Scottish Spinner

New start

2006-07-02T12:58:00.000-07:00

After having messed up the blog replacing the templates, I acted upon a brainwave from himself & decided that in honor of moving to fair isle i would start up a replacement blog & also a dedicated blog ring for fair isle knitters

Bog updates from here on in can be found here

well that was good huh

2006-07-01T23:13:00.000-07:00

Thought id revamp the blog a bit with a new template, but didnt stop to think that id loose all my ring codes & cant remember the ringsurf logg in details to replace the code, looks like i'll be rejoining a few lol

Mumblings

2006-07-01T22:32:00.000-07:00

Spent yesterday in Aberdeen suffering in the heat. Collected the now serviced boat engine, dropped our eldest off at my folks where she is staying for a week of sillyness & shopping with her Gran, then headed to hubbys folks mid afternoon as we were due to attend a BBQ at 5.30pm in the village, got there to find out it had been put back to 6pm, so figured thats ok, we'll head home at 7.30 instead of 7pm cos the lil uns had had a long day, were both tired & had had more than enough heat for one day. Anyhoo the bbq ended up not starting till near 7pm due to himselfs sister being her usual over late & we didnt get home till 9.30, which meant the lil uns werent in bed till 10pm, over tired & no doubt theyre gonna be real cranky today.

But, it made us put our head together & decided to merge the 2 planned bbq's for july into just one big bbq & make things easier for the lil uns to cope with & easier for us not loosing packing time too. So instead we shall be having one super huge bbq which is mostly for neighbours & other folks in our street & very close friends.

Picked up some watercolour pencils in the city so am now, at 6am, playing with colours on the sweater designs, progress is good !

Rain

2006-06-30T17:02:00.000-07:00

how can you endure rain in scotland with temps of 68f outside... It just hasnt happened before here, it was raining hard yet there were clouds of steam errupting from any concrete/tar surface where the rain laid & inside it was clammy & muggy as heck.

Todays total 9 boxes , the kitchen is now stripped down to, well, put it this way, salads for 5 weeks with the addition of new potatoes if im in a good mood, i left only the potatoe pan in the kitchen.

Now starts the endless round of good bye bbq's, the first is saterday, then 3 more before the end of july, or, every weekend until we move we have a bbq to attend.

Didnt knit anything today, far to muggy to even think about.

5 weeks & I'm flagging

2006-06-29T14:24:00.000-07:00

This heat has put us way behind on the amount of packing we wanted to get done before the kids break for summer holls tomorrow, this means all the more packing to be done in a house full of teen kids + friends... wonder if i could get them all wrapping crockery for a few days !

Really really really hot today 85f (which is well hot for here) the lil kids just would not come inside even for 10 mins & get out of the heat, so in after lunch time opted to doddle round to grannys which is 5 mins walk away & go play on the beach there which has a freshwater stream running into it & is always really cool, spent 10 mins throwing bucket's of water over the kids with them screaming out for more mummy more ! Think they really enjoyed the chance to cool down.

Did get 2 boxes packed today, started on the linen closet & also packed a box full of misc coats & jackets that seamed to fill the hangers in the hall way.

Got my 6 sweaters design'd by 3am this morning, slept for 4 hrs then at breakie went looking for the pencils to start playing with colour theme's & guess what, ive only been so organised in packing the studio that ive packed all the pencils too, ner mind, going into city on saterday to drop eldest daughter off for a week with my folks & will pop down to the art store & pick up another pack of watercolour pencils (need them to be blendable in order to get hue )

5 weeks & 1 day to go

2006-06-28T12:57:00.000-07:00

The weather continues to be cruel, it is simply far to hot to be inside packing boxes at the moment... thus we did a grand total of 1 box today, although it was a somewhat large box.... Instead we decided to hop out in search of icecream & some shade for a few hrs but after taking the lil uns to local cafe for icecream we ended up having a paddle on the beach which was much cooler than shade would have been.

Got the first sock up past the gusset decreases while sat on the beach & the lil uns splashed away in a shallow rock pool, its coming along albeit somewhat slowly.

