It has come out a bit different to the first lot. I think the second batch of fibre included a darker brown and also the fibres were not as blended together as the first lot. My plan is to use the second batch for the edging of the cardi and hopefully make the most of these differences, as the two yarns are close enough to tone together but different enough to add interest. I have 920m and 531g of the second batch, so I think that should be plenty for pattern. It is a 2ply construction, approximately DK weight, and I used the 10:1 ratio on my Majacraft Suzie Pro.

I am looking forward to casting on!

I find it quite hard to know how the colours are going to change from the fibre, to the yarn, to the knitted piece, so my plan for the day was to spin a little chunk of a variety of their blends of merino, and merino and silk and see how the colours blended together.

Here is the finished tube, with a little bit of the fibre next to the knitted fabric it became:

Some of them were fairly predictable, but others were surprising. The more different colours in a blend the more difficult I found it to predict how it would come out. A very useful exercise, and I am very keen now to have a go with blending more colours myself rather than just buying pre-selected blends. I do love colour!

Of course no day of this kind would be complete without a bit of stash enhancement. I bought two bags of Rainbow Merino fibre, this one is actually two shades of navy although they are quite close together:

And this one is a bit less subtle

And some Rainbow Merino Silk too:

I bought a bit over 100g of each, the measurement is a bit vague because I was weighing it rather than them. It should hopefully be enough for a pair of socks in each colour. I am looking forward to seeing whether I can make socks that are soft but also will wear reasonably well.

I actually finished at the beginning of February, but finding a time when both I and the resident photographer were available, and it was actually daylight and not raining (or hailing as it has been today) proved to be something of a challenge.

This has been a fun opportunity to use up some of my early handspun. I stuck to the theme of dyed reds and natural browns to try to give it some kind of cohesion. The pattern is fortunately very forgiving of different thicknesses of yarn!

Those of you who have come along to the Patchwork Knitting Workshops in Marlow will have seen this in progress two years running! It is the difficulty that it is something for me, but not a City and Guilds piece, so always keeps getting put to the bottom of the priority list. It feels very good to have finished it and be able to wear it. It is turning into a very wearable item too, and I wore it quite a bit before the weather turned cold again.

I am planning to write up the pattern, but that might well take me a little while.

As in previous years I was helping out with demonstrating and teaching spinning and knitting with the West Surrey Guild of Spinners Weavers and Dyers, and with the Surrey Knitting and Crochet Group. Members of both groups lent a wonderful selection of things they had made for our display table. We had our usual corner of the Cellar Bar which was handy as we knew the lie of the land beforehand. Here it all is on Friday afternoon after we had set it all up:

A good number of members of both groups volunteered so we all managed to have a good look around the show too which was excellent, and I also managed to hear Lesley Prior‘s talk about the Campaign for Wool which was very interesting.

This year’s January competition at the knitting and crochet group had the theme of sheep, and we had all the entries on display for the weekend. I made a Shetland Sheep out of some natural black handspun Shetland, although I didn’t manage to finish him in time for the competition:

He is made entirely out of bobbles, which nearly killed me. He wont be having any friends! I find bobbles very hard on the neck and shoulders, and had a headache for a week after finishing him! Luckily I am pretty much better now.

Sue made the most wonderful life-size model sheep which was then covered in knitted squares by members of the group, and hung in the entrance of the Maltings:

He is called Norman, and will be coming out with us to more exhibitions later this year.

And there were even real live sheep, I think from Well Manor Farm in a pen outside:

There were even more stands at the festival than in previous years. A great selection of things to see and have a go at. There were workshops and talks on both days, and a lot of enthusiastic people.

I had a fabulous time It was great to see loads of friends, and to meet lots of new people too. I spent a lot of Saturday extolling the virtues of knitting socks with one long circular needle, and Sunday talking about spinning and different wheels and helping new spinners get started. They were all sickeningly tallented, and grasped the principles very quickly, even those who were rather tired after having a long day round the show We had a lot of families around on the Sunday which was fun, and we did some great team spinning. My little victims got the hot seat (although some of them were a little short to sit on the chair and reach the pedals so had to stand up), and they were in charge of the treadle, with their accompanying adult in charge of checking that the wheel was still going in the same direction. Then I did the hands, and when they had had enough I did a little ply-back of the yarn we had been spinning so they would have something to take away with them. I think there will be quite a lot of orange merino featuring in show and tell sessions at Surrey and Hampshire schools this week

I was also thrilled to win the Best in Show exhibition with my Autumn in Anatolia jumper.

