From Fibre to Finished Object

Very excited to share this little scarf with you.  Recently I've completed next to no knitting for myself, so when I spotted a little gap in the scheduled knitting, I grabbed my handspun polwarth skein from FiberArtemis which has been sitting in pride of place on my desk for quite a while now.

I've posted about it here before (and on Ravelry here) - the fibre is 100% polwarth from this lovely etsy shop.  It felt dense yet soft, and drafted beautifully.  There's a polwarth/silk mix in my stash from this shop too, so I might make a little time over christmas to spin it up a little finer for another shawl...  

Since I'm being good (and have spent all of my pennies on presents), the pattern is also one previously purchased on Ravelry - this is Artesian by Rosemary Hill. 

The pattern was very easy to follow, employing short rows for shaping.  The chart is laid out in a way I've not used before, so I used the written instructions, which are nice and easy to follow.    

And the yarn?  Oh dear, I loved it so much.  It's all smooshy and soft and, dare I say it, relatively evenly spun and plied throughout... (not that the garter stitch and yarn over pattern would show if it did!).

 

 

This is what the lovely fluff looked like when it arrived, and after spinning.   What are you working on at the moment?  I have something quite exciting to show you in a couple of weeks, but it'll have to stay under wraps until then :p

  

First Mystery KAL

Having never participated in a Mystery Kal before, I'm a little bit excited.

Perhaps it's the lovely orange shade background, perhaps it's all the handwriting; I have no idea.  All I know is that I'm looking forward to this one!   Why should it be the handwriting, you ask?  I don't know.  Maybe I miss pen and paper.  Maybe ariel typface at work just makes my eyes sad.

With no 'mystery KAL's under my belt & only one Ysolda pattern (which didn't turn out as I expected.  Still have no idea exactly what I did to that one) I was unsure about this at first - but I just couldn't let it go!

Have you any experience with KAL projects?  Was it worth it?

I've chosen to knit it in two colours, part pink/purple silk handspun, approx. 4ply, from some lovely fluff from katie at hilltopcloud (who dropped by for some questions a wee while ago!), part cream laceweight spun from merino.  Gonna be fluffy!

You can find the pattern and specifics at Ysolda's page on Ravelry, and I'll be updating my own wee version on the blog here and on Ravelry too!


Pssst... I totally changed my mind... Different yarn choices and everything here!!  :D

Dragonfly Cardigan

Whew!  One handspun garment!

Starting life as a (giant) bundle of fondantfibre's rolags, this little handspun cardigan took quite a while to make!  

All the details are on my ravelry project page; The rolags were british wool, mohair, silk and bamboo - wonderful to spin, and felt very quick & easy.  The pattern was the featherweight cardigan by Hannah Fettig, which is available on ravelry.  

I did get stuck on sleeve island for quite a while, especially whilst beginning my christmas knitting!  Anyhoo, it's now finished, and I'm having a dilemma as to whether or not to add some shiny buttons... 

Perhaps I'll wait a while before embarking on another handspun garment.  Though, being rather teeny myself, I'm probably in quite a good situation when it comes to knitting clothes!

Today at work, a teeny wee old lady declared to her family that 'that nice wee doctor over there is having a baby!'.  I am not, and have no intention of, having a baby.  I may indeed have just eaten several slices of pizza, but I am not with child.  After waiting for the congratulations to die down, I explained this to the wee lady and her family, who were then a mixture of disappointed (on the wee ladies part) and mortified (for the rest of the family). 

Woe is me and my pizza tummy.

The Little Yarn Detective Agency

My first days off in ages - and all the pretty new books I ordered have arrived in the meantime!!  

After settling down to flick though my parcel, I couldn't put this lovely book down - Icelandic Handknits, by Helene Magnusson (There were lots of little extra symbols in there, but our british keyboards do murder them).  It's filled with gorgeous knits I'd want to keep forever, along with stunning little items I'd be happy to make as gifts.  

The pictures inside were just so captivating, all the snow & ice & warm lovely jumpers.  After thinking about them all day, I sat down to hand-dye some fleece to spin & knit into this heirloom shawl.  I'm so happy with the result!!  It's a merino/bamboo mix and, though I'd hoped the bamboo would only absorb a little bit of the colour for an icy effect, it took in none at all, staying gloriously crisp & white - like little icebergs on a deep cold blue sea!   

The little foxy stitch markers have been stolen from the shop stock - they were too adorable to resist.  Mine.  Mineminemine.  Oh, and the little blue milk jug?  It's another of the lovely little wren pottery collection.  

As ever, I may have spent far too many hours bothering the lovely people at The Yarn Cake.  And I fear I may have scared some customers - though they did stay for coffee so I really think I helped, in the end.  

So they walked through the door. Cautious, wary, the intrepid novice yarn explorers.

Quicker than a spinner to a pile of silk I was upon them. In retrospect, it may have been a tad overwhelming. Discounting the fact that I don't work there, I had within a couple of minutes elicited who he was buying for and found her on ravelry. It's not stalking if it's helping.  We shall not discuss the fact that Antje and I may or may not have been stalking detectiving educationally & helpfully looking people up earlier in the day.  

None of this happened within five minutes... It wasn't a whirlwind of two scary ladies getting really excited over someone else's birthday present...

I blame the coffee.

Panda x

Remember you can join in the christmas swap or follow on bloglovin' for updates!

From Sheep to Shawl

Not long ago, you may have spotted a post about some lovely purple fleece I bought from Fondant Fiber!

Well, this week I decided I had to actually start using the pile of handspun amassing in the basket on the shelf, and turned it into this simple shawl :)

Thinking about making a cardigan next, which fleece would you recommend?  Would love a breed which spins up lovely and soft.  Not too floofy though!  It'll aaaall go up my nose.

 The pattern is very simple, and can be found free on Ravelry by Orange Flower.    Nice quick telly-watching knit :)

In case you've forgotten, here's what the fleece looked like a few weeks ago:

then to this:

 It still never fails to amaze me that we turn little piles of pretty fluff into garments :)   What's your favourite type of yarn to spin?

Perhaps one day I will live near some sheep and they will donate their wool to a jumpery cause.