nearly may!

it's nearly may - and the countdown is running to finish my "museum" socks! I've nearly all yarns spun and started knitting the first sock today - finally! it's a good thing I didn't plan for a sweater, because I doubt that I'd be able to finish that in time! I also put the test sock on hold, for once because the all green of the foot is boring to knit - and also because I'd run out of time with the "important" socks if I continued.. I still have the second "old-fashioned" sock in handspun jacobs to do for mindless knitting anyway.

 those are the blends I carded for stone walls, grass, path, sky and shrubs. plus a bit of purple to make the corolla of the fuchsia  and a few beads. I had planned to knit in tiny flowers, but there is just not enough space to do that in socks. the downside of faster knitting is not enough space to knit in special features. I'll add some beads instead.... I might also add a few other colours such as yellow and white in beads for flowers in the cottage garden, but I'll decide that on the hoof while doing the embroidery....

the fuchsia flower (crocheted) is in the middle; I spun some fine silk and plied it to make it more stable. it can't be too big, so I used a crochet hook in 1 mm.... the other yarns are all singles to avoid too much muddying of the colours. and even though I blended some blues/whites and greys for the sky - I decided not to use that finished yarn, because it was too well blended. in the end I just grabbed light blue, added white and very little grey for clouds and some darker blue for streaks of blue in the sky. I like it better now and to make the clouds in white stand out a bit I started to do short row parts (in the leg part of the sock) in garter stitch, so that there is a bit more "depth" in the sky part.... no pictures of that yet, because I could only show you about 10 rows:)

I also finished all the fibres I dyed with the leftover easter egg dyes.... all of them are plied with fine cotton, also remnants, which I dyed last year with procion mx dyes. I didn't have enough blue to ply the two skeins on the top left, so I finished half of the second skein with a dark pink... I like the greens best and the one on the right side, because the rosewood cotton worked so well with the rest of the colours. I've no idea yet what to do with the parrot colours bottom left,  so it all goes into the stash for now.

I also finally picked my wild garlic - and used it to make a load of pesto. given that I started out with only 3 little bubils about 15 years ago - I think it multiplied nicely under the leafy trees:) I managed to fill 6 kilner jars - and probably DH will finish it all by himself (actually, he already emptied 2 of the jars....). of course those jars will not last for more than maybe another month, but then I don't really like the idea of having everything available all year round! I think we appreciate certain foods more if we can't have them 24/7! I don't eat strawberries in winter or asparagus, so when the time comes I am really keen on them and indulge with more gusto! same for the wild garlic pesto. maybe I'll start freezing more of the wild garlic, once I have enough that it really is worth it. the pesto does not last a whole year, so I'll have to find another way to store it - provided the plants self-seed freely some more:) I also "help out" with propagation by collecting the ripe seeds (when they have turned black) and sowing them immediately. they need the cold in winter and germinate readily the next spring! I read somewhere that the green fruits can be used like capers, but if I try this I won't have any to spread out, so this has to wait, too....

I also finally updated my link list a bit and figured out why the page for recipes didn't show up! it helps if you click on "showing" instead of "hiding":) not that there's anything in it yet, but I do plan to put in bits and pieces during the next few months... if I can bring myself to write them down, I might even add a pattern page in time - but don't hold your breath:) still more to do - I have read more than just 3 books and there are more interesting textile books on my shelves, too....

colourful results

I finally managed to dye all I need for the "real"picture socks. I already have some darker greens and a dark blue-green. but I needed something lighter as well. for this I tried a natural dye extract made from alfalfa, which I received from Ulrike. she has a lot of those extracts on offer here. it makes dyeing very easy; I just dissolved the powder in some warm water, added it to my dyepot full of water at about 50 deg. C, added the fibres and waited for about 30 min. the darker green on the upper right is the first batch, on the left you see where I used up the leftover. the bottom right went into the first bath as well, but before I turned it into green - it was yellow, like the ball on the left, which was dyed with tops of flowering gorse. I usually have more lemony results from that dye, but I think that was my own fault, because it was more lemon coloured after 1 hour in the dye pot. and turned a softer yellow over night in the pot! it gives the green a nice tinge, to add a bit more variety to the finished yarn.

