Work for Idle Hands

Category Entries for Spinning, Dying, Weaving

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Thursday July 29, 2010

Knit Nation 2010

Felicity and I went to our workshop "Wheel Mechanics" with Judith McKenzie McCuin at Knit Nation. The workshop was a bit laid back which was probably not ideal given we had only 3 hours - but I have found myself remembering and considering Judiths demonstations and advice long after the event.

Here is a You Tube video of Judith in a workshop (that looks similar to ours) demonstrating plying.

There were a couple if little gripes about the event - one was that the signage (once you had made it to Imperial Campus) was pretty poor - well - there was none from the (tube) side of the campus where we arrived. So even armed with maps it was tricky. Still it's their first one and if that was the only logistics issue it was minor.
The other issue was that the price of our workshop ticket - unlike on other days - did not entitle us to get into the market place. We would have had to pay extra for "preview" tickets - and in any case they had "sold out" - so all in all I felt slightly cheated. If everyone had to pay extra on all days I might have felt less so.
O - and also - I felt the wheel creche should have been free, and the website for the event was not good - looked nice enough but hard to find the information - on our workshop, one person showed up without a wheel - as I would have done if my prudent friend had not called the event organisers to check, since the information stated that we did not need to bring anything. The "homepage" was not a home page but became a kind of scrappy noticeboard which I think was a result of poor organisation of information that should have been elsewhere on the site.

Posted on July 29, 2010 at 10:31 PM | Comments (0) Leave a comment

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Saturday June 26, 2010

Back to reality.

No I have not been there all night (note the change into traveling clothes) but could not resist spending the last hour in the garden before being picked up to travel home.
Over breakfast I met up with a fellow Woolfest attendee (no names exchanged?!) whom I had met last year at the hotel - and like me she had gone to some lengths to book it again. Talking to her made me wonder if we had attended the same event as she had seemed to see so many things I had missed; this made me resolve to attend on both days next year - there is plenty of time to spend the morning there on the second day as well as travelling home.

On the way back we dropped in at a small farm which had Shetland sheep - the owner had been unable to get her small flock sheared in time for Woolfest and was taking orders - she also related the sad (but ultimately uplifting) story of rescuing her sheep from the flooding. I think all the farmers around must have such stories.
I also amazed some very old friends in Windemere by dropping in on them at an unsociably early hour for a Saturday morning. I guess we have not met for over 20 years and they were a bit bemused but very welcoming for all that. Andy and Jeff are due to confirm their civil partnership next weekend and as this post is very late (technical issues) I am slipping in this photo of them (taken by Rob) on that memorable day.

Unfortunately I could not stay with them for very long (Adam and Felicity occupied with coffee and cake and a long journey ahead of us).
Throughout the car journey I was knitting "Puzzle" - a chunky cardigan design by Louisa Harding for which I am using Sirdar Peru. Being chauffeur driven on such a long journey has been great for headway on the knitting - and it says a lot for Adam's smooth driving that I was able to do it.

Posted on June 26, 2010 at 10:17 PM | Comments (0) Leave a comment

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Friday June 25, 2010

Woolfest 2010

I have had the usual wonderful day. My first visit was to collect my spindles from Spindlers2 (Carol and Pete Leonard).

I spent quite some time there collecting 2 spindles and choosing some fibre; I also eyed up a delightful Turkish spindle which I lusted after for its cute size, but at 11g it was a bit too specialised for me. Afterwards, I moved on to look at the display area and bought some Yak and Silk fibre which I used with my Greensleeves "Fox" spindle during the Spin In in the evening; it is tricky to spin and probably better suited to a supported spindle, so I was pleased with my efforts.

I was immediately drawn to Deb Gillander's display of ganseys - she had lots of interesting books and stories to tell as we gossiped.

Before the browsing started, we had two missions to complete - one was to get to the fleece sale as soon as possible so Felicity could buy some Wensleydale fleece. In fact she bought 3 fleeces including a Ouissant, which was incredibly soft but not a breed we had ever heard of. Later on we were to see one in the rare breeds parade and this explained why the fleece was only about 1Kg in weight! I was under orders not to buy any fleeces at all but finally could not resist a Gotland; I was torn between a young fleece which was very soft and smaller, and an older one which had better colour variation - I went for the latter, but I'm still not sure I made the right decision.
In the afternoon, we attended the demonstration by Sue Blacker of the Natural Fibre Company, which went into assessing wool quality on and off the sheep, the right fleece for the right purpose, and how to sort a fleece. I found it very interesting and was right in there squeezing the fleeces but Felicity was a bit more reserved - raw fleece not being to everyone's taste...!

Our second mission was to pick up tickets and hand in my pennant. I was disappointed as the pennants were not due to be hung until after closing at the end of the day - however I crept in after the show was officially closed, (during the Spin In) and took this photo of my pennant in its display position.

I was also able to sneak a go on a Great Wheel - I have never tried it before and was pleased and surprised that it was not so difficult - I think it's all in the fibre preparation (which was not down to me!).

When I got back to the hotel, I was still enthusiastic to work with my new spindles and fibre, so I started spinning the merino and bamboo fibre using my other Spindlewood Round made from apple wood. It was a wonderful experience to be outside in such beautiful surroundings, spinning in the twilight.

Photo album created with Web Album Generator

Posted on June 25, 2010 at 10:51 PM | Comments (0) Leave a comment

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Saturday June 19, 2010

June spinnings

There were quite a few spinners at this month's meeting.

Claire and Felicity sporting their new wheels. Felicity's Majacraft Suzie has only just been delivered to her after long anticipation. Amanda (in the foreground) has an unusual wheel hand crafted by her husband, which spins from a point - the wheel itself being a substantial block of wood propelled by her foot. This is a type called a kick spindle or kick wheel.
My wheel and teacup are the only visible evidence of my presence -
and, yes...... that is a bloke in the background.

Sandy was busy preparing ply-split braiding kits ready for the group's participation in Celebrating Surrey at Loseley Park next weekend.

I shan't be participating in this event next week as I am off to .... Woolfest!

Posted on June 19, 2010 at 6:16 PM | Comments (0) Leave a comment

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Sunday June 13, 2010

Shabden Park Farm

Shabden Park Farm Open Day - including tractor rides and sheep shearing - and our group spinning to show kids what happens to the wool after it comes off the sheep.

It's always fun to spend the day in the sunshine spinning - provided you can steel yourself to endure small children with their ice-cream hands on your fleeces - and in one case sneezing and wiping hands on the wool!

There was a farmers market where I discovered that Emma of Lavender Cottage Fibres has a regular stall every month - I bought some lovely hand-dyed fibres from her - she stores them all with lavender so they smell wonderful too.

She also sells her own handspun and I chose the multi-colourway in the basis of seeing the effect in her spun fibre. The red batt is a scrumptious colour, with just a hint of sparkle.
The farm is very local to me and I may well visit the market in the future - for yarn and other produce. George came along for a while and bought some of the edible wares.

Posted on June 13, 2010 at 11:29 PM | Comments (0) Leave a comment

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Sunday May 9, 2010

Cowpie

Today was spinning at Cowpie - in Betchworth this year. We had our own area and were demonstrating spinning and braiding etc.

On the adjacent stand was a chap selling walking sticks. Somehow I managed to exclude him from my photos. However I bought one of the sticks for George. ( Not sure he wants or needs one but I have been keen to get him one for some time - they are wonderful works of art made from hazel, with carved antler and horn pommels from Jacobs, Portlands, Buffalo etc).

Posted on May 9, 2010 at 8:50 PM | Comments (0) Leave a comment

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Monday March 29, 2010

Joy

We are in France for the week and the weather is foul. But the fire is nice and I brought lots to do. I am spinning some silk and alpaca that I bought from Fibrecrafts in pale grey. I am trying to spin an Aran weight yarn to make the Gallery Jacket.

OK I admit it - I have acquired a new wheel. I'm afraid it was one of those opportunities I could not pass up.

Posted on March 29, 2010 at 8:45 AM

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Wednesday March 3, 2010

Icelandic Shawl: complete

Finally complete - blocked and ready to go...

It's much smaller than I expected (or intended in the pattern) and I can't really work out why - my tension knits the same as the yarn suggested - however I used a lot less yardage than the pattern said. I thought I must have missed out a complete pattern or something, but I cannot detect that I have. One other person on Ravelry complains that it has come out small - but other have photos of clearly larger shawls.

As it was I undid the centre section twice to make it bigger - the first time I used larger needles - the second time I increased the stitches considerably before starting the blackberry stitch (as it the stitch tends to tighten the work) and used larger needles .

Anyway - I think the result is pretty satisfying

Posted on March 3, 2010 at 1:50 PM

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Saturday February 27, 2010

Unravel

This weekend was occupied with Unravel at the Maltings in Farnham.

My objective for the day was to avoid buying yarn in favour of perhaps finding some high quality fibre to spin. In the event, resisting the yarn was hard, and there were some lovely fibres at for example Fiberspates- but nothing appealed sufficiently to justify the expense. I did buy a small amount of natural mohair from New Forest Mohair, (to blend with my existing fleeces as recommended throughout the book A Fine Fleece).

