What a busy week !!

Kath & Emily came over last Sunday for a few days. I can't say we rested or chilled out as was the original intention although we did get some spinning done. We also found a new bead shop and also went to my LYS, Colinette.

So were do I begin with this weeks post, as I have so much to share !!
I will start with adding beads whilst you spin.
You need a small length of fishing line or such like and I used 4mm beads for this project but you do need to check the size of the hole to make sure the spun yarn will go through .
Fold the fishing line in half and thread the beads through both ends leaving a loop , I used about 5 beads at a time . Then when you have spun some yarn you break off the rest of the un-spun fibre and then run the spun yarn through the loop of the line and fold it over.




Holding the line with the beads tightly, push the beads over the spun yarn and when they are all on,spin more yarn. The beads will get spaced out more evenly when the yarn is plyed . To get an even effect as I said I added about 5 beads at a time and as I was spinning from the fold I would spin a length and then add beads and then spin some more,about the same length without beads.



As these beads were only small I didn't need to use my jumbo flyer but if you wanted larger beads then of course you would need it.



I have a little more to spin before I ply them together so I will show you the finished yarn in a day or two.

Kath had the great idea of going to Colinette whilst she was with us,and I am thinking; 'Well I do need to go as I want to buy some yarn as a gift for someone but I just know I will be tempted ' That thought lasted all of a few seconds before I said 'YES' and we figured that as we had Emily we wouldn't get much of a chance to browse too much and we had to get back by early afternoon also.
Emily just loved it and kept running around saying 'I like colour' and then asking the staff 'Lady what you doing? '



She was really good and we didn't push our luck but we did get some goodies, all from the sale room. I bought some yarn for my friend and then we bought a few of the cones which are such great fun and then I just couldn't resist these three skeins of Giotto to go with my 'Blimey Limey' shawl.



I am going to make the 'Waterlily' top from Interweave Spring 2006 with it. I also found some beads from the bead shop that go with the colours as well. All I need now is a pretty flowing skirt to go with them with a hint of that lime yellowy green in it.

So that takes us up to Wednesday when Kath and Emily go back home and we follow them up in the motorhome. Tony was going to show Barry , Kath's DH how to lay slabs in the garden and we girls were going to do a bit of shopping . I have to say I was amazed to see this limey shade a lot in the shops !! To be honest I don't do much clothes shopping these days and it was sheer bedlam , well for me it was ,and I couldn't wait to get the heck out of the shops, even if I hadn't bought anything. So on the way back to Kath's home we stopped at what Emily calls 'Mummy's Shop as Kath works there on a Saturday.
We thought we might get some nice fabric to make tops etc. Well I did get a few , nothing for a skirt though :( but then this tempted me.



It's a 100% acrylic but it feels so soft and it was so cheap with 200gm in a ball, that I thought, yes great for mucking about and you can sling it in the wash too, something I NEVER usually do with my hand knits. I bought four balls to make a long cardigan which I am halfway through doing as its done on size 8mm needles & I think I will most probably have a lot left over. A really quick fix which was exactly what I needed as Bluebell from SFK is not going well and I suggest to any one thinking of doing this to keep trying it on as you go . Its a simple pattern and that was maybe what I was having a problem with as just kept forgetting to increase every other row. I blame this cold,for the lack of concentration;it is still dragging on and indeed I felt so bad that after the first day at Kath's I spent most of the time lying around or sleeping.
So we came home yesterday after minding Emily whilst Kath was at work . She was as good as gold and it now feels way too quiet here as Tony as gone to work today as well. Roll on the next time we see each other & hopefully I will have a tad more energy to TRY and keep up .
Well off for another lie down as I am still feeling so washed out . I hope that the demo makes sense , if not I will try and explain it better in my next post. Do hope you are all enjoying this lovely hot weather we are having yet again.

My new Wheel

Do you like my new spinning wheel? I was so tempted with this and bought it off E-Bay & I adore it. It's a wind up musical spinning wheel about 7 inches tall, not counting the base, don't know the song but the wheel, the bobbin and the treadle all move . The wooden carving details are truly amazing, I presume it might be Austrian !!!



