Washing

Last weekend I decided to make the most of the good weather and get to grips with a texel fleece that I got via The Nude Ewe .

It was huge:

and completely filled the bath

Even with the lovely sunshine we’ve had this week, it still took several days to dry; lanolin removed, it weighs just over 2 kilos so will take quite a while to card, even with the drum carder. It’ll keep me out of mischief over the summer, though. I have started spinning a very small amount on the drop spindle and am liking it very much so far.

Last Saturday of course was World Wide Knit in Public Day, so several members of the intrepid “Dog, Chicken & Aardvark” (*sigh*, it’s a long story…) group made their way to Stanmer Park in Brighton, where, as well as knitting, much cake was eaten – so much so that we are thinking of renaming the event World Wide Scoff in Public Day.

Picture by Lucy

There has been some knitting as well, but as it is just a few more rounds on some socks, it’s really not worthy of a photo at this stage.

PS:  Happy Father’s Day to all you Dads!

Pretties

Competition Winner:

After long and detailed consideration, the jury (Lucy, Bethany and me) decided that there was one clear winner, Joe, who is a very talented cartoonist (see his work here).

His winning entry was quite charming and the final decision was unanimous; this is how he charmed us all:

His name is Jeremy. (yes, it’s a boy.)
Jeremy lives in the garden shed and loves sprinklers and growing things. He often sneaks out and plants things when no one’s looking and is able to make them grow at amazing speeds by just doing an elaborate and beautiful dance. Since the new plants are fully grown when you come across them you just assume they must have aways been there. So now you know…

Joe has chosen Jeremy as his prize, so the little creature will be off on his travels very soon.

In other news, yesterday saw Kate, Sandy and me head off to Coventry for a UK Ravelry event involving yarn, fibre, cake, knitting, gossip and laughter. Despite the disgusting weather (rain ALL day), we had a great time and my bank balance is somewhat smaller than before, thanks to the wicked temptresses showing their wares and enticing us with colour and texture that made us squeal with happiness.

See what I mean:

Teeswater fibre from Old Maiden Aunt

BFL humbug from Babylonglegs

Assorted fibres from Natural Dye Studio

Happy Happy Happy!

Busy busy busy

First up, I haven’t forgotten about the competition from the last post, but I will wait until after midnight tonight before choosing a winner, just in case there are any last minute entries. I should also say that the winner can choose “The Creature” as their prize if there is nothing in my Folksy shop that takes their fancy.

Anyway, I’m sitting out in the garden to write this, after a day of gorgeous blue skies and sunshine – much too nice to be stuck indoors. The garden has acquired some new plants today – six tomato plants and two pepper plants, so hopefully I’ll be able to eat home-grown salad this summer and maybe even home-grown ratatouille. Yum.

Handspun socks!! Yay! I’ve finally managed to complete a pair of socks from my very own handspun yarn, a blend of blue-faced Leicester and nylon, 3-plied and dyed with Landscape dyes in…um…can’t remember the colours, it was left-overs I think. I can’t begin to say how pleased I am to have produced these socks, but I hardly dare wear them now…

I was not sure about this pattern as I was knitting it, as I didn’t think the twisted stitches showed up very well, but as you can see, when worn the pattern is very obvious. This was a mystery sock-a-long by Yarnissima (Ravelry linky) and was a very well-written pattern.

With those finished, my sock needles were feeling rather naked so I had to find another pair. A friend had bought a copy of Yarn Forward magazine, which I am not generally very keen on, but this issue had a lovely sock pattern, so I bought my own copy and leapt straight in:

Regia silk, 2.25mm needles, lots of cursing about pesky twisted stitches, but hopefully all worth it. (Ravelry linky). The instructions could be a bit clearer, especially with regard to which bit of the charts is to be repeated, but I’m muddling through.

Yesterday, three friends (Pie, Emma’s Monsters and Jenny Leggings) and I went off to Eastbourne in search of a new yarn shop that we had heard about. Tucked away down a little alley, in the charmingly-named “The Labyrinth” was Yarn Over, a gem of a yarn shop with beautiful yarns and a really warm welcome. Comfy sofas, tea, coffee and biscuits, practice yarns and needles, swift and ball-winder – heaven. Will definitely be going again. We all spent money, in my case on some gorgeous Manos silk blend (30% silk, 70% merino) in rich autumn tones, already well on its way to becoming a crochet shawl (yeah! Crochet! Wanna make something of it?)

Delicious, isn’t it?

