Pearlesyarn

Woolly Invasion!

2011-09-11T18:38:00.000+01:00

This last week has been British Wool Week a celebration of all things woolly with woolly events going on up and down the UK.

In Glastonbury we had Glastonbury Wool Festival which was put on at Glastonbury Town Hall for the whole day with lots of stalls selling woolly yumminess. The High Street was closed in the morning so that a little flock of sheep could be run down but as you can see in the clip the sheep had other ideas!

The Guild were in attendance with Chairman Jan and I dishing out raffle tickets at the door, stalls with hand spun yarn and fleeces and a sheep to shawl challenge going on up on the stage!

The little dog was very cute and he was very patient. He supervised proceedings on the stage all day…he must have been worn out!
I treated myself to a lovely spindle and some fluff made of soya beans of all things; it’s just like silk but I suppose it’s vegetarian!
I’ve also been sewing but on the sewing machine I got for my 21st Birthday not Miss Jones (yet). This is the sewing machine I got for my 21st.
It has a good range of basic stitches and after taking it to the pub on Knit Night for a bit of a clean I’ve been stitching up a few little bags.

How’ve I been…mmmm sew, sew!

2011-08-07T20:34:00.000+01:00

Look what I found….

Cute isn’t she?

She is a Jones Cylinder Shuttle Family sewing machine serial number 73376 probably made around 1895/96; now that’s old. She was made in the Jones factory just outside Manchester in England. Apparently lots of these were made and they are the equivalent of a Singer sewing machine. Although usually found in the UK some have made it over to the US via antique dealers or, in earlier times, when people emigrated to the USA from the UK, taking their sewing machines with them.

I found her in a charity shop in Midsomer Norton in Somerset yesterday and have been busy finding out about her and cleaning her up. She’s called Miss Jones! she sews beautifully. She has a shuttle instead of a bobbin which I haven’t had any experience of before.

Here’s the shuttle.

Miss Jones also came with these little items.

I’ve been advise by helpful folks on Ravelry that most of the ones on the bottom right are hemers; they make nice neat hems of different widths. I think the top thing might be a quilter?? and the thing in the middle of the second row is a braider?? If anyone knows please feel free to share!

I have been busy spinning and knitting as well but more of that later

Tour de Fleece–Day 11

2011-07-12T22:04:00.000+01:00

Following a day of rest yesterday we are now on to day 11 of the Tour and this is what I’ve been up to this evening.

and now for a close up……

About 80g of my home dyed BFL, spun longdraw and Navajo plyed.
It's about sock weight and I’m very pleased with it; it looks like real yarn!

Tour de Fleece–Day 7, 8 and 9

2011-07-10T18:29:00.003+01:00

For the last few day I’ve been busy spinning the pink candy floss fluff and today I finished it – yay!

And to ply it…..yes that’s right, I’m going to Navajo ply it of course.
So, week one of the Tour is done and dusted and this is the result chez Pearlesyarn. We have:

50g of natural white home prepped Jacob spun longdraw and Navajo plyed; and
80g of home dyed BFL spun longdraw and Navajo plyed.

By the way Pearlesyarn is a whole two years old today! That means that I've been part of the blogosphere for two whole years rambling on about my thing!. So a big thank you to all my lovely visitors and followers and to all those of you who take the time to leave your kind and encouraging comments.

Tour de Fleece–Day 6

2011-07-07T23:09:00.002+01:00

Day 6 of the Tour and I’m taking a little break from the Jacob by spinning the little rolags I made yesterday from the pinky BFL braid. They are spinning up nicely and the colour is very pretty; I usually don’t do pink but I actually do like this. I only managed a little bit tonight as it was Knit Club and I spent most of the evening in the pub knitting and eating ice-cream with knitty, spinney friends.

Not sure what I’ll knit it into though; its about 80g so may be enough for some mittens maybe?

Tour de Fleece–Day 5

2011-07-06T21:59:00.000+01:00

Day 5 and this evening I thought I would have a bit of a change from the Jacob so I dug out this.

It’s the BFL that I dyed at Lesley’s mums when we did the crafty workshop afternoon with tea and cake. As I am a bit addicted at the moment to my hand cards and spinning longdraw I carded it into these lovely squishy rolags. They are all set to be spun up tomorrow.

Tour de Fleece–Day 4

2011-07-05T21:29:00.000+01:00

Day 4 – yay!

Ok, so I have today completed my first skein of the Tour – hurrah!

It’s only little though – about 59 grams of white Jacob. I navajo plied it this evening and I reckon it’s probably about aran weight. I’m pretty pleased with it.

Tour de Fleece – Day 3

2011-07-04T21:51:00.000+01:00

Day 3 and I’ve managed about 40 minutes of spinning this evening which means that I’ve completed spinning the first 50ish grams of the white Jacob. I’ll ply it tomorrow :-)

Tour de Fleece–Day 2

2011-07-03T21:31:00.001+01:00

Hello!

Day 2 of the Tour de Fleece and I have continued carding my Jacob fleece into graduated sheepy colours. I’ve carded another two batts; one is very light grey and the second is slightly darker.

I’ve also continued spinning the white; this is how far I’ve got so far. It’s about 35g so I will probably get the white completed tomorrow and may even get it plied although work is going to definitely get in the way!

More tomorrow.

Tour de Fleece–Day 1

2011-07-02T23:00:00.005+01:00

The Tour de France starts today and so does the Tour de Fleece!

The Tour de Fleece is an spin-along during the Tour de France. The idea is that each day of cycling is a day for spinning - they spin, we spin!

This Tour De Fleece is being hosted on Ravelry here. This Tour de Fleece started in 2006 on the blog, Keep on Knitting in the Free World, there is another Tour de Fleece on the web as well but I'm going with this one.
This year, the Tour de Fleece starts today and runs until Sunday July 24th, 2011.

Basically the idea is to spin every day the Tour rides, if possible. Saturday July 2nd through to Sunday July 24th. Days of rest: Monday July 11th, Monday July 18st. (Just like the actual tour).

There are a load of different Teams but I am in Team DyeVerse which is a Wildcard Team. There will also be prizes awarded both during and at the end of the Tour. The purpose of the Tour is a challenge – to challenge yourself to achieve something and to stretch your spinning abilities, maybe learn something new.

So with all this in mind my challenge is to spin as much of my Jacob fleece as possible into skeins of graduating sheepy colours. It’s all washed and divided up into colours and drying on the line in the red net bags.

I started by carding two batts of the white part of the fleece.

Each batt is just over 50g.

The plan is to spin long draw then Navajo ply and to spin at least 100g of each colour graduation. I think that I'll have five or maybe six colours from white to dark brown/black.

Here is my progress so far, not much but I did do a whole lot of carding today!

More tommorow :-)

Not Glastonbury…..Woolfest!

2011-07-01T12:51:00.001+01:00

So as the whole world seemed to be driving past our house to get to the worlds best music festival we were on our way in the opposite direction off to the worlds best festival for all things sheepy – yay! Here’s a blow by blow account of our adventure.

Thursday 23rd
Ok, so on Wednesday the road outside our house, which just happens to be the main road from Bristol to Glastonbury, was choca with traffic travelling south from about 6:30am to about 9:30am. So today, in an attempt to beat the traffic I was up early, washed, dressed, bacon & egg breakfast and car packed by 8:30am so that I could go and pick up Lesley before meeting up with Liz and Andrea and then off to Woolfest! There was no major Glasto traffic though – weird, but a good start.

I took my Traddy, some of the Dorset Poll that Liz gave me from Freecycle which has washed up really nicely and is quite soft and crimpy, a spindle and some washed Zwartbles, also from Freecycle plus the BFL that I dyed at Lesley's Mums (just in case!). These were my spinning supplies for the trip :-)

I got to Lesley's and picked her up about 9:15am then we went back to meet Liz and Andrea at Farrington Farm Shop where we had a nice coffee and slobbed about on the comfy sofas until they turned up. Then we had another coffee and off we set to Woolfest 2011!

Liz had her wheel and an impressive amount of fluff considering where we were going! while Andrea had decided not to bring her wheel as she had brought her knitting instead.

We stopped and filled up with diesel in Bristol and then set off up the motorway to Cumbria stopping at Stafford Services for a spot of picnic lunch and arriving at our lovely B&B at about 6pm……a nice leisurely trundle.

We dumped our stuff in our rooms and had a cuppa out on our terrace which had a lovely view of Derwent Water and the fells with Borrowdale right down the end of the valley. Then we headed off to Keswick for some dinner at the chip shop opposite the Moot Hall, very yummy. As it was still early we went down to the lake for a stroll by the water. The Blue Box Theatre is still there but it’s not a temporary structure anymore but a new smart modern building where the old one use to be and a big improvement! We used to go to the Blue Box when my sister and I were little. I remember seeing The Tinder Box there; the dog with eyes as big as dinner plates, scary stuff! and people covered in grey mud?! mm not sure. As Liz and Andrea had never been to the Lake District before we took them off to see the Bowder Stone; a very large boulder dumped by the retreating glacier after the last ice age, then through Seatoller; the wetest place in England according to Lesley (not sure about that); and on over Honister Pass, stopping off at the Slate Quarry and admiring the sheep, then on down to Buttermere and past Little Town and Newlands back to the B&B for a cuppa and some spinning. We went to bed quite late, well after 10pm which is late for me, so excited for tomorrow!!!.

This is the Bowder Stone; a Glacial Erratic.

Friday 24th
I was up early 'cos I was so excited! Here’s the view from our terrace. You can just see Derwent Water and Cat Bells is on the right and Maiden Moor behind.

I was up first and even well before Janice our B&B lady. We had a fab brecky with fresh free range eggs from Janice's hens and black pud and Cumberland sausages from a butchers in Keswick. Then it was of to Keswick so Lesley could raid her savings account and then off to Mitchel's to Woofest – yay!

There was so much to see and I was a bit overwhelmed to be honest, however I did have a good look at absolutely every stall. They were all lovely and colourful and full of wonderful stuff to do with wool and sheep! I particularly liked the three dimensional felt; little felted sheep reclining on felted grass and little felted hens – so cute. In the end I bought a Shetland shearling fleece in a light brown colour, some acid dyes and some natural dyes and mordent. I also caught up with my Mum and Dad and we checked out the Sheep Parade and the Phop Stand. Mum got herself a nice shawl pattern and I got one for mittens, Dad really liked the sheep. I then caught up with the gang and we went for a spot of lunch before heading back to the B&B to drool over our purchases and get some spinning in before the sausage supper and spin in later that evening.

Here’s a pic of the sheep parade.

We packed up our wheels and fluff and headed back to Woolfest for the sausage Supper and Spin in. The sausages were yummy and the sticky toffee pudding was wonderful…mmmmm. Afterwards we went back into the cafe as it was getting a bit cold out in the marquee and had a spot of spinning till about 9 o'clock then we went back to our B&B with my Mum and Dad for a cuppa; spinning and chatting until quite late. We had a lovely time.

Saturday 25th
Today was a bit overcast and drizzly and we decided that we had done Woolfest so we went on a bit of a tour about the Lakes! First off we took my Dads coat back to their hotel in Grasmere; he’d left it behind at our place. Then we checked out the Grasmere Gingerbread Shop and bought some Gingerbread, breathed deeply the Gingerbread fumes and had a look at Wordsworths grave and cottage.

We decided against going over Hard Knott Pass as Liz was not too confident about the whole business so we went up to Cockermouth across to Maryport and up the coast road to Alonby Bay for a bit of a blow on the beach. Lesley though we were insane as it was raining by now and a bit cold; she stayed in the car!

Here’s Liz and Andrea on the beach.

And this is looking south towards Maryport.

Then we drove inland to Cald Beck where the Wool Clip cooperative is based at Priests Mill. It was shut of course because everyone was at Woolfest (they organise the whole thing) but we pressed our faces against the windows to see inside – very little left as it was all a Woolfest! We checked out the other little shops and I got a nice knitting needle case from the antique/junk shop and we had a bit of lunch at the cafe. We also checked out a really nice little shop called HestaScene that had various fibre crafts including three dimensional felted items – bags, flowers and purses – very nice; plus the lady did felting courses, now there's an idea…..

Sunday 26th
Home today – boo!

But not before Liz and I took a little jaunt up Castle Head to partake in a bit of extreme spindling! A very kind but somewhat bemused man took our picture.

The view down the lake was beautiful. Andrea is going to live on the big island and we can all go and stay with her whenever we like.

Then it was off down to Windermere to check out the Bobbin Mill at Newby Bridge – but it was shut!!! So that was that and we headed off home picking up the motorway just north of Lancaster.

So we had a fantastic time, the landscape was beautiful as ever and the people as friendly as ever. Liz and I have decided that we want to do more extreme spindling and we will be up Cat Bells and Skiddaw next apparently! Better go dig out my walking boots and buy myself a waterproof me thinks!

Fleece Fair Report

2011-06-19T20:41:00.001+01:00

Yesterday was the Annual Fleece Fair of the Somerset Guild of Spinners, Weavers and Dyers.

It was a great day even though it did rain quite a bit as predicted by Radio 4 on the way down to Hatch Beauchamp Village Hall. I managed to arrive just after 9am and members were already there setting out the tables for the sellers and washing lettuce for the lunches.

We had the main hall full of sales tables for the fleece and fibre.

And the back room for demos of weaving, spinning and fibre prep.

We had Amanda Hannaford from MandaCrafts with all her lovely fluff.

And we had Sarah Harris and Mr Harris of The Spinning Weal with all their fibery goodness.

There was also cake, mmmm.

After being adamant that I was NOT going to buy anything I did crumble a buy a couple of small bags of Romney. It’s from the same lady that the Romney I have just finished spinning up was from; which is cool, as I got to tell her how lovely it was/is and to get some more!

And there is more to come! Oh yes, we are off to WoolFest on Thursday, yay!

