quick preview

I am still working on the fabric project - but I also spun up a few smaller amounts I had dyed last year. one of them was soysilk, dyed with cochineal... it's a fine two-ply - and I hope it's enough to knit a small shawlette, but if it isn't, I have more soysilk to spin, one darker, but a similar colour, one a blue tone that might fit.
the second skein is a natural green cotton, which I boiled with some washing-up detergent. the sample I spun some time back turned out a darker green, but I used soda at the time, so I have to give it another boil to see if this made the difference or if it's the fibres I used....
the white skein on top is spun from baby alpaca, a gorgeous soft fibre, which I have a kg of - and will use some of that for a larger lace shawl. when I have spun more than just the one skein:))

 I also started on one of the new sock yarns - this has two plies, one in red (more burgundy) and the other one multicolour, which makes for softer colour changes than some of the normal multicoloured sock yarns. I wanted a reasonably simple pattern, because I started this on the train (to see the dentist:)) - and will take it on the train again next week. this is from "think outside the sox" - only 4 rows of patterning, 2 k rows, and two slip stitch rows, one k, one purl - simple to remember and no printed pattern necessary:)) the rib is a bit different, too - it's worked in rows and will be finished with a crochet edge later....

and this is the preview - of the mystery project I am making from the fabrics:)) I can't show more just now - but I am nearly finished, just in time:)) I hope to get the rest done today - most of it will be done with the machine, though the base is entirely sewn by hand....
this made me realize that I haven't done any of that for a long time - might have to dig out the fabric remnants after all:))

bounty hunting....

I am making progress with my mystery textile project - but I have to take a break every now and then, or my sewing finger will "complain"! I can show you the basic materials I use though:

I think it's self-explanatory?

 when I ordered the fabric I also bought some yarns. the grey packs on the left are for a Harry Potter style sweater, i.e. like the one he wore in the last film. the pattern looks a bit like a rib pattern, just knit/purl stitches, straight up with a zipped up collar. what a change from the rainbow coloured sweater I made several years back. teenage boys apparently want to blend in rather than stand out:)) the rest is sock yarn and some cotton, for dish cloths and double knit potholders...

this is the result of my paper spinning test. I plied it with two (commercial) threads in linen/cotton and it's not as hard and abrasive as I first thought. of course now I see nice paper everywhere. I bought some crepe paper and this purple mulberry paper - and ordered some rainbow crepe paper just today... do I have an addictive personality????




well, if I do - I think hoarding materials must be one addiction. I went to the recycling center to hunt for more cotton fabrics in natural white. I have collected some, which I am going to use for a patchwork sofa cover. I found another one - this time with a woven pattern, looking nice, but impossible to photograph (the larger one in the middle). I also found some other fabric, each at least 1 meter if not bigger. some are cotton or at least blends - but no labels, so I don't know the material with some of them. the one on the bottom left has a white on white pattern, looks like patchwork fabric to me.



and then I stumbled across a large bin full of scraps. must have been my lucky day. usually I don't start digging around, because it's a huge mess full of tiny scraps and cut-offs. but for some reason I started pulling on what looked like a few pieces of white cotton.... which I can always use for stamping on, marbling, dyeing etc.! after about 20 minutes of digging I pulled out all of the cotton fabrics on the left. some patchworker must have emptied all the stash into this bin, there was even some pre-cut and one printed pattern with it:)) most of the pieces are quite large, about 20 x 20 cm or more - a good addition to my stash, useful for so many things! I also found some "mother-of-the-bride" fabric for more paper yarn - even though it's not real silk.... (flowers on beige ground, black/purple dots etc.) now I just have to decide whether to wash it all - or just assume that the patchworker before me was thorough and already did all of this before cutting...  and think about a few new projects:))

I'm not dead.....

