Something new

I'm excited because I had a Kromski Harp folding rigid heddle loom for Christmas. I've been wanting to try weaving for a while so I'm delighted. I put a warp on it of 4 ply oddments and I've been practising over the last few days. Since I took this photo, I've tried patterns with the pick up stick, which gives some interesting effects. I think I'm getting the hang of it now.

As the weather has gotten colder recently and getting into bed is like getting into the fridge, I bought a hot water bottle and of course I had to make a cover for it. This is crocheted from Jaeger Matchmaker DK and it feels nice. I made the pattern up as I went along. Crochet is great for that, it's much easier to design on the fly than knitting, for me anyway.

The Ribena sleeves are growing steadily but there is still about 3 inches to go before the armhole shaping.

Wherever does time go?

I'm astounded that it's been over five weeks since I posted. Still, there has been a lot of sampling, and progress has been slow. Knitting is going on, I started Ribena from Knitty, only I'm going to make long sleeves. I wanted something fairly simple and this fits the bill nicely. So far, I've finished the back and front and am making both sleeves together. The yarn is Patons Diploma Gold DK and I'm using 4mm needles for the stocking stitch sections, 3.75mm for the ribs.

It took a long time, but I finally spun up the merino silk blend. I made a 2 ply and it is 469m weighing 100g. I think I've found a pattern for it, but I won't be starting yet.

After a lengthy drilling session, my oak peg loom was completed. The first project on it was a small rug, which I wove with english wool tops which I divided lengthwise into eighths, and then spun lightly.




Mollie, one of our two cats, is very attracted to this rug, and sabotaged it a couple of times during weaving. As a result, I decided to felt it, or it would have a very short life. My attempts in the bathtub were ineffective, so into the washing machine it went. Now it is smaller, still damp and much denser, but crucially, it's cat proof.

Spinning fine

First of all, here is the progress on the first sock knitted with the kettle dyed yarn from my last post. There is diagonal patterning, and if I'd used different size needles or more or fewer stitches, it would be different. I'm using a 2.5mm needle and 72sts. It's growing on me.

I've been swatching and ripping a lot lately, indecision rules, it seems. Why do I have so much trouble finding a sweater pattern to knit? I'm not short of choices, but nothing is calling out to me. I suspect I'm going to be designing my own.

As a bit of a change, I dyed some merino/silk blend tops which I treated myself to a while ago.


I've made a start with the spinning, and it seems to want to be spun fine, so that's what I'm doing. I'm aiming for a 2 ply maybe for a lace scarf. This fibre is very soft with a lovely sheen from the silk and I managed not to felt it when I dyed it.

This wasn't the case for this red wool. I had to work quite hard to predraft this because it had become a bit matted, even though I had been quite careful not to agitate it or thermally shock it. Still, I ended up with almost 300m weighing 160g of 2 ply subtly shaded red yarn. Now to decide what to do with it.

Put the kettle on

I've been wanting to try kettle dyeing for a while, and I'm nearly ready to start some more socks, so I had a go at kettle dyeing an undyed skein of sock yarn. It was fun but unpredictable. The first thing was to soak the yarn in a weak washing up liquid solution, while mixing up the dyes. I used five different shades of acid dyes in the red, pink and yellow part of the spectrum. Having given the yarn a rinse I squeezed out most of the water and put it in the pot with some hot water, (just enough to cover it) I added some vinegar at this point, to help the dye to stay where it was put. Then it's a case of adding one colour at a time, waiting until it's been soaked up before adding the next.





Afterwards it's a case of applying heat, in this case I brought it up to nearly boiling point for about 15 minutes. The results are a bit more pink than I wanted, but I like the randomness of it.


I'm just wondering if I should overdye the pinkest bits, because I don't know if I'm brave enough (I've never been someone who wears very bright colours) to wear socks made from this. But then you can't even see the socks when they're worn because they're covered by shoes and trouser legs. Oh well, if I don't like them, I can always dye the finished socks something darker. I'm really looking forward to finding out what they'll be like.

Decision making

For the last few days, the only thing I've knitted has been a sock. This is 72 sts on a 2.5mm Addi lace needle in a 4+2 garter rib pattern, using the hand dyed sock yarn left over from my Mystic Meadows shawl.

I've been trying to find the perfect sweater project since I finished two sweaters nearly at the same time recently. I've been looking through books and magazines and Ravelry, and I think I've narrowed it down to two. This could change at any time though. The next thing is to swatch and see if I like the fabric in the yarns I'm thinking of using, one is handspun alpaca and the other is a wool rich DK.

