Day one of Tour de Fleece:
1 50g bobbin of randomly slubby yarn. The colourway is one Sarah dyed for me probably about a year ago at the time I felt I couldn’t do it justice, but hopefully it’ll be a lovely thick ‘n’ thin yarn by the time I’ve finished…
We're off down to Hampshire tomorrow to visit my best friend for the weekend (and a trip to the beach - hurrah!), which means that there'll be little opportunity for spinning in the next few days - but hopefully I can make up for it next week!
I had a fantastic time at Woolfest - glorious weather, fab company (thank you sooooo much, Twinkletoes!!), getting to know the local mechanics (long story!)...and of course oodles of lovely goodies to drool over, and in some cases buy!
As much as I wanted to, I couldn't buy this little fellow - a baby angora goat - for one thing he couldn't fit in the mini with two wheels and all the fibre purchases!
But I did buy all of this!
Not bad, eh? Among this kilo+ of fibre, there's some gorgeously soft baby camel, some great colourways from FeltstudioUK and KraftyKoala, Some bargainous fluff from a great store (who's name I can't remember) and some pretty (including a lovely merino cashmere blend) from limegreen jelly. I also purchased some sewn up sari silk rags for weaving, having been inspired by the writer of one of my weaving books, who was demoing at the event, and some fab weaving sticks, with which I've already had a little play. Oh and I also the joined the Online Guild of Weavers, Spinners and Dyers.
The Spin-in on the Friday the evening was lovely, got to talk to lots of new people, drink some local real ale and let someone try out my Sonata to see if it was a wheel for them (I need to write to the Kromski family to get commission, I think!).
The "sheep" auction on the Saturday was brilliant too - the auctioneer really got into the spirit of things and you got a small taste of what a real sheep auction is like.
All in all I had a fab weekend, and I'm already looking forward to next year!
In the meantime thoughts turn towards the Tour de Fleece - a whole month of spinning, following the progress of the spinning cycle wheels in the Tour de France. I'm part of Team Bablylonglegs and intend to spin up as much of her fibre in my stash as possible - some as standard yarn, some as funky art yarn, using my new jumbo flyer.
And on Ravelry it's also WIPs (Works in progress) Wrestlemania month, and I'm determined to finish the Leyburns and get an awful lot further on completing the Dark Mark scarf. Think I might need to put the weaving toys to one side this month and bring them back out in August. After all there's still lots of Lord of the Rings Online to fit around this crafting too!
let's see...
OK - I think I'm ready for Woolfest tomorrow! Bring on the fibre fumes - hurrah!!
Erm....
Suddenly it's mid-June and I realise that I haven't blogged for the past 6 weeks. I'm putting it down to a combination of relying on Twitter to pass on immediate thoughts, spending time crafting rather than talking about crafting and, probably most of all, getting caught up in the great game that is Lord of the Rings Online, that has been sucking up a lot of my free evenings!
Things have been slow on the knitting front (but I have finished one of the Leyburn socks after I-don't-know-how-many frogging sessions!). Meanwhile I've created two projects on my loom (ok, so the latter of those projects was a bit of a felting disaster, but they were both sample pieces, so I don't mind so much!), spun up some lovely Babylonglegs fibre, and spent two fantastic days learning to spin fancy yarns at Wingham Woolworks.
To make it up to you, here are some pretty pictures of recent crafty stuff. From top to bottom: My first weaving project; 200g of Babylonglegs rainbow fibre - 2 skeins 3 ply and 1 skein of Navajo; some fancy yarn sample I made at Winghams, and my first attempt at some fancy yarn away from Ruth at Wingham's watchful eye...
What else? There was Ravelry Day, where I finally got to meet one of my main fibre stash sponsors, Babylonglegs, in person, and met lots of other lovely Ravellers too, while spending the day demo-ing for the Cov Weavers, Spinners and Dyers and dodging the raindrops. I made a few modest purchases and was relatively restrained, mainly because I've got the wonder of Woolfest (squee!!!) to look forward to in less than a week's time.
Oh and how's this for the bargain of the century???? I picked up these for free from a destashing Raveller:
The first pic is an inkle loom and the second is a four shaft loom. Apart from giving them a cursory clean, I've not done anything with them yet. I need to practise a bit more on my RH loom first, I think, before tackling the scariness of the four shaft loom...
Right, so I'll try and blog here a bit more regularly from now on - hopefully I'll remember in amidst all the tweeting and gaming!
Look!!
My first practice weaving on my new loom. Not sure what it'll be - probably just a sample piece. The instructions I followed had me warping for a set of 6 placemats, but doesn't give instruction for how many beats per placemat and, anyway, I've not been keeping count! Still, it's a good start!