... I'm just taking a break:))

if you live in ireland, maybe you remember that kitkat spot from several years back (it's the king aka Elvis, who says this!).
if I waited any longer with a new blog entry, I could boast a 2 month break actually:(( sorry, but I've been so busy during the last 2 months, that I just couldn't find the time to blog. though most of the jobs were more of the same: working on the roof repairs (we don't only have to repair the damage, which is fiddly and a lot of work. we also have to prevent it from happening again - which means lots of jobs all around the house) - travelling to and from the dentist (no, it's still not finished. the wisdom tooth came out, the doc tried to save one molar, 4 weeks later I had to go back - last week I had to get an extraction anyway:(( back this thursday - and it's still not sure I'll be finished then - we'll see....). also the usual - spring means lots of jobs in the garden, several projects as gifts, preparing meetings for our spinner's group, doing translations - it never ends.

I did finish a few things though! here are a few:

this is a stacking toy - when I found the instructions at Lion Brand I just couldn't resist it. I had the stronger colours, pink, green and yellow, but needed to dye the rest - for the cotton I used procion dyes. should I ever do another one I'd actually switch on my brain before putting it together - the flowers in the "pond" at the bottom are pretty much invisible, when all the rings are stacked....but to make sure that baby doesn't start eating flowers or  bug pieces, I had to fix everything very tightly - which makes it close to impossible to take the flowers off again without destroying them and the base.

the base is a very long-necked frog, who looks out of a pond with water lilies on the surface. the lowest ring is a bumble bee, then follows a butterfly, a lady bug (ok, ok, I know that the red isn't ladybug red, but I dyed several lots and none turned out to be the proper colour:(() - and on top there is a dragonfly. the butterfly wasn't in the original pattern; I made it up because there was so much "neck" left free - and also the sizes didn't fit so well between bumblebee and ladybug. it's all cotton and washable - and I hope the recipient little boy has fun with it:))

his mum calls him froggy, so here is a little fat froggy I made for her....

then there was my friends' birthday - I made a scarf for her. the base is crocheted in a blend of black alpaca/wool, the eyelash yarn was pulled through and I left a fringe on both ends.of course I forgot to take a pic of the finished scarf - here you can see it in progress, the black was covered with the blue/red/purple....

she also received a mouse tea-cosy - inspired by a photo on ravelry. it's fully lined with a layer in brioche stitch, the flowers and mice are done with naturally dyed yarn, the base is done in sock wool.
all quite straightforward, I just had to figure out how I could do wheat ears - which I ended up doing in embroidery...

this is a necklace and a pair of earrings I made during a workshop about beginner's beading. I got kind of carried away and bought a few bits and pieces apart from the beads - a beading board, a tool to make proper spirals and round shapes, some beads, some wire, a book etc.... I guess I have to add "beading" to my labels:))

this is one of quite a few skeins of yarn I spun in the meantime. several were made as samples for a demo about "spinning fibres other than wool", which I did last saturday at the museum of country life. not very interesting to show them, most are natural white - so far (that might change after the dye workshop we'll do in july, same place). I spun soy silk, baby alpaca, linen, jute, hemp and some other small amounts, to have a spun sample for all the fibres I had to show. but this is a special skein - it's a silk brick dyed with fresh, ripe rhamnus frangula berries (alderbuckthorn). I have a plan for it - though I don't yet know whether I'll weave or knit the project....

I also couldn't resist doing a short spinning session after reading about spinning paper in the latest issue of spinoff. I grabbed some silk wrapping paper (for glass etc.), cut it into long strips, dampened it and spun it the next day - into something that looks like yarn. after plying it with a blend of linen and cotton (commercial yarn) I think it's reasonably "soft" - though of course not suitable to wear next to the skin. but the mind boggles at all the possibilities.... one thing I learned though (which kind of falls into the above category of switching the brain on before working:)) - if you want to spin paper, you can cut several layers in one go - just don't dampen them, when they are still together! it's a bit like trying to sort out a pot of spaghetti.....

