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

October Round Up

OK were to start.... I will try and keep the babbling to a minimum....

With learning to spin I invariably ended up with the initial thick/thin singles and badly spun yarn and even more badly plied yarn that you don't really want to use.... anyway it was taking up space in my fibre stash box and that coinciding with mum saying she was going to get her shawl out just to pop round her shoulders whilst working in the conservatory I came up with this; this is Justify by Lynne Vogel...

Now as I'm obviously not as co-ordinated as Lynne to colour co-ordinate all my early spinning attempts in order that I would be able to use them all together at some future date I ended up using colours from similar/related colour families and then I over dyed the whole thing to 'unify' it.... Here's a front and back shot

Now as the dye hadn't exhausted from over dying Justify, I ended up having ago at dying my own superwash fibre (bfl - what else?) that I bought back in June at Woolfest.... I really didn't spend much time on it as I was working at the same time and TBH I didn't anticipate my results to come out that well so didn't want to waste too much time on it... so you can imagine how pleased I was when the fibre came out like this and it was still fluffy and open despite all my attempts at drowning it, heating it, spinning it dry in the washing machine!

I called it 'Halloween' since I did it on the 31st and it's sort of a purpley-blue and green... OK the method of dying and applying colours leaves a lot to be desired but at least I can still use the fibre after without too much effort :o)

Next remember Lush 2 from my last post? well it didn't come out quite as fine as I was hoping for but non the less will probably be sufficient to make myself a pair of socks...

I got 280m out of 100g of 3ply... I really need to get some lessons to brush up on my plying....

I also finished spinning the merino / tencel from my last post too and hopefully will get time to ply this, this weekend.... you will more of this in the coming week...

Anyway in my efforts to get a good sock yarn I decided rather than 'ruin' anymore superwash sock fibre I would use a wool blend to practise spinning even finer singles, so I opted for M*A*S*H from Spunky from my stash. However, I've seen this spun and plied as 2ply and like the effect so rather than Navajo ply it, I again opted to spin it as 3 separate singles and ply them together.... fingers crossed I get a good 3ply with good yardage...

Now to finish a bit of gratuitous fibre porn :o))))

This arrived in the post this morning from The Yarn Yard it's BFL humbug which has been over dyed to give this lovely stripey effect..... I got 2 x 100g braids too.... so I can do something useful with it...

and last but not least this came on Thursday and is called 'Popsicle' form Julie Spins (Etsy) and is superwash merino, I have just the person in mind that this will make lovely sock yarn for....

Each to their own....

I've been doing quite a bit of spinning recently after my 4 month unintentional break from it over the summer.... and it's quite frightening really how quickly you loose your ability to spin consistently and finely..... well I found I did.

I was really enjoying my spinning and was pleased with my progress and that eventually I produced something that resembled a nice sock yarn :o) Then you read on different Ravelry forums that it's difficult to spin thicker yarns once you get to producing fine yarns. Then there's the chatter about it and you get to feeling (I felt this way) that fine even yarns aren't 'the thing' and are easy to produce bu t the challenge lies in thicker yarns and Art Yarns...

And so we came to the Tour de Fleece which I commited to taking part in and signed up to do something different that I would normally do. I opted for Art Yarns...

I bought some BFL Superwash from The Yarn Yard that Natalie was dyeing up especially for the Tour de Fleece.... when it came there was 3 small seperate braids of individual colours and 150g of a beautifully dark to light braid in tones of greys.... it was a dream to spin as always and my idea was to ply it with metallics and add beads and such likes.... I found myself starting in ernest but as I got nearer and nearer the end of spinning the fibre I found myself not spinning as much and thinking it's so beeautiful it would be a shame to spoil it... eventually I stopped spinning and for 4 months the bobbin sat almost complete apart from 2, 8" strips of fibre to spin... I just couldn't do it as I knew that then I would have to despoil that beautiful fibre... so I stopped spinning for what turned out to be 4 months....

