It's been confirmed ...............?

I AM MAD !!
Reason being ? I saw on some one's blog details of a sock competition called Sock Madness and I thought , well it might be fun . Here is someone who had JUST that day finished her first & only pair of socks but it did say it catered for beginners ( I hope so !!) What's the saying 'pride comes before a fall ' !!! So I signed up, there are only 128 places and I gathered they were filling fast so I didn't reckon I would be in with a chance any way. Next day I checked their site and it said the list was full and all participant would be notified in the next few days. . That was nearly two weeks ago so I figured I hadn't been added and thought ah well less pressure ;so in compensation I joined another sock knitting KAL. Imagine my surprise this morning to say that I am included YIKES ...I will have deadlines to do & I don't do pressure !! Good thing I do have some sock yarn so I hope I don't need to get more as their exclusive patterns call for some sports weight and some are plain colours ,which I have none so some of my spinning sock yarn might have to be dyed in a solid colour .Still I don't think I will get far in the competition seeing as I am a beginner : either way it looks like I am going to knitting socks, socks , socks.
Oh what demon I have un-leashed !!

Fairy, fibre , spots and socks

I had a lovely 'play away day' on Monday with my dear friend Jenny. We always have fun and the day is never long enough , we spin, we felt , we chat and I always come home having learnt something new and wish yet again, at times like this that I did live a bit closer to civilization ; can't have it all can I ?.
This time Jenny showed me her embellishing machine and boy what a felters dream that is; I think I would have to do a lot of felting to justify buying one and I do NEED a drum carder first. Jenny also showed me how you can hot fix Angelina fibers which was just what a I needed for my little 'Tooth Fairy' . As soon as I saw this in the book 'Complete Feltmaking' by Gillian Harris I wanted to make it for Emily . I know she is only getting her first teeth BUT I still wanted to make it now. I had such great fun making it and am going to try & finish a couple of other felting projects I have on the go at the moment.



I had a delivery of more lush fleece this week fromSandie. I am going to do a book with samples of all the fleece I have used as a reference for myself , which I think would be very useful . This is not the best piccie but my camera needs charging now so this will have to do :(
Starting from the left is 3/4 Corriedale x 1/4 Manx & this is very soft and has a long staple. I am going to spin this as Sandie suggested from the tip down to get a tweed effect,the 2nd is Bleu de Maine which has a long staple and a 'bouncy' crimp ,the 3rd is Manx again very soft, shorter staple and I will try to do the same with it as the C x M, 4th is lovely Ryeland which I had to have more of . Last but not least is Mule and this is the surprise for me . I don't know why as I know next to nothing about fleece really but I didn't expect this fleece to be so lovely, it has a very long staple and 'rasta' crimp and its so fine , soft and has a lovely sheen to it. So I am looking forward to getting these on the wheel in the near future.
Re my spinning I have decided to spin enough to make a couple of hand dyed socks ,rather than just do enough for one pair, so spinning finely is taking some time to do but I am looking forward to having a 'painting sock day 'soon. I have been dyeing this week though as I need some to go to a freestyle weaving workshop run by Eta Ingham-Lawrie at our next Guild meeting, more on that later !!



On the knitting front I have finished Emily's spotty coat in Berger de France yarn. Even though I didn't enjoy knitting it,it will be a very warm jacket as it feels more like fabric fleece & hopefully she will get some wear out of it. Not put any buttons on it as Kath has some toggles for it ; I'm just glad its done , one less in the stash pile !!



On the needles at the moment I have socks ; Monkey to be precise and this is a lovely pattern & I am enjoying doing it . Socks are defo a quick fix knit and these are done in Merino yarn I bought off E-Bay a long time ago intending to make a lacy scarf.



So I thought I would show you my sock yarn haul ; now I had bought a few before I got the sock bug but have got a few more since & two more are still to arrive from the US (yes they were bought before my oath I promise ). I have some really yummy ones here; I know that not all will be hard wearing but who cares , I am looking forward to wearing socks made from 100% Cashmere, Suri Alpaca, Camel Down. Silk and Merino and most I have bought from the US and apart from Lorna's Laces , Schaefer Anne and Opal the others have been done by various makers and are truly lovely and unique.



