Peacock Shawl finished

Happy Fibre Arts Friday! Today I have a finished project to show, yay!

This is a birthday present for my Ma who is turning 70 in October. I spun the yarn from some silver grey merino rovings from Bendigo Woollen Mills then dyed the yarn into mother's favourite colour. The whole project took a little over five months to complete, but I could have finished it much sooner if I'd worked on it consistently.

Pattern: Peacock's Tail by Rose Beck
Yarn: handspun merino and hand dyed, fingering weight, used 120g
Needle size: 5mm
My project page: here
Notes: I love the stitch patterns, they are very pretty and flow nicely from one into another. The construction is interesting where you increase at each end as well as fan out from the middle, creating a gentle crescent shape. The only thing I would change next time is to use a different cast off, the ones given by the pattern did not provide a stretchy enough border in my opinion as I had trouble blocking out the points. I might use EZ's sewn bind off if I were to make it again.

That's it from me, thanks for dropping by, please hop over to Andrea's at Wisdom Begins in Wonder for more fibre fun.

Shrop-A-Sock Heathery Moors

Happy Firbre Arts Friday! I'm still battling on with my study which is gradually coming to an end, there is definitely lights at the end of the tunnel, I just need to hang on in there a wee while longer. In an effort to keep my sanity and calm those hyper-go-crazy grey cells inflicted by the said study, I spin a little everyday - it's my ultimate meditation.

I finished spinning a bump of Shrop-A-Sock carded fleece, it's from a breed called Shropshire. Apparently Shropshire used to be the number one sheep breed in England, US and Canada (ShropshireSheep.org), it's origin can trace back to the 1700s. It is a down type fleece which means it's hard to felt, and that makes it a perfect choice for socks. I got my bumps from an Aussie breeder, unfortunately she doesn't have a website so I can't link it to her.

The bump was divided in half and spun separately then plied, I then dyed the yarn in the crockpot.

This will become a pair of socks for myself.... one day :)

Thanks for dropping by, please hop over to Andrea's at Wisdom Begins in Wonder for more fibre fun.

Market Mitts and Tric progress

Yesterday I talked about Melbourne's weather being up and down like a yo-yo, and true to it's form today's temperature dropped 10℃ from yesterday's 26℃! Oh well, at least it wasn't as freezing as last Sunday when I was at the Gisborne market. It was a miserable day with rain and wind, my hands were so cold that I'd taken one of my handspuns from the stock and started making myself a pair of fingerless mitts. I only had a crochet hook with me so I started with a crochet mitts pattern, but my hands were so numb that I just couldn't continue to make the mitts to keep my hands warm.

I still couldn't continue with the piece after I got home because I didn't like the look of it, so I ripped it back and started again. The pattern I chose was the Garter Stitch Mitts by Ysolda Teague, it is a simple pattern worked sideways using short-row shaping.

I really like how they turned out, the handspun is very squishy and soft, they should keep my hands nice and toasty on cold market days. I only cast on 38 stitches and they worked up quickly. The project only used 58g of the handspun, so the pattern is a perfect fit for that single skein that you don't know what to do with. Raverly project page here.

A project update for Tric that I started back in August for my friend Elaine, it's been slow going due to the intricacies of the pattern (pattern recap: top-down seamless with collar and set-in sleeves worked simultaneously). At last I can report some progress:

Only the sleeves to do now so hopefully I will finish it soon. Some of the project notes on Ravelry noted that the piece grew after blocking so I'm keeping the length as it is and will take take when blocking so it doesn't grow too much.

Thanks for dropping by, there is more fibre arts fun at Wisdom Begins in Wonder. Indulge your creative side and join the party!

Just keep weaving...

Happy Fibre Arts Friday! It's that time of the week again, this week it's all about handwoven scarves, well mostly :-)

Some of you may already know that we are going back to England for Christmas this year, then we're going to the U.S. for a "real" holiday, woohoo! I was making the list for family presents last weekend (it's a bit late I know), there were 19 names on the list not including children, eek! Then I thought: I can do this - I already collected a few items I made throughout the year and I need to practice my weaving, so I will make scarves! ... if you are one of my folks from the "old country" please look away now ;-)

Scarf #1: that was the Monet's Garden I showed you last week.

Scarf #2: Cherry Ripe Scarf for my FIL, so named after the chocolate of the same name :-)

It came off the loom a bit shorter than I intended, but he doesn't like long scarves anyway, or so I'm told.

Scarf #3: A study of pickup sticks - actually I might keep this one to my self, it's made of cotton and there were a few mistakes.

