi that Mum has just finished and hope that the smaller needle size will keep the yarn in check but for now that yarn is going to sit in a corner out of my way until I'm less disappointed with the whole fiasco.

On a brighter note I do have some photos I promised you last time of some Monkeys I found hanging round in the woods by Mum last week - thank goodness no-one saw me with my feet up a tree taking photos of my socks! I'm still really pleased with these even if they have a tendency to fall down a bit for what ever reason. The Lana Grossa Mellienweit is lovely and woolly and such lovely soft colour blending - will be interesting to see how it wears.

Also as requested here is my bobbin of handspun. Blended on the drumcarder predominantly using shades of purple, blue and pink hand-dyed Texel and Cotswold curls with odd bits of yellow and red thrown in for good measure. The photo doesn't really do the colours justice as there is so much more variety in the colours than can really be seen here. Still need to finish the other bobbin to ply this up with so will report back later with the finished yarn and it's details.

Whilst at Mums I cast on for yet another project - not something I really needed to do as there are so many around the house. Can you tell what it is?

Can you tell where the deliberate knots in yarn end and the unintentional ones start?

Okay - it's a 'Scarf with the Striped Border' (not the most exciting title!) from 'Victorian Lace Today' knitted in some HipKnits lace weight silk which is such a slippery thing it will not stay in a ball and is permanently making it self into knots whether I like it or not!

More pretty things for you all - goodies from our trip to the Colinette Millshop! I did very well and resisted most admirably (could this be due to a certain 2 year old causing major distractions?!) and came home armed with this small offering:

The blue and yellow are both 'Jitterbug' from the sale room in unknown colourways and, as always, another cone of 4ply wool for my collection - such good value I can not resist! And all lovely bright colours for happy socks!

Whilst at Mums we had a lovely walk round a local lake that I've driven past so many times but have never actually walked round. What a pleasant surprise that was. Emily had a whale of a time running round with the dogs and playing 'Pooh Sticks' on the bridges and it was such a lovely day - we even managed a pic-nic!

Emily plays 'Pooh Sticks'

And why the surprise at the lovely location? Can you see the building in the photo below? That is the decommissioned Trawsfynydd Nuclear power station, something I've always grumbled at and never really before seen what really surrounded it. The only drawback to it going is that the funding has gone for the visitor centre for the lake and so there are no more details available on all the lovely walks surrounding it all.

Well, all those photos have put me in a better mood now. I shall ignore that pile of green for a while and forget the excitement of a lovely lacy jumper gone sour. Ah, knitting - why do we inflict ourselves with it?! Sorry about the photo heavy post will try to keep it brief next time!

The Stocking Stitch Slog

2007-09-11T11:52:00.000+01:00

Well as I feel like I'm virtually up to date with every ones blogs again I'll allow myself to post. Saying that there's not an enormous amount to blog about right now. I'm trying to do two things at once as always and am working on Norah Gaughans 'Lacy Waves Top' from 'Lace Style' again. Now I've not shown you this before as quite honestly there's not a lot to see. The back is plain stocking stitch - no shaping until the armholes and neck / shoulder. The front is much the same - 14" of plain stocking stitch, nice mindless knitting but not exactly the most exciting photo in the world. But just to show I have been doing some knitting here is a dull photo of stocking stitch for you all.

The pattern does get more exciting later on with the lace sleeves and lace insert panel for the front of the jumper but for now it is a little dull and a bit slow growing as a result. I've decided that I do like my knitting to keep me thinking to some extent or another and so these 14" have been a bit of a chore at times, still not far to go till the armholes bringing shaping and things to think about!

WIP number 2 at the moment (obviously not including those lost in the UFO pile) is another pair of 'Log Cabin Socks' from Hand Knit Holidays but these are the larger size this time which will hopefully fit my Dad. I wanted to make him some thick warm socks as he does Motor Racing Marshaling (those guys in the orange suits round race tracks) and stands round in the cold for hours - these will hopefully do the trick for him! Knitted in a chunky yarn on 4mm needles (I'm doing the magic loop as usual) I'm using some Sirdar Denim Chunky as I don't think I could trust Dad not to sling hand wash only socks in the washing machine so at least these will be safe in the machine and not shrink on him but still have some wool content.

It is a great pattern - quick growing and a straightforward cable pattern that whilst easy is enough to keep you from being too bored. I'm on the heel flap right now so am whizzing through them - pity not everyone is having chunky socks for Christmas!! I think I'm safe to post about Dad's socks here as well but other Christmas socks may have to be kept secret for a while!

My Monkeys have of course been finished and unfortunately the camera battery ran out as I was about to photograph them for you so a bit of a delay for that.

I've also been playing with my drum carder making my own batts out of my hand dyed fleece and playing with blending colours with really satisfactory results, well at least I'm pleased with them! As with Monkeys no photo so far but I'll get one done as soon as possible. I've one bobbin of purpley mauve shades and I've started spinning up a bobbin to ply these with. Original plans were for some plain Welsh Black but I'm now thinking of blending some more coloured fleece in with this to see if I can get subtle flecks of colour coming through the black. It's proving to be a good way of getting used to the drum carder and figuring the best way to use it and is fun seeing what happens to these pretty batts once they're spun up. Not sure what the yarn will end up as but so far it's nice and fine so depending on the yardage possibly socks - now there's a surprise!

Fireworks for Finished Objects!

2007-08-29T20:39:00.000+01:00

Not really! I'm very lucky to have great scenery on my drive to and from my knitting group. Some people may not agree with me, especially when I say that I have to drive through Birkenhead's Dock area but it really does have lovely urban scenery and I've seen some fantastic sunsets over the docks on my way to knitting on many an occasion.
And in addition to this there is the views over the River Mersey to Liverpool which really has a great waterfront. And on Tuesday night as I was coming home from knitting I had an extra special treat. I got myself front row seats (well standing room) at a Birthday celebration. If you weren't aware the City of Liverpool is 800 years old and really celebrated '800 day' in style with one of the largest fireworks displays on the river in years. And boy was it spectacular - they even had fireworks that burst open to say '800' which I am seriously impressed with!

It also gave me a chance to test my cameras 'firework' setting and try and capture the atmosphere.

You can't really tell but the orange blur to the lower left is actually the Liver Building home to Liverpool's famous Liver Birds. It sounded like they were bombing Liverpool with all the blasts and bangs and combined with all the smoke and searchlights they had it almost felt like having gone back in time and watching a wartime air raid. Anyway, I thought I'd share this little bit of local news with you all as it really was a fun night out!

Back to the knitting I've a flurry of knitting to share with you and, sit yourself down, some more FO's. Recent ones. And another half done WIP. Yes, there has been some concentrated knitting time (OK - due to being full of cold but it's still results!)

Exhibit A - Angora Fetchings. Based on the pattern from Knitty, I used some Louisa Harding Kimono Angora and 3.75mm dpns and lenghtened them to make skinny hand versions as a (belated) birthday present for my brothers girlfriend. They've gone down well and I did promise her some mittens last Winter so at least they'll be in time for this year! She's bunny mad as well hence the angora yarn which is insanely light and fluffy. These were knitted from one 25g ball and I've got a load of left overs!

Exhibit B - Finally I've gotten round to completing my Devon Holiday socks which was a silly UFO having only about 1" to knit up before casting off for the toe. Needless to say these took next to no time to whip off the needles and near enough straight on the feet! The pattern was from 'Sensational Knitted Socks' and if I ever find where I've put the book I'll tell you exactly what pattern it was. Yarn is as usual some Colinette 4ply wool from the Mill shop sale room. You can see slight colour variations - on the right foot the toe area is a little redder than the rest and on the left the cuff is redder. I realised what was happening and switched back to another section of yarn so I could end up with mostly matching socks.

So far they're lovely and snug and cosy and was a simple lace pattern to do, even if the colours in the yarn don't really show this up much!

No sooner had I grafted the toe of these, stitches were rapidly cast on for Monkey which started zooming along, so much so that I've already finished one sock and am halfway down the next leg! Must say it's a great pattern and I'm glad to be finally knitting them and am probably the last person globally to be knitting them. I can see myself knitting more of these and I'm really pleased with how the yarn is knitting up as well. This is some of my holiday yarn namely some Lana Grossa Meilenweit Mega Boots Stretch which feels lovely and woolly and has lovely soft colour changes which don't seem to distract from the pattern. This photo is pretty accurate colour wise except just before the heel flap on the leg.

You can also see my latest lucky acquisition - my very own set of 'Tony Toes' sock blockers! I'm trying to persuade Mum's DH that he could start earning a bit of pocket money making these sock blockers to sell and have decided that he should brand them 'Tony Toes' but I'm not sure if he's convinced yet! But bless him they are great and have been a godsend recently as my DH accidentally washed a pair of my 100% wool socks. In the Washing Machine. Softly felted socks anyone? Thank goodness I can still get my foot in them and they are on the blockers being stretched. I just seem to have lost a bit of length in the leg (of the socks - not me!) and somehow managed to get a hole in them in the lace section. Thankfully I've plenty of that yarn left so I'll darn the hole and it needs be I'll knit another pair - why though does this have to happen to your favorite pair?!

Of Gables and Socks.

2007-08-25T19:37:00.000+01:00

Well I've only just realised that I've a Finished Object that has been waiting to be shown to you all for about two months now. I'd finished 'GreenGables' in time for WoolFest and just wanted to get a good photo for you. Well I think we'd still be waiting for that so you'll have to make do with a not so good photo instead!

It's not brilliant I'm afraid as I took this myself in the mirror. And I'm not that tall really - I'm stood on a box so that you could see all of the top! I love the pattern even if I did mess up the lace pattern as I kept forgetting which row I was on of a simple 4 row repeat - so mindless I didn't even think enough for it and only realised when I'd cast off! I don't mind as I love it so much and I'll definitely be doing this again - hopefully accurately next time!

I've been thinking of WoolFest lately after listening to the latest BritKnitCast and it reminded me that I'd filmed on of the sock knitting machines which were just brilliantly clever machines so I thought I'd leave you with this little film whilst I try and finish some more WIP's! Enjoy!!

I should also add that I've been nominated for a Schmoozer award by Mum.

Which to quote from her blog is:

Schmoozing is the natural ability “to converse casually, especially in order to gain an advantage or make a social connection. Good schmoozers effortlessly weave their way in and out of the blogsphere, leaving friendly trails and smiles, happily making new friends along the way. They don’t limit their visits to only the rich and successful, but spend some time to say hello to new blogs as well. They are the ones who engage others in meaningful conversations, refusing to let it end at a mere hello - all the while fostering a sense of closeness and friendship".

So in return I nominate the following:

Sarah who always has a kind word;
Badger who always seems to have a friendly word to say;
Carrie-Anne even if she is away house-sitting she still manages to comment and keep up with the outside world;
Piglottie who again always seems to have a friendly word to say;
and finally Jo another one who never seems to fail to reply to comments.

It has been very hard narrowing the nominees down again as there are so many people out there who are so friendly and generous with their time on-line and always seem ready to encourage and support and offer words of friendship. I really do cherish the camaraderie within blogland and thank you all for your support and comments and will try my best to return the favour!

As Requested...

2007-08-17T19:58:00.000+01:00

Well, as I said in my last post I've been responsible for the Wool Department in work the last few weeks and have had large deliveries to put away. Normally the official Wool Lady does this but she's on holiday which means I'm left in charge - ooh er!!

I arrived today armed with my camera to get some photos as requested only to find there had been 5 more huge bags of wool delivered and there were 3 more still to be unpacked. As if that wasn't enough work to contemplate the boss decided we should move all the DK weight yarns to the same area. And of course by 'we' I really mean 'me'!! I didn't escape the wool all day I was that busy shifting things. I don't know if the orders were doubled up or not but there were insane mountains of cheap acrylic DK - still a big seller with our little old charity knitters - most of which were doubled up. I did enjoy myself once I'd figured out where everything should go and was bemused when the Sirdar rep arrived and as I had armfuls of wool at the time dealt with me! Thankfully nothing more complicated than a new shade book and new posters to display but exciting none the less! Naturally the old shade book is sat here with me to peruse before being passed on to my knitting group to study.

So here's the finished result of anothers day hard labour in the wool dept!

From L to R - Click Chunky, Blur, something from Wendy with alpaca in it,
Wendy Fusion and Peru Naturals (that actually smells woolly!!)

The DK Aisle! - including the new Click DK and Twillies Freedom Spirit
and leading to the rainbow of acrylic DK!

I also hinted in the last post that I might at long last have an FO to share with you and so I have - can you tell what it is yet?!

For those in the know it's obviously another of Elizabeth Zimmermann's Baby Surprise Jackets in its 'before' mode. And here it is 'after'!

The girls had fun at my knitting night trying to figure how it all came together after I finished casting off and were all suitably impressed with the cleverness of the pattern. Obviously I haven't sewn the buttons on yet but Emily has worn it and does like it. DH is trying to train her to say 'Surprise' whilst wearing it and so it's of course known as the Surprise Jacket to little Emily as well!

I love the pattern! I really really do! This only used 144g (weighed on the kitchen scales!) of leftover DK acrylic that was in the stash - not my favorite but with messy Emily a god send really and simple to wash. I was even tempted with the thought of making a rainbow one - all I need is a decent blue and orange and I think I know where I can get those from! But first I want one for myself! And then Emily really needs a Tomten Jacket and another of EZ's fantastic patterns - do you know, I loved the patterns before knitting them. But now having actually knitted one up I'm even more in love with them all - EZ was truly a genius with her patterns and I want to knit more of them!! I can see an obsession coming on!!

Right, I'm going to try and find the buttons for this and try to crack on with finishing something else namely my Devon socks - only inches to go!!

Edited to add: The girls in work though I was mad taking pictures of the wool but one of them has decided that this is what happens when you start knitting with four needles!

And the award goes to...

2007-08-13T18:50:00.000+01:00

Well I'm really touched to have been awarded this:

even if it was by my own Mum. Thanks for all your support as well!
And now comes the hard part in both narrowing down who to nominate and finding those who haven't already had this award! So the names out of the shiny gold envelope (drum roll please) are as follows:

hpny knits for all her lovely inspiring photographs and projects.

Christina for managing to knit all those socks with 2 small children!

Crafty Drama Queen for all her talented creations and because she loves green as well (only joking!)

Queen of the Froggers again for all her lovely creations although I've a feeling she may have been nominated already.