I am looking forward to the prize which was a subscription to Selvedge magazine. Our knitting and crochet group were well represented in the Best in Show competition, Kim came second with her crocheted Dalek Tank top:

Sue also entered her wonderfully witty knitted sheep portraits,and Mary entered her Noah’s Ark.

A show would hardly be complete without a bit of stash enhancement and there were lots of lovely things available to buy.

The first things I bought on Saturday morning when the show had barely opened were Knitting with Two Colors by Meg Swansen and Amy Detjen, from Tricia Holman, and an Unravel bag (which came in handy to put things in all weekend). Here they are with my first issue of my prize Selvedge subscription:

It took me all weekend to decide on which colour of Deepy Wicked sock yarn (100% superwash Merino, 100g, 400m) to buy from EasyKnits – too much choice! Too many lovely loud colours! They humoured my indecision, and in the end I decided on this lovely semi-solid green called Astro Turf

It is a bit grey and gloomy here today so the yarn is actually even bright than my photo suggests

I also had a lovely time at John Arbon‘s stand, squishing all the lovely tempting fibre. It was nice to see John and Juliet and catch up with them too

I bought 200g of white 70% Exmoor Blueface, 30% Bluefaced Leicester fibre:

I am planning to dye this and then spin it into socks. We were using some of this fibre for spinning demonstrations and for the new spinners to learn with, and it is very nice to spin, it drafts very smoothly without being too slippery.

I also bought a kilo of chocolate 80% fine alpaca, 20% merino fibre:

This is a gorgeous colour, very reminiscent of a good milk chocolate. I think this will be a jumper or cardigan but I haven’t thought much further than that.

I also got some lovely Cappuccino Alpaca and something, but I now can’t remember whether it was Alpaca and Merino, or Alpaca and BFL, or Alpaca, Merino, and BFL, or something else entirely. I think my brain may be a little full.

I’m not sure what I am going to do with this yet. I think not lace, because the colours are quite strongly contrasting. Perhaps a 4ply kind of a weight, and then maybe mittens or something. Or I may mix it with some other fibre I already have to eke it out a bit.

All in all a very good weekend I woke up at 5.30am yesterday and couldn’t get back to sleep because I was too excited, so I have been enjoying a bit of a quieter day today. Roll on next year, but I shall try and catch up with my sleep before then!

I decided on the Child Surprise Jacket, it is fun to knit and would be a bit different to a shop bought cardigan. I did actually manage to get most of the knitting done before Christmas, but stalled on the choice of fastening. After having found some suitable buttons in January I actually finished it a couple of weeks ago, and posted it off, and it arrived a few days ago. Last heard it hadn’t been tried on yet, but Jenny was carrying it around like a security blanket, so even if it doesn’t fit it might have its uses

A fun cardi to knit, but I think it demonstrates that I don’t knit quickly enough to keep up with growing children! I might be sticking with hats for a while.

At this time of year as the outside is relentlessly dark (though luckily less cold than last year, and at least the rain has stopped) one’s thoughts often turn to summer holidays. This year I am looking forward to being sidekick and knitting helper to Fiona Morris on her French Treats Holiday at Le Vieux Monastère, near to La Rochelle in France, from the 10th to the 17th of June 2012.

From the blurb on Le Vieux Monastère website:

“In 2012 we will be looking at a variety of Patchwork/modular knitting techniques, Bavarian twisted stitch patterns, textured stitches and different edgings” says Fiona. “For those of you who prefer to make projects rather than just knit samples, the stitch patterns will include a beret pattern and a fingerless mittens pattern and the Patchwork knitting can be made into a cushion cover or bag.”

There is detailed information available on what we will be doing each day available in the pdf infopack available on Le Vieux Monastère website. A good balance I think of learning, fun excursions, and time spent knitting and chatting with like-minded new friends.

Fiona has booked our plane tickets and I am already thinking about how much knitting I can get into 20kg of luggage allowance I think my clothes will have to be very light Places are booking up fast but I think there are still some left at the moment. I am really looking forward to it, I think it is going to be a lot of fun, and it would be lovely to see some of you there if you fancy a knitting holiday this year.

Bonnes vacances! (my French is very rusty – and not that good in the first place – so please feel free to correct me if I have wonky spelling and / or conjugations )

I started this shawl in May 2010 at Chris Williams’s lace knitting class at Fleet Library. It languished for a while after the small leaves section while I tried to work out how I wanted the rest of the shawl to go.

It halted again for a while towards the end of the beaded leaves while I thought about how to finish it off.

In the end I went for a simple sideways knitted garter stitch edging so that it wouldn’t detract from the rest of the shawl.

