Holidays, Spending sprees and Swaps (and an FO or two!)

The week away was definitely needed...I hadn't realised how wound up I was and it took a couple of days to even feel like I was on holiday! Still, the weather was on the whole good (only an afternoon of drizzle throughout); we thoroughly did the local attractions....

...Whitby Abbey....

....Scarborough (that was the drizzly day)....

...We stayed close to home a lot of the time...well, when this is the view from the window of your flat....

...And you get to see steam trains passing at (relatively) recent intervals....

....And even the dusk holds reflections and a myriad of colour. Being by the river, we could watch as the tide changed, the water level ebbed and flowed and we walked and walked (and ate and ate!) and generally had a fantastic time.

Of course, I had a whole heap of photos and maybe I'll share a few more choice selections in future blogs plus a few tales when I have more time.

In knitting news, I've a couple of FO's to show you...

In typical Blogger fashion, the second one's first and one of them's the wrong way around, go figure! Anyway, this shawl has been given a new home with Mel, it's a version of the Forest Canopy shawl knitted in Noro Kureyon on 6.5mm needles and I'm happy with the result (just don't look too hard for mistakes!). It knitted up quickly over a matter of days and with the colour changes it kept my interest so it was fun to knit.

This was the first Forest Canopy Shawl I knitted and this time I was using Colinette Cadenza.

I ended up doing extra repeats to the original pattern, ending up with around 350 sts on the needles rather than the original 190 odd, making it into a more typical sized shawl rather than a shawlette. With more stitches, it was a bit more laboured to finish and it was rather depressing to wash it and find reasonable dye loss with every bowlful. After the tenth, I decided that what remained was unlikely to rub off on anything and besides, shawls only get washed once in a blue moon so it was spun and blocked and here it is in all it's glory!

I went to the Cheshire guild again on Saturday...it was a textile talk and braiding workshop but a group of us sat at the back of the hall and spun instead. It was great fun!

This is most of the roving that spinningsue sent me as part of my swap parcel, a unique colourway from Lime Green Jelly fibres. After some dithering, I decided not to navajo ply it as usual, I'm going to buy some black fibre and ply it with that so I get maximum yardage and colour length too...fingers crossed!


I did take some yarn away in case I got much time to knit (not really!).

The left-hand ball is the dye-job I just couldn't part with. Much prettier in the skein, you'll see it better when it eventually knits up..just don't hold your breath!

I had planned to knit some exquisite long socks for mum to go with her bolero cardigan (which is now all sewn up) but having some major tension issues, switched to these instead...

Plain, serviceable long socks that'll keep the worst of the winter at bay...and a darned sight quicker to knit as well!

I did say they were in a whacky order! I cast on these on holiday, black again and struggled through the lacy pattern in not wonderful light only to find the cuff was a whole 2" wider than it should have been! In hindsight, these socks (Millicent by Cookie a) were so tailored to your leg size, I'd have kind of given the game away if I'd asked for all her measurements! As the width is closer to my own size and I'm reluctant to rip 100+ stitch rows, I may make them for myself one day instead.

I came home from guild to find an international parcel waiting for me....

One of my parcels in the Chocolate and Yarn swap, yummy soft Knitpicks sock yarn and a bar of Cadbury's Caramello, I guess the U.S version of our Caramel. Unfortunately, the chocolate's been somewhere hot on it's journey so arrived somewhat squished and the chocolate's gone all funny. I don't seem to have much luck with international chocolate! There wasn't a card with the packet and unfortunately, although the name and address is on the front it's not easy to match up with the swap-bot participants for me to rate so I'll have to put a message up there and see if someone replies!

My two swap parcels are ready to be made up (hopefully this evening) and go out with luck tomorrow. To be honest, my timetable's kind of gone out the window since my return due to a number of reasons but chiefly due to another infestation of mice.

So far so good, we captured a third this morning using the usual sticky traps and some chocolate orange fudge brought back from holiday that they obviously took a liking to when it first appeared on the level. We managed to get to B+Q this afternoon and bought 4 more sonic deterrents so I can guarantee the upstairs is mouse-free and the lounge (hopefully) also. If they can be restricted to the kitchen to be trapped and further infestations prevented (I finally silliconed up their prime entry point), I'm hopeful we can finally draw a line under the whole affair. I'd like to also glue a mesh to each of the airbricks as a belt-and braces approach though they've never appeared from there but primary concern will be to phone the water board as it's getting incredibly tedious washing my hair and body in stone cold water as the pressure is so low, it won't trigger the water heater. Fingers crossed it won't involve another huge bill!

EDIT: AAARGH! Lord knows how blogger lost the text on half the pictures, I've been so rushed I never even noticed....

Still, at least one person twigged it was my holiday spoils! A few balls of a new 50% wool, 50% Acrylic yarn to have a play with plus some fantastic coloured sock yarn aaand....

Oodles of noro sock yarn, a couple of balls for projects unknown (but probably socks!)...

And 4 balls in the same shade to maybe one day knit this (or something like)...

I do love the Noro colour changes even though the sock yarn does feel pretty rough. I believe it softens considerably after washing though, I'll have to try knitting it for myself before I make any judgements.

Roll on next post....

Has it really been a fortnight?

Well, the Bluefaced.com weekend seemed to be a great success, Jo, Lyndesy and myself trundled along early Sunday and whilst it was a bit nippy, it was so nice to see other Ravellers without the 3+ hour trip and overnight stay that came with Woolfest.

