a bit of spinning

Spinning seems to have taken over as my favourite post-dinner television-watching activity, because the wheel is right there, and it doesn't take any thought to get into. I have bee practising various techniques, as I know I can do an effective short draw (worsted spun), but I dislike the rock-solid yarn it produces. I've been practising woollen-spun techniques in two different ways...

First, the longdraw. Having acquired hand carders at the same time as my wheel, I set to carding this luscious pile of fleece into rolags.



That's Jacob fleece (black and white), merino (blue), various purple woollies, and greenishpinkish silk all gifted to me last Christmas (or the Christmas before that??) by my friend Felix.

I spun it long draw as best as I could (still can't do it unsupported, and I think the silk didn't help but it was too pretty to leave out) and got this lovely blue stuff.



225-ish meters and completely uneven. But it was lots of fun to spin!

My other woollen attempt is from 110g of superwash BFL dyed by The Natural Dye Studio.

This one I spun over the fold (sort of - I spread out small bunches and rolled them up, like an uncarded rolag) and really tried for evenness, the result being that it's at least somewhat consistent!


I really love the colour of this, a bright acid green. I think I got about 150 meters of this, and it is soooo squooshily soft, vacillating between DK and worsted weights.

I'm now working on a sock blend (wool and nylon) but forgot to use the macro setting on the camera, so no picture of that, yet. Oops! :)

More cards

I swear I'm knitting, and spinning, but it's just not very interesting at this juncture, and all my pictures cam out blurry. What, you wanna see anyways? OK, here you go:



Tempest & Joy (cardi); Knotty Gloves; Monkeys

I think all these cards have been received now, so I'm going to post them. They're the next round in my birthday card project. Wahoo!

First, another magpie card for my friend Catherine.



This may be the last magpie for a while!

I then bought a bottle of liquid frisket, oh what fun!
A roller derby card for Julie:



And a Snakeshead Fritiallary (flower of Oxfordshire) for Sarah the plant addict:



Finally, my first sewn card, which I've been meaning to do for ages. This was so much fun, and much easier than I expected. It also features my Favourite Fabric Evar, the bright yellow with red and black printing.



There may be more of those in the future...

Next batch in a month or so!

spinning

After many months of deliberation, I chose a spinning wheel to buy. After many more months, it actually came back into stock again, and I became the proud owner of a Majacraft Susie Pro.



My first project was to spin up this gorgeous Bluefaced Leicester from Krafty Koala, which I've had for almost a year and a half.



I did it in a worsted style short-draw, and it's about worsted weight. I tried for long colour repeats by splitting the top into half lengthwise. I did pretty well keeping the repeats for most of the length.



Almost as soon as it was finished, I knit it up into Headigan. I'm not certain about the buttons, but I've had them forever, and they do match the hat wonderfully.



And a better shot of the short rows and colour repeats.

intermission

We interrupt your irregularly scheduled crafting content for a little illustration.

I've started a project to send out lots of birthday cards this year. August was a bit of a dry month, but late September is picking up and I've got loads in the queue to send out. Thus, I'll start with what's already gone to the recipients!

You might notice that I've got a *bit* of a magpie thing going on. I don't know where it came from, but I love them both for their graphic qualities and their mythos.

It all started last winter when I sent this card to a friend:



That's the Mr. Magpie of mythos. You're meant to salute a magpie if you see it on its own.

This was another birthday card, once the project was actually started.



Then I took a break and made a large painting which really only started out as a card, but turned out A3 size. This was a wedding gift, and titled with a line from the poem about magpies, "Two for Joy".



Finally, this was another birthday card, but it hasn't been delivered yet. Thankfully the recipient doesn't know it's coming, so it doesn't matter if it's late?



Next time there's ones without magpies. Promise!

Fourth Plinth

Some backstory here. Of course there's Anothony Gormley's project One & Other for Trafalgar Square's fourth plinth. The gist of it for those of you who don't know is that participants get an hour to do whatever they want up there. And anything they do, from just standing there enjoying the moment, to getting naked, to promoting political causes, making art, throwing things out out to the crowds below... anything really.

Then there's Brenda Dayne of one of my favourite podcasts, Cast On. I've been listening to this podcasts since close to when it began, and knew I'd found something special when she played some (of the most crass) Da Vinci's Notebook. (Other favourite musical notables include Peter Mulvey and Josh Woodward.)

And even though I couldn't convince anyone to come along with me, I went along to see Brenda on the plinth on Saturday. I quickly found the knitters in the shadow of the plinth, and happily knit and spun the hour away (had to help promote International Spin In Public while Talking Like A Pirate Day, eh?) while Brenda knit on gigantic needles up on the plinth. (You can see the video here.)

Here she is:



And this is for Jaci, who asked how much you can see:



That's from maybe 20 metres away. The tour guide was saying something like "Here we've got a woman knitting. Yesterday's tour had a woman naked but for a g-string."

There was also an enormous chess game in the square put on by the London Design Festival. There were two women competing during this match, and they got to sit on thrones above the game. The peons helpers escorted the pieces around.



Some of the pieces were very striking.



After the hour on the plinth, many the knitters decamped to a pub. I had this fabulous beer, and had to get a pic of it for my friend Kat, who's a big Lemony Snicket fan.