I'll also need some blues for the sky part in my socks. I tried to use some instant indigo for that, but I think it had already oxidised (or I made a mistake while dyeing!). it only gave a very light blue, in the plait on the right. I didn't want to spend more time on setting up vats, so I used "indigo solution", which I still had in my stash. this resulted in the strong, slightly turquoise blue, which of course I have to blend to get anything remotely looking like sky:) - and the more green tone (also on the right). I also put a skein of sock wool into each dip. I had dyed them with ivy berries, but didn't like the results I had this time. I think they improved a lot in the blue dyebath! the purple/pink small ball is silk, which I dyed pink with cochenille last year. it also went into the blue pot. I spun some of the pink into a fine two-ply for the crocheted fuchsia flower, but I still needed the blue-purple tone for the corolla.

the two skeins in the middle are part of my easter egg leftovers. I toned down the rainbow a bit by plying it with a denim blue fine cotton thread. the green-yellow was plied with a light lilac - and the rest was done yesterday evening, but there was no proper light to take a photo of that. anyway, I used some more of the fine cotton, which I had dyed last year to use for the stacking toy. I have no idea what to use the skeins for, but they'll go into the stash for now - and we'll see.

of course it's gardening time, too - which means I have to plant some of the new stuff I bought! I planted 20 albion strawberries yesterday, but after that we had "showers on a string" - the other batch of symphony has to wait until it dries up again.

I also bought some new plants, 2 goji berries and 2 honeyberries (lonicera edulis):

I hope they'll like the climate, because the berries are supposed to be tasty and plentiful. and we bought a new kiwi, self-fertile according to the label! can that be trusted? it's always a problem when plants are dioecious - and apparently nurseries don't know about that (or don't care?). very often they offer the species, but only one of the sexes, which means that nothing much happens on the berry front. doesn't matter if it's juniper, seabuckthorn or kiwis - we've tried them all and always had to resort to specialist nurseries to get results. we'll see about the two newcomers so. but on the other hand my 4 blueberries in pots are doing great - full of flowers and the bees and bumble-bees are having a feast - at least if the humming and buzzing is anything to go by! most of the apple trees are bursting into flower as well - and I hope that the cold snap is going to end soon, so that the flowers produce nicely.... is there a more exciting time in the garden than spring? full of promise and something new to discover every day!



shenanigans for easter

Easter is already over again - I wonder what the shops will offer next? in germany mother's day is still to come, but over here that day has been and gone! no special holidays until .... halloween???

of course one of my usual jobs for easter is to produce coloured eggs. I sometimes use natural dyes, bind herbs on eggs into tights and dye them etc... but to be honest I don't really like cold boiled eggs, I prefer them fresh and warm! that's why this time I dyed them early on sunday morning. there wasn't enough time to pick fresh herbs, tie them in etc... so I just used some food dyes in small bottles, which are available in every supermarket over here. I don't really use them often, because I prefer my food in its natural colours, but they are quite practical for easter eggs. this is how I did it:

 I boiled some (a lot:) of eggs.....

 while they were boiling, I put 2 tbsp each of vinegar into tea mugs, added about 2 tbsp of dye, yellow, red, blue and green - and a mix of blue and red for purple. one spoon for each mug, to avoid messing about. I put the boiled eggs into the liquid, while still hot, left them for about 2 minutes each....

...and this is the result. the yellow is more orange, because I cannot buy white eggs here! and the brown shells do change the colours slightly - but I like it, because on white eggs the red would probably look like a traffic light:) the purple looked more like dark brown, but still nice.

and yes - the eggs were still warm for breakfast:)



and this is a batch of mordanted wool top from last week. if you think I put it here by mistake  - I didn't! I don't like to waste the colours, and because the eggs should be covered, there's always quite a lot of dye left. I mordanted this top with alum...

and painted the lot with the leftover dyes after breakfast on sunday. after a quick rinse (the dye is fast, nothing came out in the rinse) I managed to dry it over night.

and spun the first bit - the "sun" - during monday afternoon, while watching tv. now I just have to think about what to do next. use it as it is (thick and thin singles), ply it with something - or with itself? I don't think it'll be the latter, because I'd most likely end up with a parrot coloured barber pole! and navajo would result in a very chunky yarn, not really my first choice either. on the other hand, what to ply with? black? white? grey? not sure - for now I'll just finish the other colours:)

of course the most urgent next project is the sample sock for my "picture sock project". this is done mostly with commercially dyed sockwool. the "thatched" roof is naturally dyed (knitted tbl, to give a bit of texture). and the green on the left will be the fuchsia bush for my "fuchsia cottage" sock. I'll add the beads once the sock is done. I will also add flowers to the darker green area on the right and a garden gate in the middle. the provisional cast-on will be finished with an i-cord, and a fuchsia dangling from it.

