All kinds of everything

It's been kind of a bitty week. I haven't been able to settle on one thing in particular, maybe it's the weather.

Knitting wise, having finished the felted present (well, apart form the embellishments, but I've still got nearly two weeks to do that...), I've now fully turned my attention to the Rivendell socks. After the previously mentioned boo-boo, I've actually ploughed on with them fairly well. Only problem is, they do need pretty much all of my brain cells, as noted last Wednesday night at Knit-Wits, when I only manged to knit 3 rows in 2 hours. I've onto the second chart for the first sock and hope to be turning a heel by the weekend, depending on how distracted I get by other things.

I've also been doing some more lovely spinning. This is some lovely mixed blue and purple rainbow form Wingham Wools, which should hopefully ply up at a rough sock yarn weight.

I still need a lot of practice, there are definitely sections which are pretty uneven and some that I believe will be underspun, but we'll see what happens when I apply the magic of plying.

Oh and I fell off the wagon for the first time since my spinning course. It was only a little fall, but it was worth it!

So much pretty! The fibre is corriedale from Babylonglegs. I don't think she'd had it up on Etsy for more than a few hours, I spotted a posting on Ravelry that led me to her and I couldn't resist!

In other unexpected news I've finally begun scrapbooking! I blame my friend, Twinkletoes, for this - I've been all inspired by her beautiful work! I only started last night and so far have just 3/4 of a page (it's missing a title), but it's a start.

As you can guess, Euan's scrapbook is first on the list. If I get that done, then I might even make a start on our wedding scrapbook (only eight years later - not bad!).

I've also signed up to a couple of challenges on Ravelry. One is the Tour de Fleece, where we spin every day (if we can) throughout the Tour de France duration, and the other, in the card makers group, is to make cards from our existing papercrafting stash - no new supplies allowed, during two weeks of our choice between now and the end of August. I'm seeing this as a great opportunity to get on top of the Christmas card making, for a change- if I can find room on my craft table now that all my scrapbooking materials are out, that is!

Throw in a couple of new Wii games, and some non-crafty real life, and I don't think I'll be standing still at all in the next couple of months!

Picture meme

Saw this on a blog and thought it would be a different kind of meme to do. So here goes...

a. Type your answer to each of the questions below into Flickr Search.
b. Using only the first page, pick an image.
c. Copy and paste each of the URLs for the images into fd’s mosaic maker.

The answers in pictures:




The Questions:

1. What is your first name?
Mandy
2. What is your favorite food?
Pasta and Pesto
3. What high school did you go to?
Lincoln Christ's Hospital School (it's only the front that looks this impressive - endless portacabins and the like used to be around the back, maybe it's changed by now).
4. What is your favorite color?
Purple
5. Who is your celebrity crush?
John Barrowman (yes, I know, I know - doesn't stop me thinking he's gorgeous though!)
6. Favorite drink?
Gin and tonic
7. Dream vacation?
A wolf sanctuary
8. Favorite dessert?
Mint choc chip ice cream
9. What do you want to be when you grow up?
Astronomer (at least, that's one of things I wanted to be when I was little - I loved anything to do with space)
10. What do you love most in life?
Spending time with family and friends
11. One word to describe you.
Tired!
12. Your flickr name.
mandy_mcc_1976

I'm not tagging anyone to do this, but if you choose to tag yourself, let me know as I'm a curious soul and want to see your mosaic too!

Catch up time

I haven't deliberately ignored this blog for over a week - it's just that I kept starting posts then finding myself unable to finish them or make them in the teeniest bit interesting. Do you ever get weeks like that?

I love the magic of felting. I finished knitting the "gift" today. I was worried I was going to run out of yarn, yet again, but I made it with about 5 yards to spare. I looked at it- and shuddered. it was big, too big. far to big to be felted down to any reasonable size. I laughed. I might have even giggled a tad hysterically. I walked away from it, to myself and my boy out of the house for a couple of hours then came back to face it. It hadn't gotten any smaller in our absence.