It’s OK…

… I found the emergency chocolate supply, so I feel almost normal again. Don’t really know why I wasn’t feeling normal, but I wasn’t. OK now though.

So, Friday saw me wending my way westwards to retrieve Lucy from her student flat and transport her back into the bosom of her family for the summer. Seems like only yesterday that I was dreading the day she  went off to uni and severed the apron strings, and here she is, back again already! Nightmare drive home – M25 was doing a very good impression of a car park so it took 4 hours to travel 115 miles, not fun.

A strange thing happened earlier on this afternoon… my wrists and forearms seemed to be taking on strange colours, a bit of yellow here, some blue splodges there…red blotches… a new variant of swine flu possibly? Nah, I’ve been splooshing the dye pots again:

A rainbow(ish) of 4 ply merino; there is a project in mind for this multi-coloured confection, but nothing  definite yet.

Now, I need a bit of help, please.

I have been using up leftovers again and have ended up with this creature:

Cute, huh?

He/she/it does not have a name or a back-story, so what I propose is that you, dear reader(s), send me a name and a short biography (nothing flash, just a couple of lines) by 31st May to this address and the winning entry (as chosen by the judging panel*) will be able to choose any item from my Folksy shop. I look forward to hearing from you.

*Judging panel to consist of me and whichever daughter(s) happen to be around at the time

This ‘n’ that

Not much knitting to report at the moment although I have plenty of ideas. I am working on a pair of socks with the handspun yarn that I had to frog recently, but progress is slow – not due to the speed of my knitting but because the pattern is released in weekly parts as it is May’s Mystery Sock-a-long on Ravelry (link here for those of you on Rav, the rest will have to wait until they’re finished). I’m enjoying the knitting so far – they’re toe-up socks but with a gusset heel rather than my usual short-row but I may be converted to this type of heel as it is very neat and you don’t have to pick up stitches, Yay!

Spinning has been pretty much non-existent recently apart from a small amount of the Winehouse fleece which I have spun into a chunky 2-ply. I knitted a small swatch and felted it by hand – it’s very hairy, but I think it will make a very durable fabric, particularly if I felt it in the washing machine. I’m leaning towards a bag of some description, but need to think some more on dimensions and fastenings.

Although I have been spinning for a while now, I do not consider myself to be experienced or accomplished as I tend to spin the same type and weight of yarn all the time, stemming from a lack of proper techniques. In a bid to improve matters I decided that a bit of drop-spindling would be a good idea as it would help my drafting and control. I have had a drop spindle for ages, but it was a rather cheap, solid thing that came from Ebay some time ago and although I produced something that vaguely resembled yarn, it was never very satisfactory and my attempts leaned more towards “dropping” than “spindling”. So, I bought this:

Seaglass spindle

Isn’t it gorgeous? The little coloured pieces you can see embedded in the resin of the whorl are pieces of glass picked up on the beach in Dorset and smoothed by the sea. It came from Wildcraft and I heartily recommend them – service was very quick and the spindle came very securely packaged in its own golden rigid cardboard tube which can double as storage. It is well balanced and a joy to use. The stuff on there in the picture is some recycled sari silk fibre that I’ve had for ages; it’s not the easiest fibre to spin, but looks fantastic when finished. I also spun a mini-skein of merino (I think, it wasn’t labelled) which has come out quite nicely – a huge improvement on my previous efforts.

Yesterday saw me in the garden (not my favourite pastime) as I took part in the annual fight with the hedge-cutters attempt to bring order out of chaos. It looks better than it did, but in my ruthlessness I have created some gaps that are crying out to be filled with something pretty – any ideas as to what shrubs can survive in salty sea air? Have also decided that I loathe grape hyacinths – they look nice enough when they’re in flower, but they are extraordinarily prolific and you just can’t get rid of the little b*****s. I never planted them in the first place and have no idea how they came to take over be in the garden. I also tried to sort out the rose bush in the back  garden which has inexplicably started to lean over rather alarmingly and needs to be taught a lesson staked to the wall; after several unsuccessful attempts and a completely unprovoked attack, I have had to retire hurt, so am now sulking on the sofa as the injury sustained is making it a bit tricky to knit. I never realised that gardening was a combat sport…

Saturday afternoon stroll

What’s this?

Two posts in one day? Has the earth slipped off its axis, or has Jeremy Clarkson finally been rendered speechless or has there been some other cataclysmic event?

No.

Just finished some socks.

That’s all.

