Signs of life....

I hope everyone had a nice Christmas, we did it was quite restful and enjoyable....

I said before Christmas I'd been doing some secret knitting but couldn't reveal it because the recipient was a blog reader anyway I can reveal what I was up to now....

Earlier in the Autumn I spun some Texel up and then dyed half of it in a dark charcoal grey....

From these two skeins I made these.... Selbuvotter NHM#7

I can say I was and still am very pleased with how they turned out and so is the recipient :o) I must admit however, the next pair I make will have longer and stretchier ribs they feel a bit like a crop top (not that I wear crop tops) more the fact the ribs just seem to 'hang' round the wrists.... but I did enjoy knitting them....

On the fibrey Christmas present front I was well blessed.... I received a total of 5 braids of various fibres from friends & family..... OK one or two were pointed in the right direction of The Yarn Yard to Natalie's 'Fibre Surprise' parcels, which I am pleased to say she is leaving up year round...

This was from my friend and came from Kirsten at All Spun Up and is BFL

All these were from relatives and from the yarn yard

'Pink2Purple' - BFLSuperwash

'Autumn Tints' - Merino / Silk

'Liquorice Allsorts' - Shetland

'Cabbage Medley' - Merino / Silk

The 'givers' chose from a selection of fibres Natalie had to offer and then gave Natalie a colour theme to work with to dye the fibre... I think she's got this down to a fine art hasn't she?

I also got the book 'Estonian Lace' by Nancy Bush and still on order is the 'Intentional Spinner' by Judith MacKenzie McCuin....

I also bought a e-system lace flyer for my Rose just before Christmas from a fellow Raveler in the anticipation I would get some money for Christmas to put towards it..... but you really don't want to see a photo of a lace flyer & 2 fat core bobbins do you?

Anyway this will be my last post for 2008 so I will take the opportunity to wish you all a Happy New Year and all the best for 2009...

Happy Christmas

Happy Christmas & Best Wishes for the New Year

Flower Basket

is finished :o))) and a respectable 72" across the top and 32" down the spine

Knit from my own handspun, which was spun from South African Fine in colour way 'Joshua Tree' dyed by Spunky Eclectic. The shawl was knit using 3.75mm needles (yarnw eight was 6m/g) and using Evelyn Clarks pattern 'Flower Basket'. This has 14 repeats of the main pattern before doing the 10 row edging...

Started last Tuesday (16th) and finished yesterday (21st) including blocking and arrived safely in Yorkshire today for my friend Mike to give to his mum....

Will do this pattern again at a future date....

Also completed for a Christmas present 'Lime Fire' a 3ply yarn.

Fibre from Spunky Eclectic and is Superwash Merino.

336m / 110g

21wpi

Were I'm at...

Well officially I've finished my Christmas Knitting - officially that is...

I completed the last pair of socks on Wednesday which are for SIL and I also completed the slipper socks last weekend, but as yet the soles haven't come so I can't stitch socks to the soles :o(
I have also finished another knitted project I was working on but the person who is to receive it reads this blog, so photos will have to wait until after Christmas!!!

I said I'd officially finished my Christmas Knitting but I ended up starting this on Tuesday

It's Evelyn Clarks 'Flower Basket'. I've had the pattern years and never done it... the yarn is my own hand spun which I did earlier this year; it's South African Fine by Spunky Eclectic in Joshua Tree

This all arose after an email conversation between me and my friend Mike (the one huddled under the shawls in the last post) last Saturday in which the conversation went something like this

Mike: Do you have anything in the shop I can buy for my Mum for Christmas?

Me: Well the odd embroidery kit but after having shingles in her eyes this year I don't think

she'll be up to it..

Mike: Oh...

a little bit of quick thinking and project calculating on my part

Me: Would you like to knit a shawl for her for you?

Mike: Have you got time?

Me: I think I can manage it, but will have to be my choice of pattern & yarn?

Mike: OK, thank you...

Hence I'm now knitting a shawl... it's grown a lot since then and I'm actually on the 12th repeat at the moment; somewhere heading towards 315sts as I've plenty of yarn left I think I'll do a couple of extra repeats and try and use as much of the yarn as possible :o)

On the spinning front I've completed Rhubarb which is also a Christmas present...

Fibre (superwash corriedale) originally from Spunky Eclectic which is a traditional 3ply and coming out a respectable 406m / 112g

Am currently about to go and ply Lime Fire after finishing my coffee....

Interlude...

We still have no heating :o( hopefully it will be seen today and either fixed today or tomorrow...