There were very cool beer mats:



and fun conversation, where I met some people who are friends-of-friends here in Oxford. It's a small little town!

Close to the pub I found a place which sells onigiri OM NOM NOM.



And before I caught the bus back to Oxford, I stopped by the Selfridges food halls (ostensibly to have a look around at which American foods they carry) and got this amazing Oreo cupcake).



Which was a delicious end to a fun day. And I'm so glad it stayed dry and warm, as I wouldn't have bothered to go out otherwise!

Deja Vu

What, this old thing? Yeah, I totally finished it.





The vital stats, for those who missed them:

This project is a reknit of the Salina sweater which I knit a few years ago.

I ripped out the whole sweater reknit it - not only at a smaller size, but also with major modifications.

Shaping: I am using the gauge and body shaping of Tangled Yoke.

Styling: I am using Salina’s styling at the collar, hem, and sleeves with some modifications.

Collar modifications:

*Moss st 26 stitches on either side of the neck placket. (To balance out being a larger size and a smaller gauge.)

*Three-needle bind off at shoulders. (Left all the stitches live save the middle/neck set.)

*Six short-rows at the back neck to help the collar roll over.

Sleeve modifications:

*Sleeves are knit from the top down, as per instructions in Wendy Bernard’s Custom Knits

*Sleeves are knit to full length

*Cuffs are knit as part of sleeve and not done separately. Cuffs do not fold over.

a quilt for baby rachel

A quilt for a baby who happened to be born before I got the quilt finished, but ah well, she's only three weeks old, she won't notice the difference.

I based it on the Amy Butler pattern Thea's Puzzle quilt (pic) (free pdf), but when I looked at the instructions, I realised that it was more of a string quilt, and I wanted more control over where the colours went.

So I turned to the idea of a string quilt crazy nine patch mashup.

I had my fabrics,



and to make certain it would work they way I wanted it to, I made a paper mock-up.



That's making a cut then taking the left side fabric from the bottom to the top, after each cut. Following the cut I'll stitch each layer then cut again.

So here's cut number one. The blue fabric was on top, but after I made the cut, I moved the left side fabric (currently purple) from the bottom to the top.



Here it is after the fourth cut. I kinda forgot to take pictures of those other cuts, but if you look at the paper diagram you should get the idea.



After I sewed all those, time passed. I'd originally planned to sash with the purple, but I decided to include it in the blocks instead, so I got the spotty olives-with-pimentos type one and did the border in purple instead.

More time passed, until earlier this week, when I quilted the whole darn thing, having finally got a walking foot. I'd wanted to stitch in the ditch, but also pressed my seams open instead of to the side, so they got outlined instead.

Then I bound it. I followed these tutorials with pretty much 100% success.

I just love that lime green and purple combination.



And here's the back. That's all folks!

Salina Take Two

I've been working on SalinaTwo for what seems forever now. It was going really well, however, and seemed like it was going to be the Best Sweater yet. And then I noticed that I had a lot less yarn than I thought I did. Sure, I was knitting a smaller size, but I was also using a tighter gauge. Sure, I had leftover yarn, but when I weighed it, it was only 20 grams. Oh dear!

I got to this point.



Which is about where they want you to end the sleeves on Salina, but I couldn't do it - because I work in a primary school, I'm in a variety of temperature zones all day long and when it's cold I need those full length sleeves!

I was down to working off the swatch.



My colourway of Rowan Felted Tweed (Whisper, shade 141) is discontinued so I didn't have the option of popping down to the shops and comparing balls to my jumper. There was still an online shop selling my colourway, however, so I took the plunge.

And, it didn't really go.



A bit more green, I thought!



Which was then a bit bright. Harrumph!

I am giving up, striping as much as I can with the remaining bit from the swatch, and the cuffs will just have to be bright, and blue.

Crumpets and Clotted Cream

I saw Crumpets not long after it was published in 2004, and I always knew I wanted to knit it. Oh, but that skirt, and the miles of stockinette I'd have to endure... not for me.



No beads or ribbons, either, nothing that could bother my one year-old niece. The skirt is eyelet cotton with a cotton organza layer so that she doesn't have to show her nappies to the world. :)



If we're lucky, perhaps Grandma will get a picture of her in it sometime!

Booty

Today I went to the quilt show and met up with OxfordKitchenYarns (plus FB who is not FB because he is First Born), LittleGreenBees, RuthCrafts, and Confessions of a Slack Knitter.

I got Stuffs. I was inundated by colour and technique and sell sell sell!


I seem to have renewed obsession with lime green, now with added pink! (Say what?)

But look at the Cee-ute oliphants! (From Fiddlesticks Fabrics, her shop had probably the best prices at the whole show.)



And then four from that place with "button" in the name that's got all the awesome Japanese stuff. (I didn't get the Japanese stuff however, because I'm cheap.)



And three metres of this amazing shirting fabric from Fabrics Galore. I think this is destined to become a Duro dress (Scissors for scale)



And finally some stuff I got last week at Purl Patchwork in Soho, NYC. They didn't sell fat quarters, so I had to buy half yards. Boo hoo Whahoo!