I will add this though that it was very hard to narrow the choices down to just four as there are so many blogs out there that are inspirational in both their content and the talent shown and there is such a great and supportive community here in blogland that everyone really deserves this award.

I will post again soon with some knitting content but for now I feel I ought to leave you with a list of current WIP's that make me think I should rename this blog 'The Butterfly Knitter' as I'm flitting from project to project right now with the attention span of a butterfly. Definitely a severe case of Cast-on Fever and Finish-itis although I may have something finished soon!

EZ's baby surprise - actually a toddler surprise adapted from the Adult surprise directions so it'll fit Emily better, virtually finished so watch this space;
Lacey Summer Shrug - abandoned when the dodgy weather arrived and not touched since;
Lacey Waves Jumper (from Lace Style) - back completed and put aside when the warm weather was on it's way in favour of the above;
Devon Holiday Sock number 2 - not much more of the foot to knit, not sure why I haven't just picked it up and finished the darned thing;
Lace shawl (Japanese Waves or something from KnitSpot) - 1 repeat down, forgot where I put the instructions and 'tidied' the knitting away and forgot about it, poor thing - needs good light and brains.

My handspun yarn from my WoolFest giant merino/silk batt is all done now and so I'm itching to start that soon with a different pattern to the planned one as I don't think I'll have quite enough yardage and don't really want to tempt fate. I'll revisit that pattern with more handspun when I know I'll definitely have enough to finish it.

I was almost sad enough to photograph the shelves of wool in work that I've been playing with lately. It's such a hardship but on my days in I'm being asked to take charge of the wool department and had the hugest wool delivery to put away on Friday and it was all new wools. Well it took all day to find space on the shelves and arrange them to my satisfaction (in colour groups with preference to the colours I liked!) and I was so pleased with the results I was very tempted to photograph it as a FO to show you all here but then I think that would have been a bit sad!! And then the next day I had to put out all the new patterns that had come in the same delivery and I was very pleased with myself that as I was looking at them all my first reactions were - 'I have the yarn for that' or 'I can spin yarn for that' rather than 'I'll need to buy that yarn now!'. Still we have lovely colours of Twillies Freedom Spirit and Sirdar's Peru Naturals that will be screaming at me for a while now - must remember to try and get some Twillies patterns in after hearing Dreamcatchers reviews of the new book - not just for me of course!!

Bargains in B*******!

2007-07-29T10:07:00.000+01:00

(The name has been hidden to prevent embarrassment as you will find out!)

I am so behind with everyones blogs since coming back from our holiday and I don't seem to have had any time to remedy that. I will try to catch up with everyone as soon as possible.

After a mad-cap non stop week after coming back from Devon I had 3 days in work, rather than my usual 2, and then was straight over to stay with Mum without pausing to draw breath!

It was a lovely break as always and Emily ran us both ragged, as usual, and we before we knew it it was time to go home again. Not before we found some lambs at a local Rabbit Farm (and lots of other animals!) in an attempt to entertain young Emily who after running round came back and excitedly told us she'd found some poo! Bless her!

Cute Lambs.

We did manage to get to Mum's local charity shops and found the bargains of the titles. In the same shop where Mum found a huge pile of 'Vogue Knitting' back issues we found a set of five folders full of knitting patterns which have some little gems in them and which were only £1.50 for the lot. We also found a complete set of 'Golden Hands complete knitting, dressmaking and needlecraft guide' books. We asked the lady how much they were and she said "£2". Her colleague then piped up and said "Well it says here 6 books for £1, so 18 books... that's £2". We didn't argue, Emily was starting to get bored and it was time to haul all our goodies back to the car. It was only when we got to the car that we realised that Emily had acquired a new little car and little toy car - Oooops!

Anyway back to the books. There are loads of lovely ideas in amongst this set of books and lots of really mad seventies stuff which I'll try and find some choice selections for you. None the less I can see myself spending hours browsing through this lot!

There hasn't been much knitting going on as I've been spinning like a dervish and enjoying every minute of it all. I've just over 140g left to spin up before I can finish all the plying and get things worked out for my project. I've set myself the challenge of trying to finish the spinning and knitting up by the 31st of October which will be a year from when I first got my wheel and for me a marker of how much I've learnt in a year - we shall see! Hopefully this yarn will knit up with subtle variations of colour - each skein so far is different and yet toning as you can see. Those white parts are luscious lumps of silk!

The other news I suppose I should tell you all about is my lovely parcel I received. Can you tell what it is yet?Maybe this shot will help you!

That is it - my spinning equipment supply is complete with my lovely new drum carder. What with all these fleeces I've got in the shed I decided it was a must have if I'm ever to work my way through it all within my lifetime (I exaggerate of course!). Haven't really stopped long enough to have a really good play with it yet but all the ladies in Mum's guild have said the Ashford is the best out there to go for and with all their experience and talent who am I to disagree with them?! What I have done with it I am pleased with but really want to get this project out of the way before biting off another thing right now.

Oh and one of the girls I work with brought me a shearling Suffolk Mule fleece from her sisters small flock in West Kirby so I now have two local fleeces to play with ( and wash ASAP!) as if I needed more! But bless her it was going free and she thought of me!

Right, as I'm really waffling about nothing I shall leave you with some pretty pictures from our Devon trip as a reward. These were amongst the few that don't have Emily in and I hope you enjoy them!

Beesands beach, Start Bay.

Slapton Ley, also Start Bay.

Streete Gate.

Looking along Slapton Ley to Torcross.

As you may have guessed these are all in Start Bay and local to where we were staying. For those of you who don't know the area it's South Devon down the coast from Torquay and Paignton and so peaceful and beautiful with all these pebbly beaches and rolling hillsides. Well recommended for a visit if you're ever down that way.

End of Summer

2007-07-15T18:49:00.000+01:00

At least that is always how it feels coming home from our weeks holiday, never mind! But I've not been resting without knitting, fear not! I have been busy and have a number of FO's for you plus one I haven't photographed yet as well which is the 'Green Gables' top which was completed in time for WoolFest which really is a bit sinful - wearing Cotton to WoolFest!!! Well I would have been if we'd gone in for another day! The other FO finished before WoolFest are these wonderfully cozy socks:

They were finished only a few hours before WoolFest admittedly but still! And I was so reluctant to take them off as my feet were so toasty warm wearing them. I had planned to knit them up later in the year in time for Winter but I was in the midst of Cast On Fever and as they are knit in Sirdar Super Nova on 3.75mm needles they were a seriously quick knit. The pattern by the way is 'Log Cabin Socks' from 'Hand knit Holidays' by Melanie Falick. You will be seeing more of these socks!!

Next in the FO-fest is some overdue spinning starting with 109g / 194m of Merino/Silk plied with some fine kid mohair - what it will be I do not know but suspect this is calling to be a hat of some form or another. I'm hoping it will call to me and tell me what it wants to be. It's roughly aran weight and is a bit lightly spun in parts and certainly not evenly plied but it was the first bit of spinning I'd done in a while so I'll not worry about it and it is after all a very fluffy and soft yarn to stroke in times of stress!

And besides, why worry about lesser spun yarn when I'm happy knowing I've 4 bobbins full of some Merino/Silk blend from a WoolFest purchase I forgot to ~~confess to~~ tell you all about which was a giant 600g batt from Winghams which I am really enjoying spinning up. There is a plan with all this spinning and hopefully it will be enough to make the garment I have in mind. I'm not going to tell you about it yet as there will be maths involved with the yarn and pattern and I think I'll leave the reveal until I've made a start on the item in question and see if it's going to work or not. Suffice to say the inimitable Mrs Zimmermann is involved somewhere along the line in this grand project!! (Okay - not grand really but I'm a little nervous trying to spin enough consistently for a garment!)

And there's more! My current WIP - a lacey tie front shrug to provide a little warmth on all these balmy summers evenings we're having (sorry, wishful thinking!) - was a little to complex to knit all the way down to Devon. So, desperate for something to break the tedium of all those miles on the motorway out came some Colinette 4ply and Sensational Knitted Socks and here you have....

... some Lace Rib socks (on the M5). The yarn is more muted than it looks thanks to the sunshine and the flash (bad combination for yarn photography!) and makes me think of cottage gardens but isn't really great for showing up anything much of a pattern as you can see below. I'm just turning the heel on sock number 2 but have the slight hitch of not being able to find it at all, never mind so I think we'll have to wait for a finished pair for now!

I should also confess to having found some yarn shops whilst away as well and of course had to make a purchase to support the local economy, etc.. and so came away with just a little more sock yarn for the stash! (Like I really need more!)

So here you see 4 balls of Lana Grossa Melinweint Mega Boot Stretch (Mum yours is the one above the lary orange one that looks day glow!) and a hank of Jitterbug in Gaugain colourway which reminded me of the colour of the sea in glorious Devon. when my brain wakes up again I'll try to remember the names of the shops but for now will tell you one is in Totnes and was the first stockist of Colinette ever and the other is in Paignton.

I suppose I should leave you with some lovely scenery shots to calm the mind after all my wittering so here you go! Many thanks for all the comments, I will try to get round to catching up with you all as soon as possible but am drowning in laundry right now so bear with me!

*Blogger must be tired as well and doesn't seem to want to let you have any pretty scenery shots tonight so I'll let you see those again another time, after all I think I may have shown you enough FO's to last a while yet!

Walking Through a Wooly Wonderland!

2007-07-01T14:30:00.000+01:00

Wowee! What a fantastic time we had at WoolFest even though we were all thoroughly exhausted by the end of it. I'm so glad I was staying in the van with Mum and her DH as the weather was so wet and windy that there was a tent on the site that blew away. But other that that everyone survived the night if not a little bedraggled.

Friday morning brought sunshine and blue skies and felt just like Christmas morning when you were a kid and seeing all the delights once in WoolFest itself did nothing to clam me down. To say I was hyper and manic would be putting it mildly and I would say that I've been hanging round 2 year olds for too long and got rather over excited! Mum didn't help by giving us a picnic dinner of Pain aux Chocolat and Coca Cola. Anyway I shall move on to tell you all about the delights! It was full of wonderful colours and textures, fibres and fleeces and it was really nice seeing all the livestock as well.

Herdwick Sheep

And on top of all that we met so many lovely people throughout the day. Before we even left the camp-site Kath came over to introduce her self to us and introduce us to Carrie-Anne, Becky and Bev who are all so lovely and instantly feel like old friends.

There was so much to take in that I don't think I really know where to start in describing the atmosphere there. Everyone was so friendly and didn't object to wide loads like Mum and me laden down with fleeces and other bags of goodies and trying to squeeze through the crowds.

Laughing Hens Knitted Sofa

There was certainly a lot to be tempted by as well which is why we only managed one day of madness. Both Mum and I grabbed loads of goodies, so much so that we'd spend our weekends budget in the first day. We just about managed to see everything but there was at least one aisle that I know I didn't manage to get down but we were just so tired by the end I couldn't really care or not. Anyway the goodies...

I did get some yarn as you can see - (clockwise from bottom left) some stunning lavender blue alpaca sock yarn from Fyberspates and some kid mohair/silk blend from MoBear which is beautiful. But the main purchases were fibery goodness such as the firey shades of the alpaca roving's which are again from Fyberspates and then some sparkly Sock-stuff from Freyalynn. Mum and I had a discussion that evening about what colours we chose when shopping and we both decided that we do seem to get a colour stuck in our minds when we are on a spree and I can certainly see a trend in the above photo and could even say that it goes back to the last lot of yarn I bought in the closing down sale. And like my green phase before that (and I could still happily pick up the same shade of green and buy it without thinking!). Mum did the same thing and bought fibres in the same colours as she was currently knitting! Has anyone else done this?

Right on the the natural bits! I got myself some Wensleydale curls to play with as well as some silvery grey angora fluff, a Turkish drop spindle (not sure how I'll get on with it but I'll give it a go!), some Bamboo staple and some baby alpaca rovings. All this in addition to the fleece I got in the sale which was some Moorit Shetland first cut and some Blue Faced Leicester which was a bargain! All of which will keep me busy for a good while! And as the fleece was a bit smelly we had to think of somewhere to store it overnight...

Handy Fleece Hanging Rack

All in all a great weekend and we shall have to go back next year and try to meet up with everyone again but for now I'll have to content myself with keeping busy with my spinning! See you all next time!

HOORAY!!!

2007-06-28T07:54:00.000+01:00

I'm Going!!!

Well after weeks of mopeing about the house fed up because I wasn't going to get to WoolFest I have been bullied into going last night by DH, my Mum and her DH.

Finances be blowed - there's Fluff to be found!

Hopefully if you're there too I'll get to put some faces to some names!

Anyway, got to dash, there's a train to catch!

Oh, and by the way, the name out of the prize hat is.....

ArtyfartyKat!

One Year Old Today!!

2007-06-19T19:43:00.000+01:00

And boy has that year flown by quickly!

I did start a few months earlier on e-tribes (link in the side bar) but it is officially a year today that I started with blogger! I've not got the energy or brain power to recap all the projects that have been started and completed (and still waiting to be finished - which would be interesting - the more I think about it the more that come to mind!) over the year as Emily woke me up before 6am this morning and has been running round like a hoolie all day, and watching her makes me feel all the more tired!

Anyway back to the knitting. I suppose I ought to tell you now that I plan to have a little draw to celebrate my 1st blogiversary - nothing big - just a silly little thing as a thank you for all the comments and support over the last 12 months. And a big thank you to knit-tigger for being the first person other than my Mum to post a comment! If you fancy trying your hand at the draw simply leave a comment and I'll pick a name at random from a hat next week!
And that includes all of you who don't comment - tut, tut - what's stopping you?!

Right - lets' get down to business. I still have a bad case of Cast-on Fever and have started a new project but first of all I should introduce some new additions to the stash:

Notice how I've moved away from my green phase - I stopped myself just before I bought the loveliest green cotton DK which of course I now wish I had anyway. There's 300g of Sirdar Nova Chunky for a project (definitely a cold weather one so look out later in the year!); 350g of Rowan Linen Drape for a summery top and 350g of Patons Laguna 100% cotton to become Green Gable which brings us back to the new project, again more on that later.

And with the designs in 'Sensational Knitted Socks' still whizzing through my mind I got some plain sock and 4ply yarns to be played with at some point soon in time for Autumn.

