highlandheffalump

YOP10 Week 2/52 – Minion, Face masks and Baby camel & tussah silk projects

Week 2 and I have two finished objects!!

Crochet

Progress on my Minion stalled, whilst I waited for the stuffing to arrive, which was needed to stuff and sew on his eye, before I was able to finish his bottom half. I have only used one ball of yellow, so definitely have enough yarn to make another Minion.

I ordered the right quality of stuffing that is suitable for using when making the octopals I plan to make later in the year. It has to be washable at high temperatures and it is also hypoallergenic. It arrived on Friday afternoon, and on Saturday I finished him! Well if I consider him being the Stuart from the Minion movie then he is finished, as there’s no G logo on the dungarees, but if it’s a Despicable Me Minion then he still needs a logo making. For a paid for pattern I would have expected more guidance on where to place the eye, arms etc. My Ravelry* notes can be found here.

My Minion, alongside an official one.

Dyeing

I reached out to Helen who owns Ripples Crafts yarn, who I’m a big fan of, to ask her how much she’d charge for dyeing the BFL/Silk yarn I have in my stash for making a 2nd Quick Sand cardigan. The price is too much for me to justify, when I have the dyes and equipment. I’m very comfortable dyeing single skeins and fibre, but this is 5 skeins for a single project eek! I will dig out the dye pot in the next couple of weeks and do some testing with sock yarn. I already have hand knit cardigans in purple, teal and grey, so I need to think of another colour that will go with most things. I was thinking perhaps a beige type colour and I do have some landscape dyes in Sand colour, but it is a bit yellow for my liking. Hmm any suggestions?

Felting

I have been trying to reignite my felting mojo this week by reading a few felting blogs. I have decided that I’ll start with some plant pot covers. With Tour de Fleece going on at the moment I am spinning during times when I would be felting. So once TDF is over then I will get started on those.

Knitting

Reyna is coming along well. It is pretty mindless knitting really and I’m pleased with how the colours in my homespun baby camel and silk is showing up. It is such a pleasure to knit. I’m using my Lykke 4mm (US6) needles and happy with the fabric it is creating. I can see why it is regularly appearing in the top free patterns on Ravelry.

Sewing

I made some face masks this week. First I cut up a couple of Allistar’s old (good quality) cotton t-shirts and sewed them into face masks in 2 different styles only to find that they were pretty hot to try to breath through and got damp pretty quickly. So I then tried one layer of t-shirt and one layer of some lovely tie dye material I bought to make some project bags with.

It was still too thick, so then I unpicked it and made one with a double layer of the nice material. A waste of the nice material on the inside, but they are now much easier to breath through but the threadcount on the cotton is high, so they should be good protection. The one pictured is mine (with pink thread) and Allistar’s is the same design but with black thread. If only I hadn’t donated all our old pillow cases, they’d have been a better thickness.

Wearing a face covering in all shops (and public transport) is now compulsory in Scotland. The virus case figures have been really encouraging in Scotland and especially the Highlands.

The pattern I used was free from The Big Community Sew.

Spinning

This week Tour de Fleece has continued and I have been mostly spinning the purple baby camel and silk fibre that I started the previous week. So I now have 2 skeins of Aran weight yarn (120g, 147m) and have a final 61g batch to spin and then I will concentrate the rest of the time on the rolags for the jumper quantity spinning project I’ve been working on for a while. By the end I think I’ll have enough for a cable hat. It isn’t in my queue, but I have October Hat by Sloane Rosenthal in my favourites on Ravelry, so that could be a possibility. I also like Jason’s Cashmere Hat by Melissa Thomson. One thing is for sure, it will be a lovely warm hat.

On the first TDF challenge day I tried spinning some dog hair on my supported spindle, but having over done it with crocheting my Minion I had quite a sore wrist, so only a tiny amount was managed. I looked like I’d wrestled a polar bear too!

Other News

I had a day off crafting this week due to a headache/ear ache, this is related to long term water in the ear problem I am taking steroid nose drops for. It quietened down by mid-day on Thursday so I was back spinning and knitting.

I spent some time doing weeding in the garden, pulling out some more of the wild strawberries, so it is less of an obstacle course to my compost bins. I also did some weeding on the gravelled area next to our driveway, but I soon lost interest. When you aren’t going anywhere you start losing interest in an area you aren’t viewing yourself…well I do anyway. On Friday I posted my 3rd Garden Diary entry, mostly progress photos to record any changes that have happened the last 3 weeks. At least with all the rain we have been getting I only need to water the greenhouse and the water butt is always full.

