The weekend.

I had such a restfull weekend, more restful that for a very very long time, saturday was a scorcher, so seeing as I had a squillion wholesale orders to finish, I dyed my little heart out, I love this pic, because you can see the gardens progress nicely. All the yarn hanging up is a new yarn I am stocking which is  a merino tencel yarn, in sock weight, it has such a super shine on it.

Then sat afternoon, I took a trip to getknitted the most wonderful knitting shop on the earth, and purchased some noro blossom in a turquiose colour, I can't decide what to knit with it though yet.

Singledom

So its 6.55pm, i'm drinking a glass of wine and waiting for cardiff stitch and bitch to arrive at my house for some serious knitting, and boy today do I need it.

I am now a single gal again, me and sweetiepie decided we would make it much better as freinds, we have a tonne of fun together and I'm still not quite over the whole marriage thing yet so here  I am a single bird. Feeling quite mellow about it really, and a little sad, but its for the best.

In addition Nan still very ill, so I have been knitting for therapy quite alot recently.

I purchased a little treat from this lovely lady I can't remember which yarn it was, but its super to knit with and I have so far finished a ribbed sock and have cast on for the second,

don't look at the decreases on my ribbed bits, they are horrendous, but this is therapy knitting remember, not perfectionism, I always make a pair of socks ina crisis, I was knitting some on my wedding day.

Sarcasm? me? no!! I'M ALLOWED TODAY, OK!!

So in addition i'm working on some new kits, and here is my lovely little sample I have knitted so far;

Right thats all folks, i'm off to get drunk and drop some stitches.

shop

right, I've uploaded a load of new things into the shop, probably best to look under new arrivals. I have 3 new colours of sock yarn, which I'm totally in love with, the first is called 'hot lava' the colours are deep and strong, they will make killer socks;

Next, a new colour called 'flowers and autumn leaves', I am totally in love with this one, and the colours are made in quite a special way, but thats top secret. hehe.

Finally, I was dyeing some foxglove and decided to layer some colours up, so this one is called 'flower garden', and un like foxglove has a the foxglove colour plus some pretty mauves in it too.

I've also popped lots of fibres on the site, plus I am now stocking bamboo double points, in 2mm, 2.25, 2.5mm, 2.75mm, 3.00mm, 3.25 and 3.5mm, for all your sock needs.

Right thats it for now.

Wonderwool Wales 2007

So finally here is my pics from Wonderwool.

As I drove in on friday evening to set up, the first thing I saw was a pen of Alpaca's, I had to stop and gaze for ages, they are such beautiful animals, and here is one of the cutest baby aplaca's ever.

and this one

Diane came and did some spinning on my stand, she bought this tiny little spindle, perfect for spinning cashmere, and as I happened to have some cashmere fibres (which will be in the shop later), she got to spinning some, not wanting to be left out I went to purchase one of the little cuties and couldn't stop after that. Here is a pic of us spinning on the stand, go check her blog out, she is a brilliant spinner, taught me a few things!!

Its not a particulary good picture of my stand, but the others all have people in them, so I won't post them, just incase they wouldn't be very comfortable with it.

Elly was a fab help, but for some reason there are no photo's of her on my camera, so I can't show you, but she got some great feedback on her designs, she is a fab designer afterall.

It was so much fun meeting everybody, and chatting and getting feedback on my yarn, I'll definately be there next year.

PS Diane, you are tagged. hehe.

Someone special wrote me something very beautiful this morning, and it made me really tearful,  I just wanted to say thanks, and that I love them very much. xxx

Where do I start?

Wonderwool was fabulous, but I'm saving that for a post tomorrrow when I have plenty of time to write it and post photo's, I am a little stressed cause I have so much to do, in psychology work and fyberspates, and my Nan is in hopsital with pnemonia, I went to see her yesterday just incase, well you know, it was the last time I saw her, she is very sick, and its not looking good, so I feel a bit sad today, everything seems harder when you feel sad doesn't it?

Anyway, I'm grateful then to have been tagged by Dee so I've got some random stuff to talk about!!!

So here are seven random facts about me!

• I used to have worm eating contests with my brother when I was about 8.

• I love fairy stories, especially celtic myths, I love the Mabinogion, I could sit and read them for hours.

• I still don't have any  dental fillings and I'm 29.

