Yarndale 2015

I’m very sorry for the radio silence over the summer but my workload was very high and something had to give. Unfortunately for you guys, it was the blog. I’m going to try and get back into the groove of blogging. I want to try and blog weekly like I’ve done for the past few years but have a feeling that it may not happen as often as I like.

I’ve done lots of knitting and even a bit of crochet. The camera has been out lots and I’ve been sharing a few bits on Instagram. I’m @hardybarn on there and please follow me, if you’d like to.

I meant to do this blog last week but there was a bit of procastinating going on. Some friends and I hired a cottage near Skipton for Yarndale weekend. I must say it was rather fab having a knitting weekend.

Yarndale was as good as ever. The sun was shining and I’ve been saving up all year, so I had plenty of pennies to spend.

There was too much fun and chatting going on for me to remember to take photos, but here’s my haul.

I bought Coopknits Socks Volume 2 and the latest Pom Pom magazine.

I bought 2 project bags, one from Jem Weston (who does some great workshops at A Good Yarn, as well as a talented designer) and a Coopknits one.

I topped up on needles and bought some tags that were cute, to add to finished knitting gifts.

There was a ridiculous amount of buttons from Textile Garden and I’m not talking about that one!

I bought some mini skeins from Knitting Goddess and some sock yarn from easyknits to make Otis from the Coopknits sock book.

There’s a lovely cone of cobalt blue Lithuanian linen from Midwinter Yarns, which is destined for a large shawl.

The rest of the yarn was from Triskelion Yarns. The colours in this brand really appeal to my taste and I could honestly have bought the entire lot.

The grey is Dylan 4 ply which is 50% de-haired yak and 50% silk. It’s heavenly soft and is destined for a shawl of my own design that I’m working on for my City and Guilds Level 3 course.

On the Sunday, we had a trip to Clapham and Beckside Yarns to see the lovely Sandra. I might have bought more yarn….

She stocks Kauni, which is something I’ve seen a lot of but never seen it stocked in a bricks and mortar shop. So a couple of skeins of that came home with me.

Beckside Yarn is in a beautiful place and we were lucky enough to be able to sit outside in the sunshine with a coffee.

Spinning Again

I got my spinning wheel out last week. It’s been quite some time since I did any spinning because my schedule has gotten a bit hectic. I had a bit of a craving to spin though.

I finished what I had started – not good practice to leave singles for as long as I did but I didn’t have too many issues with it ( as long as you don’t look too close).

The fibre is Frog Prince roving from hilltopcloud – it’s a blend of BFL, merino, bamboo and sparkle. Using my new WPI tool from hilltopcloud, it’s about 10 wpi, which makes it worsted weight. It’s 3 plied. There’s about 172m, so probably enough for a hat.

I’ve started another lot of fibre. This one is from Countess Ablaze.It’s BFL and I got it quite some time ago.

I hoping to make this into a 3ply fingering weight yarn. There’s about 164g of fibre, so that should be plenty. I’m not sure at the moment whether I’m just going to go with the flow or navajo ply it. I’m just going to spin the singles first then decide.

Yorkshire

This blog post is a wee bit delayed. I’ve been away on holiday in Yorkshire, which happily coincided with Yarndale, so I dragged Mr along.

The bunting was still up this year but has now been accompanied by lots and lots of mandalas.

It really did look fantastic. It was a lovely day and my purchases were quite restrained (well, for me anyway).

A skein of Deeply Wicked by Easy Knits for the Woolly Wormhead KAL. Anyone else doing it?

A lovely thank you skein of Soliloquy Sock yarn from the Linda at Tall Yarns n’ Tales for the sock pattern in Knitty.

A selection of pretty buttons from Textile Garden and a few needles.

Oh and a crochet kit from Natural Dye Studio, which I wanted to do on holiday. I was sans ball winder, so a very patient Mr helped me wind 5 skeins of yarn into balls.

On the way back, we went to Fountains Abbey in the afternoon and took a few nice pictures.

Goodies

Oh dear, look at that. More wool came home with me…and quite a lot of it this time.

I managed to bring 17 balls of the new Rowan Fazed Tweed home. It’s a chunky weight yarn and it’s very soft with some lovely colours in the range. I did have a difficulty picking my favourite colour but thought I’d go with something classic and went with black.

The plan at the moment is to make the Plum Creek Jumper by Sarah Hatton, which I’ve been eyeing for awhile and thought the yarn and pattern would make a nice combination.

I did make another purchase recently. It’s this nifty little thing from Hilltopcloud.

It’s a wrap per inch (wpi) tool with a difference. It’s more of a useful tool for a spinner rather than a knitter but there are times that you don’t know what thickness the yarn is as a knitter too. 

