A little book of yummyness

Due to my love of crochet I purchased a fabulous little book with loads of scrummmy crochet stitches in. It's really easy to understand as well, and I have done some samples which I have previously tried and they didn't work but this time they seemed really easy!

I can't find the amazon link, but i'll add it to my books typelist when I do.

Monday Morning!

What a lovely week I had last week, lots of time to knit and spin. So I have included pictures of everything.

Firstly I have finished my denim top and have been wearing it non stop, it looks great, quite sexy actually!

here it is:

Here is some of my order from texere yarns: all things to dye, I also got some cold water procion dyes, but I have not been able to work out how of if you can rainbow dye with them, so if anyone has any links or ideas I would like to know.

Finally I decided to make a tank top with my hand spun wool so I have started but need to spin and dye some more, which I will hopefully do this afternoon and tomorrow.

No car yet :-(. However my new job starts in three days, which means I can afford to buy lots of lovely wool!!!!!!!

Spinning andf dying

Once i'm back in work next week, weblog will be updated regualrly again, for now, here is a picture of my spinning and dying exploits from yesterday. Lovely!

The Poncho

Picture is not brill but at least it's here. Virus is still here, computer dying, so it'll be breif today.

Whats new?

Amazing weekend with my mum, she was mad about my poncho and wants one for herself! So I guess as soon as that texere package comes (yes texere is majorly addictive) I am going to be dying everything, and crocheting it.

We made a decision that we would do more crafty stuff together, my mum is an amazing painter, she paints the most beautiful water colours , and she loves pottery, she does dabble in a bit of felting as well, so we decided to do some weekend courses and take it in turns to choose what to do. I will try and get a picture of her stuff sometime and post it.

I have about seven rows to go and I have finished my denim top, so that will be blocked today and I have the afternoon off so I guarantee pictures today.

Just a little bit of wedding news; we went to bath shopping for shoes, (I think US readers would go mad for this place, I adore it and I grew up in the Cotswolds!) its a beautiful roman town, so quaint, with the scrummiest of shops, they even have a restuarant called the Pump Rooms where you can have afternoon tea, and there is a string quartet/ other lovely music playing. So my point? I brought shoes, the most loveliest shoes that probably exist in THE antique gold colour, they could have been made for my wedding dress, two phrases: Russell and Bromley, and lots of money! Thankfully mum helped out. I may even have to dedicate a lovely shawl to them in similar colours so I can wear them again after the wedding.

Down to earth.

I am back down to earth today after being high as a kite, its really lovely to just appreciate the normal things in life. Why this revelation? I made a mistake this morning because I forgot to do something, which could have been remedied with little effort. But offence was taken and I realised what a bloody sucker I am, basically I felt really sad because I make so much effort, and when I make a little mistake I expect a little grace.

Anth and my lovely lodger Carey just scooped me up made me a big fried breakfast and loved me, and I realised how fabulous my life is without weddings, cars and things, all of those are just nice additions, but what really matters is loving and being loved. Thanks guys. Even my knitting seems extra special today.

So i'm still knitting the denim top but I'm nearly there. I havn't taken the poncho off for three days, I'm going to have to make another one to replace this one when its in the wash!! LOL.

I recieved a catalogue from texere yarns this morning a fantastic company that sell yarns, not main brands but much cheaper and often you can substitute them for main brand yarns, they also sell loads of undyed yarns for you to dye. So I've been looking through and there are lots of ribbon yarns which I could dye my self, and would be great for the poncho. This is really exciting. So i'm going to go through the catalogue with a big cup of coffee later and really enjoy my self.

Glad my mum couldn't crochet when i was a kid.

Take a look at this link I can't remember where it came from, but there are loads of poncho's, some of them are a bit dodgy, however there are a couple which I actually quite like. Take a look and I hope there is plenty of LOL's.

Mad life.

So, Where is the picture of my poncho? There isn't one, because my lap top has another virus and I can't shift it for some bizarre reason. So I don't want to attatch anything to emails on my lap top and send them to this computer incase it causes problems here as well. I can upload pictures from home, but i'm never there for long enough lately. But I am home tonight, I promise there will be pictures!

Now for something rather exciting, sort of wedding related, and will have a future imapct on my yarn purchases but not directly knitting related! I have a lovely old banger of a renault which is really reliable but to be fair is near it's end. I brought it for £200 last year and I love it, however, for my honey moon I want to drive to the south of France and have a sort of road trip ( I love driving around Europe), its costs a minimum of about £500 to hire a car for two weeks, but this is actually cheaper this year than flying to paris, getting a train to the South of France and then hiring a car for two weeks, and my lovely renault probably wouldn't make it to Dover, not only this but the tax and mot is due the end of June (this will cost at least another £500. SO.......... Its cheaper to buy a new car!!!!!!!!! And yesterday I purchased a brand spanking new renault Clio, well I don't physically have it, but its nearly here!! I researched (note this is what I am very good at !!) all the cars and prices, and deals, and finally found one which saves me having to pay out a massive sum and only have to pay a very fair monthly amount, and I can swap it for a new one in three years time, and how much deposit did i have to pay? Absolutely nothing they actually took my banger as a deposit, this is very amusing. And with my new job coming..........!!! yeah!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

But what is most exciting is that now I have the ability to travel to anywhere to buy yarn, and the first place I am taking the lovely Marie to is COLINETTE YARNS I am fully intending to find some yarn stores in france and italy so I can bring home as much yarn as I can possibly fit into the boot of my car oh and not forgetting tonnes of french wine and food!!

Oh and finally I would like to wish Marie a really happy birthday for tomorrow, without her I wouldn't have this blog, and I would never have met so many fab fybermad people. So thankyou and have a lovely day. And I'll save your birthday present for our colinette trip!

