done!

I finished the second letter of the bunting - the R. just in time - a day to spare:)) well, at least I didn't have to do a night shift, wouldn't be the first time either... though I shouldn't glee too early - might still happen when I am doing the christmas presents:))

when you look closely (probably not visible in the pic) the yellow of the iron-on transfer is still visible in a few spaces, but I hope we'll always hang the finished bunting high enough so that people can't push their noses right onto the embroidery:))) taught me a lesson though: don't go over a drawing with another iron-on pen; make a new pattern to avoid that mess!

the little dots are all beads, though in hindsight I don't really know why I wanted to do the little clover in golden beads. but I am not taking them off again now! after all this embroidery I am going back to my houses in x-stitch for a while, because I want to finish this before it ends up as a UFO in some corner again. and also, a christmas sal is going to start soon, hopefully enough motivation to get the wall hanging done as well.....

I also finished the first skein of black alpaca with pink silk and I do like how it turned out. it's not too flashy, the black dones down the shiny pink nicely. I will have to spin another bobbin full of alpaca though, because the fine silk runs so far. not sure if even the second bobbin will use up all the silk, but I still have enough, so I'll end up with a nice long yardage for a bigger project in the end! any ideas? it's nice and soft, so very wearable against the skin.....

we had an exceptionally bad summer this year:(( a lot of rain and cool weather pretty much from may onwards - and here you see the result. this is the river glore, which flows into the famous river Moy eventually. it runs through the valley downwards from our house and normally only has about 2/3 of the water it has now! or less in a dryer summer! it is very wide just now - too wide for me to reach any of the lovely reed flowers I usually pick there at this time of the year:(( I managed less than 100 g - not enough for any serious dyeing. luckily I visited another spinner last week and we managed to pick a good lot more along one of the roads or there'd be no "reed green" for me this year. as it is I have 3 skeins of sock wool, one in the brighter green, two slightly more muted - and 300 g of "spring green" south american top. all still damp, so pic will follow. I do like the reed greens together with purples and lilacs - so I'll be mixing both, my reed dyes and some of the logwood dyes I did a few weeks ago.

first I have to finish the leftover on my Lendrum though - a blend of wools and silk, in salmon and greenish tones. tomorrow is our spinner's meeting and I'd like the wheel free to start something new. because I have several things started on both wheels I had to take the black alpaca off the louet bobbin into a ball to ply with the silk, not ideal, because I had to give it a bit of twist to work with the tighter spun silk. I had to work out kinks several times and I prefer to ply from the bobbin/lazy kate!

now, to decide which fibres to take for spinning tomorrow:)) spoilt for choice! maybe I should finish the fine silk/wool blend for a lace project? or should I grab some of the newly dyed fibres? anyway, I have to pack most of the dyed bits to bring for the group - which will give my room a very slightly emptier look (if that's possible:)) than before.... next week will start with a lot of sewing - I have to get a "door" curtain done and one for a small window. and the tweed/fleece sofa blanket - finally! and a box full of other things - some embroideries that need a backing, a small wall hanging for up here and so on... this of course would empty the heaps of stash much more efficiently than the fibres could, but with all the rushed embroidery going I didn't want to start dragging the sewing machine out as well. a studio with space for everything - hach, that would be very nice!!

have a nice weekend - hopefully with time for your own textile endeavours.

a bit of progress....

.. and a few more things started:))

I finished my first piece of bunting, with the stylized letter O. a lot of twisting and turning to follow the circular lines - I think the R will be easier to do! and faster hopefully, because the due date would be next saturday. nobody is ripping my head off if I am a bit late, but I find it rather embarrassing to set a date for the rest and not finish in time myself.

this is the R - I painted the green with textile paint, it would be too time consuming to fill it in with embroidery. actually the few dark flower-like shapes in the O were done the same way... when I have finished the embroidery, I'll add small beads on the outside. my first idea was to make very fine i-cords and fix them as three-dimensional lines. but the silk yarn is simply too fine to knit with, so I'll embroider along the lines.

