20 December: Cold

Round here the temperature has barely crept above zero for days. This morning the thermometer in the conservatory (unheated since last winter) showed just above zero, when it has been hovering at 4 or 5 degrees. The windows were pretty, though -


Fortunately I have just finished a lap blanket which has been in progress for a couple of months.


The grey Shetland is handspun from a fleece bought at Woolfest, and the coloured squares (because there wasn't quite enough grey) are knitted from handspun Shetland yarn, home-dyed, from the stash.

Another cold-beating item is this cowl or neckwarmer knitted from some handspun merino. The drop-stitch pattern makes it stretchy and extra warm.

11 December: Recent knitting and a small success

The snow has meant we haven't been getting out much. So a fair amount of knitting has been done. A couple of larger projects are still in progress, but here are some small finished items -


This is a scarflet (short scarf), knitted as a tube, in one-row helical stripes, with the ends closed to make it double thickness. Handspun BFL - super soft and silky.

And 2 sideways short-row hats knitted from the recent batches of spinning and dyeing -


Nice texture, soft yarn, and lovely mixed colours. The plainer green one was done first, but if one colour's good, then 2 are better, so a quarter of the second hat is done in a yarn with colour in common with the larger yellow section.

And, finally - last Sunday's 18M FITA archery competition gave me a winning gold medal -


Not exactly a huge victory, though; I was the only archer shooting bare-bow. And that's the bow that's bare, NOT the archer!

15 November: Batts now skeins

Those deeper dyed batts are now skeins of yarn. This time the colour combinations were varied, so that half the skeins are the more obvious blends, and half are different mixes.


It might take some time to get round to knitting them, though, as I've just started on a shawl, and there's little time to knit anyway when you're playing with colours.

22 October: TV knitting

That is, knitting which is simple and straightforward, and requires no thinking or working out the pattern while it's being done.

First are these simple mitts -


Handspun Shetland yarn, helical stripes, easy thumb shaping; they're a bit big for me, but a gorilla might like them.

Then there's that good old stand-by for simple knitting - a scarf -


Handspun merino/silk in Old Shale pattern, sometimes called Feather and Fan (I don't know if there's a difference). It worked out eventually about 6 inches wide and 57 inches long, but isn't as soft as I would have expected. Perhaps it's the garter rows.

The mitts weigh 42 gms and the scarf 100 gms - so not even a small dent in the stash.

And there wasn't much TV involved either, as few of the the programmes recently have appealed.

30 September: Finished jersey

The first version of this jersey was begun in June, but after knitting the top-down circular yoke all the way to the armholes, I decided I didn't like it, unravelled it and started again.

The yarn was spun from a mixed batt of fibres, labelled "90% wool 10% other natural fibres", and the wool was pretty mixed. By the time I had knitted halfway down the body, it looked as if there wouldn't be enough yarn to complete long sleeves, so the stripes were added, in sort-of matching shades of handspun BFL. After completing the cuffs, bottom ribbing, and the neckband, there were about 40 gms of the main yarn left.

I'm very pleased with it - it's lightweight (522 gms) and warm, and a completely unique pullover.

27 July: Holiday socks

Socks are a good project to take away on holiday - simple, portable, and small. Here are 2 pairs from our recent trips, finished at home-


For my Dear Husband, absolutely plain and in manly colours from the Yarn Yard, bought at the Woolfest, these socks replace some older ones which are now past it.

24 July: Catching up

Recent projects have mostly been rather uninteresting to photograph - spinning fleece mostly, but there have been a few small items now rounded up into a picture -


There are some inkle bands - two narrow ones done on the old loom, and the green/blue one done on the new moon loom. The ball of off-white yarn is spun from an Estonian batt from Wingham at Woolfest (I spun that one evening when bored with Le Tour), the dull purple sock yarn is from the Yarn Yard - a plain sock in progress for my Dear Husband - and the beaded row counters were made very quickly, after seeing something about them on Ravelry, and finding the instructions on eHow; I tried out various wooden and glass beads, and several different types of yarn.

Then yesterday I was reorganising my archery stuff, and decided to make a cloth bag for my recurve bow, so that I can carry it in one piece, rather than keep on taking it to bits and re-assembling it every time I use it. The piece of fabric in the box that was large enough also happens to be bright red, and made of microfibre. It is, therefore, very tough. It had also been in the fabric box for about 25 years, since I bought it in Peterlee when I was working over there.

Anyway, last time the sewing machine was used, there was a problem with the tension, so I decided to sew this by hand. It was hard work, but at least there's the feeling that it's done satisfactorily.The tie is a narrow inkle band, originally an experiment for shoelaces, but I failed to get the ends narrow enough to thread them through the lace-holes. Still, it's just right for this purpose!


