You spin me right round, baby

After my failed attempt at the Tour De Fleece, I managed to get back to my wheel and finish off this:


The fibre is Glenora Weaving Supplies merino in navy. I spun one bobbin of singles during the Tour De Fleece, the second bobbin about a month ago and finally plied it on the weekend.

It's a two-ply yarn spun at about sport weight (or commercial 5-ply depending on where you live). My spinning is still a bit thick-and-thin, but much more even than previous efforts.

I'm ridiculously proud of this yarn. I kept going up to my husband and making him look at it! It's lovely and soft and there are no tight coils of overspun bits. The colour is gorgeous - it looks like a fairly standard navy blue colour, until the light hits it, and then it has this amazing sheen.

I'm now trying to think of something to knit with it.

Rose's Wrist Warmers

Earlier this year, I discovered Dr Who. I was a bit late to the party, so I got to sit and watch four seasons in quick succession.

One day I was watching the Season 2 finale "Doomsday", with the very touching and sad scene between Rose and the Doctor where she has to say goodbye to him. I was alternating between crying almost as hard as Rose was, and thinking "Those gloves she's wearing are gorgeous! I wonder if I can make a pair myself".

You can kind of see them here:

Unfortunately, people who take screen shots of Dr Who episodes don't seem to care about capturing close-up shots of the knitwear. Fortunately for me, knitter and Dr Who fan who is much cleverer than me managed to develop a pattern from the episode, so I didn't have to figure one out myself.

So I made these:

Pattern: Rose's Wrist Warmers by Christina Slattery
Yarn: Shepherd Glen Mist Traditional 8 ply crepe.

I was not happy with this yarn. I bought it cheap from one of the market stalls at the Celebration of Wool Day at the Kingston Markets, and there were quite a few spots where one of the plies had broken. There were a few times when the yarn literally broke apart in my hands as I was knitting. It does create really lovely, clear cables though, which meant it was perfect for the pattern in spite of the breakages.

The pattern was pretty easy to follow. The only flaw was that it neglected to mention that you are supposed to knit stocking stitch on the other side of each glove where there are no cables. It's pretty easy to figure that out for yourself, but it might be a bit confusing if you're a beginning knitter or have never knit wrist warmers before.

This pattern also gave me the opportunity to learn how to magic loop. It's an easy technique, and it's nice to add to my skills, but magic loop is not so amazing that I'll never knit with DPNs again.

I'm looking forward to wearing these wrist warmers in winter. They're lovely and thick, and will make me think of one of my favourite Dr Who scenes every time I wear them.

Learning to Crochet

Crochet has always been a mysterious craft for me. My Nana was a prolific knitter, and my Mum followed in her footsteps. I've been around knitting and knitters all my life, and I first started learning to knit when I was 8. However, neither of them crocheted at all and never really liked it.

My one attempt at crochet was a chain I made for a crocheted cast on on my Tubey jumper. It drove me CRAZY and I swore I would never try crochet again, because it was too hard. Plus, I never saw anything I wanted to crochet, so there was no real motivation to learn.

Then I discovered amigurumi dolls, and this book:

Deep down in my (still) gothy little heart, I want to crochet Death and Zombie dolls!

I decided to give crochet another try, and bought a "Learn to Crochet" kit with hooks and a how-to booklet from Lincraft, grabbed some yarn and gave it a try. It turned out it wasn't as hard as I thought.

I've started out by making granny squares, which will eventually be sewed together into a giant multicoloured blanket. It's also a good way of using up all the odds and ends of 8ply yarn I have sitting around:

I've started another blanket, this one with all my leftover sock yarn:

I haven't quite moved on to zombies yet, but I've definitely got the hang of granny squares.

Rainbow Socks

Another recent FO:

Pattern: On-Your-Toes Socks by Ann Budd from Interweave Knits, Summer 2007
Yarn: Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sock Multi

I managed to squeak a pair of socks out of one 57g skein. I knit my brother a pair of socks out of this yarn two years ago, and was paranoid about running out of yarn so I bought three skeins and only used two. These are toe-up socks, so I just knit one until I got halfway through the skein and then knit the other one. I cut it so fine, I had to use a scrap leftover from my brother's socks to cast off.

Now that I've got this pair of socks out of the way, I only have 12 pairs to knit before I run out of sock yarn!

Excuses, excuses....

