Just a Quick One...

The Heartland shawl is finally finished, with 12g of yarn to spare ;o) !!!!

The Magic socks are also complete and ready for the 6th June, yes I've cast on another pair already :o)

I appear to be on a mission of finishing projects at the moment.... Or is it the incentive of new projects?????

Fibre is good for your diet, isn't it?

On the knitting front I completed DH's socks. My favourite pattern to work Lana Grossa Meetings (7740), this is the 4th time I've knit this pattern and the 4th different colourway.....

I've cast on another 2 pairs so I've Lana Grossa Bosca on the go (I'm starting my Christmas socks early this year) and Opal Magic which is for BIL's birthday at the beginning of June; I'm part way through the leg of the 2nd sock, so it's looking promising.....

The Heartland shawl is very nearly there I had a big push yesterday on knitting it, and I'm over halfway through the River of Life Edging, so hopefully next blog post will see it finished and blocked :o)))

And last but not least on the knitting front, do you remember the red & yellow sock yarn in my previous post? I said I'd given it to my friend Ann (blogless) to knit, well look what she did with it...... proudly presenting the Sunset Socks...

Hasn't she done a great job of making virtually matching socks... I think it's more down to my inability to split roving in half lenghtways evenly and my spinning skills that the pattern has gone astray on the foot of the 2nd sock..... To save you scrolling back down the fibre was my February/March fibre (BFL superwash) from The Yarn Yard Fibre Club.

I apologise now to everyone who isn't a spinner and isn't interested in spinning or looking at graphic images of fibre pron, as the rest of this post is spinning orientated....

Not by design, but I ended up with quite a bit of fibre arriving just in the last week or so.... The following 3 rovings are from The Yarn Wench and she was having a sale, so what could I do but participate? Serves me right I came in just over the £18 import on purchases so I had to pay the VAT & duty as well as the Royal Mails £8 handling charge; that bits gets me riled every time!!!

This is Chroma 2 - Falkland
This is Speckled Egg 1 - Merino

This is Sweet Pearl 2 - Falkland

Then my fibre from the The Yarn Yard Fibre Club arrived, which is gorgeous and is 50% Merino & 50% Tencel.....

Finally as I wanted to take part in the May SAL on Spinner Central on Ravelry (OK I've been looking for an excuse to order some roving from Amy)... I ordered some roving from Spunky Eclectic so I might as well make it worthwhile, so I ended up with :

M*A*S*H - Wool blend

Monkey Farts - Superwash Corriedale (DH can't get over the name ;o) )

and finally the reason I ordered the rovings, 'Joshua Tree' in South African Fine...

Now the Joshua Tree has since been turned into this:-

and finally in to this.....

A respectable first attempt at lace weight 636m / 100g & 28wpi & 6tpi (I used the 11.3:1 ratio on my Rose)

Now my only decision is what to make with it.... I've considered a few options but either I haven't sufficient yarn or my yarn is a bit thicker than a few of the patterns. I know that doesn't matter but I don't want to run out of yarn and would like a reasonable sized shawl... I have however decided not to include Swallowtail in the list having done 3 already I thought I'd go for something new. So far I have

1. Spring Things
2. Shetland Triangle - E Clark
3. Flower Basket
4. Forget-me-Knot
5. Hyacinth Lace

I would like to have done Laminaria but I don't have sufficient to do the larger version and I'm not sure I want to do the smaller version..... Anyone got any other suggestions?

I think I've waffled enough.... I'm a way for the Bank Holiday weekend, so I hope you all have a nice weekend and that the weather is good, but seeing it's a bank holiday I doubt it ;o) but we can live in hope...

Not much to say...

I haven't a lot to say really.... the Heartland shawl is progressing albeit slowly I'm now in my 5th repeat and will possibly have sufficient yarn left for a 6th repeat before the edging....

I finished the 'Firelight' socks for my friend Mike; these were my 1st hand spun yarn to socks project, I'm really rather pleased with them, for those of you who know me well and that I like my socks to match and are wondering but they don't match... I can live with non-matching socks as long as I know they shouldn't match ;o)

I can't show you the originally fibre as it was before I became conscientious about taking before and after photos, but the fibre is BFL Superwash from Natalie of the The Yarn Yard

they nearly match though!

I have more socks on the go as always but I won't bore you with details, suffice to say there's Lana Grossa Meetings (my favourite design) and Opal Magic on the go at the moment....

