KneedleHappy

Yay! First Knitting Olympics Event Completed!

2010-02-21T14:50:00.003Z

Hoorah!

Yesterday I set aside the day to work on my Knitting Olympics events. Little did I know that Event #1 - Finishing my Corset Pullover - would take the entire day.

But it was worth it. My Corset Pullover fits me and it looks fab! (This mannikin is not quite the same size of me, by the way).

It has also inspired me to try and make more amazing knitted garments. I wish I'd sewn it up sooner!

The one thing remaining to do is to make a decision about the arm straps. I've put them on for the time being, but I'm not sure whether I'll keep them. I also need two extra D-rings (one for each of the arm straps)... but obviously only if I decide to keep them on.

Olympic Update #1

2010-02-18T23:48:00.003Z

(I am anticipating a string of boringly-titled posts upon this topic)

I'm not doing so well in events #1 (finishing) or #2 (sorting), but I have been getting quite a bit of #3 continuing done - I've now completed the body of Sadie. It's very tempting to see if I can try and get it finished soon, but I really need to give the ol' arms a rest (plus there are SO MANY ends to weave in because I'm using a recycled cardigan for yarn that I anticipate the finishing on this will take an age). There's no point in having two knitted garments languishing in the need-finishing pile.

I've got this weekend to myself, along with some DVDs and iplayer programmes to watch (and the Olympics of course; I've got the women's curling on at the moment), so I've blocked it off as being for the knitting Olympics - hopefully I'll get the corset pullover finished, and make a good start into sorting out the blog.

Knitting Olympics 2010

2010-02-14T13:10:00.002Z

I've registered for three events:

Finishing - sew up my corset pullover;
Sorting - get my knitting blog up to date;
Continuing - get as much of my WIPs done as is humanly possible when one is a human with RSI.

From having a quick scan down the front page of my blog I see it was almost exactly a year ago that I blogged about the fact that all the pieces of the Corset Pullover were finished - eek! I think I've been too scared to sew it up in case it doesn't fit or looks crap, but it's going to get done by the end of February 2010 now!

I also need to prune the blog, and get content transferred over to Ravelry. I briefly considered an entirely new start, but decided to continue with this blog - it just needs a lot of sorting. I've finally got a digital camera, so I'm hoping to retake a lot of photos for my FOs as well.

And currently on the needles is Sadie from Rowan #40 which I started last February, and (still!) the Secret of the Stole first pattern, Guinevere started in 2007 - although I'm now more than halfway through.

I've got a lot of ideas for what I want to make next, but I really do need to get these finished before I start anything else.

Random thing the fifth: Yesterday was Ada Lovelace Day

2009-03-25T22:41:00.003Z

So I've been a bad blogger in general for the past ~~year~~ while, and more specifically a bad blogger yesterday. Because I pledged to write a post about women in technology for Ada Lovelace Day, and Ada Lovelace Day was yesterday. Doh.

But then today, whilst wondering which woman I should write about, I read this old post, in which a [male] tech journo wrote about Ravelry. Now in and of itself the post is nothing special (although I'd rather it didn't use the word 'ridiculous' in the context of knitting itself existing of course).

But to me its demonstrative of a wider point: that women, with our crazy lady-hobbies and little lady-brains frequently have our odd lady-technologies dismissed by The Internet at large.

Case in point: a couple of years ago you couldn't move without seeing some article about Where Are All The Women Bloggers?* And I always found this odd. Not only because I *am* a ~~woman sorry can't do it~~ female blogger - cooee, I'm over here! But because I've been on the internet a lot, first mailing lists, then forums, then blogs since the heady days of 1999 and in each instance the majority of the people populating said mailing lists, forums and blogs were women. I couldn't surf for falling over women. Men, not so much. But there were definitely lots and lots of women.

Now I'm the first person to stand up on a soap-box and shout about social conditioning and that there's nothing inherently 'feminine' or 'masculine' about activities, but it's clear (mainly since so many of us are socially conditioned) that the WAATWB people were looking in the wrong place. See, the WAATWB were not looking at health forums, or feminist blogs, or the knittisphere, or anywhere else that I was, but rather they were looking at their own spaces and not necessarily realising that just because women were underrepresented there didn't mean that they were underrepresented in general.

Which is why a technology site can be bemused and baffled that a knitting website might have 17,000 subscribers (and this was in the far off days of 2007 - Ravelry's now at 319,547 users), and end its brief description of what it appeared to think was solely a social networking site** with the comment:

If you’re a knitter, join the waiting list immediately. Everyone else, nothing to see here.

Because, you know, it's just knitting. Urgh. As if that's important. Talk about this any longer and we might all get girl germs.

It's not like this is an incredibly successful site built on viral marketing that most sites can only dream of; that it is revolutionising the way independent pattern designers can make a living; that means that days of trawling through Google, and Craftster, and Knitty, trying to find a knit-a-long - or just anyone who'd made this obscure pattern before - so that you can see what a pattern might look like knit up in different ways, are long gone.

Women - and all our womanly associated media - get doubly done a disservice. For those working in traditionally male-dominated technological areas there is the old boys' club and glass ceiling to navigate (one of the responses I remember reading to all the WAATWB articles was along the lines of Stop all the willy waving and maybe we'll come & play. Too right). For those utilising technology*** to fulfill a need felt only by a female majority the matter is dismissed. Because, you know, it's just knitting.

My favourite post on this is by 'Woman Blogger' (look! There's one!) & knitter Stephanie Pearl-McPhee. Now, I'll admit that she's focussing on the knitting, rather than the technology, but I think the problems that she has faced are analogous to the dismissive attitude afforded Ravelry on the aforementioned post.

Just a selection from Represent, by Stephanie Pearl-McPhee:

So, there's this problem out there. [...] It is a lack of understanding (or respect) for the sheer numbers of knitters out there.

-It happened in St. Louis, where the library (despite a warning from the knitting guild and the publisher) decided how many knitters there could possibly be and ran short of books and chairs.

-It happened in MA. where all the knitters couldn't even fit in the shop and spilled into the street and there wasn't even room to sit down.

-it happened in Doylestown where when I arrived the shop had TEN chairs and were extremely reluctant to get more out. I kept saying "You need more chairs" and they kept saying "It'll be Ok." with this look on their face like they just didn't know how to break it to me that I wrote KNITTING books, and nobody was coming.

-it happened with one of my webhosts, who, despite being told how much traffic I get, made his own judgement about what sort of traffic would be possible when I said it was "a knitting blog" .

Women and Technology. We're not hiding - you're just not looking.

* I know I know that's a great big grammar fart staring us all in the face, but I assure you that this is a quote rather than my own composition. I don't spend all day writing woman=noun female=adjective on my students' work for the good of my health.
** I quote (this is most of the post actually):

"So of course there needs to be a social network around [knitting], and Ravelry is going to fill that need.

The site is still in private beta and has a long list of knitter-types desperate to get in - 17,000 people have requested invites and they’ve let about 1/3 of them in so far. If you want to get a feel for the features and look/feel of the site, see the screen shots they posted here.

Needless to say, the idea is to build out a profile and then add friends, create a blog, add pictures and participate in the forums.

But users will also be encouraged to put up information about projects they are working on, and other users can participate by commenting, recommending, etc."

This not only ignores the fact that knitters have been socially networking through existing channels, but no mention appears to be made of the fact that Ravelry's primary use for many many users is for the pattern database and archive and the fact that you can now easily find others who have made the same pattern.
*** I am aware that one half of Ravelry - the coding half - is a dude. But, you know, he codes knitting, ergo, girl germs.

Random thing the... uh... ... fourth

2009-03-01T22:44:00.006Z

I hate bra sizing.

Hate it with A. PASSION.

There are many reasons, including the fact that apparently that most women are erroneously wearing a band size that is too large, and a cup size that is too small. Yet when I input my measurements into bra size calculators I consistently get the answer 36A which seems, for me, to be slightly too large a band size, and, since my 34C bra cups were too small & I was expecting to be something like a 34D/36C-D, slightly too small a cup.

But try as I might, I kept getting 36A or B on all size charts. The only time I'd get anything that sounded slightly more realistic was from websites that talked about how bra sizing sucks (this site was particularly informative and this ebay guide is similar), and that most people are wearing a band size that is too loose, and a cup size that is too small. Going on this, I felt it even more unlikely that I was a 36A.

I got fitted for a bra the other day, and after 45 minutes of tryings on (4 different bra styles), the overwhelming conclusion was that I was a 32DD-E.

Riiiight.

The 32DD-E isn't without its problems though. The bras are obviously a lot tighter than I'm used to; having had 2 years of little support, my boobs are really tender at the moment from all this trussing up. I suppose if things don't start feeling more comfortable soon I'll have to go elsewhere. I did try on some bras today in another shop; I only took 32DD-Es in, but think I must be a at least 34 something-or-other in their styles and really couldn't be bothered faffing with any more.

Interestingly, given that I've read a lot these past few days about women wearing too big a band and too small a cup, I've just come across one article that suggests that women who want breast reduction surgery are wearing too small bands and too big cups, and getting a new bra solves their problems rather than surgery. But it doesn't say what measuring guide they used... So who knows!

Why there can't just be one consistent method of measuring which actually correlates to the sizes of bras being made in a standard way across styles and brands I don't know.

Random thing the third

2009-02-17T23:51:00.003Z

I once found a bat in my bedroom.*

My old bedroom had Victorian sash windows. Sash windows are often pretty much the height of the wall and have three states: closed; open with a 2-6 inch gap at the top or bottom; half open. So, for those of us who are security conscious, the window essentially had two states: closed, or open with a gap. My window was always kept open with the small gap.

I am also a hoarder, and used to keep random crap in plastic bags stuffed down the back of a chest of drawers which was in front of the window.

One evening, lying in bed (a very low bed, in a small room, so my head was next to the chest of drawers) I heard the plastic bags crackle. I started to freak out a little bit, since my window was only open at the top - near the ceiling - and the plastic bags were near the floor. I convinced myself that there was no way an axe-murderer could have fit through a 4 inch gap in the window (and even if one had, they wouldn't fit behind the chest of drawers).

It was only when I heard my windchime tinkle that I knew something weird was happening. My windchime was hung by my door in such a position that it *only* *ever* chimed when the door was being opened or shut. There was no way that a breeze from the window could move the chimes. And the door was shut.

There was clearly something in the room that way making the bags crackle and the windchime jingle.

So I went and woke up my brother, who felt that logically there was no axe murderer playing with my windchime. I lay on his floor for a while, uncomfortable and being unable to sleep, and eventually decided that it must've been a big gust of wind.

So I went back to my cofy bed, with all the lights on and with some music playing (and the covers over my head and firmly tucked in all round my body) and tried to get to sleep.

Then the windchime clashed again.

Completely freaked out I dared to glance out... and saw that there was a huge bat flying around my light.

Once I'd calmed down from the lack of an axe murderer, I decided that having a bat choose to fly into my bedroom actually upped my goth cred quite a bit, and was therefore totally cool. But I did go back and sleep on my brother's floor.

In the morning my mother & I found the bat sleeping on the back of the curtains, and, with its wings all folded up (it wasn't upside down or anything), it was so diddy! It must've been a pipistrelle, a tiny British bat with relatively long wings which is why I thought it would've been larger.

Later that day it had gone. I didn't see it again so I assume it found its way out of the window, leaving me with a pretty cool experience to relate (and a small amount of bat poo on my curtains).

* Yes, this is inspired by the current week in Ravelry round-up thing, which I've never read before, but discovered that it was an easy way to alleviate boredom when on my baby computer without bloglines.

Random thing the second...

2009-02-15T23:03:00.002Z

...I am evidently not as good at updating my blog as I used to be. Huh. Whoda thought?

I've spent the weekend getting an old W-I-P ready for finishing,* going through my blog and adding labels to the all the old posts. The next step is to add all my FO pictures to Ravelry, since I've heard they've now implemented photo-upload now. I've been using the Ravelry queue over the past year, and I always check out what designs look like on other people, but other than that I don't really use it.

And then I guess I need to start some updates!

* including doing the kitchener stitch for the first time ever, and using it to graft live stitches to a cast-off edge. It wasn't as scary as I thought it would be. I'm not sure that what I did was 'true' kitchener stitch, but it looks pretty and it works!

Is this thing on?

2008-07-07T15:17:00.004+01:00

So, about a million years ago (give or take a few months), Hope tagged me. In an unrelated area of my life, my jobs got so overwhelming that something had to go, and sadly, it was blogging (I've still been reading though, but must work on the commenting). For the past couple of months I've been planning to post to this blog again, and doing the thing where you write the posts in your head - that kind of thing.

Anyway, there's never a better time like the present. I have a bunch of FOs, since I may have had to stop the knit-blogging, but I didn't stop the knitting. I also went to Woolfest last week, have decided that I may do the Tour de Fleece thing unofficially (i.e., let's have an excuse to do some spinning), and have been making the longest Ravelry queue in the world (I don't use it that often, but I'm TheKnittingBee there).

I feel there is nothing better to ease oneself back into blogging, other than filling out a meme with excruciating slowness. Here goes:

"Here’s the deal: Once tagged, you must link to the person who tagged you. Then post the rules before your list, and list 8 random things about yourself. At the end of the post, you must tag and link to 8 other people, visit their sites, and leave a comment letting them know they’ve been tagged."

[no, I am not going to tag anyone else]

Random thing the First

I do not have a fridge, or a freezer. Mr Bee & I have been doing without for over 18 months now, and it really isn't as 'hard' as people think.

Initially we were just too lazy to buy one, since our old flat came with a fridge/freezer but our new house didn't. Then after a few months we realised that we didn't really need it.

We have a north-facing kitchen with no radiators or heaters in it; one cupboard in particular is always quite draughty (I think there are vents somewhere to outside), and so we call that our cold cupboard and it's our pseudo-fridge. We use butter (which is rarely spreadable, even though it's not refrigerated), and cheese gets eaten far too quickly to go off. We have mash instead of frozen chips, and any ice-cream bought has to be eaten immediately (oh, for shame!). As vegetarians, a lot of our fake-meat is dried, rather than chilled, so that's not a problem either (and anything from the chiller cabinet is fine in the cold cupboard for a day or so anyway), and vegetables stay fresh for ages in a regular cupboard, never mind the cold one! We don't drink milk (but it will keep for at least 24 hours at most times of the year).

The one thing I miss is being able to freeze left-overs, but other than that it's really not an issue (we've now learnt just what the right amount of food to make initially is). I did think I'd miss ice-packs for cooling down inflammation, but I have gel-packs which I can submerge in cold water instead (plus - not that much inflammation!).

So there you go - no fridge, no freezer, just a nice small electric bill!

Tune in next time for the second stunning installment of this meme!

Hats ahoy!

2007-11-18T21:56:00.002Z

I've been so busy recently I've just had no time to blog so I've had potential posts stacking up. One thing that I haven't written up properly is the pledge for all the mini-hats for Innocent!

My aim in setting up the pledge was to raise at least 40 hats - so £20 for Age Concern - by asking 35 people to knit at least 1 hat, if I knit 5.

Well, I'm happy to announce that we raised way more than 40 hats! For a start 39 people joined up, so we were 4 over target already. And it turned out that hat knitting is addictive, and many people knitted more than their suggested number of hats.

I made 10:

Some others sent me either their hats or their photos. One thing that came out from using the pledge was that people who had never heard of the hat drive got to know about it, and people who wouldn't normally have knit a hat decided to rise to the pledge challenge and get some done.

Here are Chris's hat - I love the hat stands!

Ann did 7 - each has a different little emblem on:

These are Celia's matching set (love the bobbles on these):

My friends R & Fizzysister invited me to their Innocent knit-in where they made some awesome rainbow coloured hats and one in the shape of an elephant, but sadly took no photos. I stole the idea for the ribbon-tied cloche hat (the third one along in my photo collage) from them.

Alaha made 5 - including an awesome one with horns! - Janette eventually made 22, Bod made at least 6, Adeline made at least 3, Ruth 2, Juliette made at least 3, and Fran referred to 'hats' so I shall assume there was more than one...

And then beating us all, Miss Shine & her knitting group managed to send off a whopping 63 hats! She has a photo on her blog of a selection of them.

So out of only 13 pledgers who let me know about their hats, we've produced well over 100 hats!

And then finally, today, Mr Bee & I found a Sainsbury's and found the results of all the at knitting! Hats in the wild! The hats go on Innocent smoothies sold in Sainsbury's in November, and 50p from every hatted-bottle sold goes to Age Concern. So it's important to close the loop. We're going away this week, and I can't wait to find more behatted bottles in the wild:

An open letter to designers of Mystery knit-a-longs

2007-11-15T21:31:00.001Z

Dear Designers,

For the love of wool PLEASE stop running mystery KALs on yahoogroups and mailing lists. Seriously.

I admit it. I have a low tolerance level for email these days (consequences of two jobs where I have to deal with morons sending moronic email all day). But I can't be the only person turned off from these sorts of KALs because they're run via mailing list.

When KALs and the online knitting world were small then it wasn't a problem to run these sorts of groups via mailing list. However, with increased popularity - there are over 2100 knitters on the now-closed Secret of the Stole, and over 1100 on Spring Shawl Surprice already and that doesn't even start for nearly 2 months - it's becoming less and less feasible to run a group this way.

I suggest moving away from email-led groups into a more structured forum setting. Free forum software is very good, members can be required to join and messages can be kept restricted so that nothing appears on public view.

At the moment with the mailing lists one's choices are essentially receive everything (and I mean *everything*), or receive nothing but special notices from the designer. I feel that a forum would be a happy medium between the two.

There could be a special 'announce' section for those who just want to get the important messages from the designer & nothing else; there can be sections for advanced queries, and those for beginners, those for photos, as well as a separate section for people to chat about things in general.

Important posts can be 'stickied', and it would be a lot clearer when someone had already asked a question, avoiding unnecessary duplication. Those who want the full socialising atmosphere can hang around all the sections. Those that just want to knit the pattern can simply keep an eye on the relevant pattern sections.

I would like to keep up more with the lists, but there is just so much traffic that I just can't. And a lot of the traffic isn't always relevant immediately to the pattern - or it's very basic questions that have to be asked over and over because people don't tend to search the archives of mailing lists in the way that they would on a forum. I haven't been able to keep up with my email and I currently have over 100 unread *digests* (so 1000s of messages) solely from the past *month* - from only 2 KALs! It's ridiculous!

I think this problem is only ever going to grow as the online knitting world grows, and while mailing lists have their place - I'm on lots of other ones, so my problem isn't with the concept of a list - I think that the mystery KAL has outgrown them.

Yours grumpily,
TheKnittingBee

Fibre as a drug?

2007-10-29T08:25:00.001Z

I've been thinking more and more that fibre really is a drug. I know there are lots of 'crack silk haze' jokes around the blogosphere, but I've begun to seriously think that this is certainly, at some level, true for me.

For a start - fibre really f***s my body up. I would not have had such bad RSI in 2006 to the extent that I was essentially crippled for most of the year without fibre, and would not now be in a state of 'pain management' if I gave it up totally.

I'm trying not to think of what my joints will be like in the future - I think I'm depending on scientific breakthroughs occurring within my lifetime (and sooner rather than later ;) ).

And I certainly have the addiction that obsession brings. Thankfully I've learnt my lession over SABLE (Stash Acquirement Beyond Life Expectancy) in the past with a different obsession (which proved to be a rather nice money-spinner on ebay over the past couple of years as I got rid ;) ), so I do deliberately attempt to not go overboard with fibre purchases.

But I do think I get withdrawal symptoms. Or rather, that working with fibre relaxes me to the extent that most other things don't tend to. Case in point: I have been working 7 days a week, all hours that I'm not sleeping (yes; I've been overdoing it), over the past month or so. I admit, I have been a tad stressed. The closest I've got to knitting was looking at buttons for my Fairly Easy, and taking my Swallowtail to university on Friday, knitting 8 stitches, then tinking them and putting it away as although my 'free time' is Friday afternoon when I help run a common room, there's slightly too much chatting going on to be in the complicated P5tog lace knitting mindset.

This week has been less stressful: importantly, I realised that I can't do everything, that I'm trying to do way too much, and to cut down. And I also made time (admittedly at the expense of other things which I hope won't turn round and bite me) for spinning. I spun 3 bobbins up over the weekend - one on Friday, one on Saturday and one yesterday.

I feel so relaxed! Importantly - although I let things slide over the weekend to spin instead, I don't feel ridiculously worried now that I 'wasted' that time and will never catch up (which I did last weekend when we went to the cinema and I cried on the way there that I was wasting valuable reading time and the world was quite clearly going to end).

I've been working with some fibre from Woolfest, it's very pretty:

I don't know what it's going to be. I made absolutely no attempt to pay much attention to my spinning - as long as it wasn't too thick or too thin and was holding together. It's definitely got a loooooot of slubs in, but I wasn't aiming for consistency. I initially thought it could be singles, but after filling one bobbin I realised I still had about 75g left (out of about 100g), so I'm going to go for two skeins of 2 ply I think.

Let's just say, I'm aiming for a surprise ;)

Do knitters dream of, erm, sheep?

2007-10-18T12:08:00.001+01:00

I've been having really weird dreams, just before I wake up, for the past couple of weeks. Most have been along similar lines, but this morning's was a bit bonkers, even by my standards:

I was knitting the first clue of the Secret of Chrysopolis stole (which BTW I haven't started) and was using a striping varigated yarn in various pastel + orange shades (you know me - this would be unlikely)... and instead of beads (which SoC does not call for anyway) I was using small pieces of breaded mozzarella cheese.

Yes, I was knitting cheese into my stole.

I was then worried that when I nibbled all the cheese off the stole (like those sweetie necklaces one can buy) I'd be left with gaps, and I'd have to find some sort of snap-style bead that I could fit into the strand instead.

Um.

Hats at Midnight

2007-10-16T00:24:00.001+01:00

My pledge has just closed! We have 39 signers, which means a minimum of 44 hats for Innocent! And since I've made 10 hats (I pledged 5) I hope there'll be a lot more to add to the hatometer!

(I hope the title of this post excuses the rubbishness of this photo!)