Calling All Fibre Fiends!

2011-06-15T21:54:00.004+01:00

This Saturday is the Somerset Guild of Spinners, Dyers and Weavers Fleece Fair!

We will have all sorts of yummy fleece and fibre for sale all brought to the fair by local smallholders and shepherds plus dyed tops and fibres as well. Here are a few pictures from 2009s fleece fair taken by Amanda Hannaford of MandaCrafts. That’s Amanda behind all her lovely fibres.

The fair is held at Hatch Beauchamp Village Hall in the village of Hatch Beauchamp which is about 5 miles from Taunton. Here’s a map to get you there and there are more details on the Guild website too.

Thank you to Amanda for the pictures.

See you there!

P.S. DH has spotted that I haven't mentioned that the reason I am able to go to the fleece fair is that my wisdom teeth thing has been cancelled. It got cancelled yesterday and has been rearranged for the beginning of August. Something to look forward to!

Friends, Fibre and Fun

2011-06-12T21:07:00.002+01:00

Well we have been very busy doing lots of stuff and as usual I have been soooo busy doing it that:

I haven’t taken pictures of most of it; and
I haven’t got round to telling you all about it yet!

So what have I been up to?
Well first off we have some sad news. Miranda got sick, just like her sisters did. She became very quiet and just stopped being happy and perky and got all puffed up under her chest. We took her to the vet thinking the worst; the vet was very kind and said that there was nothing that could be done to make her better so we let the vet put her to sleep.

Obviously this meant that Amy was all on her own and we couldn’t have that so yesterday we went back to where we got Amy from last year and got Rebecca. She is a Rhode Rock which is a hybrid cross of a Rhode Island Red and a Barred Plymouth Rock (I think). She’s a bit shy still but is quite friendly when meal worms are in the offing.

Happily Amy seems to be ok with the whole “new friend” thing and really hasn’t made too much of a fuss. She has been a bit vocal but hasn’t been pecking or chasing Rebecca so fingers crossed that all will continue to be well.

In spinning and fibery news, well quite a bit has been happening.
I am now the new Treasurer of the Somerset Guild of Spinners, Weavers & Dyers ( I get a proper metal badge) and we are having our annual fleece fair on Saturday the 18th of June. However, I probably won’t be able to make it as I am having my three wisdom teeth out and will be sedated for the procedure. This means that I will not be allowed to drive for 48 hours afterwards and as the procedure is on the Thursday afternoon I won’t be able to drive until Saturday afternoon……so I won’t be able to go – pants!

Wisdom teeth aside (and frankly I am not looking forwards to it one little bit!) my friend Liz and I have been rather busy with the spinning. We had a spinning afternoon together which was really cool. We both managed to score a bunch of free fleece on freecycle so we have done a bit of swapping between us.

We spun this – Liz did the brown, which is Zwartbles (fab word!) and the white/grey is the Romney that I’ve been working on (since forever).

Ah, what a cute puppy dog.

Liz and I also did a spinning gig at the Bath & West Show for which we managed to get free tickets for the Saturday in exchange for us sitting at the Somerset Life Magazine stand and spinning for a few hours. The weather was lovely all day; sunny with a bit of a breeze. We had a few weird questions from the public and met a few interesting textile people. We also checked out the food halls (yummy coffee and super ice-cream) and the sheep (cute Shetlands and North Ronaldsays) and watch a crazy man on the top of a very tall thin pole do a balancing act with NO safety harness!

Another Fibery Friend and our Knit Club Organiser, Lesley, organised a bit of a workshop afternoon at her mums house. There’s more space there as her mum has a conservatory and Lesley left the kiddie winks at home so it was just us grownups and a load of tea and yummy cake! We did Navajo plying and dyeing which proved to be a right laugh. Kim and Megan did a double act with their Navajo plying.

While Lesley and I did some dyeing. Here’s Lesley dyeing some of her hand spun yarn.

We steamed it in her mums electric steamer.

So, that’s it really. I’m hoping that I’ll be back to update the blog before we all go to Woolfest but if not then there will be a big update of Woolfestiness! We are going up on the Thursday and staying over until the Sunday, not long to go now!

Excited (10,00000000)

Germination!

2011-05-08T16:45:00.003+01:00

We have germination – yay! and only a week after planting seeds, look:

These are tomato seedlings on our bedroom windowsill, they emerged this morning. The courgettes and beans are still under the surface but I am hopeful that maybe by next weekend we will see some seedlings, especially as we have had some rain at long last. The garden is looking better for the rain with flowers coming out all over.

I’ve also been having another go a spinning long-draw. This is where you card fleece into rolags and then spin them from the end into a floofy woollen type yarn.

Longdrawjames has recently put up a vid on You Tube, here it is.

Longdrawjames shows how to hand card and spin long draw from rolags

Suitably inspired I got stuck in with the Romney and a couple of rolags later I had this:

I kept on going until I had about half a jumbo bobbin full and then Navajo plied it. Here it is soaking in the sink:

and drying out on the line; a bit breezy!

Here’s a closer pic. It’s about double knitting weight and is quite floofy, I like it

This is the time of year for new fleece and although I am saving myself for Woolfest (not long now!) I could not resist a bargain; so I have some Jacobs fleece coming in the post from a Raveler. She bought a whole bunch of fleece off of EBay and has divided it up for about ten of us. We are sharing the cost of the fleece and then just have to pay for postage so I will be getting about 1.5kg of well skirted fleece for £1 plus postage! brill. It should be here some time next week so fingers crossed that we get some sunny weather next weekend so that I can wash and dry it all.

The rhubarb fest continues and we are still loving rhubarb and Greek yoghurt. However in case of overload I think that I may have to experiment with some form of rhubarb cake thing so if anyone out there has a recipe for rhubarb cake please feel free to drop me a line with the recipe.In the meantime here’s some rhubarb!

Easter Hols

2011-05-02T17:13:00.004+01:00

Well I hope you all had a good Easter and enjoyed the Royal Wedding last Friday. I’ve been busy in the garden and I also finished spindling the first of the Romney fleece.

The fleece first:
After I finished spindle spinning the two spindles of Romney I plied them together into a two ply yarn on the larger of the two Kevin Rhodes spindles that I recently bought from a fellow Raveler. As there was some singles left over on the smaller Kevin Rhodes spindle I had a go at Navajo plying and it worked out really well, actually it was easier than doing the two ply as the singles were easier to control. When I’d been doing the two ply I got in a bit of a tangle with the singles as they came up from my box Kate (made from a cardboard box, drinking straws and knitting needles). DH got roped in as my tensioning device but I will need to think about rigging something up with elastic bands for future plying efforts as there is only so much tension the poor man can cope with! luckily it was only a small amount of yarn; or I could just cheat and use my wheel, but where’s the fun in that?

Here are the results; the ball on the left is the two singles plied together while the ball on the right is the Navajo plied yarn.

The ball at the back of the Jacob that I spun long draw at Guild in January.
Here’s a better pic of the Jacob.

All the yarns have come out quite soft and squidgy so carding and rolags are definitely cool :-) I haven't weighed it so I’m not sure how much each ball weighs.

On the gardening front, it’s been so sunny and with no rain for ages I’ve been able to get lots and lots of gardening done.

I’ve cleared all the weeds (well most of them) which included the meanest nettles in the known universe; for those I wore DHs biker gloves which are made of leather and have Kevlar in them. Kevlar is the material that bullet proof vests are made of!!

I managed to get forty petunias for six pounds – bargain! I filled all my pots and tubs with them. They are really small at the moment but they should fill out and grow pretty quickly as long as Amy stops eating them!! naughty chicken!

I’ve planted tomato seeds and courgette seeds in little pots and put them on our bedroom window sill to germinate and I’ve planted French beans and runner beans out in the garden by the front wall. I emptied the compost bins out onto the bean plot first and then left Miranda and Amy to spread the compost about, which they obligingly did.

DH also mowed the lawn so that everything is neat and tidy.

I also sanded the round garden table and oiled it with Danish oil. Now I just need to find a beach umbrella for it and it will be all sorted for a summer of tea and cake in the garden with a spot of knitting.

We have our first crop from the garden already – rhubarb. The rhubarb plant is really pumping out loads of stalks this year and we have become completely hooked on Greek yoghurt and rhubarb; it’s yummy, yum, yum.

I’ll leave you with a couple of pictures of our pretty flowers and our river.

Spindling along

2011-04-17T15:45:00.000+01:00

I’ve been getting well into spindling recently. Spindling is just so portable and the spindles are relatively inexpensive and very pretty. Here are mine.
I have been spindling some Romney, which is the grey you can see on two of the spindles. At the last Guild meeting I crumbled and bought 700g of raw Romney fleece. It was only £3.50; can’t really go wrong with that! Plus it was all soft and crimpy; very clean and it smelt all warm and sheepy as it had been sat on the sale table right in a patch of sunshine, mmmm, lol! I washed it and it came out really well, really soft with lovely natural shading from white to dark grey. But having lent my hand cards to my friend Ann I was a bit stuck; what to do?

Well at Guild I’d had a go with Jenny's flat backed cards just to see what they are like as Jenny said she preferred them to the curved backed cards that people usually use and which are the ones I have lent to Ann. I liked them as it seemed to me that it was easier to brush all the fleece on the left hand card with all the surface of the right hand card; it just seemed to work better.

So I had a rummage on the net and got myself some flat backed cards from Wingham Wool Works. They duly arrived and I have had a lovely time carding all that Romney; well almost all, there is a little left to do. It’s come out really well as there are virtually no second cuts the only thing “wrong” with it was that a lot of the staple tips needed to be pulled off as they were dry, sun-bleached and crunchy but apparently this is pretty normal with coloured fleece.

So now I have bags of Romney rolags all about the place! I’ve spindled one spindle full and am now onto the second spindle. The two will be plied together; it’s looking like it might be light aran/heavy dk weight….maybe….some mittens!

As yesterday was Guild Jenny and I tootled off down to Hatch Beauchamp for the day. I took my spindles, cards and the last bit of uncarded Romney and Jenny took a little loom she has been making scarves on. The loom is so small that it can sit on the fold up table that she also brought along. Liz was there too and she gave me this.

Isn’t it fab? It’s a case for my Notebook and she wove it herself out of wool that she has spun plus the coloured wool on the flap is from our dyeing day last year! a really beautiful gift from a very dear friend and my Notebook fits into it really well.

Also at Guild I met Shani who's blog, Dye Verse, I have been reading for a while now; she also reads my ramblings on here too. It was really cool to meet her in the flesh and to make a new friend. She had been to Wonderwool in Wales and told us all about it. As we are going to Woolfest in June this was very interesting although I think Woolfest might be better as Shani said there were lots of the same stands there this year as there were last year with not much in the way on new stands. I know that Woolfest is trying to make sure that they have a good mix of new people and established people although as we have never been it’s all going to be new to us.

Speaking of Woolfest I’ve booked us tickets to the Friday night Spin-In and Cumberland Sausage Supper so see you there! We are staying at a B&B on a farm in Mill Beck which is about two miles from Keswick and 13 miles from Woolfest. The lady who's farm it is has around 300 sheep and has told us that as it will be shearing time when we are there we can pick any fleece we like! and maybe have a go at shearing as well. Liz is rubbing her hands in glee as she wants ten at least!! I have been saving up paper sacks and have three I think but Liz will have to take a roll of bin liners the way she is thinking!

Happy spinning and knitting ,
Em

More mittens! and some yoghurt eating hens

2011-03-13T11:54:00.003Z

Hello:-)

Since the last post I've been busy knitting more mittens.....but I haven't got much to show for it I'm afraid just this little bit of a mitt here

I'll explain; basically I've been knitting loads and then pulling it all out 'cos it's not working properly....grrrr!. I tried my Liz Inspired Mitts with some Noro Silk Garden which although lovely and colourful is a total pain in the bum when it comes to knots resulting in sudden colour changes and also the thick and thin nature of the yarn. After several attempts it just wasn't wanting to be those mitts so I tried Elizabeth Zimmerman's Mystery Mittens from her book Knitting Around several attempts resulted in a very large thumb and a too short hand and a very frustrated knitter...mmmm.

But not to worry:-) I've borrowed some books from Spinning Guild one being the EZ book Knitting Around and another being this one

The book basically gives a recipe for knitting a mitten and then you apply the cuff and colourwork pattern that you fancy. It gives an idea of how many stitches to cast on for the cuff and how many you will probably need for the hand part. So for my mittens I cast on 76 stitches on 2mm needles with Rowan 4ply and knitted 20 rounds in knit 2 purl 2 rib. Then I increased to 84 stitches by knit 9, make 1, knit 10, make1 for a total of four times. This adds the 8 extra stitches needed to bring the stitch count up to a number divisible by 14 ready to start the colourwork pattern.

The pattern is, allegedly, a four-leaf clover but at the moment it looks more like coffee beans! and it's taking a while - tiny, tiny needles and tiny, tiny wool, but it's coming along and I am enjoying it well much.

During February I also spent a lovely Saturday carding fleece with my friend Julie. We don't get to meet up very often as we are both so busy so it was good to catch up, drink tea and card interspersed with a spot of lunch and updates from the Six Nations via her husband and little boy. I managed to get through quite a bit of the Jacob fleece I have been working on and got quite a bit carded. I'd given Julie a wodge of the Jacob the last time we'd met up and she had spun it up and knit it into a hat, it looked very good and was very fetching on. For my bit of Jacob I think that I will probably start with some mittens (what a surprise! lol) and probably have a blue stripe on them somewhere using some of the teal spindle spun I did last December.

February's Spinning Guild meeting consisted of a skills day which was really very good indeed. Three Guild members took a workshop each in spinning longdraw, Navajo plying and using a warping mill. In the morning I learnt to spin longdraw which was fun as I seemed to need to take up loads of space with my right arm! p
Practise will hopefully enhance my rather inelegant technique - put it this way, it better!! Here is my progress so far. Carol, the tutor, described it as "art yarn", lol:-) it is a bit lumpy bumpy but I expect that it will even out when I ply it.