Last night i started designing some fair isle sweaters to work on once we get up to fair isle, these will be 100% hand knit & sold through the islands co-op, im only designing 6 to do over the long winter, but want to get the designs & colours organised so i can get my list sorted out for yarn shopping, ill be having a day in lerwick (between flight run arround for a few hrs) picking up things which we need & didnt think to take (no doubt there will be something) & popping into jamiesons of shetland to match up colours & buy enough yarn for all the sweaters as travel to lerwick in the depths of winter is totaly dependant on the weather & getting back to fair isle in the same day cannot be guarantee'd.

5 weeks & 2 days to go

2006-06-27T14:34:00.000-07:00

Spent this evening surrounded in wine & beer boxes.................. All of them empty im afraid. Books, not a good word in this house at the moment considering there are thousands of books, we're having to be seriously dissaplined here & only take those which we feel we 100% must take, so tonight I packed up 99% of the knitting books leaving out the sock books since im only knitting socks at the moment & really dont want to knit the same pattern over & over. Quilting books are all packed, 5 yrs of quilting & knitting mags are packed (no way are they being left behind !) and ive started on the shelves of cook books (i collect pre 1900 cook books and have a fair few) & i packed my music & score books/sheets, which all in all meant another 15 boxes got packed tonight, not a bad going, once we get past the books we are pretty much over the worst stage & finished with all the extra's over & above day to day living equipment, but its still stressfull just finding space to stack all the packed boxes without them being in the way. My studio area is now totaly packed up & filled with packed boxes.

We've started working some lobster pots, our neighbours have planned a big street party/bbq for our leaving and also to allow us to celebrate our neighbours husbands 60th birthday, he isnt 60 until feb 07 but we decided he could be 60 for a day in august just so we dont miss out celebrating him with it, but our one rule was that we provide our usual bucket of 20 lobsters to the bbq, so hubby has just been out & set 20 creels to work this week.

I started ferry shopping for the lil girls today whilst we were grocery shopping, im a lil worried that with the excitement of moving house & having to take a big boat & an airplane, this might prove to be a rather sleepless night for them on the ferry up to lerwick, and having checked out the kids play area aboard the big ferry, there just isnt anything to keep kids amused for more than 5 mins, so we are filling a pack with colouring books, crayons, jigsaws, snap cards etc etc to amuse them all night if need be & if its a nice night out we'll prob spend a lot of time up on the top deck reading books & watching the world pass us by, im not going to insist on any bedtime during the overnight trip, if they nap, fine, if they dont, fine, tis a sad person whom curtails a childs excitment.

Anyhoo, back to the socks, lichen rib socks from knitting vintage socks in handspun polworth/alpaca blend dyed blues & greens hope to have the first sock finished tomorrow.

5 weeks & 3 days to go

2006-06-26T14:39:00.000-07:00

Till we leave to begin new life on Fair Isle. The packing is going well, empty & full boxes are now taking over the houses causing general chaos & mayhem but its all on track to be pretty much 99% done by the final week.

The puter im still worried about, its just not sounding good at all, im thinking we have various hardware failures about to happen but we cant afford to do nout about it till early next year, to many expenses with moving & equiping the croft on fair isle once we get there.

Home again

2006-06-25T15:46:00.000-07:00

Mother had a terrific 60th birthday/retiral party, there were 10 of us all together & what a laugh we had, i even endured mother draggin me down the shops on saterday am to ensure i bought myself a new outfit & kinky new shoes (wont do for chasing sheep on fair isle..) but suffice to say that i felt somewhat wierd going out all dressed after years of jeans & sneakers + old shabby sweater, but also felt rather good cos dang it , i knew i looked good.

Puter, well, it works, its not 100% but we're moving so we cant do the much needed new puter thing at the moment.

Glad to be home, even if it was with a van full of empty boxes & packing tape that i arrived home with.