For anyone who has made a hat, you need to get it in the post ASAP so that it gets to Innocent by October 22nd. Write the number of hats on the outside of the envelope and send your hats to:

The Big Knit
innocent
3 The Goldhawk Estate
Brackenbury Road
London
W6 0BA

Other pledgers have sent me photos of their hats too, and I'll post those up on my blog soon to share the glory!

Tired now...

Where did all the time go?! - refrain

2007-10-14T19:23:00.001+01:00

I have had absolutely zero time for blogging recently. I've basically had zero time for pretty much everything, but luckily have managed to squeeze in enough time (during mandatory breaks) for some mini-hat knitting. I do have some posts in mind, some updates, some mythical photos... ;)

However, in the brief break I've found today between preparing tea*, putting it in the oven and waiting for the buzzer to ping, I checked my email and discovered my ravelry invite has finally arrived! I'm not planning to list everything - certainly not in the next few weeks! - but I may use the 'queue' feature.

I've not used any 'social networking' site before, so I'm not entirely au fait with the whole concept, but my name on there is (unsurprisingly) 'TheKnittingBee', so feel free to find me, if that's what one does!

* ie., evening meal. Were I simply making a hot beverage, I would have much less 'free' time.

Where did all the time go?!

2007-09-27T22:20:00.002+01:00

I am busy. I am sooooooooo busy. I am in one of those phases where there is so much to do of incredible importance that my brain just fries and I have to take the evening off because I can't decide which of the ridiculously important things is more important to do before the others.

There hasn't been much knitting recently, because if I haven't been working on part-time job A (site & user support for 3 websites & PA-ing for my boss) then I should be doing part-time job B (being a lecturer and running 3 courses - term starts Monday, but my summer has been spent planning and preparing), and if I'm not doing that I should be working on my PhD (ha! Like that's had a look-in since July), and if I'm not doing that I should be doing at least one of the 5 other things I've committed to in a fit of "can't-say-no"...

It's all fun, but it leaves little knitting time.

This evening I thought about my to-do list, felt a bit overwhelmed, and decided to watch TV and knit instead. (Tomorrow I will break things down into manageable tasks and get stuck in). I had previously got some knitting done last weekend during a 3-hour car journey, and finished the sleeves for my Fairly-Easy Fair Isle, so today I joined them to the body and have got started on the yoke.

I realised I never posted any photos of my mammoth Kool Aid dyeing session!

Here's the finished objects - don't they look cute?

The original yarn is 50% wool, 50% acrylic, so the original colour is still visible a little, giving it some depth. I think the core of the yarn was acrylic, and the outer part was wool, because they all have bright blue halos!

And the original colours. I like the fact that the original colours are all different, although I'm glad that the dyed versions go with each other a lot nicer than the originals do! But the fact I was able to use differently coloured originals and dye them with the same dye (blue kool aid) means that should they fade, I can just over dye the whole thing. (This picture shows the original yarns and the finished results sitting on top of the body of the cardigan, which is a dark navy blue).

It's not just yarn I dyed ;)

And here's the colours knit into the cuff of the sleeve:

I think they go really well together, but have decided when I do the yoke that I will leave out the green. I think I'll stick to blue and purple for the yoke, because I'm not really a lime-green person (or really a colourful person!). I have to keep remembering that although it's fun to knit with the three colours, and they are all pretty, I need to have a finished product that I'm going to wear.

Put it this way, I realised that I would not buy that cardigan (with green in the yoke) if I saw it in a shop.

However, the splash of colour on the cuff is lovely, and I really like how the blue and purple go together, so I'm confident that the yoke will be fine, and I'll like it. Here's where I'm up to so far (this photo shows the back):

Crikey!

2007-09-21T10:07:00.001+01:00

I haven't been blogging much this month, because I felt there 'wasn't much' for me to blog about. Of course, now I come to write a post I realise that there's loads and loads, and if I'm not super careful this will turn into one of my super boring posts with far too much text and not enough photos. I've been a bad blogger, I do apologise.

It also turns out - I've been tagged! It hasn't happened before, but I am going to try and combine an update with the tagging thing, and hope not to get too verbose ;)

I'm not going to tag anyone else, but if you want to do this, let me know in the comments!

I have been tagged by DarnCatCrochet.

So I'm it......

Here are the “official” rules:
1. Players must list one fact, word, or tidbit that is somehow relevant to their life for each letter of your first or middle name.

2. When you are tagged you need to write your own post containing your first or middle name game facts, word, or tidbit.

3. At the end of your post choose one person for each letter of your name to tag.

4. Don’t forget to leave a comment telling them ,they’re tagged, and to read your blog.

5. If I have tagged YOU, please join in on the fun! (Rules supplied by Hannah at bittersweet)

My middle name is MARY. My very Catholic grandmother was not overly impressed that I was named after a punk pop star (despite it being a biblical name!), so my parents opted for Mary as a consolation prize ;)

M - MONEY
Now, DarnCat (I love that film BTW, the Hayley Mills version) won't know this, but it is completely her fault that I've got my etsy obsession. Well, her fault via Harry Potter. See, I spent the week leading up to the last HP book reading all the previous ones, getting totally immersed in HP land (my 'tradition' is to read each one in a day leading up to the release of the next one). Then the following week we saw the fifth film. Then... I was having HP withdrawal symptoms!

So I started lurking on Craftster, because they often have threads about the costumes in the HP films (one thread had a link to a documentary all about costume in HP films; as an ex-wardrobe mistress I found it fascinating). Then I found a thread about a crocheted Harry Potter and Hedwig (I love Hedwig!) that were just fabulous. Utterly utterly amazing; the best knitted/crocheted toys I've ever seen. DarnCat was the designer, so I started stalking her blog, desperately waiting for her to release the pattern (can I crochet? Of course not ;) ). She also did a Hermione and a Ron, and now I reeeeeeeally need my crochet-ing friend to teach me (I think I can bribe her with goes on my spinning wheel).

Now, I was aware of etsy before, obviously. But having money in my paypal account mixed with Harry Potter withdrawal symptoms... Anyway, since my pattern purchase, I may well have bought stitch markers, bracelets and t-shirts. Not all HP related ;)

And the best part: it feels like it's all free! My 'rule' is that anything bought with money from paypal, has to be paid for with money already in my paypal account that I didn't put there. i.e., I have to sell some of my old crap on ebay, in order to fund my etsy habit. So I'm decluttering too ;)

A - ANTSY
Earlier in late Spring/Summer, I heard about 2 things. Ravelry, and Mystery Stole 3. I decided that I was both above taking part in things 'just because everyone else is', and - being aware of my injuries - better off not joining a website which would involve more typing, nor a KAL that would involve loads of knitting.

Doh!

Of course, I loooooooooooooooove MS3. If I'm honest, I've loved it ever since I first saw the first clue (yet I *still* didn't join, even though there were a few days left). I've been stalking Melanie's blog, desperately waiting for the pattern to be released. And today it has been! Hoorah!

So now I'm super antsy, waiting for my download email to arrive!

As for Ravelry, I've signed up, but I think there are still a couple of million people in front of me in the queue. I've realised that I don't *have* to actively type loads, but can use it as a resource. Same with every other Mystery project! Just because I'm getting the clues doesn't mean I HAVE to knit them! So I've now signed up for the Secret of the Stole and Secret of Chrysopolis as well, so I don't miss out again! However, I think MS3 is going to be my priority, once the download email finally arrives!!!

R - REALLY TINY HATS
My pledge has succeeded! Hoorah! It's still open until the middle of October, though, so you can still sign up if you want :)

I haven't started my mini-hats yet, but I have been unravelling crappy old acrylic WIPs that I'm going to use the yarn for hats instead. I've pledged to make a minimum of 5 hats, but I'm hoping that I get to use up all my old acrylic instead! (I have nothing against acrylic - the emphasis here is on old!).

My friends are holding a Knit-In to make hats, so I'll probably start when we do that. Or I'll start this weekend - who knows ;)

Y - YARN TO BE
I'm thinking for MS3 that I'll just go with Jaggerspun Zephyr, since that's the yarn used in the sample, and I can get that over here. I'm thinking maybe the darkest grey that I can get, and using lighter silver beads (I have no idea where to buy decent beads in the city I live now!).

There's a new Knitty, and I love Cherie Amour. I was looking at yarns to sub, but then realised that since it has a pretty short yardage, I could spin for it!

I've decided to get some dyed Corriedale combed tops, and make a 2-ply bulky yarn. My plan is to have one ply being all one colour, but to make the other ply multi-coloured (ie., spin a tuft of colour A, then B, then C, then back to A, etc). The two strands will barber-pole, but the knitting should appear to be striped, as the multi-coloured strand should stand out more. (Clear as mud, right?)

I'm thinking of using the following colours:
Plum Duff
Raspberry
Jelly Bean
Grape Jelly

They are all shown next to each other on this site:

http://www.pmwoolcraft.co.uk/html/view_product.php?ProdID=1092&CatID=&start=18

Bu obviously the colours in the photo might be off! I think they're actually darker in real life, especially the grape jelly, as this site has the same fibre with different photos, and there are slight differences.

So! The million dollar questions! Do you think I'm bonkers? Do the colours go well together, or should I rethink? Which colour should I pick to be the single-colour ply? I'm thinking Jelly Bean or Plum Duff (but that might have to depend on me sampling once I've bought the fibre).

I'd really appreciate any input, because Mr Bee is a) not really interested b) complaining I have too much fibre already, and why don't I use that instead (answer: I don't have enough of any one fibre!).

My MS3 pattern just arrived - hoorah!

(oh, and I failed on the 'not being too verbose' front: I'll do photos soon :) )

Yet more blithering

2007-09-08T23:07:00.001+01:00

It's not a good week to not have the camera! Luckily I've remembered that I have photos from an old secret project which has finally been sent to its recipient, so I can post those soon.

Today has been a fun fibre day. Let me put it this way: my fingers are blue.

And no, I don't mean with RSI numbness. I forgot to wear gloves during some very hands-on Kool Aid dyeing ;)

Today I went to my first Guild meeting. There is a little bit of a story to this, which I think I have previously been too embarrassed to write about. There was a summer fete style event back in June, which I went to, because my friend had been the year before & said there had been spinners. So I packed up my [empty] spindle (at this point I didn't have the Bosworth, and had only spindle spun about 15 yards altogether!) and some merino top, and went to find the spinners. Well, it was a hot day, I was nervous, I was babbling... and I was completely incompetent at spinning! I hadn't pre-drafted, my hands were sweaty, I was being watched by lots of people, I kept dropping my spindle (as in, drop it and it rolls under a table, kind of dropping it). And my babbling was about how good at spinning I was, so I really was setting myself up for humiliation. Uh-huh. It was one of those days.

(This is why I was so thrilled that I didn't suck at spinning in front of the Majacraft designer and the spindling tutors at Woolfest! I had previous form for looking like a prat).

What I should've done was taken a pre-spun spindle or my Ella shawl, rather than trying to join in.

Anyway, today was a lot more relaxed. It was the first session after a summer break, so it was just a 'bring a craft & show'n'tell' type event. Seeing as I am not very good at meeting new people, it went well! (I think I brought the average age of the room down to about 79 ;) ). I got some spindling done on my Bosworth (my spindles tend to get neglected), showed off my half-completed Swallowtail, and got to see an Inkle loom in action.

When I got home I ended up knitting more of my cardie. I'd been talking about dyeing earlier, and all my yarn has arrived, so all that was left to do was guess-timate how much yarn I'd need to dye. I did this by knotting a marker onto the live yarn at yard points, and seeing how much I was using for each row.

The dyeing has gone OK, I think. Not quite as consistent as I hoped, but that's my fault for using drink as a dye! I ended up with an ounce of each colour yarn (hot pink, yellow & 'camel') which I wanted to overdye with blue Kool Aid to get purple, green and blue. 12 sachets of Ice Blue Raspberry Lemonade, and I think I've probably saturated it as much as it will go. The yarn is 50% acrylic, so I knew it was never going to be completely overdyed. I might reskein and use one further sachet on each to make sure I've got as complete coverage as possible. I've certainly got good coverage on my fingertips!

New fings

2007-09-05T20:23:00.001+01:00

Sadly no photos, as Mr Bee has taken the camera away with him, so I shall attempt to not be too verbose with a filler-post.

I've been a-shoppin' again (that's the problem with me decluttering by selling stuff on ebay... I immediately find stuff to spend the paypal money on!). This time I bought some Knit Picks options needles, in size US4 & 5. They've only just got a stockist in the UK, so I settled down for a long wait thinking there'd be a waiting list, and - whammo! - they arrived today!

I decided not to get the whole set (although I've spent 1/4 of the cost of it on just 2 sets of needles & cords :-/) because I do love my Denises. Plus I have heaps of inherited straights. But the Denises only go down as far as a 5, and the 5 is a right pain in the arse! I'm using it now for my Swallowtail, and half my 'knitting' time is actually spent easing the stitches over the join. Size 6 and up is fine, but the 5s are a tad fiddly.

I really want to switch immediately to my Knit Picks, but think I should wait until I've finished the Budding Lace part of the shawl. I've only got 2 more repeats to go, so hopefully it won't take too long! My gauge tends to change between plastic and metal, so I thought if I switched needles between lace patterns it wouldn't be too noticeable.

Next purchases have been balls of yarn for my Fairly-Easy Fair Isle. I have 10 balls of Sirdar Nova in navy (which I'm using for the body), and 10 balls in hot hot hot pink. I dyed a sample of the pink with blue Kool Aid, and it went a lovely purple colour, so I thought I'd buy some more light colours & see what shades I could get. I've bought 2 yellow balls (I hope to get green!) which might not turn up for days; but the 2 balls of 'camel' arrived today. Or yesterday. Who knows? The postman left the package behind the dustbin and didn't knock or leave a card.

I want to wait for the yellow to arrive before I do lots of experimenting, so it's a good job I can occupy myself with my new needles!

Guard Knitter in the Knitting Mobile

2007-08-31T23:46:00.001+01:00

I've had a really busy, and sadly knit-free, few days!

Tuesday was a big knitting day though. A friend of a friend was moving house, into a flat on a really busy high street, and was worried that people would steal from her van while she was carrying things in. I offered my services as a carrier, but what with my reputation as a bit of a cripple I was enlisted as Van Guarder instead. They were very worried that I'd get bored, just stood by a van for hours.

How can a knitter who is not currently in the throes of RSI get bored while standing around for hours?!

So I got to spend lots of Tuesday lounging against a van, knitting. I decided not to take the shawl because I'd been a bit cocky the night before ("OMG I'm such a great lace knitter, I have this pattern completely memorised, I can totally watch TV at the same time... huh? Why I am missing a stitch?"), made a mistake, and realised that I do need to concentrate for shawl knitting! Likewise mini-hats would have been too awkward - I'm planning to knit those on looooooooooooooong metal straights held under the armpit, and thought that might attract undue attention from any passing police officer.

So cardigan it was. I got heaps knitted on the body (I think standing up was really good for my arms - must keep me in good posture!), and now I'm trawling ebay for suitable colours to do the colourwork in.

Sadly I just haven't had a chance to knit since then, but the weekend is a-coming :)

My pledge is going well! Innocent even mentioned it both on their knitter-natter page, and on their main blog too! I'm really hopeful that it will succeed, and maybe others will set up pledges too. More hats for Innocent!

Remember, if you're planning to knit a mini-hat, you can sign the pledge too :)

I'll knit hats, but I'd like you to knit some too!

2007-08-23T21:08:00.001+01:00

So, since 2003 Innocent Smoothies have been selling drinks wearing knitted hats during November, in order to raise money for Age Concern (50p from every hat-wearing bottle sold goes to Age Concern). Last year some of my friends knit up loads and loads of hats, but it was during a severe-RSI period for me, and sadly all I could do was watch.

This year I have happier joints, and want to join in with The Big Knit!

There's a website called PledgeBank, of which the general gist is “I’ll do it, but only if you’ll help me”, and I've always thought it would be a great way to motivate charity knitting.

So I've set up a pledge too - "I will knit at least 5 hats for Innocent Smoothies' The Big Knit but only if 35 other people will knit at least 1 hat too."

If you want to get involved please sign up! I'd love to have my pledge succeed :)

Innocent Smoothies make yummy drinks here in the UK (I think they may have spread across Europe a little too), and in November they sell their smoothies with little hats on the bottles and donate 50p to Age Concern's fund to help older people through the winter. All the hats are donated by the public, and this year they want to collect 400,000 hats in order to raise £200,000!

If my pledge succeeds then that means we'll be donating a minimum of 40 hats to the cause, but it would be great if we could send in more.

T-minus 15...

2007-08-21T22:26:00.001+01:00

(what does that even mean?)

Today I took receipt of one batch of newly bought stitch-markers. They aren't the ones I'd planned to use for my shawl (yeah, yeah, excuses excuses), but it means that if the second batch don't turn up sharpish then technically I have no excuse not to cast on!

And talking of technical things - it has been brought to my attention that some of my old posts are turning up in RSS readers. I have no idea why this is happening, but I'm not editing old posts right now. I will be soon though - I plan to start using the label function in blogger - so that's a head's up.

Oh, and Gods of Knitting Fate strike again. In my Start-itis post I mentioned that the Corset Pullover is languishing in my unknitted pile, despite the fact that I have the yarn for it and I even swatched (though it was so long ago I'll have to do it again). I've just found out that this week on Knitting Daily it is the week of the Corset Pullover. Think someone's trying to tell me something?

Start-itis

2007-08-19T23:41:00.001+01:00

This weekend I may not have posted any more FO reports - but I have finished two more items! Yesterday I finally finished my Alien Illusion scarf! It's been on the needles since 2005 - so I've finally freed up my US5 Denises (I realise that they're Denises so I could just change the tips, but this is an achievement ;) ) ready for my Forest Sun shawl.

And then today I sewed up my new mittens. With the current weather, I may need them sooner rather than later!

I've noticed that I've got start-itis at the moment. I have start-itis for pretty much anything that isn't the Swallowtail Shawl knit with my Forest Sun skein. I find that I tend to do this whenever I'm gearing up to knit a major project. I did it the other year with the Corset Pullover (which is still not started). I think I'm just trying to put off the major thing, because I'm worried it'll end up all rubbish :-/

I mean, it's summer, I've just spun some delightful fibre to make a shawl... so why was I knitting mittens out of acrylic oddments?!

Last night I cast on for the Fairly-Easy Fair Isle cardigan from Stitch'n'Bitch Nation. I spent about an hour swatching and calculating, then cast on. After 5 rows, when I realised that what I'd knit so far was long enough to wrap around my body twice, I realised I may have made a teeny mistake in the figures, and decided to go to bed. This morning I recalculated, and it's looking a lot better. At least, a lot smaller.

The cardigan can be my brainless stockinette project (now I understand why people have these!), while I start on my lace shawl. Which I will do.

When the stitch markers I ordered from the US turn up.

Definitely. I'll start it then.

Honest.

Cushion Covers & Cushions

2007-08-17T23:24:00.001+01:00

Another quick FO to slip in just before midnight! (apologies for the rather rushed photo).

A few weeks ago I woke up one weekend with an urge to make cushions and cushion covers. I ended up churning out 6 covers (4 still unfinished of course) and 2 cushions, alongside cutting out lots of squares to make a patchwork skirt with (still in square status; the urge has since passed).

(The orange one is a bit of a cheat - I made it about 8 years ago to decorate my room at university. But it's one a pair with the purple one).

I had planned to make the purple cushion back at university, but the backing fabric - the same shiny silver that I use for my spinning pinny - wouldn't go through the sewing machine (this was pre-overlocker), so I left it... And left it...

And then 8 years later, overlocker-enabled, I ended up hand-stitching it!

Ah well. I also made the cushion for the purple cover, using scraps of fabric for the stuffing. It's a really heavy cushion! But nice and squooshy.

The little one down at the front is a mini-patchwork (I also made the cushion inner). I had these 4 small squares of fabric, each with a different picture on. I've had them for years, and never quite knew what to do with them, so since I was in a cushion frenzy, I decided to stitch them together, make a matching backing sheet (2 blue squares and two red), and make a mini-cushion. It's just the right size for back-support, and I'm quite proud of the fact that I did it 'properly' and made sure everything lined up, and even put a zip in.

The effort must have drained me, though, for I haven't made (or finished) any more cushion covers since!

Buttercup Lake Yarn

2007-08-16T23:22:00.001+01:00

Here I am, being a good little Bee with the latest in this week's pile of FOs!

This one is super old - from back at the start of the year! I dyed it at the start of January, spun it at the end, and plyed it in February.

I had dyed the top for my Chapter Two yarn, and my Chapter Three, and I much preferred the Chapter Two - I think because it had more than two colours in it. So when I received my bumper pack of Ice Blue Raspberry Lemonade Kool Aid, I decided to use just it and some Pineapple... and blend them in the middle.

The resulting skein is blue, yellow and green - really bright and summery, hence the same.

Of course, like most of the skeins I dye, it's not really my colours! But I can certainly admire it :)

Breed: Cheviot
Fibre prep.: Commercial Top
Colour/Dye: Natural white fibre dyed in the mircowave with Kool Aid (2 sachets Pineapple; 3 sachets Ice Blue Raspberry Lemonade)
Weight: c. 100g
Yardage: 119 yards
WPI: c. 13
Method: Wheel spun on Haldane Lewis
Spun: Can't remember!
Plyed: 2-ply, using 'Lazy Kate' #2

I was actually quite shocked when I got the final yardage - I had thought that it would have been a lot more! It certainly doesn't feel super thick, but it is deliciously round and squishy.

I'm not really a yellow person, but the little curls of green are gorgeous!

FO: Cloth Pad Kit

2007-08-15T19:41:00.001+01:00

Well, I wish to keep up with my posting of one FO a day this week, but am in a bit of a rush and don't want to faff about taking photos. What do I have in my Photos folder already...?

Here we go: more cloth pads! (this photo shows the backing fabric - it's actually more of a teal colour)

This was a kit that I put together for a friend's birthday the other month. She's like me - very eco-conscious and very crafty. She also uses a Mooncup, but was talking about getting some cloth pads too.