One and a half fleeces have been spun, and some of the resulting yarn has been woven and is now waiting to be made up into the planned bags - more experiments.

5 July: The new inkle loom

Last night it had to be done - try out the new inkle loom, made by Michael Williams and collected from the Woolfest.

The yarn is a ball of merino/tencel sock yarn from the stash which will never be socks, and which will probably make a very nice little woven pouch. There are 71 warp threads , and plenty of width left for a wider band. Not all the pegs are used for this band.


I find it's a bit high to work at when it's on the table, but it will fit on my lap, resting against the table at the back, and that is very comfortable. The warp is moved on quite easily; the shed is not as wide (high?) as on my Ashford inkle loom, but I expect I'll get used to that.

So now there's a weaving project started, as well as 2 knitting projects, and a Hebridean fleece partly spun. And Le Tour has started. What a good thing I don't have to go out to work any more!

17 May: More knitting and weaving

This neckwarmer is knitted in a stitch shown to me by a fellow Guild member - but her instructions were in French, and it took a while to identify the same stitch with English instructions.


The yarn is handspun and home-dyed BFL, and both stitch and yarn are very good for a thick soft yummy scarf.

Back to the inkles. These two are plain weave, but with varied yarns. The broad one is some multi-colour scraps of merino, and the narrow one is Suffolk and BFL.


Two more pick-up patterns. It's a bit annoying to find a small mistake in the weaving on practically every band, but I suppose few of us are actually perfect....

21 March: Still knitting

As well as the current interest in low-tech weaving, there is still knitting going on. This shawl has just been finished -


- and it was bright and (just) warm enough to take it into the garden to photograph.

It's knitted from a pattern in Traditional Knitted Lace Shawls by Martha Waterman, in my own handspun green merino/silk and grey wool/silk; as I had never knitted a half-circle shawl before, I wanted to see how the shaping worked. Also I wanted something to knit while watching TV, and to take to the Guild meetings, where talking takes priority over following a complicated pattern.

It's a nice shape and size - 50" across, 25" deep - enough to keep the back and shoulders warm without the long tails of a triangular shawl dangling in everything. Just right for a little old lady, and I'm none of those 3 things.

29 January: Busy, busy

How time flies when you're busy! After discovering the new cousin, I was prompted to tidy up a lot of the family history, and then of course got interested in another bit, and started following leads, and ending up with a lot more bits of paper and notes that needed sorting out.

Our pile of snow in the front garden has finally gone, though there's still a hillock of ice 3 or 4 feet high at the dead end of the street.

Recent spinning has been non-wool fibres - tencel, milk protein fibre, and flax. Maybe for weaving, when there's enough, and they are dyed - though I might just leave the milk protein fibre as natural cream. :)

And there's been knitting - another hat -


A simple stranded pattern in handspun Shetland yarns, very easy and satisfying to knit.

3 January: Normality soon?

The regular suspension of normal life over the Christmas period, combined with weather that hampers outdoor activity, has led to a concentration on stash-reducing.

There's been another double cap made, plain brown with variegated yellow/apricot/green, and 2 triangular scarves, and a couple of "bags" - the first is knitted from Jamieson and Smith's millspun 2-ply Shetland yarn, and then felted, using a pattern called "Numbers" from knitty -


and the second is crocheted from yarn I spun a couple of years ago, from recycled plastic bottle fibre. I find the yarn is nasty to knit, but fine for crochet, and this little bag is just the right size to keep one of my bowstringers tidy -

The trouble is that this took only 15 grams out of the 200.....

(If you want to see the other knitting, pictures are on my Flickr page.)

17 December: A rug - and yet another hat

Winter time is just right for making a rug - thick and heavy spread over your lap as you work. Even after my attempts to use up all my stash of rug wool, there was an awful lot left; perhaps something to do with my carrying home an enormous bag full of old Durham Carpets yarn from the Guild one day. They acquired a lot of carpet yarn when the factory closed, and I liked some of the colours.

It's made by hooking lengths of wool into knots on rug canvas, using a latchet hook. Each knot is worked individually. There are 23 rows of 6 sections, and each section is 20 stitches wide and 5 rows deep. Each knot has 2 strands of wool, which have to be cut from the ball or cone. It took nearly 3 weeks to make (not a lot worth watching on TV lately).

The design is simple, based on a couple of carpets seen recently. One was sampler in John Lewis, showing all the available colours in one carpet range, and the other was seen in a shop window in York when we were having coffee in the cafe opposite. My version is 3 feet each way.


There's another hat, too. This one is the Joined Up Thinking hat - it needed a lot of thought (and many pages of squared paper) to work out how the design would carry into the top shaping.


It's come out rather small, though.

