Just had to Show off a bit.

  I don't often feel really pleased with my knitting projects, but these have turned out just dandy.  About 5 months ago, I bought a copy of Magnificent Mittens and Socks by Anna Zilboorg.  After spending just the right amount of time dribbling over the fantastic photography I decided that I would give one of the patterns a bash.  I am absolutely thrilled with the result. The white is the Shetland DK that I bought from Bluefaced.com at Wonderwool Wales 2010.  The blue/green is hand spun by me from some Belfalas merino Fibre I got from Freyalyn at the same time. So, you won't be surprised to learn I just started on a pair of socks from the same book.   

My washing machine hates me!

No, really, it does.  Last week I finally decided to wash and block my Raspberry Ripple yarn. So.  I washed it - BY HAND before anyone says anything, and then I did what I always do, I popped it into the washing machine on a spin cycle before hanging and blocking.it changed from this, to this!

I very nearly cried!  Ok, I did cry, and squawk and sulk.  And kick stuff.  But then, in my defence, it was only fit for the bin!

So, to make myself feel a little better, I spun up some more Corriedale and soy.  It worked.  Spinning is a pretty definite course of action if I'm feeling grumpy, it just soothes it all away.

And then I got down to some serious spinning.  For a long while now, I have had sitting in my workshop patiently waiting, a collection of fibre from Freyalyn at Wonderwool Wales 2009.  200gms of coloured BFL that had been dyed to her Mirkwood colour way and 200gms of coloured BFL in Redleaf.  Sitting next to it, quite by accident was a couple of bricks of space dyed mulberry silk from Oliver Twist that i had bought at the same time, they are really iridescent, similar to oil on water .  By some wonderful chance, the colours in Freya's Fibre caught at the highlights in the silk....   Well I just had to, didn't I?  So far, I have spun the 200gms of the Mirkwood on my Majacraft Suzy at a ratio of 16:1it didn't take long, as it was a good fibre and excellent rovings.  A really smooth spin.  A couple of days ago I started on the Silk with the same ratio.  It is spinning like a dream, some silk can be a bit of an effort, but this is just fab.  Can't wait to see how it turns out.

And so to the rug on my loom

Because there is a rug on my loom.  (Of course there is, where else would it be?).  

Several weeks ago, the workmen left my house after fitting an upstairs toilet - hooray!  This meant that for the first time in the 13 years that we have been here (I think it's 13, I lost count about 2006) we are not waiting for anything dusty/rubble laden to happen upstairs.  (I'm not going to say this too loudly, I 'm not one to tempt fate).  And so we finally noticed that we didn't have a carpet in the upstairs hall.  I thought it would be a good idea to weave a runner rather than buying new carpet.

 Why buy new carpet when we could have something more personal and cosy instead?
 
I must have been totally nuts, possibly having a blond/senior/M.E. moment - who knows?  The upshot being, that I measured a stupendously long warp, which took ages to slay, onto my floor loom.  (which is now back in the house - me not having enough room left in my workshop - oops!).  
Then there was the whole oh, whoops!  The brake is on the wrong way round and its made the tension totally non-existent thing. (This what happens when you have lost the assembly instructions for your very large Leclerc Colonial  and have to allow DH & #1Son to put it together whilst peering at v.small diagram on laptop). Attempting to weave a rug with a variable tension is in interesting experience.  Not good, but interesting.  

In the end though, with a little help from DH - the brake now works, although for a time I couldn't actually take it off! - pathetic or what!  All has settled down and it is beginning to look nearly like I can weave.  Well I can, I just haven't for a couple of years!  I've managed the first couple of feet  and I really am rather please.  Only another 2 metres or so to go!  

The lovely thing is, that with it all being set up in the house, it's no big deal to sit down and weave an inch and then go put my feet up and get over the effort.  So now, there should be more items, once I've finished this one anyway.

There is something...

...about a sticky chest infection that brings out the stubborn in me.  (Probably the frequency of them, who knows?).  The upshot of this being that instead of  being a good girl and spending months at a time in bed (wish I was joking) I tend to adjourn to my workshop with a flask of something hot/cold, keep warm and spin.

To illustrate this, I have managed to finish the Coldharbour Mill singles.  They are hanging setting waiting for my loom to be clear for the  project after next (for loom see next blog entry, I know, nothing for a month and then all at once...!).  I'm really very pleased with them, although i do wish I knew what fibres were in there for sure.

So, back to the other photo, that would be left to right, the couple of hanks of romney that I carded from a fleece  a couple of months ago, spun to a yummy tight 4ply/light dk.  And on the left, is a a truely lovely marled yarn of hand dyed (by me) silk and uber fine (-18 micron) Australian Merino which is just sooo soft and squidgy I think I may have problems popping it on my Etsy Shop.  But I have made a resolution.  If I am not spinning for specific projects, I will put said yarn in shop!  (Ok, so my stash might have been getting out of hand again, but I certainly am NOT going to admit to it!  Not even under torture!).  But that doesn't mean I can't hang it up and look at it for a while before I do though does it?  The Romney I suspect will be dyed before it reaches Etsy.  But that will probably be next week, once I can stand for long enough to play with the dye pots, (I have some rather nice merino superwash sock yarn waiting as well, so I really am looking forward to being well enough).

In the meantime, I will just have to put up with spinning, and this just jumped out of my fibre stash at me yesterday.  It's a lovely blend of baby camel and silk, hand dyed by my good friend Liz of Fibreaddicts   It's spinning up so easily, it has prompted me to have a search though the stash for the other baby camel and silk I have,  But then again, I might have changed my mind tomorrow.