I worked the leg part in rows instead of rounds, to work the intarsia a bit faster. not sure if I'll do the proper sock the same - or maybe with intarsia in the round. anyway the foot is done in rounds, because there's only a bit of a path knitted in intarsia, nothing too complicated. I would be nearly finished, if I hadn't done some frogging! at first I knitted the whole heel flap in "wall colours", but that would have meant that a large part of the foot would have to look like that - which I didn't want. nothing for it but to rip it out...to replace most of that colour by a blend of greens! I think most of the colours will be dyed similarly, but I might just add less grey to the sky! the odd thing about this sock is that darker blues came in the yarn, when I was nearly at the horizon! not the way the sky looks in nature at all:( I have to change that once I card the colour blend for the next sock!!

the second sock will have similar colours, but a different motive. close to the museum, where our group meets and the exhibition will take place, there's a famous round tower. this is it, the round tower of Turlough. it used to be a safe place monks retreated to if attacked! there was only one entry, quite high up in the wall. during an attack the monks were able to retreat into this tower, pull up the ladder - and defend themselves up there against intruders. the good thing for me is that it's quite a distinctive motive, but easily knitted into the sock. it's close to the lake beside the museum, so maybe I'll add a bit of lake and some greenery to the sock as well. I already sleep and dream socks - high time that I get that project off my to-do list!!

this morning I started dyeing by collecting gorse flowers for yellow. I tried out the easier method of just snipping off the tips into a bucket, instead of picking only the flowers by hand (which is quite painful and slow!) - and it worked just the same. fine - saves me a lot of work in the future:)
the yellow is fresh and lemony - but half of this will be overdyed with chlorophyll extract to give another green. when this is done I'll blend it with some greens I already dyed, with reed flowers etc. to spin the main colour of the sock from that. I also managed to dye the straw colour for the roof - though more by accident than design (the rhamnus berries in vinegar gave a straw colour instead of pinks or bluish tones:(). getting there... I hope!

more hands, please!

I could do with a few spare ones.... so many ideas and not enough time to try them all out, it's a shame really. but some things have to be done in time - such as the easter bread, colourful eggs etc. no good in doing any of these things after tomorrow:)

anyway, there is something I've been meaning to show to you for a few weeks now. when I came home from my trip I found an unexpected envelope on my mail heap. it contained a book! ok, it's a book for children, but of course as a textile nut I like it as well, even though I don't have small children around. have a look:

 the book is written by Mairead Sharry, a fellow textil crafter, who lives in the southwest of ireland. she tells the story of Sive, a little girl, who lives in America. one day she plays with a kite - and suddenly the kite takes off and brings her over to the Aran Islands.

she visits her granny and some other family members and looks at all the things the islands have to offer. life is very different here - and Mairead does not only show this in her collage pictures; on the other page you'll find the story together with some real photographs about things special to the islands. as a spinner and knitter I love the "woolly" things most, of course:) and granny makes a nice pink sweater for Sive so that she has something to take home again, when Sive's dad picks her up some time later.

I like the handmade look of the collages in the book. it does not only tell the story of Sive, but also  of Mairead's love for her grandchildren - because this book is written for one of them. this is her second book like this (she also published a book "yarns", short stories about life on the Aran Islands); the first one was "Ronan - a children's guide to the Aran Islands" - and you can contact her on her blog if you'd like to get one (or both:) for yourself. the book would be suitable as a picture book, but of course you could also read the story to your little ones. they'll discover a lot to look at in the pictures and you can explain things like shearing sheep etc. as you go. they might even ask for a pink sweater:)

thanks, Mairead, for giving me this book. I've enjoyed it myself, but I also showed it to our textile group and everybody commented on how lovely the book turned out. I am sure your grandchildren will treasure them as something very special their granny made for them!