Elizabeth, even in a week, bloody hell she's grown !! & &&& she laughs now, great big deep bubbly baby chortles, yes Antie played peek a boo with the floor mat & had babes giving it big deep belly laughs, really gonna miss this kiddo, but my brother has gotton mom & dad a puter & all that goes with it for mom's retiral/birthday so have to go in next weekend & teach the oldies how to send pics over email so i can get weekly updates on babes. just hope our puter holds out long enough.

Bloody tech bits

2006-06-23T08:35:00.000-07:00

The puter died of god alone knows what a few days ago & after waiting 3 days for the brother in law to show up & put it to rights, i had a go myself & well, its working, but i dont know for how long, its not making a very healthy noise, just have to hope it holds out until we get settled up on fairisle & can maby afford to by a much needed replacement.

Anyhoo, away for a few days, my mom is 60 today & tomorrow we're having an all girl bash on the town.

2006-06-17T13:31:00.000-07:00

You can see im not the only one who simple adores Elizabeth, Amber is pretty much besotted with her too. Leaving to go home today was really hard, this could well be the last time we'll see Elizabeth before we move due to the rest of the family having holiday time between now & then,so as you can imagine, it was pretty hard for all of us to tear ourselves away from her, im sure she was a tad unamused with all the fuss we made of her, she simply wont understand that she's the one person we will be missing the most when we leave.

2006-06-17T13:27:00.000-07:00

This morning we headed off into Aberdeen to take our main outboard engin in for a service & to pop up & visit mom, esp as she had this wee cutie for the weekend. This is my niece Elizabeth, who's now 13 weeks old & utterly adorable, i pretty much scooped her up as soon as we arrived & did not give her up until it was time for us to go home

melting ..

2006-06-15T14:57:00.000-07:00

Boyo was it ever hot here today !

Spent a good part of the day on the beach with the lil uns as it was the only place where a cool breeze could be had, not to mention lovely cool water to play in.

Still spinning away on the fleece i brought home from Fair Isle. Into the 2nd lb of fibre now, its such a fine fine spin that it takes almost forever to fill up a bobbin, im thinking its going to have to be done as a 3 or even 4ply to make a knitting yarn out of it (yess, im passing it up as lace cos we have plenty of that at the moment & no time to concentrate on another shawl) and that might only be weight enough for socks or mittens ! Im going to have to teach myself how to spin slightly thicker again !

Finished the alpaca socks while sitting outside this afternoon ! Thats the first pair of socks ever thats taken me more than 2 days to finish ! So im guessing we wont be doing any large projects until after we move, to the point that im thinking ill pack up all the knitting stash barring a few balls of wildfoot for some turkish socks & just concentrate on getting some spinning done when ever i can sit for 5 mins or more.

Tears, skint knee's & icecream

2006-06-14T13:22:00.000-07:00

Today has been a very tearfull day for the lil uns.

At 10am this morning Buddy's new owners arrived to collect him, he's going to begin a new life as a working spaniel with a local man who does gamekeeper work & regularly beats for local phesant hunting. Buddy has previously lived the same kind of life so he outa really enjoy the stimulation & exercise once again, but it was pretty upsetting for the lil 2, they kind of understood that Fair Isle is just not the kind of island that we could take Buddy to, we'd be worried non stop about him running off on a personal bunny chance & perhaps worrying the lambs as part of that chase & they are happy that he's going to a very good home which is still beside a beach & meaning that Buddy will still get his swim every day.

After the trials of that, once we had the tears all mopped up & a bit of a smile again, the lil 2 decided to go play out in the yard, where on opening the door Amber tripped on the damp trap rail & skint her knee. So we washed, plastered & mopped up & had the brilliant idea to head to the local cafe for a special icecream with double sauce & wafers, which turned out to be a very good idea, skint knee forgotton about instantly.

Almost finished socks that im working on. Cannot belive that its take me almost a week to rattle off a pair of alpaca socks ! 1 week !! this packing & organising has a lot to answer for !

Getting ourselves into orgainised mode

2006-06-13T14:17:00.000-07:00

Slowly....

