I've moved!

My new blog's now online here: www.wildcraft.co.uk/blog

See you over there!

Delay in transmission

My apologies for the delay in transmission, dear blog readers. I've been setting up a new blog which will be hosted on the Wildcraft site, it's going to be lovely and shiny. It shouldn't be long now before it's ready. Watch here for news and a link when it's up and ready to read!

I've been doing plenty of spinning, knitting and dyeing too, so there'll be plenty to write about. Oh and the first lot of coloured Ryeland lambs are due within a fortnight. I'm so excited, watch for lots of cute lamby pics soon!

A New Recruit

Meet Twinkle the Unicorn, a new recruit at Wildcraft. Twinkle is now in charge of Wildcraft's Quality Assurance. She’s taking her work very seriously, as you can see in this photo, where she’s checking the standard of some newly polished spindle whorls:

Twinkle was created by the very talented Amy, who’s a member of my local knitting group. Amy had a stall at a craft fair at the weekend, and it was there that Twinkle decided she was going home with me. Amy also has a new shop on Folksy, where many of Twinkle's friends and relations are now hanging out and looking for new homes.

Twinkle also very kindly checked out my progress on the February Lady cardigan today. She thinks the buttonholes are a bit wobbly, but other than that, it's looking very good, she thinks it might even be finished by Christmas if I don't get distracted by other projects!

Ally Pally and a bit of Natural History

So, what did I get at this year's Knitting and Stitching Show at Alexandra Palace? Tonsillitis, yay!! Actually, I think it's more likely to have been the crowded tube trains that were responsible, or maybe one of the dinosaurs from the Natural History Museum where we stopped on our way back from the show.

But as well as an 'orrible bug, which is now thankfully on the mend, I did get some much nicer things. Mum and I went on the Friday, and it didn't seem quite as busy as in previous years, so we managed to see a lot in a few hours. I started off by making a beeline for the Socktopus stall, to take the photos that I promised Jooles of her Spindlefrog rovings there.

I've put rings around the Spindlefrog wools. Look Jooles, they're just under the Pigeonroof Studios fibres and to the left of the rovings from Chameleon Colourworks!

I was very very tempted by the Spindlefrog fibres... But I decided to be good as I'm expecting a swap parcel from Jooles soon, wouldn't do to be greedy would it?! I wasn't as disciplined when it came to the tops from Pigeonroof Studios. I see them so rarely for sale, I spent quite a while just staring at them. And then somehow a braid of BFL in 'Caribbean' coours jumped into my hands and demanded to go home with me. I did as it asked, and here it is now:

I did very well during the rest of the show, everything else that I came home with was on my quite minimal shopping list.

On the right is a skein of Colinette Jitterbug sock yarn. It's a much brighter green in real life, my camera didn't like it as much as I do, it's very squishy and hug-able. It's destined for some cabled or lacy socks for me, and I'm going to learn to do them with the magic loop technique so that I can see the pattern more easily as I knit. The ball of red/blue yarn is some Kauni Effect Yarn from the Scandinavian Knitting Design stall, which changes as if by magic through rainbow colours as you knit with it. I'm planning to make one of Cosmicpluto's Simple but Effective Shawls with it. The other packet of fibre is naturally dyed merino from the Natural Dye Studio, gorgeous stuff, it was so hard to choose just one!

And have you spotted the first ever issue of Sew Hip magazine amongst the goodies? It looks like a great magazine, can't wait to see it in the shops like the issues of Yarn Forward that I saw in my local newsagent's this morning (yay for that!!). I've not done any sewing for ages, but some of the projects in the mag are calling me to dust off my sewing machine and delve in to my fabric stash again.

Then, on the way home, we stopped by at the Natural History Museum (one of my all time favourite places) and saw these...

Cute stuffed critters:

A creepy but pretty cool neanderthal skull:

This, OMG why do they let kids see it, huge animated dinosaur (it's blurry because it was moving towards me, and because I was running away, it was that scary and realistic-looking), I swear it was following me:

These familiar-looking fossilised shells (they came from the same area of the UK as the ones I've put in my fossil spindle)

And this set of bones from a Somerset Ichthyosaur, which made me squeak and bounce excitedly because they look very like the vertebrae bones I've found at Charmouth :)

So all in all, a very good day!

The dark side

I have a confession. This week I have mostly been shopping for perfume oils, BPAL oils to be precise. Yes it's true, I've turned to the dark side. Those teeny tiny bottles of scent have been calling to me for a while now, and I have finally succumbed. Look what arrived this week from Posh Brats, the only shop in the UK that stocks them.