It was notable that there were quite a few button vendors of varying types: some with with very original unique handmade buttons, Dixie Nichols with her Father's vintage glass buttons, and the Textile Garden with their selection of excellent value items. I bought buttons from the latter for a Louisa Harding cardigan which demands 36 buttons as decoration (so potentially an expensive project).

Tessa Wolfe Murray was demonstrating making her smoke-fired ceramic buttons - as well as selling them. Many vendors offered interesting demonstations of their wares for weaving and spinning, and of course the exhibitors included the local Guilds (in the cellars!). I visited Fi Morris there, and met Linda Newington who is the Head Librarian at Winchester School of Art. It seems they have a pattern archive with major donations from the collections of Richard Rutt (author of A HIstory of Hand Knitting, and Jane Waller - so I have found somewhere to bequeathe my modest collection in the future! Linda was giving a talk later in the day, but I did not stay long enough to see her - in fact I wish I had checked out the talks and workshops beforehand as I didn't really plan properly to see items I would have found very interesting - on Sunday Susan Crawford (who collaborated with Jane Waller on the Stitch in Time project) was giving 2 talks, one on Knitted Fashions from 1939-1949 which I would have loved to attend.

As I left, I had a chat with the sheep I had seen arriving at the same time as I did in the morning. They were very unwilling to get out of their cosy transporter and into their tiny show-pen in the rain. However the weather was more cheerful later on, and I found they were very user-oriented sheep - ashamed to say I have no idea of the breed though they may have been Gotlands (who I know are very friendly). I suspect they were from Well Manor Farm - I was tempted to buy some lovely grey fleece from them, but it was in its "natural" condition - and I already have too much fleece like that.....!

Throughout my time there I cursed not having taken my camera - hence this is mainly descriptive.

Posted on February 27, 2010 at 9:10 PM

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Sunday January 24, 2010

Sandown Show

I spent Saturday and part of Sunday on our Guild stand at the Stitch & Creative Craft Show at Sandown. Amazingly (to me) I was demonstrating spinning on a drop spindle and on a wheel. The wheel was Sandy's Ashford Joy, and it was lots of fun to be allowed free rein on a different model.

I managed to tour the show as well, and purchased some little items - some more patterns from Fi Morris (who had some great new designs), some large ceramic beads, a bit of glitter (more of that in a POM when I get round to it), a Vogue dress pattern, and - some delicious Welsh cheese!

In honour of dressing credibly as a knitter for the show, I finally wore my Debbie Bliss Astrakhan cardigan (which I first started working on in 2007, I think). It was warm and easy to wear - the wool is lovely and soft - and I am pleased with how it looks.

Posted on January 24, 2010 at 7:42 PM

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Tuesday January 12, 2010

Icelandic Shawl

All my enthusiasm is now taken up with the Icelandic Shawl. I have been almost dyeing, carding, and spinning to order as I needed the various colours for the pattern. The specified colours include dark, medium, and light greys - but these looked like indigo blues to me in the picture, so I used a French reactive dye called "Jeans" and blended the fleece to get the colours I wanted.

I did get on well with the knitting, but have had to frog the centre section and start again. This is because I have spun a variety of thicknesses - I seem to be consistent within the colours, but each colour seems to end up slightly different. The white (undyed) skeins are the finest, and in the centre portion, the pattern stitch makes the tension much tighter. These two factors in combination meant that the shawl was not lying flat enough.
I also used 3¼mm needles instead of the 3½mm called for in the pattern. This was an expedient choice - UK traditional sizes are either 10 (3¼mm) or 9 (3¾mm). Of course I can obtain 3½mm needles as they are available on the continent (France) or from America (part of my Knitpicks set of interchangeable needles).
So to fix my current problem I have decide to do two things - one is to use 3¾mm needles for the centre portion, - and probably 3½mm when I get to resuming the border. The other is to reskein the white wool and wash it again. Having read the Amy King book Spin Control I took the "fulling" process a little more seriously with my recent blue and brown skeins. They were much improved after vigorous fulling, so I am hoping it will have a similar effect on the white.

Posted on January 12, 2010 at 8:20 AM

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Monday December 7, 2009

Walnuts

George has long been complaining (quite justifiably) about my walnut collection. He collected them from our trees in France - with husks - some months ago. First they sat around in a plastic bag going mouldy - and at intervals he tried to throw them away. Eventually I put them into an old tin bath supplied by G's Mother with some water and left them to "mature". They have been on the boiler, keeping warm and infusing for a few weeks - and at intervals George has suggested throwing them away.
Now Christmas is approaching and I decided it was now or never - George would stop politely suggesting throwing them away and would be driven to action.

I prepared some fleece, and simmered it in the strained dye bath. My book advises not to leave it in for "longer than necessary" as walnut can harden the fleece; I always struggle with advice like this, though - how can I know what is necessary? However I took out test pieces and washed them through pretty vigorously with soap until the point at which the fleece retained some colour. This was much as advised - 45 minutes simmering at about 80 degrees.

Walnut is self-mordanting and the colour has turned out a pinkish beige - it looks very like the sample photo in my book. It is the pretty much the colour I was looking for ("grey-beige") which I plan to use for the Icelandic Shawl pattern. I have already spun some Southdown 2 ply natural fleece for this project - now I need 3 shades of blue/grey to get started (for which I plan to use a commercial dye).

The other walnut colours shown in my book, Spinning and Dyeing (by Gill Dalby and Liz Christmas), have made me want to try pre-mordanted wool, and to that end I have sent off for some mordants - poisonous and otherwise - to try out further samples with my bath. A little project for after Christmas.

Posted on December 7, 2009 at 12:41 PM

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Friday October 9, 2009

Knitting and Stitchery Show 2009

This year the main exhibit in the Alexandra Palace entrance hall was the impressive: "Casting Off...A Coat for a Boat!".

Textile designer Ingrid Wagner was lead artist and on this amazing community project which was created with the help of contributors hailing from the North East region as well as internationally, and with the support of The North East Maritime Trust.

Every section of the boat exhibit provided fascinating detailed works of knitted art.

All the poor little fish caught in the nets - though they look cheerful enough about it!

And spot the rats leaving the (hopefully not!) sinking ship.

Fewer photos overall than in previous years indicates how interesting it all was and how busy we were looking around.
I would have liked to take photos of some of the artist's work but of course that was mostly prohibited. I did enjoy one artist who made delightful fine ceramic mugs, jugs and other items, which looked as though they were made of paper, and charmingly painted with floral (and other) designs. Hard to describe without a photo! However, she had already sold all her stock on only Day 2 of the show.

My first item on the agenda for the day was to hand in my completed Macmillan Blanket at the Knitter Magazine stand. That done we were free to roam, observe and buy!

As to our purchases: we saw Fi Morris and Sheila was very smitten with one of her patterns; we had to order the (discontinued) Wendy wool for it when we got home. I am very glad I did Fi's workshop to understand her specialist techniques for when I get round to knitting it! I bought some bargain Sirdar Peru and Patons Misty - yet more cardigans; some lovely beads for Christmas gift necklaces; some earring attachments to supplement my Alison-made stitch markers (I use them all the time and never have enough); and Italian sock wool for... never you mind what.

Posted on October 9, 2009 at 11:49 PM

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Saturday September 19, 2009

Domino Workshop

The final workshop of the year was on Domino knitting. A name, so we are told, apparently chosen at random. More aptly called patchwork knitting, it uses a technique of increasing and decreasing to knit little squares, and then cunningly picking up stitches, so that you avoid all seaming - brilliant.
Our tutor was Fiona Morris, seen here modeling her Domino waistcoat.

We were aiming at producing a cushion cover, (in the foreground of the photo). Fiona has made this one using a variety of samples from a natural dye study.

Here is my sample effort.

I have previously made Vicki Sever's "Heart Sachet" which is based on this technique, and Fiona also had examples of little baby bootees - all shaped from squares, joined together with no sewing.

Posted on September 19, 2009 at 8:28 PM

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Friday September 11, 2009

I Knit London Weekender

After meeting with a client in London, I went to the I Knit Weekender.

There was a lot to look at - not a huge venue but that made it quite relaxing. The vendors were high quality and more focused (on knitting and fibre) than at Ally Pally. I was delighted to see Jane Waller's vintage book "A Stitch in Time" had its own display on the Arbour House stand. I spent some time chatting to the people there and checking out the vintage knitting examples on show.

I bought one or two items and was very pleased with myself as they are all things I need - maybe! - bargain sock wool for Terry's what-is-now-traditional Christmas socks, "Herdy" mugs** (one for me, and others for gifts), and a bargain skein of silk/mohair from Knitwitches. It was great to see the Nichols button collection in the flesh - though I could not persuade myself to buy any right there and then (no suitable current projects); I did however find an excellent button seller - Textile Garden - really nice people and really nice-looking buttons that did not break the bank - and I bought a couple of sets of buttons for my cardigan projects, plus some that I simply "liked" to send to Alison.
I also bought a pattern for a remembrance day poppy - proceeds to the poppy fund. I thought this was an excellent idea but I can't see myself using it on the day - have to keep explaining to people that although it does not look much like a memorial poppy, it was sold in aid of the fund.

