April round up!

So here we are halfway through May, so it's about time I did my April round up.....

29th April I finished my Handspun scraps cardigan. Well it was blocked and I sewed the buttons on and thought I had sewn in all the ends, I think I have found a couple of underarm ends that got missed, I'll get around to it at some point. It weighs in at 398g and I was really pleased with the mother of pearl buttons.

 I also finished another little garter yoke cardigan, I love these little flower buttons! I altered the raglan increases this time around into left and right increases, because it looks nicer!

May looks like another busy month but I am already ahead on the project front, with the scraps cardigan out of the way I got back to weaving the cotton warp I had put on the loom back in February and finished it.
3m of fabric, just waiting for the perfect project to turn up!

The loom is already warped for 2 scarves, infact the first scarf was woven quickly and taken off the loom Monday. It's now waiting for wet finishing.

A Marching On We Go....

So February came and went and there has been quite a bit of knitting going on. One of the girls in my IT class was expecting a baby girl and was having a c section just before half term so I decided I'd whip her up a quick baby cardigan for her return to class.

I'm loosely trying to achieve at least one project a month, although if it all falls apart I'm not going to be hard on myself.

Feb 24th I finally cast on the Handspun Scraps Cardigan. Once I stumbled onto the 'perfect pattern' there was no stopping me. I have a few issues with the pattern, and my gauge but the body is almost finished and I am a few inches from finishing the first sleeve. Bearing in mind that I had to frog a weeks sleeve knitting (because I hadn't checked the fit, doh) I think I'm making good progress and will hopefully finish it in April.

Looks like Blogger is playing with my photo placement now, I'll just carry on regardless and see what happens!

Also in March I whipped up this little notebook cover for a weavalong in one of the Saori groups, no other weaving has been taking place, I've found I need to be 'almost' monogomous on my 'main' project or I'd not have made as much progress as I have!

Finally, last weekend I went on a breadmaking course, we made 2 different loaves Saturday and Sunday we made an enriched dough which we turned into Focaccia and Fougasse! Spurred on by my new found baking skills, today I've been making Hot Cross Buns!

250...a nice round number!

I am now putting square 250 on the Weavette.  I am aiming for 272 squares for a blanket that's 17 x 16. I still haven't chosen a colour to join them with or attempted to crochet any together. I try to tell myself that by the time I've joined 272 squares I'll be an expert, but I don't really have that much belief in my crochet skills. I'm not sure how long it's going to even take to join that many squares, watch this space!

I finally knuckled down and finished the 6m warp on Ruby (my Saori loom). I think I finished it off New Years Eve and New Years Day. Not got any definite plans for it at the moment, just vague musings for the time being!

So January arrived and I decided not to leave Ruby standing idle, but what to weave. I dug through the stash and found this handspun merino/angora/silk. There wasn't alot of it,(200m) it was spun back in 2008 and was actually dyed by Freyalyn. I hadn't taken delivery of my warping board or cross holder so I decided to keep it simple and work this yarn into a spaced warp scarf. I used an upright lazy kate as a makeshift cross holder and the actual warping, tying and weaving went painlessly. I did a little hand fulling (doesn't take me long to get bored of it) and I'm pretty happy with the way it turned out.

Spurred on by the success of the spaced warp scarf and seeing a 7 Warp Weavalong in one of the Saori groups on Ravelry I decided I would give this a go, still without the warping board. I picked seven yarns from a bargain bag of part balls that had followed me home the week before. I then proceeded to make the warp holding all 7 yarns at once....this was probably the first mistake, then I didn't tie it properly and lost my cross. It was only a 3m warp so I decided to battle it out and get it on the loom.  Infact the whole thing was a battle, I had issues with tension due to the way the yarns were going in the clipping rod, some of the yarns were slipping and others were too thick, I also had tensioning problems with it on the loom, all part of the steep learning curve. There were times I thought I might have to give it up, cut it off the loom and chuck it in the bin, but I do have a stubborn streak and a waste not want not attitude.

So what does February have in store? for starters more squares,  if I can manage 3 squares a day I will have almost reached my target by next weekend, and warping Ruby for another weavalong in different Saori group. Then I'm going to tackle the handspun cardigan scraps yarn again. A wise woman has told me to set myself 5 goals, if I complete the 5 I can have 5 more....they are not quite set in stone but top of the list (obviously) is to finish The Blanket of Perseverence, 2 is to make the Handspun Cardigan. Other projects are floating around the grey matter at the moment but one thing I would really like to achieve this year is some handmade clothing, whether it be woven, knitted or sewn.

November.....

So I am and have been taking at least 2 photos every day this month, that's creative isn't it, and every day I am posting 2 different photo's in 2 groups. I've also been posting one of these photo's over on flickr. The prompts come from fatmumslim. So no there's nothing really new about taking a photo everyday, someone posted it in our Feb 11 group on facebook and I liked the idea so much I got some friends and friends of friends to start another group, which is why I'm posting twice. The photo's you haven't seen which I'm not posting on flickr mainly feature my little Feb 11 man. Not that he's shy, I just want to keep flickr neat and tidy because I thought at the end of the month I can do a mosaic of all my supposedly arty shots.

Just for the record here is a shot of the little man from earlier this week:

So what else have I been upto, there hasn't been alot of weaving, I did weave a quick scarf on the AKL the week before last, no photo's of that yet and there is absolutely no knitting mojo at the moment.

Yesterday I did a nice little dyeing workshop for the 1066 Spinners which went really well, and next week I am going to be doing a little workshop at Hollington Library transforming these:

Into this:

actually I won't be doing much.....just showing people how to add the cream, berries and leaves, and sending them home with a Christmas Pudding to hang on the tree!

I still haven't captured a nice photo of the handspun warp and weft scarf I completed while demonstrating at Coastal Currennts,  so busy taking daily photos, there haven't been any photos of anything else happening.....this month does look pretty hectic, hopefully things will slow down in December!