Although it now seems a very long time ago, the holiday was great fun. The weather was unbelievably good for mid April and we actually came home a little tanned! Centre Parcs was great, the combination of both a family holiday and a couple of days just to ourselves was the perfect balance. As you can see, the sock liked Centre Parcs too!
Alton Towers was also great fun (though the sock hid – it was a bit scared of the fast rides). Euan loved all the toddler rides and even opted for the runaway mine train and the log flume! At the resort’s waterpark Euan surprised us both by suddenly deciding to swim from one of us to the other. Woot!
I barely had time to catch my breath after the hols before setting off to Wonderwool in Wales for the day with my mother-in-law. I had a fantastic time, I met lots of fab people who I’ve only had the pleasure of talking to on Ravelry before, and at times found myself just turning round in circles trying to keep my head amongst all the fibre fumes! Having only been to the Knitting show at the NEC before I wasn’t prepared for the onslaught on the senses at a true fibre festival. There were gorgeous sheep and alpacas, vintage wheels, stall after stall of fibrey goodness and lots of looms.
Which leads me onto my purchases. This is my fibre haul!!
Among the delights you can see here are a Spindlefrog luxury spinners set, some Hipknits fibre, assorted BFL and merino from various stalls, some Shetland from Artist Palette Yarns, some Sockstuff from Freyalyn and some Fyberspates goodness.
Here's the Spindlefrog goodies in more detail - this is a luxury spinners set which includes silk, mohair, angora, baby camel, alpaca and cashmere. Yum!
And if all that wasn’t enough, I also came home with this:
Meet the newest edition to my family – a 24” Kromski Harp rigid heddle loom. As you can see I’ve not got far with it yet (in the pic it's upside down, so that I can use the warping board), but after trying my mother-in-law’s knitter’s loom last week and getting hooked, I’m expecting hours of fun with this baby.
My only concern now is how I’m going to cram in another hobby! Even putting the cross stitching and card making firmly on the back burner, I still have knitting, spinning, gaming and weaving to fit in, and find time to spend with family, do random bits of dyeing and carding and go to work to earn precious fibre funds. Oh well, I don’t really need to sleep, do I?
...for me, for blog negligence. Apologies - I keep meaning to blog but for one reason or another it didn't happen.
***
It’s been a busy few weeks in this neck of the woods, which partially explains the lack of blogging. We’ve been visiting and been visited by family and friends, and have been taking advantage of the good weather where we can by taking trips to the zoo, the parks and anywhere where there’s ice-cream!
On the crafting front I’ve been busy too. Having started the Leyburns and really enjoying them, a missing row of the pattern on one repeat halfway up the foot was pointed out to me, and, knowing it was there, I had no option but to frog it. I then decided to frog the whole thing, as I wasn’t totally happy with my toe increases. So now I have started again and have half a foot. Despite the frogging, I am very happy with this pattern - it's easy to memorise and as the pattern repeats over 8 rows, it's easy enough to pick up and do a quick repeat of, before moving on to something else.
Here's an earlier pic of the sock in progress:
I was distracted from the Leyburns by an article in the latest edition of Spin-Off Magazine, showcasing lots of Maine Morning Mitts, all knitted with very different handspun. One pair in particular intrigued me, and I was reminded of the lovely Spindlefrog Corriedale that I spun up not too long ago. A couple of days later and, hey presto!
Aren’t they lovely? they more vibrant in real life - the pics were taken as the dark clouds rolled in! They’re nice and warm too – great for knitting outdoors while the weather is still a little changeable. And it’s so nice to see my handspun knitted up!
Oh, and the Dark Mark scarf is coming on nicely too, though it’s a very laid back project, given that hubby won’t be wearing it until the autumn at the latest.
On the spinning front, I’ve been busy spinning up my March Fibre club offering from Babylonglegs. The rainbow braid is all spun up, I’m now splitting the other two tops to give me what I hope will be a strongly striped yarn to ply it against.
One bobbin full...
I’m also eyeing up my Easter pressie from the lovely Twinkletoes – some more lovely Babylonglegs fibre, this time in an Iris colourway (scrummy purples and greens) – having seen some spun up by a fellow spinner, I’m very keen to get cracking! Mind you it might have to wait as we go on holiday on Thursday for a week – which includes a weekend at Centre Parcs and an overnight stay at Alton Towers. I’m already looking forward to lots of knitting time, both lazing around at Centre Parcs, and during queuing time at Alton Towers. Hey, I wonder if I can knit on a roller coaster…?
