London Knitting and stitching show. Part 2 : Spinning, weaving and dying.

During our look around there were a number of yarn stores with hand dyed yarns, which were really beautiful, however being the sort of person who likes to have a go at everything, I decided that for the things which I could make, I would! So we went to the texere yarn Stall and picked up a number of things to dye. I had seen alot of Mohair boucles and loopy yarns which ranged from about £12 - £20 a hank. So here is the selection I purchased from them:



Notice there are also 2 very big balls of spinning rovings. The one at the top of the picture is cotswold wool from texere, but the one in the botton is wendsleydale. This has to be the scrummiest stuff on the planet, when you spin this up it has such an amazing lustre and is so warm. This was actually from the wendsleydale sheep comany, or something similar. From this stall I also brought some wendsleydale fleece, about 2lbs, it was raw so I need to clean it but, there was a beautiful cushion made with a plane knitted square and the locks of wensleydale were sewn in to make it shaggy, it was beautiful! Thats what I am going to make!

Here is a picture of the fleece:



I saw small boxes with about 15 grams of this stuff hand dyed for about £2.30 on another stall, hmm.

I also meet my weaving teacher there, which was lovely and was inspired to get my weaving started again, and I saw a beautiful woven scarf which was so soft and delicate, so I asked the lady on the stall what it was made from and it was a very fine merino, its very expensive but I think the hanks will go far, I would certainly get a couple of woven scarfs out of one hank. I need to dye it as well, but that just adds to the fun!

here is a pictures if it:



I have this weekend off so I am going to get started on some of the spinning and dying projects, you never know I might even get my loom out!

As for knitting, on the train we managed to get quite alot of knitting done, so I decided to start on a felted bag from the noro that my secret pal gave me, I have finished the knitting, and this is a picture of it pre felted:



Thats all for now, I'll try and include the habu and my pretty buttons tomorrow!

Oh my goodness me, what a weekend part one 1

Ok, so I going to have to serialise this in probably about 5 parts to get everything in not to mention to show you all the things that I brought. The show consisted of alot of knitting and alot of stitching and quilting. Thankfully I am not that bothered by stitching so we (Marie and I) managed to get to see all the knitting things in two days which we needed to. So in the up and coming posts will be: Colintette, Habu, lorna's laces and some great unknown british yarns, lots of things for Dying, and weaving and spinning!!!

So to start, we made our way to Colinette and it was amazing, here is a picture I managed to take, although it not very good because people were fighting to get to the yarn all the time we were there!



I started off by buying 3 skeins of zanzibar in the pierro colourway, and 2 skeins of shimmer 5 in the toscana colourway. I am hoping to get a small jumper from these, using both, I'm haven't quite decided how yet!



I also got some silky chic in the tapis colourway.



There will be more colintette, which to be honest is one of the most lovey yarns I have ever seen, but I am saving that for my last post.

There were quite a few exhibitions and there was a number of graduate showcases, they were fabulous but 2 graduates certainly caught my eye, here is a couple of pictures of work which I didn't record the names, but if anyone really wants to know I can find out:

However my 2 favourites were very simple but the work was beautiful here is a lovely top made by Lisa pattinson:

And my favourite, Amy Harrington from Manchester University:



Her work used shape in such a wonderful way, the garment above was done by felting mohair.

Ok, thats all for today folks, but i'll try and have a spinning and dying theme tomorrow!

AHHHH! We are going tomorrow!

I am so excited about going tomorrow to london for the Knitting and Stitching show, I just can't wait! I have brought a new bag especially for the trip! I am going to travel really really light. Just my PJ's and clean undies and the rest is history. Need to carry bags and bags of wool!

We have to get the 6.15 am train to london, but I don't think I will have any problem getting up because I will be so excited.

Massive post on Monday with laods of pictures!

Thanks again secret pal!!!

Yesterday evening on my way to visit Marie I went to the post office to pick up an unexpected parcel, only to be fantastically suprised with my second secret pal package, I was very chuffed here is what it in it:



There are a set of beautiful hard wood double pointed needles which will be perfect for socks, a ball of scrummy sock yarn, some Noro kureyon in such lovely colours (I have already decided that this will be another mini tote, I've been dying to make another one. A 'yarn is love' pencil and a lovely card. It is a wonderful package thankyou secret pal!

I went to Marie's house so we could share our projects and also to plan our weekend in London at the Knitting and stitching show. The programme looks amazing! I am especailly wanting to go to the Habu yarn stall and also get lots of Noro. Marie has an excellent selection of noro pattern books, and I am absolutely hooked, so I guarentee there are going to be lots of pictures on monday. I am soooooo Excited.

I'm wearing my top!

So I tried very hard to take an adequate photo of me in my tank top, but it's not very good. However, I love it so much. It is incredibly comfortable and warm.



Look away now if you hate cats! Sage found somewhere other than my wool to sleep this morning!

A rather productive weekend.

So after being so busy last week, I was so up for getting loads of knitting done. Firstly, my ribber for my knitting machine came through the post on saturday and I was very very chuffed about that, I don't do much machine knitting because it's just not the same as hand knitting, but I do like the idea of doing some of the boring bits on the machine and then finishing stuff off by hand. So having been severely restricted without a ribber I decided to see if it could knit up some of my Rowan four ply soft into a scarf, and after a couple of disasters, I mastered it and came up with this:



it's really really soft and took.......... wait for it! About 15 minutes to knit and about 20 to cast it off the machine because I'm not very practiced at it yet, the cast off edge is not very good, but I'm working on it. I plan to add a nice ending to it from my new edging book.

So after I had made this, I was dying to feel needles in my hand, so I cast on for a pair of socks with the yarn I purchased from Hello Yarn it is knitting up lovely, I need a toasty pair for winter. here it is:



finally I am very pleased to say I finished my Tank top and it actually fits! I can't believe it! My own designs don't normally work very well, it is quite long but I wanted it to go over a pair of nice fitted trousers, gone are the days when I let my midrif hang out!



I was surprised yesterday to read on the label that silk garden contains mohair, but, once washed the mohair really sort of comes out! It really is scrummy. Once it is dry I will take a picture of it on, and post it.

Madness

I havn't even had time to post before now because It's just been mad!

I have been knitting to de-stress, and anth and I decided to make a cardigan and hat for baby Georgia, who is one on saturday, and is having a party. We decided we'd go with something home made, but anth doesn't knit very quickly so I'm not sure we'll get it finished by tomorrow, not only that but it's acrylic wool and it feels horrible to knit with, however, the pattern is very simple after we have cast on the fluffy edge, so I am tempted to finish it off on my knitting machine, providing I match the gauge, it will be a breeze, we'll see.

On the noro tank front, I haven't done any more than last time, however here is a picture if the very neat front with lovely decreasing, I'm so proud! I will put the pattern here if it works.

Here it is.