Oh and last but not least I got some gorgeous icy blue,Cashmere & Silk yarn from the lovely Jo at Celtic Memory Yarns & this is intended for a lace shawl; I should have taken a picture before rolling into a ball:( I was thinking of doing one from Victorian Lace Today but after seeing what my darling daughter Kath has planned for hers I might be tempted to change my mind . Either way I am waiting for inks for my printer to make a copy of the pattern so that I can enlarge the charts and also save on my precious book as I am dreadful for spilling tea etc
Oh and this was bought as my clause for 'no Yarn till Woolfest/Wonderwool Wales'




Well , I think I have again, overdone the photo shoot , so I am off to play with my Monkey ;-)

First Love

Well I am in 'love' with my new socks:) I have always wondered what all the sock making fuss was about & now I know,they are so comfy and warm . I was pleased with the way the stripes did match but the next pair I will make a tad shorter in the foot but these are great with another of my first loves 'my Blue DM's' , still after all these years one of my comfiest boots.



So now I am definitely hooked into making socks and do have a few skeins lurking in my stash ; now why do I have sock yarn? Well it's the ideal weight yarn for so many lovely things too, like shawls and lacy things. I am still awaiting the delivery of a few more sock yarns and when they arrive I will photo all of them.
So as I said in my previous post I am at the minute making sock yarn out of Ryeland fleece. This fleece is so soft and spins so lovely that I am spinning the whole 500gm for socks and have ordered more from Yorkshire Woollybacks and a few other fleece to try as well. Sandie is a mine of info re fleece and is such a lovely person; I could have talked 'sheep' all day :).
I am comparing this spun yarn to the blue bought sock yarn which is a tad thicker than the Regia I made my socks in.This skein I have done already weighs just over 100gm and is 260m so I will spin a bit more to make sure I have enough.



Now I am going to set myself a challenge here. I have never tried painting yarn as opposed to just rainbow dyeing it which I have done. I have the book 'Yarns to Dye for ' and I want to try and do some self patterning yarn. This involves as I read it measuring the minimum of 20ft so that each section can be dyed to certain lengths. Will have a go and see what happens .



I am still knitting Emily's jacket (am on the sleeves now )but I have to say the task is now a lot easier with my new Boye needles. I am really pleased so far with these needles. They have lovely points which is going to be great for lace knitting. I have posted a piccie to point out some other details. I have read that some people don't like the fact that at the end where the needle meets the join there is bend; now I personally like this as it doesn't dig into me and fits great in my hands, the points as I said are great , I don't find them heavy , and I like the fact that the cord does not have a memory so no fighting with them . The yarn I am using for the jacket is fluffy and clingy and I haven't found it snagging at the joints in any way. So I give them the thumbs up so far but will see how they wear re the thread joins etc



I would just like to say thanks to you all for the lovely comments re my 'boucle' etc ; I really do appreciate your comments . Thank you :)

Silvia's Oath!!

Well I don't know if I am going to regret this but I have decided as I do have rather a lot of yarn that I am joining in Silvia's Oath !! and I am cursing it already :) No yarn buying till Woolfest BUT I do have a few clauses to add. I am not including sock or lace yarn as I have projects in mind and I am not counting my spun yarn; Also there is Wonderwool Wales on the month before Woolfest and no way will I not spend there. In a way I need something like this as I have so many projects I would like to do in my stash and also DH can no way complain when I go completely mad in spending at these long awaited events. So I do have few yarns on their way in the post but there after I promise I will be good .
OH dear what have I done ; I think there was another group having buttons showing off proudly their stash , maybe I should have joined that one .

Hippity hoppity

I warn you this is a long and heavy picture laden post but its Kath's fault as she wanted to see what I was up to & how I made something. So for those of you who have better things to do like knitting , I'd leave now:)

I am still full of cold, it doesn't seem to want to go and I blame my fuddled head for my lack of concentration on completing one task before starting another. I rarely have more than one thing on the needles but at the moment I am flitting from one thing to another.
I have done the back and one side of the front of Emily's spotty jacket ; it looks nice knitted up (more like fabric ) but I still hate knitting it. I have made one sock and half way into the second . I am enjoying making them ,so much so I have ordered a few more yummy yarns to make some more. This pair are done in the simple Opal pattern and DH loves them also but NOT in this shade . So I can see I am going to be making a few more. I am also spinning some sock weight yarn from a Ryeland Shearling which is so lovely and made for socks and I love spinning fine stuff..more on spinning later .
So here is one sock.



I have been meaning to use some of the natural Shetland I spun a while ago and thought of knitting some sort of a bag made with different knitted squares . So I started and am enjoying this little project too. Totally mindless and picking a square from the book that I fancy trying out;we'll see how that turns out.



