Doesn't Time Fly?

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!!

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!!

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

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!

All I want is a Tall Ship...

... 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!!

260 Miles and a Whole lot of Fibre!!

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

New Year, New Post

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!

Who needs a Golden fleece?

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!