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!

Another month!

Alot has happened in the last month......the children have gone back to school. The weather has been doing all kinds of unpredictable things, where you wake up and dress for Autumn and by the afternoon it was sweltering heat again.

I have been very busy aswell and spent a couple of weekends out and about demonstrating at Coastal Currents Open Studios in the Old Town and just before that Ruby arrived:

Ruby is my new loom,  a Saori WX60. Thanks have to go to Woolforbrains for telling me to drape a table cloth over it. That table cloth is like a cloak of invisibility, which is good because I don't want those toddler fingers poking at Ruby.

I'm slowly weaving on Ruby at the moment, (quite ironic as I bought her to speed things up) but I am lacking a decent light to weave by, but hoping to remedy this soon! I took a while to settle on a weaving height too, but the bed seems just right.

The final photo is the weaving I have just taken off the loom, it's about 80cm long and 25cm wide, I just wanted to have a look and feel the fabric and think about what I might do with it. I have started a new piece with the same colours, I might try and go off at a tangent and weave larger stripes with different textures peeking through, or I might carry on just as I am, infact I don't really know what I'm doing and I still don't know what I'm going to do with it but the main thing is I'm enjoying what I'm doing!

I've just been winding some balls to put a warp on my Knitter's Loom too, as if my attention wasn't stretched enough.

I did make a lovely completely handspun scarf while weaving at Coastal Currents, when we get a brighter day I will attempt to get a photo as I'm really pleased with the way it turned out!

Getting better!

I finished this yarn at the end of August, it's merino, I really like these colours!  I have recently finished another skein and have decided it's definitely time to get knitting on my handspun cardigan before I spin any more....I haven't cast anything on though. I need to do a couple of swatches but my knitting mojo is still awol!

Neo thought this was hilarious, no they're not my missing marbles....infact I'm not going to tell you what they are just yet......obviously balls of some kind....all will be revealed soon!



Not sure how these photos are going to look, I've copied them from flickr, it's the first substantial piece of cotton I've ever woven, and the most Saori, experimental piece. It's been waiting for me to make it into a bag, I suppose that's the good thing with scarves, apart from washing and fringes they don't really need alot doing with them once they come off the loom.

Last week I warped up the width of the loom so Neo could weave a cushion for his room, we've been recycling some of his old tshirts into yarn, once the cushion pad arrives I am going to let him loose on the sewing machine to help me complete the project!

So Where Was I.....

yes well good intentions don't write a weekly blog post unfortunately and before you know it we're in August! I haven't been keeping up with posting some of the things I've been working on, which was the primary point of keeping a blog in the first place, but I'm going to try and catch up and stick with it!

Of course the first problem I encounter is Blogger for some reason wants to turn my photo on it's side, when it's already the right way up, so I've high tailed it over to flickr and will copy it in from there!



So this was the scarf warped up in February.....not sure when it was finished and felted.

I then warped up some very fine yarn (this was in a bag of donated cones) It's a wool and silk blend and I have about 4 or 5 cones of this, one in each colour. It breaks really easily, so I was a bit apprehensive about putting it on the loom, I based the size on a linen and silk fine scarf that I own, but if I do another one I will make it narrower! I finally gave in and ironed the fringe this week, as it's a singles yarn it goes a bit mad when it's washed and I had to wash it twice, mainly because I was being careful, but also because a sample square I washed shrunk!



I also started a bit of spinning while the Tour De Fleece was on, I didn't join any teams, but I did make an effort to spin every day.



This was a fine silk which I had dyed myself.



and this was a superwash/cashmere/nylon blend.

Coming next time....there has been a long cotton project on the loom and that silk has been woven too! I've also managed to spin another 100g and have more spinning on the wheel, if I can just get caught up maybe I can stay caught up!

Casting On.....and On

I have had good intentions of getting back to the blog this year, but have let life get in the way....anyway I'm here now!

So here I am, February 24th. Back in November I was weaving cowls and hoping to sell a few bits at a craft fair, unfortunately I didn't sell much at the craft fair but I did manage to spin this:

This was only the second skein of yarn I made last year, but oh it was lovely to get back to spinning on the wheel. It is hard to fit it all in these days, spinning, weaving, knitting and dyeing....everything has to take turns so if the loom is out the spinning wheel is away, although for a few weeks the knitting has been in the naughty corner and I've been back weaving blanket squares on the weavette! Small things like knitting and weaving can be hidden away from the toddler behind the chair...but weaving and spinning are harder to keep out of his way!

I have been lucky enough to be sent a  review copy of  The Weavers Idea Book from the people at Search Press, and it's a fab book, I won't go on and on about it because I should get a review up, but I did warp up a spaced warp just before Christmas:

I bought some Wash and Filz It Fine Felting Wool for this project, although next time I will use some handspun! I didn't have time to get much weaving done before Christmas so this was the first project off the loom this year! I have got some pre wash photos but it really needs a little blocking and a photo shoot to do it justice. Something to show when I get round to it!

My knitting mojo went a bit AWOL last year so Christmas was approaching and I decided it was time to get knitting that sweaters worth of scraps yarn I have...so did a little swatching and cast on....the rib was too sproingy so I recalculated and cast on less stitches....I knit and knit and knit over Christmas....tried it on a few times got as far as the armpits and left it in the naughty corner for a bit....decided I didn't like it and finally frogged it after a second opinion....I then spent days looking at patterns on Ravelry (again) and started knitting a top down cardigan...following a pattern that was written for a heavier yarn at a different gauge, bound to be a winner (not).... but that isn't working either. In the mean time I would really like to be knitting something.....so I'm knitting a Mizzle for Clare at Nimu with some yarn she has sent me....so she can display it at shows she is attending this year.....I cast on last night, the yarn is her new silk and baby camel, it's gorgeous!