I decided to give her a 'Make Your Own Cloth Pads' kit, and she really liked it! It was great, as not only did it help me to destash a bit, but I deliberately didn't include a backing fabric, so that she could use her own choice of fabric from her own stash.

I made one pad up as an example, and then gave her a neat pile of terry cloth and muslin (both of which are reused from barely-used terry towel nappies and burp cloths that a cloth-nappying mum gave to me) for inner layers and the top sheet respectively; some waterproof fabric to use as the last layer (it's a bit like thin shower curtain sheeting) and some instructions, all tied up in a big birthday bow.

FO: Forest Sun Skein

2007-08-14T19:56:00.001+01:00

Introducing... my first Forest Sun skein! This fibre was one 2oz batt from The Sanguine Gryphon, and it is bee-youtiful. It's 90% merino, 5% silk tussah and 5% rayon.

I had a little bit of a palaver with this yarn - for some reason, it reacted totally out-of-character for my spinnings, and was somewhat underplyed.

Most of it was absolutely fine, but the odd bit was far too loose for my liking:

The last time I had a yarn I wasn't happy with, it was my Mermaid's Hair yarn; it was far too overplyed, and I ran that through the wheel again. It only just fit on the bobbin then, and so I didn't think I'd get all the Forest Sun back on the bobbin as it was pretty touch-and-go in the first place. I didn't want to break the yarn either.

I asked on a spinning mailing list if it would be feasible to try out my new Turkish spindle, and add some extra twist to the parts that need it. However, itching to get going, I started immediately:

It was sloooooooooooooooooooooow going. I think that photo was taken after about 5 hours.

Of course, I really should've waited for a response on the list. Someone pointed out that the reason why my Mermaid's Hair yarn poofed up on the bobbin was because I was untwisting it. Since I'd be retwisting the Forest Sun, it would make it tighter, and it would all fit on the bobbin.

Doh!

By this point, I was getting pretty darned sick of the spindle. The yarn was tangling and snapping, and I was spit-splicing it together loads anyway. I decided to break the yarn and finish the rest off on the wheel, then spit-splice the two yarns back together.

And tada! I got my beautiful skein:

Fibre: 90% green & brown merino, 5% gold silk tussah and 5% gold rayon
Fibre prep.: Batt, torn into strips
Weight: 2oz
Yardage: c. 380 yards
WPI: 24
Method: Wheel spun on Haldane Lewis with larger whorl & new bobbins
Spun: Clockwise
Plyed: Anticlockwise; 2-ply, using 'Lazy Kate' #2 (was a little unplyed, so replyed around half on Turkish spindle & sent the rest back anticlockwise through the wheel to ply a little more)

I haven't knit with this yet - it's next on my list. I did wonder if there'd be a problem since with the spindle re-plyed bits, I tried to only re-ply the un-plyed bits, whereas with the wheel it all got treated pretty much equally. However, in skeining, and then winding into a ball, there didn't seem to be any problems.

Turning old tat into new goodies

2007-08-13T15:50:00.001+01:00

Thanks for all the kind comments about my lovely shawl!

In response to Kat: I don't know if you can get the pattern separately (although I really do recommend the yarn!) - it's probably best to keep an eye on Fyperspates pattern page.

I have decided that this week I shall attempt to post one FO report a day, because I've got a number of items that have been finished for ages (ahem, and in some cases, years!).

I had a very crafty weekend - mainly lots of sewing. I went through my mending pile, and then set about turning old clothes (that were so old and crappy that a charity shop would've chucked them) into new, usuable items.

First up: two old t-shirts, which became two new pillow-cases, and a stack of cloth pads:

I have a tiny square cushion, which I got at university when all the pillows that came with my room gave me neck ache. I made one pillow-case for it, out of satin, but otherwise just shoved it into normal sized pillow-cases, which drowned it. The satin one is great for keeping my hair unfuzzed, but not so good for my skin.

So, step up one black cotton t-shirt with a really lame (& cracked) logo on it, and one old pyjama top which is a cotton mix, but has cute sheep on, and hey presto! One plain black pillow-case with blue ribbons, and one sheepy-pillow-case (with a press-stud closure).

I then had enough fabric left over to make 5 cloth pads. I've been using cloth pads for menstrual protection for years now, and have a collection of ones which I've both bought and made. I love them! I recently got a Mooncup and it is utterly fantastic. I like to wear a pad with it though, just in case, and thought it would be good to have some really slim, lightweight ones. Usually I just overlock (serge) round the outside of the pad, but for these I decided to try stitching them with the right sides together, and then turning them inside out.

Then I took a really really old terry dressing gown, which I used to obsessive-compulsively pull all the terry-threads out of (this really was OCD - even years later if I put it on, I used to pull the threads out). I cut this up and overlocked round the edges to make a stack of scrubby washcloths and a bath mat.

And finally, I took the first overlocked garment I'd ever made. I got my overlocker for my 21st, and in a 'must sew must sew' fit, made a 'nightie'. This 'nightie' was a very thin neck-to-ankle tube, with neck and arm slits. Unsurprisingly, I never wore it (I would not have been able to move if I had!). I turned this into a pile of soft washcloths/ hankies, with contrasting overlocking to finish the edges:

And don't let it be said that I haven't been doing any knitting. I recently bought a book called 'Knitted Accessories' in a charity shop. It was only £1.80, and had a nice hooded poncho in it. That same day, a friend lent me an old chest of drawers to use to keep my stash in. So, in order to put everything away neatly, I got everything out. I found a heap of tiny oddment balls of yarn. Then I noticed there was a pattern in this book for a pair of mittens made from a heap of tiny oddment balls of yarn.

So far the chest is empty, my living has knitting all over it, and I've been making mittens:

Admittedly, I do need to work on my ball management somewhat!

FO: Faux Faroese Mini Shawl

2007-08-10T18:28:00.001+01:00

I shall try to go easy on the photos, but I love my shawl so much!

It's just perfect in every way. The perfect size - one skein is just right. It doesn't look it on the needles, but it really is the perfect length. There's no way it would look as nice with two full skeins as the ruffle would be too low, although someone perhaps with wider shoulders might want to make it a little longer. The ruffle is genius, and the yarn is soooooo squooshily fantastic!

I think this is the most wearable garment I have ever knitted (I do have to admit that apart from Ella, which is adorning the back of a chair, all my other knitted items are on the top shelf in the wardrobe :-/) - maybe because I think this is also the first time I haven't substituted the yarn? Ahem.

In all its glory:

Pattern: Faux Faroese Mini Shawl
Yarn: Scrumptious from Fyberspates, Moss colourway
Needles: US11 Denises
Modifications: None, I don't think. Go me!

One of the many things that I love about this shawl is that I can fasten it at the front like this:

No big knots, no flowing tails, just a neat pin and it's all sorted. It won't slip off, it keeps my shoulders nice and cosy, and makes a really pretty framing effect.

Ideal to try out one of my new brooches:

Another photo from the back - this was is taken while wearing the brooch - the top one was taken while the shawl was just loose around my shoulders (no - there isn't really a difference, I just needed an excuse to post another pic).

I'm going to the theatre in Stratford next week - I hope the weather holds so that I can wear my lovely shawl there!

Now the main question is - how many more shall I make? ;)

FO: Seaberry Shell

2007-08-08T23:44:00.001+01:00

I have just finished my mini-shawl, and it is totally awesome! Hopefully tomorrow will be a nice photo day. It's so beautiful, and so clever and I'm so happy! Earlier today I bought this pattern from Sivia Harding: the Victorian Shoulderette which I've been admiring for the past week or so. The mini-shawl will actually do up with a brooch in a similar way to the VS, so that's a bonus too, as that's something I liked about the VS. Plus, I have too lovely little brooches I haven't had a chance to wear yet.

Talking of FOs - here's the one I made back in the end of June. Amazingly I completed it over two weekends - but it is a rather large gague. Unfortunately, like all other knitted garments I appear to have made (bar my lovely mini-shawl!), I'm just not sure about it. My body has grown very quickly recently, and I'm still not quite used to dealing with my new bosomses. So not quite used to them, in fact, that I am not posting a photo of me wearing this top, since it seems to, erm, emphasise them.

I think maybe if I had a tight, longsleeved top on under it I might feel a little more comfortable. Or maybe I should stop eating so many pies (gah - but then I'd need to buy more new bras ;) ).

Anyway:

From this:

To this:

To this:

Did I mention that I'd managed to get hold of some Interweave Knits? I think I have them all going back to Spring last year now, or maybe Summer.

Anyway, this is the Seaberry Shell from IK Summer 2006, by Wenlan Chia. I think this was the issue with an interview with her, and it talked about how she likes to use fat yarns, etc. I was taken by the idea of making something quickly, and liked the look of the Shell. Amazingly enough, one of the to-be-frogged-charity-shop-jumpers I'd bought last year fit the gauge to a T, and was cotton too (the pattern yarn was a cotton/silk mix). Seemed perfect, and it worked out really well!

I have enough of the jumper left over to make another one of Chia's patterns that is on my knit-imminently list, the Tea Rose Halter from, I think, IK Spring 07.

Pattern: Seaberry Shell from IK Summer 2006, by Wenlan Chia
Yarn: Recycled navy blue cotton jumper.
Needles: US11 Denises
Modifications: I cast on 40 stitches instead, which I think was 4 more than the pattern stated. I possible could've gone with more. I also had to get a few more repeats in to get it to the right length.
Button: The pattern calls for something crazy like a 1.75" button. The largest one I could find was about 1.5" and looked like a dinner plate! It took a while, going through my nanny's* button box, to find the perfect button, but I really like this dusky blue - it really sets off the navy of the knitting.

* I had a paternal grandma and a maternal nanny; I did not have an au pair.

Tasty!

2007-07-24T22:08:00.001+01:00

My friend sent me this link to Knitting Cupcakes! Not knitted fairy cakes (as we call them here), which I have to say I don't quite get, but fairy cakes with knitting on! It's very impressive.

Truely Scrumptious

2007-07-23T21:56:00.001+01:00

My current knitting is the Mini Faroese Shawl in Fyberspates' Scrumptious. I don't have any photos of the shawl-in-progress, but I shall indulge myself with various out-of-focus badly lit photos of the yarn, taken back when I was in the process of winding it.

This yarn really is delicious, really really soft, with just a hint of a shimmer. This colourway is, I think, 'Moss', and this photo nicely displays the four main colours in the 'X' in the centre of the ball:

Green, gold, bronze and silver.

The shawl is looking beautiful - I'm tempted to buy another skein and make it bigger, but the dyelots probably wouldn't match. Ah well, I'm already planning variations on the shawl, and may just need more yarn in different beautiful colours to do so ;)

The pattern calls for a certain weight of the yarn to be knit up, and I'm just at that stage now. Of course, it necessitated me finally getting round to buying a decent set of electronic scales! I've wanted a set for AGES, because all I have is a Libra scales with hardly any weights (it was Mr Bee's grandmother's) and an add'n'weigh scale that's never accurate at large weights, never mind small. Then I realised that I'd been given an Amazon gift voucher months ago, that I'd been saving to spend on something really special, but I had to spend soon otherwise it would expire. Aha! Decent scales :)

And then my body kicked in and I had a new pain last week. I think it was caused by a combination of mowing the lawn and trying to massage Mr Bee's back, but it meant I couldn't hold a knitting needle. I think it's probably OK now, but I'm going to try and wait a minimum of a week without that pain before I start again.

(completed ball modelled by Mr Bee and one 20mm knitting needle)

Woolfest 2007 - haul

2007-07-08T16:06:00.001+01:00

I've been spending a lovely Wimbledon weekend (it has *finally* stopped raining. Today for the first time this 'summer' I was able to actually empty the water butt onto the garden, rather than just emptying it down a drain in a desperate attempt to stop it overflowing) spinning up and plying the rest of the Forest Sun batt. I've just finished plying and haven't taken it off the bobbin yet, so no photos.

I thought instead I'd go through my Woolfest haul, before I start digging into it [any further] (anyone baulking at the amount of text, scroll down for the cute sheep picture ;) ):

13 & 14 - my first Woolfest purchases. I'd been walking round and writing down any fibres and yarns that I was interested in, but these were on my shopping list, so I had to nab them. Interweave Knits Winter 2006 and Summer 2007. A bargain at £4 each.

11 - first fibre purchase: 100g 'English' wool (56s), dyed in lovely shades of black and pink by Freyalyn (£3.50). Beautiful, a bargain, and Freyalyn's stall was at the end of the hall, so I knew I didn't need to write it down and go back later! She called this colourway 'Blackberry', and there was another packet of 'Blackberry', but it was more lilac'n'grey than pink'n'black, and I liked the black. I'm thinking now that I might email her to ask if she has any more in similar colours to my packet, since 100g isn't that much!

5 - also from Freyalyn: 53g alpaca, dyed with blues and greys and blacks. I've never tried alpaca before, and these colours were lovely (£4).

9 - then it was right back to the other end of the hall for my first yarn purchase: one skein of 'Scrumptious' from Fyberspates (100g; 220m; £11.99). This is the 'moss' colourway, and I utterly love it. I was tempted by a vibrant pink colourway, but I don't have anything in that shade of greens and bronzes. It's a mix of blue faced leicester and silk, and I had emailed Jeni previously to ask if it is veggie silk or not... it isn't. That was a couple of weeks back, and I've been doing some thinking and decided that provided it was little and infrequent, I would allow myself to buy non-veggie silk (in the same way I wear leather shoes really). Besides Fypberspates has a really good environmental policy, so I was happy supporting the business.

8 - and this was why I over-ruled by morals on the Scrumptious - a pattern for a mini-shawl to be knit in it. I actually met the designer on a train about a year ago - she was knitting, I was in a knitting slump due to injuries, so I made her talk to me! It was Elly who gave me the Fyberspates weblink originally.

7 - my other Fyberspates purchase - cobweb weight BFL in gorgeous sea colours (the photo is actually pretty accurate for all colours). c. 1200m, £7.50

10 - my next yarn purchase. There are actually 2 skeins here, because they have a relatively short yardage (100g; 140m; £7 each). These are skeins of banana fibre! How fun is that! It feels a lot like the sari-silk yarn, a very heavy, dense, singles, in dark blue, purple and silver. From Knitting4Fun, who also had the funky stripey bags.

12 - this was the fibre I had my heart set on, it was from P&M Woolcraft (I think Mr Bee was more impressed by the newspaper bag). You can't quite make it out, but it's loads of different shades of merino, teals and greens and maroons and reds and purples, shot through with white silk (I know I know; I didn't ask. I shall ignorantly assume it to be tussah). This was sold in giant bags, and you had to wind out the weight you wanted - it was £4.50/100g, but the bag was actually labelled £4.50/kilo. Luckily I noticed that the other bags were £4.50/100g and checked before I tried to buy it all for peanuts! I got 200g, but am wondering now if I should've bought a lot more, since it's so gorgeous.

3 - other things on my shopping list were spindles. I got this Turkish spindle from Hedgehog Equipment for £4.50. They also had some Majacraft wheels out - a Little Gem and a Susie (which I lust after). I was offered a chance to try the Susie, which I gladly took. My first spinning on a different wheel! Luckily I didn't cak it up, and I even matched the weight of yarn that was being spun before. One of those on the stalls was the director of Majacraft! It was great to chat to her (and to not cak up in front of her). She gave me a go on the Little Gem too - I wasn't overly fond of it. The Susie is much nicer. It was really nice to spend time on their stall, and I think Mr Bee enjoyed it too.

6 - then it was on to find another spindle - a bee-youtiful one. The prettiest spindles at Woolfest were Bosworth spindles, and a number of stalls had them. P&M Woolcraft had them, but their stall was utterly packed and jammed, and it had been hard enough buying the fibre (12) from them. So we headed to the end of the room, where I'd noticed some on a slightly quieter stall - the one where Freyalyn was selling her wares. I noticed that this stall also had some Spindolyns for £20. I'm tempted by this, as I think a supported spindle might be better on my arms - a bit more like a wheel, perhaps. I was able to give it a try and I totally sucked! I was getting enough twist in, but drafted was awkward - it's a totally different angle to a normal spindle or a wheel. So I went back to the Bosworths, and chose this gorgeous purpleheart mini (I think; can't remember! It was £30). I was able to give it a try and it just spun beautifully! I can understand why they get such rave reviews! I was also pleased that I didn't suck at the spindle spinning, because I later realised that the people from whom I bought it were those teaching the 'how to use a drop spindle' workshop (Spindlers 2)!

1 - the fibre I'd used to try out the spindles was really nice, so I asked what it was: Falkland, but they didn't have any. By this time Mr Bee was getting a bit bored, so I sent him back to look at the sheep and bunnies, whilst I ran round the stalls trying to find some Falkland! I headed to Wingham Woolwork, but they didn't have any. They did have some BFL (100g for £1.80), and since I've heard such great things about BFL I decided to try that. This is what I've been using to spin with my Bosworth, and it really is lovely and soft.

4 - time was pressing on, and this was the closest I could find to Falkland - 'Falkland/Merino'. It's not clear whether it's a crossbreed, or a blend - 100g, £2, Scottish Fibres.

2 - also from Scottish Fibres, I couldn't resist this mix of blues, greys and whites, 100g, merino, £3.30.

And no fibre show report would be complete without the obligatory cute sheep shot:

And finally, a shot of where we spent the weekend. This is the back, which overlooked a river (=raging torrent; this shot was taken in one of the few interludes from the downpours) - hence the fishing imagery inside (see the cushion cover in the big shot above):

And from the front. Staying here took the edge off all the 'wool stuff' for Mr Bee, I can tell you!

Update

2007-07-03T19:06:00.001+01:00

Well, it's been all quiet on the blogging front recently, but I can assure you it hasn't been on the fibre front!

The other weekend I had a veritable obsession with sewing cushion covers, churning out about 6 covers, 2 cushions, and cutting up loads of scraps to make a patchwork skirt (unsurprisingly, 3 of the covers still need buttons, and I still need to make another 2. Oh, and the 'skirt' is a pile of squares. I am equal in my distribution of start-itis).

Then I managed to knit an entire garment in two weekends! I'll have an FO report on that sharpish.

And finally, this weekend was spent at Woolfest! Right now I need to go and watch all the things we've recorded over the weekend before our box-thing runs out of space (and maybe get started on some knitting), but here's a teaser photo of my goodies:

It's my Birthday and I'll Spin if I Want to

2007-06-08T13:32:00.001+01:00

Yesterday 'twas my birthday, and so I decided that I really should break out my beautiful new fibre and do some spinning, even if I haven't completed all the things I said I would before I started. I spun whilst watching a made for TV version of the Odyssey (1997) version, which was rather rubbish. I haven't finished it yet, and it was rather good fun, but completely destroyed the characterisation of a lot of the figures, as well as deviating from the tale a lot (must every telling of the Odyssey bar Homer's start with the Trojan War?!).

Since I haven't done any spinning [on the wheel] since I had all the pain in my ankles, I was very cautious. I put my old whorl back on, and my old drive band (I kept a new bobbin though). I oiled my wheel and rubbed beeswax on the drive band. I also made sure the wheel was on a rug, and I sat on the edge of my sofa, rather than the low footstool.

Lookee what I made:

I probably did overdo it. I spun for about 2-3 hours, until my friend said I should go to her house instead to get me away from the thing! I was glad I did, otherwise I'd have probably kept on going for another couple of hours.

I only treadled with my right leg. I figured that if I was going to hurt myself, there was no point in hurting both legs ;) And I did have twinges in my ankle yesterday. I haven't really noticed anything this morning, which is positive, but I haven't really done much. I'll take it slowly.

This is the Forest Sun batt - forest green and forest brown merino, with flashes of pale sunshine. I mean silk. It's beautiful. I tore a 2 oz batt roughly in half, and then tore one half into smaller strips. Each strip I predrafted out, drafting them together into one long roving. This is most of one half of the batt - I was forcibly removed from my wheel before I could finish it off.

This is [eventually] going to become 2-ply yarn. I'll do the other half batt on another of my new bobbins, and then ply them together onto my old one (which has a slightly larger capacity). Hopefully. Hopefully my feet won't fall off.

(Last night I realised that I have a spare sewing machine motor - I know, of all the things to have lying around. I realise that if my feet do fall off, I may well be able to hook up my flyer with the motor and spin electrically. But let's hope it doesn't come to that).

FO: Branching Out

2007-06-04T23:18:00.001+01:00

Continuing my finished object reports, here's Branching Out!

This was my first lace project, and I'm really pleased with how it worked out. And it taught me the best thing about lace - it groooooooooooooows. This scarf got about 6 inches longer during the blocking process. This was fantastic not only because it meant I got 6 inches worth of scarf for the price of no hand movements, but it also made a slightly too-short scarf just right for a neck warmer.

I had been slightly concerned that the varigated-ness was totally hiding the laciness, and vice versa, but it actually works very well when on (I don't normally wear it quite like this obviously!).

I got this yarn for 1 euro (about 70p!) in the Wolle Rödel store in Hildersheim, Germany (I was at the M'Era Luna festival). They only had the one ball in their sale basket, but how could I resist? I was never quite sure what to make with it, until I saw a girl really working the non-winter-scarf look at a friend's wedding (and it helped that she was amazingly beautiful with wonderful dress sense).

(The book is 'Ancient Greek Love Magic', and the apple just sets everything off).

Pattern: Branching Out
Yarn: Superwash merino from Germany - I'll edit this post with the details when I find the band.
Needles: Erm... let's say I edit this part in too when I find my notes!
Modifications: different yarn, different needles, totally different gauge. I just knitted until I ran out of yarn.

Not really cheating...

2007-06-01T18:00:00.002+01:00

I haven't done too well at posting in the past week have I? In true Wave-Gotik-Treffen weekend fashion, I have had a horrible cold (the year I went to the WGT I got horrendous flu - and I mean full-on flu - on the last day. I ended up lying on the floor at the back of the Agra - because I couldn't get back to the hotel on my own - trying to listen to the doodlesac bands in a sort of haze, and trying not to breathe on people).

The other day I posted pictures of my first two spindle-spun skeins ('skeins' is pushing it, I will admit. Neither can be more than 20 yards!). I was a leetle hard on myself for saying they really suck. But that's because I was coloured by my knowledge of my third ever spindlings...

