Oh me, of little faith!

Oh boy - I was a bit nervous about this yarn! I had three smallish pieces of roving with some blueish tones and some orangish tones in each. Not enough to do anything by themselves, really. I like to knit larger projects best of all.

So, I fractal spun them together onto two jumbo bobbins and then plied the bobbins together.

The result:

To be honest, I didn't think it would work, but I like these rather a lot! I'm going to call this North Gare.

Reconnaissance

J and I went on a recce to Gibside, where I am planning a residential visit, this morning. The fog was thick and really unpleasant on the A1. It's unnerving how many idiots continue to drive around with no lights on. It's always idiots in silver/grey cars too. Impossible to see until you are almost on top of them.

Anyway. We got there safely and emerged from the gloom into a crisp, bright November morning, to be shown around by Melanie, who could not have been more helpful.

After we'd sussed everything out, we went for a wander. The grounds are lovely.

Back home again, this afternoon, I took the opportunity to do a bit of spinning. What with one thing and another, I haven't done any for ages.

I'm spinning three lots of top together to add to my collection of blue/brown/ginger yarns. Eventually I will have enough for the project I have in mind.

From start to finish

A finished object to report.

First I dyed the top:

Then, I spun the yarn:

Finally, I knit the sweater and designed it - ok, made up a pattern as I went along)

Today, I'm wearing it:

Indian Summer

It's been unseasonably warm. 29 degrees and October! I sat on the deck to do some spinning, getting sunburned while the leaves fell from the trees around me. Very surreal.

This is some of the Falkland top that I dyed during the summer holidays. I'm really happy with the way the colours are emerging.

Sheepish

We had a sheepish family day out today.

Masham Sheep Fair.

We started the day with a tour of the Black Sheep Brewery

and finished with a wine tasting.

In between, I bought some fleece and we looked at sheep. I had a lovely day out :)

Clearing the decks

Wailey, wailey! My holiday is nearly over and, as usual, I don't seem to have got all the things I planned done. Nevermind. I have enjoyed the things I have done, so it's all good.

Spent yesterday evening plying up the yarn I have been spinning. It's Corriedale from My Heart Exposed. Helen called the fibre 'The Magic of Rhubarb' and 'Seasons of Change', which I love. I've spun them together, fractally, to make a larger amount of yarn. I'm very pleased with the finished yarn, which I'm calling Mellow Fruitfulness. There's about 290grams here. (Helen is always very generous with her weights.)



It's a dk weight yarn. Some bits are still thicker than others (hey, I'm still a beginner!) but it should balance out overall.

I can't really express how much I love spinning. It's something I always wanted to learn to do, from being a child. I've always been drawn to making things, particularly from scratch. I really love the scope to play with colour that spinning affords. And I'm enjoying challenging some people's preconceptions that anything handspun has to by lumpy and oatmealy. (See high visibility cowl from yesterday's post).

On the knitting front, I'm trying to resist starting any more projects until I have cleared some of the four that are on the go at the moment:

1. Turmeric sweater. This is in very fine yarn and I've restarted it four times now for one reason or another. Hopefully, now I've got guage and it's starting to look a bit more like it should, I'll crack on with it. My hands are still struggling a bit with the 2.75mm circulars it's done on and my brain is struggling with the madness of knitting a sweater in such a small guage, to be honest.

2. Fiddlehead Mittens. In Rowan 4ply and Mini Mochi. These have been on my 'want to do' list for years. I really have to be concentrating and to be in good light to work on these.

3. Vitamin D cardigan. (Rav link). I'm furthest on with this and the yarn isn't too fine, so I think this is what I will tackle first.


I'm making this in King Cole baby alpaca, which is lovely. I love the colour. It's called Plum, but is really more a gunmetal grey. I love grey, but am wary of adding too much grey and black into my wardrobe after a couple of years of trying to move towards brighter things.




4. Plain vanilla, toe-up (because I can do these now!) socks for J. This is my hospital and appointment project for when it looks wierd to be sitting playing Angry Birds at my age. I can't believe I just wrote that knitting socks seems less wierd than playing Angry Birds on my phone...