Eventually I don't know what it was perhaps the 2 or 3 kind people who rav mailed me and 1 even rung me because I wasn't really posting and hadn't produced much spinning to see if I was OK or the fact that this bobbin kept 'glaring' at me every time I walked in the lounge but eventually I did finish spinning the yarn and just simply navajo plied it but all the time I was thinking it should have been an Art Yarn.....

So I think what I'm trying to say is that spin the yarns you enjoy spinning and using and don't feel forced into spinning other yarns that you've no interest in. Whilst I love some of the Art Yarns I see out there especially the coil ones, they're not for me... I couldn't see myself knitting with them... I'm not saying I may never do one but the time has to be right and at the moment producing a 3ply sock yarn and lace yarn and even the odd DK weight yarn is were I'm happiest... There's room for everything and to me a yarn of beauty is one that is evenly spun and beautifully plied....

Since then spinning has resumed normal service I'm pleased to say although it's taken approxamately 500g of fibre before I've got some decent sock yarn..... I've just spun up this (I don't need to tell you were it came from ;o) )


and turned it into this
I've just Navajo plied the 1st bobbin this morning and I've got 132m / 50g so we'll see what the 2nd bobbin produces later tonight....

I've also started some merino / tencel again a similar thickness... The braid came as 3 seperate colours so I'm spinning them that way and then I will traditionally ply them... I warn you now these are not my normal pick of colours.....

told you they weren't my normal choice of colours!!!!

These arrived from Canada yesterday for me and they are a set of 2 pitch Mini Combs made by Andrew Forsyth

They are strong but yet light and quite easy to use, although I will purchase a clamp or put it on my Christmas list as it would make taking the fibre off the comb through a diz a lot easier.... so I now have to make a date with half a Romney Shearling fleece that's been waiting since summer (washed I hasten to add) for these combs to arrive.... but they were worth the wait :o)

This also came for me this week, it's Falkland (one of my favouites) and it's called 'Plum Tree' and it's from a relatively new dyer here in the UK called Spindlefrog


On the sock knitting front I've finished Paul's pair of socks for Christmas and he hasn't even noticed me knitting them. I thought he deserved a surprise pair as I usually end up knitting a Christmas pair for him in front of him.... These have the elegant title of "Die Nachbarn 1 Spiralsonne und Mondhaus" are are as you've guessed from the Opal Hunderwasser 2 collection....


I've now 2 or 4 pairs of size 4's to do and complete a size 8 pair but I'm halfway there on that one ;o) am still uming and awing if to keep the green fairisle ones.... perhaps I will, as I've decided I'll wait until after Christmas to do my sock knitting for myself.... and just knit socks for others before then. I owe Paul and our frind Mike a pair as I bought them some handyed sock yarn last Christmas and haven't knit it up for them yet... that's not to say I haven't knit them any socks since....


I've also been knitting something with my handspun but I will have to make you wait until a certain friends birthday has passed ;o)

Of socks and spinning....

Since my last post I've since completed these.... I couldn't stop knitting them, it's such a long time since I found a pattern I couldn't stop knitting :o) a word to the wise Opal Rendez-Vous has a long pattern repeat... it goes from the top of the rib through the heel and the oatmeal stripe just after the heel is the start of the pattern repeat!!!!

It is perhaps just as well I enjoyed knitting these (they are a Christmas present) as I have a further two balls in my stash one for me and one for DH (mum as a further ball of this for DH)... I suppose because we both see a lot of sock wool in the shop it really has to grab us both in pattern and in colour so when we see a pattern we like, well ;o)

I have more or less decided to keep the green fair isle ones for me you'll all be pleased to know but that does mean I now have 3 possibly 4 (the list grows) size 4 pairs to do for Christmas but at least they'll grow quick.... I'm on the 2nd sock of a size 10 in Hundertwasser 2 for DH and nearly finished the first sock of a size 9 in KF Landscape - Earth.... so sock knitting is progressing....

I've had a few people say to me recently they don't know how I can still knit so many socks and not be sick of them.... but then again sock knitting is my stand-by knitting to bring out for journeys, visits to MIL's and such likes or for knitting at SnB or when customers come, it's not my main knitting unless I feel tired but want to knit or I can't think what I want to knit which usually happens after Christmas....