Isn't it amazing? This was my experimenting with my fibre from the Sanguine Gryphon. If I spun it on a spindle, it didn't count as spinning ;) I had been unsure as to whether to just spin a mix of colours/fibres or to try and separate things out. And then I didn't know whether I wanted to do a regular 2 ply (with barberpole effect) or try out Navajo plying.

I pulled off a small sliver* and spun it finely on my spindle, just as it was. Then I Andean plyed it together. It looked so lovely, I just had to see how it knit up. It's so glorious! I was so excited when I finished that teeny swatch - I said to Mr Bee "I have something amazing to show you", and he rolled his eyes as he always does when I show him yarn-y stuff. But then he said, "oh, that is very nice"! It must be nice ;)

I was pretty surprised that the yarn came out so well, since it was my third ever attempt at the spindle, but obviously my wheel skills have come into good use here.

The above swatch is done with 3.25mm needles, and it's just beautiful. Before I knit up all the yarn I cast on with the other end on some 4.5mm needles:

Beautiful in a whole 'nother way. This time each stitch has multiple colours in it.

Can't wait to spin the lot!

* Note: 'sliver' is not being used in it's Official Fibre Term designation.

Lace-Up Opera Gloves

2007-05-23T21:43:00.001+01:00

This weekend is the Wave-Gotik-Treffen festival in Leipzig, Germany. I went in 2005 and had an absolutely amazing time. Sadly I haven't had the money to go since (but will definitely be saving my pennies for next year). My friends try and go every year, so I have to just try and not be too jealous.

Last night I helped my friend pack (while trying not to feel too jealous ;) ), so today I thought I'd post an FO report for a garment that I'd possibly had taken with me were I going (and were it not going to be over 30oC in Leipzig this weekend):

My Lace-Up Opera Gloves:

(by the way, that is not my belly or my pants, it's my underskirt showing. Mr Bee is getting a little better at styling photos, but not much)

I started these aaaaaages ago, and had one knitted up since before Christmas, I think. But obviously it took a while to knit the second one. Then I had to wait ages to get round to buying ribbons. The ribbons I did get, by the way, are rubbish. They aren't actual ribbon, they're a bit plastic-y. Plus they were too wide so I had to fold them in half and stitch them together, so it does look a bit like I've laced the gloves up with PVC tubing.

Pattern: Lace-Up Opera Gloves by Ysolda
Yarn: from an unravelled shrug; a thick singles held with a couple of metallic threads. This is the yarn I had left over after making my Hug. It was coincidentally a similar colour to the one Ysolda had on the pattern page.
Needles: 6mm straights
Modifications: different yarn, different needles, totally different gauge. I ended up doing less repeats I think.

This is a really nice pattern, which I ballsed up a bit by not substituting properly (I basically grabbed the first needles that were to hand!). The main problem is that the fabric I ended up knitting is very firm and stiff - there's hardly any give in it, so I can't pull it in to lace. The thumb is also rather bulky, because I was using such thick yarn.

I thought the weird ribbons made the gloves look a tad dodgy, but having seen the photos I don't think they're too bad - I'm going to try and get some actual ribbon ribbons though!

If I knitted this pattern again I'd probably pay closer attention to getting the right sort of drape. Although I can alter a pattern if I don't have gauge to make sure that I have the right dimensions, I need to remember that knitted fabric has different characteristics depending on gauge!

Spindlin'

2007-05-22T13:18:00.001+01:00

My main problem with blogging is that I tend to write all my posts in my head and then... they stay there. Then I'm surprised that I haven't blogged for weeks, or that I still haven't posted photos of blah, or that I haven't yet mentioned that first thing I did when the thing I want to mention now is kinda related...

So. Lots of news to come. Today was a good photo day, so I made Mr Bee take some photos for me so that I can get some FO reports up. I've made a pact that I cannot start my beautiful fibre from the Gryphon until I've:

~~Given my paper~~
Submitted my book review
~~Sorted out the ribbon for the Lace-Up Opera Gloves~~
FO report for the Lace-Up Opera Gloves
FO report for Tempting
FO report for Branching Out
Not been in pain for a while

(you will note that 'FO report for Sonnet' is still not on that list. One day I won't hate it, I promise.)

But anyway, in order to set up a couple of posts I have planned, I need to post this one. I should've posted this weeks ago, but haven't yet. It's about spindling.

Now, I got my drop spindle with my second batch of fibre, in the hope that it would help me draft better at the wheel. I think it did help me understand the concept of how the twist works, but my first spindlings were dire. Plus, I was slow at it and unsure as to whether it was good for my arms.

I basically did some experimenting with some grey wool (Massam Mid Grey or Jacobs, can't remember), but only picked up the spindle about twice in a year. I used the rest of that grey top for dyeing and wheel spinning with.

When my ankles were hurting the other month I got tempted by the spindle again. One night I decided to ply what I'd spindled, so that I could empty the spindle. I presumably did an Andean plying bracelet rather than a centre-pull ball:

As you can see, beginner's spinnings. It actually looked a lot better unplyed, and maybe I should've left it as singles. Oh well!

But I am being too hard on myself. A spindle is different to a wheel, and besides, most of that had been spun when I was pretty shaky on the wheel too.

Once I'd taken the plyed yarn off the spindle, I tried with some blue merino top that I discovered I still had. These second spindlings went a lot better! A lot more consistent, plus a lot thinner. I realised the spindle would also spin forever (I had assumed it was a really crappy one since it was so cheap, only a couple of £), and I didn't need to park and draft anymore. Whilst I'm not entirely sure that spindling helped me on the wheel, the wheel has *certainly* helped my spindling.

I still had this blue on the spindle when my fibre arrived, and as I was fondling it a small piece of green came off... So I added it to my spinning, just a little bit, right at the end:

Mmmmm... dark blue 'n' dark green. I realise that apparently received wisdom states that they "ought ne'er be seen", but I like 'em.

Sock musings

2007-05-03T23:11:00.001+01:00

Due to my injuries, I could never face the idea of knitting socks. If I'm going to knit that many stitches, I might as well make something a bit more prominent than socks, or use bigger sticks'n'string and make something bigger!

But if I ever were to make socks, I'd probably make Pomatomus socks, or Chuck's Cabled Socks. But - arm transplants not withstanding - it's unlikely to happen.

And then today I came across this: Pomatomus socks as gloves!

Oh yes.

(Knitting update: I've been off the knit since Monday 23rd April, after feeling a couple of twinges in my elbows and deciding to be cautious. Saturday evening I'd overdone things by ripping out what I'd done on my novelty wrap thing and reknitting (the Eve pattern wasn't working for me so I made up my own pattern). Then Sunday I was quite upset due to something else, dropped a stitch, spent about an hour trying to pick it up, ripped it all out again in frustration, and reknit. So there may have been some excess going on there)

Worth waking up for

2007-05-01T13:44:00.001+01:00

This morning Mr Bee leapt out of bed, and I do mean leapt. He threw the covers onto the floor and raced downstairs. I was rather groggily confused, but certain that if there were a fire then he'd at least have mentioned it.

He came back up and said, "didn't you hear the knock?" "The knock?" "Yes, the knock - it was the postman." The postman? For me?

It's my package of goodies that I bought from The Sanguine Gryphon (it arrived so quickly I wasn't expecting it!) and contains the most wondrous fibre...

This is a 2oz batt in the Histology colourway: "90% merino, 5% silk tussah, 5% rayon. The merino is berry pink and periwinkle, and the silk/rayon appears as silver streaks running through it, rather like a histology slide stained with eosin and hematoxylin, for you biologists out there."

I've never really been one for the red-white-'n'-blue combo, but blue is my favourite colour and this colourway just looked like so much fun! The blue in is beautiful, it's almost exactly the same shade as my handbag as well.

And yes, silk. I haven't tried silk yet, because my ethical vegetarian side can't use new fibres made from boiled bugs (the only silk I have so far is in the form of a chairty-shop jumper I'm going to unravel). Then I discovered that Bombyx silk is made from boiled cocoons, whereas Tussah silk is 'wild' silk - the cocoons are collected after the moths have hatched. Ethical quandary over! (Please, PLEASE, no one disavow me of this!)

But there's more, there's more!

Mmmmmmmmmmm - Forest Sun: "90% merino, 5% silk tussah, 5% rayon. The merino is forest green and chocolate brown, and the silk/rayon and golden streaks running through it like rays of sun between the trees." A full 6oz, and this is what I plan to spin up to make the Swallowtail Shawl with.

I deliberately went with this colourway partly because it is so beautiful, and partly because it's out of my usual colour range (blue/black) yet still the sort of thing that I'd wear. The green especially is glorious. I can't get it to photograph properly, so check out the Etsy page linked to above.

I can't decide how to spin it yet. Do I try to separate out the colours, do I heather it... 2-ply? Chain-plyed? Luckily I should have enough to experiment with. My Mermaid's Hair Yarn was my test yarn for how much I could get out of 2oz - so I then estimated I'd need 4oz for the Swallowtail (although this was before I managed to make a shawlette out of 2oz!) and got a further 2oz for playing.

But anyway - no spinning until at least next Wednesday. The other week I decided to start up a student forum (where we all get to practise giving papers) in my department, and the first session is next week. We've basically gone from talking about it to doing it in 3 weeks, and unsurprisingly this meant it was very short notice for getting papers for the first session! So I'm doing it. So I now have a week in which to write a paper.

I am also still getting the odd twinge in my ankles, so another week off will be good. I am desperately hoping that everything feet-wise is OK, because I really want to spin!

Well, I'd better go and put these batts away - if I keep petting them they're going to felt!

Ella

2007-04-30T18:21:00.001+01:00

Yes - do not keel over in shock! - for this is an actual FO report! Yes, this is for a garment that I don't even have a progress tracker for in my sidebar. (Plus this is my most recent FO, ignoring the FOs which have been finished for ages and still haven't materialised here...)

This is Ella. My own hand-dyed, hand-spun, hand-knit shawlette.

I never expected to get a shawlette out of this yarn - I thought I was just tormenting myself with a large-ish swatch. But the yarn kept going and going and going (until it ran out 20 inches before the end of course).

Ella is a pattern with a couple of variations - you can make a triangular-shaped shawl (which is all I had enough yarn to do), or you can make the full 'V' shape. In the future maybe I'll try the full shaping.

My version did end up with some quite funky shaping. I did a super-stretchy cast-off, which was possibly slightly tooooo stretchy. After ages and ages of attempting to block the shawl out into a triangle (in which time it totally dried out so I had to spritz it, hence the fact the mattress - our old mattress I kept specifically for blocking! - is covered in damp patches) I admitted defeat, and put a couple of 'u' shapes in the top edge:

The little bumps in the neckline work quite well actually - they curve round my neck and the centre part folds down like a collar.

Talking of collars - I will *definitely* need to wear a collared shirt when wearing this shawl! It's so itchy! But a good learning process - now I know to make sure I match my fibre type to my project!

Pattern: Ella
Yarn: My own Mermaid's Hair Yarn, approx 190 yards of 20WPI 2-ply Jacobs
Needles: US 8 Denise
Modifications: different yarn, different needles. I only had enough yarn to do 2 full repeats of section 2, and then a further 18 rows before casting off.

Obligatory shawl-over-chair-shot:

Annoyance is...

2007-04-20T19:55:00.001+01:00

... binding off your hand-dyed, hand-spun, hand-knitted shawl, and discovering you're just a couple of inches of yarn too short.

(green arrows mark the rest of the stitches to be cast off; pink arrows mark the remaining yarn. Le sigh).

The idea of unknitting the stretchy bind-off is far too depressing to contemplate, so I found the coil of crappy singles I spun from some grey wool which was either Jacob or Massam Mid Grey, unspun a bit from the end, respun it finely, plyed it, and dyed it. (ankles be damned - but I did switch chairs).

The way the dye has taken up (MUCH more vibrantly than the shawl) suggests it's MMG rather than Jacob, but it won't be too noticeable. I hope. Luckily as it's only about 20 inches of yarn it dried almost instantly, so I should still be able to finish and block the shawl tonight.

Here's the colour difference: (presumably a combination of way more dye per square millimetre, and almost certainly a different breed. The base colour was very very similar though)

Ella and Eve?

2007-04-17T11:29:00.001+01:00

I've just had the most manic week ever. Last weekend we had to clear out Mr Bee's parents' loft, thereby adding more crap to our house. Then I had to write a paper for a conference at the weekend. Then it was the conference - which I was also helping to organise, and that lasted from Thursday until Sunday. It's been a few of the most manic days ever! In my old job I organised events, but they were only ever one day, so you had the build-up, then the event, then you could rest. This time I just had to keep going!

And now Mr Bee's work colleagues (and techically mine too since I now help with their user support) are staying for a few days. They all work from home in different cities, so decided to meet up - and our house was deemed most central (ignoring the fact it was also the most filled with unpacked boxes!)

Anyway, here's the progress on my Ella shawl:

As you can see, it's considerably bigger than I thought it would be, plus I have enough yarn left for another 5 rows I reckon. The white thread marks the point at which I had about the same amount left in my first ball of yarn as was in the second (the remains of the capelet) - so I'll be able to do almost the same amount again.

It's not going to be a big shawl, more like a short, pointy scarf, or a shawlette I have to pin on, but since the wool is rather scratchy I'll need to wear it over clothes anyway.

As well as heaps more boxes I have also acquired a lot more novelty yarn. Previously I had one ball of peacock coloured stuff (eyelash?) and one ball of Snowflake stuff, which makes a nice fuzzy fabric (I used it for one of the first things I knit when I restarted knitting; it's a rectangle so I may use it for a washcloth). Now I have loads, as Mr Bee's mum gave me some for a Christmas present and some just because she was having a clear out! And utterly no idea what to do with it.

The Lara Lamb kit things were my gift, and I really don't know if there's anything I can do with them. The colours aren't really me, and the patterns really aren't me! Between the kits is my original peacock ball - I don't know what to do with it, but I like the colours.

The brown ball and pink balls are again Not Me, and the blue is a bit 'meh'. But I do like the purple and gold colourway (top right), and am tempted by Eve, which is pretty much the only novelty yarn pattern I've seen which is actually nice. But when would I get a chance to wear it?!

The hairy black/white/grey stuff is more me colourwise, but I just don't think I'd wear anything made out of it!

So if anyone is tempted by anything (other than the Peacock or purple'n'gold) let me know! Also, if there are any amazing patterns for novelty stuff, do let me know...

Wannabe

2007-04-04T10:57:00.001+01:00

My foot still twinges every now and then. I've started a joyous 'pain calendar', on which I put a little sticky dot every day that I feel the slightest twinge. No spinning until after a week minimum of normal activity and no dots.

Meanwhile, I have been knitting with my Mermaid's Hair, and trying not to feel too bitter about it. I've been trying to figure out what it wants to be. I thought it might want to be the SpiderWeb Capelet from Stitch'n'Bitch Nation. But after knitting at it for a while, I realised that it really, really, really doesn't.

As Mr Bee puts it, there is no way that you can look at it, without it looking like a load of scribble.

I knit the first 6 or so rows (ie., nearly half of the capelet) and it just bears no resemblance to the photo. I'm doing the pattern correctly (note that there are corrections!), but the yarn needs to be fuzzier, and maybe a tad thicker.

So, I decided to see whether the Mermaid's Hair wanted to be Ella (I have two huge folders of Knitty patterns that I printed off at work, so I tend to work from those. In going to the actual site to get the link, I notice there are now charts available).

I tried Ella three times, on US6 (too tight), the stated US10 (too loose), and then I tried US8. This also looked dubious because the pattern bunches, so I knit the set-up section and lightly blocked it (which also had the effect of causing me to stop knitting for the day - I think I was trying to drown out the pain in my foot by attempting to set off some arm pain).

So far, so OK.

So at the moment my yarn wants to be Ella, and I'm up to three leaf-things across now. Of course, this pattern calls for 750m yarn, and I have less than 200m, so quite why I am bothering to persevere is beyond me. I'm not planning to make the full V-shape, just a small triangle. But still, who am I kidding?

(also, in order to keep all my options open I didn't frog the capelet before I started Ella. And then once I'd decided to carry on with Ella I couldn't bear to rip out what I'd done and start again from the beginning. So my knitting currently looks like this I know I know. It means that not only am I hoying around a half-knitted capelet, but when I finally do frog that to use that yarn I'll have a join - if I do actually ever have enough yarn to make anything more than a handkerchief - which is irritating, but I haven't been really thinking rationally about fibre arts this past week)

Facing up to the foot

2007-03-30T21:17:00.001+01:00

One reason why when I got tennis elbow it was so bad, was that the warning pains you get when tennis elbow starts feels a lot like bruising. I thought I'd just bumped my arm so I carried on. The next day I was in excruciating pain.

For the past three days I have been in pain when I walk. I need to face up to the fact that I may well have a problem with spinning.

It's weird though. That first time, when I had the pain in my right foot, it was immediate pain, and went away overnight. I last spun at the weekend (about 90 minutes on Saturday evening and less than an hour on Monday, with the wheel on a rug), yet I'm still in pain 5 days later and didn't feel a thing while spinning.

And this is my left foot.

It is possible it's coincidental, but I don't want to take any risks.

(I am also trying to keep myself together about the fact my body is breaking down and I'm not even 26).

What's even more frustrating is that I've been saving up to buy some lovely blends and now feel like I shouldn't buy them because what's the point. But then part of me feels like if I'm going to hurt myself I may as well do it for something worthwhile...

I'll just try and rest as much as possible this week and see how I get on.

Mermaid's Hair Yarn

2007-03-27T22:50:00.001+01:00

May I present my latest spinnings (we are glossing over the fact that my second-to-latest spinnings have still not materialised on this blog).

(we are also glossing over the streaks on the glass shower wall)

When I first dyed this top, I thought the resulting fibre looked like a mermaid's hair - hence the name. Originally it was a dark grey, and the resulting dyed fibre is nicely varigated. It's not candy pale blue either but a muddy turquoise. There are parts where the blue has really taken, and parts where it really hasn't. None of these photos quite capture the real colour - it's duller in real life (sadly).

This was my attempt at spinning as fine as I could, and I'm pleased to report that it is also rather consistent. I did struggle a lot with overtwist, due to my new whorl, drive band and bobbins. I usually have the odd bit of kinky-overtwistiness that I just deal with. I don't block yarn straight with weights, since this gives you a false idea of what the yarn is like: as soon as it hits water again it's going to kink up!

But this yarn was really really overtwisted, even when plyed. It was kinky, and it was also very very harsh and wiry. I realised that if I do make the Spiderweb Capelet from it, this could be a problem. The capelet is knit on giant needles (10mm), with lots of dropped stitches - I didn't want the long stitches to start kinking up!

I decided to run it back through the wheel in the original singles direction, to take out a little of the excess twist. I rolled the yarn into a ball, tied the end to the leader, and just let it get sucked onto the bobbin. I didn't let the twist build up, it just all went on in a whoosh.

And I'm glad to say that it worked! The yarn isn't super soft or anything, since this is from Jacob fleece (remind me to take photos of the Jacobs next time we visit our local Nature Centre; they also have Soay and Icelandic; I wonder what they do with the shearings...). However, all those millions of kinks aren't there, and it's not quite like steel wool. As to whether it will become the capelet or not is another matter. I'll probably give it a go, but this yarn may be too scratchy/unfuzzy to work with the pattern.

The coin blinding you in the above picture, by the way, is one of my exciting 50pences. This 50p (from 2000) is celebrating 150 years of public libraries (this photo nicely shows the differences in colours):

Breed: Jacob
Fibre prep.: Commercial Top
Colour/Dye: Natural grey fibre dyed in the mircowave with Kool Aid (3 sachets of Ice Blue Raspberry)
Weight: less than 2oz
Yardage: c. 190 yards
WPI: 20
Method: Wheel spun on Haldane Lewis with smaller whorl & new bobbins
Spun: Clockwise
Plyed: Anticlockwise; 2-ply, using 'Lazy Kate' #2 (sent back clockwise through the wheel to un-ply a little)

Quick Note

2007-03-25T02:15:00.001+01:00

Clocks have just gone forward so it's now 2am and I should really get to bed! But just want to note that I've just plyed and measured my current trying-to-be-as-thin-as-I-can spinning, and got - at a rough guess - 190 yards from 2oz @ 20wpi. So not enough for a shawl! But should be fine for the Spiderweb Capelet.

And now I know how much I can get from 2oz of fibre, I'm in a much better position to judge how many batts I need!

Tempting is Finished!

2007-03-23T00:00:00.001Z

I know! Blimey. I only started this self-described 'quick knit' in Summer 2005 an' everything.

(Of course, when I say 'finished', I haven't woven in the ends yet. Or bought a ribbon).

We still don't have a mirror in our new house yet,* and while looking in the windows at night works fine for a general reflection, it doesn't quite give me a proper idea of what this looks like. I'm somewhat scared since every proper garment (i.e., not just a scarf or arm-warmers) I've knit has turned out pretty rubbish. And, *ahem* since I started Tempting I'm pretty sure my bust measurement has gone up by both a cup and band size.

Mr Bee took a couple of bored photos of me wearing it, and the ribbing does appear to shriek BOOBS BOOBS BOOBS LOOK AT ME STRETCHED OVER BOOBS!!1!... but maybe that was due to the camera flash. (The pictures were horrible; I deleted them).

But anyway. It's done. I can now almost fill up my Denise case again with all the wires. I've had the 3 or 4 wires used for Tempting out for so long that I couldn't remember how they all fit back together. I had to look at a photo online to figure it out (and in doing so discovered that Denise now do a kit with rainbow coloured needles - oooooooooooh).

And I think I'm just pretty stunned by the fact that yes, I can keep knitting, I can get there, I can finish things. It might take aaaaaaaaaaages, but it happens. Good stuff.

* i.e., we haven't yet unpacked and reassembled the wardrobe which has a mirror on the door. But then, we've lived here a month and still haven't bought a fridge/freezer. This, by the way, is an indication of just how cold it is in our kitchen.

The End is in Sight...