I am also working on the biggest project of all - which I am halfway through, but cannot show it - you just never know, who reads a blog:)) patience - I will show it eventually....

so this is it for now - I hope I can blog again more regularly - latest when I have finished the above mentioned important project (never mind the house and the teeth:)).

back to normal?

well, not quite, but the damage wasn't quite as bad as we first thought. it's a lot of work and will cost a lot of money too, but it looks as if we're able to repair the damage - without having to move etc. after all. puh, what a relief. I know that a lot of work is still to come, but we don't have to do it all in one day - as a matter of fact, we'll have to wait a few days until we have certain materials before we can do anything more under the roof.

time to catch up with blogging! I managed to work a few presents in time - but as it was "just in time" - I forgot to take pix of everything. I did however take one of a piece of embroidery, which I made as part of a book cover. the book was a coffee-table book about ireland and I thought a three-leaf clover is just the right motif for this. I didn't design this myself - I used a picture I found on a postcard for st. patrick's day, but changed it to suit my embroidery. the original had loads of tiny dots, which would have been total overload in beads, so I only put a few on here and there:
the lines are embroidered in Oliver Twists handdyed silk, some single colour, some multi-colour. I like to use these, they are fine, but well defined and keep their shape well. most lines are done in stem stitch, some coral stitch and the circles are done in back stitch. the beads are from my stash - and the base is natural white wool felt, which was lovely to stitch on - definitely a base I'll use more of. I added a velvety fabric for the back and the two flaps, though my head was slightly addled, when I started to sew it all together! it was rather late at night and with my medicated brain I first cut the lining too short (which I only noticed after I finished sewing...). I undid every seam, did it all again - only to find that I put the wrong sides together, so that when turned properly - the motiv was inside:(( I decided to stop this and - third time lucky - managed to put it together properly the next morning:))  and the book made it in time for the recipient's birthday - yay!:))

I also finished the yarn from fluff - by plying it with some fine natural white wool yarn, commercially spun. I was told that it felts easily, so the plan to use it for socks was scrapped. I'll keep it for now, maybe it will be used for a hat or mittens? it's not a huge amount but should be enough if I use a bit more from the white yarn as well.

as I said january wasn't our best month! not only did we discover the roof problems, my teeth gave me trouble (still do:(() - I also managed a total yarn disaster! I had spun a blend from 70 % cotton and 30 % wool. superwash wool I thought (would have made sense, because the other blends used superwash wool and I expected that this would certainly be the case in a blend with cotton!) I plied it with fine cotton and dyed it with procion mx dyes. the plan was to make a baby blanket like a meadow with daisies. the base was supposed to be green, with big fat yellow dots around which I'd sew i-cords in white for the flowers. white, no problem. yellow - great. green worked well too, but when I rinsed it a lot of dye came out... I decided to put it all into the washing machine for a quick cycle on low temperature. when the machine had finished and the door opened - I discovered 5 of those Bob Marley skeins like the one above:(( for a few minutes I wasn't sure whether to laugh at my stupidity or to cry because I managed to destroy 750 g of lovely material.... eventually I decided that I have no use for 5 green door wreaths, so I started to entangle the first small skein a bit. to my surprise the strands were quite easily separated and off I went. it took me quite a few hours to turn the felt into yarn again - but I managed to and I am glad I did, because the yarn feels very nice and soft and knits up well, too!

this is the yellow (unfelted) yarn and the green (felted and separated again). there is a visible difference, the green yarn looks a bit like boucle, but it's usable and feels nice to the touch - and is not likely to felt again, when the blanket has to be washed:))

it was a relief to be able to use the yarn after all - I am not easily depressed, but when nothing works as planned even I can get a bit down. I nearly finished a few other projects as well, but I have to wait for a few bits and pieces I need to complete them. 

can we start again, please?

