Daily Drivel

You don't get many of these to the pound...

Having been inspired by a friend at the last guild meeting who was making some gorgeous coils - I decided to have a go at the technique myself (using my lovely new 'wildflyer' and massive plying bobbin!). The fibre is some merino dyed by natalie (theyarnyard) which I've had in my stash for a while. I used some rayon thread for the core - although I think something thicker might be better but it's all I had and I was desperate to try the technique out! I was plying until after midnight last night - ooops! You really don't get much yardage using this technique - I think I have 24yds - from 100g of fibre. Eeek. Mind you - some of the coils are rather big, hehe. I had such fun doing this - definitely going to do some more. No idea what to make with them - I would need quite a lot more for a scarf - knit on big needles. Maybe I should just wear them as a necklace!

Ilkley Jubilee Historic Rally

We spent a pleasant Sunday driving round the gorgeous Yorkshire countryside marshalling for the Ilkley Jubilee Historic Rally. It was overcast and a bit chilly in the morning but we had fantastic weather in the afternoon. I took loads of photos and I'm struggling to pick just a few to put up here! I did get a bit bored of taking 'whole car' shots so I tried getting some detail shots instead.

I haven't been through all the photos yet. There are some more in the gallery here.

Baby thrush and a few other photos...

We are sure this is the baby thrush - he/she wasn't flying - just running around - and looked young - but it's so BIG! Amazing eh.

Here's one of Mum (or Dad - I can't tell the difference!) in the Rowan tree:

I was prowling around with my Macro lens the other day - I need to do a lot more practice with it (and I need to clean my sensor too!) but here's a couple which came out ok.

Baby thrush spotted in the garden!

Great excitement here today! We saw a baby thrush in the garden when we came home from work. SO cute. Don't know how many there are. I hope they will be ok as the blackbird doesn't seem to pleased about them and keeps chasing the parents - but they seem to come back. They love the apple we put out as much as the blackbirds do.

I've worn myself out tonight fluffing up the fibre I dyed at the weekend! It all seems to have turned out really nicely and I'm pleased with the sock yarn I dyed too.

Can't believe it's 10pm already - where does the time go. I haven't even started knitting the shawl I'm hoping to do for the guild competition. Not sure I'll manage it - I have still got another 100g of fibre to spin yet. I've managed to finish the back of the little jumper I need to do for the course next week - and made a start on the front at lunchtime today. I think I'll manage to get that done in time. It shouldn't take long now.

Time for a cuppa now I think. I did get a photo of the thrush - will post it soon!

Sock progress

Not the best photos - I should have got A to take them earlier, when the light was better - but here is my progress so far on the sock I designed at the Cooke A workshop a few weeks ago :-) The yarn is much more burgundy than the photo shows. I'm pleased with the way the pattern flows into the heel flap. I didn't do a great job of the edges of the flap though - but I really couldn't be bothered to frog it and do it again (probably a mistake, but I really want to get this one finished and see if it works).

Dyeing....rather a lot of it!

I finally got round to doing some dyeing today. I soaked some cheviot first thing this morning and handpainted 3 x 100 and steamed it. Then dyed 3 x 100g of BFL and steamed - I'm planning on having a mega drum carding session with most of this. I decided to try dyeing in a pan on the stove too - so I stuck 100g of cheviot in a pan (now my dye pot!) and very slowly brought it up to temperature. I added some dyes - looks quite pretty - but erm, there's still loads of dye left in the pot. So - I let it cool down quite a bit and soaked up some BFL/Silk which is now in the pot cooking up nicely. There still seems to be a lot of colour left so I might do some more. I've just rinsed the pan dyed cheviot. Hoping the weather stays nice for the next couple of hours so I can hang the outside to dry off.

I wasn't planning on dyeing up this much fibre but nevermind!

Mmmmm, cake!

Someone's been busy in the kitchen - and it wasn't me! A made a coffee and walnut tray bake yesterday. Very tasty :-)

I plied the bfl/mohair today. Bit miffed that I seem to have spun the first 3rd much finer than the rest but I'm hoping that won't show too much when I knit it up. Haven't washed it yet. I'm pleased with the colours - very daffodil-ish :-) I need to get on with the other 100g now.

I'm having a bit of a yarn washing/whacking session at the mo - then I'm going to sort out some fibre to soak so I can do some dyeing tomorrow. We've decided to stay home tomorrow. We popped out today and had a nice lunch at the local garden centre, then spent a bit of time going through some stuff at my Dad's. It's amazing how well you can remember things when you've got an old photo to remind you. I was going through a load of old slides and found a picture of a snow 'creature' that I made one year - I remember it like it happened yesterday! I think I'm going to buy a slide scanner so I can convert the best ones to digital. Dad used to mostly shoot slides when I was young so there are quite a few boxes to go through!

BFL/Mohair

I've started spinning up the BFL/Mohair which I dyed a few weeks ago. I'm spinning it quite fine - planning to n-ply it. Here's my progress so far. I've done about 50g

More spinning...

I spun most of this during the grand prix yesterday - it's some Falkland which I dyed a few weeks ago. Navajo plied - I haven't washed it yet.

It seems nice and squishy - I'm wondering if there's enough for a hat. I might try making one top-down.

Erm, it's a bit small...

I did some weaving at the weekend. It was going to be a cushion cover - but I thought it was a bit too 'open' so I decided to shove it in the washing machine and felt it. It's not going to be a cushion now! It's just about halved in size width-ways but the colours are fine. I'm thinking about turning it into a bag of some sort (a small one!). Anyway - here it is.  I haven't trimmed off all the ends yet and it looks a bit wonky but I'm still hopeful I can turn it into something reasonable!

The warp is some Debbie Bliss cotton - weft is Noro Kureyon. It's about 9.5inches wide.

I've had a rotten cold - I think I caught something when I went up to London for the Cookie A course a couple of weekends ago. I'm usually feeling better after a few days but this one really hung around. The coach is obviously a great place to catch a cold - I got one last time I went to London too!

The course was brilliant - and my copy of Cookie's book 'Sock Innovation' arrived on Tuesday. It's a great book - loads of really useful information. I'm sure I'm going to use it loads. I've done about 5 repeats of the pattern on my first sock design - I'm so slow! I'm using 2.25mm needles (eek!) - doing magic loop (haven't done socks like this before - although I have done magic loop before. Didn't fancy spending out on 2 circs in case I didn't like the 2.25mm, hence the magic looping). I'm also cabling without a cable needle - something else I have tried before but didn't enjoy it much! I'm finding it better now - and much quicker than messing around with a cable needle.

It's all go in the garden at the moment. The thrushes still seem to be nest-building, although they've moved to a different bush. There was a bit of a fight between 2 blackbirds yesterday evening - and they totally ignored A when he went out to scare them off and carried on right next to him! I saw a Jay when we were driving home today - very briefly but I'm sure it was a Jay. Haven't seen one for quite a while.