For those of you into spinning here's what I've been up to, this again is from Natalie of The Yarn Yard; again BFL Superwash but was part of my Fibre Club package... I have tried to keep the colour runs as Natalie dyed them. I spun the yarn to preserve the colour runs by spinning each chunk as it came and then I have Navajo plied it. Jane of Janes Probably Knitting decided to spin it up differently, go and have a look what she did...

I have gifted it to my friend Ann who is hoping to start knitting socks with it this week, so when she has sent me a photo I'll let you know how they turned out.... This was also the last yarn I spun on my Ashford Traveller, it has since gone to it's new home :o)

This was the first yarn I spun on my Majacraft Rose, it's a 3ply yarn and you saw the original Falkland fibre in my last blog post; Leafpile 1 from The Yarn Wench It does look a lot paler because it's had the twist set 3 times as I seriously over plied this.... It came out OK in the end though and fairly even, with which I am pleased...

Last off the wheel is this "Antigua" in Superwash Merino from SakinaNeedles again I Navajo plied this. It's meant to be sock yarn but I think it's a bit too thick so I am on a mission to spin a commercially (length for weight) comparable 3ply sock yarn at the moment in between other things...

I have to say I was thrilled when I opened up Ravelry the other day and I had a message from someone saying that they would be interested in buying this yarn from me :o)))))))))

At the moment I'm attempting to spin my 1st lace weight yarn (2ply) in some South African Fine in "Joshua Tree" from Spunky Eclectic but I'll tell you more about that next time along with my recent Fibre stash enhancement....

If anyone wants technical details of the yarns just ask....

Marvelous Mitts

Here they are finished :o) and in time for my friends birthday next Wednesday....

I'd say each one has probably taken me 5 days to knit, but probably only doing a maximum of a couple of hours in total each day on them...

I'm pleased with the colours and the contrast between the two colours.... The Trekking Ombre yarn was leftover from my socks I did earlier this year, and is variegated enough but still subtle enough to provide a good contrast with the Rowan 4 ply soft...

The pattern is "Marvelous Mitts" from Karendipity and her instructions are easy to follow if you've never done fairisle before as she provides you with lots of hints and tips so you don't have to go off searching the Internet or books for how to do something.....

I ended up using 30g of Rowan (MC) and 26g of Trekking (CC) with the 2mm needles (I did mine on 2 circs). When I do subsequent pairs of this I'm going to use 2.5mm circs as even with my hands after blocking they were quite a snug fit...

Socks are progressing up to the heel on both socks of both pairs. I'm hoping to pick the Heartland Shawl up this weekend and make progress on that.

The spinning on the Rose is far more enjoyable than on the Traveller (for one it's easier on my knees) and I have spun 80g out of the 120g of the "Leafpile" Falkland roving I bought from The Yarn Wench a few months back...

Did I mention she's currently having a sale on her products; 10% off 2 items and 20% off 3 or more items.... you will have to wait and see if I bought or resisted ;o)

Wonderwool Wales

Just a quick post apart from being part way through the 2nd sock of both pairs the only thing that has made progress on the knitting front is the Marvelous Mitts.

One down one to go as they say, well that's not strictly true as I'm just about to start the star pattern just above the cuff on the 2nd mitt. The first one took 5 days on and off knitting so really quite quick to do... anyway a couple of phtos of the back and front..... The first one is the palm side

On Saturday I went to Wonderwool Wales, apart from a nice day out with my DH, which is something we don't get a lot of chance to do these days. I did go with the intentention of trying out a couple of Majacraft Wheels namely the Suzie Pro and the Rose. I thought I would decided which one I wanted (this was presuming I loved spinning on either, if not it would have been back to my list of wheels to try) and then be able to order... when I spoke to Sarah from Hedgehog Equipment who was very helpful I was like a child when she said if I liked a wheel I could take it home; I could hardly contain my excitement...

We arrived just after 10am and I headed straight for her stand and because it was quiet I got to try both wheels out but it had to be the ......

the Rose for me :o))))))

I managed to get some time yesterday to play with her ans she is lovely, the treadling action is so smooth, well everything about her is smooth.... if it wasn't for the whirring of the nylon break band cord against the plastic bobbin it would be silent.....