2007-03-19T23:04:00.001Z

I've only got 2 rounds left on Tempting. So that's 2 rounds (200 stitches each), 1 cast off round, and 2 3-needle-bind-off underarm things.

2, maybe 3 days.

(Then a couple of months for me to go and buy some ribbon. I still need ribbon for my Lace Up Opera gloves. Luckily it is likely to be the same type of ribbon, so I can just go and buy loads. Eventually. And then the wait for photos. How long has Sonnet been waiting for now? 1 year? 2?).

I spun up the second singles yesterday. I used my right foot very gently (tried to keep it in what my yoga teacher would term a 'tadasana foot'), but I used my left for the majority of the spinning.

Further to what I wrote in my last post, I don't think a double treadle is inherently bad, just that I'd only want to use a DT that could also be used as a single treadle. With an ST you can move the wheel around, whereas with a DT you are - I presume - limited to sat bang in front of it, unless it can be used as an ST. Anyway, I often wonder about the different types of wheel - when I think of what I started with because it was all I had (single treadle, double drive, no instructions, awkward tension, merino top) and what I read people on mailing lists saying is advanced (single treadle, double drive, awkward tension, merino) it does make me laugh (especially since I made a perfectly servicable garment from my first ever spinnings - and this is not because I'm great at spinning). Had I known all this before I started maybe I'd have been more wary, and I think I'd have suffered for it. Of course, in an ideal world everyone should have the wheel that suits them, but sometimes I think people thinking of buying tend to worry too much about whether it will be too 'advanced'.

So anyway, back to my ankles. I think there is a slight problem. Of course, this is when I had changed my whorl, my bobbin, and (probably most importantly): my house. I'm hoping that any problem with over-worked feet is coming from one of these, rather than my body deciding that since my arms aren't too bad my legs can pack up.

Our new house has [very cheap] laminate flooring, and I'm also sat in a corner which limits how far to the left I can have the wheel. I don't think the corner is too much of an issue, but I do think I must be sliding over the floor a little, pushing the wheel forwards. This must put just a little too much pressure on my foot. When I ply I'm going to put the wheel & my stool on a rug, and hopefully (hopefully!) I won't have any further issues.

(And I really really really really hope I have no further issues, since after discovering Franquemont Fibres, I've now discovered the Sanguine Gryphon's etsy store. Be still my treadling feet.)

Spinning a Yarn

2007-03-16T13:56:00.001Z

Well, my foot has been fine since my earlier spinning mis-adventure.

I did have a hairy (hoho) moment the day following my foot pain. I walked to the corner shop, and during the walk that area of my foot/ankle started stinging again :( It was still stinging for ages after I got back - it felt almost like shaving rash. So eventually I took my sock off and... it was shaving rash! Doh! I had shaved my ankles just before I set off (I only do up the knee if I'm going swimming) because I thought I might go to yoga, and sometimes my leggings ride up. Anyway, I was thrilled to discover it wasn't internal pain.

In response to the comment Batty left on my last post, I'm still unsure about double treadles. At least with a single treadle if one foot hurts you can swap! If I'm entirely honest, my foot was hurting after merely a couple of minutes (so it wasn't just excess strain or that it was tired), but I kept going because sometimes there's a bone sort of protruding in my other foot (I know! I couldn't make it up!) and I wasn't sure whether treadling would be good for it (as it was, it was fine). I think if I did get a DT, I'd make sure it was one that would also work if you only used one foot.

I haven't done any more spinning yet as I've been so busy with work. I'm planning to have a nice long session this weekend, watching all the stuff that's been recorded recently (no time to watch the little TV I normally do either!).

Have I said what this spinning is for yet? I currently have an obsession with lace shawls, but wasn't looking forward to the amount of stitches they require. When I saw the Swallowtail shawl in the Fall 2006 Interweave Knits I just fell in love with it.* Not only is it pretty, but it's also quite small.

So I am attempting to spin for that. At least I know that if my yarn is 'too' thick, it should merely mean that I produce a bigger shawl (but with the stitch count of a shawlette). The question is probably whether I have enough or not. I think I've only got about 60g of fibre (I *need* a good set of electronic scales!) so it's entirely possible I'll only produce 100-200 yards.

If that happens I'll probably make the Spiderweb Capelet from Stitch'n'Bitch Nation (yes, I know I'm phobic of sp*ders & their associations, but this lace pattern really doesn't look like cobwebs). I've always had my eye on that, but when I looked through the pattern the other day I realised that it's only about 22 rows! I'd technically be able to make that in less than a month, so it's very tempting.

(Tempting is still plodding along. I'm *almost* at the YOs row. Almost. Probably no longer than a fortnight left on it. I hope).

Well, this post is getting far too wordy. At some point soon I need to make a 'To Knit' list, otherwise I'll keep forgetting projects!

* I managed to get the back issue of IK with the shawl in, and I also got Summer 2006 as well. Wow - I am seriously impressed with this magazine. And I love the wpi chart they have at the back - it's such a nifty idea. I managed to find an imported copy of Spring 2007 in Borders (so I've seen the Gryphon's lovely Merry Maiden dress), and am tempted to try and track down as many back issues as I can (maybe I need to wait for my first paycheque first).

Toes crossed

2007-03-12T23:55:00.001Z

I've just spent the evening spinning and my foot hurts - doh! For future reference (that I really hope I do *not* need) it's the front of the right ankle, on the left side. I switched to my left foot about halfway through and that's fine - probably should've switched sooner... Oh well.

I've got my new bobbins! And my whorl!

So tonight I did some spinning with one of my new bobbins, and the new whorl. I've been saving my last lot of dyed fibre for my new bobbins, as I wanted to spin the singles onto two new bobbins, so that they were equal.

I am attempting to spin as fine as I can, for a lace project. I think I got thicker the more tired I got (spun from about 7pm til 11pm). The main problem was that I changed the drive band. My usual drive band was great for spinning fine and having a good take-up, but kept falling off. It used to do this all the time, but has stopped recently, so I assume that this was due to the new bobbin & whorl groves being a little too shallow. So I switched the drive band to being some crochet cotton, and I've just totally lost all take-up. I managed to get into the swing of barely holding the fibre and letting it be gently pulled on by the end, but there is a LOT of overtwist and kinks stuck in the bobbin. I usually add quite a lot of twist anyway, but there are huge kinks going on here which I hope won't make plying too nightmarish.

Anyway, I've done half of my fibre. Not sure when I'll do the second half - better make sure my foot is better first!

Coincidences

2007-03-08T15:07:00.001Z

I'm still in the middle of reading through all the blogs I need to catch up on, what with my enforced week-and-a-half of no interweb. I've noticed quite a few amusing coincidences as I go through them.

The last blog I discovered was Abby's Yarns, which I decided to read after enjoying Abby's posts on the spinning mailing lists I read. I spent my last night in my old flat (with no furniture and no curtains - we were staying after the movers took everything in order to clean up) reading Abby's blog from start to finish - it's a wealth of information. I also fell in love with the fibre blends that she sells. Utterly, utterly, utterly in love. I have never really been interested in buying pre-prepared batts, or snazzy swanky fibres or anything, until then. They are absolutely amazing.

Then when I came to update myself with The Keyboard Biologist Knits the other day when we were back online, there was a photo of some batts. Mmmmm, I thought, those are stunning, just like the ones I was drooling over on Abby's site. And what do you know? They were!

Recently I've been getting pain from reading. I have another muscular condition which means I have to basically lie down for an hour or two every day and work on that muscle group, flexing and contracting. Obviously, this is slightly boring, so I like to read while I'm doing it. Unfortunately, the action of holding a book (just a 300 page paperback) open and up (since I'm lying down) hurts my forearm in the same way that knitting/ computer navigating does. The other day in a bookshop I saw a bookholder called a 'Gimble'. It looked a little dubious so I didn't get one. And then, lo and behold, there's a bunch of comments on Wendy Knits! about bookholders!

So I went through the comments there, looked at all the different types of bookholder, and decided to give the Gimble a try. I used it this morning and it does work - and I was able to read painfree. Hoorah!

Calorimetry

2007-03-06T20:39:00.001Z

Apologies for the lack of posting - we only got our broadband activated today. And - tada! - we have photos. First Mr Bee took the camera away with him; then he forgot it; then he had to wait a week to collect it; then we moved; then we had to find the box with the camera (and wire!) in; then we had to get connected...

But finally, something to liven the blog up with.

Here are some pictures of my beautiful Calorimetry - not knitted by me, but made for me by the lovely Figg as a Yule present. This came in a box containing other goodies, all wrapped up in the most amaaaaaaaaaaaaaazing manner. Seriously, unwrapping the gifts was as exciting as getting them.

I took these photos after I realised that my makeup matched my Calorimetry. Apologies for the rubbish quality, it was really really hard to get the type of shot I wanted.

I do have a Coif, which I made last year. However, the Calorimetry is a lot wider, meaning that it looks more like a hat from the front (the Coif is always clearly a headband). The real difference is that it doesn't have the ribbed band around the hairline that the Coif does - my Coif always leaves me with an imprint of ribbing in my forehead. Despite the fact that Calorimetry is entirely ribbed, it doesn't leave any marks on me, and thus gets two thumbs up for that!

Also - Figg made my Calorimetry in blue, which means it matches my new handbag beautifully :) It's nice and wide too, so I can tie it in a square knot (I only figured out a square knot last summer, and haven't tied an unsquare knot since) rather than having a button clasp which would probably catch on my hair.

(sorry for gacky looking hair; it's photos like these that make me want to redye my roots)

Pin after Pin after Pin...

2007-02-20T23:52:00.001Z

In the lack of more fun photos, I thought I could give a little teaser photo of the blocking of Branching Out, demonstrating just what a ridiculous number of pins I used. I had planned to use the string I use as a drive band, but when it came down to it I realised that that string would be far too thick to fit through either a darning needle or the stitches... Of course, only after the pinning did I realise I had some thin crochet cotton. I think I could probably have stretched the lace out more, but I had no wish to move all those pins.

(yes; one of those pins is a needle. I always remember my mum being shocked when she asked for a needle and I said to check the pin box - doesn't everyone else get needles mixed in with their pins?)

We move in 2 days. One day? In two sleeps. (So Thursday morning). I am incredibly worried that the movers have no idea how much stuff we have. Luckily we have this place until next week and we're hiring a car, so will be able to drive back and forth numerous times if they really can't fit everything in (and since we only have a 2-bed flat they really should!). In our new house I shall have a corner of the solar ('sun room' just didn't sound like a me-type-word) as my sewing place. With a dedicated table and everything (for the past 18 months any dressmaking has been done on a coffee table. This is why there has been very little dressmaking).

Camera Obscura

2007-02-17T22:20:00.001Z

Sadly no photos, since Mr Bee took the camera away with him this weekend, and has left it at a friend's house. We won't get it back until next Friday - and that's only if he remembers. Frustratingly I took some good photos of my present, but didn't have a chance to take them off the camera. Oh well.

In other news I dyed the remaining undyed fibre I have - less than 2 ounces of grey Jacob top. I used 3 sachets of blue Kool Aid, in the hope of getting a dark blue shade. It hasn't quite worked - it's more a mix of light-grey-dyed-bluey/green and dark grey, but I'll have to see how it spins up.

Oh, and I asked for information the other day on SpinList about Haldane Lewis wheels. No one else appears to have the same wheel as me (although others know others with one), but there are people with other Haldane wheels, and one woman with an earlier version of the Lewis, which has lots of exciting twiddly bits.

I also decided to contact Haldanes themselves to see if they had any bobbins. When I first got my wheel (in Feb 2006) the Haldanes website listed spare bobbins and whorls for the Lewis. I decided to buy 3 more bobbins and all other whorls when I finished my thesis. By the time I'd finished they'd sold out of both (they're discontinued)! Doh! But Haldanes have been very nice, and are selling me 3 'modified Ashford' bobbins, which should be fine, plus another whorl which they managed to find.

Because I'm in the middle of moving I'm having them shipped to my parents' address, so it will be March before I can pick them up...

I've had to move my blog over to 'new blogger'. There don't appear to be any changes except it's added 'GB' under my name. If it wishes to list my location, I'd much prefer 'UK'*, since GB is rarely used nowadays, except on car stickers. I can't actually see where it got 'GB' from either; probably my time zone.

I do want to try the labels/tags thing though. I may wait until I have a other-types-of-hand-movement free day to spend going through my old posts and adding them.

* 'Great Britain' is England, Wales and Scotland (i.e., the name of the actual island on which I live); the 'United Kingdom' is Great Britain plus Northern Ireland (full title is the 'United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland'); the 'British Isles' is the geographical term for everything, including the Republic of Ireland.

A little update & a new plan

2007-02-15T19:54:00.001Z

I was recently asked if I thought I could ever go back to normal, that is to be able to use the computer and knit and write and type and -- well, be normal. To be honest I don't know, I doubt it. This past week I've had quite a bit of pain, mainly the outer side of my right wrist and forearm. This is the pain that I'm not sure how is caused, and it's a bugger to get rid of. So this week I've been back to my old self -- that is, doing absolutely sod all and hoping that the pain will go away.

I think it may be possible for me to continue knitting, but I probably need to do a lot less than I have been. On Saturday I did the most amount of knitting that I've done so far -- about 600 stitches (20 rows of 30 stitches each) over the course of A Knight's Tale. I haven't knit since then though, but I don't think that necessarily caused the pain. I was working on my Leaf Motif scarf -- since I finished Branching Out last week (photos shortly!) -- as I had planned to finish all my WIPs in order to free up all my Denise needles.

The problem is though, that the Leaf Motif scarf, well, it's just not doing anything for me. If knitting is going to break me again then dammit, it had better be for a good cause.

So I've decided that instead of finishing my WIPs just for the sake of it, I'm going to do something that I want to. Although ironically, I've decided to finish Tempting first. Tempting is, as far as I believe, using around 4 Denise cables, plus end buttons, connectors, and of course a pair of needles. As far as I can remember Tempting only has around 10 rounds left to go. Admittedly each round is 200 stitches, but I'll maybe go back to 20 stitches a day.

Once Tempting is done, I'm going to make a start on using my handspun. I think I may go with some skinny lace scarves.

Right then, I've been dictating this to Dragon for ages and it is beginning to do my head in! I just got a new microphone today, and maybe shouldn't have bought the cheapest on offer. Hopefully it will learn from all these corrections (!).

Anyway. I should have photos for tomorrow of Branching Out and/or a lovely gift I received. I'm off to go and skein up my latest spinnings (and if Dragon doesn't stop putting the fricking caps lock key on I swear I'm going to cry).

Chapter Three Yarn

2007-02-08T17:14:00.001Z

My chapter three yarn was, unsurprisingly, the carrot which I used to make me write chapter three of my MPhil. Again, this was Cheviot top which I dyed with Kool Aid, and then couldn't spin until the chapter was finished.

I only used two flavours of Kool Aid this time. I'd used three for the chapter two yarn, and those three yielded a huge range of different colours and shades. Unfortunately, the two colours for chapter three (Changin' Cherry & Roarin' Raspberry Cranberry) only really made Changin' Cherry and Roarin' Raspberry Cranberry colours (light blue and orangey-pink). So this yarn is either all blue, all pinky, or one ply of each. There are variations in shade, but it doesn't have the sheer depth that chapter two does.

However, the good thing about me liking, but not adoring, this yarn is that I'm much more likely to want to knit something out of it! And at 200yards it's more likely to be a usable garment. I'm envisaging some kind of open rib scarf. I want to do something more interesting than a plain knit, but I think cables or lace would be too busy, what with the colour variations and the occasional thick'n'thin bits.

Breed: Cheviot
Fibre prep.: Commercial Top
Colour/Dye: Natural white fibre dyed in the mircowave with Kool Aid (Changin' Cherry & Roarin' Raspberry Cranberry)
Weight: 100g
Yardage: 200 yards
WPI: c. 14
Method: Wheel spun on Haldane Lewis
Spun: Can't remember!
Plyed: 2-ply, using 'Lazy Kate' #2

Chapter Two Yarn

2007-02-08T17:04:00.001Z

My chapter two yarn was the carrot I used to make me write chapter two of my MPhil, back in late summer (yes, this photos are a long time coming). This was my first attempt at using Kool Aid to dye with; I dyed the top at the beginning of the chapter, but wasn't allowed to spin it until the chapter was finished:

I absolutely adore this yarn. The skein looks a little tatty because I ended up just sitting and petting this yarn for nights on end (yes, I need a cat). I've always thought people who stroked yarn were a bit doolally, but I understood it with this yarn. It was comforting to just sit and hold this beautiful item that I'd created.

I love the way there are so many different colours, and each inch of plyed yarn is a new wonder. I have no idea what I'll knit with it since it's less than 140yards long. It's so beautiful in the skein, I don't know if I want to spoil it!

Breed: Cheviot
Fibre prep.: Commercial Top
Colour/Dye: Natural white fibre dyed in the mircowave with Kool Aid (Grape; Tropical Punch; Swirlin' Strawberry Starfruit)
Weight: 2 oz/ c. 60g
Yardage: 139 yards
WPI: c. 15
Method: Wheel spun on Haldane Lewis
Spun: Can't remember!
Plyed: 2-ply, using 'Lazy Kate' #2

Skeining around

2007-02-08T16:52:00.001Z

I've just spent a merry afternoon skeining and measuring and photographing my handspun (PhD? What PhD?). I just love the feeling of yarn that I've dyed and spun myself flowing through my fingers. Mmmm... Makes me want to knit with it right away, but I am attempting patience.

One spinning tool I do not have is a niddy-noddy. I'm quite sure that it will be incredibly easy to make one out of an old dining chair, but since I have no old dining chairs, nor any recourse to getting an old dining chair right now, I have not done so. Luckily, the high street near the house we're moving to is full of antique shops and junk shops and house clearance shops, so I am truly hopeful that I shall soon be able to avail myself of an old dining chair.

In the meantime I'm making do with whatever objects I can find that will allow me to make a fairly large skein (which I think looks nicer than a short wrist-elbow one). Today I hit upon using my upturned desk chair which, until I get hold of an old dining chair, worked fairly well as an impromptu niddy-noddy:

Is this thing on?

2007-02-06T22:45:00.001Z

I am writing -- well actually, speaking! -- this post with the aid of my new voice recognition software! I am attempting to do the whole thing only correcting it vocally, so please ignore all the wacky extra spaces and stuff.

This is relatively old software, Dragon 6 (they are up to 9 or 10 now), but it still works with me using the in-built microphone on the keyboard. It is not that great for my posture, and it doesn't like working when the fan is on - and the fact I'm hunched over and speaking a tad too loudly is not good for the vocal cords - so I will have to get a proper mike ASAP. However, it is pretty impressive. (Thanks again Hope :) )

Actually what would be more interesting would be if I left it without the corrections (it thought 'impressive' above was actually 'Guinness'). I remember being at University in a computer science lecture, with a lecturer talking about voice recognition; she forgot to turn it off after the demo and so it wrote a lovely story during the rest of the lecture.

But hopefully - the threat of voice nodules not withstanding - using it will mean that I shouldn't have to pick and choose so much between computer use and fibre arts. I don't intend to use it all the time (certainly not without a proper microphone), but it will be great for taking notes (so that I can just talk, and then correct it afterwards from the text I'm reading. If I try to just talk while dictating I have to keep stopping all the time to correct it, otherwise I have no idea what I was trying to say).

And in knitting news... Ta-da! I've finished Branching Out. It is incredibly short, so I think the combination of short, varigated yarn, and lace, might be a bit too much, but I got the yarn in a sale in Germany 2 years ago, and so I'm unlikely to be able to procure any more!

Photos will follow shortly...

Whaddid I miss?

2007-02-02T18:08:00.001Z

Poor November. Poor December. Poor January. I can't believe I let them go by unposted. I'll have to fake something so they don't feel left out. I didn't realise that I hadn't posted in such a long time.

So, news.

I finally finished my MPhil, and handed it in in December. That end-of-September-2006 deadline? Turns out that it was actually end-of-September-2007. I kid you not. The MA students had a September 2006 deadline, but the MPhil students are supposed to spend a year researching, and then have up to a year to write up the thesis. I only discovered this when I asked for an extension and discovered that technically my course hadn't ended.

However, since I'd been under the impression I had to be finished my September, I'd applied to start my PhD from October... So I had to finish my MPhil relatively quickly to fulfill the conditions of the PhD.

As I was finishing my MPhil I realised that the 'only' pain I was getting was a constant burning in my right wrist. The reason why it took me about a month to realise that my elbows and forearms were feeling better was because this burning pain has no cause that I can divine, and no cure. Ice doesn't help it; anti-inflammatories don't help it. All I could do was go to bed and hope it had gone in the morning.

After I handed in my thesis we went away for a week, so I did no intense hand-movements at all. When I came back I was relatively pain free! Then I only had a couple of days at home before we went to see our parents for Christmas - so again, no hand movements. By the time we came back I'd been pretty much pain free for most of December, BUT I hadn't been doing anything.

So I was pretty much too scared to start doing things again, because being pain free, finally, after over a year, was too nice a state to be in. So now I'm just taking things slowly, trying not to overdo things. I've been attending an exercise class in the physiotherapy department of the general hospital, working on strengthening my body (I've become very weak this past year), and I've also restarted yoga. But - as the weekly physio lectures stress - I also have to pace myself, and not overdo things. Now I've been relatively painfree for two months I probably underdo things too much, since I'm so wary of setting off the pain again.

I have been knitting and spinning, and - tada! - I've finished one of my WIPs. I've finished the Lace-Up Opera Gloves, but need to get ribbons for them. It took about 2 months to finish them (I'd already knit one last year) - I did a maximum of about 4 rows a day, and I didn't knit daily. I keep a note of what I do each day, partly so I don't overdo it, and partly so that I'm always sure where I'm up to - when you can only knit about 100 stitches a day, you don't want to waste hand movements unknitting!

I'm currently working on Branching Out. This is the piece that gave me tennis elbow back in the summer, so I'm taking it really carefully. And I only knit if I've been painfree that day, and I try not to knit too much on days that I type a lot. I'm doing around a maximum of 10 rows a day (ie., a full pattern repeat), but these are spaced out throughout the day. I'm a little concerned I may run out of yarn, but since it's a scarf that shouldn't be too dreadful - it's already neck warmer length.