After our soup and bread lunch (I made tomato and lentil and everyone liked it very much) I swapped workshops and learnt to Navajo ply with Brenda. She showed us how it was done, a bit like crocheting a long chain, and then let us have a go at doing it ourselves on her wheel; a double treadle Louet; a very nice wheel. The first lady to have a go managed to get the technique off pat straight away; I managed to make a bit of a hash of it and was all fingers and thumbs until I'd got the gist, then it was actually very easy. Brenda explained that Navajo plying creates a three ply yarn, can be used to maintain colour repeats and creates a rounded profile in the finished yarn making it a warmer yarn. So, I'm planning on using this technique to ply my scrap swap singles (got to spin them yet!) so that I can maintain the colours and not get the barber-pole affect.

Recently we have been getting some nice sunny weather and this morning I've managed to get the washing out on the line. The daffodils are out by the back door and they look very cheery indeed. Things are beginning to stir out in the garden and I'm starting to think about what to grow in the veggie patch this year as it'll be time to start planting seeds indoors soon. I dug over half the veggie patch last Sunday, with the help of the chickens.

The chickens are doing well and both are now laying regularly. Miranda has got all her feathers back now after moulting during the coldest winter we have had for years! mad bird. Apparently it was down to minus 14 degrees celsius at it's coldest (Jenny's son measured it) and the river was frozen over on Christmas morning. Anyway here are the girls, Amy in the background as she is camera shy, Miranda at the front as she is a tart!

I gave them some yoghurt this morning, they really do enjoy their yoghurt and apparently it is very good for their little tummies. Here they are tucking in, it can get a bit messy!

Bye, bye, 'till next time:-)

This Winter I have Mostly been Knitting.......................................

2011-02-11T21:31:00.001Z

Mittens!

These are my second pair of Cranfords

and these are my Snap-Dragon-Fliptops

here's a closeup of the snapdragon flowers.

Then I made these EZ Mitered Mittens from some of my handspun yarn

and then got all inspired and made up my own mitts pattern.

I still have quite a bit of mitten mojo going on so I've started a second pair of my own mittens but this time I'm doing them in stripes of green aran and Noro Silk Garden in kind of pinky, purpley, greeny colours, with three rows of the aran and then three rows of the Noro. I'll get some pics of those up soon, promise.

Also, I'm hoping that my mitts pattern will be available for download. Some of my knitty pals are kindly test knitting my pattern for me at the moment. I'll put a link on here so that you can download it but as I've never done this kind of thing before, "publishing a knitting pattern", it may take me a while; although hopefully not as long as it's been since I last posted on here! ooops!

Off to knit more mitts:-)
Back soon.

P/hopping along with some Cranfords

2010-11-08T20:00:00.000Z

This is my first Knit-along and it's being organised on Ravelry by P/hop.

Whats P/hop I hear you say?

Well P/hop is a fundraiser for medical aid organisation Medecins San Frontieres (MSF) or Doctors Without Borders, where you can download patterns and make a donation of what you think they are worth to you in pleasure hence p/hop - pennies per hour of pleasure! What a cool idea, knitting and raising money for a good cause all at once.

So this is what I have been busy knitting. They are Cranford Mitts by Jane Lithgow. The challenge is to cast on, knit and complete a pair during November and look....I've done it and it's only just the second week so I think I'll knit some more.

The main yarn is Natural Dye Studios Darling sock yarn which has alpaca in it and the contrast yarn is some of the alpaca that I spun and dyed earlier this year which I have also used for my Ishbel.

Wool Week and other things

2010-10-17T18:53:00.001+01:00

This last week has been the first Wool Week.
Things were kicked off on Monday by sheep in Saville Row in London! and here in Somerset we had sheep in Glastonbury by the Market Cross.

They were very cute and didn't seem to mind being the centre of attention. The shepherd said that the sheep were mules, that is crosses between two breeds. The ones with the speckled faces are Swaledale/Leicester crosses and the ones with the black faces are Sussex/Leicester crosses. He explaned that by crossing then he got good atributes from both types of sheep.
A contingent from the Somerset Guild of Weavers, Spinners & Dyers had a display of spinning and fiberiness and there was also a wheel available for people to try out spinning on. A couple of ladies had a go and were converted; they did really well for their first attempts.

I met up with a couple of friends, Liz and Andrea, and we had coffee and cake while we spun, spindled and knitted away, it was fun. The picture above shows Liz helping a newbie spinner have her first go at spinning.
Later on I went for lunch with Liz and then we got the dye pans out!

We bubbled and simmered away, drank tea, did a spot of spinning and this is what we ended up with.......

Mine is the teal blue in the big white pan (which is some of the fleece that I recently washed) and the browny/pinky colour in the baking tin (which is a skein of shetland that I recently spun on Nimue), Liz did the greens, the red and the pink. We used food dye and acid dyes and they seem to have come out pretty well.

During the week Postman Paul brought a couple of yummy items. First he brought this.....

It's a drop spindle made by Enid Ashcroft; the whorl is Yew and the shaft ebonised Beech. It spins very well and for a long time. In fact I like it so much that I've bought another from her which is on it's way in the post and should be here in a couple of days time.

Postman Paul also brought a parcel from the Ravelry Scrap Swap #5 which contained this lovely array of colourful fibers

I've started to spin the blues first and here is what I have so far. Its quite thin as I would like to make a shawl/wrap out of it; there's about 300g of scraps in all. I could Navajo ply it or I could ply it with a neutral colour, maybe grey or grey/blue, not sure yet.

So to the end of the week and this Saturday was Guild day so Jen and I packed up our wheels and headed off to Hatch Beauchamp in her Dolly 2 CV. Everything fitted in with a bit of jiggling and joggling. The talk this week was all about plants for crafting so there was a bit about dye plants which was interesting; I'd like to try growing Madder, Woad and Weld next year. Andrea made it along for her first visit and brought her wheel along with her; one of the Guild ladies gave it the once over and got her going on it. She hadn't been using it but now she has renewed enthusiasm! brill:-)

In knitting news I'm sticking with the edging on the cowpat which is coming along slowly, maybe I'll have some pictures of it soon.

Take care, Em:-)

Not only but also

2010-10-09T19:19:00.005+01:00

Well, it's been a while but I have been super, super busy so I'm sure you will let me off:-) as long as I tell you all about what I have been up to during the last few weeks.............so.........here goes!

Jenny and I went to our first Somerset Guild meeting at Hatch Beauchamp Village Hall. We set off early to allow for any "detours" (i.e. getting lost), I drove and Jenny had the map. No problems at all, we got there without getting lost and with time to spare; people were getting set up in the hall when we arrived and made us very welcome. There was probably about 30ish people there and I was not the youngest by a long way:-) We met lots of lovely people, bought some fiber from Manda Crafts who had a table full of colourful fluff and had a super day.
Here's the fluff I bought. The bag on the left is Faulkland roving and the one on the right is Faulkland/alpaca/silk. I am planning on plying the two together, should be pretty.

In the morning we spun, chatted, drank tea and Liz turned up as well which was cool. (Liz comes to knit club with us and this was her first time at Guild also). Jen took her new Kromski Sonata which is a fold up portable spinning wheel complete with a carrying bag positively bristling with pockets and I took my Traddy, Nimue. There were plenty of Traddys of all ages, they seem to be very popular indeed.
After lunch we had Patricia Arkroyd tell us all about her new company Arkroyd and Dawson who are championing the production of wool cloth made from the British wool clip and also about the Campaign for Wool and Wool Week which runs from the 11th to the 17th of October. She is organising an event on the 11th on Glastonbury High Street, by the cross at the bottom. There will be sheep! and she asked if anyone would like to come and spin for a couple of hours ..... Liz and I will be there from 8am, the sheep are coming drown the High Street at 9am, should be fun and hopefully the weather will be nice and dry.

We then had a "talk" by Ian Tait who makes top whorl drop spindles from different types of wood. It was really interesting and there were lots of samples of the different woods and the different stages of making a spindle. Ian explained the whole process from selecting the wood to polishing the finished spindle. His spindles are beautiful, I really liked the one made of Pipi Yew, but I'd bought fluff and had no money left for a spindle. Jenny bought one though, a little lace weight one, and she has been spinning mohair on it - very pretty. There were then some announcements from the Chair Lady and then that was the end of the meeting. We chatted to a few folk, thanked the Chair Lady and packed up our stuff. We are definitely going to come back and become proper members:-)

So that was our first Guild Meeting, what else have I been up to......well, I bought a whole fleece! yes, a whole sheep's jumper. Here's a close up "before" picture. It was quite clean really, not much dirt in it at all.

I bought it from a lady on Ravelry, Moonmoss, who has a friend who runs an animal sanctuary in Worcestershire for farm animals. Amongst her animals she has 450 sheep and each year the fleeces are sold to support the running of the sanctuary. I bought just one to see how I would get on with it as this is my first time with raw fleece.
The fleece arrived by post just a couple of days after I bought it all packed into a net bag. I took it out and divided it into six equal amounts, all of it was soft and lovely so I just mixed it together. I then got to washing it which was actually a lot easier than I had anticipated. My top tip is to use net bags; I have about ten of these from last winter when we had to get some "emergency" fire wood from the farm shop instead of our usual supplier. I've seen carrots and onions in the same kind of bags so I'm guessing that those would work the same. I kept the fleece in the net bags all the time and washed each bag full as follows:

I ran a sink full of very hot water and added a good load of Fairy washing up liquid
I dumped the net bag of fleece (about half full of fleece) into the hot soapy water and pushed it down with a potato masher to submerge it fully.
I kept the neck of the bag out of the water and gently swished the bag back and forth so that the hot water and Fairy could soften and dissolve the grease and dirt out of the wool. Then I left it there for about 10 minutes.
I then lifted the net bag out of the water, drained the dirty water away and filled a large bucket with more very hot water but no Fairy and replaced the net bag of fleece into the bucket leaving it there until the water cooled to hand hot.
I then rinsed the fleece thoroughly until the water ran clear, spun the water out by spinning the bag around and around outside in the garden, fluffed the wool up a bit and pegged the bag out on the washing line to dry.

I now have a whole fleece washed and it is white, soft and fluffy:-)

I have dyed a little bit of it, probably about 200g, which I have also flick carded to separate the fibers out before I card it on the drum carder - I'll probably do that sometime this week and have a sample spin of it.

I bought the flick carder from the Spinning Weal in Clevedon. Jenny came round during my fleece washing marathon so we went out while the fleece was soaking in the bucket of hot water. We visited the Spinning Weal and then went for a spot of lunch at Number 5 The Beach - very yummy cheese and leek quiche with salad and coleslaw. They had fabulous looking home made cake as well but we could not fit any in! next time though, we will just have cake and tea for lunch!

Last weekend we had a Knit Club outing to Coldharbour Mill because John Arbon who runs Fiber Harvest had a Sale and Tour. There was lots and lots of fibre on sale; I got merino/silk roving, alpaca/merino roving, Zwarbles (great word isn't it? it's a type of rare breed sheep) roving and a few other yummy bits and pieces. Jon showed us round his spinning operation; his machinery is wonderful. He had a carding machine from the 1950s which I just loved. Everything smelt of oil and wool - fab. All his machinery is second hand from mill breakups. He has bought several of the same machine and then makes one good one from several; from carding all the way through to finished yarn; it was very interesting. He explained what each machine did and why and then switched each one on so we could see what it did - fab.

This morning I had a colourful parcel through the post. Its a whole load of spinning fibre from the Ravelry Scrap Swap #5. What happens is that people send hand dyed spinning fibre to the person hosting the swap; so I sent 300g ( three lots of 100g of three different colours that I had dyed last week). The swap host then divides the fibre up between the participants and sends an equivalent amount back to each participant. So I got back 300g of multicoloured scraps. Here they are:

I will spin it up and then knit it into either a cardigan or a wrap but I'm not sure which. I have enough for a wrap but I won't have enough for a cardigan unless I do one without sleeves.........so I'll have to go into Scrap Swap #6! lol:-)

In amongst all this I have been getting on with the Cowpat. I am now onto the edging and I'm using the same edging as the Shetland Shell Shawl but reversed. I reckon I may be about a quarter of the way round the edge? not sure. I am concentrating on this now until I get it completed, then I'll get back to the Shetland Shell Shawl and I will NOT start anything else in he meantime, lol:-).

More soon:-)

Spinning wheels

2010-09-17T22:06:00.001+01:00

Well I spent all of the weekend before last in bed with some really rather nasty germs. I think that they attacked me at work and by Saturday they were well entrenched and playing havoc. DH brought me tea, bascons sarnies and medicine and made sure that I was ok. I'm all mended now though thanks to the power of Beachams All in One cough mixture, yay:-)

Anyway, during the week I did manage to get some spinning done. I've been spining some Cotswold tops that my neighbour very kindly donated to my cause; I'm spinning the singles on my Timbertops Leicester, Lois, and the plying them on my Ashford Traddy, Nimue, using a Jumbo Flyer (or Funky Flyer as DH called it) that my lovely neighbour also gave me. By plying on the jumbo flyer I can "empty" both of the Timbertops bobbins without having to change bobins halfway through so I get all the plyed yarn in one continous length....brill!

So here is some of the yarn that I've been spinning and plying

and heres Lois and Nimue sunning themselves in the garden last Saturday.

We're not entirley sure but we think that Lois may be made of Yew; anyway whatever she is made of she's a fab wheel.