LOL

see more Lolcats and funny pictures
So that’s what happens to all the socks…

Things I did today…

Today I have been mostly washing fleece; last year we went on a visit to a local-ish farm that was having an open day/watch the shearing/buy organic meat kind of event and I bought a fleece. I expressed an interest in the fleeces so the farmer’s wife picked one out that she thought would be good for spinning, sheared it and I bundled it into the car whilst it was still warm. Over the past week or so, I have finally got round to washing it – or some of it, anyway. I think I’ve washed about 600-800 grams and it looks as though I’ve hardly made a dent in it – there must be at least another 1500g left. It does rather remind me of the bouffant hairpiece that Amy Winehouse wears, so from now on it will be known as the Winehouse fleece, even though it is actually a Hebridean.

It’s not especially soft, but would make lovely outer-wear or bags or – if I ever get a loom – rugs.

Earlier on in the week, I started knitting some socks from my first-ever handspun sock yarn. All was well until I got to the leg (I was doing toe-up), when I realised that the lovely lacy pattern that was looking so nice on the arch of the foot was not lining up properly around the leg.  Despite lots of muttering, swearing and sighing, I just couldn’t figure out what was wrong so the whole thing was dropped in the frog pond. The disappointment was immense and I could have cried but the yarn has been rewound, un-kinked and sits patiently awaiting its reincarnation as a pair of socks that works!

In the meantime, I am working on a pair of rainbow socks in Shoppel-Wolle Zauberball (no photos yet, camera needs charging) which really is magic. I watched about six hours of trash on TV last night without even noticing as I was so entranced by the colour-changes. The socks won’t be identical but that just makes them more interesting, in my view, and makes the colours stand out even more – can’t wait to wear them!

Have also made a  worthwhile discovery today: Newhaven Marina (oooh! There’s a live webcam!) and the riverside walk have undergone a total transformation in recent years, making it a much more pleasant place for a Sunday afternoon stroll, but the improvements meant the loss of the Coral Cabin Cafe. This was a little greasy spoon, housed in a portacabin, that served fry-ups, builders’ tea and very cheap Sunday Roasts as well as Spotted Dick, sticky buns and the like; its demise was greatly mourned by many local people, but the new development now boasts “The Captain’s Table” – a brand-spanking-new cafe with folding glass doors that open onto a patio area filled with tubs of flowers and hanging baskets. It’s a bit more up-market than its predecessor (no bad thing, really) and I can personally recommend the Ploughman’s Lunch. The home-made cakes looked pretty good, too…I’ll let you know about those in future editions

The intahwebs is too big

And takes up far too much of my time – if I wasn’t constantly faffing around on Facebook, Twitter, Ravelry and Folksy or searching for bargains elsewhere online, I’d be a lot more productive and my yarn mountain stash might actually start to diminish (unlikely, if I’m honest). I’m finding more and more that my imagination has run dry when I start to write a blog post, because I’ve already shared the latest news/FO/spinning/gossip/whatever on one or more of the aforementioned sites. So, forgive me if you’ve seen or heard any of this before…

Things on Folksy are going quite well; there have been lots of viewings of my stuff and a few sales, but most importantly the feedback so far has all been positive, which makes me very happy

We spent Easter with my parents – only a couple of days but it was the first time I’d seen them since Christmas so definitely worth the trip (plus, my mum makes the best Sunday Roasts in the world, ever!)

Mum and Dad have recently returned from their South American Adventure – a cruise holiday which called at Valparaiso in Chile, the Darwin and Magellan straits (I think – not too hot on geography), Cape Horn, the Falkland Islands, Montevideo, Buenos Aires and Rio de Janeiro. They had a fabulous time and saw some wonderful scenery, including penguins and seals in their natural habitat. Of course, in the Falklands, they saw a lot of sheep and we all know that sheep = fleece, right? Some of that lovely fleece found its way back to Blighty and into my hot little hands. I washed it as soon as I got home and spent most of Tuesday carding it up. This particular lot of fibre seemed to be full of static, which I haven’t encountered before with wool, so I spent an inordinate amount of time shaking my hands in vain, scraping them against the edge of the table, poking about with pointy sticks and swearing rather a lot in an attempt to get the fibre into neat, orderly batts instead of floaty little wisps of angel-hair. The recalcitrant fluff is now safely ensconced in a bag, awaiting its fate. Success is mine!

I am very hopeful that this gorgeous stuff will soon turn itself into a light and fluffy 2ply lace- or fingering-weight yarn, with which I will be able to knit a will-o’-the-wisp, light-as-air…erm…thingy…er…shawl? Scarf? Any suggestions welcome…

Right, I’m off now, got some twittering knitting to do!