about the wristband

of course I didn't take step-by-step photos, because that idea always comes after I finished something.... but making the strap for the watch is really easy. I cast on a few stitches, worked the band straight in linen stitch and formed a tip by decreasing one stitch on each side, until only three were left (don't ask me how many stitches I cast on, I can't remember. not that many, maybe 9 or 11 or thereabouts? depends on desired width and yarn thickness anyway - and maybe the pattern you choose). I darned in the threads and started to work an attached i-cord over 3 stitches along the sides (start anywhere you like) the loop is formed by knitting a normal i-cord for some rows - until the strap is long enough to form the loop you'll need. then keep working the attached i-cord until you are back from where you started (you might want to fix the i-cord loop with a few stitches later, if needed to make it look neat). fix both "ends" together with kitchener - that's it. you can embroider, attach beads or embellish any way you fancy - or not at all. attach watch part and button/bead or any other closure - and enjoy wearing it! that's all there is to it - nothing fancy at all. if your loop part stretches or you made it too long in the first place - don't worry, just wind it around itself once or twice before pushing over the button.

should I be worried?

today is mother's day over here. and I am starting to worry a bit! other mums seem to receive chocolates and bunches of flowers. I receive gardening mags and a potted gooseberry:) well, ok, I have to admit that I don't like cut flowers anyway - and it's the right time to get new ideas for all those gardening jobs! at least we have nice weather today - it's quite nippy, but mostly sunny (apart from a few hefty showers, but they moved elsewhere quickly enough). and it's supposed to go milder over the next few days.... I can live with that!
on the craft front - I still have to show a few finished items. so here they come:

 this is the "bird" quilt I made in january. I think the recipient liked it; it's backed with fleece, so nice and cozy - though I should have started it way earlier - to do a better job with the quilting. as it was, I only had time to quilt (by machine) inside the larger green squares. with more time I could have done nice feather or bird patterns - by hand.... and if I had a large board to put my blocks up - I might have realized that I did a botched job with spreading out the birds... there were 3 different designs and I should have put the birds in either looking in the same direction - or away from each other. not both.... well, what's done is done. but I freely admit that there are more skilled patchworkers and quilters around:)

I also used up the first ball of opal "van gogh sternennacht" yarn. I liked the blues in that ball - but during knitting I thought it might just as well be named "koi carps in a pond"... I started to knit on the train, without any pattern - and suddenly didn't fancy knitting stockinette. so I started a few simple lines.. which became rather boring after a little while:) which is why I added another few.... in hindsight I should have turned the leg part over - I think I prefer the look of the wrong side!

 anyway, they fit and they're warm - and cheery enough. I have another ball of van gogh yarn - darker blues and some yellows, inspired by van gogh's "Terrasse du cafe le soir". but I decided to finish two other sock projects first, while I started to dye and blend a few other colours for my "museum sock project".... which gives me time to think up a nicer pattern for the second batch of van gogh yarn:)

I also finished the cross stitch picture "generosity", which I had for some time. this was supposed to be a "no brainer"... but it was quite annoying in the end! I took it with me as a travel project, checked the back of the pattern for the yarn list and found I had everything I needed. off I went.... when I wanted to start embroidering - I found that the inner list of yarns had one more colour on it - and one I needed quite often! and of course didn't bring.... also there are several mistakes in the chart, nothing dramatic, but I think if you sell patterns - you should take a bit more care before sending them off to the printers. and on the small photo attached to the pattern it looks as if some areas have been done with multicolour yarn, which looks quite different.   anyway - I finished it in time for a birthday present - and I think the new owner liked it; she didn't know about the hiccups! I am finishing with winter for now though - I want "springier" looking projects....

another small project was to change the band of a wristwatch I received as a gift (for a sub)... I don't like wearing tight leather bands, so I decided to be inspired by "sprotte" and exchanged it for a handmade one. I cut off the leather and knitted a band out of handdyed silk, which I received some time back from a friend in wales. there were several small skeins and at first I didn't know what to do with them. but I thought the grey/earthen tones work ok with the silver/grey of the watch. I also found a suitable mother-of-pearl button to close it.

if I had to do it again, I'd change several things. I'd finish both ends with tips. I'd make them overlap properly (but I didn't have more grey silk for the base...). and I wouldn't attach the watch and then use the same thread for embroidery! which was idiotic - because if I have to wash the band, I have to take off the watch. which of course means that I'll also cut away the yarn of the embroidery close by:( lesson learned.....anyway, it's very nice to wear, soft and smooth - and warm at the same time. but not restrictive!

of course it wasn't all textile fun during the last few weeks! we still had to empty the polytunnel of about 60 large sacks of rubbish. mostly from the roof renovation after the rat damage! we ordered a skip - which didn't fit down the road to the house:( eventually the driver dropped it at the top of the road, which meant that essentially our road was blocked for 4 days. luckily the postman was able to drive up to the house from the bottom of the road. and we scraped past the one side with our bikes:) it was a job to pack all the bags into a wheelbarrow and push it uphill to the skip - but the job is done now and my polytunnel is free of the stuff - and going to be used again for its original purpose! Dobby had to sniff the whole thing out properly - of course!