Feeling brave, I threw it in the washing machine with a couple of towels, and hoped for the best. One hour later I took it out, and it had done what I feared it wouldn't - it actually shrunk, and to a size that looks quite manageable - even if it might still be a tad too big for the job it has to do. It is currently drying and I hope to add relevant embellishments over the weekend.

I've been ploughing on with charity squares, and doing some spinning too. I've also flaked out a bit more than usual over the week, mainly due to being woken up at the crack of dawn each day by a very happy little man.

Big news is that I received my Doctor Who swap parcel in the post today. It's fantastic. Thanks Tracy!




The lush fuchsia yarn is Socks That Rock - Boysenberry and I've been drooling over this yarn brand on Ravelry for ages. Also included is a little TARDIS tam hat (adorable - the design of the hat is like the top of the blue police box), some fab liquorice (nearly all gone already *blush*) and some Jelly Belly beans. All fab and scrummy stuff.

I've started the Rivendell socks (Rav link). I made the mistake of starting well, then getting instantly over confident and messing up big time, by reading what was a purl symbol on the chart as a knit symbol - for a dozen or so rows, until I realised. D'oh! Too hasty! So have started again and hope to do some more over the weekend - in and among a bit of a loft clear out. It hasn't been properly organised since we moved in seven years ago - we just keep adding and adding....and now it's full and I'm lamenting the lack of storage space elsewhere so it has to be tackled! Wish us luck!

Onwards

Nothing major to report on any front at the moment. I've been slowly adding to projects, knitted bit of square here, spun some pretty fibre there, flaked in the heat pretty much everywhere! The present I'm knitting is almost done (bar the felting and the buttons) and while I feel a teeny bit bad that it's not been finished by the recipient's birthday, I'm slightly consoled by the fact that we won't be seeing said recipient for another month or so to give her the gift. It means I have time to do it properly *cough*!

I have been busy gathering up bits for my partner in the Doctor Who swap on Ravelry. This included buying some lovely yarn from Wild Fire Fibres. So lovely in fact, that it's going to be hard to part with it. Her colourways are fantastic and her shop's well worth a browse just for the eye candy!

Hoping to get to Coventry Knit Wits tomorrow night. It's not always easy to get to evening groups when you've a young toddler and your other half is a semi-professional musician with lots of evening work. It will be good to catch up with what everybody has been doing - it seems like an age since I was there last.

Think I need a bit of a brainless evening tonight. It's been a bit hectic at work with a sudden change in senior management and therefore a change in thinking about the direction of our "restructure". I think everything is now going in the right direction, but there's been a lot of new thinking to take in and I feel an urge to flop with some familiar DVD viewing. At least the afghan squares fit into the "don't have to think about it" knitting category - think that'll be tonight's choice!

A week of relative calm - and a package!

After the excitement of wheel buying and eager spinning, it's been a slower paced few days. I've done some plying practice, using the yarns I spun up on my m-i-l's Ashford previously and it was interesting noting the variation in the twist on the singles, showing that I still have a long way to go with regards to the evenness of my spinning. Unfortunately Holly hasn't had much time to come out to play this week so far as in the evenings we've been busy moving furniture around and doing some decluttering (seem to have allocated lots of stuff for EBay, Freecycle, skip etc, but still don't appear to have really put a dent into anything!). Last night hubby had to go to work at a rather odd time - half way through what would have been my trip to Knit-Wits, so instead Claire and Jo came over to debrief after last week's trip. Even then I couldn't really get into my knitting, so progress on all counts has been somewhat slow.

Hope to remedy that a bit over the weekend. There's a bit of DIY to do on Saturday (our gate has been off its hinges for a few months now) but apart from that I should have some time to have a play with some carding and get on and finish the "gift" project and do a few more squares for the Dr Who charity afghan.

My swap package arrived today for the "Sock yarn from your stash" swap on Ravelry. My swap partner, Christy has well and truly spoiled me rotten.