How many of you out there are still 'regular' sock knitters?

On the spinning front am producing better yarn than I was a few weeks ago but not as good as I was back in May.... but practise, practise, practise.... Here are two from The Yarn Yard 'Turmeric' in BFL Superwash and 'Jewels' in Wensleydale both are 3-ply the s/wash is navajo plied and the Wensleydale is a more traditional 3-ply.


It was my first attempt at spinning Wensleydale and I spun it from the fold which I enjoyed but can't get the gist of long draw.... I opted for a traditional 3 ply as I wanted to 'break up' the original sections of bright colours so I split the roving down into blues, purple/pinks & pinks.... Here's how it started out...

and this is what I completed yesterday 'Monkey Farts' from Spunky Eclectic (purchased back when the £ was strong against the $ and it made the shipping costs worth while)

I'm not normally a yellow fan but I loved the colour combo and the name :o) DH says it looks like rotten bananas, but I ask you what else is a 'Monkey Fart' meant to be?

I've ended up with 280m of Navajo plied yarn so hopefully just enough to make ME a pair of socks at some point!!!!

I'm just about to start spinning some 'sock stuff' batts from Freyalyn's Fibres a blend of 80% s/wash merino and 20% nylon in 'Sandstone'...

I've been relatively good recently and not bought any fibre although Natalie of The Yarn Yard had a 20% off sale so I couldn't resist and I bought some merino/tencel and s/wash bfl most of which are not my normal run of colours ;o) I've also asked her for 2 more lots of 100g of this months Fibre club as it's beautiful and very aptly named 'Bramble Crumble'.... and I can see it being a shawl... it's Shetland btw....

I've also done a couple of trades recently too, one with Belaybunny for some spunky Eclectic merino/silk blend in 'Mandy'. Then yesterday with Jammam for 3 lots of Shetland that Natalie did in last months fibre club in those beautiful autumnal colours (see my previous blog post). I was so disappointed when I 'ruined' my Shetland fibre that when Jammam said on the Yarn Yard forum on Ravelry she could be persuaded to part with it I jumped at the chance.... again this fibre is shouting Evelyn Clarks 'Old Shale' shawl that was in Summer 2008 Spin Off

Well for someone who didn't think she had much to say I've certainly had my say... for those lace knitters of you out there there will be some on the Horizon but I must sort out my Christmas knits first....

Wet Wednesday

I was lost for inspiration on the title and it's very apt title anyway and it's the sort of weather that makes you want to spin and knit :o) and thus I completed my Trekking Colour socks...

I'm on a roll with my Christmas knitting this year... although I have a confession that the recipient may not receive these as I may just keep them myself... which is something I've never done before! I've knit about 53 pairs of socks now and have never ever thought I like these so much I'll keep them to myself... but anyone who knows my penchant for greens will know these are just my favourite sort of greens and coupled with the fairisle pattern I can see them ending up in my sock drawer ;o)

I have regained my spinning mojo in the last few days and eventually finished spinning the lovely neutral fibre supplied by Natalie of The Yarn Yard for the Tour de Fleece... which she is now stocking in her shop as part of her permanent collection in a choice of 5 different fibre types.... this is BFL Superwash


I split it into dark, medium & light sections and spun them one after another

and this is the resulting yarn - 160m / 150g so quite a chunky yarn for me... well it was going to be an art yarn and I just couldn't bring myself to spoil the fibre so I navajo plied it, so as it came out quite chunky I think it will be a scarf which will show off the gradation of colour I hope....

and then I went onto spin last months Fibre club offering from Natalie - Shetland

I just tore off in chunks and split lengthways to produce this lovely, soft, bouncy yarn - again a chunky yarn 124m / 100g

at the moment I'm spinning some Wensleydale I bought from The Yarn Yard at Woolfest this year... I am spinning from the fold and also attempting long draw but I suspect it's my version of long draw.... I think I could do with some tuition on this.....

Think that's all for now.....