I also had a lovely present of my sweetie this week , a
Daylight lamp; I am finding it hard in the evening to read patterns, mainly lace ones and I did have a magnifying lamp but it got too hot and kept tipping over. This was on offer but was still expensive but I am so very happy with it and it will be a godsend when I am going to knit my lace. Plus I might even get my tapestries finished now. This cottage is cosy but with small windows so I could only do such work during the day: not any more :)



This is going to be my LAST sock and lace yarn I buy until I have knitted my stash up !! and boy I am I finishing on a high note. These yarns are by Lisa Souza



I had never heard of her before until I did the 'Sock Madness' competition and the folks in the US were raving about her yarns.
The one on the left is 100% Superfine Merino Superwash and in the shade of Emerald and with a yardage of 560 yds I might get two pairs out this.
The one on the right Lisa very kindly dyed up for me and its 100% Superfine Alpaca in the shade 'South Pacific' with a whopping 2480 yds.

Some of you have shown interest in me doing a demo of how to spin and add beads as you spin so as Kath is coming up tomorrow for a few days I thought I would leave it until then, if Emily will give us a chance. I am also hoping this fine weather will continue so we can go out for picnics etc. We found another lovely walk right on our doorstep yesterday which we have never been to before so I want to take them there.

Oh, and lastly on a tantalizing note I have been asked to take some of my homespun yarn to a shop to show, with the prospect of selling them after the shop owner was admiring my hand spun knitted garment's !! Not sure if this is a route I want to take . She also wants me to do spinning demos as she is trying to start doing fiber workshops , we will see !! It is tempting, but I do this for my own pleasure and I really don't want to be pressured into committing myself. Any way she is going to ring me and then I can see what's involved. Nice though to have your work admired & I did feel very flattered .
Right off to do some tidying up before our adorable duo arrive

Blimey Limey !!

This parcel arrived this morning from Posh Yarn and I love this shade; and as a shawl I think it will be stunning and can't wait to wear it as it will jazz up so many colours. I have just got to decide which pattern to use now.
It's Sophia 2ply cashmere in a shade called 'Key Lime' I did debate about getting other more muted shades but no, this said 'zingy spring' to me .
Now if I had taken the label off and no pink tissue would I have found it in this Philadelphus 'Aureus' in the front garden ?

Or in this

It also matches the 'Bowles'golden grasses I have dotted around the garden at the moment

Besides, sometimes a girl just has to have colour now that Spring is here in all its glory, after all the dull shades of Winter.

I also have another lace weight winging its way to me fom the US so hopefully that will arrive this week.
Do you know when I said I wouldn't buy yarn until Woolfest apart from sock and lace weight , I never thought I would spend even more money than before !!!!
This diet is way too expensive to keep up ;-)

Sshhhh !! it's very quiet around here :(

Well it started with a cold last week and just when I thought I was getting better it turned into laryngitis so I haven't been able to do more than squeak for 4 days now. I blame it on SWD guild meeting , as there is so much nattering there,amongst us all and I did feel my voice going then LOL. No point going to the doc for anti-biotic as I am allergic to them in a big way so I will have to wait it out. Soooooooo frustrating when you want to say something and now I realise I do have a lot to say ;-) At least I am not feeling so feverish today as I have been. I spent most of the last three days in bed feeling so rough. I am the world's worst patient; I just hate being ill and will force myself to keep going which of course just makes everything worse in the end and so for me to go to bed is saying something.All that lovely sunshine and I have either been in bed or huddled in front of a roaring fire !!

Well enough moaning , let's get on with the interesting stuff. I had a really great day at the guild and learnt yet more stuff about spinning .Amongst other things, I learnt how to spin yarn and add beads as you go on and as soon as I am up to it I will try and post a demo of how to do it ; that is if I can find my beads !! Someone brought their English Coombs for us to try out;lethal but brilliant and great for long fibers, I was very impressed . She breeds gorgeous Teesdale amongst other breeds so my name is down for a fleece when she starts shearing in May . At this rate I won't be needing anything from Woolfest.......yeah right LOL .But it will be interesting to see what they charge for fleece there as I can get some top quality fleece direct from local sources now.
I also found a new home for the floor loom which is being picked up on Wednesday. I am so pleased about this as it is going to someone who knows how to weave but wants a smaller one (she has a big house )

I have finished my stripy socks and the amazing thing about these socks is the stretch in them. When I was spinning this Ryeland I noticed the springiness of the fleece and it just carried on through the plying and the knitting up and so they are a most comfortable sock; of course hosiery is what the Ryeland was priced for originally and I can see why now.I think the stripes matched up pretty good.My next pattern dyeing venture will be hopefully a different pattern. I had some great tips from some guild members but as one lady said half the fun of dyeing your own yarn is the surprise at the end which I have to agree with.