Well ,saying that, today we got confirmation from the removals guy that he can do the 4th of august, which gets us to lerwick on the 5th on time for the saterday ferry to fair isle & the saterday flight (lil 2 & me, dont want to risk them getting seasick on theyre first crossing when its meant to be a day of adventure & excitment)

So the vans booked, the ferrys are all booked, the flights are booked.
The packing has now officaly started ! Yesterday & today hubby & I had a good clearout in the utility shed &&& ready for this..... I gave away 4 fleece's that im just not going to have time to wash ! Yes it hurt lol & we achived a fair pile of boxes packed with items we do not use on a daily basis.

Now it feels like we're moving !!

The Downside to moving

2006-06-12T16:01:00.000-07:00

Yes, there is one..

Buddy.

The 3yr old springer whom we agree'd to adopt in a bit of a hurry a few months back after his elderly owner suffered a very disabling stroke.

Fair Isle is not a place we can bring him too, Buddy came to us with many many problems, we quickly came to the conclusion from his behaviour that he'd spent most of his 3yrs being his own boss, he'd never been walked on a lead, didnt always recall when called, was a total pain in the **** if there was food on the table & was & still is if not watched, prone to running off & ignoring all calls to recall.

We cannot therefore, feel safe enough to trust & guarantee that he will not take off over the fields chasing bunnies & stressing ewes , so we have contacted a specialist rehoming centre to try and find buddy a new home , preferably with a single person or somone with older kids as he is very biostrious & naughty, hopefully someone perfect for him will come along who has the time & lifestyle that can afford him a total one to one re-train, which is not something that you can do with 4 kids on the go.

Baaaaaaa

2006-06-12T15:35:00.000-07:00

Ive been having a much promised sheep day today, doing & reading all things sheepy. Because we will be with stock pretty much as soon as we are in the house, ive been updating myself on the latest treatments for such ailments as flystrike, foot rot, worm burden etc etc & making a nice long list for an upcoming visit to local large animal vet place for some shopping so that we can go on the island with our kit already to have set within locked closet in the shed, will also pick up the bits & pieces we'll need for the lambing kit next year at the same time.

Still looking into what romantic pairings the sheep will get should they still be pre tupping when we get there, its not an easy decission to make, so many different factors to take into consideration, suffolk are notoriously bad lambers, texels have a reputation for throwing huge ram lambs, so texel suffolk could prove a big & costly mistake ( yes, like it or not, we have to think ecconomics here, much as we will get to know our sheep through daily monitoring, they are still either food or a source of income)

Being half way into the fleece i took home, i can say that i am really keep on the suffolk to shetland cross based on fibre worth, shetlands being smaller this might be an easier & smaller lamb for suffolks to cope with reducing the need for assisted lambing, times like this that I wish our old shepherd Norman was still on the go, he'd know what to go for. Im sure, with him being the one that put the sheep in me while we lived on the farm, that where ever his spirit resides, he's got a smile on his face knowing that as he proclaimed i would in later years, im going back to sheep lol.

My life is now a cardboard box & packing tape

2006-06-10T15:18:00.000-07:00

Things are now starting to sink in & settle down though we continue to feel humbled at being selected out of over 800 applications to rent the croft.

The empty boxes for packing are starting to mount up now, local shops & neighbours are more than happy to add to the ever increasing pile.

This weekend life was an endless round of reading material.. DEFRA ... or the Department of Enviromental, Food & Rural agency legislation covering flock books, stock numbers, farm numbers, stock medicine records, scrapie testing, pour-ons, lambing records etc etc, after a good bit of hunting we located where to buy the needed books from & got them on order, these we have to have orgainsed pre-move as we will poss take on some of the sheep which are currently attached to the croft land & use these to fill the freezers with & maby even find one thats worth future breeding.

As to what kids of sheep we're going to have, well, here's where it gets a bit complex. Crofts on the island have grazing rights for various numbers in various different places on the island.
On the northern hill grazing we have rights to something between 6 & 12 pure shetland ewes with lambs. A wee bit behind the croft there is a common grazing area to which our croft has rights to 5 ewes with lambs & then we have our 5 acre's yo/yo between grazing & winter fodder.