It's a bottle of a scent oil called 'Wezwanie/Hold' and it smells amazing - like hazelnuts, oranges, honey and cocoa - all rolled into one. Delicious! :) I am now, I confess, completely hooked on finding new oils to try from independent perfumers. I'm expecting some more BPAL samples to arrive this week, and I can't wait!

But don't worry, I've not allowed the new sniffies to distract me from my woolly interests. In the last couple of days I've also been spindling this alpaca fibre from Spindlefrog...

...into this singles yarn

The spindle's a new shape that my mum's been testing out, in walnut. I like it, so we'll be making more in this style. But the fibre is the star of this story, I'm loving the way Spindlefrog's colours are spinning up. I think this will become a two-ply yarn for a shawl or a scarf, it depends on what yardage I get. And, there's more! Or there will be soon, as Jooles of Spindlefrog and I have just posted our parcels to each other for a mini fibre swap. I made her some batts from wool from Willow (one of my sheep), and she's made me a surprise batt. I can't wait to see what it's like!

I've also been sent on a super-secret Spindlefrog mission (well it's not so secret now that you lot know about it, there are a few on Ravelry who've heard about this too...). I am charged with the task of going to The Knitting and Stitching Show at Alexandra Palace this week, and taking photographs of Jooles' fibre on the Socktopus stall. And if I happen to buy some, or maybe get lured in by some of the other goodies that I know Socktopus will have there, then I'll just have to consider the purchases to be collateral damage resulting from such a difficult mission.

In other news, I've been dyeing wool like crazy over the last few days - all for the Wildcraft Shop. I've done a really big batch this time, which I'll photograph and upload in several updates over the next few weeks. As well as the usual range of fibres, I've done a new kind of fibre, which is specially aimed at beginner spinners. It's a super-easy spinning English wool blend, dyed in random unrepeatable shades. It'll be offered at pocket-money prices (although today's pocket money seems much more than I got as a kid!) and is intended to be used up, rather than to loiter in stash. I'm keen to encourage spinners who are new to handpainted fibre to dive in and try spinning some without worrying about the price, or about ruining the fibre.

Next post will show the spoils of Ally Pally. My credit card is already hiding, but I know where it lives :)

I wordled my blog

How much fun was this?!

Yes, I probably need to spend less time on my computer :)




This blog was Wordled by me at Wordle.

Foal Action Shots

I can't quite believe that Inara's been home for nearly a fortnight. It's been quite a whirlwind since she arrived home, she's grown already and she's learning to take all kinds of new things in her stride.

First off, this is the young lady we're talking about, she poses beautifully :)

And here she was early last week, looking a bit scrawny and bewildered by having such a big field and only her mum to share it with:

She soon started testing out her galloping legs, and I can confirm that she's very fast, often too fast to catch on camera!

But I did get some better shots...

And here she is today, on the day that she and her mum were (re)united with my other two horses, Millie and Sam. Poor Inara got left out while her mum said her hellos to the others, she couldn't quite make out what the fuss was all about. But look how she's grown in just a few days, compare this robust looking critter with the scrawny beast in the first pic taken just six days earlier. All that galloping's clearly paying off! :)

We've been making hay on the farm this week, 1500 small bales of it. We make 'barn dried' hay, which is taken off the field earlier than normal hay and drying is finished in the barn by a set of huge electric fans. It makes sweet tasty horse hay (yes I've tasted it and it is sweet!), but it takes a lot of extra work as every bale has to be loaded into the barn and stacked by hand on its edge within a few hours of being baled, otherwise it degrades and starts to grow mould. Which meant several 11pm stop-outs this week while I helped my father and brother to offload the trailers into the barn. We sell most of it, but I've bagsied some of the best bales for Inara and her mum's winter fodder. She'll need the very best hay to grow properly :)

All of which has meant that my spinning and knitting activities have had to take a back seat this week. But I've still been spinning whenever I could, and I've managed to keep up with my Tour de Fleece objective to spin every day. I've even finished a fair amount of yarn, helped along by some new spindle-shaped goodness. Plus I've discovered that spindling while on a hay trailer is risky (a long way down if you drop the spindle!), but very effective - provided you don't mind picking out hay seeds from the fibre. Next time, I promise news and photos of spinning, my swallowtail shawl, and other crafty goodness...

Finally open...

First off, here's the big news: the Wildcraft Shop is finally open! After a week of testing (thanks B!), I'm now reasonably confident that the Zencart software is playing nicely, so do go ahead and take a look. The shop can be found here: www.wildcraft.co.uk.