And then I found some old Rowan pattern books (numbers 30 and 33) and decided I should rehouse them and conveniently found a pattern there using Linen Drape and I had the right number of balls for it - I can't quite remember the name of it right now but it's from Rowan 33 and involves casting on far too many stitches for first glance! Oh and if you think I must have won the lottery to have bought all this little lot, think again. All these items were priced 50p each which is fantastic but it does come at a price with the closure of one of our LYS - a real little treasure trove of a shop with shelves full of long forgotten favorites.

Now there is a reason why I've started a new project and it's simply because I think I ought to knit something a little more light weight for summer time and I've put aside my dislike for cotton yarns as well as this Patons Laguna feels so lovely and soft and is not at all splitty which has always been my problem with cotton. So far so good - it's a really quick knit. The lace panel has a mistake in it - I can see it now in this photo but I can't really be bothered to rip it back as I've done a load more since this photo was taken and it's not too bad a mistake if you try not to see it. I've not been entirely bad - I did complete the back of the 'Lacey Waves' jumper before I started this one so at least when I come back to the jumper it won't be a case of trying to remember where I was up to!!

Of course you realise we won't have a nice summer now that I'm making the effort to knit for warm weather (and when I typed effort initially I mistyped it as 'error' - which is right?!).

I will leave you for now with a quote from Mary Thomas's Book of Knitting Patterns:

"There is no work in the world more ingenious than Knitting, and this is why it's appeal has lasted over so many centuries"

See we're all really ingenious!! And if you haven't seen it already I suggest you take a look at this little gem of a book from 1943 and her Knitting Book - so many ideas there we think of as 'modern' which have been around for generations.

Ello, Ello - Whats Going on Here?

2007-06-06T19:35:00.000+01:00

Well, it's been one of those weeks when everything and nothing has happened! As far as knitting is concerned I'm having a run of Cast-on Fever, but more about that later. As Mum mentioned I've been over at hers for a flying visit - just about 24 hours together with loads of knitting, gossiping and chasing Emily thrown in as well. And if that wasn't enough we did a bit of playing with sheep fluff. She'd managed to get me a Welsh Black fleece for me as well and it was rather sheepy smelling which, although not totally horrendous, wasn't an appealing thing to be in a hot car with for a 2 hour drive. So into the bath it went...
Just look at that mucky water! Pooey bits were removed before bathing of course!
And then onto the line to drip dry! That by the way is only half of the fleece as it was a bit much to handle in one go. And to think that just last week that fleece was still on the sheep! It will need a good session with Mum's drum carder to make it easier to spin so it will be a while before this becomes something wearable - other than as a sheep costume!

Anyway, back to the knitting. Emily's BabyJay mark 2 has been completed - no picture as really it looks no different to the earlier photo. However I did do a different toe to start with as I wasn't too keen on the short row toe the pattern suggested and so did the Figure of Eight cast on found here It's actually a good article for Toe-up's and I rathered the Figure of Eight even if it was really fiddly to get going. Which is probably the reason why sock number 2 hasn't been started, so SSS has struck! Which is really silly as these toddler sized ones do not take ages to knit at all and it's such a simple pattern, I think I've just been too tired to be bothered concentration to cast on. That is my excuse and I'm sticking to it!!

Knitting group was fun on Tuesday night with a real party atmosphere - but then that could have been down to the cocktails filling the tables for those none driving/ none tee-totaler knitters. There was yet another knitting themed novel making the rounds which has been borrowed and read and rather enjoyed. This week it was 'Diva's Don't Knit' by Gil McNeil which was full of Rowan yarns (not always by name but recognisable by description) and tales of being a single Mum with 2 young boys which was entertaining. I do love reading but knitting seems to have taken over now but this book and 'A Good Yarn' by Debbie Macomber, another novel on a knitting theme (including a sock pattern!!), makes me feel as if I'm not wasting knitting time simply because of all the knitting going on in them. Ideal reading for those holidays!

The 'No Yarn til WoolFest' took a bit of a bash the other day as well as I found yet another LYS that is closing down and treated Emily to some beautiful Freedom Spirit in beautiful cottage garden colours, ideal for my little girly girl and destined to become a lacey shrug soon-ish possibly!

I was feeling a bit bad about buying more yarn on the way home but thought no more about it. Emily has a new phrase that turned up after she'd spilt a drink and co-incidentally a police car went past with it's sirens on. "The Police will Get You" she said, which is cute and so I've been pointing out why the police will get you. So on the way home from buying wool, after passing a police car I told her the police will get you if you drive too fast but not to worry as Mummy was being good. 200 yards down the road the police were doing random checks on cars and guess who got pulled over? Talk about speaking too soon! Anyway, the Tax and so on were OK so I went on my way and my yarn purchase served to calm me down after this excitement!
Today the Welsh Police were also doing random checks, which I managed to drive past unchecked... but was followed by a police car. Emily was whinging about something so I told her I couldn't help as I was driving and the police were after Mummy. And yet again I was pulled over!! Arrgghh! My Dad, who was in the car with me, thought this was hilarious and told me, like the police man did, that I needed to get a new tax disc holder as mine had given up even trying to stick to the window.

I am NOT going for a third try like Mum suggested! In fact I shall try to avoid the police as much as possible from now on!! I should actually stay at home and try to finish some of this small mountain of FO's I've accumulated recently.

The purple bits are some slippers stared when we had that cold spell and only one need sewing up but I can't find the right yarn again to do that. There is Emily's BabyJay pre-cast-off along with some of Mum's left over hand spun sock yarn to knit some for Emily. And finally the green is my Jaeger Matchmaker DK which is set to become Norah Gaughans Lacy Waves Top from 'Lace Style' and can be seen if you scroll down a bit here. So far there's 14" of plain stocking stitch which is not inspiring me and feels as if it will take ages to knit up. All I can say is I can't wait to start the sleeves and neck insert which is where the brain will have to wake up!And as if I haven't got enough projects on the go already I got a copy of Sensational Knitted Socks (which I love) and have rummaged in the stash to find these two yarns which I fancy trying the cover sock with. Oh, yes and I've a lace stole screaming at me to knit it now. And more socks, possible a couple more stoles.... need I go on? I think I'm finished being good and not starting anything until I finish something - I will be here spinning and knitting away frantically at anything that catches my eye - and possibly all at once!! Right, sorry for the waffle and mad ramblings am off to knit, spin and have a glass of wine, or two!!

Sock-tacular!

2007-05-27T15:23:00.001+01:00

Well I'm having fun with socks right now having completed the Horcrux socks from the Six Socks Knit Along. The pattern has been ammended slightly for the knit-along but the original pattern can be found here. It was a nice simple pattern with only one row where my brain had to work a bit but other than that it was a lovely quick knit that's resulted in really comfy socks. I wore them in work the other day and was really grateful of them as they are lovely and warn which is just as well with the onset of our traditional gloomy (and cold) bank holiday weather.
The yarn was some of my Colinette 4ply cones stash and was knitted up on 2.25mm as it was a bit thinner than the likes of Opal, etc and I wanted a nice thick fabric. Now I know this yarn was from the Mill shop so there was bound to be something wrong with it (it only cost about £1 for about 120g so I can't grumble) and if you look closely in the above photo you may be able to see the colour variation on the left hand (or foot) sock. The heel and foot are definitely less yellowy green and suddenly has pink bits in! But I don't mind they will be in shoes after all and not noticeable unless I wave them about telling everyone!

I was trying to get a good shot of the lace zig-zag on the leg but had no success whilst wearing them and was on the verge of giving up until I had a brainwave.

So here you have it - lace through a glass! I was really enjoying the effect I was getting having the sock on a glass on such a sunny day that I got a bit carried away and you can see more of these shots on my Flickr site. Be warned - you may see more lace socks on glasses in the future!

And no sooner had I cast off those then I cast on for some Baby Jays for Emily so we could be sad and have matching socks!
Now most of the time I was working on these was when she was in bed asleep and I'd forgotten to do any measurements so I'm not really surprised that they are a bit on the big side for her. I knew the toe was OK as I'd tried it on her early on before she'd gone to bed but after that I was basing the measurements on some of her shop bought socks. I'll not do that again then. So, very pretty though it looks above this sock is no more because on top of being too big I hadn't enough yarn to be able to make a matching sock. But at least being toddler socks they don't take long at all to knit up so they shall be reborn hopefully into a size that will be better for little Emily!

Future projects other than take 2 of Baby Jays include Norah Gaughans Lacy Jumper from 'Lace Styles' and a lacy little shrug for Emily seeing as the poor thing doesn't have much knitted for her - fingers crossed she'll wear this!

To Do or Done?

2007-05-21T19:55:00.000+01:00

I got this from DreamCatcher.
Edit the list, bold for stuff you've done, italics for stuff you plan to do one day, and normal for stuff you're not planning on doing.

Afghan/Blanket
I-cord
Garter stitch
Knitting with metal wire
Shawl
Stockinette stitch
Socks: top-down
Socks: toe-up
Knitting with camel yarn
Mittens: Cuff-up
Mittens: Tip-down
Hat
Knitting with silk
Moebius band knitting
Participating in a KAL
Sweater
Drop stitch patterns
Knitting with recycled/secondhand yarn
Slip stitch patterns
Knitting with banana fiber yarn
Domino knitting (modular knitting)
Twisted stitch patterns
Knitting with bamboo yarn
Two end knitting
Charity knitting
Knitting with soy yarn
Cardigan
Toy/doll clothing
Knitting with circular needles
Knitting with your own handspun yarn
Slippers
Graffiti knitting (knitting items on, or to be left on the street)
Continental knitting
Designing knitted garments
Cable stitch patterns (incl. Aran)
Lace patterns
Publishing a knitting book
Scarf
Teaching a child to knit
American/English knitting (as opposed to continental)
Knitting to make money
Button holes
Knitting with alpaca
Fair Isle knitting
Norwegian knitting
Dying with plant colors
Knitting items for a wedding
Household items (dishcloths, washcloths, tea cozies…)
Knitting socks (or other small tubular items) on two circulars
Olympic knitting
Knitting with someone else’s handspun yarn
Knitting with DPNs
Holiday related knitting
Teaching a male how to knit
Bobbles
Knitting for a living
Knitting with cotton
Knitting smocking
Dying yarn
Steeks
Knitting art
Fulling/felting
Knitting with wool
Textured knitting
Kitchener BO
Purses/bags
Knitting with beads
Swatching
Long Tail CO
Entrelac
Knitting and purling backwards
Machine knitting
Knitting with self-patterning/self-striping/variegating yarn
Stuffed toys
Baby items
Knitting with cashmere
Darning
Jewelry
Knitting with synthetic yarn
Writing a pattern
Gloves
Intarsia
Knitting with linen
Knitting for preemies
Tubular CO
Free form knitting
Short rows
Cuffs/fingerless mitts/arm warmers
Pillows
Knitting a pattern from an online knitting magazine
Rug
Knitting on a loom
Thrummed knitting
Knitting a gift
Knitting for pets
Shrug/bolero/poncho
Knitting with dog/cat hair
Hair accessories
Knitting in public

If you'd like to do the meme just copy it and leave a comment to let me know! It quite interesting to see everything listed in black and white as a personal reminder of what you've don and still have to try. Maybe we should all come back to this Meme in a years time and see what we've got left to try!

7 Random Things About Me

2007-05-21T16:42:00.000+01:00

Riggwelter has just tagged me so here you go!

Here are the rules:"Each person tagged gives 7 random facts about themselves. Those tagged need to write in their blogs the 7 facts, as well as the rules of the game. You need to tag seven others and list their names on your blog. You have to leave those you plan on tagging a note in their comments so they know that they have been tagged and to read your blog."

My seven things:

1) I used to drive mainline trains to London and was the only woman driver at my depot.

2) When I was younger I did some 'adventurous' things. I used to be a boson for the Ocean Youth Club (now called the Ocean Youth Trust) and spent a month sailing round the Irish Sea. And I used to go Paragliding until I flew into a barbed wire fence and hurt my leg.

3) My Taid (welsh for Granddad) when tracing our Family Tree thinks we are descendants of Morgan the Pirate.

4) I dislike feet (except baby / toddler ones!).

5) I love walking on pebbly beach and picking up pretty pebbles and even did a GCSE in Geology as I like stones and fossils so much.

6) I proudly consider myself Welsh even though technically I'm half Welsh, a quarter Irish (North) and a quarter English and have spent more time living over the border in England than I've lived in Wales which is a very sad thought. We'll have to move back when DH & I retire (a looong way off!!)

7) I was born with a hole in my heart and had a heart Murmur until I was 3 both of which healed up on their own and have caused me no problems.

Okay, whose turn next? I tag....

Chris
Ra
Helen

and anyone else who'd like to have a go that's not been tagged already!

Finally FO's!

2007-05-20T21:07:00.000+01:00

Well Butterfly has finally spread her wings and joined the list of FO's and I'm so pleased with the results! Admittedly the photo isn't brilliant and the collar still needs pressing to get it to stop rolling but other than that I'm really in love with this! It's shorter than the pattern states as I'd only got 500g and not 550g as the pattern needed and I could have taken some length off the sleeves had I actually really thought about how long my arms were compared to the sleeves - as you can see this should keep my hands warm on cold days!! The colours seem to be quite hard to capture accurately - this detail shot is a bit more realistic in that the lavender blue section on the collar is not as purpley as it seems above! As for the yarn - so soft and cosy, a really good buy as far as I'm concerned!
I'm still debating which stash project I'm going to start next - there's yarn set aside for 4 jumpers, 2 patterns decided upon but still needs some narrowing down before I'll be happy to cast on yet. 'Melon' is still calling me from 'Victorian Lace Today' and would be a great way to really christen my Boyes needles but it will probably take need more concentration than my brain is possible capable of right now! So just for the ease of it and to keep those fingers knitting I've cast on for (and knitted the first of) some Horcrux socks from the Six Socks Knitalong. I've got until the end of the month to finish them by but I've no worries about that as sock 2 is on the heel already and flying along! It's a comfy sock as well - very elastic and I'm sure there will be no Nora Batty sagging here!

In amongst all the madness of Birthday Parties (which was really more of a get together than a party and went really well!) and new bathrooms (also going well but still chaos!) I've also been getting some spinning done. Again I've not been able to get a really good photo of this, try as I did I could not get a really good close up unblurred shot. But you should be able to get the idea from what you can see which should end up as completely OTT socks. I'm spinning the colours in the same order each time but I'm not really convinced I'll end up with blocks of colour as there's been no real attempt to have equal sections. So there should be a bit of a mix of colours which I hope won't be too bad on the eyes! As soon as its plyed I will show you the results (unless truly horrible!)
I've been meaning to post for ages now but things do seem to have been hectic lately and by the end of the day my head has not been up to sitting in front of the computer so I apologise for the huge essay and heap of photos I'm inflicting on you all. I really couldn't leave without sharing these glimpses of Spring which I've seen over the last couple of weeks.