So much for having a practice!

I decided to have a little practice over the weekend of the mini poncho, because I've never followed a crochet pattern before and thought it would take me an age to work it out. But I have to say I have nearly finished it!!

I used my Noro silk garden, which to be honest probably wasn't the best choice because its has a mind of its own and my crochet isn't the most consistent yet, but as the poncho developed it gets better and better. I wasn't sure which needle to use, although vera told me 5.5, I couldn't remember whether that was british, Us or mm!! I eventually found a gauge which was roughly right, and it does fit nicely. You can't distinguish the flowers very well because the colour stripes through them. However I will put a picture on tommorow, because I am determinied to finish it today- it's so lovely I can't tell you!!

By the way, its a cheap thing to make, as it only used about 2.5 balls of yarn!! I now have more of a idea of what to choose for the crochet along!!

We brought the rest of the suits etc at the weekend, everything is pretty much sorted and we still have nine weeks to go! Therefore I am just excited and not stressed, I know this because I dreamt about crocheting last night!

Hmmm.

I've been planning my flowery poncho, and for starters the patterns suggests a crochet needle to obtain the correct gauge, has any any got an idea roughly what size needle I should start with?

Secondly it recommends a silk yarn which is about $25 a skein and you need three. So I could spin the equivilent yarn in silk and dye it my self for about £6.50 in total, so I think I will get practicing so I can spin a singles yarn of the correct gauge.

Thankfully, I think I will be able to have plenty of help with my poncho from my fellow poncho-ers!?!

Knitting going just fine, should be finished soon, then pictures.

My normal knitting and spinning dreams have unfortunately been replaced with wedding nightmares, Can't stop dreaming about having no shoes etc. However I am getting really excited. If anybody is interested have a look at my wedding dress if you want here

its number 9876. Its in antique gold not white, I have no intention of looking virginal!

Lots to say today.

Well, knitting news first! I have finished the back of my denim top, from the rowan denim book, its the one called thelma. It is so easy to knit and really quick, I hope to have the front done in the next couple of days.

Secondly, I have joined a crochet along!!! The flowery poncho mentioned in my last post is the object of desire, so I joined up, if any one else is interested go to Vera's blog to sign up. Now the funny thing about this is that I can crochet, but normally I make it up as I go along, and I have had a look at the pattern and it looks rather scary, I have to be honest I have never followed a crochet pattern in my life!! So I may have to decode it, and practice a little with some bits and peices before I start.

Thirdly I really like this:Spinning at walden farm The Beaded yarn sounds great, I am dying (damn, I'm completely confused about the spelling of dying now) to have a go. I actually have saturday off, and I would really like to have a go, even though my mum thinks I should be cleanning my house ready for my wedding, I think I might do an hour, and the get onto spinning with beads!! I also ordered some more dyes and wool yesterday, so I might be lucky enough for them to come B4 the weekend, we'll see!!!

Something lovely

This is the reason I love blogging! You read other peoples web sites and you find out about great things!

I have been searching for a poncho pattern for ages and ages, and I just found a blog which had a link..... have a look at these things Stitch Diva they are lovely, I especially love the corset! I have purchased the floral mini poncho! (Marie I know you will like these!)

The pictures

Ok, here are the pictures of the wendsleydale and the silk.

The wendsleydale:



The silk:

The results (without pictures)

I spun at every opportunity at the weekend and it resulted in 150gms of wensleydale, in a orangy colour, unfortunately the pink and oranges blended, the wool is beautiful but not quite the colour I was after. It is definately for socks.

The silk on the other hand came out beautifully and although it was incredibly difficult to spin I managed one skein of about 25 grams, and it is so pretty and stripes nicely when knitted, I think I could use the charlottes web pattern for it. I will knit a few samples first.

Although silk is about three times the price than a good wool, it is so light that you get get the money back in yardage. so you would get four skeins from 100gms of silk and only two from wool. So its not so expensive and it takes dyes really well. I think I might purchase a book on spinning silk to improve my technique, suggestions welcome.

Pictures tomorrow or this evening

A success!

I decided to go to Sainsbury's to get some yummy food for the weekend, and whilst I was there I discovered food bags which you can put in the oven!! I was so excited I came home and started to dye straight away! So here is a little journey with pictures of dyeing in the oven!

OK, so I soaked some wool, silk and some soya silk.

Then I layed out the soaked fibres (excess water was squeezed out) on some cling film ready to paint.

Then mixed up some dyes, (I use Gaywool Dyes because you don't have to do any messing about with using acids etc.

Then I painted them on in stripes and brushed the colours so they mixed quite a lot; I mainly used orange and pinks. Here is a picture of the silk painted rovings:



Then I popped them into the oven bags, sealed them with a tie, and put them in at 190 degree's C.

I left them in for about 30 minutes and then took them out let them cool, swilled them out and here is a pictures of the soya silk:



And finally here is a picture of the finished rovings hanging drying in my garden, The left is the soya silk, the middle is the wool (wendsleydale) and the right is the silk.

I am going to spin these up tomorrow!!! Yeah!!

I can still knit

After over 60 hours of waitressing I am still alive. It's not a normal wiatressing job be any means, its actually pretty amazing, and I work with amazing people, but more of that another time.

I want to make my boss a Charlottes web to say thankyou, because she is allowing us to have our dream wedding very cheaply, so I guess I had better get ordering. Thanks for the advice on where to get it. I Also have decided to knit presents for the wedding gifts, i.e for my mum, dad, brides maids etc, so I need to get started seeing as its only 9 weeks away.

I have been thinking I would like to knit my dad a knitted tie, something a bit different because he doesn't wear jumpers, so if anyone knows of any patterns, let me know.