Stash Shame Support Group

Ok, so there was this yarn sale.  It was a very lovely yarn sale.

With 35% off a yarn which I think is already reasonably priced, for being 100% alpaca and/or silk.  And it had free postage.  And it had a little free gift.

So then I decided I needed more stash ('cause we all need more stash, right?)

Now.  Before I show you.  You should not judge.  I am obviously weak-willed.  And officially ashamed of my stash now. And poor.  I have hidden it (except from you lot).

Do you have stash-shame?  Let's make a stash-shame support group.

Anyway, the original reason I went to the site was for this gorgeous Drops laceweight, because Rummer found out Drops yarn was on sale for the whole of May & made me ever so jealous with her pretty purchases.  (We bought ours from Wool Warehouse, but anywhere which sells drops yarn might have some sort of discount on it this month!)

Then I caught sight of this fluffy curly wonderfulness, and did need one in each colour...

And then "Hey!  Whilst this alpaca/silk yarn is so cheap I should buy enough for a lovely floaty cardigan!"

Quickly followed by "Heck, why stop at one, I'm gonna need two cardigans!"

"Just a couple more, just in case"

"This fingering weight would indeed make lovely mitts, and colourwork things, and hexipuffs..."

The box shop also required a visit because, of course, I did need somewhere to put it all!

And that, that is my yarny admittance to you.  I do feel better for admitting it.   I may not be able to go to the pub for the rest of the month, but I have two boxes of yarn to roll in instead.  

*Dreams of rolling in yarn instead*

Do you have a hidden stash?  ... go on, show us.  You know you wanna...

xx

Spinning Hand-dyed, Studying & Newspapers from Gramps

This week, I've had an awful lot of important things to be getting on with.  As a result, I have instead spent the week playing with fluff.  'To motivate myself'.  Yup.

Back to the things I'm supposed to be doing, my finals begin in a month or so.  Which is very, very, very scary.  To aid this, my grandad has started trying to educate me by posting me semi-relevant newspaper clippings :p  Love my gramps.  Who does this sort of thing except grampies?  Crazy Grampies.

Awesome grampies who do things such as ask the window cleaner to put owl statues into his gutters to keep the crows away.  That's those crows taught a lesson...  

To be fair, my yarny week was brilliant fun.  I recently bought some acid dye for my fluff stash, and mixing them to find different results was great.  My pot may be ruined, my floor may still be red, but check out how yummy this looks!!  The spun yarn ended up at 450metres of singles, so squishy :)

You might have read the lovely 'Cuppa & Cake' with Deborah last week!  If you haven't I'd go see now, she's lovely!   This is yet another skein from her amazing fluff, I really could (and have done) spin it all day.  

And that gradient cheviot yarn I've shown you already from Fondant Fibre?  It may be turning into a shawl...

Right.  I am off to study.  I am.

What're you doing this weekend?  Fill me in on your awesome fun stuff so I can live through you whilst sitting at my desk :p

x

New Jumpers, Foxy Things & Hexagons

The past couple of weeks have flown in!  And I'm sorry to say I've been neglecting you, dear blog :).  

There was a terrible incident in which the back of my phone smashed into a million-billion-trillion tiny pieces of jaggy evilness.  Then there was the wondrous moment not long after when I discovered this amazing foxy phone cover!!!  Everything happens for a reason, right?

How cute?!?!  And from the same shop I may have purchased the foxy card.  The shop is called digger; it's a crazy shade of bright yellow, and doesn't seem to have any set opening times - just have to wait until it's open when you're passing :D

The hexagons are for my next big project - a hexagon quilt.  I've collected quite a few yummy pieces of fabric, so spent a day chopping them up for sewing together again.  Why not join me?  Let me know if you're up for making a hexagon quilt to and we can organise a sew-along :p

Last but not least, this jumper makes me so happy :D  It has taken me 3 weeks of relatively obsessive knitting, in 4ply merino from Katia yarns.  So soft.  And warm.  And fits so well :').

The pattern is called 5200K, and can be found here on Ravelry :) 

ooooo that totally wasn't the last thing :D

The last thing is amazing.  We're having a little swap in the OwlPrintPanda group, if you'd like to take part please don't be shy!!

:) x

So I Spun Up All the Yarn, & Learned to Ply.

As you probably spotted in my Spring Equinox Swap post, my lovely spoiler (Aobhro)
 gifted me a whole pack of assorted fleecy bits to spin on my new wheel!

Well a couple of weeks have passed and I may have spun them all up...

There's some pastel cheviot, green & black humbug jacobs and natural humbug shetland - all so pretty!!

None are plied, they all ended up around fingering/4ply weight and I was happy with that, because I've decided to make a from scratchy handspun and handknit beekeepers quilt :D

Aaaaand before, they looked like this!  -

Next, I decided to tackle the next hurdle - plying.  Going for a simple 2 ply, I spun up this lovely 70% black shetland 30% bleached tussah silk.  The plying was so easy!  Can't believe I've been putting it off!  - don't put it off spinners!  Ended up around DK/worsted, so I may make a hat :D

Navajo plying will be the next test on this beauty of a braid:

What did you spin this week??  Send me where you get pretty fibre from :p

Amanda x

Dent-de-Lion; pretty words and a call for test knitters!

Did you know, that our Dandelion (y'know, that oh so pretty weed children everywhere love to blow the seeds of all over town), is named from the french 'Dent-de-lion', meaning 'Lions Tooth'?

Etymology (thew study of the origin of words) is very interesting, I'm always so intrigued as to how some of these words came about!  Anyhoo, I did ponder all of this lots whilst knitting up my new hat!

As with any new hat, I am of course looking for test knitters.  I will apologise in advance for these provisional photographs because my camera is still in the fixing shop :(

The stitch I used is one which caught my eye from my new stitch library book "400 Knitting Stitches by Potter Craft" - it's a gorgeous little book with good written notation and clear charts, along with lovely photos of large swatches of each and every stitch.  I would highly reccomend it!

My favourite part of the hat, the main feature and it’s namesake, is the part approaching the crown, as the yarn overs draw together to form one last large dandelion, with yarn loops reaching out as if you could just blow them off the top of your head!

TheDent-de-Lion hat is very slouchy, knit from brim to crown in the round, using two colours.  It comes in 4 sizes (toddler, child, adult and large adult).

To knit the hat, you would need:
Needles:  3.5mm DPNs
Yarn: Fyberspates Scrumptious 4ply superwash
200yards of main colour (oatmeal)
100yards of alternate colour (gold)
 You don't have to use this yarn, any 4ply/sport weight would be lovely, I'm sure :)

Competencies:  knitting in the round, colourwork, the following stitches: knit, purl, yarn overs, twisted stitches, decreases.

Feedback :  I'd really appreciate some constructive feedback;  how easy did you find the pattern to follow? Could anything have been clearer?  What needs to be added and can anything be removed because it's unneccesary?  Also, it would be brilliant to havesome photos so they can be uploaded to your projects on Ravelry once the pattern is published :)  It would also be ideal if this could be within the next 2-3 weeks.

EDIT:  There are now enough test knitters for the adult sizes.  If you'd like to knit up a childs version, please do get in touch and I shall send you the pattern.  Email me at owlprintpanda@gmail.com, including your Ravelry username :).

Love! x