Spinning Yak

Among lots of other things, I've managed to fit in a little time for spinning.

Happened to drive past Wingham Woolworks a little while back (it was a 50 mile detour really!). Bought a few bits and on the way to the counter saw this gorgeous shiny fluff and it went into the basket. It's 50% yak, 50% silk and it really shines.

It changed from this to this...

It's  a 2ply, 178m, 12 w.p.i. DK. It's going to become a "Yak Hat"!

This is Shetland from Wheeldale and there's only 50g, 175m, 2ply and 18 w.p.i. So it's on the edge of being a fingering weight. I have another 50g in a light green in BFL to go with it and once that's spun, it'll be some handspun stranded mittens.

This is my first attempt at corespinning and I loved it.

141m, 10 w.p.i., Worsted Weight. Fibre mix: merino, BFL, sari silk, bamboo, baby alpaca and sparkle. My thinking at the moment it would make a lovely drawstring bag but don't really need one of those so not sure what to do with it.

This is the fibre on my wheel at the minute, it's Faux Cashmere (nice way of saying nylon) from FeltstudioUK 

It's super soft and attempting to make a 3ply quite thin. It tends to have a flyaway nature to it so it's sticking to everything but is quite interesting to spin.

Orchid Thief KAL

I got a little sidetracked recently. I've participated in my first KAL (knit-a-long). Ysolda Teague has recently self published Orchid Thief shawl - it was originally available in Brave New Knits.

To celebrate this, a KAL has been organised. 

I ummed and ahhed over doing it and suddenly remembered I had the perfect handspun for the project and it sort of tipped the balance. So off I trotted and bought the pattern and found my needles and wool.

It transformed from this...... to this....

And finally to this.....

I've included a few beads that I had in the edging and used a crochet cast off edge.

Weaving baskets

Mr. and I spent a day at The Basket Case recently and had a great time.
We made a willow basket each from scratch.

This is the only photo I managed while we were making the baskets

8 hours and many scratches and broken nails later; we had a willow basket each.

Mr.'s

Mine

Mr. very kindly made his so that it stacked with mine (just a happy coincidence)- makes storing them at home a lot easier.

The woman who taught us was a very good teacher and it was a nice relaxing day. They grow their own willow for weaving and we got to see it growing too.

FO: Watercolour Mitts

I had a lovely little thank you present the other week. It was a set of 4 mini skeins from Skein Queen, which in my excitement to knit with them, I forgot to photograph. I pondered a bit on what to do with them and thought they were too special to use as part of another project so I designed a little fingerless mitt pattern which I hope shows them off to their best.

I split each skein in half so I could use up as much of the yarn as possible. 3 of the colours were of a similar type and I've marked where the colour changes are on the photograph. 

The stitch pattern was just purling when I got to a darker bit of the pattern and a turned hem for the start, moss stitch cast off on the hand part and linen stitch on the thumb. There's a whole mix and match of stitch patterns going on but think it adds to the whole arty feel of the mitts. 

Just need some cool wintry weather to try them out, now!

Garden Song

Oooooo, pretty knitting goodies. 

Fell in love with this fabric recently and Nicsknots made me some lovely bags with it.

They've already been out and about with me and it's really nice to be able to separate my projects - stops a big jumble of yarn! Thanks Nic.

Miya Miya Bag

Small drawstring bag

Zipped purse

Weekend dyeing

I had a wonderful day at the weekend. I spent the entire day in the back garden with my dyeing gear and my burco. The weather was gorgeous and it was really good to be out in the garden which I haven't done much this year.

It's my first go at handpainting yarns and I made a complete and thorough mess even though I had my gloves and apron I seemed to have more dye on me than the yarn did!

I dyed 3 lots of merino sock yarn (or at least I think it is as it wasn't labelled and from a bargain bin on the bluefaced.com stall)

The yarn turned out like I wanted but I had a few problems with the fleece. I did something wrong somewhere because the pale greeny one was meant to be bright blue so it either needed an extra wash before hand or I didn't put enough citric acid in.

The purple is wensleydale and silk and turned out as intended though.

Delft Inspired

This is my most recent piece from the ceramics studio and I'm decidedly smug about it. It's to replace a Commemorative Birth plate that was broken. The original was a transfer with the details painted in and I'm very happy I've been able to paint fine enough to replicate it. I thoroughly enjoyed painting this one and think it's one of the nicer pieces I've made.

Bluefaced Weekend

The Bluefaced Weekend at Mickle Trafford was fantastic. Lots of lovely knitters and lots and lots of scrummy yarn; even with just a few stalls I found myself bamboozled with choice yet again. 

Bought waaay too much but boy was it fun.

I bought 5 skeins just from Posh yarn

Catherine - Colourway - Sent to Coventry - Heavy Laceweight - 100% Organic Merino

Olivia Lace - Orphan - 100% Mulberry Silk

Megan - Orphan - Sock Weight - 100% Superwash BFL

2 Skeins Gretchen 2ply - House On The Mountain - 55% superwash BFL, 45% silk. Provisionally I'm thinking of making an Oregon Coast Cardigan

Now the rest of the yarn!

Babylonglegs Radiance Sock - 100% Pure Wool - to make a Marin

And two lots from easyknits; I could have bought lots from here. The colours are just so bright and saturated! Right up my street. Finally settled on just these two.

Deeply Wicked - Electric Dreams - 75% Superwash Merino, 25% Nylon 

Deeply Wicked - Midnight Forrage (sic) - 100% Superwash Merino

Restocked my stash which has gone down quite a bit recently. Believe it or not; I've knitted the majority of the yarn I bought at Woolfest.

All the stalls were fantastic; wished I'd been able to support all of them (just not enough pennies - but I did give it a good go!). Though Nicsknots is making me some of her lovely bags in the near future.

I'd definitely go again and the cakes were very scrummy btw and Mr. says the coffee was fantastic too!

Adobe Illustrator How to: Knitting Illustrations

 I've been experimenting recently with Adobe Illustrator. It's an amazing piece of software; there are a few tutorials around on how to make knitting illustrations but I wasn't 100% happy with it as I was sure there was an easier way. I have no experience or training in Illustrator so this is amateur hour. This is what I figured out to produce the illustration below:

I'm assuming you know the basics of illustrator such as how to draw shapes and change the stroke and fill.

Dyeing Find

At Woolfest, I bought a dyeing kit from D & T Crafts and I've been amassing all the equipment I'll need (such as gloves, dye pots etc.) when a lucky find turned up. I'd been planning to do most of it on the stove but a Burco Water Boiler appeared! It's from my parents-in-law, they used to keep turkeys commercially and used the boiler for cleaning up; they've moved on to arable farming so it was looking a little lost and forlorn in one of the barns. 

It's been re-appropriated for dyeing. It's quite big so think I could do a fair amount at once. Not sure which technique to try with it but looking forward to some dyeing. I'd bought some lovely undyed rovings from Wingham's when I was there at the beginning of the week - (a very happy coincidence!).