Our friend Mike came yesterday to visit and to collect his hand dyed sock yarn from the silent auction I hosted.... I came back in the room to find this scene ;o) and the comment 'the things you do for friends'.... For anyone that's interested he's modelling CW108 one of my very 1st shawls and Heartland by Evelyn Clark done in Buffalo yarn... in fact it was Mike who bought it me as a birthday present a couple of years ago so it seems only fitting he gets to use the shawl now and again!!!

Anyway I have had a little interlude from 'Christmas knitting'. Natalie of The Yarn Yard asked me if I would test knit some new lace yarn she has to go in the shop tomorrow, which is called Betwixt, and is a blend of 10% Cashmere & 90% merino.... it's very squishy in the skein...

I jumped at the chance to do a bit of lace for a change, so I did one of my favourite patterns 'Swallowtail' by Evelyn Clark. I had several reasons for picking this pattern to test knit the yarn. I knew I can do it fairly quickly, it’s an enjoyable knit (this is the 4th time for me), it’s a very pretty shawl and most importantly I knew it would give the yarn ‘a good work out’ in terms of lace knitting….

I find this pattern overall presents you with good solid and open areas to show off stitch definition. The pattern starts out with a nice easy pattern repeat which shows off colour well and then the lily of the valley pattern puts the yarn under ‘stress’ whilst doing Nupps, finally the peaked edging gives you a nice edging that you can really stretch out when blocking.

I am pleased to say that Betwixt lived up to all the criteria I want in a lace yarn….

It was very soft and ‘squishy’ and wound nicely into a ball with my ball winder.
It was nice to use and flowed easily through the fingers when knitting with it
It gave good stitch definition
It blocked well

I did notice when knitting that sometimes the yarn appeared to be ‘thin’ in places but I discovered this was just temporary when I was pulling the yarn tight to knit with it, but after releasing the stitch is ‘fluffed’ back to normal.

I used a 3.5mm needle and I personally wouldn’t go any higher, in fact next time I use this yarn I think I would opt for a 3.25mm as after blocking I would prefer my ‘knitted areas’ in the budding lace to be a little more solid, but that’s just my personal preference…

As those of you who are familiar with Swallowtail will see, the peaked edging is a little short as I had to omit the last 4 rows of it due to insufficient yarn, however, it's come out a respectable 48" across the top and 23" down the spine.

All round this is a good yarn for small projects and I will be using it in the future, especially it's £6.95 for a 25/26g skein with at least 300m on of every so slightly variegated colours...

This arrived this week from Juliespins etsy shop it was the 'not fibre club' she offered through Ravelry, were you signed up for a maximum of 8oz of fibre either all Wood or Surprise me or a combination of the two. I opted for 4oz of the 'Surprise Me' colourway in Merino/Silk which turned out to be called 'Polaris' it's beautifully soft and squishy...

How to Convince DH knitted things are a good idea

have the boiler conveniently pack up when you're expirencing the coldest weather so far this year!!!

My other half works from home quite a bit so this was the scene yesterday (and it's not much different today) when he had to spend his first day working from home after the boiler packed up...



I knit this Rowanspun top for him about 18 months ago, it was worn once until this week (today he has a t-shirt underneath the Rugby shirt as well). He has never worn a woolly hat or gloves in his life.. these were knit for a friend and left at our house; so now the regular John Deere cap is over the top of the beanie and he's very grateful for the fingerless gloves that go halfway up his arms.... What you can't see he has one of my shawls across is knees to keep them warm....

You might well ask what I'm wearing whilst I'm working from home in the same house - just a jumper and cardigan... says it all really doesn't it ;o ?

Anyway onto more exciting things than pictures of my DH dressed up... I finished knitting the fair isle gloves I designed and I have to say I am very well pleased with them.... They used just under 50g of Patons Diploma Gold 4ply and about 16g of Trekking Ombre sock yarn...


I still so hate knitting fingers though :o(

I've actually managed a bit of lace this week too.. quite basic but effective pattern to show my customers what can be done with one 25g ball of Rowans Kidsilk Haze - a scarf 6.5" x 45", excuse the bad photograph please...


On the spinning front I Navajo plied Sunny Side and got a very respectable (I am well chuft) 492m / 116g of sock yarn... and it stripes too ;o)


I've also finished spinning 'Rhubarb' which again will be socks when I've plied it next week... I'm working on another sock yarn at the moment 'Lime Fire' - these are all Christmas presents...


I have some secret knitting on the go at the moment to so unfortunately you won't be able to see anything of it until afer Christmas.... and I'm on the 2nd sock of both pairs of socks which are the last for Christmas...

