New Yarns

I have been busy spinning and have also done a fresh batch of dying. 

Here are another two skeins of "Night Boat to Cairo" this time slightly lighter in tones and with silver and pink

"Mountain Crags and Prayer Flags" for this I hand carded merino with sari silk.  Then plied it to create a 2 ply yarn.   

"Misty Days and Purple Haze" a singles yarn in shades of grey.

"Late Season's Harvest in the Herb Garden" is a mix of pale greens and purples- the first 2 ply completely spun on my Louet S10.  I am really happy with the result. 

On a grey Sunday in November...

This is a beautiful video showcase of hand knitted accessories in handspun and other yarns from Mosgos on Etsy.

Spinning

I dyed up these rovings a while ago and am in the process of spinning them up. I should have the first skein finished today....

Holiday decorating

A couple of years ago we had a new boiler installed, because we are on oil central heating the new boiler had to be located in the garden (yes, I know it is quite odd- but apparently that's what they do with oil boilers nowadays), the work to put the boiler in included moving a lot of pipes around - most of it going through our sitting room.   We had good intentions to get the pipes boxed in fairly quickly - but it didn't happen - we got used to the pipes, and they were useful at Christmas to hang the cards on. We knew it would be a long job and just kept putting it off.
It has taken a lot of time (almost two weeks) and effort, but we have finally done it, boxed in the pipes and redecorated the sitting room, my lovely husband has done such a good job I can hardly remember that they were there!

Here is a view of the pipes running along the ceiling in the process of being boxed in.

And here is the same wall after boxing in and redecoration - not a pipe in sight! 

I 'distressed' some old bits of furniture that we have - an old side table originally from a nest-of-tables, which looked awful but is so useful. 

Before 

After 

Also an old trunk, known for some reason as the 'Carpenter's trunk' 

Before  

After 

The fire-place has new decorative features -re-cycled from the old counter decorations that came from the shop my parents had back in the 1970s. 

We finally finished the glossing on the woodwork yesterday and got everything back into place - very happy to have reached the end! 

Wheels

Other news is that a month or so ago I purchased an old Louet S10 from DyeSpinKnit on Ravelry.  The wheel had been painted a weird gloss green (sorry if you like that kind of thing) but my husband came to the rescue again and stripped the green paint and Danish oiled the wheel for me.  The wheel is slightly stained from the paint, but I quite like the effect.  I love the huge bobbins and the wheel is so fast when compared to my little Westbury wheel. 

One of my first 'spins' were these batts

Into 'Pumpkin Patch'

Final thick singles 

Other things, I have knitted more gloves .... one pair in handspun camel (so soft) and one with red and grey stripes 

I have been trying out lace knitting (I am determined to do this - but fail every time)

Finished the latest Ruth Rendell novel

Tomorrow I am off to judge the crafts at East Bergholt Horticultural Society annual show - should be good!

Half the year

I can't quite believe we are now in July and I haven't posted anything since May! the whole of June seems to have passed in a blur.

I have been spinning and knitting and trying to control weeds on the allotment (not an easy task) recently there has been a beautiful poppy that had self seeded itself amongst the weeds.

On the spinning front I have finished a number of skeins: 'King Midas' is the last of the wonderful black alpaca fleece that I purchased a couple of years ago (oh how I have loved that fleece, I am so sad to see the end of it) I mixed it with blue merino and gold angelina to create a 2 ply sparkly yarn.

I have played around with charms and spun some sweet bunny ones into this yarn called 'Luncheon is on Mr McGregor'

There is another skein of 'Night Boat to Cairo', this time darker and moodier with bamboo and silver sparkle.

while 'Dunwich Beach' and 'Dunwich Heath' are based on the place on the East coast                                             
                                               

Dunwich Beach

Dunwich Heath

Snowberries is a mix of bamboo and BFL spun with red mohair and silver angelina

Finally I spent most of the Jubilee weekend spinning this yarn -  I am hoping that my mum will kindly knit into this shawl by Boo knits  for me, since I don't seem to be able to master lace knitting! There should be enough yarn here it is a mix of hand dyed merino and silk, and has turned out light as a feather.  