I was going to show you one more finished thing - but for some reason the picture does not want to be pulled up here:(( ok, I finished some things, but as some of you said: there's always something unfinished around! our group was contacted by a farmer with milk and jacobs sheep, if someone wanted his fleeces. don't ask - I know it was madness, but here are some of them.... there are several more boxes underneath and 2 large bin bags full in the porch. I hope I'll be able to hand some of them along to another spinner, but even so, there's a lot of washing and drying and carding in those boxes:))

so, here is another finished "item", part of a silk brick I dyed with cochenille. it's not quite as startling bright in daylight, and I am going to fill another bobbin, this time with black alpaca, to ply the silk with. or not - I am not quite sure yet if I'll like the strong contrast. anyway - I need the bobbins free soon, so one more tick on the list!

I also received a nice present in the mail (can't show you some of the other things - I ate most of the liquorice:)). the maker was a bit late for my birthday - but all is forgiven, as it is a really nice cover for the hot water bottle she sent me earlier this year (because it was cold and my birthday still far away:)). it's nice woollen felt, decorated with a patchwork band of "flying geese"... to pretty to be used really, but luckily washable! winter can come now - I am prepared:))

in the garden department there are a few more finished bits - all plums are used up, the picked rosehips de-seeded and the raspberries - eaten. I hope I'll have a few days without foody jobs, but very soon the crab apples will be ready and it's time to do a lot of juicing!

everything is half way....

I am in one of those stages, where everything is halfway finished - or unfinished, depending on view! no finished projects to show, just bits and pieces. I am working on the spinning bag, half way up. I am also knitting on my green/yellow cuddly blanket - halfway done. my embroidery is - you guessed it, halfway done. even in the garden - the beds are only half done:(( we've had a lot of showers last week and over the weekend and the ground is muggy, too muggy to work on properly. I am still working my way through some pickings, the plums I should finish today - but with the crab/cider apples we didn't even start yet! never mind, we've had so much wind during last night and today - that maybe everything came down by itself, we'll see.

anyway, I did take a few pix of halfway jobs:

this is the first part of bunting I need to put letters on. this one is the O, the other one (which I didn't even start:(() will show an R. eventually all pieces together will form the word "Connacht Textile Crafters" - we'll put the full bunting up at shows, meetings etc.; our group project for this year. I better hurry though, 24th of september is the meeting date - by which time both pieces should be finished..... all the blue lines in the center have to be embroidered, though I managed the middle last night. the R will suffer from serious neglect or rather a very diminished design, I fear!

I am further than halfway through my dye sessions - but I still have to use up the logwood, so there's another halfway project: I tried to take pix all day, but only managed to catch the right colours at night, with a flash in the dark - go figure... as a fan of purples this is just up my alley and I am seriously put out that I have to give most of this away! I'll keep the silk/wool on the right and the shiny looking mohair in the middle though, the fibres were mine. the shiny blob on the left will be a problem - ramie, lovely colour, but unfortunately a lot of logwood bits are stuck in the top:(( I only strained the batch for the rest of the fibres - idiotic, I know! 

these are some of our plums, halfway eaten as cake - the rest will go into the freezer:)) 

same for tomatoes - I picked quite a lot yesterday - and they taste really nice. I hope the rest of the lot will ripen, before the weather goes cold. we are not great fans of green tomato relish here! 

tada - and this is the one thing, where halfway doesn't apply - we finished the fruit salad all in one session, no leftovers - that must fall under magic vanishing of edibles? a bit of everything, blueberries, raspberries, grapes, etc... - a yummeeeh vitamin bomb:))



a bit of colour in a grey summer

the dyeing workshop in our textile group took place at the end of july - and I still didn't finish all the dyeing of the leftovers! I am nearly through though, just yellows to come, with chamomile and st john's wort. I had planned to wait until I have finished it all to take pix, but given the fact that the forecast is for more rain to come, I took the opportunity of some sunshine today. well, I tried at least! we had a cup of tea outside, I put out a cloth, arranged all my skeins of sockwool - and a shower came.... it's like someone is sitting on a cloud, watching me and just opening a valve as soon as they see me outside!:))

anyway, after a bit of running about and repeating the same, here are the results so far:

this is all sockwool, which I pre-mordanted with alum.  the colours are (from left) tea, tea 2nd bath, several brazilwood and madder baths, some overdyeing on yellows and beiges with madder, goldenrod (yellow)  goldenrod with iron, black hollyhock flowers, cochenille and cochenille with iron. the small skeins in the middle are naturally beige tussah silk.... there is definitely a lack of blue and real green, but there was no time to plan for indigo dyeing as well.... and some of the very dark cochenille dyes were snatched up by members at the meeting! dito for the first two madder baths and the alkanet....