In the hen department Amy and Miranda are now getting on well with very few "arguments". Amy follows Miranda about the garden checking out all the little nooks and corners, she's still a bit shy of people but she is getting used to us. She started laying last week so now we get one normal sized Miranda egg and one smaller Amy egg - yummy:-)

Tommorow, the 18th, my neighbour and I are going to visit the Somerset Guild of Weavers Dyers and Spinners at their monthly meeting. There's going to be spinning and chatting and a talk from a guy called Ian Tait who makes spindles....should be well interesting and two other peeps from Knit Club have said that they may also be coming alsong as well....cool:-)

More soon:-)

"What I did on my Summer Holidays" by Pearle

2010-08-30T11:58:00.008+01:00

As we have been so busy since my last post I haven't had time to post. We have been here there and everywhere having fun. This is my "back to school essay" and for the ladies in Congleton......thank you for reading my exploits, it's nice to know you enjoy my ramblings:-)

OK so first off we went to Malborough Jazz Festival which was fab as usual but actually this one was the best one I've been to so far. We stayed with friends who live in Malborough and kindly put us up each year (or is that put up with us, he he). We are volunteer stewards and this year we were stewarding at the Azuza Cafe and Night Club. We were upstairs in the Night Club during the Saturday afternoon slot from 3pm until 6pm with the "The Baddest Blues Band Ever". The folk at Azuza looked after us very well with free cola and cups of tea during our stint and the punters were fun and had a good time. After our stint we met up with our friends and their two little kiddies who were by now a bit tired from all the excitement so they went home to be put to bed and have stories while DH and I went for dinner at the the Castle and Ball Hotel. The Castle and Ball is a very old (even by Malborough standards) Hotel/Pub right on the High Street. It has a really nice dining room at the back of the building and we sat down to a "whatever you would like" dinner. Unfortunately DH hadn't brought his glasses with him so he had to rely on me reading out the menu, lol:-) After dinner we found a couple of comfy armchairs at the back of the adjacent lounge bar and enjoyed our drinks with some very good Jazz. Then our friend arrived and we went out into the world of Jazz that is Malborough Jazz Fest.

I then spent a lovely long weekend visiting my Mum and Dad. We spent a lovely day at Tatton Flower Show ( a bit like Chelsea but up North).There were some fun exhibits amongst the usual pretty gardens full of flowers. Here's a selection.

Next on the agenda was Robs Birthday weekend camping at Llanthony Priory which was a little damp but there was a good turn out of folk. We got there a little late and met folk in the lane as they were on the way the pub for tea. We managed to get the outside part of our new tent put up and then followed them, got some tea and drank a few ciders. Then, suitably fortified, we went back to the campsite and our fab friends proceeded to finish putting up our tent in the dark while DH and I sorted out the air bed, sleeping bag, pillows and other stuff for comfy camping. We then continued a very pleasant round the campfire evening with more cider until rain stopped play and it was time for bed. Rob has a device that can detect bats and there were quite a lot of bats about judging from all the clicks and squeaks coming from the device. There are lots of old trees and of course the priory ruins for them to live in. Next morning the weather improved and was dry so we sat about and drank coffee and had bacon butties before heading off home.

Then we spent a lovely weekend on Dartmoor camping with friends for Blues 40th Birthday. A barbecue, cake, music, good company, clear starlight skies, a big fire, fireworks and lanterns - we all had a lovely time. It was great to see folks that we hadn't seen in years, there was a bit of catching up to do. The field was great and in the middle of nowhere and we could do as we please because we were the only folk there with no houses or other people within yelling distance - great!

Busy, busy.... but I have managed to do some knitting and some spinning. I have finished the alpaca Ishbel. In fact I took it to my mums so that she could see it. I also took my Ashford so she could see what spinning is all about. Here's the Ishbel. Its all pinned out on the spare bed blocking which has made a big difference to it.

Before it was blocked it was all scrunched up and it was difficult to see the lace pattern.

The Old Shell Shawl is coming along, there will be pictures of that next time. Also, I have spun up another 250g of the fibre from Coldharbour Mill. I thought that I would have enough of the first batch to make a cardy as I though I had 400g but I had only got 250g so Lesley from Knit Club said she'd pick some up for me on her way past Coldharbour Mill - result! But, they didn't have any - boo! but Lesley being the fab person that she is sold me the bag she had - yay! so that is now all spun up....just need to wash it and felt it slightly like the last lot.

I've also been spinning some Cotswold which my neighbour gave me when I bought her Leicester and her drumcarder; she was downsizing her spinning equipment collection so I was only doing the decent thing and helping her out....Lesley has bought her Haldane spinning wheel which is a lovely wheel. But how jammy am I? an original Timbertops Leicester; it's just fantastic, like the Rolls Royce of spinning wheels. The Cotswold is spinning itself on the Leicester! Maybe som pics of the Leicester in the next post....we'll see.

So now we are almost up to date, phew!
Last weekend we actually were here at home ALL weekend so we went to Annie Halls Poultry and came home with Amy. Here she is in the courgette patch....she's still a little shy.

Amy is a Light Sussex and she's about four month old so about the age of a teenager in hen terms. We just got one as we were not sure how Miranda would react. We collected Amy in a cat carry box and when we got her home we put the box in the hen enclosure, left the box door open and then just left them to get on with it. That was last Saturday. There was a bit of argy bargy and Miranda did throw her weight about a bit. Amy was chased up onto the top of the hen house on more than one occasion and received a few well placed pecks but things got better each day and now Miranda is quite happy with Amy being around and they go to bed without any bother.

And yesterday?
Well my neighbour and I went to Kilver Court Gardens where we met the Somerset Guild of Spinners, Dyers and Weavers and did some spinning with them....quite a lot of spinning acctually.... and some knitting, eating chocolate and drinking tea. They were lovely ladies and I think that I may join their Guild. The gardens were fab, here's some pics of the day.

So, that is what I have been up to this summer. We are off out this afternoon for tea with DHs parents. The sun is shinning , the washing is out and the chooks are sunbathing. More soon:-)

Summer spinnin'

2010-07-06T21:45:00.002+01:00

Hi there,

This week I have mainly been doing spinning!
Last Thursday I took my spinning wheel to the pub with me for knitting club and we all had a go at spinning. We were going to sit out in the pub garden but it started to spit spot with rain so we asked if we could spin indoors. The landlord was a little concerned that the spinning wheel would be loud and asked how much noise it would make, ha, ha
He need not have worried cos:

1 - it's not noisy
2 - we laughed so much no one could hear any spinning noises!

Some art yarn was created and we had fun:-) and there may be two more spinners in the making!

We have decided that knit club will be going up to Woolfest next year and Lesley, our Queen of organisation, has offered to find us a B&B in Keswick; it's going to be a hoot. Hopefully I willl have room for my spinning wheel in the car as they have a spin in on the Friday evening with over one hundred spinnners - cool!
In the mean time I went over to another friends on Saturday she spun alpaca and I spun this

It's "wool waste" from Coldharbour Mill. I bought a 250g bag when we went down there on our Knit Club Grand Day Out. I've kept it as singles and have set the twist by felting it slightly so that it won't drift apart. I dunked each skein first in really hot water and then into cold water and repeated that twice more - hot, cold, hot cold. Here it is round into balls

Its about 13wpi which is the equivalent of 4 ply or sock wool. Lesley said that she would get me some more cos she goes down to Exeter quite regularly. Another bag and I will have enough for a sweater.

I've also been knitting on my Old Shell Shawl and have started on the old shell pattern. No pictures, sorry, but there will be some in the next post I promise. Ooo and by then my blog will be a year old!
More soon:-)

Scorchio!

2010-06-27T19:14:00.003+01:00

Phew, it been a bit of a scorcher here in Somerset this last week. Which is brill for several reasons:
Washing gets dry super fast;

Makes my tomato plants grow; and

Good weather for Glastonbury Festival

So, we didn't go to Glastonbury but we saw some of it on the telly - Florence & The Machine were my fave:-)The traffic past our house was at a standstill on Wednesday morning and the bus home from work was packed on Wednesday evening, lots of festy goers and a happy happy vibe, love it:-}

Anyway, it may be scorchio outside but our little cottage is nice and cool inside due to our three foot solid stone walls. So we have mostly been hiding from the heat. I have completed one of the edges of the Old Shell Shawl, here it is....

There are 29 "bumps" in total. Next I have to pick up and knit 270 stitches along the flat edge; that's one stitch for every 2 rows of the edging. I'll be off to You Tube to see if there are any top tips on how to do it neatly.

In my last post I completley forgot to tell you all about a beautiful piece of equipment I got recently. It's a yarn swift.....here it is

It's made by hand by Claire and Richard of Sunflower Swifts
I looked at quite a few swifts and didn't fancy any of them really plus I wanted one that was free standing as aposed to one that clamps to a table. This one folds up nice and neatly and is beatifully made out of solid wood and it smells lovely as well; thank you Claire.

Ooops! It's been a while:-)

2010-06-20T19:10:00.001+01:00

Hi Everyone,

First of all, sorry it's been soooo long. Lots has been happening here, mostly good but some not so good.

So lets get the not so good over with first.
We are down to one little brown hen. Callie got sick again and we had her put to sleep, it was the kindest thing to do as she was not going to get better. Then Caroline got ill and died; that was pretty fast as I had made an appointment with the vet for her but she didn't make it. Miranda had a check up with the vet and has been pronounced fit and healthy.

I think that Carolines illness was related to the mystery puddle. It apeared in April but the water compay could not find out where it was coming from. They came out and dug a hole but said that the soil under the hole was dry!!!. They said that should the mystery puddle reappear that we were to ring them and they would come out tpo "catch it in the act". Anyway, it reappeared about mid May and the water company came out to take a look and do some tests which revealed that the mystery puddle was in fact sewage water! yuck!.

Hens had been confined to their pen as soon as the puddle was spotted, but in truth I think that they had probably drunk some of the puddle already and Caroline was just not strong enough to fight off the germs it contained. This was on the Sunday afternoon. By the time I got home on Monday evening there was a big hole in our front garden. They had dug down and found a broken sewage pipe and managed to fix it. They filled the hole in the next day and that was that.

The better news is that the Norton Knitters went on their first knit club outing to Coldharbour Mill down near Exeter. We went on the Whitsun Bank Holiday. The weather was lovely and we set off quite early. Everyone came and parked next door and then we all went down in my car. I had cleaned out the car so that all the junk was gone and there was an empty boot for yarn and fiber....which we filled ....with yarn and fiber. lol! The boot was so full that we had to squish it all down so that I could see out of the rear view mirror.

The Mill was really interesting. We saw how the machinery spun the prepared fibre into worsted type yarn and then how the looms were set up and the yarn made into cloth. I loved the wooden bobbins, they were great. We had a spot of lunch with pudding which was very yummy. I had lemon meringue roulade, oh my, was it good, it was all home made as well. We all bought fibre and yarn. I got two skeins of Coldharbour Mills Organically Farmed Merino Wool 4 ply, one blue and one white to knit some Norwegian Mittens ala Elizabeth Zimmerman.

In other spinning and knitting news there have been a few developments
Firstly, I bought some alpaca fibre from a seller on eBay, 500g of white yummyness. So I spun up some singles yarn and dyed it a purple/lavender colour, here its is.

I'm pretty pleased with it. It came out at 366m in 119g so about 4ply weight...just right:-)
I've been knitting it up into an Ishbel scarf; the small version. Here it is about 3/4 of the way through.

It's almost completed now and all I need to do is cast it off and block it. The cast off needs to be really, really loose so that the point will block out properly so I think I will go up a few needle sizes and cast off using Jeny's surprisingly stretchy bind off
Unfortunately the Noro Kureyon sock yarn that I ordered form Get Knitted hasn't arrived yet so I the Noro Pi Shawl has had to go into hibernation until it arrives. In the mean time I've been knitting my Ishbel but as that will be finished today I have also been looking about for something else. I got Weekend Country Knits out of the library recently because the knitting traditions of Shetland are really interesting to me and I fancied some traditional knitting and learning some new techniques, so, I'm going to knit the Old Shell Shetland Shawl which is a traditional hap shawl design in 4ply weight yarn. You start with the edges and knit in, so it should be a nice challenge, but with lots of garter stitch so not to difficult for in front of the telly/out in the garden knitting.

I ordered the same yarns as the book called for, some are from Jamieson's of Shetland and some are from Jamieson & Smith. Both types of yarn are what are known as jumper weight yarns and are used to knit traditional Fairisle and Shetland patterns.The colour ranges are wonderful and the yarn is lovely, I'm looking forward to getting going with it. While I was at it I also bought some skeins of grey Jamieson & Smith jumper weight yarn, 12 in all, so that I can knit myself a Pi Shawl of my own design. I have been looking for suitable lace patterns and there are a few that I have in mind....we will see.

The last bit of news is that yesterday my neighbour and I went over to wildest Wales to pick up her spinning wheel from the Woodland Turnery over near Abergaveny. They had been restoring it for her and it was all ready to be collected and I wanted to see how spinning wheels are made so it was a good excuse. Clive and Joan were lovely and we had tea, chatted and had a look at all the lovely spinning wheels they had. They make Timbertops wheels which are beautiful (my neighbour has a Timbertops Leicester also) and there was a Leicester and a Sherwood in the workshop while we were there. The Sherwood was just waiting to be carefully packed so that it could be shipped to a lady who lives in Shetland. It's a big wheel so I couldn't fit it in my house, but it was gorgeous :-)

Really, that's probably it for now.

I'll try and post more regularly in future.
Take care,
Em

It's been a while so ......Big Update

2010-05-09T21:19:00.006+01:00

Hello Friends:-)
It's been a while since the last instalment and there is quite a lot of news to tell.

First of all Callie, one of our hens, was not very well. In fact she was very sick and we were very worried about her so I rang the vet in our nearest town and we took her in for a check up on the Saturday morning.