I just love the effect of the light in those last photos lighting up those shady woodland plants - so easily overlooked but so beautiful.

And of course some bluebells - it's been such a fantastic year for them so far and I just love the way they've tinted so many hillsides blue.

Anyway back to the knitting, thanks for the continuing support and all your comments even though I'm being a slow blogger - I will try harder!!

Oh my God - it's May!!

2007-04-29T19:21:00.000+01:00

I know in my last post I said I couldn't believe where the month has gone but when my DH pointed out that it was actually May now I really was surprised! So in 8 days time my DD is 2 years old and the week after that we'll be getting our bathroom done - absolute chaos! And a party to sort out as well (and I've not even done invites yet!!!). I think I've been in my own little dream world where time and dates have no meaning... until things like Birthday Parties and builders coming pop up on the horizon! Ah well!

Well I have finally got my spinning wheel out and been doing a bit more spinning lately and Chris came over last night to have another of our 'Spin-ins' which was nice as DH has been on a late shift for the last few weeks so I've missed out on my Knitting Group which is about my only contact with the adult world without DD tagging along! I've finally spun up some of the Cotswold Curls that I dyed months ago now and it called to be spun finely and I think this will become socks - that way if it's too lary a yarn you won't really notice them hidden on my feet! LOL! The colours are great spun up (pictures to follow later) the purple and blue are really vivid and bright; the green a bit wishy washy; the yellow is actually almost Mum's Blimey Limey and the orange is more peachy so it's not quite the rainbow I had pictured but it will be fun and funky at this rate if not a bit bright!

Butterfly is knitting up quite nicely and is a quick knit - the pattern was learnt with Jaywalkers so there wasn't that awkward stage of learning and making mistakes. At this point I've nearly finished the first sleeve and so will only have one more sleeve and the collar to knit before sewing it all up - just in time for the warmer weather!!

I found this test on Riggwelter's site and thought I'd have a go and I think the results are quite accurate - DH would definitely agree to the 'quite moody' part! And I definitely like my comfort.

What Your Soul Really Looks Like

You are very passionate and quite temperamental. While you can be moody, you always crave comfort.
You are not a very grounded person. You prefer dreams to reality. For you, it's all about possibilities.
You believe that people see you for how you are, not how you look. But deep down, you know that's not exactly true.
Your near future is in a very different place (both physically and mentally) from where you are right now.
For you, love is all about caring and comfort. You couldn't fall in love with someone you didn't trust.

Inside the Room of Your Soul

Right I'm going back to Butterfly - there will be a FO for you soon!! And I will slowly catch up with everyones blogs - there just seems so many now to visit! Thanks for all the comments and support!

Stop Press: I was just about to sign off and publish this when the post arrived and brought an exciting package from Riggwelter who's competition I won a while back (now she's another busy lady!). Before I even opened the parcel it was interesting - such great writing on the label and inside were some lovely chocolates! Now I really must get the camera out quickly for these as I don't think they'll last too long in this house! Thank you so much Angie!!

I'm still here - honestly!

2007-04-23T09:44:00.000+01:00

Where has the month gone? I've been meaning to post for ages now but have been so tired of an evening that I couldn't face sitting at the computer and so I've sat and knit instead. Saying that though I've not really had a load of time to be able to knit as gone are the days when Emily would have a nap so I've less time to be a everything in. I really want to get some spinning done as well soon so I'll have to make myself put my knitting down one evening!

Spring has arrived in our village and brings with it the impressive avenue of cherry blossom with I just love. So Emily and I have been out admiring the blossom in between playing on the cricket field (yes it really is like a stereotypical English Village with cricket on the green!) and we thought you may like to see it for yourselves!

I do have some knitting content for you as well in the form of a progress shot of 'Butterfly' form 'Noro Knits' (I think). I'm using my American Noro-esque yarn which is lovely to knit and the colours are lovely as well. And wouldn't you just know it - the pattern for this is virtually the same as for Jaywalkers!! Speaking of which since I made them I've seen about 5 or 6 Jays and I've not seen any for years before now - magic socks!
You can also see the kind gift from my wonderful benefactress (Mum) of a set of Boyes of my very own!! And fabulous they are too! Anyway I'm keeping this short and sweet today as I'm hogging Mum's computer to update this for you and we have plans afoot to venture out into the rain for some food shopping and maybe some beads in the new local bead shop - fingers crossed for beads large enough to spin with!!

I've met my Matchmaker!

2007-04-04T12:10:00.000+01:00

Or: 'Under the influence of others!'

Well Mum has not long left for home after a lovely (but busy) visit up here. As usual we've crammed a load in and managed to get a load of knitting bits done as well. I'll leave Mum to update on her knitting etc but I will say that both she and I have fallen off the yarn diet waggon! But I'm sure you'll understand when you hear that we visited one of my local yarn shops to see if we could get more yarn for the Poppy project as seen in an earlier post. Mission accomplished - the last 2 balls are now safely snuggled with the rest of my stash - more later about Poppy. However the lure of a yarn store closure reduction caught both Mum and me. Plus Chris from my knitting group was there as well to encourage browsing and buying! Needless to say we left the shop with more that my 2 extra balls for Poppy. But look at it - could you have resisted a half price pack of Jaeger Matchmaker DK? The colourway is called 'Watercrest' and could have been sat in the shop for years. The shop is full of old discontinued yarns sat on the shelves and is a real treasure chest of bits that haven't been around for years and newer yarns and it will be a real shame to see it go but the poor lady who owns it lost her husband just before Christmas after years of trying to get him to retire and now just wants rid of the shop and their son has no interest whatsoever in continuing to run it.

And the yarn has already got a project assigned to it from 'Lace Styles' so I at least know what I'm going to do with it and don't feel that it will be sat in the house for years trying to work out what to knit with it. That was one of the nice things about having a yarn diet, going through the stash mountain and working out what was going to be what and seeing just how many project could be made just from what I already have to hand.
Now there's more new yarn for you to see only one of which is another naughty diet breaker but firstly take a look at this beauty:

This is some of Posh Yarn's beautiful 100% cashmere lace weight yarn. Now some of you may remember I had some lovely cashmere/silk lace weight in Emerald Isle from Posh Yarns as seen in my blog header and may be wondering why I'd get more in so similar a colourway (Gem by the way). Well I had a little problem with the colour coming off on me and the lovely Dee very kindly swapped the yarn for me as the colour hadn't set properly on the first lot (something, I'll hastily add, that had occurred at times with the deeper colours but that Dee had managed to fix now so never fear!). What a pleasure it was to deal with Dee from Posh Yarns and what beautiful yarns - I still would heartily recommend them despite the green hands! Anyway, despite the change of colour this is still destined to become 'Melon' from VLT, especially as Mum's looks so beautiful and she's testing the pattern out for me!! So this will be wound into balls and cast on imminently!

Next we have some lovely merino sock yarn that kind of snuck in the house on the excuse that sock yarn was exempt from the diet! Lovely and soft and very zingy but I love it! BTW- have you spotted my colour of the month/year yet?! LOL!

This next lot of yarn I'm please to say doesn't break the diet because it's some homespun from some of Yorkshire Woollyback's beautiful Jacob sheep. It's such a lovely soft fleece that it's been a pleasure to spin up so there'll be more of this with the plan of spinning enough to make a waistcoat. I think I may be a while before I'm knitting this up though as I've only got 122m plied up so far!

Anyway on to some FO's!! I've finally finished Jaywalker number 1 which is a very snug fit - not sure if I've made a mistake, the gauge is out or that I should have done a larger size! Either way it's very tight getting it past the heel of my foot but once on is so comfy that I'm flying through the 2nd one ready to start wearing these!

And yet another FO for you (even though calling 1 sock of a pair a FO is a bit of a cheat!) is my Colinette Tagliatelle jumper from the pattern 'Either.. Or'. This is a lovely quick knit - just a shame I've been dawdling lately!

So there you have it I have finally finished things to show you all. I was going to write more but as it's such a lovely day I think I'm going to sit of the front door step in the sunshine and try to finish Jaywalker 2!

Projects and Photos.

2007-03-25T17:15:00.000+01:00

Rummaging in the stash mountain I came across this combination and have been trying ever since to decide if these two yarns go together or not. I've even knitted up some small swatches to see how they look knitted up. So the question is - do they 'go'? At times I say 'yes', then change my mind and think 'no' the green needs a quick bath in some blue dye to take the edge off it a little....
I may make my mind up at some point. And what is this all for? This is Poppy. The pattern was in one of the UK Knitting mags (Knitting - if I remember correctly!) and the original was done in Noro Silk Garden and Cash Iroha (spellcheck says this should be IRA!! LOL)- well I've no such luck to have a stash of Noro to use. (I do have a ball each of Silk Garden and Kureyon but then I want a jumper for me not one of Emily's dollies!) I have enough of the green to do the sleeves of Poppy with the body being variegated and am not sure if this would work or not - can you tell I'm desperately trying to get my stash yarns to play nicely with each other and give me something wearable?

FO-wise I've one sleeve to go so not too far off now! I will get cracking tonight!

Anyway - as we've had some beautiful spring days lately I suppose I should change the subject and let a little light in.

These following photos were all taken not too far from where I am in a place called Eastham Woods. There's a lovely coastal path that follows the banks of the River Mersey to the woods which were formerly a Victorian Pleasure Garden complete with Bear pit and Water Splash (an early roller coaster) which nature has now reclaimed but remnants are still to be found like fountains and rhododendrons in amongst the trees. It's a bit like finding the lamp-post in the woods of Narnia but not quite as magical as you're under the flightpath for Liverpool Airport so you get loads of planes taking off and landing not so far above you. Anyway I didn't get as far as the fountains etc but enjoyed natures display of blossom, catkins and fresh green leaves so thought I'd share these with you. Doesn't Spring just lift your heart? It always does for me!

Who needs a Golden fleece?

2007-03-20T15:36:00.000Z

When you can have a rainbow from your dye pot!

I thought I'd make the most of the sunshine and get some shots of my latest dye pot sessions which I'm really pleased with - what they will end up as I do not know but either way I've ended up with some really zingy fleece! I'm using more of the Cotswold Curls that Mum

donated to my fleece stash (which incidentally is actually the same age as me! The curls that is not the stash pile!)

First of all was a combination of Yellow, Magenta and Turquoise. As you can see I've ended up with some of those sap yellow/green shades again (good thing I like them!) along with more greener shades and shots of magenta and there are tiny blueish spots that you can't really see from this shot.Next I wanted BLUE!! A lot of the turquoise dye hadn't been taken in the last batch and so I thought I wouldn't waste it and tried for a blue mix using the turquoise, blue and lilac and also threw in a small skein of yarn from a giant cone I have, the label for which I think DH seems to have thrown in the bin! Anyway this lot is really bright and zingy - I think I may have overdone the dye somewhat!! The colours here are pretty accurate in showing it as a royal blue/purple mix.Finally I fancied some fiery tones and tried some red, yellow and magenta. Initially I had too much water in the pot and ended up with a non-descript cornflake orange which was a bit boring so I put a few squirts of magenta in here and there and set it simmering again and was much happier with the results which again are fairly accurate - just how much brighter could a flash make an already bright fleece?

So there you go - a mix of indoor and outdoor lighting to show off some vivid fleeces to play with. Now the next important question - Just what am I going to do with it all?

BTW - I'm being a bit of a slow knitter at the mo. My Jaywalker is at a standstill until I can get another 2.25mm dpn to replace the one DD broke but the jumper is nearly finished, well I'm almost finished with the 1st sleeve so not too far to go - I will have more FO's to follow in the not too distant future!

Lets try again!

2007-03-15T22:21:00.000Z

Well I'm home after a busy time at Mum's knitting and weaving (results to be posted once completed!). I have re-uploaded my FO photos for my earlier post that was being problematic - I have absolutely no idea why blogger decided to stop showing my photos. They were there for about half a day after I posted them and then nothing so fingers crossed they will stay there this time.
As for the previous post that was just a random shot of some beach debris that Mum and I found on a beach walk that I thought I'd use for a test shot. I had written an explanations for you all but blogger spat that post out so that is about 2nd or 3rd time lucky hence the lack of words!
Normal knitting service hopefully with photos of FO's will return shortly but I may be busy over the weekend as my little bro is moving in to his very first house with his girlfriend so it will be a case of chasing round Ikea for cheap cutlery, plates, glasses, etc before coming home to help shift boxes and stuff for them.
As long as they're better at labeling boxes than I was it will be fine. I got so sick of packing when I moved once that everything was just labeled 'stuff', 'more stuff' and so on including the box with my rock collection in it (it's a geology thing! God help you if you take me to a pebbly beach!).
Anyway I'm waffling - I hope you can all now see my photos. Do please let me know if blogger is naughty again so I can try to fix things. Fingers crossed!!

Testing Testing

2007-03-14T13:02:00.000Z

Can you see me?

Finally Some FO's!

2007-03-09T12:44:00.000Z

Well I did say I'd have some FO's to show you soon but I've been a bit slow to photo them plus there's been a few dark and gloomy days that make for poor pics. So, determined to keep up my 'better pics' policy I waited for the right conditions.
So to start we have the completed Twillies Freedom Spirit vest top.

I made it longer than the pattern said to because I wanted to try and cover my belly and avoid sneak peaks of it and so bought an extra ball of yarn . . . which was never needed as the yardage of Spirit is great. These balls just seemed to keep on going and I've still a fair bit of the 4th ball left over! The colours are fairly accurate - lovely subtle stripes blending throughout the fabric and I really love them all - so autumnal, earthy and woodsy (if you know what I mean!). So I give the yarn a resounding thumbs up and it's warm and squishy soft too!

Number 2 on the FO parade is a quick little instant gratification knit from the 'Knitting Pattern a Day' desk calendar from sometime in August (OK - I peeked!). Can you tell what it is yet?Of course it's just what we all need and want - a felted vase! My Dad was here when it came out of the washing machine and was put to dry on the radiator (filled with a bag of dried beans and rice to keep the shape) and was heard to comment 'So it's not water tight then.' I had told him I was making a vase so I guess I'd filled his head with traditional vase thoughts! I meant to take a photo of the insides before I felted it as this was also my first dabble in colour work. Those greeny bits are supposed to be a check pattern but they don't show clearly due to my poor choice in contrast yarn but the reverse of the work did look neat which was good seeing as it was late and I was kind of making it up as I went so no 'official' techniques were used!