Spinning wise, I dyed my final 100g of white Cheviot top with Kool Aid - I went with some of my blue and some of my yellow, mixing them in the middle to get green. One of the reasons why I prefer my Chapter Two yarn over my Chapter Three yarn is that it has more colours and shades mixing together. The Chapter Three yarn is basically blue and pink, whereas Chapter Two has pink, purple, blue, white, red... Each inch is a new delight of colour combination, and so this is why I used three colours this time. I spun the singles last weekend, and will probably ply them this weekend. It may be garish, and heavens know what I'll do with it, but it's all fun.

I also spun back in December, when we got back from our trip. I spun and plied all in one evening - I'd stop every now and then and think 'No pain! Keep going!' That's my secret spinning, from my secret dyeing, and so won't be revealed just yet.

In non-fibrey-new, our landlord has said that he is going to sell the flat, so now we're in the process of moving and will be out by the end of the month. We'll be moving to the city that I go to university in (right now I have a 45 minute train ride), and we've found a lovely house. Unfortunately, it's also for sale so I have a horrid feeling we're going to have to move again in 6 months. But 6 months in that house should be nice, I hope. Now I'm just spending most of the time sorting and packing and clearing, and trying not to overdo things!

And finally, today my postman delivered some voice recognition software, courtesy of Tauret (Hope - thank you so much :) I'm so sorry I haven't sent my half of the swap out yet). I haven't tried it out yet (this post has used up most of my typing time for the day!), but I'm hopeful that it will allow me to do a great deal more in future. We'll see :)

Oops, where did October go?

2006-10-25T13:06:00.001+01:00

I do apologise fair reader; I hadn't realised that a) I really hadn't posted for a while and b) Blogger burped at some point during the posting of my last message and stuck it up thrice. Naughty Blogger. (and naughty Bee for not noticing for a month).

In recent news...

* My blue Kool Aid has arrived - 50 sachets for me to play with different shades of blue, and try to make green with all those sachets of 'pineapple'.

* Chapter Three spinning? Done and dusted my friend! Ages ago in fact, at the end of September. I'm not as totally madly deeply in love with it as I am the Chapter Two yarn, but it's still pretty (photos to follow of course).

* I've done some secret dyeing which is next in the spinning queue, which is why the blue Kool Aid is a-waiting.

* I have had a new pain in my wrists that ice nor anti-inflammatories cure (so probably not inflammation then, as my physio pointed out) which is finally easing off now after about a week. However, it's the part of my wrist that I know can ache (as in 'ooh, I've done a lot of work today' aching, rather than severe RSI aching) when spinning, so I'm not going to spin while there's even the slightest chance this pain hasn't gone away. It's also the reason why I've been focusing my typing on my thesis, rather than t'internet.

* Latest 'argh, I hate my body' pain is a severe pain in my jaw which I've had for about 2 months now. Neither dentist nor physio can figure it out, but it's most likely due to my Crappy Upper Back (TM) rather than my teeth. My CUB is apparently the root cause of ALL the pain I have had in the past year. Great.

* Had an appointment with my physio who has now said there's not much more she can do, and is referring me on to someone else, who sounds a bit like a personal trainer for people who can't do things like hold open a paperback without having pain or pick up a shopping bag. So like me then. I haven't had a letter through yet, so I'm not sure exactly what it will be like.

* My introduction to my thesis is done! And I'm aiming to have the conclusion finished by tomorrow afternoon, and then I'll just need to rework the iffy bits. The end is in sight...

Blimey

2006-09-26T21:39:00.003+01:00

I've just finished chapter three. I really didn't expect to have it done by today. You know what that means? Chapter Three Spinning - hoorah! I'm going to spend the season finale of Lost predrafting tonight, but I'm not sure when I'll spin it.

The out-of-date Kool Aid arrived today. It worked out at 12.5p a sachet, which is much better than the 47.5p I paid for the first lot. And the colours aren't dreadful, although nearly half the sachets are 'pineapple'. This is unfortunate, but not a disaster and I figure I can mix that with blue sachets to make green. That works, right? Now I need to order some more fibre!

My wrists are... hot. Elbows aren't too bad (I now wear a padded elbow support all the time because I'm so clumsy and keep knocking my elbows on door knobs/cupboards/walls/door frames, etc, and it was beginning to affect my tendons), but my actual wrists are... hot. Not full on burning bracelets yet, but if I'm not carefull I'll get there :-/

I think I might have tomorrow off. I'm probably seeing my supervisor about feedback re chapters one and two on Thursday, so it makes sense not to start the introduction/conclusion until I've found out how crap the chapters are.

So no typing tomorrow. Not even blogs :-0 And if anyone has any experience of using Dragon Voice Recognition software please let me know!

Nothing much to report

2006-09-25T23:04:00.001+01:00

Chapter three is still not finished, so there has been no spinning. Although it's now over 4000 words long, so the end is in sight (unless it turns out that by putting all my quotes in both English and Latin - which seeing as I'm using my own translations I've been told to do - I'm 'articifically inflating my word count' and have to write more. I am desperately hoping this isn't the case). It bad when the stuff in brackets is longer than the proper stuff, right? Anyway, I've felt like I've been on 3000 words for ages. I've been reading on people's blogs recently that they get to this knitting void where they knit and knit and knit and their knitting gets no longer: that's how I felt with this; so it was such a relief to hit 'word count' and see 4000.

Every now and then I pensively touch the chapter three top and hope it isn't too felted. It's massively felted. I can hold it with my hands 10 inches apart and pull and pull and pull and get no movement. If I attack bits at a time I can draw it out so I'm trusting that when stripped into thin lengths it will draft easily. Of course, the way to know would be to finish chapter three, but that probably won't happen until Wednesday.

By the way - Friday's deadline? Got an extension. Well, no technically, I didn't. I discovered that research students are supposed to spend the allotted time of their course researching, and THEN write up the thesis, and that it is only 'exceptional' people who hand in their theses early (the allotted time of my course is 365 days, and Friday would have been 363 days - that means had it been finished by then, I would be 'exceptional'. Ha!). I also discovered that I'm supposed to fill in a form three months before I hand in my thesis. Oops. Apparently it won't be a problem.

I intend to finish within two weeks though. Partly because there's a weeklong literature festival I want to go to in the second week of October, and partly because I have my next physio appointment in mid-October and want to have done some knitting before it so that we have a clear idea of what my hands can and can't do.

I've also bought 170 packs of Kool Aid. It hasn't arrived yet so I'm not holding my breath: 50 of the sachets are coming from America so I'm worried about customs, and 120 are an 'assortment' which may well turn out to be lemonade, lemonade, lemonade and 'invisible' raspbery. Let's hope not, eh? Tomorrow I'll order more top - I'm thinking of about 300grams of different breeds of sheep. For example, I didn't really like the Dorset Horn as it had long guard hairs in it, but the Cheviot is quite nice, despite being cheaper. I just have to decide what I want to do with it all!

Dyeing for Chapter Three

2006-09-18T23:05:00.001+01:00

I've written the first 1500 words of chapter three today. It was a bit of a slog as I'm still not quite sure how chapter three is going to turn out - I'm pretty much just writing until I get to 5000 words and then hoping there's a coherent point.

To make the process move along a bit faster, I decided to make myself a new carrot, since I love my chapter two yarn so much. I split my remaining top into half, and decided to dye the first half once I'd finished writing for the day.

I did think, when I started the process at 9:30pm that maybe I should wait for another day, but I am nothing if not impulsive.

I decided to try Roarin' Raspberry Cranberry, since this has a gorgeous deep claret coloured packet. Unfortuantely, the colour of the actual Kool Aid is more like that of the Tropical Punch, so a strong reddy-orange. I couldn't decide which colour to put with it, since I only had an orange, a pink, a green, two other reds, and a dubious sounding colour-change one. I plumped for the Changin' Cherry: 'watch the green drink mix turn into a blue drink!' (apparently it tastes like 'red cherry' but a) I wouldn't know and b) I doubt it).

I think this camera just hates photographing pinky/orangy/reddy colours, since the RRC is all washed out, while the blue CC is pretty accurate. I tried to get a really strong claret colour (which, really, wasn't going to happen with orangy-red dye, no matter what colour the sachet) which is why it looks like I used less RRC than CC. I think the main reason why I'm not getting strong colours is because I'm not using enough dye. Everything I've read says use one sachet per ounce, and I had 2 ounches of fibre... Hang on . OK, apparently I had 3.5 ounches of fibre (=100g) which might explain it. I'm such a moron and really should've left this until another day!

This dyeing process was actually a little different to the previous one, despite the fact that I did the same steps. For example, this one didn't make exploding noises in the microwave (I was considering putting it in the proper oven since I had it on to make bread, but I realised I'd already wrapped the dyed top in non-ovenable microwave clingfilm). It also made heaps of mess - although the dyed had exhausted by the time the water decided to overflow everywhere so nothing is stained, I didn't have this problem last time.

And the final problem... well, that is my fault. When I came to rinse it I didn't pay attention when adding the detergent (I add a little bit to dyed stuff to make sure any extra dye washes out then), and instead of a 'teeny dash' I ended up with a strong glug. I have now rinsed the top about 3 times and it is still full of detergent :( At the moment I've put it out to cool down so I can continue rinsing in cooler water later. I really need to get the detergent out - I have a feeling that leaving it in for a couple of weeks will affect the colours. Sadly, the more I rinse the top, the more likely it is to felt on me.

Obviously, I just need to get chapter three finished ASAP so that I can spin it up and wash it again as yarn... but since that probably isn't going to happen I'll have a couple more goes at rinsing and cross my fingers.

Other news. New knitty. I don't know why I didn't get the email saying that it was up; I only noticed a few days ago. Sadly I love most of the patterns, especially Intolerable Cruelty (especially Intolerable Cruelty), Tamarah and I like the idea of Sugar on Snow.

Finally, I owe at least three people who read this blog an email. I'm very sorry, and I will get my arse into gear over the next few days. I have this weird compulsion that I never 'have time' to write emails because they take 'so long' and while it's OK to mess about ~~felting~~ dyeing top, I really 'don't have time' to write an email, because I want to dedicate time to it and there's 'no time'. I will try and spending tomorrow's messing around time on emailing :)

The spinning is completed

2006-09-16T22:19:00.001+01:00

I plyed my dyed yarn today, using Impromptu Lazy Kate #2. It's approximately 139 yards long, so my insane toilet roll counting system gave me a good estimate. It's soaking right now. I hope it turns out OK. Usually when I ply I pinch and semi-draft (no, I don't really know what I'm talking about) and control the twist. Today half the time I did this, but half the time I just let go, and let the yarn ply itself - it was pulled onto the bobbin at just the right speed to ply smoothly through my fingers. Since technically I didn't really need to hold the yarn, I am suspicious that this might be 'cheating' and that it's all going to fall apart.

The most awesome thing about plying, other than watching which colours were matching up with which, was that there were only six inches of yarn left over once the first bobbin had run out. Let me remind you that not only had I divided the top into two by eye, but my spinning still isn't consistent. Yet I managed to produce two lengths of yarn that had only 6 inches between them. Mr Bee said, with a somewhat scornful tone 'I suppose you're going to mention that on your blog?'

Damn right I am. I'm even going to post a photo of the remnant with a ruler:

There are a couple of issues with my yarn though.

Let me demonstrate this with a few examples from my blog:

Friday, August 26, 2005: I buy Within Temptation gig tickets.
Sunday, August 28, 2005: those are my feet, in stripey blue socks. Note the black velvet skirt with the lace hem.
Thursday, October 06, 2005: see those boots? They're mine. Both pairs. As is the black and silver ornate umbrella.
Saturday, February 11, 2006: I give you a long, floofy black skirt with a lace hem.
Tuesday, March 07, 2006: note the stripey socks in tandem with a black floaty chiffon skirt.
Monday, March 13, 2006: I am demonstrating my new armwarmers while wearing a Zeraphine vest.
Wednesday, May 31, 2006: a Hug, shown with a Cruxshadows t-shirt, displaying a skeletal spine and wings.
Thursday, September 14, 2006: my yoga kit: you will see that while the shorts I made from some random material are blue, the rest of my kit is black.

So. What am I going to do with this?

I love it. Even though it's mainly candy pink, with swirls of candy lilac and candy blue (I cannot capture the real colours, and have given up) I love it. I actually found myself just holding it for about half an hour this evening. Even Mr Bee said "it looks like something you'd buy in a yarn shop." I love each different twirl of colours. I love the fact that I made this; I dyed it and I spun it and I plyed it. I can't wait to see how it knits up. I'm thinking maybe this (when I can knit again, of course; there's always a downside).

Yoga Shorts

2006-09-14T22:33:00.001+01:00

Today for the third week of a row I didn't make my yoga class (this is not just me being lazy, my class is 1-2:30pm but I have to set off at 10am to get there and don't get home until after 4:30pm. I can't spend the whole day going to yoga right now). So in an attempt to make up for it, I present...

My yoga shorts:

I made these a while ago, from some random stretchy fabric in my stash, to wear over my leggings. I used to wear big baggy t-shirts, but felt that I really need my yoga teacher to be able to see my upper back and shoulders. With a pair of baggy shorts over my leggings to cover my bum and tum, I feel a lot less self-conscious wearing skin-tight vests.

The irony of me making baggy shorts to cover my lumpy bits is that these are made from a pattern for pyjama trousers for a nine year old. Not only was I using a pre-pubescent pattern, I had to take it in by over four inches. Before you start thinking that I'm only this big --><-- let me assure you that I also had to remove four inches between the waist and crotch. I don't know what kind of freaky nine year olds the pattern makers know, but I don't think they are real nine year olds.

Spinning-wise, I've now wound the second bobbin onto the toilet roll and hopefully I'll ply them tomorrow. It's exciting! The yarn didn't break while winding onto the loo roll, so I trust it will ply safely. I should have at least 118 yards, due to my insane idea to measure the circumference of a toilet roll and then count how many times I wrapped the yarn round it. There isn't too much of a discrepancy between length of singles either, which is promising.

Dorset Horn 2-ply

2006-09-13T23:30:00.001+01:00

Here's something from my photo archives, the finished object which was plyed on the Impromptu Lazy Kate #1 a while back:

I spun this up for a friend's birthday. It's undyed Dorset Horn, 2-ply. I was so chuffed when I skeined it up, it looked like there was loads and loads and loads. I was pretty devastated when I measured it to discover that not only was it only 60 yards long (admittedly, it's only 1oz of fibre), but that when wound into a ball it was about the size of a large duck egg:

But it was appreciated! My friend wants to try out natural dyeing, so I thought that giving her some 'blank' wool would be beneficial... but quite what she can do with 60 yards I don't know. She claims she can get a hat out of it.

Breed: Dorset Horn
Fibre prep.: Commercial Top
Weight: 1 oz/ 30g
Yardage: 60 yards
Colour: Natural
Method: Wheel spun on Haldane Lewis
Spun: Can't remember!
Plyed: 2-ply, using 'Lazy Kate' for the first time

Impromptu Lazy Kate #2

2006-09-11T22:54:00.001+01:00

You remember the attempt at spinning I made the other month? The stuff that looked, uh, crap?

Well, never one to let things go (the hoarding thing, remember?) I decided to try and unwind the mega-over-twists onto some toilet rolls and see whether I could ply it. Lazy Kate #1 (aka - our towel rail) worked well, but I had to attach the toilet rolls to the towel rail *before* winding on the yarn. Since I already had my yarn wrapped on toilet rolls, I couldn't use the towel rack.

Sticking with the laundry theme though, I realised that with some long knitting pins (hey! They finally get some use!) I could use our smaller washing basket:

It worked jolly well, and I was able to turn that overtwisted snarl into a respectable small skein (get this: there were only FOUR INCHES left over after plying). I shall use this as a tester for my next Kool Aid experimentation session.

And I shall use Lazy Kate #2 for plying my current Kool Aid spinning. In a way it's good that I don't have a camera right now. Otherwise there'd be [more] pictures of the dyed top; pictures of the particular colours which appeared during the predrafting process; the glorious coiled nest of predrafted fibre I made prior to spinning; pictures of the bobbin every 5 or so minutes as a new colour combination appeared... well... let's just say that this post would otherwise have been a real pain for anyone on dial up.

The colours are beautiful. I know they looked clashing and muddy in the photos below, but they're not. The 'muddy' sections are a deep burgundy, and because the Tropical Punch is actually reddy rather than muddy-orange, there is no clashing. I hope it all plys nicely - I've decided to go with 2-plying rather than Navajo plying, so there is going to be a barberpole effect, but I've tried to aim it so that the colour sections will kinda match up (ha!).

I split the top in half - one for each ply - then predrafted into smaller strips, and spun the first half on Saturday. It spun so nicely - no felted bits at all. My spinning is getting more consistent, and I realised that often I was spinning totally by feel and not looking at what I was doing. I managed a respectable average of 27 wpi (go me and my terminology). Then yesterday I wound off onto a toilet roll and predrafted the second half. The second one wasn't quite as effortless as the first: I think I over drafted occasionally (in my defence, I was watching Lost and not always paying 100%) and as tonight wore on (maybe spinning past 10pm is not the best thing to do) the yarn kept breaking. *Hopefully* this won't be too much of an issue whilst plying. Hopefully.

Let the spinning BEGIN!

2006-09-09T17:35:00.001+01:00

Yee-hah! Chapter two is finished :-D I haven't yet sent it to my tutor partly because I'd like Mr Bee to look at it first and he's away at the moment, and partly because my tutor still hasn't looked at chapter one ( :( ) and I don't want to overwhelm him. However, other than any suggestions Mr Bee makes, I shall not be changing it until I send it in, so I'm counting it as done (I even spent today double checking my footnotes and reading poems I didn't need to just in case they were important).

I'm not going to jump straight into my spinning, but at least now I know I can do it without feeling guilty! Unfortunately, clicking 'ignore' on the spell-checker for every Latin word in my thesis about Latin poetry that came up has made my elbows twinge.

Also, as Mr Bee is away for a week (don't worry - I've emailed him my chapter, and if I don't get a reply over the weekend I'll send it to my tutor anyway) he has the digi-cam, so I won't be able to take photos. But this means that throughout the week I should be able to find all the random photos I've taken in the past and not yet posted, and stick those up here instead.

Rambles

2006-09-06T18:35:00.001+01:00

Today I've been doing quite a bit of weaving with, *fingers crossed* no apparent discomfort (ahem, I'm putting the twinges down to typing, OK?). I have very nearly finished the second half of the scarf, and since we have heaps of videoed stuff to watch, may well get it finished tonight. Then I just have to deal with how to attach the two halves together. Hmm...

One of my new black'n'blue Oh So Goth (as long as you cover over the sports company logo ;) ) tennis elbow bands arrived today. The seller forgot to put the other one in the parcel *rollseyes* These are a different design to my other one. My original one is just a padded band, whereas this new one has a 'tendon pad' which pushes into the skin quite a lot. It's taken some getting used to (in that I nearly emailed the seller to say forget about the other one, I want a refund), but I've been trialling it this afternoon and think it'll be OK. If the worst comes to the worst I can try and hack the tendon pad off the second one and see if it's any better. I've also ordered some heatable/freezable straps, which - if they work - should be a better way of icing my arm rather than balancing ice packs on it.

The dyed top is pretty much dry now - I put it by the window this morning to catch some sun. Some bits seem a little felted :-/ but I'm hoping if I pre-draft well enough and take it slowly it should spin OK. It's all a learning process anyway. I may try and hold out until at least tomorrow before I start it though. How about trying to keep it for a 'congratulations I've finished chapter two' present? I hate chapter two. I've been writing it for aaaaaaaages and just want it finished! I can't believe I've signed up for a PhD (got my confirmation letter today) when I'm whinging about writing a 5000 word chapter :P

OK. I'll try and use the beautiful top as my carrot. No spinning until chapter two has been sent to my tutor. Eek!

Dyeing

2006-09-05T22:55:00.001+01:00

It's so exciting! My 10 sachets of Kool Aid arrived yesterday, so I popped out to get things like microwavable tubs and cling film. Being an English person and having never seen Kool Aid before, I have to say I am unsurprised at the rising levels of kids in North America diagnosed with ADHD, if this stuff is common: I felt hyperactive just smelling the sealed packages, never mind adding A WHOLE CUP of sugar and drinking it!* E-number-licious!

I searched the interwebs for instructions for dyeing, and ended up following an amalgam. First I soaked the yarn and roving in hot water with a dash of vingar. Then I applied the Kool Aid! I wasn't sure what the colours would turn out like, and didn't want to 'waste' my packets, since I paid a fortune for them (worked out at basically $1 for each sachet - I'm sure these are usually around 10cents in the US). As such, the colours might be a little weird together, because I had to guess.

First I trialled the Tropical Punch, which is in a blue packet but comes out bright blood-orangey-red (this is on the thick yarn I spun at the weekend, in the last post):

Obviously, the colours photograph badly, they're not as washed out.

Then I tried a little bit of Tropical Punch with... ah, crap. The name is on the top of the sachet which I ripped off and chucked away... *rifles through bin*... Grape. Grape comes out a lovely purple, but the weaker the solution the more bluey-grey it goes.

In person the colours look a lot less weird together, but I admit I could've chosen better. This is the yarn I had 'challah hanked' a couple of posts ago.

With both the yarns I put the yarn in a plastic tub with the dye (even the two-tone one had both colours in the same tub - one at either end; I didn't measure how much water I used, and I think I could've used more) and microwaved it (yay! Knew the microwave would be useful for more than just the monthly hot-bean-bag warm up). It sounded terrifying in the microwave - lots of pops and explosions, but didn't set on fire.

With a leetle bit of Tropical Punch and quite a bit of Grape left I had a go at dyeing rovings. Or top. Actually, I think it's top**. I had a 2 ounce length which I laid out (folded into thirds) on some microwavable cling film. I found applying the dye very awkward, as it seemed to just suck it all up at the bottom, and I was left with loads and loads of white between the dyed places, and the dyed places themselves tended to take the dye underneath but not at the top layer.