As well as things to buy there were fashion shows, workshops, and opportunities to meet other knitters over a nice cup of tea (and a sit down).

** At the show they had Herdy piggy banks, which were very appealing, and I see that I Knit now have a limited edition version available in yellow.

Posted on September 11, 2009 at 7:40 PM

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Tuesday August 25, 2009

A "Whatever" Day

Janet from the Guild invited everyone for a spinning, knitting, or whatever day at her house. I say her "house" but we were meeting in her greenhouse - in a moment you will see why that is not as odd as it sounds. My sister came along too - but with great trepidation in case someone tried to make her do some kind of fibre craft. However, she was there to investigate animal husbandry. Specifically Janets "boys" - who were very pleased to come and meet us.

Alpacas look very cuddly but sadly do not like to be touched at all. But they are very friendly - especially if you have a few bits of carrot and apple about your person. They also tend to nibble each other (and humans) affectionately.

Janet's greenhouse is in truth a huge conservatory. It's a massive Victorian construction, as her property is part of an old estate - her house being the "gardener's cottage". [Not so much a cottage though - but rather a house, emphasising the status of the man who managed a team of gardeners on the estate.]
We had a lovely day sitting spinning among the exotic plants - as well as the less exotic cucumbers, and courgettes. I was lucky enough to be given some wonderful courgettes to take home at the end of the day.

Posted on August 25, 2009 at 8:02 PM

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Saturday July 18, 2009

Braiding sampler

Today saw the braiding workshop, where we were able to try all different kinds of braiding - basically all based around Kumihimo wheels of one sort or another. It was great to be able to try out so many different techniques - toe in the water.... Made me keen to get out my Marudai again.

Posted on July 18, 2009 at 7:28 PM

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Friday June 26, 2009

Woolfest 2009

The second I entered the building (Mitchell's Lakeland Livestock Centre) and the faint but delightful smell of sheep hit my nostrils, I knew it was going to be a Good Day.
Indeed, it has been such a fantastic day I can hardly begin to describe it - but I shall anyway ...

I made my way first to the information desk and happily was able to book for the Natural Dying Lecture as well as the Tatie Pot dinner in the evening. I browsed the exhibition stands and immediately made my first purchase of a small bag of Spelsau fleece - I fancy it for the colour (grey) - Berit Kiilerich is doing a workshop on knitting directly from the fleece, but I plan to try spinning it.
I had a word with Nancy Bush, who seemed relatively thrilled to be here; I am not sure where she hails from but I think it was something to do with being here with the weather and "where it all comes from" - though the weather is atypically sunny here and everywhere is pretty hot at the moment.

I visited the large vendor's stands (P&M, Wingham, and Herring/Ashford) as there were one or two specific items on my list to buy while there. From there I worked my way towards the livestock stands, and the lovely old sheep, who were very brave and well-behaved considering all those human eyes staring at them. At this end of the building, there was an area devoted to the private sale of fleeces - I took the opportunity to look at as many different types of fleece as I could, and I did (in the end) buy a small black Hebridean lamb fleece (about 2lbs).

Just before lunch I went to the rare breeds parade in the auction ring. I really enjoyed this part. I found the information about rare breeds, the Rare Breeds Survival Trust, and the specific sheep, truly fascinating. Here are all the stars of the show that I went to meet later in person.

Alpaca	Angora	Gotland	Gotland
Hebridean	Hebridean	Herdwick	Herdwick
Herdwick	Manx Loaghton	Ronaldsay	Rough Fell
Rough Fell	Shetland	Teeswater	Parade

After lunch - more browsing to the constant faint sounds of traditional tunes from the Music area. Here you could sit down and (in my case) review your purchases. The later part of the afternoon was the lecture on Natural Dyeing given by Carol Leonard. I made lots of notes, and afterwards, I purchased the small booklet Natural Dyes - Fast or Fugitive by Gill Dalby, but as I suspected, when I got home I discovered that my earliest book on spinning from the 1980s is also by her and has similar information. I also bought a couple of natural dyes (Brazilwood and Alkanet), but mostly the lecture encouraged me to experiment and try out more natural substances - and as Carol said: "you can get some simply wonderful colours - if you like yellow...".

Then it was time for the final purchases before the Tatie Pot dinner and Spin-In. I was lucky to impose myself a lovely group of knitters from Coventry (by chance) who made me feel very welcome - whatever they thought! I had bought a pretty spindle - just for its looks (from Whorl Drop Spindles) - it's made from an exotic seed pod of some kind. So I spent the spin-in trying to spin some alpaca I had also just purchased. In my case, there was more dropping than spinning but Clare, Julie, and Jane were really encouraging, and I had great fun.

Finally, it all ended at 9 and I set off back to the hotel; it is very light in the evenings now, so I could fully appreciate the wonderful scenery of the winding back roads.

Finally - my pictorial album of the day:

Queue	Freyalyn	Freyalyn	Nancy's stand	Long Draw
Parade Ring	Wingham	Fleece Sale	Fleece Sale	Herdwick
Herdwick Sheep	Herdwick	Swill Baskets	Music Area	Herdwick Rope
Herdwick Rope	Herdwick Rope	Bridalwear	Auction	Spin-In

Posted on June 26, 2009 at 10:22 PM

Comments

Posted by: Alison on July 1, 2009 7:29 PM

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Saturday June 20, 2009

Straw into gold

Alison went on a retreat today - and I went to a Creative Fibres meeting - so we were united in spending the day spinning, and probably spinning the same fleece too - albeit separated by 8 hours in time. However, before I set off, the postman delivered the most beautiful gift from Alison...

...which is an Ishbel Shawl - and I had no idea she was making it for me - see the details here.
Isn't it wonderful? it is so soft and lovely - such a beautiful colour!

So to explain her entry where she says "in thanks for the fleece she prepared for me" - take note that I sent Alison this:

... and magically I got a wonderful silky bamboo shawl in return.

I am not sure how she did it - but now all my spinning friends want to send her their old fleeces, hoping she can effect the same transformation. I'm not sure that's how she did it, though....
[... and have they even read Rumplestiltskin? - there's always a price....]

Posted on June 20, 2009 at 11:07 AM

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Wednesday May 27, 2009

Shearing

I spent a great evening with my sister. I had an unexpected bonus in that the shearer came late in the day - it had rained heavily overnight and in the morning the sheep were too wet to shear early on. So I was able to watch the whole operation and collect 3 fleeces at the end and drive them straight home.
My car smells terrible and George is appalled - but ... it's great nonetheless.

1. Min	2. Min	3. Min	4. Min	5. Min
6. Columbine	7. Columbine	8. Columbine	9. Felicity	10. Felicity
11. Felicity	12. Felicity	13. Felicity	14. Felicity	15. Fleece

Felicity is a Southdown but the other two are uncertain - and obviously crosses. Lyn thought Columbine was a Black Welsh - but she is a ewe with horns - so probably a Jacob cross of some sort. After Felicity went back in the barn minus her fur, Columbine started frantically butting her; we assume she didn't recognise her without her customary rotund shape. Min is a young white ewe, also with horns - it was her first shearing experience - the fleece has a very tiny crimp, so looks promising.

Posted on May 27, 2009 at 5:42 PM

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Monday May 25, 2009

Magic Beans

It seems no accident that Jack's magic plant was a bean. George left for France and I noticed that 2 little pimples had appeared in my indoor bean pots.

A day later all 8 are through - and they have scared me with their rate of growth. I have moved them outside to slow them down a bit.

Other than that - the holiday weekend has been warm and sunny and we exhausted ourselves in the garden. I have little to show for it but bare earth where the weedy drive used to be.

And I also scoured a fleece in preparation for more fleeces arriving from my sister tomorrow.

I rose very early today and started more work but after a couple of hours It began to rain and has continued on and off ever since, so no more real progress on the weeds.

Posted on May 25, 2009 at 10:34 PM

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Tuesday May 12, 2009

Traffic Light Socks

I have finished the latest weird and wonderful socks made from my attempt to create something brighter when working with Kool Aid. I think we can all agree I succeeded on the bright.

Here's the fleece and the skeins:

I allowed the socks to knit up randomly, but I did make some changes to sock 2 to try and make it similar to, if not match, sock 1. Also I broke the yarn to exclude the areas that were in plain green, as they turned out positively luminous. In fact the two-ply contrasting colours generally work much better in this sock that any of the single coloured plies.

If you are worried about George wearing such weird socks, I can show them lounging casually on the sofa, where the part of the socks which is on normal display turns out to have a pleasing autumnal feel.

[George says they are not "Traffic Light" Socks as they are nothing like the colours of traffic lights. This is true - I was thinking 'red, amber, green' - however, I was also thinking maybe they were socks which would stop the traffic.]

Posted on May 12, 2009 at 10:42 PM

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Sunday April 26, 2009

New age craft

You know the kind of thing - craft is hip** - you take some old junk and recycle it into something else - which you then call "useful", "thrifty", "craft", and "green". Except in my opinion none of the above - you spend a fortune on other bits and pieces which usually includes a mountain of epoxy glue - and how's that good for the planet? I suppose I would grant that it is "Art"...

Anyway - I really did do this - and it really was "useful", "thrifty", "craft", and "green", though not Art. [OK, I did use a bit of PVA glue...]. And I, too, am disproportionately pleased with myself as I have been meaning to complete this little project idea for ages.