Well I have not finished with doing socks as I have accumulated yet more luscious yarns (more on that later ) and I do have another pair on the go but for now I want to take a break from them. So I have cast on Bluebell from 'Fitted Knits' and found in my stash this yummy yarn by Hayfield called 'Inca' and its 54%alpaca, 34%acrylic & 12%nylon and it is so soft .



I was going to make a larger size seeing as I gained some weight (thanks steroids ..grrr ) but as I don't have enough of the yarn for that I will just make it at my old size and if it fits it fits as I have started to lose weight,thankfully!! If not , Kath gets a new jumper :)or I wait until it fits me . I could have made the Textured Tunic as I do have some Lana Grossa Royal Tweed in my stash but again I think I would rather wait until I lose some more weight before doing it. It so frustrating this extreme changes in my weight and yes socks and shawls are fine but I want to knit something else for a change.
I didn't do a swatch with this yarn but I have a feeling it's knitting a looser gauge so it might fit me any way. I have so many lovely yarns waiting to be knitted up but I just don't want to end up that in a month or so they won't fit yet again. Still at least knitting from my stash as opposed to buying is a bit better I guess.

I have also got yet more freebies from my guild meeting. They are having a great clear out of their cupboard and I am the only one who seems to want this stuff.I am almost embarrassed to put my hand up yet again !! I have two large ring binders part one and part two with 'Odhams' on the side and are full of info on knitting ,stitch patterns , techniques and so much more . I am delighted as there are some lace patterns there I haven't come across before.
Another bargain I got this week was from Warehouse Direct which is a part of Amazon UK and it was a book on my wish list as marked an used . It was this
Inspired Cable Knits and I got it for the princely sum of £1.75 plus postage and all that was wrong was the fly cover had a few tears but the book itself is fine . So remember check out your wish list every now and again as you never know when you might get a bargain .

Seeing as the only place I have been out is the back garden I thought I would share some Spring photos of the garden views .

Cherry tree in full bloom and looking down on the kitchen window. I see these when I look out of the window; beautiful but short lived if this warm weather continues.

I love this little bower and on hot days it's where I like to sit and cool off . At this time of the year it is has Clematis Macropetala in all its blue wonder and later Clematis Montana and later still Clematis Nelly Moser and to finish in late summer,yellow climbing Dicentra Scandens accompanied by the climbing blue Aconitum.



This is the view from the bower


I only have a small garden now in comparsion to what I used to have . Gardening was a great passion, I say was ,as I can't do as much as I would like to these days and this garden being so high is hard to grow the things I would want to . Still its a pretty cottage garden and at its best in June when its full of flowers.I have tried to create 'room's in the garden as I find it leads one on to discover more . It is all on a slope so that's another reason why its hard work and sadly will be another reason for when I will have to leave these beloved mountains in time.

Yeah we have stripes

I have learnt so much in dyeing this striped sock yarn . Yes I have got stripes but they didn't quite turn out the exact shade that I was trying to achieve but I still love the fact that I spun this yarn from a fleece and am now going to end up with a pair of wacky coloured of socks .




I used the Easy Peasy dyes, courtesy of Kath as mine are now running out so need to get to order some more next week.I made notes of the quantities of dye that I mixed to get each shade I was looking for and found that although when mixed and even painted on that the colours of some dyes seem to split and one colour will dominate after heat is applied. I also used vinegar with some colours to see if it would fix them better,some I watered down to try and get a lighter shade. When it was all painted it was all the right shade I wanted it to be but after the steaming the colours have changed.