Just to finish off some gratuitous Fibre pron :o) I'm actually thinking of insulating myself with all my fibre this weekend if the little man doesn't come to the boiler tonight... thank goodness we still have a coal fire...

From The Yarn Yard we have the first of n's 'Erica' series batts... beautifully carded several times to blend 7 different shades of green together especially aimed at Lace Knitters... theres 190g here I am so looking forward to spinning this...


From Loop we have 'Beautyberries' this is mainly Bamboo with some Mohair

and then all missalicefaye's fault from Enchanted Knoll we have 3 batts - Pumkin Juice, Fern & Chai

Busy Bee...

I have been busy :o) over the last week or so and lots of things are starting to come together...

Jane of Janes Probably Knitting and I had been discussing between ourselves about the distaste for knitting gloves, mainly due to all that itty bitty knitting of fingers.... so we decided we would have a glove along together to gee each other on into getting the gloves knit....

I started a pair of fair isle gloves for a Christmas present... the Hand Painted Gloves by Karendipity but despite having done 2 pairs of her Mitts I couldn't get on with these so as life is too short for projects your not enjoying I frogged them last Friday.

Now knowing Jane is knitter supreme and quick too... I thought I'd better come up with something quick, as otherwise she would have finished her 2nd Selbuvotter mitten (scroll past the fibre) and have completed her gloves too....

Anyway I decided (foolishly perhaps) that I would do my own simple fair isle glove; it would have plain cuff, fingers & thumb (I didn't want to be bald for Christmas & I have other things to do) and there would be no purling involved except in the rib (read that as no left handed purling with contrast colour!)

So armed with several basic glove patterns and Shelia McGregors book The Complete Book of Traditional Fair Isle Knitting... I actually came up with a fair isle glove pattern... I still can't believe I have and I keep picking up the glove and showing my husband and saying look I've done this I can't believe it! (it's wearing a bit thin now ;o) )

So here it is.... I still have the RH one to do... but I'm going to type the pattern up 1st and then follow my instructions and if successful I will put it up as freebie for people....

This leads me nicely onto something that Natalie of The Yarn Yard has set up which is called p/hop (pennies per hour of pleasure) you can read more about it here, but In a nut shell it allows you to freely make a donation (it's not compulsory & isn't attached to the patterns when you download) large or small for free patterns that you use and the money is going to Médecins Sans Frontières.

Moving on to completed objects. I want to make my friend a pair of slipper socks for Christmas, so I bought the moccasin soles (Regia) & I used some of my handpsun that was too thick for socks but were perfect for this.

I followed the pattern that came with the moccasin soles (size 40/41) but followed the pattern for 42/44 as I thought I'd got size 43 soles (don't ask me how). As you can see the upper stops a bit short and I don't like it but they are OK for me and as I've discovered they're great for spinning in... I can't spin in my stocking feet as they slip on the treadles. and am conscious that the wood on the Rose is quite soft and easily dented, so with these I don't have to worry about grit and such likes getting embedded into my treadles from my shoes and marking them and they keep my feet warm too :o)) so a happy mistake and useful too....

I've also completed another 2 pairs of Christmas socks....
Kaffe Fassett Landscape - Earth


Regia Jupiter - Camouflage

and to finish off a bit of bright colour to brighten up November.... This is Sunny Side from Spunky Eclectic... it will become sock yarn ;o)

And the winners are....

• Anita / dippy2knit (ravelry) won the merino fibre form The Yarn Yard
• Sally won my handspun merino / tencel yarn - 'Summer Pinks'
• Cathleen / Cobol (ravelry) won the lovely Posh Yarns Cashmere / Merino sock yarn 'Flirt'
• UKYorkie won the merino / bamboo sock yarn from Babylonglegs
• RunningDeere aka as DH bought me the merino lace yarn from Kraftykoala

I would just like to say thank you to everyone who took part whether you won or not and the very generous ladies who jumped in and offered goods for this auction.... we raised a total of £90.00 and with a further £25.38 from gift aid that makes a grand total of

£115.38

As everyone paid up so promptly I've already made the donation to Breast Cancer Haven and here's the receipt I got....

Once again, thank you for your support

Ann

Thankyou...

to everyone who bid....

I shall be contacting you by email to let you know whose won this afternoon and will post tomorrow who has won what and how much we raised....

Thanks

Bids

For those of you have placed bids I have replied to your email just so you know your bid has been recieved. If you haven't recieved a reply from me then I haven't recieved your bid.

Only 2.5 days to go....