When I first did some flick carding, I decide to find a piece of leather from my attic treasure trove to protect my knees. I have bits of leather for making doll shoes but this is mostly gloving leather, which would be too lightweight. However, G's Mother finds me odd pieces and I remembered that she had come up with a large piece of pretty heavy weight leather which was a bit much for the dolls - I think I had already snicked a little for soles, and to support the back of some buttons in repair work.
When I found the piece, I remembered it is part of some kind of seat cover - car or airline (reminds me of American Airline seats but maybe too small). And, lo! it was already in a shape begging to become a spinner's apron. So here is it:

...the top was already stitched to be folded over, the bottom was already tailored into an apron shape. I covered some webbing with polka dot cotton from my material stash (Yes, I have one of those too...) and stitched it on as a neck piece (through stitching holes already in place), ditto for a waist tie which - and get this - was threaded through cuts in the leather already there in the perfect position. I then lined it, partly stitching in place, and partly gluing it round the edges.

** This Guardian newspaper site is actually pretty fun with links to good projects - tips on how I can use my inherited button collection and "the rebel knitter" [I especially like the "fruit cosy" - which had me puzzled for a bit but if they really did protect my bananas I guess it's worth a try...
My particular dislike was a project from a book called How to Make [Almost] Everything and featured in an article "The Borrowers" (Observer Magazine, September 2006). This was a lace doily made into a fruit bowl by saturating it in epoxy resin; I have no quibble if you want the "Thing" - it was quite nice looking. I have a quibble with calling it recycling or thrifty.

Posted on April 26, 2009 at 10:49 AM

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Monday April 13, 2009

Kool Socks

The knitted socks have proved yet another surprise in colour variation. The knitting has pooled the colours more than they were in the skein (which was more my intention when spinning the yarn) and so the colour variation is more noticeable and less blandly grey. Lloyd says they are very New Age, (and I suppose he should know - and I am taking that as a compliment).

The colour is still very suitable for traditional mens socks (which is Good), whilst having a subtley wild air due to the pink.

I swatched the yarn and achieved 28sts to 4 inches using finer needles than usual. The yarn is not really as fine as a 4 ply weight, so knitting to this tension has produced a dense fabric. Some of the socks I have knitted in the past seem to have been a bit loose, so as well as using finer needles, I reduced the number of stitches for these socks. George likes these denser close fitting socks, which stay firmly on his feet "even in Wellingtons".

Posted on April 13, 2009 at 4:08 PM

Comments

Posted by: Alison on April 16, 2009 4:55 PM

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Sunday April 5, 2009

Llama

I finally finished spinning the last of the llama fleece my sister gave me - the cream colour. I have finally chosen something to knit from it - based on my sister's expressed wish that I "knit myself a nice scarf or something", and finding a pattern shown in similar colours in my "Fine Fleece" book.

I did start with the main colour in brown and the contrast in cream, (this was the colour option shown in the book), but this did not work out, so I started again. The brown was the first bag of llama that I tackled and I spun it into a thicker yarn than the cream; the pattern itself has a different quality of yarn for the contrast stripes - a mohair - which I thought may have been thicker than the main, and my hunch paid off as the result with the yarns swapped is quite good.
In knitting with this - the first and the last colour I spun - I find my spinning and plying has improved a little. The cream colour is pretty acceptable on the whole.

Posted on April 5, 2009 at 5:11 PM

Comments

Posted by: Alison on April 16, 2009 4:52 PM

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Saturday April 4, 2009

More blending and plying

So now I have plied pink/grey with green/white. And here it is.

I plied the two blended singles - one pink and grey Suffolk, the other natural Suffolk and olive synthetic. At this stage of competence, I did not do myself any favours by using two different wool qualities to spin and ply, but the result is: OK.

The colour mix is "interesting". I discussed it at some length with Rob (colour being his Thing, in one way or another). I am sure this is all in the books I have about dyeing and colour theory, but this is what our discussion came around to: my mixture is an overall sludgy grey, as I suspected it would be. I tried to choose colours opposite each other on the colour wheel, as these are deemed to go well with each other. Indeed, if they are set side by side, then they do set each other off, and increase each others intensity; however, if they are blended together, complementary colours make black or white (depending on whether we are talking absorbing or reflecting), and in practical terms, given that pigments are not perfect, this will be sludgy grey. So you need to consider different aspects of colour mixing when dyeing, blending different coloured fibres, or Fair Isle knitting in blocks of colour.

My next steps in Kool Aid dying and spinning will be mixing red, orange, lemon, and lime green. They look good with the lumps of fleece side by side - but then orange and lime are almost complementary colours.

Posted on April 4, 2009 at 5:10 PM

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Thursday April 2, 2009

Blending fibres II

I planned to make a second yarn to ply with my pink/grey mixture. I was going to use a soft olive coloured synthetic fibre of some sort (it was given to me), thinking it would go well and give the sock strength. However, I decided it was all a bit dark, so I have blended some of the natural Suffolk fleece with the green fibre.

After experimentation, I carded the two fibres together before spinning - they have such different qualities and staple lengths that just spinning them roughly together was not working.

I am expecting that the overall effect of these colours together will be rather like when you start at primary school and make your first picture; you try to make wonderful colours by mixing all those other lovely colours together, but you always achieve a sort of sludgy grey.

Posted on April 2, 2009 at 11:03 PM

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Saturday March 28, 2009

Blending fibres I

The cherry colour took to the wool quite well, producing a firey red, so I decided to go ahead and blend the more muted grape/pink colour with my brown/grey fleece.

I did not card the fibres together but spun two rollags at the same time, unevenly, to produce short stretches of each colour, sometimes twined together, sometimes more evenly blended.

George came in during this process and requested I make him socks with the yarn - though he was scornful when I said I was blending unevenly by intention. I shall make the socks, but am doubtful about it on account of the brillo-pad quality of the wool and the thickness of the yarn when plied. Maybe he was scared I was planning to make him an entire pink and grey scratchy sweater, and figured that socks were a lesser evil.

Posted on March 28, 2009 at 5:09 PM

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Monday March 23, 2009

Colour work

I accidentally ended up with some of the Suffolk fleece dyed in an interesting shade of brown that I had not planned. I decide to dye some more wool in a different colour to combine with it. The fibre has the texture of wire wool so this is definitely experimental. However, I pressed on and consulted the colour wheel in my books about dying - failed to make any decision - and went ahead and dyed a couple of colours using my Kool Aid collection of fruit drinks.

I used grape and cherry, but was not at all careful in the way I did it, so the colours did not take evenly (as planned), but also were not quite cherry and grape (not as planned). I dipped the washed fleece in the dye and then wrapped it in cling-flim and microwaved it.

Posted on March 23, 2009 at 4:50 PM

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Thursday February 19, 2009

Not quite stripes.

Alison gave me a Knitpicks Sock Blank - an idea completely new to me. It's a piece of knitting that you can dye in stripes; you then unravel it, and when you reknit it to the desired shape it comes out striped - its a bit more predictable that painting a skein. Or so it should be.

I was very keen to try it out, and I had a great time, but singularly failed to get stripes. Also failed to get the colours I expected. In fact the whole experience was extremely unpredictable - but very arty and great fun!
Obviously no accident that I share Jackson Pollock's date of birth...

I won't dwell on the experiences much more here, but look out for more entries when I get to do the knitting, and a fuller explanation in my Knitalong category.

The blanks are knitted double, so you unravel into two balls of wool with the same colour sequence (two socks - see?). Also, apparently others in Alison's knitting group are spinning and making their own blanks, using a knitting machine.
"I could do that!"

Posted on February 19, 2009 at 7:02 PM

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Thursday January 15, 2009

Wondrous strange....

I had a lovely Christmas with lots of great presents, but I had to show this one as it seems to me to be all that a gift should be. George's Mother found it in a charity shop and wasn't sure what it was - isn't it great?

As I opened it I thought it was a charka wheel - but I think I've got the right idea now. Loads of bits that all fit onto the nice little drawer at the front.
[I think there might be a couple of bits missing but it seems to work as is.]

I wanted to show a picture of it "in action", but the pegs only expand out to accommodate a 40 inch skein and the ones I have to hand are somewhat longer. However, with my Father-George patented Niddy Noddy, I hope to be able to use it with my own hand-spun skeins in the future.

Posted on January 15, 2009 at 7:08 PM

Comments

Posted by: Cathy on January 30, 2009 3:43 AM

Posted by: Christina on January 30, 2009 8:42 AM

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Friday October 10, 2008

Alexandra Palace Knitting and Stitchery Show 2008

This entry is a little late but here we are at last at the Knitting and Stitchery Show.

The entrance exhibit this year was a knitted coral reef that everyone could contribute to - you could knit something while you were there and hand it in to be added to the "organic" entity.

Here's my attempt to capture the whole reef - there's a popup to try and give you a better idea - but it was really lovely - showing both skill and artistry.

Our first item of the day was a "fusing fabric" workshop, which involves burning translucent coloured synthetics to make patchwork "art", using soldering irons. I enjoyed it a lot - not sure I will be investing in a new craft but I may join Sheila one day and have another go using her equipment.