Then it was someone's BD :)and I thought I'd get her some luxury yarn from
Poshyarn so I thought 'save on postage ' and got one for myself as well. Its 100% cashmere 6ply DK called Sophia and the shade I got was called 'Romeo'. So as it was just one skein (150yds ) I thought I really wanted this to snuggle into so used thisPattern but adjusted the stitches to 88 on size 4mm needles and just made one and half pattern repeat until I had used all my yummy yarn. It's so lovely to wear as a neck warmer.



I had the smallest amount of yarn left and had an idea ; I made a cord out of it and thread it through the top , tassled it & made a draw cord so I can turn it into a hat and it fits lovely and again warm and cosy on my ears. Hope you enjoy knitting yours up as much as I did Kath.





Right are you still with me? Now on to spinning . This is more of the Texel I dyed & I literally threw this on the wheel to make it slubby and this time plyed with some unknown grey soft stuff which I got a bag load of from one of my guild members. Its lovely and soft, man made I'm sure ,but it does help to soften the kempy Texel. Again this will go towards my weaving stash.




My next project and the one that Kath would really like me to go into ,is a challenge we had on the online Weavers & Spinners UK to make boucle. Well I have never attempted boucle so had no idea but was given given written guidance by the members. So I had to have a go . I had some raw Wensleydale Longwool curls I had bought from our hols and thought I would use that and I had a couple of packets of Kool Aid given to me & I hadn't used before,so I thought I would play with that. I had intended to go yellow , ochres and reds so I didn't think , saw it was a Lemonade drink , thought yellow and chucked it into pan . NAH , it was blue !! Now I LOVE blue but I am really trying to get away from it but hey I guess I had to go with the flow. So it was this rather lovely aqua blue when it was done and I thought I would overdye it. Wrapped it in clingfilm and just dyed the tips with dark blue , rolled it and chucked it in the microwave for about 10mins , making sure I had made holes for air to escape and voila.





I did the same with some different wool and then the fun began. I was told to spin the wool onto a silk thread , keeping the thread taught and let the wool wrap around the thread and then push up to make bobbles. Its a bit tricky until you get the hang of it and you want to be able to treadle slowly to give you time to make the bobbles/boucle. I thought that the Wensleydale would have been great as it was already curly (check out the staple length on it ) but I did have to card it as it was just too thick to spin so I lost the curls LOL , so I think you could try this with any wool .



So here is what it looks like on the bobbin, I used the jumbo flyer for this as its easier.


Then I got my other dyed wool and plyed that with the bobbly stuff !! and the twist made it more boucle .



When I washed it it became even more boucle.



or is it bouffant ? !!!

It really is lovely , though I don't know what I will use it for and I am going to have another go and see if I can make a finer boucle. So here it is

'Blue Pearls '


Last but not least I am so happy that my long awaited parcel has arrived from the US containing my new needles. I wanted a set to take in the van with me and debated between what was available.


Would have loved the Knitpicks set , wasn't too keen on the idea of the plastic Denise so settled for these: Boye Needlemaster, love the snazzy colour and they feel okay so will give them a test run . So what can I knit with them ? Oh I know mmmmmmmmm there is that lace shawl I want to make from 'Victorian Lace Today 'but first I am gasping for a cup of tea after this LONG post and thank you Blogger , you were brill at uploading pictures today too.

Ooops spoke too soon Blogger won't spell check for me and I'm too tired to go through it again so I'm hopping off.

Reflection

No crafty photos in this post as I have cast on fever and no concentration :)I have been spinning also but again not plyed it :(

I have an awful head cold at the moment and not been feeling up to doing much but I did go for a walk yesterday to see if the fresh air would help.
This is the field opposite our house and its usually full of sheep but they must have had a day out yesterday as they weren't there but they are back today !!




This is our usual walk if I am feeling not up to par and the dogs love it as its full of rabbits and squirrels so they chase them from tree to tree.We are blessed with many lovely walks about us which is one of the reasons I love it here.
This piccie is a close up of the Moelwyn range and the dam is a hydro one which our next door neighbours belated hubby was a civil engineer for many years ago. She was actually born in our cottage and then moved next door when she got married. We are lucky in this village as we still have a community spirit and folks tend to keep an eye out for each other.




I love trees and the way light affects them as seen in this shot. I have taken so many photos at different times of the year here and as I said its not a long walk but on a day like this it does make me reflect on things in life in general. This week there have been a few deaths around us and one was Kath's Grandad ,or Taid as he was called . An end of an era , he was indeed a true gentleman. The shadows made me think of the way we all affect each other in our lives for however briefly .