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