Then we were off to visit our favourite stalls - I purchased some grey tweed Aran from Texere Yarns, some silk and cashmere in sea greens and blues, buttons to match, and some beads for my next River Rock scarf. More of these in future entries, no doubt.

1 Texere Yarns	2 Black Hills (UK)	3 Sailors Society Hats	4 Sailors Fancy
5 Heritage Jars	6 Helping Hand	7 Young Designers	8 Young Designers

Posted on October 10, 2008 at 6:17 PM

Comments

Posted by: Cathy in Va. on October 20, 2008 1:51 AM

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Saturday October 4, 2008

Homespun

This is what I've been up to. There have been major, and in some cases unwise, eBay purchases - but more of that another time - and they have led me to really begin to pull together Narvik. This pattern immediately struck me as one suitable for a hand spinning project, but that was really an artistic judgement and not a practical one (ie it looks like a homespun ethnic jumper).

It does have some ideal qualities - it's mostly rectangles - which can be easily adapted to suit whatever wool weight you end up spinning- but it is written for a chunky wool, and I find it hard to control my spinning to any consistent thickness - I am hoping that this might improve with experience.

Posted on October 4, 2008 at 8:47 AM

Comments

Posted by: Cathy in Va. on October 8, 2008 1:59 AM

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Saturday September 20, 2008

Last day before the holiday

Well it isn't of course, but that's what it was like.
When the teacher said "Now today we're all going to make a lovely [card|picture|advent calendar|papier mache egg|pumpkin] to take home for Mummy and Daddy". And we all got lost in coloured paper, crayons, sparkly stuff, and glue.

In fact, it was our final workshop for the year, run by Betty, Jean, and Wendy, who provided 4 card-making projects. We had lots of fun - but I do think that glue and I do not get on well together; we just don't gel.
Har har.

Posted on September 20, 2008 at 10:38 PM

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Sunday August 17, 2008

Feeling blue - part II

A little more metaphorically and a little less literally blue this time.... but only a bit!
Alison and I had such a lovely day a week ago last Saturday, that even the Creative Fibre day yesterday was less of a highlight. Lots of folk were off on holiday so just a small band of us - I did get a lot of useful information from my fellow spinners and dyers though, and Eve confirmed that preparing Wensleydale is a nightmare and there is a lot of wastage. Pam had a fleece, which, with my tiny but dedicated knowledge of one sheep, I was able to confirm is a Suffolk - it even had the cute little occasional black hair. It amused me how instantly recognisable it was - other people had been suggesting it was South Down, so I was even able to go home and check out the SouthDown fleece from my sister to make sure.

Last weekend, Alison and I spent the day in London - haunting the knitting department in John Lewis. It was great - the Rowan staff were lots of fun and we bought books and wool. Alison bought some Kaffe Fasset sock wool and the Latest Rowan book with some Wool/Cotton, (in colour 954 "Grand", I think), in order to knit "Lamour" which was also on display in the shop.

She was also very smitten with "Still" from the Kim Hargreaves book "Thrown Together" (though it's in Calmer which Alison does not like knitting), and we admired the cardigans that the staff were wearing from "Nectar". I was delighted to find that they had copies of the new book "British Sheep Breeds" - so -
net result we came away with stacks of books and inspiration.

Posted on August 17, 2008 at 5:38 PM

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Friday August 15, 2008

Feeling blue - part I

Blue grass, blue floor, blue cooker - blue everything basically.

My knowledge about dyeing advanced in leaps and bounds while I was in France. Sheila gave me an old Dylon pod just before I went, (Riviera Blue), which turned out to be a cold water dye and needed a "fixer". On reading up about this I found it's a reactive dye and the fixer is sodium carbonate or soda ash. I know alkali is bad for wool - and I had no fixer - so I pondered getting some and experimenting. Luckily, I was able to read all about what to do on this great website under the section "Fiber reactive dyes on protein fibers". Basically use acid (vinegar) instead of sodium carbonate.

So I cooked up a bath for my newly plied skeins. Here was the result:

I was especially pleased, as at one point I accidentally boiled the dye bath - but the Suffolk wool skeins seemed to cope OK. I resisted the temptation to panic, and avoided poking them, and allowed them to cool slowly in the bath before rinsing.
I had thought I had cracked this spinning lark (har har I hear you laugh) so was a bit sad that I still had very uneven twist and artistic wobbly yarn. However, the yarn picked up the colour unevenly to produce a rather nice tweedy effect.

Finally I went on to knit it into a pair of socks - again, a slight disappointment that my very thin 2 ply is still almost a double knit (worsted weight). But I am getting there. The uneven colour lines are produced as I changed over my spun bobbins, and purely to do with the colour absorption, not a change of skein.

After this success, I bought another reactive black dye in the French supermarket and tried that on my fleece; it produced a much better result than the Dylon all-purpose. I am unsure if this is inherent in the dye type or was due to my increasing experience. The only negative point here is that it is quite expensive dying black - you need about twice as much dye per weight of wool than for other colours (about one pack for 100g).

Posted on August 15, 2008 at 4:57 PM

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Friday August 1, 2008

Dogs and Knitting

They don't exactly go together like a horse and carriage, but they do go together a lot better than cats and knitting. However, the cats are not very interested in much except food - whereas the dogs sit faithfully at my feet as I knit. They are in a permanent state of alert in case there is any sign of a game happening; periodically they lose patience and come over and prod me with a frisbee.

Our holiday weather has been excellent so far. We picked more cherries, but they are not as wonderful as they were a couple of weeks ago, and the raspberries have mostly gone now.

I have spent my time preparing - that is flick carding to remove the vegetable matter and remaining dirt - and then dyeing some of my fleece. [I know this looks in rather intimate proximity to my cooking facilities but I was very careful to keep the dying equipment quite separate.]

Perversely, I am interested in dying some fleece black, and it has been a moderate success. As expected, it is grey, or a charcoal black, but it has rather good blue/black overtones, which may work out as I want.

It did take an awfully long time to comb through 200g, though - and I need 600g of the black colour and more of other colours.

Posted on August 1, 2008 at 3:27 PM

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Tuesday July 22, 2008

"A nice bit of Wensleydale, eh, Gromit?" - Wallace

My sister is visiting our cousin in Kent - the spinner, Ginny, so I went over to see them both. Much spinning and knitting went on while I was there, though through some oversight, I was craft-free.

I was able to quiz everyone on my little spinning conundrums (!), get lots of advice, and watch and learn from Ginny. To cap it all, Ginny gave me a "spare" Wensleydale fleece** . It is lovely - and she tells me it's not hard to spin - so we will see.

I had a lovely day and Ginny worked all her fingers to the bone, preparing a wonderful curry for lunch; it was really quite delicious. I feel a bit like a locust - I fly in and strip the house of food and fleeces....

** I must confess I left the bag of fleece in the car when I got home - so I could forewarn George and gauge his reaction. In fact, he was quite calm about it as it's already washed, so does not have to live in our lobby - and most importantly, does not smell!

Posted on July 22, 2008 at 1:27 AM

Comments

Posted by: Alison on July 25, 2008 7:40 PM

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Saturday July 19, 2008

Round and round it goes...

Despite my best efforts, I got a place on the circular weaving workshop. I had a duty to turn up for the day - by some default, I had the tea things.

Here we are starting out:

Actually I would have been disappointed to miss out - I am sure I would like weaving - I just don't think I can make the investment in time - given my life span is by definition limited to one lifetime. In another life, I shall be a weaver. However, in this one - I will limit myself at least to this rural form of the craft.
Apparently it is yet another dying French rural art - all done with fingers and primitive home-made loom.

Jean tries to maintain control and ensure we work only with our fingers - no needles or shuttles allowed...

...moments of hysteria and rebellion (over the finger thing)...

Art samples from the weavers guild:

Posted on July 19, 2008 at 4:47 PM

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Sunday June 22, 2008

My first skein.

Here it is. New born and vulnerable.
Don't look too closely now - no - now come on, play the game. Put that magnifying glass away, now!

I went to the Creative Fibre meeting today, and took my wheel. Wendy was also spinning and was very helpful - more than anything, most encouraging. She showed me how to ply, so I was able to do that this evening.

It's taken only 20 years for me to get round to doing this - and I am so pleased with myself. The wool is pretty poor - I had to deal with George prodding at the wool at various stages of production, every time he walked past me, saying "it's a bit like string, isn't it?" then "that's more like wool, o but it's a bit hard isn't it? not very woolly" and finally when it had relaxed a bit "o it seems to be fluffing up a bit now".

Earlier in the week, I found a book Rob gave me years ago "Spinning and Dyeing - an introductory manual" (Gill Dalby and Liz Christmas). Mostly I remember it as being a very useful reference for dyeing, however, being older it had very useful stuff on what to do when faced with a fleece. As I have 4 fleeces waiting to be dealt with, I am anxious for any words of comfort I can get, so this was very helpful. A lot of the modern books don't focus here as spinning is so popular now, you can source much more reliable, high quality, ready-prepared rovings and tops.