It's been a while since I've provided any kind of update. Mainly because I keep doing little things and then thinking "that's not really enough to update my blog with" and then not getting around to putting them up. I'll put off an update because I haven't got the right photo or whatever.

Then today I thought "screw it, I'll just put up random little things as they finish". It's my blog and I'll blog how I want to! :)

A little while ago, I made these:

Pattern: "Twinkletoes" by Chloe Sparkle from Knitty Winter 2006
Yarn: Carnival Pure Wool 8 ply. This yarn was originally white, and I bought it to practice dyeing. It's been hand-dyed by me, but the dye came out so even it doesn't even look like a hand-dyed yarn.

I love these! They're so cute, and look like sweet little red Mary Janes, or ballet slippers. They're really easy to knit and I pretty much made them in two sittings.

Today is the 1st of October (seriously? Where did this year go? Who stole it from the calendar!), which means I've been on the knit-from-the-stash-only yarn diet for ten whole months. Everything I've knit this year has been from the stash. I'm impressed with myself, but at the same time it hasn't really been that hard. Every time I want to go yarn shopping, I just "shop" in my own stash.

I've been listening to a whole bunch of old "Lime & Violet" podcasts lately, and got the giggles when Miss Violet expressed horror at anyone going for 9 months without buying any yarn. Welcome to my world, baby! It's not as scary as you think.

Knits on Her Fingers and Knits on Her Toes

Two (semi) recent finished objects:

The first is a pair of socks:

Pattern: Rapunzel Stockings by Ysolda Teague from Knit 1 Fall/Winter 2008
Yarn: Sullivans Sock Yarn - hand dyed by me.

These socks took me ages to knit, because they're really looooooonnnng! There are decreases right before the ribbing, which I had to take out because otherwise they were too tight to pull up to my calves. This is a problem I've had with toe-up socks - I have to be really careful with the bind-off, otherwise I end up with tight cuffs.

The pattern is pretty easy, as long as you don't mind large amounts of cabling. There are a few errata in the pattern, so check out the website or Ravelry before you make them.

The second FO:


Pattern: Winter Twighlight Mitts by Laura Rintala from Knitting Daily
Yarn: The Knittery Slim Sock (blue) and Patonyle (black).

I knit these because a) the pattern is gorgeous; and b) it was a really good way to use up some leftover sock yarn. I love these! They keep my hands warm and look awesome at the same time!

On Tuesday it will be the 1st of September, which means I have been knitting from the stash for 9 months. It's the only New Year's Resolution I've kept for this long! I'm impressed by my own will power, and I've been making full use of Ravelry to hunt for suitable patterns to use up my yarn. I still feel like I've barely made a dent in what I have - I've gone from not being able to put the lids on my yarn containers, to being able to put the lids on full containers. Can I stretch to a full year of stashbusting? I wouldn't be suprised if I made it two years!

Tour De Fleece: Carrying the Lantern Rouge

The cyclist who is coming last in the Tour de France carries the Lantern Rouge . In the Tour de Fleece, that would have to be me!

I haven't been able to do as much spinning as I'd like. First I was struck down by a cold (my second for the winter), then I was struck down by a migraine.

I did finish spinning my purple merino:

It's a bit thick-and-thin and I plied it a bit too tightly. I did find that as I got my spinning wheel out every day, the spinning got easier and easier. My yarn came out at about 7 wraps-per-inch, and there's 50g there. I haven't figured out how long it is yet.

I've also started spinning up some navy blue merino, which I bought from Glenora Weaving Supplies last year:

This fibre drafts really easily, and I'm really enjoying spinning it. It's coming out much more even and I'm starting to get the hang of spinning better in general. I'm not overspinning any more.

The only downside to spinning every day: my wheel is squuuueeeeeeeeekkkkyyyyyy. I have to stop and oil the pivot points on the treadle ever hour or so. My poor husband is being driven slowly insane by "squeak, squeak, squeak, squeak". I'm hoping the squeaking stops as I use my wheel more.

Last weekend was the Creative Fibre Day at the Old Bus Depot Markets. I went in search of more spinning fibre and got these:

Merino tops from Glenora Weaving & Wool. 250g of maroon, and 250g of purple. This should be plenty to get more spinning practice on.

I also got:

Superfine wool tops from Fibreworks. One is hand-dyed greens and the other is hand-dyed greys/black.

I now have quite a lot of spinning fibre. I'm probably going to have to impose a spin-from-the-stash rule to go with my knit-from-the-stash rule!