Lots of fluffy goodness
As the official dumping ground for all our friends and acquaintances who want to get rid of things but can’t bear to throw them away, we have a huge hoard of wool-craft related products. This includes bin liners full of wool in various conditions, from lanolin-pungent fleeces straight off the sheep’s back, to randomly dyed mounds of semi-clean tufts.
Look at my pretty colour gradient!
Bravely deciding to help Ma out with this mammoth task I’m learning to spin using a drop spindle. Since getting a job and moving away from home is still a priority I opted for a more portable method than using a wheel and it seems to be going ok!
Sorted and fluffed* wool ready for spinning (*Not a technical term)
I sorted the wool into colours and divided it into two so that hopefully I will be able to make a plied yarn with a gradient from yellow, to blue, to pink, to brown. At least that’s the plan anyway!
I went to my first Dorset Guild of Weavers, Spinners and Dyers meeting at the end of February and picked up a few tips on how to ply on a drop spindle which should prove useful :) It was nice to get confirmation that I was doing ok too!
Some WIPS currently in the Big Bag of Knitting next to the sofa are:
The beginnings of a blanket. This yarn has had several incarnations along a similar theme starting with the Iceland pattern by Stephanie White for Rowan. I made the jumper then decided that it wasn’t for me and the yarn I used was probably too heavy for the pattern. I then tried to use the leaf stitch pattern to improvise a jumper for myself which turned out a bit small for my liking. Finally I’ve decided that this warm thick yarn would be put to best use in a blanket so that’s what it’ll be. More on this as it progresses.
All the leaves on this blanket
A colourful cowl. This is a project for Ma to use a skein of hand dyed yarn she created at Wool Workshop. The colours are beautiful, although she wasn’t so sure about the result so I offered to knit her a cowl. I’m using the Irisa Cowl pattern from Knitted Bliss (One of my favourite knitting blogs – I love Mod Mondays!) At the moment it’s very nearly finished, having been mostly knitted on the way to, during and on the way home from an assessment centre for a grad scheme (Eeek!) so FO post coming soon!
Bright cheerful colours on a quick knit
Half a dozen hexipuffs! This is a really great idea for using up small amounts of yarn and I’m riffing off the Beekeeper’s Quilt by tiny owl knits. I’m hoping to make at least one hexipuff from each other project I complete so I can make a quilt full of reminders of what I’ve made!
A small puffet of hexipuffs
Is there a collective noun for hexipuffs? I think of mine as a puffet of little puffs :) They’re so lovely to play with!
mako makes stuff 