I think the chocolate cake (baked this time:) should be ready by now - and when it's cooled down I am presenting it to myself for mother's day! I am also still working on the shawl "in the pink" (in white:) - but I've reached the outer border = plain sailing and a 10 row repeat (85 repeats though....). after knitting and blocking this I hopefully have enough silk/wool dyed to start the spinning for my museum socks! I tried a light green (dyed with reed flowers) yesterday, navajo-plied it - and it's just the right thickness for socks. but first - I use the small sample to knit/crochet a few more flowers... daffodils, daisies etc.... it's spring after all!

crochet, crochet and more crochet

maybe it's just me, but sometimes I get bitten by a "textile bug" and can't stop it anymore. right now it's crochet. ok, not without reason. I am supposed to do a demonstration about tunisian crochet at our groups' meeting at the end of march. and I wanted to do a sample or two. which I did. only - now I can't stop trying out as many patterns as I have popping into my head. and to make it worse - I have two new books about it as well:) I'd say the crochetmania will wane eventually - but right now I have hooks and yarn balls everywhere.



this was the first square. fine cotton, which I doubled up. this is one of the basic stitches, tunisian knit stitch, which looks very much like stockinette in knitting, but feels quite different. it makes a dense and quite thick fabric.

the second square is in the basic tunisian stitch, the most distinctive one, I think. it's very easy to do and the fabric isn't quite as thick as the one in knit stitch. eventually I'll put the two of them together (and make another one) to be used as a potholder. when you just start with a normal row of chain stitches, tunisian crochet rolls up quite strongly. to avoid that you can pick up the stitches from the chain into the single loop on the back - a bit like a provisional cast-on in knitting. it rolls a bit less - and makes the first row look much neater!

 I also made two samples from wool, a singles yarn (commercial) that I dyed ages ago. the red on the left is brazilwood, the brown done with tree lichen (the yarn still smells nice, after years in storage!). the right is a natural dye as well - but because I dyed so many different yellows over the years - it could be anything, I have no idea (and yes, that happens, when I think I'll remember - but of course I won't after some time:))

the samples will show not only the different stitches, but also the effect on the knitting. some are very elastic, some are stiff as a board, others look like knitting and so on... because they are so uneven, I will rip them out again after the demonstration. but working them made me remember that I had planned to crochet a bag in the wavy pattern from bottom left! in blues and sea greens....

early this morning I woke up with the thought that I should to tunisian in a circular project. I figured that short rows should work out well - and they did. the circle is finished now - but I think it turned out a bit too large for a mug rug, even if  I felt it! anyway, doing it is very easy and a bigger one  might make a nice pillow - though maybe not in a circus colour combination like this!

I am also crocheting flowers out of leftover plant dyed yarns. another group, who meets at the museum is collecting textile flowers for a project (not sure exactly what!) and they asked our group if some of us would like to participate. I found a very easy pattern to do and started to crochet. I'll do a flower here and there, when I have a tea break etc. - though the irish rose pattern takes a bit longer than that (the red one at the bottom). when I dug out some of the balls, I came across the fine singles yarn that I inherited from an elderly knitter, who lives on the Isle of Arran in Scotland. I'd love to get my hands on some more of those cones, but I don't know which company made it.  it's soft but strong enough to dye and knit nicely. about sock yarn strength and undyed natural white.... this was the very first yarn I tried to dye with natural colours - and I became hooked on all the lovely colours I was able to dye!

to prove that it's not all crochet in this house - here is a chocolate cake that was a firm favourite during my childhood years. it's extremely rich, because the chocolate mix is made from coconut fat, cocoa, sugar and egg (and a bit of rum!). but it does taste nice, as long as taken in small doses:) I hadn't made it before since I moved over here, but when I came home from a trip to Germany, I brought the right fat for it (not available here, the coconut palm oil over here is not purified and still tastes of coconut) and also the biscuits needed, but I think after making two in the last 4 weeks - it should be enough for some time to come!

of course I also finished the quilt and some other things, but I'll leave that for the next entry.... and over here spring has truly started - so gardening jobs are on the to-do list as well! the garden is full of daffodils - and all the berberis shrubs are clad in orange right now!