Other than that, I've been playing with a peg loom I made. This is just the trial version of it, I've got a lovely piece of oak for the real thing, but I wanted to try out the spacing of the pegs first.

I started out with strips of the carded fibre that has a lot of noils and neps which makes a lovely squishy fabric, and then I lightly spun some of the same and tried that. I think I might try felting the result. It could be a good way to use up some of the not so good fibre I have. I fancy trying to make a rug at some point.

I managed to get a mirror shot of the Cabled Spiral sweater, the colour is a little yellowed, but it shows the fit pretty well. This is a very cosy garment, the Sirdar Salsa (merino and acrylic) is very soft and not at all itchy.

I'm still here

It's been a while I know, but progress has been made. My Rosemary sweater is finished, and so is the Cabled Spiral sweater. I'm happy with them both. I added some rows of single crochet rib to the neckline of the Rosemary sweater and overlapped them in the middle in an effort to stop the gaping. This worked well and it sits nicely. The colour is more accurate in the first picture, a dark olive green.

This picture is of the almost complete Cabled Spiral. Now it has a slightly longer neckband and is ready for blocking. The pattern is written for a polo neck, but I always find them too warm, so I've shortened it, hopefully without spoiling the finished look. Modifications I made: added more garter ridges on the hem to counteract the tendency to roll. Also, I did just a little waist shaping, just visible in the picture.

This is a blocking picture of the yoke, the colour is more accurate in the whole sweater picture.

Now I have to decide what to make next. I only have one sock going at the moment and I just discovered an error in it which I'm hoping I can fix without ripping out more than 2". It is knitted with the green hand dyed sock yarn left over from Mystic Meadows, and I'm using a garter rib pattern.

Spinning without a plan

It would help if I could decide what I wanted to use the resultant yarn for when I set out to do some spinning. Sometimes, though it is better to see how the fibre behaves spun thick or thin and take it from there. It's no fun battling with it, much better to go along with it. These English wool tops fall into this category being better suited to a fairly thick single.

This is 225m of 3 ply weighing 158g. There is also a small amount of 2 ply in the same colours and 135m of 2 ply in the heather colourway weighing 80g.

I still have the same amount to do again from the last dyeing session, the red and green. I'm not getting a very even result with this yarn, but hopefully it will look okay knitted up.

The cabled spiral sweater is progressing, I'm up to the yoke now - picture next time when there will be cables.

Morning Surf finished

It's done and blocked, measuring 55" x 7". I didn't stretch it very much, so it could have been bigger, but I'm pleased with it. It didn't even take me very long to knit, it's nice to have something finished quickly for a change.

The photo is of just one sleeve, but as of this evening, there is another one as well. Next I'll cast on for the body of the Cabled Spiral sweater by Norah Gaughan. I ripped the yarn (Sirdar Salsa) from the Weekend Sweater which had been hibernating for some time, and which I eventually realized was a bit small and I didn't really want a tight fitting sweater. The Cabled Spiral is mainly stocking stitch until the yoke when it gets interesting.

This is the current state of the crocheted Rosemary sweater, the longer sleeve needs a few more rounds, and then I need to make the other one match. I need to work out a way to make the neck opening less revealing because I don't want to have to wear a camisole underneath necessarily. I had made the opening higher than the pattern stated, but it wasn't quite enough even then.

I had a little dyeing session at the weekend, this is about 500g of english wool tops which I dyed in four different semi solid shades. So far, I've spun up about 2oz of the brown. At the moment , the plan is to make a 3 ply with it, maybe for a hat. Other ideas include spinning a thick singles yarn for a change.

The brown was dyed using leftover unexhausted dyes from previous sessions, after all, brown is usually the result of mixing all sorts of colours isn't it? There was separation of some of the constituent shades, giving this mixture shown clearly in the predrafted tops.

This is fun

I'm having fun with this scarf, it's the Morning Surf scarf modified a bit. I cast on 36 sts on to a 4.5mm needle and instead of 2,3,4,3,2 YOs, I'm doing 1,2,3,2,1. I don't normally get on too well knitting scarves, I get fed up before half way usually, but I'm past that point already and still going strong. Knitting with my own handspun is more special somehow and the colours are so vivid with a bit of candy striping shading one to the next.



This is more restful on the eyes, two skeins of two ply totalling 542m from the pastel batts along with a smaller skein of three ply. It isn't too bad considering the aggravation it gave me during the spinning of it. I have no idea what to use this for yet, hopefully something will occur to me soon. It would be good to use my handspun before it gets too old in the stash.

It's a bit bright

The BFL I dyed a couple of weeks ago has been transformed into this.


