Wednesday, May 20, 2009

Knit / spin / shop - pic heavy


Long time no blog! Apologies, I've had some health issues recently. I still haven't sorted them but have gotten to the stage where I have to suck it up and carry on regardless.

Whats been happenning? Well, planning for Ravelry events at Bendigo Sheep and Wool Show has taken up alot of my time. Organisation actually takes freaking ages, and loads of effort. Would be easier if everyone else operated to my schedule, but living in the real world means that expecting that is just rampantly stupid. 

There has been spinning, and knitting, and plenty of both really. 
First, Fibre! I can flash both of these recent purchases now, as it isn't spoiling anything. The most recent fibre club arrived this morning and as much as I adore it and love it, I can't post pics because I don't want to spoil anything for anyone. However I have pics of last months, so I can share them. 
Last months fibre flub is a bamboo / polwarth blend, colourway 'Canopy'. It's goorgeous, deep and dark and so soft. I am a huge fan of Polwarth anything, it would have to be my favourite fibre to spin with. 

This one is machine washable merino in the colourway 'Sugar Candy'. It's not my usual style I know, but I had such fun spinning the stuff below and loved the resulting yarn so much I thought I would break out and get something with ~gasp~ PINK in it. It's very smooshy.

This is a spin I don't have the pics of the fibre. Given to me as a gift around christmas time, it's a merino fibre, an old one from when Mandie at EGMTK first started dyeing. It spun up into a worsted weight type yarn, with plenty of barber poling and was unbelievably bouncy and squishy.

I can't lay claim to being the knitter who knit it up into this cute hat, that was my friend Helen, but I can lay claim to spinning the yarn and producing the gorgeous one modeling (and keeping) the beanie :)

Last spin for this blog update is called 'Desert Moon'. It's a Navajo 4 - ply with one of the plies being a variegated rayon thread flowing from deep gold to chocolate brown. It's quite fine, and really deep in colour. The fibre I started with:

A Blue Faced Leicester fibre, also one of my faves.

And the resulting spun. 15 WPI, 3 ply or light fingering weight, and 218 metres.

And now, the knitting.






From top to bottom: 
*A pair of little fingerless mitts for Miss Chaos, made from some left over Colinette Jitterbug sock yarn. So cute.
*A pair of 8 ply / DK weight socks for the Big Mac, knit from the new Bendigo Woollen Mills 'Luxury' yarn. I love this yarn. Machine washable, very soft, and doesn't pill anywhere near as much as I thought it would.
*And lastly a 'Hurricane Hat' beanie for my sister in laws mum, a lovely lady. It is knit from the 8 ply 'Luxury' as well, with some Moda Vera 'Picchio' merino / silk in there too.
Currently I am working on - a matching scarf for the hat in the Moda Vera Picchio, and a 'Wicked' jumper for myself in the 10 ply 'Luxury' yarn. Both are coming along nicely! I would say I am perhaps 3/4 of the way through the jumper, and halfway through the scarf.

That's all for now, proper update with actual life content soon, I promise. For now it's a sunny day, great for hanging washing out, so I had best go and do exactly that!