Next onto the fibre front. My dyes have been burning a hole in my pocket as it were waiting for a suitable pan to dye in. I gave up after a bit and tried some Cotswold curls in the microwave with unsatisfactory results - the colours just didn't want to blend this way. Anyway, after a trip to Ikea (resulting in a big 5l pan for £10 - my max dye pan budget), the dyeing was back on. I'm pleased with the results as well. The fleece that had been microwaved ended up with black, green and yellow bits surrounded by parts that hadn't taken any dye so this was overdyed greeny yellow to give the below results which are quite a true representation of the zingy sap green.

There was still a bit of green dye in the pan after taking the first lot out so another load went in after having a quick vinegar/water soak with a dose of blue dye which produced this icy green/blue which isn't as pale in reality. Also in there I dunked a small skein of wool/silk mix from a giant cone that I thought would work well with the curls for my next spinning project of boucle yarn (to copy Mum!).

You can really see the difference between the yarn and the fleece and it almost seems hard to believe they were in the same dye pot!

Also in this shot is my current bobbin of spun stuff this time some beautiful Jacob fleece from Sandie at Yorkshire Woollybacks This is such a lovely soft fleece which I'm spinning without carding and having just given it a little wash but it really wasn't that dirty at all. Fellow spinners I heartily recommend her fleeces - she really looks after her sheep and their coats and it show in their fleeces. I've also had one of her Suffolk shearling fleeces (baby sheeps first haircut!) which was also very clean and beautifully soft and is being saved for a project for Emily from Interweave Knits latest issue but I need to calculate yardage etc before I let you all in on that one!

Finally some silliness also taken from Mum. I'm:

Get Your Cyborg Name

And DH? Well of course he's:

Get Your Cyborg Name

And I couldn't miss out little DD:

Get Your Cyborg Name

It's all just a bit of fun after all!

I like this one!

2007-02-27T23:32:00.000Z

Thanks to Sarah at All Fingers and Thumbs for finding this fun thing. Unfortunately there were no pictures of yarn or knitting to show as my vice! But you get the idea and as far as the scenery was concerned I could have picked them all - never mind, I do love woodland walks so that will do for now!

Read my VisualDNA™ Get your own VisualDNA™

Hmmm.. not sure about this one!

2007-02-26T12:48:00.000Z

I saw this test on Acrylik's blog and thought I'd have a go whilst I wait eagerly for the last installment of the Harry Potter saga and here's the result:

You scored as Albus Dumbledore. You are very wise, observant, and analyctical. You have a very "well-organized" mind, which makes you function in a calm and fair manner. Though you get angered easily, its rare of you to ever act our of temper. You are constantly seeing the good in people and are naturally forgiving because of it. You're easy to please and a great person to learn from.

Albus Dumbledore

78%

Luna Lovegood

75%

Remus Lupin

69%

Hermione Granger

63%

Neville Longbottom

59%

Sirius Black

56%

Ron Weasley

53%

Harry Potter

47%

Severus Snape

47%

Oliver Wood

41%

Bellatrix Lestrange

38%

Percy Weasley

28%

Lord Voldemort

28%

Draco Malfoy

19%

Harry Potter Character Combatibility Test
created with QuizFarm.com

As I said - not quite sure if I should be Dumbledore but nevermind!

New Yarn!!

2007-02-23T11:17:00.000Z

Well my Birthday is almost over! With all these parcels I've been getting my Birthday has lasted for ages now and what a lot of things I have to share with you today. First of all is some yummy 100% wool worsted weight Noro-esque yarn. This is about the closest my budget will let me get to Noro and it is really nice. The colours are deeper in real life and what looks like lilac here is actually more of a slate blue/mauve colour.

It sort of reminds me of sunset colours such as in this photo of a sunset taken from our front doorstep at some point.

Either way they're really rich warm colours
which are destined to become something from one of the dozens of Noro patterns Mum has. These two are strong contenders - I'm not sure if I want a jumper or a cardi yet. The jumper is from Cornelia Tuttle Hamiltons 2nd book and the cardi is called Butterfly and I can't remember which book it's from (some combination of 'Noro' and 'Nature' - not sure which one!) but this would have to be shorted than stated as I only have 500g not 550g as the pattern needs.

Also in the same parcel is some 'cashmere feel' lace weight yarn which is really lovely and soft. Now I know grey is a bit boring but it will go with all sorts and be timeless (or so I hope!) and should look nice in the pattern, Maldhi's Shawl from an old Interweave Knits magazine. Hopefully it won't be too taxing and looks a fairly straightforward pattern.

Next through the door was some sock yarn (HotSocks yarn) in a lovely vibrant colourway. Having just finished the other pair of socks (which I love even if I knitted the rib too loosely - no photo as they're not dry yet!) I decided I should cast on for a new pair. These are going to be Jaywalkers! from Grumperina and I'm loving the way the zig-zags are forming and so far it's a simple alternative to plain stocking (!!) stitch socks.

And in case you wanted more sock stuff here you go: some Blue Face Leicester Natural Dye Studio sock yarn. The colours are so much more vibrant in the flesh, much more lemon and lime and will be quite funky socks! But it is oh, so soft and squishy, so lovely!

Remember my Sea Spray hand spun yarn? It did get knitted up into a moebius which I forgot to show you back in January. It only stayed as a moebius for a few hours as I'd made it too big and need to redo it but I thought you may like to see it in it's short-lived beauty.

And taking of beautiful things here are a couple of pretty scenic shots from early February when we went to Portmeirion for a visit. The sunset shot was actually taken on the way to Mum's as we were driving (well I was a passenger) but it's not bad considering we were mobile.

This shot is just so sunny and peaceful that I just love it. Portmeirion has so many lovely parts that I could show you dozens of photos but I will leave it at this but it is well worth a visit if you are ever up in North Wales! And if you're struggling to think what and where Portmeirion is think of the series 'The Prisoner' which was filmed here and take a look here for a better look!

Anyway I think I've taken enough of your time today so I shall leave you with that and hopefully return shortly with some FO's. I should point out that all this new yarn was bought before the 'No yarn till WoolFest' pledge in case you think I've caved in already!

Green with Envy???

2007-02-14T12:16:00.000Z

Well, blogger won't let me put the Woolfest countdown in with a post hence two post today! I do have some goodies to show you as my darling Mum has been very very good to her daughter on her birthday. May I introduce Romeo...

Those of you how read Artis-Anne will probably recognise the yarn as some of Posh Yarn's beautiful cashmere yarn. It is truly yummy and beautifully cuddly. Those people in need of cheering up would do well to consider treating themselves to some of this fantastic yarn - I'm in love!

So much so that with some of my birthday money (such a kind family I have to let me have a mad spending spree!) I bought some more yarn in Posh Yarns Sunday Sale. This time I got some lace weight 45% Cashmere 55% Silk called Emerald Isle.

Boy, is it Greeeeeen! Now I do love green but when I opened the pink parcel (great!!) all you could see was a giant clash of pink and emerald green. There are tones of blue and yellow in amongst it all and I'm sure it will be lovely knitted up.Now, I hope you've noticed I'm making an effort with my photos, making the most of the sunshine and utilising my front garden (I'm sure my neighbours must think I'm mad!). Now it could be said that I have gardeners green fingers, but at the moment it would be more accurate to say I have emerald green hands. Yes, my beautiful cashmere is making me look like I'm an extra from the Wizard of Oz or that I'm slowly turning into the Incredible Hulk! I've washed the yarn gently to see if any excess dye came off but the water remained fairly clear - the green it seems only wants to come off on my hands! Still I'm not complaining as it is just so soft. I have since been told that emerald dye can come off and can, like turquoise, be difficult to fix, hence the green hands!

I will confess that there will be further additions to the stash over the next few days / weeks as the results of my spending spree wing their way to me but other than these and once my birthday money is gone I have decided that I will join the growing numbers of those pledging:

Hence the countdown in the previous post! Now on to some FO's. I finally got DH to stand still long enough to model his hat for you all. He did protest a little wondering why on earth anyone would want to see his hat and trying to make sure I didn't get his face in the photo. He has reluctantly OK'd this photo which will probably be his first and only appearance here! Bless him he does like the hat and has worn it loads during this cold and snowy weather.

I was actually out of the house before the sun was properly up when we had snow here the other week and thought I'd share with you the lovely peaceful snowy sunrise.That by the way is my street.OK, back to the knitting. I don't suppose I should really count a single sock as a FO until the pair is completed so, depending on your point of view here's my latest FO/WIP. At least it's a lovely springtime yellow and will make up for the fact I've no daffodils in bloom yet!Finally I give you a sneak peak of yet another WIP that shouldn't be far off being completed (once I finish the socks which kind of jumped the queue!). I love the autumnal colours and the softness of the yarn, but seeing as I have rambled on for far too long I will leave it at that and tell you more once it is complete! Sorry it's been photo heavy but I've been drowning with Mum's horrible head cold (another birthday present but I won't hold it against her - she did say to avoid her!) and have been putting off posting for a few days until I felt up to it. And Boy, I think I've made up for the delay!

Before I go I really should add that Mum also got me a new knitting book to add to my growing collection - 'Domiknitrix' by Jennifer Stafford. Take a look at her blog to get an idea of the book. There are some nice patterns lurking here and there and some interesting ideas.

WoolFest!!!!

2007-02-14T11:38:00.001Z

Just a Quick Note....

2007-02-01T22:03:00.000Z

DH's hat has been taking a looooong time to knit up and I was not enjoying it because it was so tedious and never ending, just how long should it take to knit 9" of plain stocking stitch?
Hubby had asked if the hat would be ready for next week when we'd planned a walk in the countryside as he's off for the week. So I made a major push to finish the hat but it was still taking it's time. Finally it was long enough to get an idea of what size it was (it's done on circular needles).
Well, it should have measured 23" diameter (can't remember if that's the right word or not, but you know what I mean!!) and it was in actual fact.... 33"!!
I could have been knitting a jumper at this rate, no wonder it was so slow growing. So needless to say it's been frogged and has speedily grown today with the correct cast on details and should be done in plenty of time.
I did tell him I'd a lot on my mind at the moment I started the hat!!

And an exciting note about coming home from my knitting evening. I come home through the docks in Birkenhead and so far I've never been caught out by the bridges being open to let ships in or out. Now I actually love seeing this and have been waiting to see this again. Anyway on Tuesday I struck lucky and the bridge was open letting a large ship into the docks. I don't mind the wait and enjoyed myself watching it go through.
Whilst the bridge was lowering down again a thought passed my mind: What if the bridge got stuck?
Of course 5 seconds later the bridge did get stuck. And properly. So eventually I gave up waiting and had another detour home.

Personally I blame Mum - she does after all say she's a Welsh Witch (good of course!) and so her Witchy genes must have passed to me!! So watch out!
Now Mum you do know of course I am joking so no curses please!! LOL!

Finally, Some New Yarns!

2007-01-25T23:49:00.000Z

Well as promised ages ago I finally have pictures of my latest stash acquisition and I've tried this time to have a nicer picture for you so you can see things in 'real' light for once!

Right then, clockwise from top right corner we start with some Twillies Freedom Spirit - a lovely 100% pure wool DK weight yarn which I love. I'm making the vest/tank top from the pattern book that goes with the yarn and I love how the colours are knitting up - a real autumnal blend of colours, not quite as clear and defined as it appears in the ball but really nice subtle stripes of colour that do blend one into the other. Hopefully it won't be too long before that's finished as it seems to be quite a quick knit and I'm about half way up the front now.
Next we have some Sunbeam Aran Knit which might end up as some mittens for my brothers glove less girlfriend or then again I may find some other yarn for her as I do love the colours in this. The picture is quite accurate about those except that the turquoise appears to be more of a darker greener colour right now to me, but then again it is evening and the lights are on so which is more accurate? Your guess is as good as mine!
Following close behind are some Rowanspun 4ply - my very first Rowan Yarn!! Rowan for me is an expensive luxury and I think it would be a long time before I could afford to make a garment out of their yarns, lovely though they are so these are a treat. But what was even more of a treat for me was the price - £1.90 per hank and 25% off on top!!! I have 2 chocolatey brown hanks and 1 green to make myself some of the Ballet Slippers from Melanie Falick's Holiday Knits - possibly not entirely practical but pretty none the less!
And finally there are 2 balls of Sunbeam St Ives in 'Lowland' (as far as I remember!) that I plan to make some lacy sock with. I know looking at the yarn it looks a bit dull and boring compared to the wonderful selections of fancy self striping and hand painted sock yarns out there but I wanted something plain that wouldn't distract from a lacy pattern that I may get round to knitting at some point or another. And that also means I have a stash of sock yarns now without really planning to!! In all I have yarn for 3 socks for myself - some Opal self striping, some Colinette Jitterbug and the St Ives as above but I've also acquired a stash of oddments enough for loads of little Emily socks that was generously donated by my very kind friend Chris (who is soon to join us in the Blogging Community - if she can figure out how!! I must go and lend her a hand soon I think!).

Anyway next on the agenda is an update on something I mentioned last post, namely my purple sheep fluff. So here you go, complete with progress shots.

On the bobbin.

After Plying.

I had some grey 'unknown' silky fluff (man made definitely as it melted when I tested a sample by burning it) which I decided would make the fleece go further and give me more to play with and hopefully soften the yarn up a bit as it's not something I'd wear next to the skin. I'm really pleased with the results - the grey has evened the colours out a bit but you still get a mix of the great colours along with the silky shine of the grey stuff. To those spinners out there I will just point out to you that I've been calling my prepared fleece 'fluff' so far as I've not quite got the hang of making rolags yet and as it has indeed been great piles of fluffy fleece so 'fluff' seems the right word to use!!

And what have I planned for it? A cushion cover with some sort of cabled design on the front which might not show up too well with this yarn or not but I don't care as that's what I would like to make - I've already got a lovely pale grey piece of velvet from work for the back of the cushion (soft to compensate for any roughness in the yarn) and am just playing with the design and scouring through books searching for 'the one'!