The sheep on the lower common grazing area's & on crofts actual acre's tend to be of a softer & more commerical breeding than the pure shetlands, we spotted suffolk, cheviot & texel during our walkabout & various crosses involving these breeds & the shetlands.

The hill bred shetlands tend to be bred just to provide lamb for the freezers & fleece to sell (darned tasty lamb it is too & it makes a good mutton in later years) Lower grazing & acre grazing animals tend to be those to produce lamb for the sales, hence the heavier commerical breeds - more hope of making a good £ at market.

We took home with us a suffolk x shetland fleece which had been shorn that day & has now been washed & carded & ive half filled a bobbin, seems to be a good cross from a fleece point of view, its lovely & soft with a mid length staple & retains the finess of the hill bred shetland, something to look more into once we get up there & have more time to field walk with note book looking closely at other crofts flocks & going over the £ this years lambs reached at market this month.
The suffolk x shetland might be a good cross to keep wethers going till 3yr olds & gain 2 good weights of fleece from before consigning them to the freezer as good sized family hot pots & taco mince.

We're also getting a flock number for cows purely for freezer reasons & garden fertilizer thats always a handy bi-product, the natural shetland cow is a small & stockier cow, very amiable & good meat if allowed to mature at a natural pace.

Other news, Ive finaly started to get to grips with my bodhran & loving it now that ive gotton over the fiert to hit it bit, brilliant stress relief it is too, when the organsing for packing gets on top of me I just go beat out a reel incorporating a few trebles to get me concentrating again & the stress just ooozes away.

2006-06-08T13:52:00.000-07:00

In a mere 7weeks time, this will become our new home on the isle of Fair Isle

2006-06-08T13:49:00.000-07:00

2 miles out, looking back at the Island

2006-06-08T13:45:00.000-07:00

Leaving Fair Isle from North Harbour, 7.30 am, the sun still shone for us & another very calm crossing

2006-06-08T13:44:00.000-07:00

Getting ready to leave Fair Isle & head home to make arrangements for our next trip up in 7 weeks, when take the Good Shepherd & begin our lives as Islanders. Pictured along side Darren (the O.H) is Stewart, retired minister, who was our guide, taxi on arrival & leaving, and made us a rare pot of neck of fair isle lamb soup, which he had ready at the puffin for our arrival. Stewart, like everyone else we met on Fair Isle, was a wonderfull person & so welcoming. He also invited us to a lunch of roast Fair Isle hill lamb on monday afternoon.

2006-06-08T13:40:00.000-07:00

The Puffin !. This is the bothy owned by the National Trust for Scotland, situated at south harbour, this is where we stayed for our 5 days on Fair Isle, basic, yet very comfortable.

2006-06-08T13:38:00.000-07:00

Proving that you can spin on just about anything.... Cast shetland wool spun on a wooden spoon drop spindle, yes , that is one heck of a suntouched face i had, 2 days later & im as brown as boot polish

2006-06-08T13:36:00.000-07:00

Cliff face smothered in sea thrift

2006-06-08T13:35:00.000-07:00

more puffins enjoy some afternoon sunshine outside theyre nesting holes

2006-06-08T13:29:00.000-07:00

The cliffs all arround the island are bustling with nesting seabirds, here we have fulmers & puffins

2006-06-08T13:24:00.000-07:00

Looking down towards south lighthouse, the last lighthouse in Scotland to become fully automated, the last lighthouse keeper still lives on the island.

2006-06-08T13:22:00.000-07:00

Again from the highest point on the south side, this time looking to the middle of the croft area & our soon to be new house in the middle of the picture

2006-06-08T13:18:00.000-07:00

From the highest point on the south end of the island, looking down into the left side of the valley on which the croft land is situated

2006-06-08T13:15:00.000-07:00

One of the many rocky coves that make up the coast line of Fair Isle

2006-06-08T13:11:00.000-07:00

Waiting at grutness pier for the Fair Isle bound ferry The Good Shepherd to arrive.

