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 :)

Not such a little horse now

Inara's been growing really fast lately, she's starting to look much more like an elegant young horse, rather than a gangly baby foal.

She's not turning grey yet, although the vet seems pretty sure that she will eventually. Her mane and tail have a peppering of white hairs, but I haven't seen any through her chestnut colouring on her body. I'm hoping that she'll go through a stage where she has a pale mane and tail and a dark body. One of the things I like about grey horses, is that it's as though you get several colours for the price of one as they go through different stages before they reach their final colouring.

While I was out in the field taking Inara pics, I also caught some nice shots of cobwebs and other autumny things...

I love how the light's been split into rainbow colours over this one:

Brr..., it's making me chilly just to look! Autumn's definitely begun around here. Time to return to some cosy knitting...

Lately I've started work on a top-down sweater for myself, from Wendy Bernard's Custom Knits book. I'm knitting Ingenue, which is a top-down funnel neck sweater, only I've adapted the neckline so it'll be an off-the shoulder version instead. Here's how far I'd got with it few days ago:

It was really sunny the day I took the photo, and the colour wouldn't capture correctly, it's a much darker burgundy in real life. The yarn's Debbie Bliss Cotton Angora, which is lovely to knit with, very soft. Since the photo was taken, I've knitted down to the part where the sleeves are separated off, and started the body. It's all plain stocking stitch, which is mindless knitting - excellent for doing while I watch all the great new TV series that have started up again. Like Heroes Season 3, only half an hour now before it begins! :)

A whole lot more spindling

Another weekend, another post. Seems I only update my blog at the weekends at the moment, but that's ok because I've also been taking photos this weekend. Oh and I've also been sanding my fingers, which hurt and is making typing difficult, but it's all in a good cause as I've been making whorls for resin spindles!

So, this past week I have been mostly spinning, packing things and taking them to the post office, and then doing more spinning. You probably don't want to know the details of the packing part (it's boring, really), but the spinning bit's interesting.

Here's my most recent FO, some spindled yarn.

It's a navajo-plied blend of English wool top, which started out looking like this...

Originally I named to colourway 'Meh', as it was the result of me plonking down a bunch of leftover dyes on some leftover fibre and I wasn't sure it would turn out well. But I'm very pleased with the yarn. It ended up being 210 metres long, and about 12wpi (my yarn gauge said 14, but I think I squooshed up the yarn too tightly). It was lots of fun to spin, the wool drafted really easily and made for some great mindless tv spinning. The Navajo plying wasn't accompanied by tv though, as I went really slowly and carefully to avoid tangling the yarn. It's not the softest of yarns, but that doesn't matter as I'm planning to make a bag from it, so not-so-soft is good.

And here's another thing I made this week, a phone cosy:

I'd made a bunch of batts for the shop from leftover scraps of fibre. It seemed rude not to test one of them out, so I spun some yarn (on a spindle of course!)...

Then I improvised a pattern and knitted it up into the phone cosy above. It only took around 15 metres of yarn, so I still have around 10-15 metres left, enough to make another one as a gift. My phone is now happy and toasty-warm as the yarn's very soft. If only I could make clothes for myself so quickly!

I've also been spinning some lovely alpaca fibre from Spindlefrog, on a new Butterflygirl Designs spindle which arrived with me this week... or was it last week, I can't recall. Anyway, it's a lovely spindle, and the fibre is wonderful, the colours are just gorgeous.

I'm spinning a heavy laceweight yarn with it, with the intention that it'll eventually become a lacy knitted shawl or scarf.

And finally, here's my most recently started project. It's some more spindling, this time for the Quarterly Challenge organised by the Spindlers Group on Ravelry. I'm using one of my resin spindles to spin this superwash merino top (from Violetgreen Yarns)...

Into some fine singles that will eventually become navajo plied sock yarn...

Can you tell I'm a fan of navajo plying at the moment?! The challenge is to spin 200 or more yards of yarn by the end of November, I'm hoping that I have enough fibre to make 200 yards. I think I will, as I have over 100grams of it, just need to make sure I spin it thinly enough!

Busy busy

Ack, it's been a crazy week around here so far, and it's only Thursday! Things are going from strength to strength with the Wildcraft shop, but this also means I've been run off my feet packing orders, making spindles and dyeing wool. I've nearly completed my recent stock update, which will have to last at least a fortnight :), then hopefully I can take a breather!

In the meantime, some interesting things have been happening around here:

Mum's started making spindles from Yew wood, in a slightly different style from the cedarwood ones. And she let me have the first one to test (for which, read - I snatched it and wouldn't let go when she showed it to me!).