There was a wonderful selection of goodies on show, undyed yarns and roving from Bluefaced.com, dyes from Debbie at DT Crafts, Natural dyes, Fyberspates and Natural Dye Studio dyed goodies and Laughing Hens appeared to uproot their entire shop too (or most of it!).


The more hardy souls sat and chatted...

My head was turned by so much wool fumery, I barely had any time to talk to Anne or Mel...

There were tables of bargains and the two car ports you can see in the distance held most of the goodies...
But this was the Laughing hens stall, loads of choice goodies there! Unfortunately I don't have pics of all of my goodie haul yet, but there are a few yarns I've dyed up if you scroll down.

First, the fibre selection for the shop later this evening. These are all wool/nylon blends and perfect for socks and I have organised some more masculine colourways this time with christmas knitting in mind....

Bouquet - this sockfluff is a little more random and patchy for a wider range of tones and textures in the finished yarn. There are blues and purples as well as reds and pinks, very pretty.

Iris ii. Well, so many people loved this colourway, I had to try it again. It's slightly different, partly due to the different fibre and intermingling but I think this is another lovely dye job.

Now for the more masculine? colours...

There's Woodland Clearing, a mixture of browns and greens with a little rust for a yarn with a camouflage-y feel....
And if that one's too bright, there's always this one, Woodland floor. A darker, more intense version of the browns and greens above with a startling leaf red to save it being too muddy. I love the way this one turned out.

And finally, this one I call "Everton Mint" in recognition of that regional toffee centred humbug. It began as a more spotty creation in homage to one hundred and one dalmations but you can never predict quite what'll come out after "cooking"! I think it's a great, simple colour that would produce a variety of black and grey toned yarn. Perhaps not so colourful as some of my creations but it does go to show you can get away with just black and white!

There's some yarny goodness this time too, all of them have been dyed, dried, wound and rehanked to make them pretty again...

"Spring Fling" - a BFL sock yarn that's a vibrant selection of greens, pinks and yellows with dashes of blue to chase away the gloomy weather we've had recently. Unfortunately, the yarn had a few knots in it but it doesn't affect the colour changes at all.....

"Pale Peacock" - A merino/bamboo blend sock yarn with a gentle sheen, a little thicker than the one above. It's a mixture of blues, purples and greens with a few other shades thrown in for good measure.

Then there's a couple of laceweight beauties...

"Pale Rainbow" you can't really see in the picture but there's a little bit of every colour in there. It's a special blend of Alpaca, Silk and Cashmere with an impressive 1200 metres in every 100g! Plenty for a pretty, fine shawl.

"Blue Rhapsody" I was looking for a less varied depth of colours in both skeins but particualrly this one so it would not conflict too much with a lace pattern. I love how these lace yarns turned out and I have a skein laid to one side to dye for myself when I get a chance. There was going to be another skein of sock yarn but it got snaffled...by me! I'll post a photo of it when I get time (which is in precious short supply at the moment!). I hope to update the shop later this evening, with a little luck!

Well, I haven't given over totally to the delights of dyeing, I have been knitting too...

Mum's Xmas bolero just needs sewing up.... I started a waistcoat for the MIL...
I hasten to add it won't be that low at the front, I'll work out the shaping on the front once my brain gets working again (so don't hold your breath ;-).

I also started this little but crucial bit of knitting....

...Since I've been pretty much permananently wearing the wrist supports, one to squish a ganglion on the right wrist, the other for well-needed support, I can't use my close-fitting suede gloves. So I'm left with cold hands walking the dogs and even colder hands waiting for an hour or so for the RSPCA clinic to open or waste valuable knitting time!

My solution was to knit some Snuggles.

Stretchy enough to go over the supports and keep most of my fingers warm yet give me the ability to knit whilst waiting in queues, it also uses the spare yarn from my mum's cardi so economical too! I just need to find the time to knit the other one before tomorrow....or wear one and knit the other while waiting?

Last night, I got itchy fingers for a project (that wasn't the MIL waistcoat!) so I reached out for my new Twinkle Book. I did the usual thing and swatched, re-swatched and swatched again only to re-read the info and work out (as before) that the original swatch was fine.

You see, the rest of the world tends to give a tension of x stitches and x rows to 4 INCHES or 10 CM. Ms Chia uses arbitrary measurememts like 6" or 7" and it catches me out every time!

Ah well, rant out of the way, I got the chunky 15mm DPN's out to work the left hand sweater (printmaker's sweater). It's slow going despite the super chunky wool but it does fill the semi-instant sweater criteria and I'm craving a chunky and snuggly sweater right now.

Of course, it does mean I've been project dipping again. On rooting out mum's cardi, I came across this...

It's the start of the Forest Canopy Shawl that I haven't looked at in over a fortnight...partly because of needing the pattern to work it right now and partly because my brain's not at it's best and I plain and simply forgot about it!

The change in the weather (despite appearances) has kind of knocked the stuffing out of me and so my energy levels have plummeted recently. It's taken me most of the day to write this rather than the usual couple of hours so I'd better pull my finger out and get some basic listing done ASAP.

There won't be another blog post for a while as I'm off on my holidays from next weekend. I'm quite ready for it, I tell ya! Plus there won't be a shop update for a whole month to give me time to recuperate a bit. The plus side is that next post will contain holiday news as well as holiday goodies so it should be a fun one...