(non specific) Order Among Chaos

Happy Fibre Arts Friday! This is going to be my last FAF post for a while, next week I'm going to Beijing for three weeks to visit my family. Unfortunately blogger is blocked by the "Great Fire Wall" so I won't be able to post while I am there.

So there are four days left before my departure and I have not done any packing, and I am beginning to panic!!! Just to make things a little more complicated we are in the process of buying a house, the conveyancers are doing their work and the settlement date is set to be 16th October - precisely one week after my return. Good timing, what? We didn't plan it to happen this way, my trip was booked months ago and when we started looking for properties we didn't expect to find something so quickly, and naturally things just went from mad to being utterly chaotic.

Anyway, this post is about fibre arts so I should show you something made of fibre....

Elli asked me to make him some slipper socks a while back and he chose a pattern called Nola's Slippers - free from Ravelry. The pattern calls for worsted weight yarn, I used some sock yarn from my stash and held in doubled. I had to adjust the number of stitches to cast on as well as the decreasing stitches, luckily this pattern is very adaptable (read: easy to fudge) and I did as I went along.

I also finished a couple of woven scarves to add to my gift pile for China:

Oh yes, our Night's Watch SKAL kicked off this week. My plan is to spin the batt before my trip so I can bring the project with me. The Night's Watch shawl pattern is an easy one for the road, so I was assured by the designer Lara Smoot. Luckily Ravelry is not banned in China so I can still co-ordinate the SKAL.

I am sure there is order among all the chaos, I just need to find it.

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

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.

Scarves-a-rama

Happy Fibre Arts Friday! This week I finally finished off two woven scarves, one had been on my loom since April and another one I had done weaving a few weeks ago but it was not finished until yesterday. I realised that I am not very good at finishing projects although I like starting them, which explains why I have so many UFOs. The lure of a new project is greater than completing one, perhaps I should only be allowed to start a new project in exchange for a finished one, I will need a stern enforcer.

This scarf was started back in April, with my hand-dyed warp and weft. For some reason the tension was all over the place and I was so disheartened with it that I didn't touch it for months, then one day I forced myself to forge ahead and finished it - because I wanted the loom for another project. I was very pleased to find that once washed and dried, all the imperfections with the tension was gone and the scarf looks rather nice ...

 

The second scarf was started at the beginning of this month, so it's not quite a marathon project as the first one. It only took 3 days to weave but again it took me weeks to finish it off. I'm calling this Blood Orange Tweedy Scarf :)

Now my loom is empty and I need another project!

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

Learning Navajo spinning

Happy Fibre Arts Friday!

It was my birthday last week and I got this gorgeous Navajo spindle from hubby, well, he didn't know that's what he was getting me but we were both happy with the arrangement :P

The whorl of the spindle is made of reclaimed ancient 45000 years old Kauri wood and the shaft is Tasmanian oak, the slab bowl is made from Western Australian Mulga. All these are hand turned by Lair of the Bearded Dragon, the other half of Charly - the wonderful owner of IxChel Yarn & Fibres.

I was a little apprehensive of this huge spindle, but after watching this video clip a few times I found it was actually not hard to do. You lean the shaft against the side of your thigh and roll with your fingers, I'm only doing park and draft at the moment, in time I'm hoping to become more proficient. The motion is surprisingly soothing and it just feels like the most natural thing to do, there is something really earthy about it. 

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

Entrachat Citrus - almost finished

Happy Fibre Arts Friday! 

Sorry I have been slack in my posts, don't you hate it when the day job gets in the way of your fibre time? But then one could argue that if one is better organised one could... oh well, evidently this "one" is not that organised!

I have finally booked my flights to China in September, it's my mum's 70th birthday so I can't miss it. Unfortunately the first born has to do his work experience (the only window of opportunity left for him to do this - he's not that orgnaised either, guess who he takes after!) so he has to stay behind, and so hubby has to stay behind. At least I still have Elliot for company.

As such I am now in gift hunting-gathering mode, and I've been making some gifts too. Although it has been generally agreed that many Chinese people don't appreciate handmade stuff, my family is somewhat different in that respect... my uncle is an artist so he appreciate all arts and crafts, my aunts have requested my handknits in the past so they obvious appreciate the efforts, and so I've been busy making things...

This is a cute little bolero/cardi for my niece, the yarn I chose is much thicker than the pattern calls for so I followed instructions for size 2/3 to get a size 5/6. I think it worked :)

The pattern is Entrachat on Ravelry. My project page is here.  I still need to sew the button on and do the edges around the sleeves, but other than that it's done. This is a cute little pattern, it didn't take too long to knit, for me it took about a week of bedtime knitting. I've got another one on the go for my other niece, this time in pink.

I also wove a scarf from one of my early handspuns, it's a little shorter than planned but still a good length, so I am happy.

Oh, you might have gathered from my previous posts that I am a Game of Thrones fan, so is my business partner Sparrow. In keeping with our obsession of GoT we are hosting a Night's Watch SKAL (spin-knit-along), using the Night's Watch shawlette pattern by the talented Lara Smoot. The sign up for the SKAL is open, the kickoff date is 10th September and runs until 30th November. If you don't spin there is a knit only option. Details can be found on our Facebook page or in our Ravelry group, pattern code, prizes details, etc.

Night's Watch Batt:

Night's Watch Yarn:

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