I also had some small skeins of a rather scratchy pure wool, but only a few were left: brazilwood, madder, tea and the darker brown is henna. the dark grey is alkanet, but there was apparently no purple pigment left:(  the brown skeins on the right are a weird stuff: it's the same tussah silk as above, but for some reason the yarn doesn't take some of the colours at all (the only ones that really took were cochenille and brazilwood). there is no colour on those skeins from the henna - they should look like the brown skein on the left! and no, I didn't forget to mordant them.

 I also bought some fibres for the spinners in the group, there are leftover (from commercial spinning)  tops of half wool (soft)/ half silk.

the lilacs on the left are from leftover cochenille, the grey/green is black hollyhock (I showed that one before), the yellow and green above are goldenrod and goldenrod with iron, the strong red is brazilwood and the rest below is one of the last madder dye baths.....

more spinning fodder, this time on south american top: dyes as above, the dark brown in the middle is henna, the bluish bottom right is black hollyhock on mohair (my own) and the darker pink on the left is cochenille on mohair. if I had know years back that you can get such a lovely squirrel colour with hair dye (henna) I wouldn't have had to ask my MIL to run from wool shop to wool shop to find a suitable yarn for a baby sweater I made at the time:))  

the small batches on the bottom right are silk briks, one with madder, the pink/purple with cochenille (I have more of that, but started spinning this one already)... and on the bottom left side you can see, why dyeing veggie fibres with natural dyes just with alum as mordant - isn't terribly successful. the colours stay pastel, even strong brazilwood or cochenille baths end up this light! on the other hand you can get lovely effects, when you put both wool/silks and ramie like this into the same bath and spin them together.... I love spinning ramie!

this stuff has been dyed years back! the light beige is done with dried walnut skins, but it wasn't the first batch in the dye bath. the darker skeins are dyed with tea. the yarn is a lambswool singles I bought 10 kg of years back,when I started dyeing in earnest. I have dyed pretty much all colours on this, knitted I don't know how many sweaters with it - and still have skeins left. it's reasonably soft, dyes well, knits well and even felts well - and this is why I chose to use it!

I must suffer from acute boredom, because when I saw this: 

and read that the designer is looking for a few test knitters, I couldn't resist and volunteered... there are 3 different wheels on it, but the one in this pic looks like my lendrum:))  well, ok, could be my louet, too - but I like the pattern and look forward to the stranded knitting! I need a bit of a lift from the green and yellow blanket, I think.... it's not a gigantic project anyway. I was tempted to use sockwool for this, but I think I'll go for a chunkier yarn for the first batch, and one that felts, too! I might make a second one - to hang from the wheel, for nostepinne, fibres, inchgauge etc... I just have to remember to use fairly chunky needles as this yarn shrinks quite a lot in the wash... the weird thing: I have so much wool, but had quite a hard time to find two suitable yarns in the right colours (with some contrast!) and enough of it! the only other natural (and felting) yarn I found was my merino/possum blend - and I didn't really want to use such an expensive stuff for a bag....

it's not all fibres here though - yesterday I saw buffalo mozzarella for the first time in the shop - and just had to snatch up one for our lunch today: the classic tomato/mozzarella basil with some nice sourdough bread, yumm!!

have fun over the weekend - I will:))

today's the day!

it's done - we survived 9 long weeks of summer holidays:) if you don't have a moping teenage son at home, you might not know what I mean - I do wonder how we'll manage next year, with 3 months of summer hols looming:(( who's idea was it anyway???

so today is the first day of 5 long years in secondary school for DS. everything is fresh and new and I hope he won't only suffer with homework and such, but have some fun as well! we did have several shopping trips for this, new uniform, new school bag, heaps of books and all the rest that is needed to learn arithmancy and ancient runes (or in modern life business studies and all the rest of the stuff:)). look at this mountain (13 kg!) of knowledge:

I wish it was all in his head -  a lot of knowledge he has to cram in! on the other hand - I love new books of all kinds and wouldn't mind another few years in school! maybe not with maths, I could do without that:)) but the rest I'd have no problem, as a matter of fact I already read through bits and pieces of this stuff!