We have been sacrificing our waistlines again in support of the local (bakery) businesses. Allistar went to Ems & Co again on Friday and bought us a delicious lunch and cake each. We will venture out later today for more cake. With everything 2020 is throwing at the world right now who cares if they are thin!

On Wednesday indoor dining (with various rules), hairdressers and barbers will be allowed to open in Scotland, as we move into Stage 3 of opening up. I can’t see us eating inside a restaurant for quite a while, but if the weather improves we will eat outside a restaurant for my husband’s birthday next weekend. His mum is allowed to stay over now, so that will be the first time she has since February or early March!

That’s a wrap for week 2. 😀

This is a Year of Projects post. Officially the Group is in its 10th year, but this is my 3rd year participating. To avoid confusion I am labelling my posts as YOP10. If you would like to find out more about the Year of Projects Group on Ravelry* or you’d like to join in, please follow the link for details. To read what other members of the YOP Group have been getting up to please click on the latest weekly folder and follow the links to their blog posts. This is a friendly group with a wide mix of skills and crafting interests. The YOP year runs from July to June.

*Some people have experienced some visual problems caused by the new Ravelry style, so if you are prone to problems then I recommend changing to Classic Ravelry View.

24 comments

  3. goodness me, you are so productive! Your minion is fabulous!
    I will be watching closely your dyeing efforts – it is one of the things I have been considering for a long while now, it is just that I have so much yarn already, that I cannot justify buying “blanks” for dyeing, but one day I will attempt it.
    So useful to know about the masks: I was thinking of using some doubleweave cotton woven sample to cut masks off, but now I am thinking it may make breathing difficult, expecially as I was thinking of the concertina ones – and possibly even too heavy on the ears! I’ll check out your pattern link, thank you.

    What a great crafting week you’ve had!

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  4. The shawl is going to be lovely and hand spun to boot! I bet it feels as fabulous as it looks. Mask wearing is definitely difficult since I have ‘reactive airways’ aka asthma but must be done. My county has also made them mandatory.

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  5. You are making great headway already! The minion is really well done but I agree about the paid pattern, I would expect it to have a bit more detail on the important parts. Dying is something I really want to try but I think I’d going to try it on fleece first to use for spinning. Good Luck with the Tour this year. I can’t wait to see the results!
    Here in North Carolina Masks are mandatory also. They have opened beauty Salons and restaurants but at reduced capacity, we also haven’t ventured out which still. But it looks like we will be going back instead of opening more due to increases in cases.

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  6. Wow! You have been productive! I am excited to hear more about your larger quantity dying project! I too would like to dye a larger quantity to create something to knit a Boxy sweater for myself.

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  7. Stuart is adorable. Who will you make next? Reyna is pretty. The yarn you spun for it is perfect and the color is so lovely too. That Aran weight yarn is gorgeous. It will be a very warm hat, indeed. Nice face mask. I use a cotton fabric for the front and unbleached muslin for the interior fabric. The muslin is a good fabric for absorbing moisture from breathing. There are some materials that are soooo hard to breath through even though they are 100% cotton. I usually look for a medium weave on the fabric. Your mask is like what I make. Good job! Have a great week.

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  9. Love your minion! The Reyna is a thumbs up! I’ll be putting that on my list and the yarn you are using is lovely. As for dyeing, I know avocadoes do a pinkish beige I think but the seeds and the skin do different colors and I can’t remember which does what. I’m trying to get into natural dyes so I’ve been saving avocado skins and seeds and onion skins. I have berries coming and I’ve been saving beet juice. Good luck!

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  10. Your minion turned out terrific, Liz! Regarding a possible sweater color, I’d think brown would look great with your coloring and eyes. And I from what I can see of the blue top you’re wearing, it appears that navy looks great on you. Reyna is beautiful. What texture! And your masks are terrific! Love that fabric.

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    • I was just thinking today, when I popped the blue t-shirt on, that I don’t have a dark blue cardigan, so I think I will go with dark blue and it’ll go great with jeans hopefully. I really do love my Minion. He is sat looking at me whilst I read everyone’s blogs this evening.

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  11. The minion is uber cute! I love your spinning and I can’t wait to see what colour your dye. I have no suggestions because I have no experience with dying (yet), but so much of my fibre is undyed that I will be learning to colour in the very near future. I love the masks. Well done on finding such a good pattern. Masks aren’t mandatory everywhere here yet, but when we go into buildings we wear ours for sure. I hope you find the perfect outdoor patio restaurant to celebrate your hubby.

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  13. Absolutely lovely projects. I love seeing things knit in handspun. And your Tour de Fleece spinning is looking lovely. I also gravitate towards purple for my jumpers but if I want a good neutral I always like taupe.

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