what a mess this year has been so far:(( before people start to think I am gone altogether - I am still here, it's just that blogging isn't the most important thing just now. the old year left me with toothache just before christmas - which turned out to be a major job as I had to have a buried, but moving wisdom tooth extracted. well, extracted isn't the right word, more like excavated:(( after two weeks it's still painful and I have come to the conclusion that the dentist, who foresaw some trouble with a crown right beside it was right. that crown probably has to go, too:(( unfortunately I haven't married a dentist and the bills are hefty - and of course more or less unplanned. well, nothing to be done about it - but it annoys me that I have to pay a small fortune and still am left with the pain!

on the other hand just yesterday we discovered a major disaster with the house. we thought the frost might have damaged a roof tile or two, because drops of water leaked through the kitchen ceiling along the back wall - but that's the least of our worries. when we opened the low attic over the kitchen to see if there's water up there, we discovered major rat damage on the wiring! the way it looks now it seems we either abandon the cottage altogether (but where to go??) or have to do a major job to repair it. well, not repair so much - really it would be a replacement of everything, the cables, the kitchen ceiling, pretty much all door frames to the adjoining rooms, the heating etc... you'll get the drift - blogging isn't really important just now:((

sorry about the doom and gloom, but when you're faced with facts like this, which might end in leaving a country altogether and having to start all over again elsewhere out of the blue - it's hard to be more positive:((

I hope to find a solution - and to get back to blogging soon... until then, fingers crossed that it'll all work out somehow! or is there a time switch, where we can move on to end up in 2012 with all problems solved? if so, please let me know by pm - and soon:))

new year - new projects

but first I have to finish some old ones. this is the end result of the fluffy embroidery with madeira lana:

I will back and frame it with some patchwork fabric, so that it can be washed properly if necessary. I bought the aida fabric a few years back for the stash - not visible in the photo, but there is some glitter on the upper side, just right for a "starry night" feeling. I found the pattern in a cross stitch mag from the uk some time back and was waiting for an occasion to make it. I'll add the name under "sleep tight", but didn't want to spoil the surprise in case the recipient reads the blog....

a short while ago I received a package from germany, where these locks were used as packaging material. my Louet was standing empty at the time and eventually I just couldn't resist the locks and started spinning them as they were. but it was hard on the hands, because the tips stuck together and there were a few double cuts as well. so I put them to the side....

...until today. I combed them with my dog comb -to get rid of some dirt, the short bits and some VM that stuck to the fibres.

this is the end result: a box of fluffy fibres, which I will spin later tonight. I don't know the breed, but the locks are of medium length and have a nice crimp - and rainbow colours. fluffed up like this it looks like a large amount, but it won't take much time to spin it into a yarn. I plan to navajo ply it - but maybe I'll ply it with a single colour after all - to end up with a bit more yarn to play with. I have no idea what to use it for (yet), but I am sure I'll find a project once I know how much yardage I have.

advent KAL and other things

the new year is already a few days "old".... time to show some finished objects. I finished the KAL scarf shortly after christmas, only 3 days late:)) I also added the starter pattern at the end, because it creates a wavy edge, which I wanted to be the same on both sides. I should really have turned over the pattern as well - but if you don't look too closely you won't see that it faces the same direction... it still gives a wavy edge though. this is it in full length - I am not sure a piece of knitting 38 cm wide and 2.8 m long can still be called a scarf?:)) maybe it's a sharf - shawl/scarf? or a scawl, could work both ways:))

husband and son avoid taking part in my photo ops whenever they can - so I had to use the wall to lay the scawl out to see it in full. it only weighs about 200 g all in all, cashmere is very light and runs far and the added 2 fine silk threads are so fine that they add barely any weight. they do give a slight sheen as do the few clear, silver lined beads I added in each spacer....

it's too long to show the patterns in more detail in one picture, so here they are, from left to right the first pattern and a new one for each day of december up until the 24th. all of them are estonian patterns. none of them were terribly difficult, though some had a bit more bite than others. I don't mind knitting nupps - they take a bit more time, but at least you don't have to turn the knitting several times for each nupp - unlike some patterns for bobbles...  