• Like Dee and Kerry I have never had the urge to smoke and I hate smoking, however, I do have very fond associations with the smell of smoke, which comes from spending time with a very special freind I have called Philip when I was a student, (and occasionally now when he comes to stay). We used to sit and chat, he would smoke and we would drink endless pints of coffee while we would anaylse the world around us, or talk about books and life, in his old scruffy kitchen, on old wooden stools, in the sunshine, very very special times for me. Sometimes I just get a whiff of smoke and feel very very comforted.

• I'm a buddhist, and I Chant everyday morning and evening and have been a buddhist for 9 years (so is philip as mentioned above).

• I always have a massive breakfast, I never ever eat cereals, well not for breakfast anyway, I prefer fried eggs on toast, or beans on toast, or a sausage sandwich, if I miss breakfast it makes me ill and tired (I am convinced my breakfast habits are my secret to being skinny).

• I love more than anything an impossible challenge. The harder the better, I truly believe there is nothing that can not be achieved if you want it enough.

So I am going to tag the following people, there are some more, but I need to find their blogs.

Elly  Marie Flossie Annarella

Wonderwool, wonderwool, wonderwool

Man, I am so excited about wonderwool, I am not too sure what to expect, I think it might be a little different to woolfest, but the waiting is just killing me. I am not obviously going to buy much, but what I really really want is some carded fyber blends to spin my self something like a stripey cardigan. Or at least some fybers I can blend myself, I have a tonne of fybers, but I love to have something that someone else has dyed.

I promise to take lots of pics for mondays posting. Please come and say hello to me on the stand. :-)

I ate some of the haloumi by the way, the texture is excellent, a little less rubbery than shop bought Halloumi, but it needs more of a bite, I think I might try it with sheeps or goats milk, but I need to find out what my favourite brand is made with. Hmm trying to emulate noro got me into dyeing and spinning and the result was fybersaptes, lets hope thats this cheese lark doesn't turn out to be anything more than a passing obsession, saying that I don't really have passing obsessions, just a list of obsessions that keep growing!

I can't remember if I blogged about this or not, but I got some funding for a student to work for me over the summer on the knitting project, not quite sure how that happened, seeing as lots of 'big wigs' applied as well, and didn't get it, I guess that its just meant to happen.

Halloumi Cheese

So after writing the last post on Friday morning, I decided to try my first batch of cheese, one that was simple and didn't need alot of fussing, I happened to find a recipe here for halloumi cheese, I bought 8 pints of Rachel's organic full cream milk, and some vege rennet, because thats that only one sainsbury's had, and got to work. I followed the recipe, well kind of! So poured the rennet in to the 8 pints of milk, and waited for it to set, and a bit longer and a bit longer.....nothing!

Then it occurred to me that as the recipe for junket on the side of the rennet bottle required warm milk, and the fact that I used cold milk straight out of the fridge could be why it wasn't working. So I popped the huge thing of milk on the radiator and waited for an hour or so. Nothing DAMN IT!!!!!!!. So being fed-up, I shook a load more rennet in and left it. After copious glasses of wine, (it was friday afterall), I remembered it was still on the radiator, and it had thickened, I jumped for joy and went and found some muslin in my fabric stash and hung the curds up to drain. Again after the desired waiting time, I checked my curds and they were just down right crumbly. I hung them back up and left them till the morning, when they were...............yep, still crumbly!

So I threw caution to the wind, salted them and stuck them under the grill to see what would happen;

They were yummy and creamy, but they were not halloumi!!!!!!!

So as the day wore on, I pondered my haloumi attempt, and read a few of my cheese books, none of which had anything remotely like it in their recipes.

Sunday morning I decided was time for attempt 2.

So this time I heated up my milk to 32 degrees first, I also added double the amount of rennet (2 tsp), I think vege rennet might be a little less strong, and left it. After about half an hour the curds and whey were separating. After about another half an hour (during which time, I whipped up a filo spinach pie, with the addition of yesterdays failed curds, some pine nuts, basil and eggs), I hung the halloumi up to drain;

Sweetie pie constructed the perfect cheese draining device, (a plank of wood across my two kitchen cabinets), and I do believe they are hanging from a silk alpaca blend thread! nothings too good for my halloumi!

I left them to drain till this morning and this time, they were much more solid;

They had to be boiled in the whey,. which I have done, they look a little more rustic after that, but tonight will be the testing, yummy, grilled halloumi with a scrummy tomato and onion salsa, my favorite way to eat it!

I'm going to make mozarrella next.