Other purchase included fibre: the large bag at the back is BFL Superwash and then from L to R across the middle is Shetland, Gotland Grey & Alpaca. On the front row from L to R is Wensleydale & Ronaldsey White purchased from a selection of suppliers..... Bluefaced.com, Scottish Fibres, UK Alpaca & Hedgehog Equipment

On the coloured fibre front just some plain commercially dyed Merino Tops from Twist Fibrecraft to have a go at blending; and yes that orange is really that bright ;o) The two packets of handdye are a Superwash Merino (on the left) & 64's English wool top both from Freyalyn's Fibres

and last but not least Mabel Ross's "The Essentials of Yarn Design" part of my birthday present from DH....


So a good time was had by all, OK especially me but the journey there and back was good (despite 2hrs & 50mins each way for just 140 miles), the weather was great and the fact there was Mid-Wales Mouthful food festival on at the same time made for some interesting 'edible' diversions :o)

Wednesday 16th April

Lame title but couldn't come up with anything else this morning :o| it was either that or Progress!!!

Anyway, this is the Heartland shawl almost nearing completion of its 4th repeat, definitely sufficient yarn for a 5th and possibly even a 6th; I'm weighing as I knit now to try and make an educated guess :o) if anyone else bought the Heartland Lace Shawl kit from Loom 'N Essence for this shawl and already done it, How many repeats did you do?

Here is what my main project is at the moment "Marvelous Mitts" from Karendipity These are for a birthday present for my good friend Carol at the beginning of May so I have 3 weeks to finish them, so I think I should be OK :o)

The yarn is Rowan 4ply Soft "Zing" (391) for the MC and Trekking Ombre 78 for the CC (which was leftover from a pair of socks I did earlier this year for myself... I like the colour combination but because the MC is a solid and the CC isn't too highly variegated I think you get good contrast between the two yarns to show of the pattern...

This is my 3rd attempt at colour work and I do enjoy it despite being a bit slow with having to use both hands; the knitting Continental style is getting quicker but the purl is still a bit slow and laborious..... but I'm persistent if nothing else... but then as I'm a Taurean "stubborn" is probably a more apt term for me :o))))

A finished pair of socks for my friend Janet's birthday next Tuesday (22nd) I completed these in 5 days but it does help when it's only for a size 4 foot... although I had problems with the yarn on the foot of the 2nd sock and ended up pulling 2" and the heel back because the stripes weren't matching..... there's that "stubborn" element again.... I know I won't see the socks after they go in the post but it would irritate me knowing I'd sent a pair of mis-matched socks... I'm fine if the yarn won't match but if it's meant to, it has to match

Here is one of my 'staple' pairs of socks on the go... this is my handspun sock yarn that I did at Christmas for my friend Mike who decided this would make a good pair of socks as soon as he saw the fibre (BFL superwash) I got from Natalie of the The Yarn Yard It's called "Firelight"

My other pair of "staple" socks that I have on the go (on DPN's) are in pretty much the same position and so far no problems with the self striping yarn.....

What's everyone else got on the needles?

Presenting (Finally) the Alpine Scarf...

... after a truamatic start to this lace project (never have I experienced so much trouble with a lace pattern in all my life) due to my inability to read a lace chart properly!

Here is what's left of my cone of French 4ply silk from Colourmart that Mum purchased last year for me to knit this shawl as a 70th birthday gift for her cousin's wife next week (April 17th).

The silk felt quite rough whilst knitting after a couple of hours I could feel were the yarn had been running through my fingers however, after washing it has become softer and drapier....

I purchased the cone as 150g of yarn so thought the cone weighed 44g it would appear that I actually got 154g of yarn as when I have wound the remainder off I found I have 4g left; I could have done another 2 repeats of the leaft motif!!! I think not ;o)

Here she is blocking as you can see I have done 6 repeats of the centre motif rather than the stated 4 to make it wider and have worked an extra 10 repeats of the motif, working 47 instead of 37 to make it longer so it is more shawl like than scarf like.....

If anyone wants to do 6 repeats of the centre motif here are the stitch counts I used....

• Cast on 157 sts
• After the 1st 8 gt-st rows, knit your 25 border sts at each side as stated, then knit 107 in the centre
• When it comes to increasing on row 8 of the gt-st (before starting the centre motifs) increase 5 sts evenly across the centre 107 sts
  

You will then be knitting:
6 gt-st / 19 diamond border / 6 repeats of centre motif / 19 diamond border / 6 gt-st

Below are close ups of the patterns....

and finally the final article a modest but respectible 25" x 70" :o)