Mystical Harvest?

I thought I would spin up a special yarn for Halloween, so this is 'Mystical', a blend of merino, alpaca and sari silk.

If I get time later I may even add it to my etsy shop!

This natural bluefaced leicester has been spun with some coloured merino, mainly blue and yellow this side but in this other photo, see the green and brown too!

Going to call this one Harvest, am thinking about doing a Christmas craft fair so I need to get cracking on knitting up some little bits to sell and this skein might turn into some felted mittens.

Rosedale is progressing fine, I have finished the sleeves to the underarms, where it all joins.
I was a bit unsure of what to do about the sizing, you see I measure 37" around the chest, and so the 38" is just a little too small for my liking but a 42" is a bit on the large size. I've been looking at some of my favourite sweaters and I really needed to make something inbetween at about 40".

I did read through the pattern, and I e-mailed Amy Swenson because obviously she is more familiar with the pattern than me, and she advised me to work the 42" but this will drown me so I'm just going to plod on and see if I can't just fudge the pattern and make it work!

The Week That Was

Just been one of those weeks... I sent the 2 finished cardigans off to their new home last Monday without taking any new photos, doh! But hopefully we may get some nice photos of Daisy and Eliza wearing them to the wedding.

Just been one of those weeks... I go through all my pattern books and magazines, I check through yarns, I scour e-bay, I wander aimlessly around Ravelry, I spend hours looking through the Knitty archive, I go up in the roof to check the yarn suitability up there, I need something to knit.

There is a short list... but the problem with some of the things on the list is either I havent found the 'right' yarn for the project, or I have something suitable but I'm not sure I want to use it yet.

Till I eventually decide that this:


Should become this:

I was never happy with the side seams, so its frogged and I have cast on for Rosedale United from the Knitty archive, almost seamless.

The List

Top of the list this year was a visit to Habu, last year we visited the show on Sunday and alot of Habu's wares were well picked over, even first thing Thursday I didn't quite get all I would have liked. You see here 4 cones of stainless steel and silk, one cone of copper boo (this is a copper wrapped bamboo), and one cone of very fine gauge stainless steel.

There was less fibre at the show this year and I was disappointed not to see Handweavers Studio, but Kerrie's silk is always very great value!

These are 2 large sheets of prefelt, or needle punch felt, I am hoping to make a bag with the blue and a decorative vessel with the brown!

Brightly painted Shetland from Jen at Fyberspates!

Knitwitches gossamer kid mohair in Winter Sunset.

Highlight of the day has got to be standing at a book stall, where Nicky Epstein was doing book signings, an example of a kidsilk, shibori scarf was on the table and I was explaining to my friend Sheryl how it was done, as I already have Knitting Never Felt Better. We were inbetween times for Nicky to be signing, but as I was explaining how it was done she creeps up behind me taking me completely by surprise. We had a great chat, and she's very down to earth.

Counting the Minutes...

.....till morning, I am on my way to Ally Pally, the much awaited show. After cataloging my stash for Ravelry last week, I have a short list.

Still knitting flowers for cardigans...they are coming SOON!

I've also cast on for a secret knitting project.....don't you just hate it when people say they're working on secret knitting.

See you on the other side!

Surprise FO!

Bulky Handspun Mittens

started and finished Sunday 7th October.

used 120g own 6wpi handspun

& a generic mitten pattern

My favourite bit is the way the colours blend, and especially how they match, the only place I had to fiddle the colours a bit was on the end of the second mitten, I was going to run out of yellow too soon but I had a bit left over from mitten one.

These are my first ever handknit mittens, and what a fun easy project!

Pebbles

This is the last 50g of the silk/merino mix, as I mentioned in my last post, I've been working on something a little bit different, firstly I made some small sheets of felt using the merino silk mix, and also using a contrast dark jade colour I had.

I cut out some small rectangular shapes from the felt and put them in a net bag in the washing machine and ended up with little soft felt pebbles.

I threaded these onto some semi drafted silk hankie and sporadically spun them into the the final skein. I can't wait to see how it looks knitted up.

I do have many good intentions to start designing and knitting up more things with the handspun I am amassing, here is another new yarn:

I have 2 almost identical 100g skeins of this bulky bluefaced leicester, I'm considering 2 projects for this one at the moment, either some mittens or a felted bag!

Coming soon: the cardigans are off the needles!