I am impatient to try knitting with it - it seems to be an Aran weight, (75g 100m). So - now I am settling down with my book "Spin to Knit" (a gift from Alison) - the perfect way to decide what best to knit with my first skein. I still have to wash it again - and possibly try dying it - before I get to knitting it though.

Posted on June 22, 2008 at 9:36 AM

Comments

Posted by: Alison on June 23, 2008 6:56 AM

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Friday June 13, 2008

Art Yarn

I can spin.

I can spin...... Knicker Elastic [I believe this is the technical term used by the spinners of my acquaintance]...

...and I can spin bouclé... hurrah!

I tried the latter because the fleece with which I find myself seems to have 2 distinct layers - I think or assume due to two layers of growth maybe without shearing. An under-layer which seems to be fluff without any staple length, and an outer layer which is "normal" if a little short in staple length. I decided to see if the fluff were able to be spun at all - and came out with the bouclé. You can see the piece I tried with is not very clean - just an experiment.

Posted on June 13, 2008 at 9:35 AM

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Sunday June 8, 2008

Fleece

Last year, I made it known to sheep owners that I would like a fleece to play with - and now I am being given fleeces plural - which after about 1 has become a problem. I have "some odd wool" that one of Ava's sheep cast off, two more fleeces from Ava, and now two from my sister - one of which is a chocolate Jacob, so I am looking forward to trying that. Between me and actually spinning, though, is a lot of preparation - and having decided to go full steam ahead this weekend, I still have not done any actual spinning!

I have scoured and dried half of one fleece, and continued preparing and carding the "odd wool" (amazingly slow, and probably not ideal for a beginner but I have to start somewhere). The fleeces are laden with lanolin, which is fabulous and I need to enter into another sub project of making my own hand lotion too.... It is a terrible shame that the fashion now is not to spin "in the grease".

George has become increasingly alarmed by the exponential increase in fleeces - and this morning when he went downstairs to make breakfast, he stumbled back upstairs again and gently pointed out that I had left a bunch of flowers in the downstairs cloakroom, so he could not wash his hands - and when he went into the kitchen to do so, he found the sink there full of wool....
When I said cheerfully: "that's what living with me is like", he howled "I know" - somewhat desperately, I thought.

Posted on June 8, 2008 at 10:25 AM

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Saturday May 17, 2008

Inklings

I am posting this very late - but have stuck with the original date of the Creative Fibres group meeting. This month was an Inkle Loom workshop - I did not join it but here are some photos of the group having fun with their looms.

There was a jolly band of non-weavers closeted in the kitchen - handy for the tea and biscuits. Here is Clare - who makes me quite jealous but also inspires me - she has been spinning only since last September, but produces great quality work (to me) and has been experimentally dying and making socks with the results of her work. I am a long way from making anything from my efforts at spinning I fear.

She even spins on her train commute into work with a drop spindle - which I am sure amuses her fellow passengers no end.

Posted on May 17, 2008 at 6:24 PM

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Saturday April 5, 2008

Braiding Day

Sandy ran her annual braiding day at Headley - about half a dozen of us attended, and it was great fun - like being in Primary School again. [No - come to think of it - more fun than that]. Sandy brought a good few different types of braiding for us to try out, and lots of books to look at.

With such an opportunity I wanted to try something new and, attracted by the pile of highly coloured wools, I learnt about loop manipulation braiding. Here is Pam starting out having a go - Japanese style - the orange wool on the table is my initial effort.

The nice thing about this is - there are no fancy tools - just fingers. I tried three methods - English, Norwegian, and Japanese. I found the Japanese easier than the English (for a change) and the Norwegian was the nicest but produced a different type of braid - flat on one side and curved on the other. You can work with more than one person to produce wider braids - on the front of one book was a photo of 10 Japanese hands working together - manic....

Sharon brought her Lucet braiding, which is not a name familiar to me though I have seen the tool (no idea where) and probably thought it was for hairpin lace. As well as the 2 pronged variety she had a 4 prong tool, which kind of reminds you of "Knitting Nancy" - however the principal of the thread manipulation is different.

Several of us brought our ply-split flowers to finish off** ...and out of the left over strands, Pam, Janice, and I made a keyring each***. The pattern is "waves" as explained in Julie Hedges book on ply-split.

There were 3 Marudais - a standard wooden one in the far distance, a lovely little dark wood one in the middle, and the one Janice made that inspired me to make mine.

Gill working Kuminhimo with a polystyrene square - I should have pictured the output as it was a fantastic woolen spiral braid.

** Here it is - my lovely craft bag (present from Alison) - "improved".

***George was delighted when I said I'd made him something and he looked at the keyring with some interest - and finally said "its lovely..... I don't want it."

Posted on April 5, 2008 at 6:21 PM

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Saturday March 15, 2008

Unmentionables

Today was Creative Fibres AGM - which lasted all of 20 minutes. There was bumper attendance, and chatting to everyone proved very jolly, as usual.

In the afternoon, we had a talk by Lee Ault from the Dickens House Museum at Broadstairs. Lee is a well-known speaker and expert on costume and textiles; today she was focusing on underwear, and had brought a hamper full of items to illustrate every era. She started out with the 1920s, before working back and forth through the Victorians and Edwardians, up to the 1960s and 70s, discussing each type of garment in turn. In the 1920s, everything was apparently even more unmentionable than even decades before; underwear was laid out by your maid - and then covered up with purpose-made linens so nothing would not be "on display". This was not a problem for the Victorians, as they did not wear any drawers at all - unhygienic - and to wear drawers was considered very racy - the sign of a loose woman.

I loved this item - a boudoir jacket. It was made of a kind of gauzy organza, with a fine pink lining, showing through to give a lovely delicate colour and drape. Naturally, it came with a "boudoir cap" to match.

I was very interested in the "new" caged crinoline invented in the 1850s, making the wide skirt fashions much more wearable, as it was so much lighter than the previous bone-hooped petticoats and layers needed to create the right shape. It was very popular despite being the subject of much ridicule, especially Punch magazine. Dress reformers used the idea of the cage as effectively imprisoning women. [One of Lee's talks is entitled "The Caged Lady (Victorian Costume and Social Attitudes)"]. Gradually the fashion shape changed, with the emphasis moving to the rear, with the "crinolinette" and the bustle.

Although, I don't think any if us dated as far back as the Victorians (!), but we have such a spread of ages, that gales of laughter swept round the room at the mention of almost every 20th century item. Each one brought back memories to someone of their Mum or Granny's underwear - or we were reminded of long-forgotten childhood experiences of being forced into archaic vests and liberty bodices. Ray remembers, as a child in Ireland, her Mother having someone come to the house to measure her for bespoke corsetry.

Mavis is constructing her latest jacket from her various pet furs; she has here a combination of rabbit, alpaca, sheltie, and good old sheep.

Posted on March 15, 2008 at 5:48 PM

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Sunday March 2, 2008

Mother's Day, and Mirrors

When I first joined the Creative Fibres group - Spinners Weavers and Dyers - the one thing I was sure about was that I was not at all interested in weaving - how long ago that seems... Since then I have been seduced into trying my hand at braiding - both Kumihimo and ply-split. [See the extended entry to understand how this came about!].
Anyway, it's Mothers Day today in the UK and this gave me the incentive during the week to finish off some little braided items I've in mind for quite a long time. Here is the cord I made from cotton thread I had bought on eBay - I had made spiral rounded braids in two colours - this one introduces a third colour, and the bobbins are set unevenly in the marudai. Sadly the photo does not do justice to the deep purple, and green colours.

A close up shows the colours but they are not as vivid as in reality.

I had to be quite inventive as to how to finish off the ends, and attach them to retainers to attach to your glasses, [note that Jacqui Carey supplies the ends, and they are fine if you want a lot of them, but I found it cheaper to go to the optician in the village and buy a low quality cord at 75p in order to cannibalise it for the ends].

It seems to me that braid is pretty limited in its uses - certainly if you are beginner - but a fairly obvious use is to make a piece of string to hang your glasses on. As you get older, I have noticed, you go through a phase of using one of these; I think it's as you start to need reading glasses** but have not yet reached the point when you require glasses all the time. I think they are quite naff - but it's only a matter of time for me I'm sure - I have made strings now for George and his Mother, and who else is there but myself?
[**I have begun to think now that your eyesight fails as you get older, to protect you from the full force of that first early morning sight of yourself in the bathroom mirror...]

I leave you with that thought on mirrors, philosophy, and aging..... and with some more pictures of the braid destined to be George's spectacle cord.

These are both spiral braids created with 8 bobbins, 4 in each colour, and using the same movements, but the bobbins are arranged in a different sequence on the mirror.

How did this happen?

At my very first meeting (the Open Day 2006) I tried all with all the things on offer, and braiding was well-represented as Sandy is the Chairman of the Braiding Society. I had a go at Kumihimo as her Marudai was all set up, and I thought it was simple enough (I could see that it was easy to get in a muddle, even with only 8 bobbins but...) and no real interest there. However, on display was Janice's "home made" Marudai**, and I thought "I could do that!", the prospect of a DIY project being much more appealing than the braiding!
**[I should explain that the equipment for Kumihimo can work out very expensive - the bobbins are about 8 quid each and the Marudai over 100 - and thats before you buy the Japanese silk threads!].