10 December: More knitted hats

The knitted hat seems to be the current favourite project - a good way to try out a new stranded pattern, but quick to knit and using modest amounts of yarn. Here are two more recent ones -


They are called Choc button hats, because the pattern reminds me of chocolate buttons, and the purple/brownish coloured yarn reminds me of Cadbury's chocolate wrappers.


The black one has a slightly higher crown, as I absent-mindedly decreased in a different way from the intended one. So now it would suit a wearer with bigger hair.

14 November: Down but not out

We have both been laid low with the lurgy, a virus we brought home with the shopping a couple of weeks ago.

But coughing does not involve the fingers (well, not all the time), so I've been able to do a little light knitting. Another Baktus scarf in sock yarn -


and another sort of stranded hat, starting with one colour and gradually changing to a second. The first A to B Hat turned out a bit subtle -


so the second one was done with more contrast in the yarns.


A slight dent in the mountain of stashed yarn.

12 October: Sock extensions

Winter draws on, and legs get chilly sometimes. So long socks appeal.

There are loads of ordinary length socks in the drawer, so all that's needed is the long leg part -


Ta-da! If these work OK in wear, I'll make some more.

(Do excuse the knees - they've suffered a lot.)

8 October: A Handbag?

There were 2 bags of handspun yarn that I didn't want to knit into a garment, so nearly all of it has become a large felted bag.

It was knitted in mitred squares, in strips, then sewn together and the handles knitted separately and sewn on. One section is dark grey, one is white, and 2 are light grey. The mitred nature of the squares doesn't show much after felting (in the washing machine), but it probably helps with strength.

It used up 628 gms of the disliked yarn, and is substantial and roomy. (Modelled by the sitting room door handle)

Edit: Plenty of room for the manuscript of a 3-volume novel, but an infant might need to be folded!

19 September: Further adventures with wool

There has been some knitting finished recently; a hat finished before we went away -


and a pair of socks knitted while we were away (all but the last few rounds) -


and in progress at present is a tablet/card woven band -


Discovering that the yarn spun for knitting was not so good for weaving, I spun some BFL specifically for weaving this band. When plied it measured 25 wraps per inch; one skein was then dyed brown to make a pleasant contrast to the creamy white.

My calculating was very wobbly when sorting out the warp yarns - first off, I cut twice as many lengths as I thought I needed, then found that (8 x 2) + 2 is not actually 20, and had to remove 2 cards -but hey, if you never get anything wrong, you never learn from your mistakes!

During the weaving I learnt that lumpy joins in yarn that are OK for knitting don't do so well in weaving, and had to work out how to replace a warp thread, then how to turn the cards carefully enough to avoid abrading another lumpy join.

The band is 1.25 inches wide, and when it's done, it's going to be a backstrap for further bands.

30 August: Bank Holiday (now with photos)

Avoiding both the poor weather and the traffic jams, we stayed at home today.

At breakfast I was leafing through a book of Fair Isle patterns. There was the start of a hat in my knitting bag - the top was done, but 2 attempts at working the sides in a drop stitch pattern had been disappointing. One of the all-over patterns had just the right number of stitches in a repeat to fit this hat top, so that was chosen.

It was super to knit; although it took a bit of sorting out to draw the chart, it was much more logical in knitting, and the stitches flew along. By tea time the sides were finished, and just the bottom band left to do. I've never tried I-cord as an edging before, so that seemed a good idea. It turned out fine, and (a bit) less fiddly than 2 colour ribbing.

The hat is too small for me, but would probably fit a child - I don't have one handy at the moment to try it on.

Carried away with the success of this, I actually finished the big thick rib jersey for my Dear Husband that has been on the needles since May!! It was started, top down, and grew quickly, with ball after ball of handspun vanishing into it. It looked as if there was not going to be enough yarn, so it was put aside until I could get a fresh supply of fibre at Woolfest in June.

Having stalled, it was hard to get started again, especially as it was getting heavier and heavier to hold and work on. Cast off at last, it went on the scales - 958 grams; that extra kilo wasn't necessary after all.

Photos will possibly follow - both hat and jersey need blocking first.

Edit, 31 August - here are the above-mentioned items, washed and spread out to dry:

10 August: Small projects

The current large knitting project is a jersey for my Dear Husband - this has been ongoing for a looong time, partly because it's a big item and I'm making it up as I go along, and partly because it was obvious soon after starting that there wasn't enough yarn to complete it. So it sat aside for a few weeks until we went to Woolfest and bought another kilo of fibre, and then that fibre was spun.

Meanwhile, the smaller projects continue. Here are a couple that are just finished - perhaps they need names?


These gals are fun, though the pattern is rather fiddly to knit. The stitch patterns are from my collection of notes, where I store ideas picked up in passing through books, the internet, and other people's knitting.

I liked the stitch pattern on the grey and green puppet so much that it's also become a hat -