A little moment of calm

Twinings Moment of Calm, chamomile and spiced apple, tea with home made cheesy oatcakes. The perfect thing for the person who can't have sugar, doesn't tolerate bread very well, but sometimes still feels like a little home-baking experience.

225 grams wholemeal organic porridge oats, blitzed a bit in the food processor
1 large heaped tablespoon butter
A quarter of a teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
A quarter of a teaspoon of salt
Handful of grated cheese
Teaspoon mixed dried herbs
150mls hot water

Mix all together
Panic because it all looks too wet and sloppy
Relax as it starts to firm up into a loose dough
Roll out thinnishly with some wholemeal flour to stop it sticking
Bake at 180 degrees C until firm and starting to crisp
Leave to cool or until you can't wait any longer.

***

Bit of a rough night last night last night and not much better this morning. Can't decide whether it's related to (what I'm worried is) a return of the old fibromyalgia or just to being a perimenopausal old bag. Both feel very similar sometimes.


Got up quite early and sewed the ribbon and buttons onto this:






Very happy with it - I spun the yarn! Bring on the winter! Oh, yes, it's still here isn't it?

The spirit of autumn takes a first stealing flight

After all the renovation work, I finally managed to bring my spinning wheel down from j's room, where it was living in relative safety, and find it a home where it's easy to access. So, I'm spinning again.


I bought two pieces of wool top from My Heart Exposed, in sympathetic colours and broke them down into lengths for fractal spinning. I'm doing one of each in turn. I'm trying to create yarns in larger quantities than the 100g batches I have been spinning so far, so combining the colours of some of the fibre I have accumulated so far seems like an interesting idea.


I like the way it's coming out, so far. The colours remind me of the end of Summer and beginning of Autumn. The greens are still vibrant, the roses and poppies are still in bloom, but there are plums and apples starting to ripen and the leaves on the hollyhocks are starting to rust.

It's not a set of colours I would normally choose, especially for clothes, but I'm trying to experiment a bit.

Must...wear...less...black...



I can't decode whether the singles will be best plied together of each Navajo-plied on it's own. I've yet to start practising Navajo plying, but have been watching this video.



I got a new Wold bowl. Perfect for handspun skeins. (Or apples, I guess.)

Woke up this morning and I got myself a

Sorry, Jim, not a beer, actually. A Pumphrey's Daterra Bruzzi. Not as Rock and Roll, but much better suited to a Sunday morning.

Maybe when I drag J to Masham Sheep Fair at the end of September, I'll tag along on the brewery tour and pick up a couple of bottles.

Despite falling asleep, exhausted, at 9pm last night after a day of moving ivy, bits of tree and thorny berberis (which has left my arms looking like I self-harm) I was awake early, as usual.

A pyjama-clad, make-upless shot to show how much my Propello hat, knit in handspun from Jacqui at Spinning a Yarn, improved with blocking.

More tree shifting on the agenda today. What fun! So, I'm grabbing 10 minutes while I drink my coffee to work on this:



More handspun. Details to follow when I have more progress to share.

Yesterday, before I was on labouring duty, I unpacked the contents of the living room from their temporary storage in boxes in the dining room into the new cupboards I assembled for the living room. I say assembled rather than built, as I don't want IKEA to feel under-appreciated for their role in the whole process. I can't believe they (J and j) have so many dvds and cds. There's hardly any space left for hiding my stuff!

After that, I sorted out the, now dry, wool top I dyed the other day. I'm very pleased with the outcome!

Bottom L: Dusk to Dawn spotted, top: Dusk to Dawn dilute, bottom R: Dusk to Dawn saturated. I have 300gms of this Falkland fibre and I may fractal spin it all together to make enough yarn for a waistcoat/vest/cardigan if I get it fine enough.


75g of left-over needle felting (I am so never going there again!) shetland. I like this a lot. It's not unlike something I bought at Woolfest.

110g Blue Faced Leicester. The colours are not really true in this shot. It's more subtle and less turquoise. The grey is also really dusky pale purple.



100g alpaca. This has come out much better than I ever hoped. It was looking a bit sad and frightening during the drying process. You know what cats look like when they get wet? Well, the alpaca is the wet cat of the roving world.

I learned how to plait the fibre from this handy video.