Acquisitions/Stash Management

When I was knitting my last pair of socks I broke my 2.25mm KnitPro (Knitters Pride) Symphony needles, so I’ve replaced them with their Karbonz needles. I’ve not got far using them yet so jury is still out.

Dyeing

My husband and I spent Friday sorting the garage so I have a dyeing station set up in there. We have used bits of kitchen that Wren had delivered that were wrong and that they wouldn’t take back. Our old microwave is in there too so I may have a go next week dyeing up some fibres and I’ll photograph it then.

Knitting

Jumpers/cardigans

I did a swatch for a jumper…I didn’t get gauge…I cast on some socks…to be continued…

Shawls

My Easy Goes It DK shawl in my handspun baby camel and silk was finished on Monday.  This was the 4th lot of baby camel and silk I’ve spun.  (My 1st batch was used to make the original Easy Goes It shawl.). I chose to make the larger size but overall it’s similar to my original Easy Goes It.  I could have kept going as I have yarn left but I think it’s a good size.  The colours are gorgeous.

It was still drying so showing much darker, but I’ve laid it out with my original. Not too much difference in size really, but both are handspun baby camel and silk (fibre from Coastal Colours).

Socks

I’ve cast on a 2nd pair of socks using the remaining sock blank…I actually have 55g left so will make the same as my other ones and have about 10g left to put into my habitation throw.

Other/household

Having finished my shawl, I was left with only one project on the needles!  That was my Habitation Throw which would be better named Hibernation Throw as its many months (possibly a year) since I last touched it.  Because I have small feet and can get 2 pairs of socks from 100g I don’t have many leftovers to add to the blanket, but I do have a few bits that I have added this week.  This post is photo heavy already so I’ll wait until I’ve added the sock blank scrap in too before I share a pic.

Weaving

Rigid heddle loom

For quite a while I’ve been wanting to weave something with my handspun but kept on procrastinating and not getting on with it.  As I’d just finished, last week, spinning the merino/silk/flax fibre I thought I’d use that yarn.  I did my calculations but I made an error, it was to be 2.1m long and I accidentally measured 2.01m so it’s a bit shorter than planned and I have quite a bit of weft left so it could have been longer. 

Weaving notes: I wove 12 picks (rows) and then did a brooks bouquet pattern and then just plain weave until near the end where I repeated the brooks bouquet and 12 rows.   I had an uneven amount of ends (number of threads in the warp) so that I could use a slot on both edges of the scarf and that made my edges much more even.  (This will make sense to any weavers out there.)

It’s quite a loose weave and with the fibre mix and lightness I think I’d get away with it in summer.  The flax element has softened significantly after the yarn was soaked and then when woven it was soaked again. 

This is my first project where I’ve dyed the fibre, spun it and woven it so I’m pretty pleased with it.

Tapestry weaving

On Saturday I attended the Guild’s tapestry weaving workshop. I started off weaving the dark blue…then decided I wanted a beach scene that would be obvious when turned round. Well now its finished what I thought was going to be sea, white foam, beach and then rocks now looks like a sunrise behind some land! And the blue is sky. What do you see?

It’s not perfect but I’m pleased with the colour blending I achieved and I’ll fill in a few bits where the warp is visible.

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Other News

My goodness this post has ended up like War and Peace. There’ll be no surprise when I say I didn’t have time to do anything else this week. Have a good Easter if you celebrate it.

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This is a Year of Projects post.  Officially the Group is in its 12th year, but this is my 5th year participating.  If you would like to find more about the Year of Projects Group on Ravelry. 

Year 12 list.