The vet was very nice and kind and sent us away with some anitbiotic liquid which I put in the drinking water for two consecutive days. Callie looked very poorly and we were fearing the worst but by the Wednesday she was perking up and eating better and had her voice back. By Thursday morning when we took her back to the vet she had improved enough for the vet to think that she would make it. We were so relieved!!.

The vet was still worried though as she'd lost a lot of weight so we made another apointment, for this Saturday morning. When we took Callie along the vet weighted her and was very pleased as she had put on 200 grammes which is alot if you only weighted 2kg to start with. So Callie is on the mend, yay:-)

Here she is (on the left) with Caroline.

And here are all the girls out and about (Callie is at the back while Miranda is front right and Caroline is front left)

I have been knitting my squares for the knitty squares blanket and have so far made these. I've been knitting them on the bus as well. It's going to be a very colourful blanket.

To keep me from getting knitty square fever I have also started and got quite a long way into another Elizabeth Zimmerman knit; her Pi Circular Shawl which I am knitting in Noro Kureyon sock yarn in colour 150 (lot F). I bought two balls of the yarn from Get Knitted last Saturday and got cracking as soon as I got home....instant gratification! So far I have done all the increase rounds and am 18 rounds into the last bit. I have't decided on the edging yet, will have to have a think about that. Here it is.

It looks a bit, well alot actually, like a bag. Which is quite handy because I can stuff the yarn and needles into the "bag" and stuff the whole thing into my work bag and the whole thing is so compact that it's good bus knitting which means that I'm motoring along with it. I am thinking that I will make another one in a solid colour and make that one in lace patterns.I've decided that for the solid colour version I'll use Jamiesons Shetland Spindrift which is also a 4ply weight and comes in 220 beautiful colours all the way from the Shetland Isles. I ordered the colour card and it arrived the other day. Now all I have to do is pick a colour!!

1. Jamiesons Spindrift Colour Card, 2. Jamiesons Ultra lace weight colours #2, 3. Jamiesons Ultra lace weight colours #1, 4. Spindrift colours #1, 5. Spindrift colours #2, 6. Spindrift colours #3

I've also bought Whimsical Little Knits 1 and 2 from Ysolda Teague. The designs are very cute and the books are small so they are very portable. I'm planning on knitting Veyla with one of these two skeins of Natural Dye Studio "Darling" sock yarn. It's made from alpaca and merino so it's lovely and soft. I think I will use the pale blue for Veyla and use the grey/blue for one of Ysoldas one skein shawls.

The last bit of news is that I am now a member of a knit club :-) We meet each week in a local pub, drink diet cola, chat and do a bit of knitting or crochet. There were five of us at last Thursdays meeting. We are all ages and it's fun; we're going on a stash enhancement outing on the 31st of May to Coldharbour woollen mill in Devon to see fleece spun into yarn, drink tea, eat cake and buy some yarn.

Guess thats all for now, take care, see you all soon :-)

Spring is springing

2010-04-18T20:38:00.012+01:00

For the past couple of weeks the weather has been getting warmer, Spring is springing!.
This was the view from the field behind our house early one bright spring morning. The tree is an oak and he's in the middle of the field; you can just see the back of our house over the river if you look really really hard.

There are no leaves yet just tiny little buds which are just about to pop.

Here's the tree from furthur up the field, its such a groovy tree and must be very old.

At the top of the field a stile takes you through a little patch of woodland before popping you out on to a lane which follows the side of the hill. On the way through the woodland I came across these little violets which are, suprisingly, white not violet. There was quite a big patch of them and they were all white.

The lovely weather has continued into the weekend which has been lovely and sunny. In order not to waste the lovely sunshine I bought a washing line spinney thingy. You see we lost our washing line when we had the house fixed up last December. The original line was along the path at the side of the house; fixed between the telegraph pole at the back of the house and the cast iron rain water down pipe at the front of the house. When the cast iron rain water down pipe was replaced with a modern plastic one (the builder tried his best to save it but it was beyond hope) we couldn't tie the washing line to it as we didn't want to break the pipe.....so, no washing line:-(. I have looked and looked and no one seems to stock washing line poles, the ones that you sling a washing line between. All new washing lines are the worrly spinney sort, so I have relented (for now) and we have a worrly, spinney washing line. Here it is in action! I do like putting out washing:-)

The garden is looking pretty with lots of spring flowers blooming. Down the side of the house I have daffodils, hellebores, spurge and the flowering currant.

And the Victoria Plum tree has lots of blossoms on it so hopefully we should have lots of plums again this year

The hens have been chilling in the sunshine. DH said that Caroline looked like a teacosy, he he:-)
She wasn't laying an egg just chillin' out and at one time during the afternoon I reckon she was acctually snoozing, very cute.

In spinning and knitting news I did a spot of dyeing followed by a spot of spinning. This was the last of the BFL fibre that I purchased from the Spinning Wheal

I have also been trundling on with the Knitty Squares blanket. I've found that the squares are really very portable which means that I have been knitting them on the bus in the morning on the way to work. Our bus has a couple of single seats one on each of the wheel arches of the front wheels and they are perfect for knitting so I have been sitting there recently. The squares knit up pretty fast and as of today I have these completed.

They are all the same size with 34 stitches on each side. The plan at the moment is to make lots of them and then pick a "joining colour", do a few rounds in the "joining colour" and then graft the whole lot together.

I hope that you have all also been having good weather wherever you are:-)

Easter Knittyness

2010-04-05T19:20:00.007+01:00

Hello Everyone and Happy Easter!
The sun is finally shining here although it is very blowy indeed and a bit chilly.

So, what have I been up to?

Well, I recieved a lovely package from Patsie over at French Letters. Thank you Patsie.

Patsies package contained two skeins of her hand dyed and hand spun singles yarn and a skein of fussah silk which she spun from fibre from Tree Top Harmonies. The wool singles are at the back of the picture while the silk is at the front. With the yarns came a lovely letter which containes a pattern for basket cables. I'm not sure what I will make with the yarn yet but I think I will probably go for a shawl and edge it with the silk? not sure...mmmmm.

I have also be doing as spot of dyeing. This time with red, brown and green which produced this.....

The colours came out a bit paler than I thought they would but I do like them so I'll keep it like it is. The fibre (BFL) was dyed using the "roasting tin baking method" which seems to work well in the simmering oven of my AGA. It's a lot simpler and easier for me than steaming the fibre in a pan on the hob so I think I'll stick with baking it! I haven't spun it up yet, but when I do there will be pictures I promise.

Carrying on the dyeing and fibery theme DH and I went to the Spinning Wheal where he got to see what I spend my money on! and I got to spend some, ha ha :-) I bought some more dyes - scarlet, rust and green; they are Ashford Wool Dyes for Protein Fibres I also got a couple of bobbins and some more BFL combed top. I have also been getting to grips with some of the Jacobs fleece that my neighbour donated to me. I washed a load of it by teasing it out and submerging it in hot water with a dose of Fairy Liquid added. I then put it on the hob and heated it up to 90 degrees C and held it at that temperature, with the help of my jam thermometer, for about ten minutes before rinsing it carefully. I managed not to felt it and it is definatley cleaner than it was. I just need to card it and it'll be good to go:-) Here it is after being washed. It's drying out on a towel placed on the top of the simering plate lid of the AGA.

Now the question of what to knit after the marathon that was the Snowflake Blankie has been rumbling about in my head for a while now. I did think that I would start on a crocheted Ripple Blankie and so have been gathering together lots of different colours of double knit, mainly Patons Diploma Gold, which comes in a range of lovely colours, is machine washable on the wool cycle and does contain a fair amount of wool. But I have also been contemplating a few other things as well one of which is another blanket but this time a knitted blanket.

This blanket is from the April chapter of Elizabeth Zimmerman's Knitters Almanac. It is made up of squares knitted from the centre outwards and then grafted together to give the impression of a piece of knitting which has been knitted in many directions at once.....how interesting! So I have been experimenting with squares and have decided on a method that I like. My method is slightly different from EZ's April Mystery Blanket and should mean that my blankie is a little simpler than hers but just as good.

1. 1st Mystery blankie square, 2. Knitters Almanac, Elizabeth Zimmerman,
3. Mystery Blankie in progress, 4. Mystery blankie square - prototype

Instead of yarn overs eitherside of a single seam stitch I'm going with a double increase of M1, K2, M1 so that I can join the pieces together right to the corners before picking up stitches all round and knitting an edge. As this is a long term project I'll probably be knitting other things along the way as well as finishing off some items still to be completed.

And to finish off todays post here are some Easter pictures of some of the flowers in our garden. The dafodills, which are by the back door, where being very well buffeted by the rather blustery conditions this afternoon.

1. Forsythia, 2. Blustery daffs, 3. Flowering currant, 4. Primroses

Happy Easter:-)

Spin. spin, dye, spin

2010-03-28T21:35:00.008+01:00

This weekend I have been busy spinning, plying and dyeing.

I plied the 100g of BFL that I had spun up a few weeks ago. It turn out a bit like Collinette yarn, lol. I then dyed it...........here it is being dyed.

I used Kemtex acid dyes and baked the yarn and dye in a roasting tin in the bottom oven of the AGA for about an hour (maybe a little more). The tin was covered with foil during baking. I then took it out, removed the foil and let the whole thing cool to room temperature before rinsing the yarn in warm water.
Here's the finished yarn.

Next I made this little 50g skein of BFL. I will probably dye this as well but I'm not sure what colours yet. It's a bit more evenly spun than the one above.

Then, as I was on a bit of a roll! I spun up the merino roving that my neighbour bought for me from when we went to the Spinning Wheal. It was very easy to spin. It kind of flowed into the twist, the fibres flowed very easily; it was a really good experiance in terms of learning to feel the flow of the fibre, very cool. Anyway, here it is............

After that I just had to spin up the BFL roving that I dyed the other week.

It went from this

To this......

Both the merino and the BFL need to be washed to set the twist but I'm pretty pleased with both of them. I think that maybe one or more would make a nice yoke for a sweater like the one here in Knitty Winter 2009

Lack of knitting so Hens instead !

2010-03-23T22:29:00.008Z

Hi,
After the epic of the Snowflake Blanket I am rather stuck for what to do next. There are a few options I have been considering...and they are....

A ripple blankie - I have lots of yarn for it in lots of pretty colours. I have the pattern printed out. I have the crochet hook.
A 4 ply cardy/sweater. Top down set in sleeves from Barbara Walker's Knitting from the Top. I have been swatching with some orange sock yarn I got from Lidl last year.
An aran cardy/sweater that is not another Garter Yoke Cardigan but could be a la Knitting From the Top as well.

Something completely different.................

Decisions, decisions, decisions.

By way of an interlude and instead of knitting I give you our hens, Miranda, Callie and Caroline, who have been enjoying the spring sunshine lately....

1. image223, 2. image215, 3. image216, 4. image224, 5. image201, 6. image204, 7. image211, 8. image181, 9. image188, 10. image192, 11. image72, 12. image71, 13. image64, 14. image75, 15. image44, 16. image43, 17. image50, 18. image180, 19. image19, 20. image208, 21. image183, 22. image63, 23. image209, 24. image87

More soon :-)

Finished the blankie - yay:-)

2010-03-09T22:16:00.002Z

I have finished the Snowflake Blankie. There was a mammoth amount of sewing up to do; here's an action in progress shot......

......and here it is, the finished article in all it's glory!

Phew, all done:-)

Flickr Favorites

2010-03-02T21:56:00.001Z

A few good things..................

1. My 1st hand dyed top, 2. Caroline, 3. My 1st hand spun, 4. Red onions

Fancy having a play with your flickr favorites? Pay Mitsy over at Artmind a visit to join in the fun :)

On the crochet home straight

2010-02-28T21:22:00.005Z

Ok, so I had little bit of a "oops!" moment with the Snowflake Blankie since my last post.....I ran out of the blue yarn at 57 snowflakes!

I discovered that this particular blue has been discontinued in that particular yarn- fiddle! The very helpful lady in the LYS found a similar and suitable colour - Loom Blue - in Sirdar Click Chunky but she didn't have it in an Aran weight.
So I had a rummage about on the interweb and I ordered two balls of Loom Blue Click Aran from Knit and Sew in Swansea. I ordered the yarn on the Sunday evening and it arrived on the Tuesday; that is such good service plus the price was much cheaper than I was expecting - brill all round. Actually it's really nice yarn, comes in some lovely colours and is machine washable so I may try some out in the future for a sweater.

Anyway, all the snowflakes have now been completed - yay! and they have been sewn together into strips and I am now in the process of sewing the strips together after which I will do the edging.
Here is how far I have got as of this evening - three strips sewn together draped over the back of my chair. There are an awful lot of ends to sew in as well, but I'm getting there:-)

and a close up

Actually it is a bit odd but I don't mind sewing the blanket together, I'm quite getting into it which is strange because I usually really do not like sewing up my knitting projects; the sewing up part is usually where the project ends up being hibernated. In fact I don't like the sewing up part so much that I usually opt for seamless construction even if it means getting the calculator out and converting the pattern. Maybe this is a good sign, or maybe my head just works differently for crochet.

While I was at the LYS I could not resist the thought of the Ripple Blankie and so I bought some more yarn for it; more Patons Diploma Gold DK, here it is.....

Pretty colours:-) I now have quite a good collection of colours and I may even make a start this week (fingers crossed) but not before finishing the Snowflake Blankie, of course;-)

Crochet blankie update

2010-02-14T20:19:00.007Z

Hello,
The Snowflake Blanket is coming along. I now have 46 hexagons completed so I need another 13 more before they all get joined together.
Here is a little preview.

and here is the "stack"

I have been steadily working on it each evening. This week though I haven't been too well, I had a cold and have been generally full of germs. I worked from home on one day as I think my collegues had got a bit fed up with the sneezing and tissues and general grumpyness that is me when I'm unwell. I just don't do ill very well at all but I'm feeling much better now - yay:-)

So, to celebrate I went to Marmalade Yarns in Frome to get some yarns for my next crochet project.....a Ripple Blanket, and to see what the shop is like now that it has different ladies running it.

