Knitting

The scenery on our journey up to the North Coast of Scotland was just too pretty to knit to, plus we went the winding and weaving route up and a different one back, so I ended up not knitting in the car. At the Shepherd’s Hut we stayed in, it had no TV, no WiFi and no data signal, so I thought I’d do loads of knitting…however we had amazing coastal views and rare breed pigs and rare breed (Ryeland) sheep in the fields opposite and so I really didn’t do that much knitting those few days.  If you missed my post with some photos of our trip north click here.

Here’s a picture of my Easy Goes It Shawl by Saturday afternoon.  Most of it I have been using the yarn I chain plied, which gives clearer distinction of the colours.  The 2nd half is using the regular 3 ply yarn, which has a the colours all mixed up and less defined.  It will be interesting to see how this will affect the overall look when its finished.  I will definitely chain ply when I spin the new batch of the baby camel and silk fibre I have from Coastal Colours.  I know I’ve said it before but ooooh this is soft.

I bought a couple of balls of the Ryeland yarn from the owners and my husband bought some of their chirizo and salami made from their pigs.  The sheep are like teddy bears.  

According to my Fleece and Fibre book, Ryeland sheep are one of the oldest sheep breeds in the UK.  In the 16th Century, Queen Elizabeth I was given a pair of Ryeland stockings!  It was originally softer than merino but by the 18th Century it became less soft when breeding started to concentrate on meat quality.  A little scratchy, but will be fine for a hat.  

The pigs were hilarious, when scratching themselves against their hut they looked like they were twerking or is it twirking??? Anyway, they were super cute. 

 

Weaving

I had started a scarf with the intention to just do stripes of the gradient colours, but I was struggling to see the warp colours coming through, so I decided to do the majority of the scarf using the method of pulling through yarn on each pass, which results in each weft row being double layer and you can vary the amount you pull through the other yarn, which gives a nice look.  Do you think the pattern would be okay as a gift for a man?  I’ve bought some sample size cotton reels for trying to weave a tea towel next!

 

Felting

I ordered an extra large plastic tray to do wet felting in, as this should help stop the drips, should conserve water usage and should stop the need to wash and dry so many towels. I’m hoping it will also enable me to do away with bubble wrap, but we shall have to see how that goes. The fibre to make my sister’s lampshades has arrived so I’ll need to start on those next week.

Sewing

I got the sewing machine out and stitched most of the cushion with my silk painted front and felted back.  I just need to buy some filling to stuff it and sew it shut.  Perhaps it needs another iron as it got a little creased when I was trying to turn it inside out through the very small hole I’d made.

 

Spinning

Tour de Fleece starts on 6th July so I have started to prepare some fibres for spinning during those 22 days.  Well I say that but I actually started spinning up some of the rolags on my Turkish spindle.   But these were just some experiments. 

Year of Projects – What’s it about?

If you are wondering what these Year of Projects posts have been about or you’ve been thinking of joining in, then now is the perfect time to find out more.  The ‘Year’ runs from July to June so we are just coming to the end of Year 8 (although it was my first year) and year 9 will be starting soon.

You don’t need to have a crazy long list like I seem to have and it doesn’t need to be a wide range of crafts, many Yoppers only knit or crochet for example.

You need a Ravelry log in, join our Year of Projects group, have your own blog and then each Sunday members of our group write an update post on their own blog and then share a link to your post in the thread of the current week’s folder in Ravelry.  Find out more here https://www.ravelry.com/groups/a-year-of-projects