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

  

Spin Spin Spinning

The yarn has all been spun and the skeins have been a-drying!  But the failing poit in the chain was the spinner being too lazy to share the fluff with the world*
(*read 'world' as 'the small but valued audience of one crazy sheep girlies blog').

As you may have spotted, I spent a whole day last month playing with batts.

Woolfest was aaaages ago, but this is the lovely little pile of fluff I acquired there.  It was awfully dandruffy sheep, so I did end up chopping off the ends and ended up with less than I'd have liked, but hey-ho.  It's very halo-y, there may be a plan for a fuzzy-cowl blooming in my brain.

The next pile of fluff was obtained from the Glasgow School of Yarn.  I was oh-so well behaved, and did not spend a single penny except on this enticing pile of pink/purple/orange nomnomnom-ness.  Katie of Hilltopcloud never disappoints, and this silk was a dream to spin.  

Last but not least, this is the experimental product of a noily batt I carded on my batty day of carding.  It's very think and thin, has wonderfully smooshy lumps and bumps of silk and massam, and will make the most incredible (or hideous?  we shall soon see) hat.  

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

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!

Caithness Craft Podcast & Fibre Stash on Ravelry!

Hello lovelies!

It has been a little while since my last blog (I do apologise!).  I've recently moved to Glasgow from Edinburgh for work, so between moving house & new job everything is insanely busy at the moment  - good busy!  But busy nonetheless.

I never seem to finish on time,  always appear early for fear I miss something before the shift starts and comes back to bite me in the bottom halfway through my lunch - which I've not actually had the chance to leave the building for yet, but we can all dream.

Louise of the Caithness Craft Podcast asked me to answer a few wee questions for her episode this week!   I first met Louise at the Edinburgh Yarn Festival in March, where my excitement got the better of me and I did nearly knock the contents of my stall over attempting to hug the poor woman.

Also, it's the first I've heard about the new fibre stash section on Ravelry!  Sooo excited about thie

It's a great wee listen when I'm knitting on the bus on the way to work - makes ye smile in the morning :)

You can find it here: http://caithnesscraftcollective.podbean.com/2013/08/22/episode-86-batty-bat


Have you got any great podcasts you'd recommend?  I'd love to hear about them!!  It would be nice to have a little podcast filled blog :D


Do get in touch and let me know what you've been up to recently!  I feel like I've not spoken to any of you lot for ages!

x

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.