of course you need more than just books and a bit of paper: we bought heaps of pencils, rulers, a compass etc.... in fact it's so much that he'll have to bring in two school bags tomorrow to get it all in! luckily they do get a locker to keep some of the stuff....

in the weather we've had all summer everything is "upside down" - we have strawberries now, but only had a handful during strawberry season... those are supposedly "decorative", but they don't only sport pink flowers, they also produce strawbs.... we'll see about the taste! I also "found" 4 small plantlets of "mara de bois" in an overgrown bed, which I put into pots to plant them out again, when the bed is freshly "made"...

of course we do have some seasonal berries - my one (and so far only) blueberry bush has ripening berries, not a large amount yet, but it's only from last year, so I was quite happy with the result.

in the header pic you can see "bad weather" coming closer... I had high hopes for a real thunderstorm - but unfortunately this is something that doesn't happen often here. we usually only get a bit of thunder (I seem to miss the lightning beforehand:(() and rain. and funny clouds - shortly after the thunder had passed we had this formation in the sky, which looks like somebody's tea kettle boiling wildly:))

this is the leaf of an "eddoe" - an edible tuber that I found in the supermarket last year. I had plans to boil it, but then never did - until I noticed sprouts coming out of one end. I decided to plant all 4 tubers, and they all grew well for a while - in the glass house! they even kept their leaves during winter, but eventually the two in one of the pots died. this one has been in a pot outside since may and the leaves look big and healthy. they are very smooth and the water forms pretty beads after every rain....

on the textile "front" I am still working on the green/yellow cuddle blanket I started months ago - because I just couldn't decide on another larger project after the grey sweater! I wanted to knit a tunic for myself, but the yarn is fine and it would take time to work on it - and christmas, even though not exactly "looming" yet, is coming closer! and with it the need for presents... I think I'd better start on one of those to avoid a bad rush later in the year.... I did however fnish the next house, this time it's a "pub", which I had to rename for a pub in our town. pity though that our "hazel" doesn't have such nice colours, never mind such pretty flowers! the last pic is a sunflower I embroidered for a birthday card; if we don't have a proper sun I'll just embroider one myself:)

film inspired

of course I didn't just knit silly birds and such - there is always at least one larger project in the making, or tv would mostly be unbearable:))

a few years back DS asked for a new sweater and chose his own colourway. I was naive enough to indulge him, and even spun the yarn for it. we didn't have hard winters at the time, so he only wore it once or twice. then the heating in school failed, the kids were asked to wear something warm - and when he came home he swore to me that he wouldn't wear that sweater again! apparently some of the kids sniggered about the colours - and the fact that his friend and his friends' sister liked it didn't change anything! the sweater has been "in storage" since then, but of course it's now far too small anyway....

of course the one thing I realized was: I'll never waste my time for something like that again:)) so when a new sweater had to be made, it was to be from commercial wool. when the new hp film came out the immediate reaction was: I want this sweater... ok, in lovely "colourful" - grey... teenagers: they want to be special, but "invisible" at the same time? well, anyway, after a bit of a hunt I found a grey yarn, not too fine, but not too chunky either. it's mostly wool, but machine washable (puh, what a relief!) - and most importantly it doesn't itch!

this is the result:

not a spectacular piece, but at least you can hide in a throng of people and nobody will see you:) and it was perfect tv knitting; not too boring but doable without looking much...it's also large enough to hopefully last another year or two - because I am sure that he will want more "make me invisible" sweaters for some time to come....  

there was enough yarn leftover from the kg of yarn I bought to make two hats. at first I just knit my standard: 2k/2p rib at the bottom and stockinette on the top. you can imagine what it looks like, no pix necessary... but I still had more than 2 balls left, so I thought I'll give something else a try. I started with double knitting a while back, but so far I'd only done straight up pieces. I knitted the same rib, long enough to double it up when in use. then I worked 1 k and 1 p into each stitch, but with two balls of yarn. I worked double knit straight for a while - and hunted out how to make decreases online:) hurray for the internet! unfortunately I also came across several double knitting books, which I "had" to put on my christmas wish list....

this is the top of the hat - looks like a normal one? yeah, that is how it is supposed to look:)) if I hadn't made one mistake in crossing the yarns it would be fully reversible - though as it is DH and DS weren't able to see the mistake... this is now the "cold winter" hat, the other will do for the normal irish temperatures:)) one thing I noticed though: it would probably have made the job easier if I had used two different colours! using both of the same makes it more difficult to see which one works the front and which one the back.... the decreases are actually very simple to work, not fussy at all.... 