It's 219m of 2 ply weighing approx 100g, thicker than I anticipated so I don't think it will become socks, maybe a scarf. It's very soft, so well suited to that use. I did have to cheat a bit when plying because there were differences in thickness and therefore length between the two bobbins, so I removed and added lengths of colour from one single or the other in order to align the colour changes a bit better. Next time, I think I'll try to spin thin and navajo ply.
So far, my favourite dyeing and spinning experiment was the one where I dyed two different, but harmonising colourways, spun each into a single and then plied them. This gave rise to my Swallowtail shawl and it's still my favourite FO from recent times.


This curiosity is half a slice of cheese on toast. Originally, it was leaning in an A shape with another piece, and remained standing when the other piece was removed.

Noils and Neps

It's been quite a trying time lately. The pastel dyed batts I've been spinning are rather full of those little tangled lumps which I think are called neps, and assorted short fibres or noils. Both make it difficult to spin an even yarn. I removed a large percentage while pre-drafting, and more while spinning, but some got through anyway. The picture above shows one such piece of pre-drafted fibre along with the crud that came out of it. I've managed to fill two bobbins with singles and am currently plying them. I'm thinking that I may try felting the remaining fibre rather than spinning it. I nearly ran out of patience with this stuff.

To take my mind off this fibre, I finally got to dye some of the superwash BFL that I have had for a while. I didn't have a clear plan for this and ended up with a rainbow of colours.

Once it was cooked and dried, it looked a bit different.

This might be socks eventually, I'm going to attempt a 2 ply and maintain the colour sequence by dividing the roving lengthways into an even number of sections and hopefully spinning two matching singles. Watch this space!

With a few UFOs hiding around the place, I promoted one of them to a WIP - my Rosemary crocheted sweater which has grown quite nicely over the last couple of weeks. It still looks like a green blob, but I'll try for a picture soon. I also finished my pair of plain Online socks, ready for the cooler weather.

A spinning time

With the exception of one knitting project, my crafting time has been spent spinning lately. I seem to have accumulated yet more fluffy stuff, and the best way to make it more compact is to spin it. This is Cheviot cross Border Leicester carded fleece dyed in pastel shades.

So far, it looks like this - I'm just tearing strips off the batt and letting the colours do what they like. It'll probably end up a 2 ply with assorted combinations of colours. It isn't next to the skin soft so I'm trying to think what to make with it.

The laceweight I mentioned last time made from my BFL fleece is not very good. Actually, that's an understatement, it's the worst yarn I've spun on this wheel. It's very wrinkly and even though I ran it through the wheel again to put a bit more plying twist in, it still isn't right. So for now I'm going to try spinning that fibre a bit thicker, maybe spinning laceweight isn't for me with this particular fleece.


This is my Mystic Meadows finished, it's been a push for the finish for the last couple of weeks. I blocked it yesterday, and it looks pretty good. This is the first half, the picture of the other half was blurry, so I'll try again later. It took just a few yards under the 2 skeins of yarn, so I'll definitely be knitting some matching socks with the third skein, although I don't think I'll be wearing them at the same time! The pattern is by Anna Dalvi and I used a 4mm needle. It blocked to 21" x 67", but relaxed somewhat when I unpinned it, especially in the cabled sections.

Cleaning fleece

Since I last posted, I succumbed to the lure of the raw fleece, and bought a BFL fleece. I figure that every spinner should try the experience at least once. With it being shearing season there are quite a few on offer, so I thought why not? Well, I can think of a few reasons now which didn't occur to me at first. I didn't expect it to be so much work to get it clean, endless rinses, and the potential felting risk. Yes, I did matt a bit of it, but it will tease apart. Then there is the sheepy smell, which lingers even after washing. But the main thing is the time it's going to take to prepare it for spinning. I don't have a drum carder yet, (I'm working on it), and the fibres are too long for hand carding, so I'm having to tease out the locks with a small carder and spin from the lock.

Some of the fleece having a soak

A couple of teased out locks

So far, I've spun a miniscule amount of very fine singles just to try to see if I can produce laceweight. When I've got the same amount on another bobbin, I'll see what the 2 ply looks like.

No, this isn't it, this is the white alpaca I was spinning before. Sadly, it's a little bit too thin to go with the other colours I already spun, although I might get away with it. I'll have to swatch.

I have done a bit of knitting, mainly on Mystic Meadows which is now 3/4 done, and the Goddess Knits mystery is about 2/3 though the third clue. There are still only 288 stitches for a while yet, but I can tell that after the next increase round it's going to grow very slowly.