Long time no post

It feels like it’s been forever since I’ve had anything worth posting on here but that’s what life is like sometimes. I sometimes wonder if I should just post whatever but then after 10 minutes staring at the screen without touching the keyboard, I give up.

Anyhoo, there is some good news to post.  Idlewood Again has been finished and I love it! I loved knitting it and now I love wearing it! Except that it’s now coming into Melbourne Summer so there won’t be much wearing going on for quite some time.  Here are the details.

After an absolutely gorgeous lunch with Sonia last week, in one of Melbourne’s Southbank restaurants she took some photo’s of me wearing it and here they are…

See how it now fits and I’ve even knit a pocket for it, just one because I think that one is cute. Also, notice the cute skirt wot I made, love the fabric for this skirt but wish the skirt itself was a tad longer. Anyhow, the point is, Idlewood Again is now everything I intended it to be so I’m really glad that I chose to frog it completely (though if I’d have been smart I would have not frogged the cowl as that’s the same regardless of size). Ah, c’est la vie…

It has made me realise that getting the results you want is absolutely worth that extra time re-knitting, which brings me to the socks…

…I noticed that one cable was a row longer than it should have been and it irked me a bit but I continued to knit on.  Then, at knit night on Monday I knit some cables a row too short due to lack of concentration. So now, I’ve dropped the cable row and hopefully will be able to fix the problem. I’m still on the first sock but here it is.

The yarn, Stranded in Oz, Dye…my pretties in fairies in the garden is just delicious and I hope to be back on track again soon.

In other knitting news, I’ve decided to concentrate on just the handspun bee-keeper’s quilt  and scrap the other one. Mostly because the handspun one is more significant to me and also those puffs are larger so it will take me less time to make a decent sized quilt.

This leads me to spinning, oh it seems like now there is tonnes to blog about, what was I thinking?  I have been spinning but a little half-heartedly. Here is what I’m on with…

It’s still the Finn X Corriedale/Romney that I dyed but I’ve decided that I want to N-ply it and I felt the urge to get the spindle out for a Crafternoon I had with some of my Richmond Knitter friends so I’m spindling it too.  Because of this I’m thinking mitts/hat, maybe both but definitely not socks which was my first inclination. As for the half-heartedness about spinning this, I can’t really explain why, it’s just the way I feel.

So, that’s all my news, I hope it won’t be too long again before I have something to blog about.

ttfn Melanie x

Hand-spun to hand-knit

I’m a bit excited by the results of knitting my hand-spun, hand-dyed, navajo plied yarn.  I need to share the sample I knit with you.

I think it’s pretty and also when I put it next to the bunny nuggets I can see progress, which is good.  I should do this more often.  The trouble is I want to knit with hand-spun most of the time but I also want a larger hand-spun to mill-spun ratio in my stash and in order to do this I must knit more mill-spun.

The most exciting thing about this though, is that now I’m reassured that I could spin well enough to make a beautiful hand-spun jumper which is a bit of an ambition of mine.  First of all though I need to make this jumper for Sam, should I feel bad that his jumper is going to be kind of a prototype?  Today I got him to stand still long enough for me to take measurements except that I forgot to take the top of shoulder to armhole measurement which is probably kind of crucial, doh!  I’m also going to be doing more swatching.  I’m having a bit of difficulty finding some zip up, mesh, laundry  bags so I can start washing my fleeces ready for spinning, the last 3 times I went to my local supermarket they didn’t have any, I’m going to try Kmart next.  Then I can make my hand-spun, hand-knit jumper, squeee!

Black Welsh part 2

I finished spindling and plying my Black Welsh yarn and I’m even more in love with it.  I think it’s the best I’ve spun so far and I’m even more determined to buy a wheel this year and spin a jumpers worth for Idlewood.  Here it is…

It’s 90 metres long and 100 grams between 7-8 wpi so aran to bulky weight.  It’s squooshy with a bit of scratch, just how I like my yarn.  I’m madly in love with it.

Next on the spindle will be some BFL beautifully dyed by Serenknitty, woot!