 I also finished my weekly dose of embroidery - the original was called hair dresser, "friseur" in german. only, the translation was too long for the sign! and the irish form was - weird:)) so eventually I decided to give it the owners name - not that I know one named Tessa, but a lot of the irish salons are named for their owner, so it fits... those are the "art nouveau" colours I mentioned in the last post:)) the weirdest thing was that the next design, the village pub, has some of these colours in the original! mental waves sent over to germany??? which of course means that I had to put the pub somewhere else, not too close to the salon....

of course life isn't all knitting and embroidery - you have to look after your stomach, too:)) the first plums were ready - those are small ones from an ornamental plum. small, but very tasty! unfortunately we have to wait now for the real plums, because we already finished the first batch - sheer greed:)) well, if all else fails, we just have to make waffles with cherries or a few muffins or whatever else will take our fancy this weekend! school starts next tuesday and I promised to "celebrate" the last holiday weekend with something "cakey"....

some finished business...

slowly but surely the mountain of damp, but not yet dyed yarns and fibres has diminished. I'd like to show you photos, but every time I think I can heap the mountain of fluff onto the outside table - it starts raining again:(( or rather, by the time I've used the dry hours for gardening etc. - it does. but it needs the work now because very soon autumn will be here and it will be too late for many of the jobs! yesterday I had a lot of washing and after checking the weather forecast I decided that it's ok to leave it outside... tough luck, it's ok alright, but only if you like continued rinsing on the line:(( well, let's hope that the rest of the forecast hits it a bit closer:))

I did finish a few things, some houses in my embroidered village, a bird called Emma - and DS's HP sweater in grey.... so as not to be too bright:)) photos of the latter will follow as soon as I've managed to convince the new owner to put it on for about 30 seconds....

this is the bookshop in my village - drats, I forgot to upload my "art noveau" coloured hair dresser house... I changed the original design colours to a few I found in my stash box....

 and this is Emma - in contrast to DS she's not camera shy and posed in the hanging basket....

..... and among the parsley in the window box! I found the pattern on the coats homepage and knitted her in handspun cotton, with "legs" (ok, for her fat bottom the legs do look rather spindly, but Emma is a sitting chick, not a walking one:)) from handspun naturally green(ish) cotton and details in madder dyed linen tape... this was a first attempt and only after finishing I realised that the maize, which was added as the bottom filling to give it weight shimmered through slightly. the rest is filled with light grey fibrefill... I think I'll give it another try with thinner needles - and maybe larger eyes, too.... she looks rather sneaky:)) I'll also knit with dpn to avoid most of the sewing, don't know why the pattern used straight needles? and maybe I'll double up the green for the legs as well - to give her legs a bit more of a chance! this one was sent away as a birthday present - but even though I am not really a "deco" person myself, I think I'd like one of my own "Emmas" (any other ideas for a name?) dangling her legs off a shelf here!

I also knitted one grey hat from the leftover HP sweater wool - and started another one to use up the two balls I still had flying about. the first one was straight stockinette with a rib of 2k/2p, but to make the most of the rest, I am working the same rib now (which is long enough to be doubled up later), but will work double-sided knitting for the rest of the crown. DH is a "hat killer", who either looses them or puts them into hot washes, so two new hats might just be enough to last the coming winter (assuming there is one, but after the last two I'd be surprised if we didn't get snow and ice again....)

on the side I am still working the embroidery for my piece of bunting (not much to see yet) and following a KAL for the "wellenreiter" shawl - very loosely. meaning: while I have seen photos of finished shawls on several blogs - mine is only in the very early stages of maybe 30 cm of finished knitting.... not sure how much textile stuff I can fit in today - maybe a bit of spinning in the evening, but after crawling around in the garden for hours I am usually too knackered to do much more. tomorrow we have to go to town - DS's new school is open for "business", namely the selling of new and 2nd hand school books, of which two are still missing from his by now eclectic collection (weighing about a ton altogether! I think they should force the people who decided on publishing school books so that 3 years worth of learning stuff go into one book, to carry the results on their backs for a few days! I am convinced that they'd change that in a jiffy!!:(( or not, because they'd be at home in their beds with acute sciatica!!)