I can report that it's still lovely there and now there is a sofa nook with magazines to read and a comfy chair by the window as well. The yarn selection is really good too and they have yarn from Coldharbour Mill in Devon; so local yarn store with local yarn yay!

I got a bunch of colours in Patons Diploma Gold DK because I am planning on making a blanket for our double bed and that will take a lot of yarn (and a lot of time) and I really can't afford Rowan or Debbie Bliss, gosh that would be expensive. Patons Diploma Gold DK comes in lots of pretty colours and is machine washable, soft and not likely to be discontinued any time soon. I do have some bits and bobs of other dk yarn in various colours that will also go into the blanket but it will mainly be Patons Diploma Gold DK

Here's what I got.

I am being strict with myself though and I will finish the Snowflake Blanket first before starting the Ripple.

Gratuitous dyeing pictures of fibrey goodness

2010-02-09T19:29:00.004Z

Hello,
look, look, look!!!!
This is the BLF that I dyed on Sunday. I'm very pleased with it :-)

Here it is in super close-up fibrey, yummy, gorgeousness........

I am so pleased:-)... can you tell? lol:-)

Black and blue all over...with a bit of green as well

2010-02-07T20:51:00.000Z

Hello,

I have been busy, busy, busy:-)

Yesterday I took my spinning wheel round to spin with a friend of mine, J, who lives a few villages up from ours. She keeps some Welsh Black and Soay sheep and we did a bit of a fleece swap. I took the Jacobs that my neighbour gave me and swapped a bit of that for some of Js Welsh Black. Here it is

You can just see a bit of the Jacobs under the Welsh Black. J has a drum carder so we had a go at carding the Jacobs....it needs washing again though as it is rather sticky with lanolin and was more dificult to spin than the Welsh Black.

We drank tea, spun and chatted away, had some lunch, chatted some more and then I had to go off and do some shopping for food (boring).

Today as well as carding (by hand... would now love a drum carder...sigh) and spinning some more of Js Welsh Black I also had a play at dyeing some of the BFL combed top that I bought on the expedition to the Spinning Weal that my neighbour and I took a couple of weeks back.

First I soaked a length of tops in warm water. The tops was weighted out in lengths of 100g (ish) in the shop so that is what I used. I put a slosh of white distilled vinegar into the water before adding the top to soak for about 20 minutes.

While the top was soaking I covered the kitchen work surface in newpaper (the Times sports pages do have a use afterall) and layed cling film on top of it. Then I made up four colours of acid dyes - yellow, blue, green and jade. I then took the top out of the soak and squeezed out most of the water laying it onto the newspaper in a zig-zag so that I could work on one section at a time like Picperfic describes in her spiral dyeing tutorial

I didn't dye my top in long sections of one colour though....I kind of just dyed it in a random colour sequence and blended the colours into each other.

Here is the roll of dyed top in my steamer on the AGA. I got it going on the hob, put the lid on and popped it into the bottom oven for ooooh about....30 minutes or so.

When it was done I took the steamer out of the oven and just let it cool down to room temperature. Then I rinsed the top in lukewarm water with a bit of vinegar and then just plain water. I squeezed the water out as much as possible and then put the whole lot into the salad spinner and gave it a good old spin to get as much water as possible out.

It is now drying on the rail of the AGA ...........................

and it should be dry by tomorow so that I can put it into a braid like you see on Etsy:-)

We have eggs:-)

2010-01-31T12:43:00.004Z

This week our hens very kindly made us some eggs - yay:-) six in fact.

We have had the occasional egg before but they have usually been very weak shelled and have broken. So this is really good progress as we have had almost one well made egg each day this week. DH has made himself a few fried egg sandwiches for his lunches while I waited until Saturday morning so that I could enjoy boiled eggs with soldiers......yummy, yum yum:-)

There they are.............

Look at how yellow that yoke is...clever, clever hens. They are also getting the hang of where to lay them, in the nest box, as we were getting them just deposited around their enclosure, randomly, lol!

In spinning news, I have been spinning my Blue Faced Leicester. I have completed my first bobbin, it's about 60g in weight and I am planning on spinning another 60g and then plying the two together.

The reason it's 60g for each bobbin is that this is about half of one of the sections of combed top that I got from the Spinning Weal last weekend. The lady there weights the fibre out on scales with little weights and she is very generous with her portions hence you always get more than 100g per "section", brilliant:-)

I am also seven hexagons nearer to completing the Snowflake Blanket, that's one per day (although I managed two yesterday evening). I can't decide what yarn to use for my Ripple Blanket though.....if you have any suggestions please do leave a comment:-) So far I'm considering either Stylecraft Pure Wool dk or King Cole Merino Blend dk........................but am open to suggestions. It's going to be double bed sized (ambitious I know!) so I can't afford Debbie Bliss or Rowan.

Off to the cinema later! to see Avatar.

Hen escapage! Retail Therapy and a spot of crochet

2010-01-24T17:33:00.005Z

We had a bit of a mystery this week, a hen mystery!

Several times this week DH found at least one of the hens at large in the garden. He's not sure who it was because as soon as she spotted him coming around the corner of the house she came running up to him saying "help, I'm lost!" so he'd scooped her up and popped her back in the pen with the others without really taking note of who out of the three she was.

One day we even had an egg on the path by the front door! Anyway, we checked the fencing and there were no holes so we could not begin to guess how she managed to get out......mmmm....mystery!

Anyway, yesterday I was having my breakfast here at my table and, looking out the window, I saw a hen teetering on top of the fence! She, that is Miranda, was attempting to get to the bird feeder that I had put up last Sunday for the little garden birds. I'd hung it from a branch of the Victoria Plum tree so that I would be able to see the little garden birds swinging on it while I am sat here at the table doing my thing. I'd filled it up with the mixed corn that we give to the hens, the same mixed corn the Miranda could have been pecking at right there and then if she cared to look down on the ground.

At that very moment my neighbour came around as we were going out for the morning so I grabbed my stuff and we went to investigate. By the time I'd got my boots and coat on and locked the back door Miranda was back down on the ground on the correct side of the fence as if nothing had happened! So I climbed up and took the bird feeder down and have hung it up round the back of the house. I reckon that she must have got out inadvertently as a consequence of her attempts at the bird feeder! anyway with the mystery solved my neighbour and I went off to Clevedon to The Spinning Weal for some retail therapy.

We each bought some white Blue Faced Leicester top, I also bought some bobbins and a sliding hook flyer for my wheel while my neighbour bought a really good selection of Corridale combed top which came in lots of fantastic colours, she got pink, plum and several blues. We had a really good time and the people who own and run the shop were both very friendly and helpful. As well as spinning stuff there was also a good selection of knitting yarns, fabrics and other fibre related crafty type items. I will definatley be going back:-)

My neighbour is so sweet; when we were driving back she produced this

from her bag as a present for me for driving us. Its BFL in lovely plums and pinks and I think I will knit a hat or maybe wristwarmers for myself with it as it is almost the same colours as the Fyberspates dk Scrumptious I bought with my gift voucher.

I've had a spin with some of the white BFL and it is lovely to spin with. I'm getting better at drafting evenly and more thinly and the plan at the moment is to spin two bobbins of 50g each and then ply them together and see what I get. My sliding hook flyer needed finishing so I have not used that yet but I have wiped it over with Danish Oil to protect the wood and it should be dry by now so I will assemble it to the wheel later and have a go with it.

Here it is just before I oiled it yesterday.

On the project front I completed my Garter Yoke Cardy #2; sewed on the lovely green buttons and wove in the ends.

Now I have completed it I have been toying with the idea of a Ripple Stitch Crochet Blanket. I haven't done any crochet for a long while but as I was doing some blog browsing recently I came accross Attic 24 where Lucy has the most marvelouss crochet. I just love her Ripple Blanket as do several other bloggers:-) and would love one for our bed........but......I have not completed the crochet blanket I started way back in 2006! It's a Snowflake Hexagon blanket hooked in Sirdar Aran with Wool and I have twenty-six of the required fifty-nine hexagons completed.

So, I dug out the blanket .......here we are.....

and a little snowflake :-)

So for my New Years Resolution !

"I will complete this blanket"

Spinning progress

2010-01-18T22:02:00.004Z

Hello,
I am so proud of this that I had to share it with you.
I have been practising my spinning this evening and look.....

I do believe that there are less lumpy bumpy bits!
What do you think?

Spin a Yarn

2010-01-17T21:14:00.005Z

Hello:-)
My first week back to work after my extended Christmas Holiday was, shall we say, a bit of a shock to the system. How I love being at home, all warm and snuggly and busy doing my thing. Don't get me wrong, I love my work, but home, DH, hens and knitting is lovely, sigh. Oh well.

I have managed to get a bit of craftiness into the week by practising my spinning with the drop spindle; I've also been reading the spinning info books that my neighbour lent to me. And I bought this......

It's an Ashford Traditional Spinning Wheel, single treadle, single drive with a single ratio flyer. I don't know how old it is and neither did the lady I bought it off as her husband got it as part of a house clearance. So if anyone out there has any info about it's age I'd be more than interested......leave me a comment.

Any way, all this came about because during the week my neighbour messaged me to say that there was a spinning wheel for sale on Ebay for pick up only and that it was not too far from here. So I went and had a look, placed a bid and won it! She came with me today and we went to collect it. Then when we got back home she made sure that it was all set up correctly and got me spinning my first yarn.

It's a bit overspun and I need to practise loads but it was easier than I thought it would be and I'm really quite pleased with it. I'm not too sure what you would ever make with it though so I think I will save it as "my first yarn" so that I can gauge my future progress.

In other news, the snow has now all gone and the hens are much happier without it. I think that they were getting a bit fed up with it and to tell you the truth the novelty was kind of starting to wear off abit for us as well. Next door made a cool, snowman though and a little bit of him is still left...with his scarf all on the floor looking forlorn...bless.

Knit, Spin, Stash!

2010-01-10T14:07:00.012Z

So, hasn't this week been cold? brrrr! but the hens are really toasty and warm; I picked Caroline up on Thursday and she was really toasty, like a litttle hen shaped hot water bottle! So my top tip is, if you are cold, pop a hen up your jumper!

So, since Wednesday we have not been out much except to get a bit of shopping and as I was off from work all this week I mainly stayed in and did home type stuff in the warm.

I have now completed the knitting on the Garter Yoke Cardy#2 and just have to weave in ends and sew on buttons. I have already got the buttons chosen; some green shell buttons which I got from Get Knitted when I bought the yarn for the project. I really like them and I reckon they will look fab. The modifications that I did to the sleeves seem to have worked out ok. I tapered them and also made them longer than in the pattern. My sleeve modifications can be found on my project page if you are interested.

My 2nd nearest neighbour has recently become a Raveler! yay:-) and she messaged me for some tips on Thursday so I popped over and we had a rummage about on Ravelry for a while. As well as knitting with needles and looms she also spins and has several lovely spinning wheels. She offered to teach me to spin to which I said yes :-) So on Saturday she popped over and dropped off a top whorl drop spindle, instructions, a bag of 100% shetland wool combed tops and a niddy-noddy.

So I have been spinning! and I have made thread! and it's not too bad (well I think its ok, it may not be though, he he!). It is quite addictive and very relaxing, the fibre is so soft and it smells lovely (ok, yes I have been sniffing the fibre).

I also took the oportunity to have some boxes of work stuff put up into the attic (thanks to DH) and to catalogue most of my yarn stash, which I found out was rather large, actually rather larger than I though it was! I have divided into two stashes:-

The "Jumper Stash" (JS) which consists of yarn in quantities big enough to make an adult sized sweater; and
The ""Non-jumper Stash" (NJS) which is all the rest.

The JS has been put into a massive ziplock bag, one of those where you suck the air out with the vacumn cleaner, and put under our bed, while the NJS (also in a massive ziplock) is lurking in the spare room. Of course there are still balls of yarn and mini-stashes lurking in the sitting room, but in the main I consider it to be under some kind of assemblance of order (for now at least).

Having ordered the "Beast that is my Stash"...I then proceeded to buy more yarn! yes I know, but somehow this does not really count as it is a purchase made with the Fyberspates gift voucher I recieved from my collegues at my last job as part of my leaving present, so I was not really spending money at all. I bought some Scrumptious dk in pinks and purples with which I intend to make a Clapotis (may change my mind, but for now it's gonna be a Clapotis).

Whilst writing this post there has been several quite large "roaring" noises outside, in fact it's just done it again, lol! made DH jump, he, he. It's massive flumps of snow sliding off of the roof! A big wodge just came off and landed very close to the hens! they are ok though, just a bit freaked out poor things. Apparently we are in for more snow tonight. I am back to work tomorrow so wish me luck with the buses!

Stay in and Knit Day

2010-01-06T11:07:00.001Z

Today is an official "Stay in and Knit Day".
Due to this..........

This is what it looked like this morning around and about our place at about 8.30am, it's very pretty but jolly chilly and a bit grey.

The road is OK but there is very little traffic. I think that the busses may be running as there were footprints by the bus stop and next doors little car is still in the drive way so my neighbour must have gone to work on the bus this morning.

The hens had to be dug out! they are so not impressed and have retreated back into their little house, after a spot of breakfast of course.

So today is reserved for knitting :-)

New Year, New Project

2010-01-02T11:50:00.001Z

Happy New Year everyone :-)

For the last few days I have been working on this.........

What do you think? I think it needs another darker colour, maybe a red? It is my first attempt at stranded colourwork and I am quite pleased with it although I do think it could do with more contrast. It was a lot easier than I thought it was going to be and I did not get in a complete knotty mess either!

All this does mean that that Garter Yoke Cardy #2 is short of its final sleeve (and buttons) so I am planning to finish that by the end of next week, fingers crossed.

