I’ve been busy

I’ve been a lazy blogger recently (but at least it gave me more knitting time) and I’m sure I have a few finished projects that I haven’t shared.

I’m noticing that although I continue to largely be a process knitter and have chronic Startitis that I actually seem to be finishing projects and I don’t seem to have quite so many hanging around. I’ve posted Ravelry Links for now as I am due to leave very shortly for Summer School.

Finished off:
2 Shawls (a Forest Canopy for my Mom and Cleite for my Grandmother). Both of these have been started and finished since the end of May.
1 Pair of Socks (Over the Garden Wall from the March Socktopus Sock Club)
1 Toddler Sweater for my nephew (Tulip… it was meant to be his Christmas present but luckily he is quite skinny and the pattern is easy to enlarge by adding more stripes)

Almost Finished:
2 Pairs of Socks (Outside In from Knitty, and Heart and Sole from the May/June Socktopus Sock Club)

Started
1 Shawl (Aurantium Blossom, a Mystery Shawl by Socktopus through Twitter)

These last 3 are going to Summer School with me as well as a couple Spindles to Spin. I’m not quite sure I’ve grasped that they plan to keep me busy learning to eye.

I’m a bit worried as I think I may be catching a bit of a sewing bug as well. I have made the The X Bag Pattern by Four Corners Designs in a couple prints I picked up in Calgary to take for my purse for Summer School. Although they are not actual Shibori pieces that look like them. I also designed and made myself a padded spindle bag yesterday for no particular reason at all.

Spinning Fun

It’s been a while since I posted and I have been busy spinning this month for the Tour De Fleece group on Ravelry. I’ve also taken the Superspin 2 class offered by Diane through Socktopus and have learned loads and the talk at the Guild this month by Jan Blight on A Diagonal look at Spinning was so much more relevant than it would have been a month ago.

I still haven’t replaced the camera so here are a few things I’ve been doing:

Spinning

Row 1 L-R 1. BFL Singles, 2. BFL Singles, 3. Two Ply, 4. Two Ply closeup
Row 2 L-R 1. Three Ply, 2. Three Ply closeup, 3. Navajo Ply, 4. Navajo Ply closeup
Row 3 L-R (All spun on the train on the way up) 1. Camel – long draw, 2. Camel closeup, 3. Cotton – spun from the seed, 4. Cotton closeup
Row 4 L-R 1. Spindlefrog Batt, 2. Batt closeup, 3. Batt closeup, 4. Knitting Goddess Roving – for future spinning

I’ve had more good new – I’ve also won a prize on Ravelry for the Tour De Fleece in the Great Random Prize Thread, can’t wait to see what my prize will be.

I’ll have to post again before the weekend as I am off to Summer School and I’ve been insanely productive on the finishing front as well.

Confession time…

I’ve been sorting through my purchases and acquisitions from my trip home and I think I can see why I needed another bag coming back.

Aside from the yarn (12 skeins) and fabric (at least 6 meters) I acquired a few books, a new spindle, niddy noddy, swift and ball winder.  I could pretend I’ve not been to Socktopus since and haven’t been shopping, but I went for the Superspin 2 class last weekend and will be back up on the 12th for the second part of the class so this may not be over yet…

Check out Tripping Yarns for a contest she is running. She’s doing a 100km walk in 30 hours and my feet are hurting even thinking about it. I’ve donated a prize and you can see it here.

Back home again

Well I’m back, and after a week and a half I pretty much have caught up with work again so I should really catch up with the blog as well. It was a great holiday and a chance to relax. Unfortunately the camera didn’t turn up so I’m waiting for all the confirmations from the airline that they haven’t found it now.

Here’s a quick rundown of some of the things I got up to:

• Got to spend time with my parents, sister, and brother

• Played with my nephew (he’s good at sharing his food with me now – even yummy food like popsicles and lollipops)

• Had a lovely visit with my Grandma who was also visiting

• Stood outside a yarn shop on a Sunday morning drop spindling from 6:30am to 11am then gave up and went home because they weren’t opening until 1pm… OK I was marshalling the marathon and my post on the 10K and 5K route just happened to be outside Make One Yarn Studio

• Saw that you can kayak Elbow falls – so maybe DH will need to come on the next holiday

• Finally managed to see bluebirds

• Had afternoon naps

• Cleared out some of the boxes of stuff still in the basement

• Ate way too much good food including deep fried turkey – very yummy

• Went to the Heritage Park Festival of Quilts

• And finally, went to a *few* yarn and fabric shops… but more about that when I can either borrow a camera or find the really old one we have and see if it still works

Across The Sea

It is so nice to have the week off – I’m sitting here enjoying the Canadian sunshine and having a great time seeing all the family. I’m not sure the tan is advancing much but the knitting is – I’ve started and almost finished a Forst Canopy Shawl for my Mom and have picked up my Tulip Cardigan for my nephew. It was supposed to be his Christmas present so it is lucky he is quite skinny as I will just need to add some extra stripes to the body and arms for it to fit him.

We had a great visit to Shuttleworks yesterday so I now have all my Christmas presents from my parents… I wonder if this means I can open them and start using them now? Today I’m spending the day with my nephew and tomorrow I’ll be going to the quilt festival at Heritiage Park.

Unfortunately there are no pictures yet as I managed to leave the camera in the UK. Luckily since I’m with family I can borrow others though so I should have some pictures at some time.

Not another craft….

I had a great time today on the Inkle Weaving workshop I attended by Anne Dixon after a fantastic talk by her at the Guild yesterday. After warping up last night during the Eurovision voting we were all ready to go this morning. We learned the basic weaving, and Repp before moving onto pickups so that we can make designs and finally lettering. I only have photos of the basic weaving at the moment as we were just too busy experimenting. I think I’ll stay with the knitting but it was a fun workshop and I may need to make a necklace to hang my Guild badge on for meetings and the Summer School.

Inkle

On the Knitting front I have made a new bag – the Mitered Diamond Bag by Kristi Schueler from Interweave Felt, 2008 (rav links) and have been working on my last Socktopus Sock clup package – Over the Garden Wall byLoumms. I’m really pleased with the bag and actually managed to take photos before and after felting. It was big enough that I was able to sit inside the bag before it was felted.

Mitred Diamond Bag

It’s getting warmer

It’s getting warm here and I’m nursing my sunburn from the last two weekends – strangely enough I must have been facing the same way both weekends since my right arm is much worse than the left.

I hope everyone is having sunshine to enjoy but that you are being more sensible than me and are wearing sunscreen.

I’ve also learned something new about natural dying – don’t overload the dyepot. You can see this in the cochineal below – from left to right – original dyepot, fibre int he 1st exhaust, yarn in the first exhaust, yarn in the second exhaust… The first exhaust had a lot is things in it and obviously this affected the takeup of the dye. I’ll need to remember this for the future.

Cochineal