I searched for a round plant stand all over the place - but without success, and then I found a bathroom rubbish bin, which had a wooden top with a hole already cut in it, and I rushed home to try it out right away. For my first efforts I used the bin itself as a base - this work "ok" but the bin did not have enough depth to allow any substantial length of braid to be made before repositioning of the centre weight was required - and repositioning was almost impossible as the sides are completely enclosed. Anyway I made my first piece of flat braid in this way (not so very many mistakes!) - this is a close up - the braid is about 7mm wide:

I then decided it was worth progressing with adapting the top of the my bin into the Marudai "mirror" (the top plate). I cut some dowel to make legs - I cut holes (very carefully!) in my mirrror using a router, and glued the legs in place. I then made a base for the legs to sit in - this involved a lot of careful measuring and levelling which I don't want to think about. Here are the legs being glued:

The base is an old piece of faced chipboard, which started out square, and I finally cut into a round; I still plan to paint it. Here is my "finished" Marudai.

The bobbins (tama) are probably the most cost saving part of the exercise; they are made from 35mm film canisters. I used to have a lot of these, but I purged them all and in these days of digital cameras I have not accrued any more. No problem there though. I went to my local camera shop and I mentioned what I was after and the guy gave me a HUGE bag full of them! The tama have to be weighted, for which I used 2p coins, which serve the purpose well, as you can put exactly the same number of coins in each canister. I finished them off with an elastic band to act as a "retainer" and stop the threads slipping off.

Each bobbin should weigh about 70g - this can vary according to what you are doing - and then you need a counterweight in the middle at about 50-70% of the total weights of the tama - a bag full of more 2p coins.

As a beginner, again to keep cost down, I was advised to try machine embroidery threads, as they provide a shiny look, a bit like the silks normally used. It was a bit tedious making 20-strand cords to wind on the bobbin - I was able to use my wig loom as warping posts, but the warping takes much longer than the actual braiding. I purchased some threads on eBay, with which someone had been trying out Kumihimo; they were cotton, so harder to use (slippery is better), but already pre-cut into lengths, so much quicker to wind on the bobbins.

Final Kumihimo braids:

Kumihimo supplies are available on the web from Jacqui Carey, as are books on the subject.

For information and book on Ply-split braiding see Julie Hedges site.

Posted on March 2, 2008 at 11:21 AM

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Saturday February 16, 2008

Ply-Split Braiding

I have just returned from the Creative Fibres February workshop, where I turned this:

Into this:

The flower is double layered, when finished, but I was too busy nosying into other people's work to finish my own. Ply-split can produce many forms, including bowls, necklaces, booklet covers - and, of course, camel girths(!). Here is Brenda holding up an original camel girth:

The work is very finely worked from goat hair, giving a coarse texture - a bit like carpet:

My preference is for the flat work (in linen) rather than the more artistic shaped work. It makes really good bags, spectacle cases etc. Sandy specialises in bags - her current opus is a bag for a computer notebook, (you can see it on the table farthest from the camera). Here is some of her work:

Finally - a bit of fun artwork from Sandy - a cup of tea with teabag in cup, and Battenburg cake.

Posted on February 16, 2008 at 5:04 PM

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Friday October 19, 2007

Knitting Camp

With great excitement we set off for our weekend at the Full Thread Ahead Retreat in Carmel. After a dubious start to my holiday (rain), the weather is all set to be beautiful for the next few days. On the way to Carmel, we stopped off at Capitola for lunch, which turned out to be quite substantial ["I always eat a light lunch"] - I ate a kind of Chinese duck in a wrap served with a marmalade sauce - no really - delicious.

We arrived at 3 pm to find one other person already there, Trish, who was very friendly and waved her knitting at us from the seminar room windows. Our room - our suite of rooms! - was simply lovely with a full view of the sea from our balcony.

People were arriving throughout the rest of the afternoon, and we slipped out for a pre-prandial stroll via the Coach outlet, as per our itinerary, and popped in for a little aperitif at the Hogs Breath Inn before our pot-luck dinners.

There was a ton of food and we could see there was unlikely to be any necessity to actually go out in the evenings hereafter. Once we had knitted, introduced ourselves, and our projects, (which was actually really interesting - being one who copies rather than designs, I love seeing what other people are doing), we moved on to the "class" for the evening. We dyed 3 small skeins of wool, by micro-waving with KoolAid, and food colourings; I was very smitten by the brick-like red colour unexpectedly produced by the morello cherry drink.... Alison bravely managed to stay the course despite not being well, and we retired at about 9, and hung our skeins to dry on our towel rails in the room.

Kumihimo fingers. [We haven't learnt how to do this yet but I am sure this is close...]

We did not buy any coach bags but Robi bought the most wonderful.... well to call it a "tote" does not do it justice. It really was fabulous and - the best part - it was a thousand dollar bag sold for 250.

Posted on October 19, 2007 at 10:43 PM

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Friday October 12, 2007

Alexandra Palace Knitting and Stitchery Show 2007

We had a fantastic time at the show, as usual. Probably a bit more laid back than usual, and less of a buying frenzy. We worked out that we have been going every year now for 8 years - so probably accumulated enough stuff!

We started the day with a workshop about rag rug making. It was great fun and I am quite smitten. It is something I've been interested in for many years, but always concerned about starting a new hobby. However, as new hobbies go, there is no huge outlay on materials or equipment, you can almost start right away....
Here was what we achieved during the class.

Having said that, we did both buy Hessian (the ideal is to recycle animal feed sacks - but neither of us has access to that sort of stuff!), and Sheila bought a hook and a bodger. The more expensive shuttle tool is something I intend to look for during my holiday with Alison, as it may be cheaper in the US.

On this stall - the Shuttle -

I found some bargain priced Tana Lawn. Alison has been interested in getting some Liberty Tana Lawn for some time now but it is astonishingly expensive. The colours were all lovely but mostly tiny flower prints in blue shades - so I was delighted to find this somewhat retro print example in colours that will suit Alison.

See the extended entry for photo album of the show.

Click on the thumbnails to page through and view the pictures.

Rag Rugs	Rag Rugs	Rag Rugs	Rag Rugs	Braid - ducks
Rag Rugs	Bead flowers	Bead flower	Lace	Jewellery Beads
Wool	HipKnits	Knit a River	Relax and Knit	Foyer

Posted on October 12, 2007 at 11:38 PM

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Thursday August 16, 2007

Wool gathering

Went out with Ava and Peter this evening and was given two fleeces (from Willow and Parsnip I think). They are economically squashed into one plastic sack for travel. The sheep are Suffolks; I am making a note of it here as I keep forgetting.

Posted on August 16, 2007 at 10:55 PM

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Saturday July 21, 2007

Jolly good company

A loud thump in the morning announced the Amazon delivery of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. I did not spend all weekend in it's grip though. I have a backlog of crime to get through first .... and anyway I expect George will want first go at it as he ordered it. We stayed in the right mood by going to see the recently released movie (Order of the Phoenix) this evening. I liked it a lot better than the book, where I found Harry a bit too unreasonable (I think it was supposed to be his teenage angst but it didn't work for me). I thought the writing left something to be desired, although I don't think it's a general decline in her style - I liked the Half Blood Prince much more. Perhaps she did not have much feel for her subject (as opposed to the wizard world which no doubt she has experienced first hand!). Needless to say I am looking forward to reading the new book.

I spent all day at the Creative Fibres - we formed a jolly little group and as usual benefited greatly from their hints and tips on a great range of topics. I told them about my blog and they all promptly refused to be photographed any more.
Sigh.

Mavis was there wearing a really great jacket. The colour and texture were wonderful.
She had spun the yarn from a shetland wool mixed with some silk and her own cashmere rabbit's fur. She told me all about her rabbit (he is 7 years old) and her other animals. She has a great collection of guinea pigs (11?) which are in my experience somewhat unusual pets among my peer group - it turns out they are "rescue" guinea pigs. I find it hard to see how someone could abandon a guinea pig - but there we are. Anyway the fibre she had spun was lovely and she varied the fibre combinations as she spun and plied to produce a self patterning effect. The rabbit produces a very fluffy yarn and therefore she finds it better to combine it with other fibres.

Posted on July 21, 2007 at 11:22 PM

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Sunday June 17, 2007

Bound to be Beautiful

Yesterday was the monthly Creative Fibres meeting; it was a workshop day: "Make a Book" - all about book binding. My Father always wanted to have a go at this but was put off when he read about it, as it implied you needed a lot of specialised equipment. I guess, in a way, you do, othewise you have to make compromises, and stick (no pun intended) with very simple books. Anyway, Chrisy and Diana put together a great workshop for us, during which we all made a simple book, (my finished book on the right). They do not normally teach crafts to hobbyists, but run a business [Bound to be Beautiful] as specialist book binders. At the end of the workshop they talked about more complex book construction methods, and we had a chance to look at the lovely books made or repaired by Chrisy and Diana.

Here is the sequence of the day. Much of what we did was concentrating on keeping glue off the work - or at least off the parts where it was not intended to go! Scroll through, and click on the preview image to see it in the viewing pane.