most of the patterns (the instructions came with charts and written out!) have a clear build-up, but some are confusing at first. it takes a few rows with those to make out a pattern - I found those intrigueing to knit - it makes it more interesting, when you can only see the full pattern after blocking! some of them were more dense than others, but it blocked out reasonable well in the end. 

some of the patterns are quite well known not only in estonian knitting, e.g. I have knitted the second pattern from the left as fern lace a long time ago - before I had ever heard about estonian patterns. others are quite specific, esp. when 5, 7 or even 9 stitches have to be worked out ouf three in the base row! a bit fiddly at times, but with a bit of counting and care no big problem. and not a purl tbl in WS rows in sight:))

huh, I just realised that I put the photos up in the wrong sequence, this should be the starting pattern, because I worked the lily-of-the-valley nupps on day 2!! there is a similar looking pattern at the other end, but without the nupps. all in all it makes a nice pattern sampler - but is very wearable too. nice and soft and though large, not too big to wind around the neck. or maybe I should use it as a wallhanging instead?

I also started a small cross stitch pattern - which will be a gift to the parents of a littly baby boy. I saw the pattern in a magazine - and wanted to try this particular one, because it used material I haven't worked with before. Madeira produces a wool embroidery yarn (Madeira lana), fine, half wool, half polyester (it's also available in a few multicolours). it can be used for machine embroidery also and comes on bobbins like sewing thread. it was difficult to find, but eventually a friend of mine in germany found it in a sewing shop in her hometown. there are plenty of colours availabe, but I needed "rabbit colours", off white, light and medium brown. this is how it looks after stitching. there is no body yet, because this is worked in floss. the "hairy" part has to be worked first, then it's fluffed and then the rest is added.

these brushes can be bought where the yarn is sold - there is a softer one for light fluffing and a harder one for stronger effects. (I think they could be used for fluffing up areas of mohair knitting, too...).  

and this is the after - I know the pic is a bit blurry, but you can see the  raised fluff of "fur".... I am nearly finished with the project, I just have to add some more back stitch before I can show you the rabbit in full....

there is another small "toy" I want to knit - a little frog. I had some darker green, but needed a second, lighter colour. I was too lazy to dig out all my acid dyes etc. so I just grabbed a bottle of food dye I had left from christmas bakery. this time I only added about 1/4 of the bottle, but it was enough for a small skein of sock wool. the green on the left is from the first batch. but this is not the reason I am showing you the greens. (the flash makes the green a bit stronger, it's not quite as biting as this!). there was still colour in the pot, so I added another smaller skein of sock wool. and discovered that apparently the yellow pigments of the dye take up easier than the blue (or there was more blue than yellow in the blend and none left for the 2nd skein?). the second skein is more turquoise then green - not right for a frog, but I can always use it for some sock inlays. I always find it interesting how dyes work - surprising, but not often disappointing, at least to me.

and yesterday I had to go to the county capital, Castlebar, to see the dentist... I am not afraid, but I don't know many people, who actually like to go there:)) anyway, I was rewarded for my "suffering", because I found a stone pestle and mortar on offer! I've been looking for one for quite some time, but either they were so large and heavy that I couldn't take them at the time, or they were quite expensive. this one is medium sized - but still weighs over 3 kg! it stands on its own because of this weight, unlike my old small marble one, which I have to hold with one hand when using the pestle. it works effortlessly and I am quite happy to finally have a good one! I'll keep this one for kitchen stuff - and use the old one for occasional "smashing" of cochenille.... I did receive an electric mill esp. for this purpose several years ago, but somehow this ended up in the kitchen, too. probably because I had just bought a bag full of ground cochenille and didn't need the mill for this at the time. I am nearly out of this now, but I still have a plastic box full of unground "lice" in my stash! some elbow grease will be needed to transform this into fine powder - soon:)) I'll have to mordant more yarn/fibre first though - cochenille is one of those dyes, where endless batches can be dyed after the first one!