Scarf #4: Yorkshire Moors - the colours remind me of the heathers on the Yorkshire moors, and this is all my handspun. The Warp is a 2-ply yarn that I spun with one single from the Rolags made on the blending board, plied with another single of alpaca, the weft is a 2-ply that I spun in the TDF. It's still a WIP and it's looking great :-)

Last weekend I had a lot of fun dyeing silk hankies with Jelly, he's pretty good with colours!

These are in our Etsy shop now, and there's a 10% discount for October. If you're interested you can get the coupon code here :-)  

Thanks for dropping by, there is more fibre arts fun at Wisdom Begins in Wonder. Indulge your creative side and join the party!

A hat, a scarf and a commission :-)

Welcome to my Fibre Arts Friday! I've got a few things to share this week, first up is a flat cap I knitted for Jelly who is playing Dickon from The Secret Garden in his school play. The rest of the costume was easy, or so we thought... as it turned out, the boy did not possess a single pair of trousers that are not jeans, trackies or combats. And he couldn't raid his brother's wardrobe because they are not the same shape. Luckily we found some in Savers, and we managed to find a nice waistcoat from another charity shop, so we are good.

Anyway, the flat cap. The pattern is Morgan from Knitty Fall 2008. It it a relatively simple pattern, you start from the centre and gradually increase out, the front of the cap is shaped via irregular increases. But once you are done with the main knitting the rest of the shaping is a bit fiddly but not difficult. The pattern called for two popper fastenings to hold down the top of the cap, but I didn't like the way it looked so I took those out and sewn the front edge to the peak instead. It's looks much better this way, I think.

The photo was taken in haste before school on the day the costumes were due in... the boy desperately needs a haircut!

I can definitely say I have caught the weaving bug! I finished my second scarf, this time using my handspun. You might remember sometime last year when I was exploring dyeing and carding, I made some hand carded batts called "I dream of Monet", I used the yarn spun from that for the weft and a commercial sock yarn for the warp.

Oh and I finished the spinning commission I took from the Gisborne market, I was quite nervous while spinning it, hoping that I wouldn't mess it up. I think it came out alright :-)

Before I sign off, Cat & Sparrow is running a promotion on Facebook for 10% off everything in our Etsy shop. Just click on the Facebook link to get the Coupon Code. For folks on the other side of the planet, the exchange rate with Aussie dollars will work in your favour at the moment ;-)

Thanks for dropping by, there is more fibre arts fun at Wisdom Begins in Wonder. Indulge your creative side and join the party!

Rolling Rolags and Woollen Spuns

Happy Fibre Arts Friday! My sincere apologies for those of you who came to visit last Friday and found the house empty, I was very disorganised last week and by the time I realised I hadn't done a post it was too late... but, evidently I'm back this week :D

I found some dye-job-gone-wrong merino tops in my stash, it was all matted and the colour was very "meh!". There was also some dyed alpaca wool I wasn't sure what to do with, they really didn't look pretty:

So I got busy and made rolags with my hand carders, roughly 3 parts of merino and 1 part of alpaca:

Now that looks much better! I'm in a woollen spinning phase at the moment as I find this technique challenging and yet satisfying at the same time. Challenging because I still have not mastered it and that frustrates me, satisfying because it's fast, I can fill a bobbin in 2 evenings.

I've also been using tops to practice woollen spun spinning from the fold, and I really really like it. This one is a merino/bamboo/alpaca blend:

... and this one is a merino/silk blend, I do find this blend posed some challenge as the silk fibre is quite long which sometimes caused the merino (the shorter fibre) to be left behind. But overall it wasn't too bad:

All these skeins are going to Bengido, my tally stands at 16 skeins, four more to go and four weeks left, think I can manage :)

Thanks for dropping by, there is more fibre arts fun at Wisdom Begins in Wonder. Indulge your creative side and join the party!

Spinning for Bendigo

Over the past couple of weeks I haven't been able to indulge my fibre arts as much as I would like to, mainly due to my impending assignments and other study related tasks. So I found myself drawn to spinning more than knitting and crochet at the moment, especially when time is short, I can easily fit in a few minutes of spinning here and there without having to think about where I am at. And when I get into a rhythm when my wheel hums and the fibre just flows through my finger tips, ahhh, it's sheer bliss :)

Stormy Night: this is a blend of baby wool, alpaca and mohair. All dyed with food colours and hand carded, it's a 2-ply, roughly DK weight.

Virgo: this is a top from World of Wool in the Virgo colourway, a merino/silk blend. I love merino silk blend, such a fabulous combination, the resulting yarn is so soft and squishy. This is also a 2-ply but a fingering weight, I actually spun 2 skeins.

