Acquisitions/Collection Curation

Whilst my husband and I were in Edinburgh last weekend, I really felt the benefit of my chunky New Lanark yarn jumper.  Can you tell where this story is headed? Yep I’ve ordered a jumper quantity of the chunky yarn in the colour Cherry and New Natural. (They’ve stopped producing new yarn remember.)

Whilst browsing I saw they had 1kg of Aran weight yarn in a marled colour (ecru and sandstone). I showed my husband some projects others had made in the yarn and asked if he would wear a jumper in that colour and he said yes.  So I ordered that too.  It’s less than a 1/3rd of their normal price!  Bargain.  I’ll have to get him to look at some patterns next.  It’s not arrived yet so no photos.

In other news, I exported from Excel the spreadsheet on my existing yarn stash and it shows my “remaining total metres” is far less than my calculations have been!  I am therefore doing an adjustment to my own spreadsheet to match it.  The good news is I have 5.5 miles less yarn than I’d thought!  So including the new yarns I just bought I have only 53.5 miles of yarn! 

Knitting

Socks

I finished my DK socks.  Roughly Deb’s Super Simple DK sock pattern, except I did 3×1 rib and tweaked the toe.  The yarn is West Yorkshire Spinners ColourLab in Rock.

Sewing

I had a go at using my first tablet woven band (which had some errors) to make a belt.  I had some fittings from a belt that no longer fitted and used denim thread and sewing machine needle.  My sewing machine was unimpressed, mostly because I use it so rarely and forget to oil it.  I used some tacky glue on the ends as well to stop fraying.

For a first attempt I think it’s okay and it will always likely be hidden by a jumper anyway.  I wore it when I walked to work on Wednesday and it works 😀

Spinning

January is our Guild’s Spinning Challenge.  In preparation for this I finished plying the Polwarth and Bamboo. 

On Monday’s call I spun and plied Advent Day 19, on Thursday Day 10.  On Saturday afternoon I’ve spun Day 17 but it’s not plied yet so I’ll show next week.

---

Other News

We had a fabulous long weekend in Edinburgh.  We stayed in the Malmaison in Leith, just east of the city centre and a cheap tram ride away from the city centre.  We used our Tesco Clubcard points to pay for the hotel, just had to pay tax and fees so less than £55 for 3 nights stay!  We opted for no housekeeping and got 4 x £7 off drinks vouchers!  The meal in the hotel was fabulous. 

We went to Edinburgh Zoo, had a look around the shops and Christmas market and a visit to IKEA on our way home.  We had some lovely meals and drinks in Leith too.  A really relaxing break and highly recommend Leith.  Its transformed since the last time I was there in 2002, when it was derelict.  The Royal Yacht Britannia is there so you can also tour that, I’ve done that before.

---

This is a Year of Projects post. Officially the Group is in its 14th year, but this is my 7th year participating. If you would like to find more about the Year of Projects Group on Ravelry, as you’d be very welcome to join us.

Year 14 list.