I am moderately enthused by all this, and would like to do more. In my usual fashion, though, I would like to craft my way through stuff I already have, whereas it's clear that to get a really good result you need to use the right materials. Maybe I'm not quite so interested in a really good result as such, but at the same time I feel I can't dismiss the many years of studying and experience that people like Chrisy and Diana have spent to become masters. Still - experimentation and innovation is everything for the amateur.

So yesterday was a very full day, as I had to bolt out of the class with 40 minutes to get home, change, and catch a train into London for the flamenco evening at the Barbican. I am expecting a quieter time of it today.....

Posted on June 17, 2007 at 10:31 AM

Comments

Posted by: Alison on June 18, 2007 10:10 PM

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Saturday April 21, 2007

Passenger pigeon passing through

Actually I think it may have been wood pigeon, (I got a really good view of its bottom), and it was passing through our chimney.
We heard scrabbling early this morning coming from the attic and, being unable to find anything, opened the window in case a bird had got in - we have had a number of wrens in the house in the past. I thought no more about it.

I spent all day at the Creative Fibres meeting: Sandy was making a fantastic PC bag cover in split ply braid work [thinks: must try this at home], Jennifer and Sharron were weaving (completing a workshop item); Norma - new member - was starting on her Inkle loom work; Betty and Amanda were drop spindle spinning; Iris, Brenda, and the precocious child Charlie were spinning; Wendy was completing her beaded bag workshop purse from last year; and I took my knitting.

This evening I found a load of chimney debris in the spare room, and shortly afterwards, I realised that whatever it was making the noise and creating the soot fall, was still in there and could not get out. So George prized the hardboard cover away from the fireplace - to reveal: nothing. On peering up the chimney with a torch we could see the pigeon perched on a ledge about a foot or two away - well I could see a grey bottom poking over the edge. George then tried the feather duster treatment:

...and it fell down a couple of times (see right: smudgy view of soot falling and possibly a pigeon foot), but despite slithering on the sloping chinmney back, it kept flying back up to the ledge.
In the end we left the room with the window open and I hope it has gone away. [Failing all else, if it pegs out, it will no doubt fall down.....]

Posted on April 21, 2007 at 10:35 PM

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Wednesday April 4, 2007

Gyring and gimbling

George came home from work with a fantastic gift for me. He had dropped in on his parents, and his Father has made me a Niddy Noddy. Isn't it great?

I am simply delighted, but now I really must spin something!

Today was a really fun day - the Niddy Noddy making it perfick, of course. I went on an urgent trip to John Lewis to try and find a remnant of curtain fabric for the French cottage dormer window - it is being replaced and having repainted the bedroom walls, I thought I would try and make a better job of the curtains. In the end I came away with a remnant to cover my kitchen chairs and a lot of wool (!). No curtain fabric, though.
The first yarn is Rowan 4ply cotton to make a Kaffe Fassett design for me from the latest Rowan book. It is called "Marble" and I am so smitten with it I am even prepared to knit 4ply double (which I hate) - it is an essential part of the design to do so as it provides the lovely effect of the marbles used in the children's game. The second lot of yarn is Rowan Summer Tweed to make "Tobias", which I hope will be ready for George's birthday on October; I am not planning to start to right away, as I was not able to get one of the colours - and I have Furrow to complete first!

I completed Fliss's dishcloths ready for the New Kitchen, which is due for completion in May. The yarn is again courtesy of Alison in the US, and her Mother, who ferried it over the Atlantic for me. The dishcloth patterns are from the left "Mason and Dixon Ann", "Little Houses", and "Alex" (available on-line at Knitting Pattern Central).

Finally, I have been fiddling around with a little project, which might be considered to be more than somewhat eccentric, but amused me nonetheless.
I bought an "odd job lot" of knitting needles on eBay [George: "Good grief, don't you have enough?!"] - but when the seller said "odd" I failed to realise that she meant every single one of them was odd - that is, not a pair. One of them actually matches a really old Aero one already in my possession (which is weirdly fortunate), but the others don't. Some I just put in the needle case as I find extra needles are often useful for projects; others are sitting around while I decide their fates.
Two of them are old Milward's needles, UK size 5s, with matching ends, but of different lengths. They are plastic. I thought about it for a while, and decided I would make them the same length. I have had Milward needles spontaneously lose their ends, so I carefully twiddled the end of the longer one until it turned freely, and carefully prized it off. I then took care to see how much extra I should leave to set into the needle end, and sawed it off to match the other needle. It is my plan to secure the end back on with glue, but it does "pop" back on pretty securely even without glue.

Success!
I have a pair of needles...
...to go with the other million or so in my possession...! In my defence, I mostly have very long needles, because as a student when I bought them, I always went for longer ones in that they would be long enough for any project, and I could not afford one in every length.

Brillig.

Posted on April 4, 2007 at 8:37 PM

Comments

Posted by: Alison on April 14, 2007 4:51 PM

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Saturday February 17, 2007

A niddy noddy of my very own - part two.

I set off with some trepidation to a spinning workshop at Headley; it was for spinners to improve their techniques so I was not sure that my beginner status would suit the level of the other participants. Actually it was fantastic - no-one cared about how bad I was and I benefitted enormously from the day.

It turned out that the objective for many of the participants (about 14 of us) was to master the "long draw" technique. I am quite familiar with this as a concept as the very first spinner I saw in Chichester all those years ago was using this technique and talked about it a lot. However, here, we were taught what the method actually is. In some ways it's quite a good thing for a beginner to try, as you can slow it right down, even though the technique can enable fast spinning. The long draw is for woollen spun wools from a rollag, so most of the morning we learnt (or relearnt) preparation and carding. This was very helpful for me, of course.

In addition, for illustration purposes, Eve demonstrated using Louet mini-combs (which I will definitely be investing in), and drew out some carded wool to make a worsted top. I have been dying to see these things in the flesh, having read lots but feeling I did not quite "get" it.

After lunch it was time to start with the wheel.

It was my wheel's first outing - here she is (Peggy) strapped into the passenger seat in Mini. I have not used the wheel at all since I bought it, apart from practising treadling. At first I set it up but could not treadle very successfully; I discovered that wool was caught around the shaft of the wheel, so I untangled it, which helped. Then two members (Eve and Betty) told me that the string attaching the treadle to the wheel was too long, and once I had shortened it - well - it was a totally different beast, and I was away. I set up the scotch tensioner properly, (you can also run it as a double band I think but the previous owner used it single band), having purchased the little spring to attach it as I understood it should be. Then Eve was able to check it through and she oiled it for me - and ... fantastic.

I did some "long draw"ing, and I would say that as far as the technique was concerned I wasn't much worse than the others (just that I can't actually spin very well and they can!). Specific points I learnt (and need to read more about) were:

• although you tend to spin more finely with practice, it is harder to spin thick than thin
• the thicker the wool the fewer the twists per inch required
• the direction of spin (Z or S) is pertinant to whether you will use the yarn for knitting or crochet

The workshop ended at 4pm, so I was driving home exactly as an item on indigo dye was being broadcast on BBC Radio 4, which seemed spookily pertinent. The item was giving publicity to an exhibition in Manchester, and you can listen to the item at the Radio 4 website.
The trivia nuggets that I learnt:

• indigo is the only natural blue dye - I was all set to dispute this until they told me that that woad is actually a form of indigo;
• Bluebeard comes from the habit of using indigo to dye beards for a black and shiny effect;
• blue stocking for academics because dark blue indigo wool stockings were cheaper than fine black.

Posted on February 17, 2007 at 9:35 PM

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Saturday January 20, 2007

Go home and weave a net.

Third Saturday in the month, and I was off to Headley Village Hall for the Creative Fibre group meeting. I did wonder if I would be able to get through as the road to Headley is over Box Hill. We had terrible frightening gales on Thursday and there were a lot of trees on the roads. We lost a small tree (which fell onto the road) and our neighbour's gate was blown down.

Yesterday was much calmer, but when Robert tried to take the train to meet me for a curry, he found that due to a tree on the line at Tattenham Corner there was only a bus service from Purley; rather than have him do that, I drove over to Coulsdon to meet him (different railway line).

As it was I had no trouble, but there were many gale stories from the members; Jean,who lives on Box Hill, was unable to drive to her house on Thursday on the roads - the police got a local farmer to open up one of the tracks across his land - and currently she has no electricity. Other than the gossip ["great wool shops I have known" etc] I worked peacefully on my crocheted skirt (stop laughing - everyone else thought it was nice - they are going to call me "that woman with the crocheted skirt").

Betty (on the right) was knitting a pair of socks - no heel - just a patterned tube - thickish wool - but - here's the best bit -
she had spun the wool herself using a drop spindle.
Respect.

I spent some time picking the brains of a weaver (and I have forgotten her name - damn...). She had woven a fabulous scarf and it was so inspirational I feel I must have a go... All these women talking about what they do in the way of cooking, growing their own vegetables, growing dye plants and dying their own wools - even if you allow for the fact that many of them are retired, it's still pretty impressive, (Eve had some fantastic examples - I really must have a go at that too.... I wish I had taken pictures of her wools).

Posted on January 20, 2007 at 5:27 PM

Comments

Posted by: Alison on January 23, 2007 4:20 PM

Posted by: Claire on June 8, 2007 12:52 PM