On the needles right now other than the Freedom Spirit is a hat for DH who has finally let me knit something for him. No point in showing you though as it is Plain and simple and ever so dull to knit. Unless you really want to see plain old navy stocking stitch on the needles a photo is not being planned. And I have to agree with Kat about having problems getting going with hats. Hers looked a huge hat for her Son and having never made anything for a larger head than mine this seems to be taking an age to get anywhere, especially as there's no pattern or detailing to work on. Mind you am really please with the pattern which is from Ann Budds Knitters Handy Book of Patterns so this was adapted specifically for the required size and yarn gauge and was really simple to do.

Anyway I'm waffling again. Hopefully will be back soon with FO's for you - there's getting to be a disturbing trend of new stuff I've bought or been given lately and not so much knitting, but then I have been spinning. Well anyway I'll crack the whip and get knitting! Fingers crossed for FO's soon!

What a Busy Week!!

2007-01-21T18:13:00.000Z

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.....

Let There be Photos!

2007-01-12T10:41:00.000Z

Finally I've been able to upload my photos and show all my new goodies - there does seem to be a purpley colour theme in this photo which I've only just noticed. All these items were listed in my previous post.

The Colinette Tagliatelle is not quite as lurid as the photo appears but it gives you an idea and the lace weight yarn is just a touch darker but not too far from a true depiction which is odd as the Tagilatelle just looks too bright. Am not sure what the lace yarn will become yet, I've some ideas but none finalised as yet. The Tagliatelle will become 'Either.. Or' which ever one is which but you can see Mum's example here.

When I wrote the last post I hadn't started my next knitting or spinning projects but had photographed them already for you. Firstly I planned to knit myself a Beret using a pattern from the Winter issue of Interweave Knits and a ball of my very own hand spun wool and silk blend in lovely Bluey-Green colours (75g with 180m).

This was such a lovely quick knit and satisfying to see how any irregularities in my yarn were evened out when knitted. The only pain was starting with only 8 stitches over the double point needles which was a bit fiddly not to twist and to start off right. I love this now and must admit I've hardly had this off my head since I finished it and can see myself making more in different colours and I actually had left overs which is good as I did wonder if I had enough yarn.

Next up is my spinning project. When we went to Winghams I got a selection of Merino/Silk blends which I thought could look quite glacial all blended together starting with some white/mint green mix (which looked like toothpaste!) to deep greens and turquoise mixes. I started off by splitting the rovings into separate colour sections as much as possible and sorted them into the order that I wanted them to be in. Each coil of rovings there is roughly the same order and theoretically when spun up and plied together should make some sort of self striping yarn with some sort of order to the colour bands.

Of course I haven't actually plied anything together yet so am not sure if this theory will work out or not. In addition I've found some lovely seed beads in opalescent cream and icy mint green which I think I will tread up randomly on some thread and ply in with the yarn. And then I could go completely over the top as I found some lovely metallic turquoise sewing thread that could work with this as well. I'll decide as I go on but I do know what I want to use this yarn for at least which is a Moebius Cowl - not sure which pattern yet but something Lacey! Do get the feeling I'm making this up as I go on? Well you're not wrong!

Also on the news front at the moment is the sad loss of one of my local yarn shops. But it does mean that all the yarn has 25% off and the pattern books are 50% off. Whilst I know that I've enough yarn (and fibre to make more) to last me all year, if not longer, I can not bear the thought of missing out on all these bargains, especially as their prices weren't extortionate in the first place. So, between Mum and myself, some of the yarn has been rehoused but the temptation of Jaeger Matchmaker Merino yarn, Rowan Kid Classic and dozens upon dozens of discontinued yarns still calls to be rehoused! Watch this space....

I will report later on what I succumbed to already but I think you've had enough wittering so far today!

Happy New Year to All!!

2007-01-04T20:41:00.000Z

Thank you all for my lovely welcome back to the realm of technology - it's taking my a while to both get over Christmas and get up to date with every ones blogs!
I thought I'd bring the New Year in with a thorough report of Christmas knits and knitting gifts but have just realised that I can't find the lead to upload any photos on to the computer so you will just have to use your imagination until I master technology fully (we still have a few odd quirks on the PC - to get the '@' sign I have to press 'shift' & 2 and some symbols are still yet to be located - think the keyboard thinks it's American but can't quite fix the darned thing yet!).

Gifts-wise I'd made some lovely little lacy fingerless mitts that will be under consideration for myself, can't quite remember where I got the pattern from but will search it out again to add to faves (again) along with a cozy headband from Garn Studio which was both quick and easy to make. I also made a Moebius Cowl from Cat Bordhi's site using her Moebius cast on from 'A Treasury of Magical Knitting' which makes great reading even if the concept of the moebius cast on does turn your head funny until you grasp the concept. That was great to make - the cast on is the centre of the work and you work outwards to the outer edges with one side appearing as the 'right side' and the other appearing as the 'wrong side'. Very clever stuff and I'll be doing more or these later on! Just hope I have more luck with starting the next one off - even with Mum's invaluable help it took several attempts to get right. Also I had a go at Perdita from Knitty which was fun to do if fiddly to knit using the embroidery thread an tiny needles and was my first attempt at beaded knitting - Mum still hasn't told me if it fits her or not so we'll just have to read her blog to see!

Christmas this year was rather knitting oriented for me gift wise. You already know about my lovely Spinning Wheel which DH and Mum and her Hubby gave me and which I love to bits; but I also got more yarn (as if I really need it!) namely 5 hanks of Colinette Tagliatelle in a colourway that MIL and Mum said suited me but that I wouldn't have chosen normally which is a good thing as I'm sort of in a colour rut knitting wise. This is such a lovely purpley pink with flashes of blue and green - sound horrible but is really vibrant and warm looking. Thanks again to Mum-in-law Lil!
Also on the yarn front is a lovely deep wine hank of lace weight wool that Mum gave me as part of a 'Box of Delights' and is to be a yarn challenge between the two of us - same yarn each but what will we both make? No deadlines or anything set yet so will think about that for a bit. Also in her box were some sheepy stitch markers from Knitz and Glitz which are lovely; a sheep pencil (its wool related so I'll count it with the knitting goodies!) and other lovely bits.
DH also gave me 2 copies of Interweave Knits - Spring and Fall '06, both of which have some lovely patterns - more on that in a moment. I also got some new knitting books - 'Knitting without Tears' by Elizabeth Zimmermann; 'Ultimate Source book of Knitting and Crochet Stitches'; 'Hand Knit Holidays' by Melanie Falick and 'Spinning Designer Yarns' by Diane Varney which if any of you spinners out there have not got or read already I strongly urge you to do so - such a great and inspiring book! Oh, and I've now got a Swift/Skein Winder to sort out all my hanks with which is a life saver!

There are some FO's for you other than Christmas ones but they can wait for another time and I've yet more hand spun ready to show you that is in the progress of being made up into a beret from the Fall issue of Interweave Knits.

I'm Back!

2006-12-27T22:33:00.000Z

Well as Mum reported I've been off the air for a while now due to the joys of Technology and 'The Blue Screen of Death' that killed our computer for a while.
As you might guess I am now back on-line and have upgraded to the new Blogger whilst I reinstall my settings etc. Don't you just hate computers with all the stupid things they do? I have lost all my favorites, my e-mail contacts, some photos (thankfully most had been backed up but my knitting FO photos are history, may they rest in peace) and 95% of my knitting file - patterns and reference points I wanted to keep. My e-mail is now playing up and I am sorely wondering why we spend so much time associated with such annoying things as computers.

But then I found Kiddley. Now Emily isn't quite old enough yet for any hands on craft sessions but this site is great for ideas that are really getting me even more excited about the thought of them than I already was!

As for everyone I've had a busy few weeks leading up to Christmas and was defeated by my Christmas knitting despite starting them so early. And there aren't any photos of them as they were no sooner finished than wrapped! There are other FO's to look forward to, well one at least but I will leave that for later as the dishes need doing and since the dishwasher died about the same time as the computer (not a good month at all!) I can't just leave them to the last minute, just the last 5 minutes or so in this case seeing as it's quite late. Anyway enough waffling for now. There will be more later as usual but I'll leave that for another day!

A Merry Month of Making!

2006-11-25T20:55:00.000Z

Hello again! Long time since I posted last but it has been a busy month as you will discover!! Lots of FO's to show you and I'll start with the knitting.

Here Emily is modeling one of my first knitted items for her - again it's taken her ages to grow into it! It was such a simple little poncho to make (pattern from Simply Knitting magazine ages ago!)

Next Emily is modeling Mummy's Little Arrowhead Shawlet, yes I am aware it is more her size than mine but it is as the pattern stated. I do kind of wish I'd made it longer then the pattern suggested but at the time was far too impatient to see the finished item so cast off and hoped for the best during the miracle of blocking!

And some close ups of the shawlet (pattern from 'Sweet Somethings - staff projects' on Interweave Knits website).

Don't you just love the colours in the yarn? This was one of my cones of 4ply from the Colinette Millshop so am not sure what colourway it is - lots of plums and berry shades so may be 'Summer Berries'? And plenty of yarn left!

Again using up some of my Colinette stash and seeing as the weather has been getting colder I made myself some mittens using this pattern from kpixie. They're not quite as long as they should be as I misread the pattern but the size is OK for my hands - nice and snug and warm! I had forgotten how fiddly mittens were to do things with - I don't think I've had mittens since I was little!

I've also finally made some socks! Again for Emily (due to the fact that won some sock wool on eBay and hadn't realised that it was a 50g ball and not enough for me!) and with more wool left over for another pair for her! Not bad out of one small ball. This was the best shot I could get with her wearing them - not great I know but she just would not stay still for me! These were made to measure as well as I couldn't find a small enough pattern for her (or rather it was a case of either too small or too large) so too measurements and worked the socks out using Knitty's Universal Toe-up Sock formula.

And in case you wanted a better look here you go... along with the sock yarn I won.

Now... enough Knitting, on to my Spinning!

I've been enjoying the spinning loads and have aquired a pile of lovely bits to play with over the month but I'll tell you about them later - I think you've enough to look at so far as it is! Below you see all the yarn I've produced so far:

The white/cream is some piled Cheviot in it's natural colour, it's roughly DK to Aran weight but is not overly evenly spun - there are slubby bits here and there.

These two day-glow looking yarns aren't really as bright as them seem. The flash has seemed to make the colours glow so much. I'm not entirely sure what type of wool this is, Mum and I think it is Merino just by the shine to it and the softness it has but I could be wrong. The predominately red ball was spun and piled first and as a result is less even and has more odd slubs here and there than the greeny-blue one has which is actually quite even. I meant to photograph them before I wound them into balls but I forgot so you don't get a really good idea of the colours but if I tell you that they're both a mix of red, yellow, green and blue you'll get an idea. Not that you couldn't really guess what colours they were anyway!

And what will I make with just over 100g of again DK / Aran weight yarn? Why a bright winter hat for Emily! You will probably note that I am finally evening the scores a bit an Emily is now getting more knitting done for her! And despite my early start there is still Christmas knitting to be done - not too demanding projects but still I shall leave you here and get back to my current WIP's:

Fluffy pink hooded cardi for Emily knitted top down and in one piece (no sewing up - hooray!);
Red Marble Metis for myself;
Autumnal cardi for Emily (needs frogging a bit but yarn is so awful to pick up stitches with that am avoiding that task for a bit!);
Tank Girl top from one of the Stitch n Bitch book that is still waiting to be finished - may just be finished in time for next Summer!
And of course the Christmas knits which I won't mention here in case of Spies!!

Oh and by the way....

2006-11-03T21:37:00.000Z

You Are 60% Weird

You're so weird, you think you're *totally* normal. Right?But you wig out even the biggest of circus freaks!

How Weird Are You?

Yet Another New Baby!

2006-11-03T19:27:00.000Z

I've been a bit busy the last few days so I'm a bit slow to tell you of my exciting news! This is no reflection on the news but...

I've got my very own Spinning Wheel!! It's a little Westbury wheel and is neat and well thought out with a balanced wheel and I've also got a Jumbo Flyer and Lazy Kate to go with it! No you may think I've been too busy spinning to be able to tell you this but you are far from the truth. As a condition of DH buying the wheel for me for Christmas I must have a serious sort out of my clutter - no easy task as I am an undeniable hoarder! So far so good though, I've put new shelves up for all my books and have had a rethink of my storage solutions that is a better use of space but it's not easy to fit all this into the day whilst looking after DD who is being seriously active and curious about everything. And on top of all that I've been trying to keep the wood pile filled up and sawing up logs every other day, or so it seems! See what I meant about who the DIYer in our house is!
I went over to Mum's to go and pick the wheel up from a lovely couple in her Spinning Guild and spend some time there getting the feel for my wheel - hardest part was getting the tension right. Until we got that right neither Mum or I could really get it spinning nicely. Anyway there's a load more stuff I'll need to learn to get this right so don't be expecting any hand spun goodies for a while yet!

We did have a go at dyeing yarn as well whilst I was there using 'Easy-Peasy Dyes' (which really live up to their name) and some unwanted 4ply white yarn that was 75% wool donated from My Mum-in-law who was clearing out her stash. We did 3 lots. This 1st one was done in the microwave with red and yellow and zapped for 10 minutes and then overdyed with blue and zapped again- not too garish a result!

This one was done on the hob and sat simmering for half an hour like something out of Macbeth: "Hubble Bubble.... etc" as Mum kept saying in suitable old crone tones (not her normal voice I hasten to add before you get the wrong idea!). This was meant to be 'Sky Blue' according to the recipe book (yes, you can get a recipe book for the dyes!) but looks more like a Sea Green. Anyway the general plan is to use it for a shawl of some sort, not sure which yet. Mum also has 4 hanks of hand dyed in a lovely shade but I'll leave it to her to tell you about that.I have been trying to fit some knitting in as well as everything else and have some FO's to show that are in the process of being blocked, etc so no photo of that just yet but really I'm itching to get my hands on my wheel!

One thing that I have joined up to is the Warm Hands KAL and have already nearly done a pair of Fetching. It's such an easy pattern I'm not surprised that everyone is making them but if I make them again I'd make some adjustments for me, namely to make them a bit longer as they just about cover your wrist and I like them to be longer. Plus I found the picot cast off seemed to curl over and was a little too loose for my little hands to I unpicked them and did some k2togs to make them a bit snugger for me and did an ordinary cast off, pretty though the picot was. The yarn BTW is Colinette Skye from the bargain bin so no idea what colour it is but, and this is really cool, the pink shades formed a spiraling stripe that wound it's way up the mitten. As DH said it's like a Helter Skelter. But then he did also say I'd left the fingers off the mittens!