So I decided to sacrifice another sachet, and went for Swirlin' Strawberry Starfruit, which was a pastel pink and actually a very good choice. It goes beautifully with the Grape. And actually, the Grape goes nicely with the undyed white bits too. I was able to squeeze more out of the dye already applied by adding some water and gently squishing it all down (I hope I haven't felted it :-0). I ended up with about 4 splodges of Grape, two of Tropical Punch and the rest is the SSS.

I then wrapped the clingfilm round each third and popped it in the microwave. As I couldn't really see if the dye had exhausted, after a couple of goes in the microwave I took the clingfilm off, and zapped it once more. It looks so exciting (seriously, it doesn't look this bad normally)!

Look! Look what colour the Grape goes sometimes! Beautiful blue...

And here they are all laid out to dry.

I was a little nervous that they might drip dyed water, since we have a crap plastic bath and I was worried it would stain. But once the dyebath exhausted absolutely NO dye was given off at all! The rinse water was totally clear (even though I used warm water with detergent). Amusingly, I was thinking about how my bath at my parents' was so great, being enamel, that it never stained, no matter how much red/pink/purple/blue hairdye you washed down it. Only to get a message from my mum today to say that that wonderful bath is currently in the front garden, and my dad is redecorating the bathroom. Oh well! Given that they've already got the kitchen sink for me in the shed (no, I'm not joking. It's a double sink and they were getting rid of it, so I asked if they'd hold onto it on the offchance the housing market collapses, I get to buy a house and have enough left over to redo the kitchen) I don't think they'll keep the bath too :P

Back to the wool! Dyeing is loads of fun! I have 7 sachets left and have just had to stop myself placing an order with an American company for 100 more :P I only have 2 dyed ounces of top left, LOL! I think I can wait before I get any more.

I want to spin the dyed top sooooooooooooooo bad. It's there, taunting me every time I go in the bathroom. Luckily it's still wet otherwise I'd be spinning it right now ;) I have no idea whether it will spin up nicely, or ply nicely, but it means that practising spinning will become more fun. Can't wait to get to the bluuuuue bits :D As for the yarn... I'm just sad that I can't do anything with it. The two-tone one could possibly be a skinny drop-stitch scarf (the Tropical Punch skein is too short to be anything really), but will I ever get to knit it?

Enough! I've already had my weekly intensive two-hour crying pity-a-thon this morning; no more!

* I know. I'm being facetious. I apologise.
** Note to Mancunians: While it is also 'great', 'top' is used here as the technical name for the long wad of fibre as pictured in the photos.

Epiphany

2006-09-03T23:04:00.001+01:00

:drumroll:

I finally figured out how wpi (wraps per inch) works.

I realise that this is not really that ground-breaking, and that most people will be saying 'and...?', but this has been a real confuddlement for me since I started spinning in February.

So. To determine wraps per inch you wrap your yarn round a ruler, and see how many wraps there are per inch. Simple right? Well, for some reason I had a massive brain fart with this, because I just couldn't understand it: surely it depended on how wide the ruler was? I used to lie awake at night trying to figure it out: how can everyone use wpi as a generic guide if they're all using random rulers? Or maybe there's just a spinning ruler that everyone knows about but me and no one mentions it because it's so obvious? Let me emphasise this: I have been wondering about this for seven months. It was getting to the point where I was going to have to ask on a spinning list (and I am soooooooooooooo glad that I didn't!) - I was so perplexed that no one else had asked this, and I've been reading spinning lists for seven months, and surely other newbies must not know about the special spinning ruler?

Of course, I could've just tried it, but without the special spinning ruler, I didn't see the point.

So. Anyway. Yesterday I decided on a break to do a little spinning, to see whether I could still spin thicker yarns, and I also decided to read Mabel Ross's 'The Essentials of Handspinning' again, because I need to start being more technical in my spinning. Darnit - I wanted to figure out wpi!

And then it clicked: it really doesn't matter how thick the blimming ruler is!

(rest of world chorus: 'and...?')

I think I was getting confused with length and wraps (as in, you'll get more wraps from 10 inches of yarn around a pencil than you will a ruler, and more round a ruler than you will a mug, etc). (Yes, OK, and I was just being stupid)

Now then. What's grist?

I can never keep to things

2006-09-02T15:00:00.002+01:00

Personal deadlines fly by (what? You mean the first draft of my entire thesis was meant to be finished by 31st August? And that was two days ago you say?), and I, erm, can't keep off the fibre!

Pretty much just after I made that entry the other day on pain, I plyed the singles which have been sat on the bobbin for a while. Oops. I used the Andean plying method, even though there were lots of fine singles, and it worked just fine (and it didn't hurt either :) ). I do need to buy more bobbins though - I thought I'd spun loads and loads since my bobbin was quite full and the hank reeeeeeeeally long, and am pretty devastated that preliminary calculations suggest it's only 33 yards long.

This is my cheapy cheapy wool that I'm using for practice, since it's only £1 per 100g. I bought 300g of it, but there's only about an ounce (=30 grams) in that skein. It's my first attempt at trying to make a skein look pretty, using this method on the Two Sheep blog. Not too bad for a first try.

I've decided to leave the yarn in a hank/skein (please please - someone tell me the difference!) mainly because I don't want to risk stretching it by winding it into a ball and leaving it for yonks because I can't knit it up (plus: winding stuff hurts my arms). Also, I've finally decided to suck it up and buy some Kool Aid from ebay to try dyeing. I emailed the ebay people at the beginning of August to ask about getting brightly coloured sachets, and they said they often get requests from dyers, LOL! I'll try dyeing this skein, but I also want to dye the rest of the top that I've got since it's going to be reeeeeeeeeeeeally boring spinning 270g worth of white white white white white top. Since Kool Aid dyeing requires no further mordants, and is safe (apparently!) to drink, I'm assuming that it's a relatively environmentally friendly form of dyeing, and I won't be polluting the water courses.

AND I need to get the guts to post to one of the spinning mailing lists asking for help with my wheel. Someone somewhere must have a guide to using the Haldane Lewis!

Is it wrong...

2006-09-01T15:07:00.001+01:00

... to be tempted by the Boye Interchangeable needle kit, when I already have the Denise set (oh yeah, and can't really knit at the moment) just because they are pretty colours?

But they come in blue. And purple. And green.

So. The Pain

2006-08-31T18:51:00.001+01:00

I think typing causes a great deal of my pain. In the last post I attributed the pain to weaving. So I stopped weaving on Tuesday 22nd August. However, this Monday, 28th August - a whole week later, I was in excruciating pain. I took painkillers (which I never normally do) and applied the anti-inflammatory gel twice... eventually I managed to fall asleep after being in floods of tears for about 2-3 hours.

I was so upset partly because it bloody well hurt, and partly because I'm scared for the future. If I'm like this at 25 what will I be like at 30? 40? What on earth will my career be? Part of the reason for applying for a part time PhD is because I know that I can't work fulltime right now, unless I'm working fulltime in say a clothes shop. Before I started my MPhil I was a successful college administrator running a department. I always thought I'd maybe go back to that but I can't - it involved far too much computer use. And really, most jobs nowadays do.

I'm also worried because I'm in a much worse state now than I was a year ago, and I hardly *do* anything now. My arms are just degenerating, despite all the rest and exercises that I do.

And what caused all that pain? Well, put it this way: I finished my first 5000 word chapter on Sunday evening, and spent Monday painstakingly looking up references for footnotes. I had been doing my exercises every 45 minutes, and Mr Bee has posited that maybe the exercises could be causing the problem too. It is possible that the stretches I do for my forearms is impacting on my tennis elbow (which was the Monday night pain). I haven't done any exercises since then, didn't go to yoga today either :( but I will have to restart some general stretching tomorrow otherwise the forearm pain gets bad.

Since Monday I've had a break from the computer by doing a lot of reading in preparation for chapter two. Tonight I'm having a 'catch-up on email' session, and then tomorrow I'll start chapter two. And I have to keep telling myself that during my breaks I don't have to feel bad about not doing any fabric crafts or web-surfing: I have plenty of other things to be getting on with, like going through all my photos and putting them in albums.

And I'm worried about the degenerating thing. I'm going to stop using the anti-inflammatory gel unless it is *really* required: I'll go with 10minutes worth of ice-application first. I don't like using strong medicines, and I do tend to use a lot of the gel. I don't know whether it can cause problems, but I've been using it off and on for a year now.

As for knitting (you know, for when I finish the photo albums ;) ), I'm not doing any until I've finished my MPhil. And then I'm only going to do 20 stitches a day. I plan to put a load of stitch markers in every 20 stitches on Tempting, and work on that. If I can manage 20 a day with no probs I'll move onto do a row of Branching Out per day, which is about 25 stitches per row. Any pain and I'll stop.

I'm sure I must sound like a boring stuck record (which is why I don't post on the Knitty forums anymore, LOL!), but if you do have pain you need to STOP. If you can catch it early then you won't be in such an unbelievable mess like me.

Uh-oh, it's that boring pain thing again

2006-08-26T17:13:00.003+01:00

Well, I appear to have jinxed myself. Following the pain update the other day, I ended up with tennis elbow in both arms at the same time. Oh, how I chastised myself for returning that second tennis elbow band!

I don't want to admit it, but I guess weaving could be the cause, since it started after that. Well, I've done nothing arm-related bar typing and writing since the pain started, and now it is shifting somewhat. I don't know if fibre arts really are the cause, but I guess I really do need to try and lay off them until I finish my thesis.

And if weaving and knitting are both going to give me hurty pains, then I choose the knitting! Once I finish my MPhil I'll hopefully be starting a part time PhD. The part time job I get will be a non-typing one, so with any luck I'll be able to limit the amount of typing I do at the start of my PhD, and work on being able to knit.

I just keep stumbling across more and more breathtaking patterns that I must make! After seeing some pictures of the latest Rowan magazine, #40, I popped into House of Fraser today (sadly the LYSes in this town don't do Rowan wool, so I guess they don't do their magazine) to have a look at it. I am totally in love with so many of the patterns! Seriously, we'll be here all day if I list them all, but I especially love Aelf and Sadie, with Rosa, Cobweb and Dew coming in close second.

If I can only knit 25 stitches a day it will take me so long to finish everything BUT I WANT THEM. So if not weaving means I get to do 50 stitches a day, well...

I would like to finish my green woven scarf though - I'll take it very slowly and see how I get on.

Spot the deliberate mistake (OK - mistakes)

2006-08-23T22:26:00.001+01:00

(and no, it's not just that I forgot to turn the flash off)

So: the looms. I have two - they are both small vintage child's looms, both cost under a fiver (inc. P&P) from ebay as well. I've only tried one, but it works really well, a lot better than I was expecting! The one in the picture is a Spear's loom, size 2. I've also seen Spear's looms in sizes 3 and 4, but they tend to be more expensive and a lot rarer; the bonus is that they're wider though. The size 2 is about 5 inches wide, and can apparently make lengths of up to 5 feet.

The other loom has a different type of heddle (the thing you thread the warp threads through to raise them up and down). It looks like it won't work as well as the Spear's one, but it should be better for using with my handspun, since it's a pain just to get double-knitting wool through the holes in the Spear's heddle, and my handspun is not yet consistently that thin.

I could barely wait to warp up the Spear's when I got it on Monday. I used some random acrylic in my stash, planning to make a pair of slippers, using up all the black yarn in the pictue above. Yep, that was mistake one: I used up all the yarn on the first slipper; it only occurred to me half-way through the actual weaving that to make a pair of slippers I'd have to make two - doh!

Mistake two was starting to weave at the wrong end, so I couldn't roll the fabric up - doh again! I actually ended up un-weaving all that I had done, and redoing it from the right end. It really doesn't take that long; well, compared to knitting a comparable piece.

And the fabric. Well, it's purty! As you can see it shows the warp and the weft, so I'll be able to do tartan designs. It's very sturdy as well, and smooth. I'm just so used to feeling knitted fabric that this is a nice surprise, but as it's rather stiff I'm not sure what sort of garments could be made from it.

Yesterday I warped up the loom for a skinny scarf, and today (so after weaving for about 2.5 hours in total) I thought I'd finished it... Only to find (mistake #3) that as you have to double over the warp threads I'd left this out of my calculations and made the blasted thing half too short. I've come to the decision to just make the second half separately and whip-stitch them together; I did intend to splice on new warp threads, but the idea of doing that 30 times with acrylic non-sticking-to-itself yarn really really bores me.

It's all a learning process I guess!

As for me and weaving: well, it has never appealed to me before. Quite frankly, I just couldn't see the point. However, after talking to the re-enactor woman in Wales the other week I realised that weaving could well be a use for my handspun, given that I can't knit with it at the moment (the jury's out as to whether weaving causes pain BTW - I've been feeling tennis elbow in both arms today, but it may be the excess typing). Then after seeing the Roman/Dark Age re-enactor's warp-weighted loom I went home and read about looms, before deciding to just give it a go with a cheap little loom (although I already have two bead looms they weren't suitable - other than for scrap weaving - as I don't have a heddle, and really, you need a heddle).

As it is, it's enjoyable, and the fabric is created very quickly. However, I just don't know how many uses I'd have for woven fabric. We don't need any mats, cushions or wall-hangings, and there's only so many scarves you can have. I have a couple of designs for skirts in mind, but the width of the loom is rather constrictive. I'm planning to try some blackwork embroidery on the woven fabric too, which could be fun.

However, since I've spent the past week emersed in book 10 of the Odyssey, writing about Circe, I feel an ancient connection with all the women of the past who had to weave everything. Yes, Pallas Athena is the Matron of Female Crafts (in the myth of Ariadne she turns Ariadne into a nameless creature because I'm terrified of them but they make webs because Ariadne claimed her weaving was better than Athene's, or some such hubris), but most of the Goddesses weave. Athene is my Matron Goddess though, so she is especially special to me. Weaving is a common theme in ancient literature, and crops up multiple times in the Odyssey - especially with Penelope fending off the suitors by unpicking her weaving (she said she'd only marry one of her suitors once she finished a funeral shroud for her missing-husband's father) every night. I'm trying to work weaving's magical properties into my thesis, but might have to save it for a further paper.

'They could hear Circe within, singing in her beautiful voice as to went to and fro at her great and everlasting loom, on which she was weaving one of those delicate, graceful and dazzling fabrics that goddesses make.'

The Odyssey, 10.221-223
Penguin edition trans. Rieu

One Year Anniversary!

2006-08-22T14:04:00.001+01:00

Well, today is this blog's first birthday! I picked up knitting again 'properly' on July 2nd 2005 (while I was watching Live 8), and started blogging about a month and a half later on August 22nd. And got repetitive strain injury about two weeks after I starting blogging.

Still, it's been a fun, if frustrating and painful, journey. My knowledge of what goes in to make fabric has dramatically increased, I've learnt new skills in different areas of fibre arts... plus I have some great new clothes! I think the reason why I love knitting so much is that it turned out that I was quite good at it (if I am to be modest), as well as it being fun and new-clothesy. Let's just hope I get to take it up again, eh?

Actually, I think I will be able to knit again, even if it is just 25 stitches a day. Even though it will be excruciatingly slow-going, it'll be better than non-existant!

Anyway, I thought today was as good a day as any to have a pain update.

I have not now been knitting since June 26th, so nearly two months. I have spun once in that time; I've also been doing dress-making, weaving (both looms turned up yesterday! Weaving goes so quickly!!!), typing and writing - with a slightly heavier than normal pen (believe it or not, it does make a difference, *sigh*).

The tennis elbow, after switching from the right to the left arm, appears to have eased off in the past couple of weeks, which is a relief. Now I have pain back in my left under-forearm. It started mainly on the underside of my left wrist, but in the past few days has extended into my arm.

This is due to a combination of upping the amount of typing, writing with the heavy pen (but it's my favourite :( ) (...and I'm sure excessive scissoring didn't help either), and the fact that I haven't been doing my exercises often enough. I need keep up my exercises and keep the pain under control so that I can get my thesis finished.

I occasionally get pain in my upper right arm from the trackball, and right now there's some in the upper left (punishment for saying the tennis elbow had gone I guess ;) ), but the upper arms don't tend to get as bad as the lower.

I never thought that taking up knitting would affect my life to such an extent that I'd no longer be able to work behind a computer all day, or even have to curtail my hobbies. I certainly wouldn't have thought that a pleasurable and relaxing pastime would result in a year of pain showing no sign of buggering off! Que sera sera, eh?

Doh!

2006-08-19T13:43:00.001+01:00

Argh! You know, I was beginning to think that maybe Athene was hinting to me that I need to work on my thesis - as Goddess of Intelligence that's certainly part of her remit, and it was beginning to feel like as Goddess of Weaving she was hiding my looms! I've bought two and so far neither have turned up - one was shipped out on 11th August as well. Deciding that enough was enough I've just turned the hallway upside down, and what do I find - a card from the postman saying my parcel was too big for the letterbox when he tried to deliver it on the 12th. Doh! I did look for a card, but this had snuck right into the corner behind an umbrella. Sigh. And it's too late now to get to the Sorting Office - I'll have to hope that it's still there on Monday.

This morning I've been doing some scrap weaving (gotta love those scraps) on my giant bead loom.

I have a vague idea that I'll make a load of woven-scrap panels and patchwork them together. Maybe. Of course, I had a lot more long lengths of scraps before I cut them all up the other day ;) but one of the joys of having an overlocker is that you tend to get lots of long scraps as you're trimming things down in dressmaking.

Creativity Overdrive

2006-08-18T14:15:00.001+01:00

A couple of things you may know about me. I'm a procrastinator. I get obsessed by a certain thing and have to do it otherwise the world will end. I tend to start things and never carry them through.

Add those things together and you're getting a whirlwind of creativity at the moment. Good news is: my thesis has a structure and I've started writing - hoorah! But I find I keep thinking about crafting, making, need to do it now otherwise I can't concentrate on my books (honest).

So, in the past couple of weeks there's been the sewing thing, the weaving thing, and last week I discovered blackwork for the first time and just had to do some right then. I'm not really a fan of cross-stitch (though I have seen a couple of patterns on ebay that are tempting... but that's another story), but as soon as I saw blackwork I fell in love - it's so elegant! It's basically single-line patterns done in a form of backstitch-cum-running stitch. Luckily, I think I managed to fulfill the urge that evening, trying out this pattern of violets.

I have some fabric which has a really loose weave, which is suitable for embroidery. I don't have any embroidery threads here (I think they must be at my parents'), but I used regular thread instead. At first, I was quite disappointed with how it was working out. I was using 4 strands of white thread, and it looked crap. However, I switched the 2 strands of dark green and it's just glorious.

Since then, I haven't felt the urge to do any more blackwork, but I think when I finish my thesis I shall buy this little owl kit, since I love owls and the Little Owl and the Burrowing Owl (which looks like a Little Owl but with added cute burrowing feature) are my favourites. One thing to possibly prevent me from further embroidery is that I don't really know what to do with the finished object: I have no wish to hang it on my wall, and we don't really need loads of cushions. Blackwork would be nice embroidered on the edge of skirts or pinnies maybe... we'll see.

Talking of pinnies, I made another yesterday, using up the rest of those burgundy fabric remnants. This one has pocketses and cute machine-embroidery. Oh, and talking about not needing any more cushions - I started making a cushion too. This isn't as bonkers as it sounds. When I first went away to university [as an undergrad] I had bought some large fabric squares to make two cushions out of. I made one, but the other one has the slippery silver fabric I made my spinning pinny with as a backing, and it didn't like going through the sewing machine. Being far too lazy to sew it by hand, I decided to put it aside until I got an overlocker, and haven't picked it up since! So I will make that second cushion cover at some point. However, what I'm missing is the second cushion. What better use for all my scraps of fabric (oh, another thing to know about me - I don't throw things away) than a big cushion?

So yesterday evening I sewed some fabric together to make the cushion and started stuffing it with scraps. A bit like with the Jack Skellington cushions, small squares of scraps worked better than big bits. So I cut up all the scraps left over from making the pinny. Then I went round finding more bags of scraps to cut up, and by (ahem) one in the morning, I'd chopped up all the scraps I could find to put in the cushion, bar any really big ones that I may use for a patchwork skirt. I think I have scissor-blisters on my thumb! It was good to be crafty and declutter at the same time! ;)

Edited to add: Oh ho ho... I've just found a he-youge bag of scraps in the bedroom. Good job my thumb still hurts from all yesterday's chopping otherwise I'd never get any work done!

Traffic Light / P.O.S.H. Gloves

2006-08-14T22:41:00.001+01:00

When we went to Wales the other week (which I will write about soon) I saw all my siblings, and was able to give Friday his birthday present, just a couple of months late.

These were made from my stash, with my own ridiculously easy pattern. I had two teeny balls - one green, one red, and a bigger ball of black. I decided to just use up all the red and green for the cuffs (which is why the green cuff is wider), and continue on with the black (I still have some of that left). You may recall that I made the red-cuffed one during my department's Colloquium ages ago (hence it contains my first ever unintentional yarn over. What? It's hard to concentrate on knitting surreptitiously with a professor behind you, in semi darkness while listening to a lecture you have to strain to hear because the speaker is sitting down and you're on the back row so you can hide your knitting. And you have to put your knitting down to clap). The green one didn't get started for a long time after that, and then was very slow going with me only being able to knit a couple of stitches at a time.

And the name? Well, I thought they were good 'traffic light' gloves, being red and green. However, when I showed them to a friend she gasped, 'you've made Port and Starboard gloves!' Hence the Port Out (the Port side is indicated with a red light) Starboard Home (indicated by a green light) acronym.

And our 'ironic' picture:

I bought some fabric at the weekend so look out for some dressmaking soon. I am also waiting on one mini-loom and have my eyes on another... You have been warned!

Spinning Pinny!

2006-08-09T23:48:00.001+01:00

Here's my spinning pinny - it's silver so it looks jolly glam, LOL! Compared to the burgundy one it's so rough - the ribbon at the top is stitched on really messily, and I haven't neatened the edges at all. HOWEVER: it works! In fact, there was hardly any fluff at all! I think because it's such a slippery fabric there's nothing for the fluff to 'grab' onto, so it just gets spun up instead. Hoorah!