October was Breast Cancer Awareness Month

As the title says October was Breast Cancer Awareness here in the UK... we were reminded 'to get in the pink' through various forms of the media and many people blogged about it, such as Janes Probably Knitting. She gently reminded us each post that it's important to check our breasts on a routine basis by simply asking us 'Have you?' at the end of each post. Jane also did a subtle reminder throughout the month of October by spinning some gorgeous pink merino / silk fibre from The Yarn Yard.

This got me to thinking about how I could best put my talents to good use and it was whilst spinning this merino / tencel I aptly named 'Summer Pinks' I decided when finished I might like to have a silent auction for the finished yarn to raise money.

I pondered long and hard whilst spinning and many thoughts flowed through my mind as I sat and spun. I'm not an accomplished spinner by any means and people may not want to give their hard earned cash for my handspun, especially in this economic climate. I may not raise an awful lot of money from the auction, and I would feel silly for thinking I could; but then I thought any contribution would be a positive contribution, no matter how small. Every little helps a worthwhile cause.... and whilst I admire people who raise thousands of pounds for charity, where would charities be without the people who make small, regular, annonymous donations...

I decided to see what my friend Natalie thought of the idea, she responded by saying it was a lovely idea and was generous enough to offer some fibre from The Yarn Yard as part of the auction.

I decided as the month of October is past and it was all about awareness it would be nice to give the money to a breast cancer charity that is helping women who have been diagnosed with breast cancer and are undergoing treatment. With this in mind, I have chosen Breast Cancer Haven as my charity. As cancer can affect a patient both physically and emotionally, Breast Cancer Haven offers a free programme of care to help patients, and those supporting them during this difficult time.

I've had to edit this blog because other kind people have offered up items to be included in the auction for this worthwhile cause....

allstitchedup aka Jammam (Ravelry) from has offered up a skein of her precious Posh Yarns Lucia yarn in colourway 'Flirt', which is a 4ply (sock weight) yarn, made from 30% cashmere, 70% merino. 430 yards per 100g. Recommended needle size is 2.75mm (US 2).

Sarah aka BabyLongLegs has kindly offered to put up a skein of hand dyed merino / bamboo sock yarn in the winners chosen colourway.

Kraftykoala has generously offered 2 of her 50g hanks of hand dyed laceweight merino in colourway 'Powederpuff' and with 760m per 50g you'll get a great shawl from this....

So here are the items that are up for auction

'Summer Pinks' - 238m / 88g of 3ply Merino / Tencel

100g of Merino from Natalie of The Yarn Yard

80g of Posh Yarns 'Lucia' in 'Flirt' brand new and ready to knit from Jacqui aka Jammam of allstitchedup

Hand dyed merino / bamboo sock yarn from BabyLongLegs- In the winners choice of colour
2 x 50g Merino laceweight in 'Powderpuff' (760m per 50g) from Kraftykoala


The auction is open to anyone, anywhere in the world as we are prepared to pay the postage to any destination.

Now the way I propose to do this is as follows:

I would like you to email me with your bids to the following email address, in the following way:

charity[AT]littleberry[DOT]me[DOT]uk
(Replace [AT] with @ and [DOT] with . in the address)

1. In the subject please state the item you are bidding for i.e. Fibre, Handspun etc.. If you wish to bid on all of them please send a seperate email for each.


2. In the body of the email please state what you are prepared to pay BUT to make things easier and so I don't have a tie situation, I would like the bids to be in Pounds (£ - GBP) and Pence. i.e. £6.03 rather than £6.00


3. Payment should be either by cash funded paypal or bank transfer.


4. Should a tie situation arise, then the winner will be the first person to put that bid in.
   
5. The auction will be open until noon (UK time) on Friday 14th November. I will contact the winners on Friday afternoon and announce them on Saturday 15th on my blog. However, if you wish your identity to be kept secret I will respect your wishes.

Should you wish to make a donation rather than bid on the items you can do so by going to the Breast Cancer Haven Just Giving Page

Many Thanks to all of you

With which I am well pleased...

Remember in my last post I showed you M*A*S*H from Spunky Eclectic a wool blend I was going to practise on to achieve a good yardage 3ply sock yarn?

Here's a couple of reminders to show you

Well I did it :o))) I managed 412m / 102g and my plying seems to have improved, however, it did take me the best part of 2 hours but I think the penny is finally dropping with the plying....

and just to brighten a dull & dark evening here in the UK (it's been dark for about 1hr now since the clocks went back) a bit of fibre porn.... all are superwash. The first two are Corriedale and the 3rd Merino... yep you guessed it sock yarn it will become.... all 3 from Spunky Eclectic

Sunny Side

Rhubarb

& Lime Fire