Black Welsh

So I decided to spin the Welsh black tops next.  Because I don’t have to make any decisions about dyeing it before or after spinning or decide how I’m going to spin it and subsequently learn any posh techniques, I’m thinking about the Shetland here and how to get the best out of it.  Also it has been in the fibre stash the longest after the Wensleydale so really  it has to be first in, best dressed and all that.

Anyway, I have become completely in love with it.  It spins like a dream and the singles are turning out to be very beautiful and not what I expected at all.  Welsh black is often describes as quite a coarse yarn and not one you would wear next to your skin.  But while the tops are definitely not merino soft they are also not at all carpet harsh and have a rich, demi-lustre to them that is very appealing, I also think it smells pleasantly sheepy.  It is delightfully easy to draft and so far I have managed to create lovely even singles.

I’m going to spin up 2 singles and ply them, again I’m working on even-ness in thickness and of twist, not that I’m trying to achieve mill-spun regularity because that’s absurd and I don’t want to lose the charm of hand-spun-ness.

One thing that spinning this yarn has done though is to get me thinking about buying a wheel again.  The reason is, I can absolutely see me very happy to spin a jumpers worth of Welsh black, I’m loving it so much and that’s not easy on a spindle.  In fact I used to own a Welsh black cabled jumper some 20 years ago, I bought it from Freemans catalogue but it got inadvertently felted.  I know Blacker yarns do aran weight and chunky weight in Welsh black but it would be heaps more fun to spin my own jumper.  I’m thinking an Idlewood by Cecily Glowik MacDonald or Vivian by Ysolda Teague would be lovely.  Anyway those are projects for a later date in the meantime I have to actually spin this yarn.  The weather is being very obliging and we are having thundery rain at the moment, perfect spinning and knitting weather.  I shall put the kettle on and get to it, I’ll talk more when I have something finished to show you.

ttfn Melanie x

Wensleydale and Ripley

I have been very hard at play this week.

Here’s the blocked Ripley, a quick and easy knit out of leftovers from my Tea Leaves cardigan, and I still have leftovers from the leftovers.  This comes from being a cautious yarn purchaser and always purchasing an extra just in case skein.  I really liked creating the ripple, ingenious and fun.

Here’s a picture of me looking like a complete twerp wearing a wooly hat in 40 degrees. Oh it burns, it burns!

Ahhhh, here’s a lovely indoor picture of newly made Wensleydale yarn. It’s about 125metres or so and 11wpi depending on where you take it from. I tried really hard with this to produce a more consistent and balanced yarn.  It’s not quite there yet.  I started spinning quite fine singles, by that I mean very fine which while it looked pretty it was not what the yarn wanted to be so I ended up spinning thicker.  Spinning thicker does not come easily to me though. Also, I’m still having difficulty getting enough spin as the spindle fills and becomes heavier which causes me to drop the drop spindles frequently.   Practice makes perfect though, and I will continue to practice but I can’t decide which tops to spin next.  Which one? Which do you think I should knit?

While I decide I will continue to knit red scroll lace scarf, which I’m liking very much.

ttfn Melanie x

Special delivery

The postie came yesterday, hurrah hurrah!   I know several knitters doing the postbox hover at the moment, the anguish and anticipation is horrendous and I hope they are all very soon to be united with their purchases.  This is my last purchase of 2010 and it’s a good one, I’m  so excited to show you my new acquisition and I wish you could squish it too because it’s full of woolly goodness.

It’s North Ronaldsay fingering weight wool in light grey undyed and for those who might not know, the sheep on the Orkney island of North Ronaldsay live most of the year on the beach and have adapted to be able to digest the seaweed.  The yarn is entirely produced and handspun on the island and therefore quite rare and special.  As a new spinner, I love that it is handspun as it shows me what I’m aiming for with my own spinning.  Ah, to be able to spin so beautifully, hopefully with more practice I might one day.  I bought it with Jared Flood’s pattern Celes, in mind it’s a gorgeous lace scarf/stole and I think they would marry very well.

I also got Verity Britton’s Yorkshire Rose kit, because, as you know I couldn’t possibly resist a knitted Yorkshire rose.  The little box contains a pearl button and the brooch pin.

ttfn

Melanie x