The spindle spins really well, but I'm starting to expect that from mum's handiwork. She reckons making spindles is a lot like making toy spinning tops. I never mastered the technique of spinning a top, but the theory clearly works for spindling (which I can do)! The yarn on it is being spun from a gorgeous purple 'Beautyberries' batt from Loop, which I bought a few weeks ago.

These spindles are running out of the shop as fast as I can list them, actually some of them are finding new homes before they make it there, and that's not just because I'm pinching them! Don't tell anyone, but I hear that there might be some walnut ones appearing soon. I've seen the blanks and yes, I'll be keeping one of those too! :)

I've also managed to knit up my first spindle-spun sock.

The yarn was spun from some lovely naturally dyed roving from The Natural Dye Studio, which I blogged about before. I love the way the colours are shifting gradually from one to another. It's what I intended when I spun the yarn, but it's nice to see it's actually working out as I planned. This is the first time I've knitted a short row heel, and I quite like it. Normally I prefer gusset heels, as they seem more robust, but this style does show off the colours well, it's super-quick to knit too. I've started the next one before casting off the first, just in case the second ball of yarn isn't the same length. I can't be doing with odd-length socks!

And finally, I received a lovely squishy package that I'd ordered from Handpaintedyarn.com, containing many goodies.

It took a long while to get here (apparently they had a problem in their warehouse or something), but it was totally worth the wait (and the price, their yarns were an amazing bargain). There's three skeins of laceweight merino yarn, and two gorgeous chunks of merino wool fibre. The colours are so sunny and bright, they were just what I needed after all the rain and dullness we've had here lately.

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.

Spindly goodness

I'm on a blog-posting roll this weekend! It must be something to do with watching a huge session of the Olympics today, which has left me feeling motivated to do lots of stuff! Didn't team GB do well?!

Anyway, here's some news about my latest completed project, not a Ravelympics one, this is something I've been planning for much longer. So without further ado, meet my newest spindles:

I'm so excited about these! They're handmade (by me), with resin whorls that I made specifically for them. The top one has rose petals embedded in the resin, the middle one has calendula petals, and the bottom one is extra special, those shells are fossils that I collected from Barton on Sea this spring.

The whorls are about 5cm wide, and the spindles weigh between 20g and 25g, so these are ideal for spinning laceweight to medium weight yarns. I've played most with the fossil one so far and, like the others, it spins beautifully, I can see myself using this a lot! The white spots next to the fossils are just air bubbles that have filled with polishing compound, I was so excited about taking photos that I haven't cleaned that out yet.

And the best part, I want to make a bunch of these for Wildcraft, so I'll get to go on more fossil hunts and to experiment with other interesting things to decorate them with. I'm even thinking of starting a spindle club, where members receive a seasonal ly decorated spindle and fibre with every installment. Exciting eh?!

Ravelympics - First Event Completed

I mentioned a while back that I'd entered the Ravelympics didn't I? For those who aren't in the know, the Ravelympics is an event hosted by Ravelry (my favourite site ever), where participants aim to complete one, or more, knitting or spinning projects during the Beijing Olympics. I've entered two projects into the 'Handspun Heptathlon', a Morning Surf Scarf, knitted from some handspun yarn I made during the Tour de Fleece, and I'm spinning some merino/silk laceweight yarn on my drop spindle.

Last night I finished the Morning Surf Scarf, finished blocking it this morning and here it is!

Isn't it being nicely modelled by the tree? Fortunately, this will be the one and only time the tree gets to wear it, as I'm keeping this for myself, for neck-warmy goodness in the autumn.

I can thoroughly recommend the pattern, it was really quick to knit and my 225 metres of precious handspun yarn went a long way, the scarf's 140cm long and 20cm wide.

Now my other project is not nearly as close to being finished. But I guess I have set myself quite a challenge. I want to turn this 100gram merino/silk roving, which I dyed in 'wild rose' colours...

...into a two-ply laceweight yarn, spun on a feather-weight lace spindle. I'm doing ok, I'm about halfway through it at the moment. This was the spindle shortly before I wound the singles off and started another lot.

I've got two weeks left to finish spinning and plying, so I've got plenty of time to get it finished before then. Unfortunately, I'm rapidly getting bored with spinning laceweight. It's fiddly and the colours of the roving are too pale to keep me interested. I'm sure it will make a lovely yarn, but I need to keep myself motivated to finish somehow. Perhaps the right knitting pattern would encourage me. I reckon I'll end up with 200-300 metres of the yarn, maybe a bit more, and I'd like to make a lacy scarf or shawlette with it. Does anyone have any suggestions?