It's a bit of a crappy pose; unfortunately I'm just wearing a grey jersey nightie which I made when I was about 17 and that's not the neatest of garments either (see - I've always been a lazy sewer :P ).

Burgundy Pinny

2006-08-09T23:28:00.002+01:00

Here is the pinny I made the other day for cleaning in. It's a bit short, as it's the size of the scrap of fabric I found! I'm actually quite impressed with the finishing I gave it - the pinny itself has rounded corners with an overlocked rolled hem, and the waistband has been done neatly. Given that a) I'm usually quite slapdash in sewing and b) it's a garment which isn't really going to be worn on fancy occasions (!) it's even more impressive ;)

Yep - got tennis elbow in the blasted left arm now. Like my fancy band?

And I'm outta the zone...

2006-08-08T16:10:00.001+01:00

It turns out that they're repeating The West Wing from the beginning on More 4, so I did do some spinning on Sunday evening. It, erm, didn't start off too well:

I have no reason why it suddenly went into over-twist hyper-drive. So I changed the drive band, using a different type of string. This one is a lot sturdier. I had been trying to use the smaller whorl setting to spin a finer yarn, but it obviously wasn't working!

After a while I got back into the groove and managed a respectable bobbin:

It always looks so neat on the bobbin doesn't it? However, it will have slubs and kinks in it. I need more practise! As it was, my arms didn't hurt, but after about 90 minutes my back ached under my right shoulder blade. Two days later and it's OK; I guess I should try to spin for 30 minutes at a time more regularly, rather than just going at it every now and then (maybe every West Wing!). I'm considering getting some kool aid to dye with, might make spinning lots of white wool slightly more interesting!

I'm really tempted to buy more bobbins for my wheel. Because it's kinky when taken off the bobbin it's always hard to ply my yarn with an Andean bracelet, and winding on to those toilet rolls is so time consuming. We'll see.

Finally the weaving bug took hold of me yesterday and I just had to get my small bead loom out and give it a try:

Not too bad eh? I'm tempted to buy a kid's loom on ebay, one that comes with a heddle, and see what happens. It would be cool if weaving were relatively quick and pain free...

I'm just interested in why I can't see the warp threads - how does one make, say, a tartan pattern? Perhaps the weft threads need to be thicker so that they don't all squish don't into each other and cover up the warp. I haven't managed to find a 'how to weave' website that's as clear as 'how to spin' ones are.

Bunnies & Pinnies!

2006-08-06T17:20:00.001+01:00

Mr Bee has been harping on about getting a bunny for some time now. He especially likes Netherland Dwarf bunnies, as they are so incredibly cute. I used to have my own rabbit when I was younger who was considerably... non-dwarf. Anyway, at the moment we are somewhat limited by the fact that we have no garden and barely any space in the flat. I think if we had a rabbit it would probably live in the house, but we'd have a run for it outside as well. I know when I had my rabbit she got way more attention when she lived inside as a baby than when she moved outside.

The other issue we have is that Mr Bee, as stated, likes dwarf bunnies. Admittedly, I like those too... But, I'd kinda like a spinnable bunny ;) Mr Bee thinks that angora bunnies are ugly (though even he will admit that The Sanguine Gryphon's angora bunnies are soooooooooooooooooooo cute!).

So. Impasse.

Fear not! Today I discovered the Jersey Wooly - a cross between a dwarf and an angora (boringly named 'Dwarf Angora' in Europe apparently). All the cuteness of a dwarf with the spinnability of an angora!

Though having lived in a house with 3 long-haired cats and their resulting fluff, we may end up with a Rex bunny instead ;)

Today I've been cleaning and sewing. The sewing was a result of the cleaning - I realised I could really do with some aprons. I have one pinny that's for best (I bet not many 25 year olds say that nowadays), but none for actual cleaning/cooking in. Plus I like pinnies, especially ones with pockets. Since I only wear skirts I rarely have any pockets on my clothes, so it's good to be able to strap on some extra pockets!

So I made a little pinny for cleaning/cooking in. This is quite small given that I just used a random fabric offcut, and it happened to be small pinny sized! I had 4 offcuts the same size, and used one for the pinny and one for the waistband. I could put some tiny pockets on it with the waistband remnants, but they'd be pretty impratical. I may make another with the other two offcuts and put a pocket on that one. I'm wearing it now and pretty sure it already has lasange spatter on it ;)

The second pinny is more an apron: it's my Spinning Pinny! Now that we live in a relatively fluff-free house sans chats (see above), I don't like getting spinning fluff on my clothes. So I've made a full length apron of a very shiny fabric to wear whilst spinning, in the hope it will make fluff-disposal easier. It's not very well finished - I haven't even neatened the edges with scissors never mind hemmed it, but it should be functional.

I do need one further pinny - a full, calf-length one. I realised once I'd made the little one why I'd decided to make a pinny today - to help me do the laundry! Both our laundry baskets are full of random crap, so when I get the clothes out of the washer I put them all in my skirt. Which is fine when I'm wearing a full long skirt, but today I was wearing a mid-thigh nightie (what? It's a Sunday!) which wasn't really practical! So one further pinny shall be in the works, and then I may just make more from funky fabrics to wear for extra pocketses.

Photos to follow shortly!

Depending on what's on TV tonight I may try some spinning (if it's all crap I'll have to do some work) as I don't think it hurts me. I realised after yesterday's post that weaving would be a perfect way to use up my spun yarn! I haven't felt like spinning recently as I can't do anything with the finished yarn other than look at it or give it away. But weaving might work... I've found instructions for a warp-weighted loom ;) but may try something less ambitious. I have a giant bead loom, so may try and convert that and see how I get on!

Spindling

2006-08-05T17:56:00.001+01:00

We had a day trip today to Chedworth Roman Villa. It was just a spur of the moment idea, but when we got there it turned out that there was a Romano-British/ Dark Ages craft demonstration on. Actually, most of the tents were closed up - I don't know whether they were just there for show or whether it was lunch time for the re-enactors ;)

Earlier that morning, by chance, I had done a teeny bit of spindling. I'll have to take a photo of my spindle at some point. At the museum villa they had some examples of spindle whorls from the Roman period found at the villa:

The massive stone ring on the right isn't a huge whorl, it's a loom weight. I'm quite interested in how the weighted looms work (following a conversation with another re-enactor in a castle in Wales which I'll blog about later who didn't appear to think that looms were invented until the industrial period!???). And just my luck - it appeared that there was a weaving tent at the villa!

So we wandered over and saw a working forge, which was fun, and then over to the weavers. There was a weighted loom set up, and a dye-pot bubbling over a fire, but both were unattended. There were two women sat spindling, and two girls plaiting their hair. I wanted to talk to them about the loom and the spinning, but don't think they were in the mood. It took ages for me to catch their attention to ask a question (about whether there were any top whorl spindles), but the answer was a brief 'not this period' sort of thing.

I just gave up at that point and left - irritatingly I even forgot to take photos of the loom. I'm just kicking myself for being cowed so easily: I should've asked more questions! It was just hard when they were all talking amongst themselves... Ah well, I'm a knitter, a wheel spinner and a top whorl spindler - totally the wrong period - even I am doing a post-graduate degree in Classics ;)

Still here!

2006-07-18T13:52:00.001+01:00

Not knitting though, *sigh*

Tennis elbow sucks, it's way more painful than Golfer's elbow. And the other weekend I bought a graphics tablet, believing it to be the Holy Grail for RSI suffers and... yep - it gave me repetitive strain injury. ARGH!

Sadly, I really really really can't knit again until after my thesis is due in. I know I keep saying I won't knit, and then, erm, knitting, but I've been in such a bad way for the past few weeks after starting that scarf that I really can't risk not being able to type. As it is I can't type much.

Anyway, I still have quite a few pictures to share, so this isn't the last you'll here from me just yet :)

i really am never taking up sports...

2006-06-28T19:44:00.001+01:00

had confirmation today - my golfer's elbow has mutated into tennis elbow.

woke up this morning, and after merely an hour of being awake (in which all i'd done was eat an apple and review an article i'm editing - reading a printed copy, no computer involved) my elbow was excruciatingly painful.

tears followed, as did anti-inflammatory gel and painkillers. in the end i made an appointment for the afternoon at the chiropractor's. she massaged the affected area (owwwwwwwwwwww) and suggested ways of dealing with it (like, never ever typing again. oops).

obviously, i can't knit for a good while now. it is possible i'll have to figure out how to knit continental in order to take it up again. the saga continues.

i'm not sure what i'm more amazed by. that i bruise so easily from soft-tissue massages, or that i paid £30 for my chiropractor to do this:

Stupid Bee

2006-06-27T20:57:00.001+01:00

Well, I obviously overdid it. Doh. Sigh. Argh. etc.

I currently have pain in my outer right elbow. Yup, that's right: the golfer's elbow has mutated into tennis elbow. And fuck, it hurts. And needs just the slightest thing to set it off.

My left elbow which I jarred while swimming appears to be OK. I do have slight stinging on the underside of my left wrist close to the wrist.

I did quite a bit of knitting at the weekend. I thought I was taking it slow enough, but I was obviously wrong. And now I'm struggling to use the computer as well.

One Step Forwards... Falling Backwards

2006-06-23T14:38:00.002+01:00

*sigh*

So, yesterday I went swimming, which was fun - hoorah! Unfortunately, while trying to gracefully enter the swimming pool, I managed a completely cack-handed semi-drop down the ladder while still holding on, and ending up really jarring my left elbow - basically had it taking most of my bodyweight while having it locked in an awkward position. I am HOPING that it is just sore and a little bruised, rather than that there is any ligament damage. ARGH! Why does this always happen to me?

As soon as I got home yesterday I packed away all my knitting again, to avoid any temptation. I'm taking arnica and rhus. tox tablets, applying arnica balm and I iced it a little before bed. I'm trying not to type too much. My next chiro appointment is in two weeks - but if it still hurts by the end of the weekend I'll get one sooner. I'm not doing my exercises, as most of those involve using my elbows but obviously don't want to lose the improvement I've been seeing. Again, I'll reassess how my elbow is at the end of the weekend.

Doh.

Petrol Merino 2-ply

2006-06-21T18:29:00.001+01:00

I thought before they got even more squished and covered in lint and fluff from rolling around my living room for months I'd just take photos of my second lot of merino handspun. I spun these back in March, and it was my first go at plying. I was dubious at the time, but it worked really well. I used the Andean plying method, and although as the night drew on (trying out new things at 11:30pm while trying to watch Prison Break is not a good recipe for concentration) and things got more tangled, I managed it! So, without further ado...

Breed: Merino
Fibre prep.: Commercial Top
Weight: 150g
Yardage: 1 ball is 76 yards; 1 ball is 67 yards
Colour: Petrol - a really deep emerald green
Method: Wheel spun on Haldane Lewis
Spun: 'S' spun, 'Z' plied
Plyed: 2-ply, Andean method

I aim to make a pair of cabled gauntlets with these balls - I just hope I have enough yarn! At least as I have two balls I can start on the smaller one and know that if it doesn't make 99% of one gauntlet I need to redesign! Although thinner overall than the ultramarine singles (even accounting for the plying), there are thin bits and thick bits, and the yarn probably averages at chunky - these are going to be warm!

Slowly but surely

2006-06-21T00:11:00.001+01:00

Well, over the course of a couple of weeks I made the second mitten and finished it - hoorah! I'll do photos soon, have quite a few things to photograph and show off!

Today I made a start on finishing the opera gloves - I've nearly finished one (just the thumb to go). I'm knitting it with a much firmer hand (I think that is the right term). The fabric is very dense and tight but still works, and with some floofy ribbon should look lovely. The designer, Ysolda, also has a pattern for sale which I love: Matilda Jane. I was so desperate for her to release it as a pattern, but when it came out I was in the depths of RSI hell, not knowing how possible it would be for me to knit properly again. I guess I'm still there really. And it's knit in DK yarn. But it's sooooooooooooo lovely... I guess I'll look into buying it once I sell more stuff on ebay, even if I just keep it to look at and wish.

Although I can knit, spin and type a little now, I need to make so sure that I don't overdo it. And I NEED to keep up with my exercises.

Making stuff

2006-06-11T19:48:00.001+01:00

OK, so I really don't have much willpower. Pretty much after I wrote my last post I had a go at knitting. It was partly due to the fact that I had a physiotherapy appointment and wanted to have done some hand-motions beforehand. So I've been working on Friday's mittens, just a round at a time. Now I only have about less than 10 rounds left, but I'm not sure when I'll have it finished by. It's cool to make progress though, no matter how slowly.

My physio confirms that I have golfer's elbow. I have new exercises to do, and I'm quietly confident I can beat this :)

This weekend I've been doing some dressmaking. I've made a pair of shorts for yoga (to wear over my leggings - I'll be much less self-conscious, and can hopefully then stop wearing huge baggy t-shirts down to my knees!) and most of a dress. The dress only really needs to be hemmed, but I feel it's too big - even though I've taken it in twice - and become annoyed with it. It's too hot to keep trying it on that I'll just wait for a cooler day to make a decision about it. Yes, I did make it to the right size on the packet, I just think the pattern is a bit off.

A bit like the shorts. I made those from a cut down pattern for a pair of teenager's pyjama trousers. The pattern comes in sizes 9-10 years, 11-12 and 13-14. When I first used it for some jammies (at the age of about 19) I made the 13-14, thinking I might just squeeze into them. Well, I can pretty much fit my entire body into one leg, with space! So for the shorts I used the 9-10 size, and *still* had to take it in. The pattern is so screwed: I had to remove 4 INCHES from between the waistline and the crotch! If I held the crotch against my crotch then the waistline on the pattern reached my boobs. I know I'm short but I'm not *that* short.

Anyway, despite the fact that I had just made a par of shorts that according to Simplicity would probably fit a 6 year old, I decided to make the Simplicity dress in a size 14, even though I've never been about 8-10, maybe 12. My measurements fit their size 14 measurements almost exactly, but I guess they have wacky tape measures. And it wasn't a case of ease, it was a case of looking like I was wearing a huge sack.

Anyway, on a less hot day I might give it another try!

A Hug!

2006-05-31T18:01:00.001+01:00

From this:

to this:

to this!:

It took quite a while for me to get my Hug finished. You may remember that I ended up knitting far too many rows initially. So I ripped it back and followed the instructions, only to have it... too short! So I ripped and reknit, and again it was too short. By now I was pretty irritated, till I realised that I'd actually knit the first half wrong: instead of increasing at the beginning and end of each row, I'd increased only at the beginning, and so had to work twice as many repeats.

However, I think I much prefer the longer look of the over-hand sleeve:

And it can be rolled back nicely:

I love this pattern. If I can ever get to the stage where I can be a free'n'easy knitter again then I'd like to make loads and loads. As simple as a scarf but a lot more fun! And it's by the same designer as Blackberry.

So. I made this using an unravelled shrug from a charity shop. I haven't used all the yarn up, but it did suck up quite a bit. I can't remember what needles I used - probably Denise 10.5US. It is a little tight - I couldn't seam the sleeves all the way up to the underarm otherwise I couldn't get it on! However, the little gap I left makes it curl nicely around my arm, as if it is supposed to do that. And the pick-up-&-bind-off thing along the back edge forms a really nice plaited effect - that was an instruction that didn't seem to make sense until I actually did it.

If anyone feels daunted by this pattern, don't be! I agree that when you read through it it feels a little complex, but it really isn't. I do hope that I get to make more :)

Can you guess what it is?

2006-05-30T14:11:00.001+01:00

Scroll down...

Well, my Latin exam was last Thursday, and I think it went well :) My arms didn't explode either after the 3 hours of writing - hoorah! I'd taken a load of anti-inflammatories with me, but luckily didn't need to use them.

However, now the exam is over I need to try and start getting back to normal, typing wise. I haven't done any knitting yet, but I have done some spinning over the weekend. I wanted to do something, and realised that as it was a friend's birthday I could give her some handspun. I took it slow, but it didn't appear to cause any ill-effects. Obviously, I'd like to try a little knitting too, but not just yet.

I'm seeing a physiotherapist next week, so I may try some knitting beforehand. At the moment my forearms are OK (but I haven't really been doing much), however, I'm getting rotator-cuff tendonitis back in my left shoulder - hoorah! I've had it for about 2 weeks, although it isn't getting any worse. And a benefit (?) is that I don't need to crack my elbow any more, nor my shoulder that often.

As for the above contraption... Well, it's a home-made Lazy Kate! Otherwise known as a towel rack with 2 toilet rolls on it. I've previously plied using the Andean method, of making a bracelet around my wrist. Unfortunately, the finer the yarn and the amount I overtwist it means the bracelet keeps getting snarled up. As I'd spun heaps and heaps of wool, I knew the bracelet would be huge, and the chances of it plying smoothly were pretty much nil. So I wound the wool off onto the toilet rolls which I'd slotted onto the towel rail. Other than the fact that they were uneven (it's hard to judge how much is half) it worked really well. When one roll ran out I Andean plyed the rest of the other roll.

Obviously what I really need is more bobbins. And ideally an electric scale too. And I'd like the other two whorls that fit my wheel. But my current lack of cash means that it's highly unlikely that I'll be in a situation to get those any time soon. Probably should hold off too until I'm more confident about my arms working...

A new deadline

2006-05-16T23:18:00.001+01:00

Deadline isn't the right word. Anyway, my new 'definitely can't knit until' date I have set at - gasp! - Monday 5th June. I've been sent a physiotherapy appointment for then, so figure I may as well last out until then. It's a week & a half after my Latin exam, so it's going to be soooooooooooooooooooooooooooo hard to stick to :P

My chiropractor doesn't think I need to see a physiotherapist because I'm seeing her... Hmmmm. Well, I'm going because second opinions/ shoulders to cry on are always good, and if it does get to the point where I need multiple x-rays and MRIs then it would be nice to already be in the NHS system.

Current symptoms:
* Left shoulder is bad. I worked out I crack it upwards of 200 times a day.
* Right shoulder - OK-ish.
* Left elbow - got a lot better. I don't need to try and crack it hardly at all (yes, I know that's a poorly constructed sentence) now and the pressure-feeling doesn't keep building up.
* Right elbow - fine
* Left forearm - today has been OK (just starting to sting now and it's 11:30pm and I've been doing loads of computering today). Yesterday & the day before it did sting and I had to apply the anti-inflam. gel (will probably apply the gel tonight as a precaution)
* Right forearm - sadly, though not as bad as the left, pretty similar to it
* Left wrist - need to crack it
* Right wrist - need to crack it, stings, feels stiff

I've had to get rid of my mouse as I think it was hurting my right arm. I've gone back to using the track pad ambidextrously (though more with the left sadly). I am typing quite a bit, as well as using the track pad. I'm also writing a lot, revising for my exam.

I want to knit

2006-05-09T18:11:00.001+01:00

But I can't. Sigh.

I didn't knit whilst we were in the Peak District - I read (Garth Nix's Old Kingdom Trilogy is well top) and did jigsaws. Still managed to have twinges though - I think it was possibly holding books open *rollseyes*

Then on Saturday 22nd April I knitted during Dr Who (45 minutes), then a couple of hours later I knitted during Green Wing (just over an hour, with breaks in the adverts). Then I began knitting during a Mary Renault documentary and half an hour in felt the worst thing possible: a twinge in my right arm :-0 Inner forearm, just by the elbow.

I haven't knitted since. Right arm has been OK, left arm is twinge-happy. I've hardly typed either - 'luckily' my Latin revision calls mainly for long-hand writing instead.

I went to the doctor for a repeat prescription for my anti-inflammatory gel, as I think I will run out of what I currently have before my exam. I saw a different doctor this time, and let's just say she was in a rush. I have my repeat prescription though, and she said she would put me on the list for physiotherapy.

My chiropractor has now moved on from suggesting x-rays to suggesting an MRI! If I go private it would be £200 though, and I'm not overly sure what it would achieve. I think I'd rather go for x-rays first if I do have to have any tests.

However, as well as the twinge I am now getting pain in my left elbow. The edge of the inner bone pretty much hurts constantly, as if it is under intense pressure. Occasionally I can flail my arm about just right and it will make an almighty crack, but that only relieves it for a few seconds, and most of the time the flailing doesn't work.

I want to knit because it's fun and I enjoy it. I want to finish Friday's other glove as it's his birthday in about a week. I want to finish at least one opera glove to see if it works (I'm not sure my yarn is stretchy enough). I want to finish blasted Tempting - the idea was to wear it for a wedding at the end of May, but with at least 10 rounds of 200 stitches that's not going to happen. I have some beautiful plyed merino handspun waiting to become armwarmers... And the Corset Pullover! I keep fondling my swatch...

But I can't. I really really can't. Absolutely no fibre arts (so no spinning either) until my Latin exam on Thursday 25th May. I can't risk having arms that don't work for that! I'm going to struggle as it is as my vocab knowledge is pretty poor, never mind not being able to write!

After that... Who knows.

I don't actually think anyone reads this, but if you do then I'm sorry for not posting in a while. I do have to show off some FOs'n'stuff, and I have a pic of some really cute little lambs...

Thinking positive...

A little update

2006-04-18T11:07:00.001+01:00

Well, Hug is finished! Photos to come soon.

I've also made a start on these Lace Up Opera Gloves, using the same yarn as Hug, but I didn't bring enough with me to finish them.

Mr Bee's grandmother died last week, and his mum has given me her old knitting needles, which is very sweet. I may see whether his sister is interested in them, but I don't think she knits.

We are going away today, to stay in a converted cotton mill in the Peak District! I've brought Tempting with me - let's see whether I can actually get it finished or not!

@!*?#{&,£$"!

2006-04-14T17:32:00.001+01:00

And breathe. And relax.

Not only have I just caught Mr Bee standing on my Hug (apparently it is very comfy on bare feet) (!), but I've just realised I've knitted 72 rows too many!!!!!!!!!!

SEVENTY-TWO!!!

This would be my fault for assuming that I knew the pattern off by heart. It's very frustrating that I'd not only have it finished by now, but I'd not have wasted so many hours of hand movement.

*Sigh*

Off to frog...