With the shop open, I took a bit of a break from programming and wool dyeing this weekend. On Saturday I went with a friend to Charmouth, for a day of fossil hunting. The weather forecast was for lots of rain, but as you'll see in the pic below, it didn't turn out too badly.



I also made my finest fossil find to date, a huge pyritised ammonite. I believe I squeaked a bit when I found it, but who wouldn't, isn't it a beauty? :)



It was just lying on the sand, on its end so it wasn't immediately obvious that it was an ammonite. Which is probably why the party of cliff-hackers a few yards away hadn't spotted it first :) The pencil in the pic below is for scale, but if that doesn't help, the fossil's about 4cm in diameter. It's currently soaking in plain water, to remove the salt from the sea. I fear I might have to retire from fossil hunting now, as I can't think how I can beat this find!

Returning to crafty matters, I also have a FO to report. My Layla crochet cardigan is finally finished, hurrah! This was my first major crochet project and it's been a real struggle. I had to rip and redo it so many times! But today, after re-crocheting the edging for the third time, I finally got it to look as I wanted it to. The best part is that the cardi fits me very well, and I really like how it looks. That's unusual, normally I can't stand items I've just completed, they need to go through a process of maturing (i.e. being hidden in a wardrobe) before I'll wear them. But I think Layla will get worn often, she's very comfy and quite flattering. I still have to sew in the yarn ends, but then I'll get some photos taken and post them here. In the meantime, here's a sneak preview:



I'm now keen to crochet more garments, since I've got the hang of how crochet works. I've already sussed out my next project, it's going to be 'Gudrun' by Annette Petavy, which is another cardigan. I'm planning to make it with some Debbie Bliss cotton angora from my stash. The pattern doesn't look too complicated, so hopefully I won't have to rip it out as many times as I did with Layla!

Tagged!

Eek, I've been tagged by Bea! This game sounds like fun, so I'm joining in...

Here are the rules:

1) Link to the person who tagged you.
2) Post the rules.
3) Share six non-important things / habits / quirks about yourself.
4) Tag at least three people.
5) Be sure the people you tagged KNOW you tagged them by commenting what you did.

And here are my six non-important things:

1. I collect wild bird feathers that I find in the fields and woods where I live, and so far I've been able to identify most of them. My prize possession is a tiny barn owl feather that I found on our driveway.

2. I didn't eat pork for several years when I was in my teens, not because I didn't like pork but because I'm afraid of pigs. Eventually the smell of crispy bacon won me back, but I still don't like pigs!

3. I have a fascination for the drawings and stories of Tove Jansson and I particularly identify with 'Little My' from the moomintroll books.

4. My Ipod is called Kermit, because he's green.

5. I can't ice skate. I mean I Really Can't. Last time I tried, I fell on my behind right in front of a first aider at the ice rink, who looked down at me, then turned and said to his friend next to him: 'that's going to hurt in the morning!' And he was absolutely right.

6. Whenever I get a new kind of feed for my horses, I taste a little myself - just so I know what it tastes like. I particularly like rolled maize.

I'm tagging: Mel, Barbara and Zoe.

Two fine fish

A few people have mentioned to me that it's not possible to tell the scale of the goldfish in the pic at the top of my blog. I suppose if you didn't know that they're actually verging on whale-sized, they might be mistaken from that photo as little tiddlers. Today I put the record straight!

Or rather I try to... I took some photos of Vic and Bob the goldfish earlier today, but I'm not sure that my efforts have paid off. Most of the pics are a bit blurry because they wouldn't stay still. At first I tried holding my hand against the aquarium to show their size...



You can tell they were interested...

Then I tried holding a ruler held alongside. I wanted to get a lengthways shot of them, but again they wouldn't hold still, they were far more interested in peering at the ruler suspiciously, and Bob, the timid (red) one took an instant dislike to it and hid. You can see him leaving in the photo below.



This was not going well.

Eventually I managed to get a shot that sort of shows their heights.



Vic is about 1-2cm behind the glass, so not quite the 9-10cm high that the ruler shows, but still flippin' big (sorry, bad pun).

Eventually I gave up with the measuring, and was rewarded with a lovely portrait of Vic who finally decided to stay still for a bit.



The only thing that spoils that pic is the algae on the glass. I gave their tank a spring clean yesterday, but forgot to scrape the algae spots off. I keep pondering over getting some water snails to graze the algae, although past experience tells me that they tend to breed very quickly. On the plus side, Vic and Bob are very greedy, so they'd probably gobble up any snail eggs they find. And snails would at least stay still for their portraits!

My daemon

I'm going to see 'The Golden Compass' tonight, so it seems appropriate to find out ahead of time what my daemon might look like. Here he is, cute isn't he?