So, off to the knitting shop for some red wool....more on the colourwork later.

Crimble bimble

2009-12-27T13:36:00.004Z

Well I do hope that you all had a lovely Solstice and Christmas.
Since the last post we have been very busy. The painters finished the house and the scaffolders removed the scaffolding. Here is the house before (at the end of September) and after (on Christmas Day)

We are so happy with how it is. DH reckons that the house seems warmer because of the new layer of paint, he, he:-)

We also had the Winter Solistice Dinner Party on the 19th, a few days early but on a Saturday so that people would be able to stay later. I managed not to burn anything. On the menu was:

Pear, Celariac and Stilton Soup with Garlic Bread

Venison and Red Wine Stew

Mushroom Stroganoff (without the mash)

Roast Potatoes

Dauphnois Potatoes

Roast Parsnips

Carrots and Peas

Red Currant Jelly

Apple Crumble and Custard

Christmas Pudding and Brandy Cream

We didn't actually have any room for the Christmas Pudding, lol! so I still have it. There were also cheeses and biscuits but to be honest we were soooo stuffed we gave them as miss too.....we did have a few chocolate truffles though with some Plum Vodka (remember that?) which went down very well...mmmm.

Then on the 21st it snowed quite a bit. We usually don't get much snow here so whilst the rest of the UK seemed to be grinding to a halt under a thick layer of the stuff we got off lightly with a couple of inches. The 376 bus kept on a trucking and I was still able to get to work although the pavements in Bristol were pretty trecherous.....I did manage to stay upright, more by luck than judgement I might add! Others were not so lucky especially on Queen Square which had turned into an ice rink by Wednesday.
Here is our house in the snow, looks very pretty. The hens are not to sure though. Miranda looks perturbed!

Christmas Day we just chilled out all day in front of the fire. We all had porridge for breakfast, here are the hens enjoying their Christmas Porridge.

It was pretty chilly outside with the last of the snow clinging on

We then opened our pressies and watched movies all afternoon, scoffed some cheese and biscuts and had a glass of wine.

Boxing Day we went to my sister and brother in laws with the rest of DHs family - his mon and dad and little sister. All in all, we had a lovely time, thanks guys:-)

The Garter Yoke Cardy is coming along fine and I have been able to do a little bit each evening and occasionally on the bus as well, although it is now getting to the stage where its a bit big for public transport. Last night I completed the body section so today I will start the sleeves. I would like to make the sleeves tapered like normal sweater sleeves so I will have to do some sums.

Anyway here it is so far....sans sleeves...

Knitting History is made and a New House is delivered!

2009-12-13T20:07:00.008Z

Yesterday something historic happened, bear with me here as this is an "Historic Knitting Happening" so it will only really be of interest to the Knittyverse, all other persons of a non-knitty persuasion may find it rather dull. The event was the arrival, by post from America, of a very special knitting pattern.

The full story of the rediscovery and remaking of the sweater can be found here at the Twist Collective
I reckon that I will probably make it slightly longer and with the slimmer sleeves....not too sure about steeks through! that might be a bit much for me and what happens if you want to recycle the yarn at a later date? you wouldn't be able to. I will need to think some more on the matter of steeks.

The Garter Yoke Cardy #2 is coming along nicely. Last night I split the body and the sleeves and am a couple of rows into the body section now. I think that I will make this one a little longer in the body and also add shaping to the sleeves so that they are more like standard sleeves than the original design.

The builders finished off the house this week. We now have a new chimney pot, a repointed chimney stack, all the render has been repaired and so have the guttering and down pipes. The painter arrived on Tuesday and cleaned and prepared the house for painting and on Thursday I came home and someone had delivered a new house! well that's what it looks like. Our little scruffy white house has been replaced with a smart cream coloured one. DH says it looks like it has been iced, like a cake. The painter is also painting the doors (front, back and outhouse) and door jams so it will look super when finished. Maybe it will be all done for Christmas with the scafolding gone as well, yipee!

We had a slight hen mystery this week. On thurday when DH went out to shut the hens up for the night he met one of them in the garden! she was trying to get back into the enclosure. Heaven knows how she got out and DH was not sure who it was as it was quite dark at the time and he just picked her up and popped her over the fence and she joined her sisters in the hen house. The next morning I checked all round the fence but there are no holes. Now every time I go past them I am counting to make sure there are still three little brown hens, lol!

Yep...there are three:-)

Frosty morning

2009-12-06T15:05:00.003Z

It has been getting proper chilly here recently. On Friday morning we woke to a frosty start. The veggie patch looked quite pretty in the frost especially the chard leaves. The frost picks out the ribs on the leaves very well.

The hens, having never seen frost before, where rather perplexed at first but very soon just got on with things.
I gave them some left over chips.
They were not too sure at first .....but Miranda decided to investigate......

As soon as she started tucking in Caroline spotted what was going on....

and she went over to investigate as well......

By the time I went to work all the chips were eaten up! Chicken & Chips...ooops!, shhhh!

So that was Friday morning, but today it has been quite sunny out even though with all the rain we have had recently the ground is completely saturated so it's not really very good for gardening. Never the less I have managed to clear a lot of the garden in preperation for next years veggie growing and I have harvested all of my beetroot. Here it is, well, some of it.....

It is waiting for me in the kitchen. I think I will bake them all in the oven and then slice and freeze some of them for later and have some for tea tonight. It seems a shame to pickle them or make them into chutney when they taste so yummy fresh. Whilst I was trawling the interweb for beetroot inspiration I found this website - www.lovebeetroot.co.uk apparently beetroot is very good for you - bonus:-)

I have also been kintting this week. In fact I even managed some knitting on the bus..twice!. The second swatch for the Garter Yoke Cardy came out at 18 stitches and 26 rows over 4 inches on size 3.75mm needles! so thats aran (worsted) yarn being knit on little thin needles!?. I must be a loose knitter 'cos that is kind of nuts isn't it? Anyway, we have gauge which this the main thing and thats all good. The swatch washed at 30 degrees in the machine and came out exactly the same size as it went in - hurrah. So the cardy has been cast on and I am now at row 30, yay! only umpty million rows to go.

Here are some progress pics.....

Here we are on Wednesday evening about four rows in.

And this is where we are today....

Yay!

Prettyness from Overseas

2009-12-02T19:44:00.007Z

When I got home this evening there was a little cute envelope waiting for me. It had come all the way from Los Angeles, California!...... and inside were these.....

Arn't they lovely?
These Holiday cards have been designed and made by Jen aka The Fabled Needle . They are available to buy from Jens shop "Love, Liette" where you will also find all Jens lovely prints, illustrations, stationary, knitting, crochet and sewing patterns. I think they make lovely Solstice cards.

Swatchtastic!

2009-11-29T17:25:00.004Z

Well lots has been happening here. Lots of building stuff (more of that later) and hen stuff (more of that later too) but first is the knitting stuff.

I've been swatching for a second Garter Yoke Cardy. I love the one I knitted earlier in the year and my mum knitted one in pink which she gave to my niece after she took a fancy to it. It's such an easy sweater to knit and as I knitted mine in Robin Aran with Wool I can chuck it in the washing machine and it survives....which is just great for work.

So, I had been thinking about making another and I had purchased some green Sirdar Aran with Wool from my moms LYS when I went up there in September, but I kind of went off the green and fancied grey instead....with green buttons.
Que....trip to the yarn store, oh yay!

So I went to my favorite yarn store Get Knitted in Brislington, Bristol and spent a couple of very enjoyable hours squidging and squeezing yummy yarns. I did have a bit of a dilema though... between the lure of pure wool....Debbie Bliss Cashmerino Aran, Rowan Wool Aran or Cascade 220 and the lure of convenience i.e. chucking it in the wash; Sirdar Aran with Wool and Patons Wool Blend Aran. The Rowan Wool Aran is superwash and I almost had that but they did not have enough of it and I wanted to get going as soon as I got home so I plumped for the Patons Wool Blend Aran which is 63% wool and 37% acrylic so completely washable and great for work.

While I was there I also made a few "off topic" purchases (you just know it don't you lol!)
I found some very soft and yummy Royal by Blue Sky Alpacas look......

We need "feely vision" because this yarn is the softest, cloudyness ever. It is sooo soft and lovely and I have enough for Margot a sweater in the Fall issue of Knitty. I'll make it after the Garter Yoke Cardy though...must try to stick to the plan!
As I had not really spent as much as I thought I also purchased this

Its a needle holder for Knit Pro needle tips and is now keeping most of my needle tips all in one place. I say most because, inextricably, it does not have slots for all the sizes they make! What's that all about then? It's missing 3.75mm and 3.23mm....mmm weird...anyone know why this is?
Anyway, I like it although it does somehow remind me of chemistry class...Mrs Nicholson would be proud...then again maybe not lol:-)

So to get back to the swatching, after all the shopping I returned home and swatched and got this

16.5 stiches on 4mm needles over 4 inches. So more swatching is needed as I need to get 18 stitches over 4 inches.

In hen news, the hens are almost fully feathered now ....
here is Callie

here is Caroline

and here is Miranda

They are almost imposible to photograph all together. They are so funny. Their little personalities are really developing now and they come over and talk to us whenever we are in the garden. I have seen them talking with Postman Paul as well. He comes down the path and stops off to say hello to them and they all come over to say hello to him back....so cute.

The builders have been working hard and its been so wet this week it's a wonder they got anything done at all, but they have. DH reports they are very helpful and are explaining what they are doing as they are doing it. This week they finished hacking off the rotten bits of render, sealed the stone work, took down both chimney pots and repointed the chimney stack. They also started filling in the bits of render that they hacked off. This needs to dry and then they will put the finishing render on. So we need a bit of dry weather please!

So, thats kind of it for now...off to swatch some more!

Winter warmers and builders

2009-11-22T18:41:00.003Z

Today I have been doing lots of cooking. I have made...
Rabbit and pork casserole
Beef and beer casserole
and
Parsnip soup

Also I pulled our first beetroot today. Here it is all unsuspecting in the garden growing away and not realising what I have is store for it!

Next it is in the sink with its friends the carrots, also pulled from the garden, and ready to be cooked for our tea...mmmm yum

So tonight we are having left over rabbit stew from Friday with three root mash and cooked sliced beetroot. The other casseroles will be saved for week night dinners while the parsnip soup is for taking to work for my lunch.
I will add some linkies to the recipies later in the week.

Also, this week we have had some progress with the building work we have scheduled on the house. Basically we decided a while back that as we had some money saved up we should get the outside of the house sorted out before the winter so I had our very nice builder Mr Parnell come and take a look. All was well and we were set for the off in September but then we found out that as the electricity wires are close to the chimney stack they would have to be shrouded before the guys could get up there. So, to cut a long story a bit shorter, we all had to wait of the electricity company to come to shroud the wires, which happened last week - yay!
So this week the scafolders came and put up the scafolding and the builders have started on the render - yipee!:-) I am kind of excited because we will not be the "scruffy house" anymore. Infact we (our two neighbours and us) will all look very smart:-)
Here are some "in progress pictures"

In hen related news.......
The hens are doing well. They were pecking me today! pulling at my jeans and jumper as I was cleaning out their little house and generally chit chatting to me as well - very cute. They do not seem to be phased at all by the scafolders, scafolding or builders.

Firework Party and other things

2009-11-15T17:49:00.075Z

Last night was Johns firework party. A whole bunch of our friends are firers for a firework display team - Skyburst. We had a groovy time with yummy food and the fab company of our friends. Here are some pictures of our evening.

Here is Martin setting up a battery of mortars!
Yes, they were BIG and they were LOUD.

Here are a bunch of rockets.....

......and here they are on the frame used to launch them. I think there were about 50 in total.

The guys got all dressed up in their gear; here they are lighting their firing sticks.

We all had to wear hard hats and goggles because it was a lot of very large fireworks in a small city garden!!
Here are some pictures of the explosions. I have never taken pictures of fireworks before so bear with me:-)

In other news the hens are continuing to do well. They have put on more weight and feathers.

While I was cleaning out the hen house they were very busy helping me.

Also, now that the trees around and about have nearly all lost their leaves there are some cool shapes....this is next doors Walnut tree. I think it is a truly beautiful tree.

And these are interesting don't you think?

They are runner bean beans from inside the runner bean pods. I have cut all the pods off of the bean plants and am going to save the beans to plant next year, as a bit of an experiment. Also, in the post this week arrived this.....

There are some really interesting old varieties of seeds, in particular peas, that are as tall as runner beans and crop over a longer season than the peas that are available from "ordinary" seed merchants I fancy trying them, along with some Pole Beans and various types of Summer Squash.

Take care,

Home sweet home

2009-11-08T22:38:00.004Z

Gosh, well, this week was quite busy really. I went away for work on Sunday evening and returned home Wednesday evening. It's so nice to be home. Don't you find that nowhere is quite as good as home? So nice to sleep in my own bed and I missed DH lots. Home is brill:-)

While I was away this plant popped into flower on our driveway and I thought it rather pretty. Is it Cow Parsley?

In other news the hens are coming along nicely. They are getting feathers and are getting the hang of generally being hens. There has been flapping wings, running about and a little bit of "hen talk". DH reports that they have started following him when he goes past their enclosure to go up to the gararge plus they are kind of getting the hang of going into their house when it starts to get dark, but really they need a bit more practice. No eggs yet but it's early days and they need to concentrate on getting feathers and putting on weight.
There are three...it's just that I was unable to get all of them in shot together!

Also, yesterday we had our first carrots out of the veggie patch....look....arn't they pretty?

There are plenty more still in the garden.
These went into a rabbit and cider stew half of which is in the freezer and half of which is in the fridge in preperation for weekday dinners.