I used 3mm needles and 2ply machine knitting soft cotton from Uppingham Yarns. The beads are CC180F – TOHO BEADS 3MM TRANSPARENT RAINBOW FROSTED OLIVINE from E-beads, and I used about 30g altogether. The beads are added using a crochet hook so you add them as you go rather than having to thread them all on the yarn before you start. I managed to lose my 1mm crochet hook while waiting for a dancing class while I was working on this shawl. It was a bit irritating as this hook was part of a set I have had for ages, but luckily I managed to find a replacement fairly quickly which is not a bad fit for the set too.

I need to create more occaisions to wear shawls now

On our way down we popped into John Arbon‘s shop in Lynton. John and Juliet were very kind and put up with us despite being in the middle of packing for a big show up in London. Juliet had also measured out some fibre for me before we arrived. I bought 1kg of their organic merino which I plan to dye and spin for a jumper or cardigan soon:

And I couldn’t resist 500g of 75% organic merino, 25% silk.

This is lovely soft stuff.I plan to dye it as well but I am not sure whether to do it in one go, or do several smaller things.

The main reason for going to the shop though was to pick up some more alpaca / merino fibre in Cappuccino to add to the stuff I bought last year, and hopefully give me enough for a cardigan. Unfortunately I don’t have a picture of this as I have started spinning it already

After the shopping we trundled up to the farm to meet everyone. It was lovely to see some familiar faces and meet some new people too.

As well as a healthy amount of spinning, knitting, chatting and cake eating over the weekend we also did some dyeing under the excellent tutelage of Bex, and some people did some felting too.

I dyed 100g of superwash Bluefaced Leicester fibre in a mixture of blues with a bit of purple:

I plan to spin this probably as a 3ply and then knit socks.

And some rather orange silk fibre:

I used red, orange, and yellow dye on this one and was expecting there to be a bit more red. It has come out very orange I’m not quite sure what I am going to do with it, but I’m sure I shall think of something I haven’t spun much 100% silk yet either, so I am looking forward to that.

Bex also brought along some of her shop stock so I treated myself to a couple of braids of fibre. They are both 150g, 70% superwash merino, 30% nylon:

and

I think these are both destined for socks. Goodness I do seem to be going through a sock phase. I think it could be now that we are into wintery weather, and that my sock drawer is getting a bit depleted. It would work better if I actually got round to knitting the socks though, not just buying yarn and fibre

All too soon Monday morning came around and we packed everything back into the car and said goodbye. One advantage of leaving on Monday rather than Sunday was that the drive home wasn’t too busy and was all in daylight.

Roll on next year! (I might even try to use up some of the stuff I have bought before then!)

Mummy came down to stay for a few days and we had a trip over to the Knitting and Stitching show at Alexandra Palace. We went for only one day this year, which was a bit of a push to see everything. I would have liked more time to see the exhibition, and we were very tired at the end. Perhaps two days next year? It is always hard to know in advance how much time will be needed to see everything, it depends so much on who has brought what.

It was a lovely outing as always, great to catch up with people and to see what is new.

Unsurprisingly I came home with a few goodies:

A ball of Jawoll Magic from Lang Yarns:

This is 4ply weight 75% superwash wool, 25% nylon. It is only a singles so I am not sure how well it will stand up to wear. I am planning to make some socks with this so we shall see.

Jawoll Magic Dégradé, another Lang yarn, the same weight and blend as the last, and also a singles.

Admiral by Schoppel Wolle, also the same weight and blend as the other two, although this one is a plied yarn.

I am clearly going through a sock yarn phase

As well as the lovely yarn I found a few other useful bits and pieces:

Some beautiful buttons from Textile Garden:

Some fun buttons (I think these will be destined for something for my niece who has dual British/US nationality):

And stitch markers from Bev at Knitting 4 Fun:

A beautiful shawl pin from Art Yarn:

Some more pins to use for blocking (I never seem to have enough):

And a daylight bulb which I have already installed in the light fitting above my seat on the settee:

I also bought a stick pin for Mummy for her Christmas present, she chose it so she knows it is something she will like but I had wrapped it up and sent it on its way before I remembered to photograph it.

A good day out, and great to catch up with everyone.

It has been my dedicated bottom of the bag knitting that only gets worked on when I am out and about and haven’t brought any other knitting, which explains why it took quite so long.

I’m glad I have finished now and can be wearing it, it is lovely and snuggly and warm, just in time too as the weather has been getting colder.

The yarn is DK weight cashmere from Devon Fine Fibres – it was rather fun to be working on something where I had actually met the animals that produced the fibre! I used 4mm needles and a very simple combination of stocking stitch, reverse stocking stitch and 3×3 rib.