Look at my new Baby!

2006-10-26T19:02:00.000+01:00

I have accepted Alice's challenge to flash my stash and, based on an idea one of the girls in my knitting group suggested, decided to put DD's travel cot to good use for this. Here it all is:This actually is quite frightening to see it all in one place at the same time and I can't believe that I had enough tp virtually fill the cot! Whilst I was filling it I kept remembering more places I had yarn stored (or more acurately hidden!). There are bits that have a designated future use which makes me feel a bit better about it and one thing that is likely to be an upcoming project (believe it when you see it - I have been saying this for months!) is the following lot of blues: These are destined to become a Perugia throw as in the ones Colinette make up kits for. It was originally going to be based on the pattern but then the actual pattern was printed in issue 2 of Knit Today which has advice from Colinette's very own helpfull Diane! Anyway there should be enough bits for it there - assorted mohairs, Colinette Giotto in Jay, Tagliatelle in Sea breeze, Mercury in Fresco and lots of other blue bits that were in the stash. All I really need to do is sit down and work out what colours and yarns I want where!

There was one good thing about getting all the stash out was thatI could put it away better and have now pretty much organised them by colour so there is a box of greens (as shown above)
and a larger box of pinks as a result of having a daughter I suppose (shown below).
There is a box of blues but as most blues are in the Perugia project bag all the eyelash and fluffy yarns that I got as a bargain in work have been piled in with these - what I'm going to do with them all I don't know but then maybe DD will love them when she's older! The rest of the stash has been put away based on the fact that I can get jumpers/ cardigans/ etc out of them or that they're nice yarns but I didn't photograph them I'm afraid.

Seeing it all like this makes you realise quite how much you have and how much there is still to be knitted up and yet I still yearn for more! Anyway maybe this weekends outing will slow that down ( I was going to say stop it but who am I kidding!) as I will be hopefully picking up my Christmas present from DH - a spinning wheel!!! More about that later. But for now I leave you with a challenge - Will you flash your stash Artis-anne; Alice and Frankie

FO's and assorted Goodies!

2006-10-21T18:23:00.000+01:00

Firstly I'd like to introduce young Ella who is posing outside our village church - simply because the colours in the yarn reminded me of the red sandstone used in the building (and it was tidier than my garden and brighter than my house was at the time!). I finished it on Wednesday night about 11pm and impatiently blocked it heavily with the steam iron. Blocking was like magic - you started with a lumpy mass of knitting that looks more like a bunch of grapes than a shawl and then with a little stream and heat the mass grows and blossoms into what you see below! I am addicted with lace now - if only to see the magic of blocking each time! So very satisfying!

Don't the colours look so warming in this shot? Like smoldering embers and ideal for these autumn days!

Next we have not really a new FO but one that Emily has finally grown into! The pattern is from a Sirdar kids Denim book (can't remember which one as a friend has the book at the mo) and was knitted up in Sirdar Denim Chunky in a lovely girly raspberry ripple colour. I knitted it in the 1-2 year size and it was massive on her at 1 years. Now a few months on it is a little better but still big but doesn't she look cute in it? If I had my way she'd wear that all the time!

As you may have read with Artis-Anne we, along with my Mum-in-law (Hi Lil - when are you getting a blog?!) went to Colinette for a visit. This had been planned for months, before we knew there was an open day on the Saturday (frustrating as Saturday is my only work-day) and we were eagerly awaiting it! Mum and I were supposed to be not spending much at all but were no use to each other as the voice of reason and Lil really pushed the boat out with her shopping which did include some of the Tao silk and the Parisienne kid mohair... and my Christmas present!! Finally I have some, or I should say will have, some Tagliatelle for a jumper! I did buy some Point 5 for a friend and managed to grab some of Colinette's new sock yarn - Jitterbug in Sahara. I was tempted with their other new yarn (the name of which I've forgotten, begins with 'C'!) a lovely soft merino DK weight yarn and liked the patterns in the accompanying book but restrained myself as I couldn't afford that (Boo!).

So along with the sock yarn (that Emily is modeling above - she did it herself!) I bought ...

. . . . 3 cones of 4 ply. Right to left: a pinky plumy shade (possibly Summer Berries?); a blue cone that in the daylight seems to have every other colour possible including plums, yellow, orange, green and so on; and finally a green cone with lilac shades all to play with for lacey stuff. I've no idea of the yardage on the cones, just the weight but have decided to chance it with the pink and am already trying this out as a possible shawl (probably small!) and have co-ordinating beads to play with on small items such as Perdita. Also in the shopping bag was a copy of the Westcountry pattern book for future use! In the photo you'll also see the Twillies Freedom Spirit pattern book which I got the other day having seen pictures of projects from it in magazines and finally succuming to the lure of it! There are a few possible future projects in there and the yarn itself is really nice and there is already 1 ball of it hiding in the stash pile.

One final point - last Saturday in work to celebrate National Knitting Week (and promote knitting) we were allowed to knit in the shop and as a result I showed some colleagues a really simple shrug pattern that would not be beyond any of their skills. Now this week I discovered that most of the staff have been making this shrug or were about to!! I am well pleased with that and here is the pattern I gave them!

Tagged!

2006-10-12T16:29:00.000+01:00

I too have been Tagged. So, Five ways Feminism has affected my life...

I have been brought up with encouragement to try new things regardless of its traditional gender orientation. I was taught how to sew, cook, clean and do DIY with no implication that these were womens or mens role in life.
I have worked in a male dominated occupation and was the only female in this role at my depo. I was accepted as being good at my job and 'one of the boys'. As a result of this job I was the main bread winner when my Husband and I bought our house and this was not resented by him.
I have had the freedom to raise a family and be a stay at home Mum and not have to conform to having to have a career. I can be a Mum without loosing my independance and freedom ( as much as possible with a 17 month old!)
Despite being a House Wife the cooking and cleaning is not just done by me. These tasks are shared by my DH who also does his share of raising our lovely daughter. This is not done under pressure but accepted as a normal way of living. As it is it falls to me to do the traditional male job of DIY as DH has no real idea of what to do!
Reading other peoples thought on this subject has made me realise just how far feminism has come and how much it has given us - a voice, independance and equality. If only every woman in the world could say that.

Anyway that's getting a bit deep and drifting into deeper waters than I intended. Normal knitting wittering will be resumed as soon as possible but first I should Tag others.... If you want to join in please do, leave a comment and let me know!

I will add this thought for you:

What kind of knitting needles are you?

You are "turbo" charged.Fast moving and classy, you get things done with power and grace. Your expensive tastes can be deceiving, since what you really value is quality and efficiency. As you're careening around those corners in life, finishing a dozen knitted objects each month, stop and smell the roses. Don't miss the beauty of process!
Take this quiz!

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Not really sure if this is me at all!

I will post again later with some FO's - I'm on the homeward stretch of Ella and will show her off as soon as possible!

Oh Yes...

2006-10-11T12:31:00.000+01:00

As Cherry pointed out I have forgotted to mention why there is a deadline for Ella. I'm off to a Christening on the 22nd of October and really want Ella to complete my outfit so I really can look like a Yummy Mummy rather than a Slummy Mummy.
I know it really is down to a confidence thing and want to be able to look fabulous in my very own hand made shawl and have envious eyes made at Ella just to make me feel better about myself. And why not!
Anyway this is not getting Ella finished now is it? Back to knitting!

Ella update!

2006-10-10T11:40:00.000+01:00

Am very nearly at the point of spliting into the 2 seperate points and so far am feeling confident about the progress. At least I can now watch TV as well as knit this!
Everything else is on hold until Ella is complete and blocked - I've my Knitting Night tonight and I'm sitting here thinking of it as one night less that I can knit Ella as I certainly can't natter whilst knitting this! Back to knitting more of 'Tank Girl' tonight I think even though I'm still not sure about the colour for me. But as someone suggested it can always be a present for someone!
Anyway am off to knit some more!

Oh help the Yarn Monster is loose!

2006-10-07T22:33:00.000+01:00

Oh Dear as Emily would say! Oh dear, oh dear my bank balance is in for a bit of a battering.
Having been very good (well sort of good) and not buying lots of yarn lately (I'm not including the fleece I scavenged for a donation as it is not really a yarn yet and it was for charity!) I have just gone and bought some more. And we've a trip to the Colinette Millshop due on either the 18th or 19th of this month! More temptation!

It's not like I need it at all but the Yarn Monster within has said - Must have, must buy! And so I gave in to temptation.

Mum has not set a great example. You may hear tales of me leading her astray but she was first having bought some luscious merino worsted handspun (so nice she's hiding it from me - and no that doesn't mean it will be a Christmas pressie for me! Joking Mum!) and then raved on about the delights of real natural yarns making my red 'Marble' acrylic yarn seem less appealing.
Plus I am at the moment knitting with pure wool lace weight yarn which is superb and soft so I am not unaware of the lure of natural yarns.

So with all this floating round in my head when I saw a bargain pack of Sirdar Salsa (with Merino!!) in work it was of course snapped up. Plus I was kind enough to think of Mum and grab one for her - but I got choice of colours!

And then, having been reading a borrowed copy of 'A Gathering of Lace' by Meg Swansen, which is so lovely and a must have book even if just for looking at at marveling at the work involved in the shawls and items inside, I have been filled with a desire to do more lacework - shawls specifically. And when surfing through e-bay I found lace-weight 100% pure wool from the Ukraine (which sounds a fantastic place that I've wanted to go to for ages) I just had to buy it. And the good thing is it's not any of the colours I always go for it is . . . Violet! Hopefully that will be nice.

Don't you just love International mail? I do! I'm now expecting 2 globe-trotting parcels from the Ukraine as mentioned and Hong Kong as well (more bamboo needles!). I think parcels are exciting enough as it is but foreign ones have the different stamps which for me makes it more exciting!
Anyway I've rambled on long enough and Ella is calling me! 14 days until she needs to be complete and blocked! Better get a knit on!

Twice the wittering!

2006-10-06T19:02:00.000+01:00

Well I've finally decided the time has come to create a specific blog about the mischief my little daughter gets up to and so "Educating Emily" was born!
Hopefully I'll be able to rope DH into running that with me so we can log all our little one's exploits!

p.s. As far as knitting goes I'm still slogging away with Ella - onto the 1st repeat of the 2nd section. Okay I thing for 3 days of haphazard knitting! I'll keep you posted though!

Look what came in the Post!

2006-10-05T11:34:00.000+01:00

Crafty Drama Queen has been very busy and sent a prize to celebrate her 50th post on her blog - Thank you very much! Inside was a ball of Gladrags, some vintage buttons, a seaweed soap and a lovely hand-made pouch and stitch-marker - and all in various shades of Blue! Thank you for such a kind and generous gift! And she sent a lovely knitting notelet with the gift as well, wish I knew where she found those!

Now on to my knitting creations. My lovely little Emily has a thing about emptying the contents of my handbag all over the place. So I decided that she could do with her own little bag to play with. So this was created:

The handles are bangles and it's some DK weight yarn knitted with some Eyelash yarn that was in the stash pile. It's not really much of a stashbuster but it is really cute. It's just about big enough for a few of Emily's essentials - a dummy and a small toy person and that's that! And DH says that it's the cutest and best thing I've knitted so far, definitely his favorite! Not that he wants one for himself he adds!

I'd like to introduce you to my new model - Hattie. Rescued from the bin at work I think she must have been fighting because she has a broken nose but she sits patiently to model my hats. This latest one is knitted in Colinette 'Point 5' (I've no idea what colourway it is) and the pattern is from their 'Artyfacts' book.

I'm really quite pleased with it. It was a super quick knit on 12mm needles and took less than a day to knit up and it left me with exactly half a ball so I can make another one. Which is good as I think it may have ended up in my pile rather than the Christmas present pile!

Now on to the saga of the Giotto top. Since I last posted I've found another pattern that only needs 3 hanks to knit it up with. This is it:

It's from Vogue Knitting Spring/Summer '06 and is another really quick knit on 9mm needles and is in the exact same colourway as I have. I'm a bit worried though as so far it's looking really small and I've rather a lot of yarn left over with just the sleeves to knit up. I think I may frog it and knit it up in the next size after all the model in the photo doesn't have quite as much in front as I do!

I've also finally started Ella. I've had the yarn for ages now but I've been putting off starting it in case I made an enormous mess of my lovely yarn. But so far so good. I think I'm getting the hand of the pattern and it's growing well. I can definitely seen myself getting addicted to knitting this!

Spinning a Yarn (not original I know!)

2006-09-26T16:05:00.000+01:00

As I promised I will tell you about my spinning exploits. Mum had borrowed an Ashford Traditional from her local guild and so I thought it would be rude not to visit her with my fleece and get her to show me how to spin it up. And so she did.
I was really surprised how much difference using different fleeces made. I tried with one of her e-bay fleeces (Cheviot possibly) which was in her words s***ty and it truly was a pain to spin with as it didn't seem to want to flow or spin with ease at all. So we switched to another fleece and the difference was noticeable straight away - more lanolin on the wool (Mum did say she may have washed the other fleece too much) and easier to draw out (using technical terms - I think!).
My fleece is a shetland merino cross and is a lovely deep chocolate colour and is full of lanolin and lovely to spin with. I was going to photograph my attempts but I'm sorry - after Mum-in-law said "What's that? Is it meant to be like that?" I'm too shy to show it to the wider world. It is rather rough and slubby but don't let all these spinners fool you - it isn't that easy to get a perfect yarn especially if you've only got a duff drum carder to card your fleece with meaning that all the knots and grass etc is still in the fleece as you try to spin it into some from of hand made loveliness.
And in connection to this I've just had a call from the Ranger at Tam O'Shanters Farm offering me half a fleece!! Have a look at this! This is my fleece, or at least the type of sheep it comes from but none of the sheep at the farm have four horns - too young perhaps? There are pictures here of the yarn knitted up as well. Will wait to see what state the fleece is in, hopefully no beasties or too much muck, after all these are sophisticated urban sheep we're talking about here!!