The "sock yarn" part of the swap is gorgeous - a skein of "Transitions: Almost Autumn" from Perchance to knit (a company I'd not heard of before, but will be looking out for now!). In addition I got a fab oversize mug featuring an image and info about Colorado (Christy's home state) - great for my morning cuppa, some Knit Picks yarn - Andean Silk, in a lovely brick-red type colour, a very cute tape measure (and as any knitter knows, you can't have too many of those!) and a big selection of Kool Aid for dyeing. I bought some undyed BFL and Corridale from Wingham's last week so it'll be great to try a bit of hand dyeing with those. How fab will it be to have hand-dyed, hand-spun and knit up my own yarn?! Thanks, Christy!

So I went on my spinning course and came back with...

She's a Kromski Sonata, named Holly by me, who I fell in love with at first treadle on the spinning course. I really liked the Ashford I was borrowing from my mother-in-law, but in the course of trying different things on different wheels I understood more about needing to have a wheel that works intuitively with you. The double treadle system felt more natural and after a pretty poor attempt at spinning on a Kromski Minstrel, I found myself spinning with the Sonata as if it was the most natural thing in the world and I'd been doing it for years. The other added bonus of the Sonata is the fact that it folds away into its own carry bag (great for visiting other local spinners and great for keeping curious toddler hands away form hooks, flyers and suchlike). And she's a pretty thing to boot!

The course itself was excellent. I learned such a lot, I learned to ply, both a basic two ply and Andean plying, extended short draw and long draw, got to grips with most of the terminology, understood how to spin different thicknesses of yarn, had a go at carding with some mixed fibres and funky bling mixed in and generally came away with oodles of confidence and a nagging feeling that I'm going to be losing a fair portion of my life to this craft! I definitely plan to go back for another course next year. It was such good fun and tailored exactly to what each of the four course members wanted to learn.

Here's a photo of my first plying attempts. there are three mini skins in that bundle, all made form a mix of fibres, colours, oddments carded together, etc. There's about 50g in total. I'm torn between making a small funky bag with it or keeping it for posterity as my first "yarn".



Here's my first attempts at replicating my efforts at home. This is Norwegian Grey, with Angelina fibres carded into it. The batt from which this was spun was created on a drum carder by Claire, who gave it to me afterwards. Thanks, Claire - it turned out pretty good, I think!

From batt...
To wheel...


To plied skein...


Needless to say I came home with rather large bag of fibre and "stuff" for spinning (glitzy fibres, silk noils, but no camel, soya bean or dehaired yak - I'll save those for next time!). Too much to photograph here, though I'll try and get the fibre, at least, up on Ravelry at some point. The range at Wingham Wools is amazing. It's definitely worth a visit to see all the different sheds full of fibre and tops, and the main shop which is a fibre artist's dream!

I'm returning the lovely Ashford to my mother-in-laws tomorrow and taking Holly to show her. My mother-in-law got me into knitting, I wonder if I can get her back into spinning...?

Just a few more hours...

And I'll be off to my spinning course. Really looking forward to it. The wheel is coming with me, plus the oddments of fibre I have left. I suspect I'll be coming home with much, much more! I'm really excited about learning more about this addictive craft, and I'm in good company with Claire and Jo, so it should be a real fun couple of days. Which reminds me, I must pack my camera...

I've knitted up one square already for the DWB afghan and have another on the needles. Each square only takes up 7g of yarn (yes, I'm a geek - I weighed my finished square!) so I'm guessing I'll get a few of them out of my remnants.

Oh and I baked 2 dozen blueberry muffins today - something for the boys to remember me by in my 2-day absence! And because it was something to do on a Bank Holiday washout day! A different recipe to usual and they look and taste much more like the coffee shop versions. Knowing my husband most of them will have disappeared by the time I come back, so it's a good time to bake as I get the pleasure of baking without the temptation of eating lots of them!