All these handspuns are stock contributions toward my friend's booth at the Bengido Sheep & Wool Show in July. I'd pledged 20 skeins so there are still quite a few to make up, back to the spinning wheel!

Thanks for dropping by, there is more fibre arts fun at Wisdom Begins in Wonder. Indulge your creative side and join the party!

Prize Yarn, Handdyed Silk Hankies & a Handspun Dog!!

Hi! How are you this Friday? I'm in a happy mood today, the sun is shining, the sky blue, and I have just submitted my assignment, woohoo!

Sometime ago I entered a giveaway on Paula's blog, guess who was the lucky winner? Yep, it was yours truly! A packaged arrived this week and contained these gorgeous skeins:

The yarn is 100% certified organic merino and the colourway is English Lavender, you wouldn't believe how squishy and soft it is, and in my favourite colour! It is a fingering weight and about 396 yards, will need to find the perfect pattern worthy of this yummy yarn.

I didn't do much yarn crafts this week due to my assignment, just a little knitting and spinning but not much for showing. But I did have this stack of handdyed silk hankies to share with you:

I'm calling this Sunset, it was dyed with two packets of Orange KoolAid and dabs of Americolor Violet (food colour) cooked up in my crockpot. The colour came out surprisingly rich.

A lady from my spinning group brought in a dog made from handspun, I couldn't help but taking some photos. So please meet Bluey the red dog:

... here he is wearing a felted coat his owner Frances has made... that's Frances in the background in the photo above giving a demonstration in needle felting :)

I love fibre arts, don't you?

Thanks for dropping by, there is more fibre arts fun at Wisdom Begins in Wonder. Indulge your creative side and join the party!

Back to the dye pot...

I apologise for those folks who came to visit last week and found the house empty, there was nothing wrong with me except being extremely disorganised. In fact I seem to have scattered my brain in the last couple weeks... I turned up at my spinning group Wednesday evening only to realise that it wasn't on (I'd seen the notice on Facebook but didn't really register), burnt the pot dry while cooking some yarn on the stove (dyeing in coffee), planned to catch some rainwater to soak eucalyptus barks but forgot to put the bucket out... It's just one of those silly phases I tell myself, it'll pass and I shall have my full faculty back sharp as a tack, surely!

So I did some dyeing and here are the results:

This is the skein cooked in leftover coffee (from the percolator not my cup!) and the pot burnt dry, luckily I caught it just in time that the yarn was not ruined. The colour is much lighter than I imagined - I'd seen other people's results that's a real rich coffee brown, maybe my coffee was not strong, a bit like latte ;-)

The next one was solar dyed in the eucalyptus dye stock from a few weeks ago, last time the colour was a very light lemony yellow. I'd let the dye stock brewing in the sun for a bit, and you can see the result is much darker. So definitely no red, the search for red dye producing eucalyptus continues.

Both yarns came from a white wool base, it was first soaked in a vinegar and washing liquid solution and mordanted with potassium alum plus COT or creme of tartar. I am pleased with the results yet can't help feeling a tad disappointed, I had hoped that by brewing the eucalyptus it would produce a richer still shade but it was not to be. But that's part of the fun of natural dyeing, it's all about experimenting and keeping records. I'll have a post on record keeping another time, it's an art in itself which I am still learning.

For DH's jumper I have spun up 11 skeins of yarn, but they are of a variety of shades and thickness, as you can see from the photo below. It's going to be interesting to see how it turns out ;-)

I'm not sure if I have enough but I do have another brown/black fleece, naturally it will be a different shade...

Thanks for dropping by, there is more fibre arts fun at Wisdom Begins in Wonder. Indulge your creative side and join the party!

Dyeing with Eucalyptus and Sea Level Take Two

I've been wanting to experiment with eucalyptus as dye stuff for quite some time, then one day when I was out walking with the old man I saw this fallen branch lying on the ground, it was still fresh, so I brought it home (the old man walked a few paces behind pretending he didn't know me, ha!). It was my first time trying out this method although I've been reading about it, first I striped all the leaves and tore them into small pieces, next I soaked them for a few days, then I boiled and simmered the leaves in a pot for a couple of hours and let it cool. I used a skein of natural coloured merino/alpaca blend which I soaked in a vinegar solution, no mordant was used this time because some say you don't need mordant with eucalyptus (but I will next time).

The yarn was dunked in the dye bath, heated and simmered for an hour before being rinsed until water run clear. The colour is much lighter than I anticipated, well I didn't really know what to expect but somehow I thought the colour would be darker. The photo doesn't quite show the true colour, it really is a honey lemon sort of yellow. I wonder now perhaps I should have let the yarn soak for a few days before boiling, maybe next time.