On the knitting front I've not had a great week. I borrowed a friends Colinette pattern book and it has a pattern for a tie front cardigan in Giotto and it only takes 3 hanks, just the amount I had in the stash pile. So I eagerly cast on and flew through the knitting up - a day for each front and back. Then came the sleeves. And worryingly the pile of yarn left was looking dubiously small for 2 sleeves. Anyway I cast on and knitted up the 1st sleeve realising that there was not going to be enough yarn for the last sleeve let alone sewing the thing up.
POOOEY!
It was a lovely colour knitted up - such a lovely autumnal curry colour. Double checking my tension found that mine was out by an extra stitch and extra row. But still it must have been a close call to be able to use only 3 hanks - unless the yardage is not quite the same in the sale room yarns. So now do I:
a) try again on the same size needles;
b) try again on larger needles;
c) knit something else (even though I now really fancy a cardi in this colourway) or
d) try to get another hank that matches?

Answers on a postcard to.....

FO's as promised!!

2006-09-20T22:10:00.000+01:00

Here we go - Emily's little dress has been completed and Emily duly wore it today when we visited Tam O'Shanters Farm near us. It a lovely Urban Farm which is lovely for little ones with sheep, rabbits, goats, ducks, hens, pigs, donkeys and ponies and is run on a charitable basis. I will show you the photos of the dress in a moment but first I'll tell you about their sheep (keeping the knitting theme going!) - there are lovely Manx Langhorns which have a lovely chocolate brown fleece. I asked the ranger what happens with their fleeces as I was a spinner (well - I didn't tell him how badly I spun!) and would be interested in the wool. So he took my number and is trying to find the fleece that he thinks is around somewhere for me!! Just think, wool from Birkenhead's finest (and probably only) sheep!

Anyway back to the knitting. Here we have the dress as modelled by Emily:

As usual she will not sit still for her photos but here is the dress again (well one done from the same pattern) but this time modelled a few years ago by myself!

Other FO's on the catwalk? Here comes Odessa as modelled by our model of the month Emily. Note please how she is about to yank the hat off and throw it on to the floor. It was this or a boring photo of the hat on the floor!

Right, I will tell you all about my spinning and show you my attempts but it has taken me so long to get these photos up on blogger that I really am feeling too tired to type more tonight. Besides DH is itching to get back on the computer to play! So for now this is it and I will report on the spinning soon, hopefully with news of the Manx fleeces!! Fingers crossed there is still one around or its a long wait until next July when they're sheared again!

Honest, I have been busy!

2006-09-19T19:35:00.000+01:00

I've only just realised that I haven't posted for a while. And really I have been busy and do have some FO's to show you all.
Firstly Odessa is finished. The colours look great and the pattern is lovely but I'm not sure about how it looks on - which is no bad thing as really it's not for me! Thats hat number 2 done for Christmas! Hat number 3 was underway (another Madge in Colinette One Zero) but I was having one of those days when my lace was just not working so I frogged it in impatience, plus Mum did want her needles back so will have to ask Hubby to get my Christmas present (small circular needle set) early in order to be able to make more Christmas presents!
Current WIP is a Pinafore dress for Emily and it's an old pattern I found in my Grans house after she died and it is one that I wore when I was a little girl. Once it's done I'll try to post a photo of me in mine and Emily in hers!
Anyway am determined to finish the dress tonight so will sign off and post again tomorrow hopefully with photos of the FO's and of my spinning effort!! More on that later as well!

Wednesday Weather.

2006-09-06T20:31:00.000+01:00

Well, OK, not really weather but it was a great sunset that light the sky wonderfully! And I can't believe how slow I've been to update the blog, I have been busy doing nothing it seems.
If you've read Artis-Anne you will have already heard about our little trip to the Trefiw Woolen Mills and their Spinning and Weaving House which was very inspirational. Needless to say I did come away bearing fleece - one an un-dyed Shetland Merino cross in a lovely deep chocolate brown, lovely and soft and full of lanolin; the other a bag of dyed unknown fleece in moorland shades of greens and heather purple flashes. Both bags will need carding before their spun - when that will be I do not know as I really would need to prefect my technique first. It was just the temptation of buying bits of sheep to play with (without meaning to sound rude!). Then my car broke down due to wet weather (?) and I had an extra night of knitting and nattering at Mum's but my mind was not with it for knitting. To clarify I started another of the little Colinette Tagliatelle vests for Emily with some yarn Mum had left over and totally got confused over the measurements and did the measurements in inches rather than centimeters eg 12" rather than 12cm and did not question it even though it looked enormous. This has since been frogged and corrected but not photographed yet.

As far as knitting seems to be going at the moment I feel as if I'm in a bit of a rut. The Tank Girl top from S'n'B Nation is so simple it's boring (the pale blue rib body); Odessa (variegated blue shades) is growing too slowly for me right now and I suppose I have a bit of Cast-on fever - happy to cast on new projects but it's difficult to motivate myself to work through them. Admittedly the photos are a bit old and the back of the tank top is done and Odessa is marginally bigger but I don't really feel excited by these projects too much (I do like Odessa but it's a potential present so has the air of a chore about it).
Ah well, I'll just keep plodding on and I'm sure I'll feel better about them once their finished.

And as for Emily - well, she liked the spinning at Trefiw as she got to feel bits of different fleeces and I think it's given her ideas! I'm sure it won't take her long to figure it out!

2006-08-27T20:44:00.000+01:00

We're having a Food Festival on the Wirral this Bank Holiday Weekend and I had a quick visit today. It was mad busy and not overly pushchair friendly as it was that busy but we still enjoyed ourselves (at least Emily did once we found someone selling ice-cream!). Now I'm not one to really go on about my marvelous baking and am not known to buy everything as green and organic as possible but just look at these:

I got proper mucky carrots and parsnips as well as lovely apples, radishes, chillies, Cumbrian pancetta and some lovely creamy Lancashire Blue cheese.

How about this for a beer tent? I think it looks like Hagrids home out of the Harry Potter films or at the very least a cross between a wizards hat and a wigwam!

And just look at what Emily was bedecked in today:

And I was wearing my Giotto vest top:

I'll be back with more knitting news after I finish rushing round for the Bank Holiday!!

Ooopps, I've done it again!

2006-08-23T18:31:00.000+01:00

As you may know if you've been reading Artis-Anne I've been to the Colinette Millshop Yet Again!! Some of the girls / ladies from my knitting group were going and I was invited. Tempted as I was I said No - no money and would have the baby with me (not fair to the girls to have Emily running round and whinging ruining their trip out!). I thought how strong willed I was being!!
Then my Mother-in-law (Hi Lil!), also a keen knitter, mentioned she was going to visit Colinette. My DH then said Why don't I go with her? He'd give me money to spend! What would you say?

So of course I went - it would have been rude to refuse the kind offer of yarn money my DH offered. And when we arrived who did we see coming out as we were going in but my Knitting Group! Who, after Emily had smiled her best smile and flirted, said that they wouldn't have minded Emily joining them on their trip. Well at least I know for next time!!
Emily enjoyed herself again - running round looking at (and cuddling) all the yarn and pulling them all off the shelves again. She seems to have a preference for the bright colours and 'Point 5' and other woolly yarns. I at least had a shopping list this time so knew what I wanted and did actually stick to my list.
Firstly a hank of Tagliatelle for a top for Emily:

The colour is great and will go with lots of things Emily already has including her Hippy Purple cords!
Nextly I wanted 3 hanks of 'Giotto' in a golden colourway for a moss-stitch vest top from Femme Fatale, the name of which I've forgotten. I very nearly got some which were curry coloured with flashes of rich green but then realised how much of the yarn I've bought lately has been green. I had fancied a colourway with more colors in it - I think it must have been 'Pharaoh' but being on a Sale Room budget I struggled to find 3 that I liked and that matched well enough. Then Emily found one for me, sounds daft but she pulled out a hank and I liked the colour so I've ended up with a golden curry colour.
Lastly I knew I wanted another hank of 'One Zero' for Christmas Present Hats and found one that will match someone's scarf I made last year - problem solved. Then I found a lovely hank of 'Skye' that bellowed Autumn which had to be rehomed to my stash and will probably be a hat for me!!

Not long after I got home Mum arrived for a little visit, a visit that solved by Baby-sitter problem for my Knitting Night. Mum would join me and her DH would do the honours and mind Emily (no problem really as she's a good little sleeper). Oh and Mum arrived bearing goodies - namely some luscious laceweight 100% wool yarn in the richest flamey colours (I had read of them being described as 'Molten Lava' which is very apt) for my very own Ella! Thank you Mum!!!

And then off to our Knitting Night - Mums first knitting group! I think she enjoyed herself - we've a lovely group in New Brighton, all very friendly and welcoming but I think all the conversations flying all over the place took some time getting used too! It's definately not a group that you can do complicated knitting in! Chris, my multi-talented friend did a quick spinning demo for us after we told her how little luck we'd had with it. She took one look at our attempts and said we'd been on the right track all along! We'd mistakenly thought that the yarn automatically wound itself onto the spindle. So we've been talked into trying it again and she's loaned us the spindles for longer!
Now a quick update on FO's - the Giotto vest top has been completed and Emily's vest top has been whizzed through - started Monday night and finished Wednesday (could have been quicker if we hadn't had such a busy few days!) I will update you with photos soon with a FO Festival but really want to get back to the current WIP - the 'Tank Girl' top from the 1st Stitch 'n' Bitch book - the back is very nearly done so I can hopefully present a feast of FO's soon enough!

Oh Dear!

2006-08-20T14:51:00.000+01:00

What kind of yarn are you?

You are Acrylic.While you are very versatile, your plasticky countenance can be offputting. You are very good with children but can become a pill if left alone with them too long. You are very flexible but don't give in to manipulation.
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The Miracle of Blocking.

2006-08-15T18:50:00.000+01:00

Madge is completed! And I like this pattern. OK, I had problems with the lace pattern at times but then I'm feeling a bit run down and tired after our holiday and haven't been concentrating fully. But the finished effect is worth the effort in my opinion. Here's the pre-blocked Madge being modeled by Emily:

As you can see there is a lacey pattern but it's tight and sits unstretched to Emily's ears. It did just about stretch to my ears. So, into the sink it went ready to be blocked. The major problem was finding something vaguely headshaped to leave it to dry on, if it was another scorching day like we had during the heat wave I'd have used my head (literally). Anyway I finally found a suitable plant pot and laid the hat out. The difference was instantly noticeable when it came out of the water - it was longer and the lace pattern was looser and more defined and the yarn smelt deliciously woolly (ah, the joys of natural yarns!). Then all I had to do was wait, which seemed like forever. So this morning it was finally dry and look at the results:

The colours are more muted knitted up than the skein appeared with flecks of mustardy yellows in amongst the greys and pinks and purples. The nice thing about this pattern from a cheapskates point of view is the amount of yarn left over - I should just about have enough to make another hat and possibly a matching pair of lacey fingerless mitts for more Christmas presents. I definately have enjoyed making the hat though and can see more hats being added to the 'To Do' list which is no where near shrinking! I think this may be next after Odessa.

Anyway I'll get back to my latest WIP - a Colinette Giotto vest top called Selena from the Akashya pattern book in colours faintly reminicant of the Lasso top I've just finished - shades of green this time paired up with plumy purples which is looking very nice so far. As for the pattern, we'll see what it's like when it's done. Looking at the picture it definately needs lengthening even for a person of limited height. Will post pictures later. I'm not really sure why I'm cracking on with it though - it does seem like summer is over right now with the weather we're having right now. I've even been wearing jumpers!! Anyway, here's hoping for an Indian Summer!!

Fingers Crossed!

2006-08-11T12:29:00.000+01:00

Hopefully things may work smoothly now that I've changed the template to a plain simple one. So far AOL is not kicking me off the internet because of my site. I am sorry if people are being kicked off-line because of reading this - I am too and I don't know why. Let me know if you still have problems if you have previously and hopefully we can get back to normal services as soon as possible!
I should actually post a retraction of my verdict of Royal Mail. My missing DPN's being sent from Hong Kong have finally arrived after being posted out on the 14th of July. The reason for the retraction? Well they have arrived and mainly because of the lack of address the package had - just my name and the 1st two lines of the address. No County and postcode let alone Country! And yet it has arrived! And I think the seller may have sent a new set out to me unless she got my e-mail telling her they've arrived before they got in the post! So I think maybe I should say Hooray for the Postman as everything has arrived eventually including the Fall issue of Interweave Knits! (I should say bar one item from someone I will not be buying from again due to lack of Customer Service and lack of communication - she may know who she is but then again she may be too busy trying to take over the knitting world!!)
Anyway am off to carry on knitting my luscious Colinette yarns and read Interweave Knits.

Blogger is being daft.

2006-08-10T22:39:00.000+01:00

Well you may or may not be able to read this. I myself am having problems accessing my own site as I keep getting kicked off the internet when I'm on. Please bear with me and I'll try to fix the problem if the same is happening to you. I know my Mum can't read the site either. If you can read this then ignore this post, if you can't then there really wasn't much good in posting this then was there? I can but try and see what works! Oh and for some reason all my links etc seem to be right down the page now if you're trying to find those!

Colinette Haul!

2006-08-10T11:16:00.000+01:00

Now granted that all my purchases, apart from the pattern book, are from the Sale Room do you really think I could get all that for £10? Of course not. I failed miserably when I got pigheaded and decided that I wanted a garment as well. The thing is that despite it being a gloriously warm and sunny day in mid-Wales I was thinking about those dark days ahead and Christmas presents. Which is why I rebelled and wanted something for me, me, me! This is the 2 hanks of Giotto which are destined to become a summery vest top. The others are all destined to become hats and mitts for me to fall in love with and not want to part with! Oh and bright eyed readers might have noticed that I have bought another cone, this time DK weight, but that it's the same colour as one of the others I bought last time. Did I notice? Did I hear my Mum telling me? No, not at all. Emily, by the way, loved it all. she was delving her hands in the bargain bins and when she was let out of her buggy, ran round burying her face in the yarns and dragging them all off the shelves laughing madly - isn't that what we all really want to do deep down!

And I've started already on knitting these up:

Meet Madge and isn't she pretty? I felt as if there was some sort of harmony whilst knitting this pattern (based on a Japanese Lace pattern) as we were sat watching a Kurosawa film, with me missing half thesubtitless as I read the pattern!

Metis has been completed and taken for a test drive. Her she is in action. I love the shape of the sleeves and the feel of the jumper - so light and soft (but keep away from snaggy things!) but she rides up like a mad thing! I'm forever pulling it down so next time I'd certainly add an extra couple of inches to hide my belly a bit more!

And as promised here is the picture of my other holiday wool purchase:
Again, it's destined to become a hat (are you detecting a trend?) and will probably become
Odessa which at least everyone seems to have knitted up at some point!