I am managing to knit a very simple shawl in some lovely yarn from Solstice Yarns on Etsy, Siren 4 ply sock yarn called 'Sule Skerry', the colours are fantastic and very beautiful.  I have kept the main body of the shawl plain knit and hope to do something more elaborate around the edge in a contrast - something dark I think, there is a lovely skein of brown yarn in her shop which I am tempted by!

Rose Garden Fingerless Gloves

Here are the finished gloves in the  hand dyed, hand spun yarn mentioned in the previous posting, I am so pleased with how they have turned out and I love the colours in this yarn; to me the plum, rye and pink work so well together, they remind me of faded roses at the end of summer.

I have also been busy knitting up some long arm warmer style gloves in Stylecraft acrylic yarn, I don't know how these will turn out as I am making them up as I go along;

I picked the last of the tiny leeks from the allotment, they were planted too late in the year so didn't have a chance to grow much - I am sure they will taste ok- I think they are destined to become leeks and potatoes in a cheesy sauce!

Have a good week!

New Dyes

Just before Easter I got hold of some more Landscape Dyes from Wingham Wool Works, I have tried various other acid dyes but keep coming back to this range, the number of colours is so good and they are very easy to use.
I had a happy afternoon a few weeks ago dying up some merino roving trying out various colour combinations using the new and my old dyes.  New dyes included;  Galah (a vivid pink), Rye (a soft oatmeal colour) and  Night (a deep blue).  My intention was to try out some brighter colours in an effort to move away from my normal colour range which always seems slightly muted.

The results were not quite what I had expected. Night has turned out far more indigo blue than I thought it would - slightly disappointing - but maybe the dye stock was too weak.  Rye wasn't as pale as I liked - so I need to weaken that, the dye that came out as I expected was Galah - this really is a bright pink (not a colour I would normally choose) but I think it might be useful to mix in with others.
 
Here is the roving dyed up with a mix of Galah, plum (from another range) and at the very end Wattle and some of the Night dye.
I have split the roving to fractal spin it.

I did manage to get one roving that I really loved from the batch that I dyed up, it was a mixture of Rye with plum and a small amount of Galah. This is the yarn I spun up from it.

I have been knitting this into a pair of fingerless gloves, the colours in this yarn  remind me of dried rose petals, old gardens and the end of summer.... I still don't seem to have achieved what I set out to do which was to a bright yarn!

A gentle Easter weekend

Some Easter moments...

Crochet granny squares -well one big square! (how I love them)..

Cosy cat!

Produce from the allotment including ... beautiful Tulips...

..fresh mint...

..and spinach.

..Planting seeds.... 

..and spinning some wool, to knit into a pair of fingerless gloves...

Heaven...!!!

Miss Havisham's Veil

I recently caught up with our recording of the BBC adaptation of Charles Dickens' Great Expectations which was shown over Christmas, but I didn't watch at the time. The book has a strange place in my heart as it was one of my O- or A-level texts (to be honest I can't remember which!), and as I have got older I have grown to appreciate Dickens more and more,- although I haven't actually gone back to reading any of the novels! The BBC, as you would expect, delivered a wonderful interpretation of the book.  I especially liked the moody, misty Satis house with its covering of dust and cobwebs.  It so happened that I was spinning some BFL wool with silk at the same time as watching the series - I had dyed the wool up in a batch before Christmas....

Here is the roving drying; the grey is the second from the right, next to the green.  The silk element is darker than the wool and I particularly love that effect.

I love how it turned out and will try this combination again, and maybe spin a singles yarn.  The dyes are a mix of some Charcoal dye from Tall Yarns 'n Tales and a Landscape dyes called Saltmarsh - the Saltmarsh lends a slightly greeny-blue tone in places.

Here is the resulting spun yarn:

I spun the wool straight from the roving and attempted to create a fine lace yarn, but I still haven't got there - sadly it isn't quite fine enough - practice is needed I think....

New Year review of 2011

Apologies for some slightly out of focus images and one the wrong way round!

Happy New Year!