--

When I run out of yarn for the Sea Level shawl using my handspun many of you suggested that I should carry on and use a colour that matched the skein, I didn't have any matching colours in the right weight in my stash (would you believe it?!) so I spun up a contrasting colour using my home dyed fleece. But then I did a handspun swap and received a gorgeous skein made of Loop! Self Striping Spontaneous BULLSEYE which was perfect for the pattern.

It took me nearly three weeks to finish but I'm very pleased with the result. The pattern was written for handspun from the Loop! batts, having completed the shawl I can really appreciate the beauty of both the design and the yarn, it's a perfect match! My Ravelry project page is here.

Thanks for dropping by, there is more fibre arts fun at Wisdom Begins in Wonder. Indulge your creative side and join the party!

SKAL - Spin & Knit Along

I recently joined a group on Ravelry called Spin A Shawl, every three months the group work on a chosen shawl pattern, the whole project start from spinning the yarn to the finished item. The January - March project is a pattern called Sea Level, what's so interesting about this pattern is that the shawl is knitted with one ball of fingering weight handspun yarn in a gradient colourway, but its worked from both ends simultaneously to create a contrasting stripes pattern that gradually changes colour. I love the concept very much and ordered a lovely merino top just for this.

This is a superfine merino at 15 micron in the colourway of Ocean Flower, hand-dyed by the talented Nicole of Spin.Knit.Love. I spun this worsted and N-plied to a slightly larger than fingering weight at 13wpi, the yarn is super soft and has a lot of bounce. In my excitement to get on with the knitting I forgot to count the number of loops while it was still on the niddy noddy to I'm not sure of the yardage, it weighs 106gms so fingers crossed I should have enough.

Next week we are going on a road trip to the Central Coast in New South Wales, it's about 1000km each way so I'm hoping to get some knitting done when I'm not driving.

This summer holiday is disappearing fast, after we get back from this trip the boys will be back at school and the normal routine will resume. But that will mean less crafting time so I'm not looking forward to that, on the other hand I'll be waiting around a lot more in the car (between jobs, school pickups, etc.) so I might get more knitting done :)

What have you been up to this week?

Thanks for dropping by, there is more fibre arts fun at Wisdom Begins in Wonder. Indulge your creative side and join the party!

New Beginnings

Happy New Year my friends!  2013 marks a new beginning for me, just before Christmas I received an acceptance letter to my PhD application, so that's the next four years mapped out for me. I didn't get a scholarship in the first round (because I have never published before) but the letter says that I'm "on the priority list for any remaining scholarship considerations", well that's nice to hear and disappointing at the same time. I was wishing for a scholarship so that my life might be easier, oh well, one can't have everything, as my nine year old once said - "Be happy with what you have Mummy, because we are lucky."

My semester starts in March, so from now until then I'm going to cram in as many crafting projects as I can, because I don't expect to have much free time with studying and working and kids and all that...

New WIPs:

Tweedy Avast

Pattern: Avast by Jess Loesberg in Knitty Fall 2006
Made for: My teenage son.
We're planning a trip back to England next Christmas/New Year, the boy has not seen a woollie sweater in years, so I thought I'd knit him one for this trip (as well as spinning a jumper for DH, I might live to regret this). It's going to be a long haul project. He picked the yarn and pattern himself.

Cookie & Cream Blanket

Pattern: White Lily Blanket by Elena Fedotova
Made for: A friend who is expecting her first baby.
The blanket is made by joining motifs and there are many colour/pattern variations.

New FOs:

Handspun Beanie:

Pattern: Scarf Knitter's Beanie Hat by Anne Carroll Gilmour
Made for:  KOGO (Knit One Give One)
Knitted with my handspun, the yarn was my first attempt at spinning woollen long draw. The yarn is quite uneven but doesn't really show in the hat, I think soaking helped a lot. A very easy pattern and quick to make.


Amphitheater of Summer Seas

Pattern: Amphitheater of Forest by ShuiKuen Kozinski
Yarn: my handspun of merino/silk blend, solar dyed in jam jars and named Summer Seas.
Made for:  A friend who's in need of some comfort.
I love this pattern, the yarn is a perfect match. SK is one of my favourite designers, her patterns are well thought out, clearly written and always turn out beautifully.

Golly I have been busy, haven't I? It's amazing what can be done when you have a few days without the interruption called work ;)

Thanks for dropping by, there is more fibre arts fun at Wisdom Begins in Wonder. Indulge your creative side and join the party!