Normally, you wrap the yarn around an inch space and see how many wraps there are. You can still do that on this but you can lay the yarn across the lines at the bottom to see which it fits in best. This works really well.

Here’s my new Fazed Tweed laid across the 8 line, a quick look at the very handy chart at the top tells me it’s on the border of Aran/Chunky. The other thing that I love is that the chart is on the tool, so you won’t lose it or have to go and look it up on the computer. Money well spent.

Woolfest 2014

We tried something a little different this year for Woolfest, mainly because I’d decided I wasn't going to go this year and then changed my mind a bit late in the day, so it was a bit tricky finding anywhere to stay.

Mr and I stayed in a camping pod for a night. We were lucky and had nice weather, so we had a campfire roaring all night, with the obligatory marshmallows.

Our neighbours were some very nice sheep and lambs, which were unintentionally smoked by our campfire.

The camping pod was super and we were positioned under an old oak tree. It was a very relaxing evening.

My purchases were a little more restrained this year.

Some extra cables for my Chiagoo needle set and 7.5mm tips as I don’t own any in that size. The latest pompom magazine, which has quite a few patterns in that I’d like to make.

I stocked up with lots of buttons from Textile Garden. They really do have the most wonderful selection.

And my only yarn purchase of the day was some Cumulus from Fyberspates. It was very reasonably priced and feels like a fine mohair yarn but is actually a combination of brushed alpaca and silk. I bought 3 similar shades with the idea of an ombre cowl or shawl.

Loop

On my birthday trip to London, last week. I did manage to squeeze in a visit to the Loop, Islington.

I had lots of plans but managed to narrow it down to a reasonable amount.

I received Fair Isle Style, edited by Mary Jane Mucklestone from Mr for Christmas. There's lots of patterns in there that I'd like to make. 

The first one is Kulli Cowl by Ysolda Teague. I'm not normally one to go with the exact yarn that the pattern calls for but since I was going to Loop and they stock the yarn. They ended up at the till with me. Though different colours to the original.

Incidentally, I seem to have ordered the yarn from Jamieson's of Shetland to knit the Babsie Bird from the book too. I really liked the colours.

I bought a skein of Wollemeise Pure 100% in Silberdistel. An unusual colour - a cross between a pine colour and a deep teal. The plan is to make an Imagine When shawl by Joji Locatelli.

I got Juju's Loops book too. The patterns are gorgeous but what really enticed me was how beautifully published the book was (on top of the pile).

So all this adds to the stash issue (the other 3 skeins were gifts mentioned last week). Hopefully they won't stay there very long!

Dyeing Workshop

At the weekend, I went to a workshop at A Good Yarn, Cleethorpes. It was a "Dye your own yarn" workshop with Jonathan from Chroma Yarns. It was great fun and everyone made gorgeous coloured yarn.

The dyes

The aftermath

Everyone's gorgeous yarns

My finished yarn

Yarn wound into a cake

Hopefully, it'll find itself made into a pair of gloves (for a friend) at some point.

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Wonderful Wonderwool

Sorry for the alliterative title, couldn't resist.

With an offhand comment to Mr, "That it's Wonderwool Wales this weekend and wouldn't it be nice to go." His response being, "Why can't we?". So we did. Bit bonkers. 10 hours of driving in total but it was lovely weather and we had a good day.

I was relatively restrained with my purchases. Here's what I bought:

Rachel Coopey's new book, Coopknits Socks, and some sock yarn. The bronze one is Fyberspates Vivacious 4ply and fivemoons Luna 4ply 50g hanks in Denim and Pumpkin and a little mini one too.

The scotch eggs were fab!

I can finally show you a finished project, which just happens to be a Coopknits pattern! 

John Huston in Posh Yarn Megan 4ply, just in time for a birthday present.

More Yardage

I've spent a few days recently on my spinning wheel. Here are my latest yarn-like creations:

Remember this? It was some of the Wensleydale/Silk roving I dyed recently - blogged here

It's changed into a 2 ply, 15 w.p.i., 157m/100g - sport weight.

I finished the Faux Cashmere I mentioned last week.

It's 18 w.p.i., 268m/100g.

I've finished the mate to the Teal Shetland - so it's all ready for some fair isle mittens.

It's a very pale green, BFL, 161m, 17 w.p.i. Not identical to it's mate but close enough for the mittens.

I've also made a couple of mini skeins. The sparkle will hopefully become a Christmas tree decoration; 

and the other two are the start of a larger lot of yarns for another fair isle project. The original idea was for some Bandelier socks, so the colours I have are similar but think I might use the same pattern and improvise something else. Don't think I really want make a pair of socks I have to handwash at the moment!