I just couldn't wait to knit it up,so cast aside the bought sock yarn I am knitting as I had to see how the stripes worked out.So I am just knitting a plain sock on 2.25mm circulars and I have to say I am pleased with how the stripes worked out. They are all pretty even apart from the brown which I intended to be longer, so my measuring worked.Just need to get a bit more practise with my dye recipe's and maybe try other dye makes as well. I know that Kemtex make dyes in all shades but it's way too expensive to buy them all but some colours you definitely need more of and some are harder to fix, that much I have learnt. All great fun and I will most certainly do this again and have some other dyeing ideas that I want to try out as well.



The colours look way brighter in this shot and the top photo is closer to the shade but I have to say overall its brighter than I intended it to be .
Oh and if you want to do this type of dyeing do it without kids running around or in my case these two reprobates.



Check out the bad hairday (or should I say 'beard'), Skye, the one on the right is having LOL. I couldn't get the two to sit still long enough and they love the wind ; they seem to go even loopier when the wind is blowing !!

I kept them out of the kitchen yesterday when I was dyeing and then today when I was hanging it out on the line they both ran out and got it wrapped around their legs and broke a few strands. So a walk was in order, to let mine and their steam off !!
I tend to go about the same time of day but was late today; funny how dogs know when it's walk time and act up if you are not on time.

Yarn Diet !! WHAT yarn diet ??????

Well, who can I blame? I fell off the 'yarn diet wagon ' !!
I could blame the fact that we don't have a LYS within at least 25 miles from here and the excitement of seeing & feeling real yarn as opposed to buying off the Internet was my excuse, I could say that I should have let Kath go and pick up those few balls of yarn she needed on her own , I could say that it was half price and just begging to be bought. I could say a lot, but the fact is I can blame no one but myself , I just gave in and bought yarn. I think to be totally honest I was quite restrained as I only bought one lot when there was a whole shop of luscious tempting yarn pleading with me to take them home with me . Thank goodness I don't live near that LYS as I would find this yarn diet impossible to keep as its closing down so all yarns are going cheaply . This is Jaeger Matchmaker DK in the shade 'Velvet' and doesn't it match beautifully with one of the hellebore's in the garden ?



We had a lovely, but hectic few days with Kath & family , rushing hither and yon; I forget how busy it is down from this mountain and how long it takes to shop, totally exhausting.
But I did manage to finish 'Melon' and after blocking it, it measures 23" across and 86" long which is bigger that the stated size in the book.The yarn has also 'bloomed' well after washing and is so very soft now (amazing how dirty they get whilst knitting them ) I didn't have any blocking wires so after washing I had it on towels and with larger pins, pinned it on to the lounge floor carpet ; I should have taken a photo as it did look torturous with pins sticking out of each point. Amazing how blocking brings lace alive.



I love this shawl,it's a simple pattern and I think as its 50% cashmere it will be warm and I love the fact I can wrap it around me .Be warned though I did use way more yardage than the book said . It says 3 balls of KSH and I saw on the VLT KAL which I am on, that someone used four balls of KSH !! The next one I plan to do from the book will be 'Dolphin Lace' using Posh Yarn cashmere/silk in a pink shade, name of which I have forgotten.



The weather has been glorious these last few days and I really should have been out in it today but instead I have been cleaning and tidying the house!! . I know, its amazing as I loathe housework, partially because it's hard on my joints and partially because I can think of a million better things I would rather do but that darn sun made everything look yucky and boy do I feel good now that its done . So as it was too late and I was too tired to do any gardening I thought I would play with yarn. I have been wanting to try and handpaint that sock yarn that I had spun. I measured 6 meters and went back and forth with yarn wrapped around two chairs and then I painted roughly 180cm in five different shades that I mixed; black , tangerine, dark green , more tangerine. a lighter green and then brown.



It was a bit awkward doing it on the floor as the table in the kitchen wasn't long enough. Next time I will get a wall papering table as it would be easier to do .Each painted piece was then wrapped in clingfilm and I then used an old veg colander over my dye pan which was full of water and steamed it for about 30 mins and have now left it to totally cool.



So now it's wait and see, will I get my striped hand painted sock yarn , or will it turn into mud ? I will let you know tomorrow and yes the suspense is killing me !! what a sad person I am LOL