Saturday, June 7, 2008

Put a spin on it....

Brrr. Old man winter has certainly arrived in our part of the world. More frequently lately the overnight temperatures are dropping to 0 degrees or below, and we have had plenty of our usual frosty mornings.

It is lucky then that I have finally knit big Mac a pair of his own thick 100% wool socks, which he loves. He rarely takes them off and I must say I am pretty happy with them. Here is his massive clodhoppers in his 'Thuja' socks


I also finished another pair for myself. These are 'Pomatomus' socks, by CookieA, knit in cashmerino from The Knittery which was purchased with a gift voucher mum and dad got me for my birthday. It was a tricky knit, that hurt my hands with all the knitting through the back loop, and I stuffed the first sock and had to re-start repeatedly. Once everything was said and done though, they look great, and are deliciously soft and fuzzy.


And lastly, I am finally starting to churn stuff from my spinning wheel that LOOKS and FEELS just like.. *gasp* yarn!
It took me a few goes on a the spinning wheel to get the right feel for it, and after a couple of yummy efforts, things then would fall apart. I've learned a lot from this. Mainly - don;t keep spinning if it doesn't feel right, blaming yourself for being shite and hoping it gets better - DO actually attempt to adjust the tension lol. And secondly - oil the wheel regularly. I had an issue last night with constant backspinning, and a hard to treadle wheel, which was making me increasingly frustrated. Until I realised I had not oiled it since I got it. A little bit of oil later and she span like a dream all over again. 

Thus far here is my pride and joy, from roving, through to yarn, through to a finished object.
Firstly, the roving. This is what I received for the first months installment of the Ewe Give Me The Knits mixed bag fibre club. It is 100% BFL, labeled as 130grams +, in a colourway she calls 'Happy Hippie'. Appropriate name, no?


From there, I divided it in half, and used half of it to spin a single ply at a DK / 8ply weight yarn. It's a little thick and thin in parts, but overall I was pretty happy with the level of evenness it spun at. I got 113 metres from it! Only HALF of that roving!!!! It had such sheen and was so very soft.


As tempted as I was to keep it a pet and just pat it every so often, my wee Chaos girl took quite a shine to it, and colours looked lovely against her ever so pale skin. So, I started knitting. a little contrasting plain 8 ply and some crochet flowers I had sitting about (thanks Sue!)  and we have a cute wee hat wich will see her through this winter, and hopefully the next too. She's too cute, and I love the hat - so pleased with how it turned out.


She looks like butter wouldn't melt in her mouth, doesn't she?
We are still not speaking of the incident earlier in the week where both Miss Chaos and Master Mayhem broke into my craft room and my stash.. and then Master Mayhem proceeded to pain and wipe and smear with something that came out of his nappy. I'm sure one day in the distnat future I will laugh about it, but at this stage I can barely speak about it. Mac and I were smart though - we went out on the same day and bought latch locks for the top of the door.

And Finally - we are getting closer and closer to the Bendigo Sheep and Wool Show! Very excited!  However if you were hoping to pop along to the BBQ brekkie on the Saturday, we are very close to reaching capacity for the event - so if you want to come along, get your skates on and get RSVP'ing!





2 comments:

woolie wombat said...

Mhah mwah bwah ha ha I'll be there for the Bendigo Show, and pebbles looks a real darlin'- regards ww

Anonymous said...

OH Pebbles is a doll, and the hat is gorgeous. Mmm Jealous 101

Is Bam bam still in the naughty corner.

My goodness!