The Woodland Shawl is trundling onwards....ever onwards. It seems to be taking a while but it's an enjoyable knit so I'm plugging away at it:-) I'ts a good project for boring hotel rooms and it will be coming along with me again during the next week as I will be away for three nights. Knitting......it keeps me sane!

Maybe Winter is coming

2009-11-01T10:25:00.012Z

Today the weather is not nice at all - rain and wind - ugh:-(
Maybe Winter is coming.
Look......

..................not very nice, brrr!.

The hens are hiding in their little house away from the wind and rain, poor things!

On the knitting front, though, there has been some progress!
Oh yes:-) I am getting on with my Woodland Shawl and it is growing...slowly. The yarn is just right for it (thank you Ali:-)) all lovely and green...mmmmm. Green is definitely my favorite colour.

Here it is on the hearth rug - sorry not a very good picture but you can see that I have completed four or five pattern repeats.

I have added to the width by adding three pattern repeats to the original pattern; so instead of casting on 89 stitches I have cast on 125 to make it wider as I have two skeins of yarn instead of one as in the Thifty Knitters original.
And now...for some close ups......

and

Also, this arrived in the post earlier in the week.

It's a bunch of sock yarn from the UK Blankiemania Group on Ravelry for knitting the "Sock Yarn Blanket" by Shelly Kang. I have named mine the "Insanity Blanket" because it's just going to take an insane amount of time to complete it....each little square is about 3.5 x 3.5 inches! and I'm making this for a DOUBLE bed!

Anyway, the idea is that the bag of yarn gets posted from one group member to another and each member takes out the yarn they like and replaces it with an equal number of balls/skeins of yarn from their own stash of sock yarn. The idea is that we don't all have to knit 100s of pairs of socks to generate the left over yarn needed for the blanket or, indeed, spend a fortune on buying whole skeins of our own sock yarn and it's a really good way of amassing a varied collection of yarn for your blanket.
As you can see my blanket is still rather small! but some people in the group are on to their second and even third blankets!

I intend to knit some more after I have completed the Woodland Shawl; I guess it's just a project that ticks along in the background really.

New friends

2009-10-24T17:06:00.007+01:00

We have new friends!

Three little brown hens. They are a bit bald at the moment as they have just come from a battery. We collected them today from the Battery Hen Welfare Trust. On arrival at their new home they needed a little encouragement to come out of the boxes we had collected them in. Here they are exploring their new home.

We have names for them - Miranda, Callie and Caroline but we are not sure yet who is who! but I'm sure they will tell us.

After a cursory look around two went straight into the house and have been there ever since while the third who is much braver came out to explore just a little bit.

Normal service will resume shortly!

2009-10-17T10:03:00.016+01:00

Oh my, I have been so slack with this blogging malarkey!
So, apologies, I am still here honestly, I have just been a tad busy lately what with friends, family and work and also:

Gardening
The garden is now winding down for autumn but we have had a fantastic crop of sweetcorn and runner beans and the chard is still going strong. Most of the tomatoes stayed green and we didn't get many, only about 4lbs. So I made green tomato chutney with the green ones and we have eaten the red ones all up....mmmmm yummy.

Unfortunately the squash never got round to making any squash, not sure what that was all about. There are five plants, loads of leaves, loads of flowers and NO squash! humph! if anyone out there has any ideas on what we did wrong I would love to know as I want to try again next year. The courgettes on the other hand... well they made up for the distinct lack of squash by pumping out loads and they are still going strong with little ones still. I suppose they will keep on courgetting (hey, new word!) up until we get a frost?
I also got a second row of chard and one of beetroot in and a row of pak choi. The carrots and the first row of beetroot need to come up over the following few weeks so I'm looking forward to that.
On the flower front, the sunflowers have been lovely, all happy and cheery as they look out over the garden wall at passersby. I will definitely be growing them again next year.
Also, great news, our Parish is going to get some allotments; so exciting as we currently don't have any. The Chairman said that "land has been identified" and "negotiations are ongoing" so hopefully there will be space for little'ol me to have, maybe, 1/2 an allotment to start with? Then I can grow DH loads of sweetcorn....he likes that idea, lol:-

Cooking and Brewing
Lots of cooking has been occurring as well. Well, with all the courgettes, sweetcorn and beans! So, as well as the green tomato chutney, mentioned above, I have also made more onion marmalade, some courgette salsa and a load of blackberry & elderberry wine.

The onion marmalade and salsa went down very well with our lovely friends from Devon who we went and spent a weekend with during September. If fact the salsa is so good that out of the six 2 pint jars I made we have only one unopened jar left which tells me that I must plant more courgettes next year!

The wine should be ready for the Solstice Dinner Party and should make approximately eighteen bottles, not that we will be drinking it ALL that evening you understand!. It has calmed down now as it has been in the demijohns for about one month. Prior to that it was exceptionally lively so it was just as well it was in the brewing bucket! otherwise it would have been all over the kitchen floor like a pink monster! Mind you it made the kitchen smell lovely:-). It will need racking soon to separate it from the sediment that is forming at the bottom of the demis, probably next weekend? we'll see.

Knitting
Well, not much knitting has been happening although when I went up to stay with my folks in September I did take my latest knitting project - The Thrifty Knitters Woodland Shawl, which I am knitting in Olive Grove from the wonderful Yaffle Yarn (created by the supremely talented Ali).

While I was there my mum took a shine to my Garter Yoke Cardigan so we bought the pattern online and went to her LYS where she picked out a contrasting yarn to make the yoke as she already had some lovely yarn for the rest of the cardy. For me, well, being in a yarn store was just too much of a temptation so.....I bought some green aran so that I can knit another GYC for myself.

Photography
On the photography front, in order to try to get to grips with the finer attributes of my DSLR and achieve a level of bravery that means that I can take pictures without the auto functions I have been going to photography evening classes (although they don't call them that anymore). It's been fun, and I'm learning stuff! so I am hoping that my skills will improve and you may (or may not!) notice a difference, lol!

So that's kind of what I have been up to lately. Ill be back in a bit, honest! take care and love to you all, Em:-)

Getting on....

2009-08-31T19:20:00.008+01:00

Ok, so today I have been getting on and doing stuff.

The house is all hoovered and clean and all the washing is done. I have also made some jars of red onion marmalade. These are popular as gifts - friends and family seem to like it so it must be good! Here are some pictures of the marmalade cooking.............

and the finished article............

I also made a lemon tray bake ............

mmmmmmmmmm.........cake:-)

(05.09.09 - edited to add link to Lemon Tray Bake recipie)

Sadness

2009-08-29T09:51:00.009+01:00

We are very sad here at the moment.
Our lovely hens Meredith and Isabel are no longer with us. Isabel died on Thursday morning and Meredith on Friday morning. We don't know why this happened, it was very sudden but we think that it was probably a combination of underlying conditions associated with their former lives as battery hens.

Here are a few of the pictures I took of them recently having fun in the sunshine.
If you click on the picture it should take you to an album.

Meredith & Isabel

Dyeing to knit...peas anyone?

2009-08-23T15:08:00.001+01:00

Hi there,
Recently I went on a dyeing workshop run by Jeni from Fyberspates with about ten other folk from the knittyverse. We had a great time playing with wool and colour and amongst other things I dyed up some yarn in green (my favorite colour) and called it "peas!"

So, I have finished the first thing knit with yarn I dyed myself - yay!
Here is my "Peas Hat" knit in the round on 4mm cirs. It's kind of my own pattern but really simple as I sort of made it up as I went along.

Thinking ahead.......Winter Solstice!

2009-08-21T18:16:00.007+01:00

Hi there!,

Ok, I know it's summer and today we are actually having a load of sun - yay:-), but I am already thinking of Winter Solstice and making plans for what I will be cooking for the Winter Solstice Dinner Party. Anyways, the plum tree in next doors front garden is loaded down with plums .......

..............so I have decided to make plum vodka with them this year. I've never made it before but I'm guessing that it's going to be a bit like sloe gin and will be a nice wintery, solsticey sort of drink for after dinner.

So, as you can see, I picked a load of plums, washed them and slashed each one with a knife a few times. Then I popped them into kilner jars with about half a cup of sugar and then filled each jar up with vodka.

I will leave them in the spare room to brew and give them a shake every now and then and we will see what happens.....

Playing with my new toy..........

2009-08-16T15:30:00.005+01:00

Hi there!

I have been playing with my new toy...............and here are some of the results............

........bit of a bee theme going on, but there are loads of them at the mo and they are so cute, so there you are!

Beans!

2009-08-12T20:38:00.008+01:00

Hello,
Just a quickie, as it's a school night.

I've just picked these..............

..........................super, aren't they? and they tasted soooooo good:-)

There are loads more on the way as well.
From plant to plate in less than 10 mins, total food miles = about 20 meters!

New camera and other stuff

2009-08-09T17:53:00.019+01:00

Hello!,

Well first of all I have some very exciting news..........

I have bought myself a proper camera. Yes, a proper camera, and it's a bit fab really - it's a Canon EOS 20D and I'm having great fun with it.
So hopefully there will be better pics on here in future.

Anyway, what have I been doing? and what have I been taking pictures of?
Well, yesterday we went to Bristol to see Lessa, drink tea and eat cake (yum) and here is what we had with our tea........
While we were enjoying our tea and buns the Red Arrows went over! But they were too fast for me, lol. Lessas tomatoes are doing ok, they just need some sunshine now so that they can ripen. Hers are futher on than ours, we have flowers but as yet no fruits. Here's a pic of hers - well done Lessa:-)
I also went to Get Knitted to pick up the chicken knitting pattern so that I can make DH a chicken tea cosy. Get Knitted is such a fab shop, if you can go do.

Back at home the veggies are growing well and the sweetcorn is now flowering so I am hoping that with a bit of dry weather polination will happen and we will get plumptious cobs of sweet sweetcorn.

The beans are also coming along......

Also, the buddlia has been absolutely covered in beautiful butterflies. They let me get very, very close and they were even landing on me! so I took some pics.
The camera is very cool and I have taken loads and loads of pics with it, it's fun to use and I'm so pleased to have it........................ and while I was snapping away Meredith was peeping at me from the undergrowth................lol:-)

Potatoes!

2009-07-26T15:44:00.003+01:00

Today I have dug up my potatoes and I've just scoffed them - yummy yum yum yum!

There weren't many though, not sure why, and I dug about and got them all....mmmm, never mind.

Anyway, they were yummy with a little olive oil, salt and pepper...mmm.

Here they are just after they came out of the pan.

Chillin'

2009-07-25T09:31:00.003+01:00

Today the sun is shining and the birdies are singing! and DH is off to the Glastonbury Symposium which means that I have the day to myself.
So, the washing is out on the line and I am gonna go shopping.
Laterz:-)

New neighbours

2009-07-20T18:39:00.004+01:00

Here are our new neighbours. They are in the field at the back of our house, on the other side of the river.

Last hols day

2009-07-20T13:23:00.013+01:00

Today is my last holiday day for a while as I am back to work tomorow. Although I really love my job I really love being home as well:-)

We have been busy and have painted the hen house a delicate shade of green; here are the before and after pics.

The garden is looking good as well. The sweet corn is really impressive. I've never grown it before so I'm hoping that we get some yummy cobs. You can see the runner beans are flowering next to it so hopefully we will have beans soon too.

While I was out snapping DH came to feed the chickies

there was one egg:-)

Sunny Sunday

2009-07-19T12:41:00.007+01:00

Today the sun is shining...yeah!

and my honeysuckle is smelling wonderful, the house is clean and I am in the garden.

Here's a pic of my tomato plants. No tomatoes yet but not to far off I'm sure.

Some pics at last!

2009-07-15T16:35:00.013+01:00

So, I finally got round to figuring out how to take pics with my phone and get them out of the phone and into my laptop! lol.

Here are Meredith and Isabell in the garden, check out their parasol, neat or what. They also have a pink one, but I am borrowing that for my garden table at the moment.

Here they are again checking me out! What are you doing mum?

Meredith is on the left, she is in charge ( and don't you forget it!) Isabell is on the right, she has plenty to say all of the time.

Do you like my rainbow chard?

It's very pretty isn't it, tastes good too, yum!

DH and I also went out for lunch today in Wells as it's market day with lots of foodie stalls - veggies, meat, cheese, jams and chutneys - all very scrumptious.

We had lunch and then browsed the market - got some sausages for tea tonight, proper ones!

I also got some achillea - 3 for £10, bargin! I got two red ones and one yellow ones.

Then we went to Mandy Wools, one of the best yarn shops ever, and guess what? yes, that's right I BOUGHT YARN again, lol. But seriously, it's really fab.

It is TivoliAran, Celtic Superwash Aran and it's 100% pure wool, 100g at £3.45 each and I bagged 11 balls which should be more than enough for my Central Park Hoodie. The yarn does feel a bit scratchy but I figure that I'm gonna be wearing it as a jacket so that won't matter.

Happy days!

Em:-)

The chard of yumminess!

2009-07-14T21:06:00.009+01:00

Well folks I have just had, for my tea, the mostest yummiest rainbow chard ever.
(sorry no pics as no camera)
Lightly stir fried with garlic to yummy perferction, and as I enjoyed it so much I have sown some more!
along with......
radishes
lollo rosso
mixed salad leaves (free seeds from garden centre)
and beetroot
yummy yum yum yum:-)

A couple of 1sts

2009-07-10T16:44:00.001+01:00

1st blog post AND

Today my Kemtex Acid Dye Kit arrived....so excited that I read the instructions in the bath! lol.

Any way, DH and I were gonna go out for lunch with a friend and I have lots to do before Malborough Jazz Festival so I decided to hold off on the dyeing...mmmm and concentrate on gardening, chickens and washing the washing mountain - nice drying wether here at the moment so shame to waste it, although its also NICE DYEING WEATHER as well.

Now though, lunch is off, so I'm gonna have a go:-)

P.S
Until I get a camera this is gonna be a pictureless blog lol!