2006-06-08T13:08:00.000-07:00

About to berth at lerwick, Yes Lerwick is every bit as dour & dismal as it looks, but it does have both the jamisons stores there... ok, so I did a short visit just to collect the new colour cards & have a look round

2006-06-08T13:06:00.000-07:00

All aboard the ferry leaving Aberdeen bound for Shetland, sun shone & the wind warm

Hom,e, home on the range..

2006-06-08T12:52:00.000-07:00

Excuse my non appearance, things got more than a tad haywire here these past 10 weeks, what with mother in law having a stroke & being ill, my eldest daughter whom i havent seen in 14 yrs getting in touch & us dashing off to Fair Isle for a visit, its been crazy.

But its starting to kind of settle, well, as best as settle can be when your moving in 7 weeks..... To Fair Isle !!!!!! yes, we recived our offical invite to become Fair Isle's latest crofters at 11.15pm on monday evening (monday was rather busy) & we immediatly accepted.

Will post some of our fair isle pics after this post.

And i want to thank everyone who sent messages of support when things became more than a tad emotional for me.

now here's to catching up & getting back on track.

Intermission

2006-04-29T17:02:00.000-07:00

The wife is currently having a very emotional re-union with someone very close to her heart & begs forgiveness while she takes time out to do what has to be done & enjoy's catching up on 14 long years of missing this person.

No doubt she'll tell you all about it when she is good n ready.

Himself clocking out now.

Slightly Rested

2006-04-22T16:23:00.000-07:00

Nothing beats a couple of long slow days to get one feeling back in sorts again.

They were not, however, without mishap. Sister & brother in law moved back up this way last week after leaving the army & came to visit on saterday with theyre son, who at that moment was mid streaming bad cold with the full on nose thang... few days later, what happens to my kids.. Am I the only person left in the world who does not go visit if the kids are ill ?

We have been doing a little spinning, mostly from the box of odd batts, those made up in pursuit of the perfect blend, or dye theme etc, empty's a crate & provides the works for an interesting scarf or 3 over the winter.

The front of Durrow is complete ! Back started and almost at the 2nd cable change.

Slack Times

2006-04-13T16:09:00.000-07:00

Going from the emails ive had, more than a few are wondering whats happened to my working on Durrow.

Well you see, Durrow has had to take a temp back seat for a while, hubbys mom had a stroke last week & has been in hospital since & with all that going on, the non stop phone ringing asking after her, collecting her mail & general errands I havent been able to concentrate much on durrow, opting instead for short bursts of concentrated energy on socks instead.

Hopefully now that she is coming home, things will resume some state of normal living, im going to allow myself a couple of semi slack days, Note, im not a do nothing person hence the semi lol. Ill plan a few sweaters rather than knit for a day or two, try & chill, having to be the one who does all when things go wrong has left my stress levels someone awry & sleep is almost becoming a thing of the past. Time to molly back into some sort of routine again & try prepare myself for the upcoming torture of the kids summer holidays, the annual invasion of many teenagers on a daily basis, each of whom lives only to swim/play xbox & see me making sandwhiches all day in an attempt to stave off hunger in a never ending stream other folks kids.

Love summer, but its just so danged tiring.

Ive had this constant headache for 6 days now, which finaly gave in to ibupofen today, I think it was just due to worrying about mom in law & all the other worries that go hand in hand with stroke patients, but the leaving of the headache left me feeling so washed out & lifeless that at the moment I dont feel all that good for anything at all.

I shalt take sollace over the weekend & seek to charge the batteries of the soul once more.

2006-04-12T16:52:00.000-07:00

We have become master of the much feared Toe up sock ! Easy Toe from sensational knitted socks, with short row heel shaping, not sure if ill do any more using toe up other than this pair, im a tad more than unimpressed with the shaping of toe up socks, they just dont look so good as cuff down socks. Other than that, we're almost finished washing the pale moorit corriedale, have all my alpaca now de-tangled after washing and ready to start the blending, test blend went perfect, this should spin into a yarn which will give lovely drape when knitted. Pulled out a bunch of rovings to start pre-drafting today so as to get another batch of sock yarns done, im fair using them up at the moment, think i need a bit of a sock break to build the stash back up since i swapped all the opal yarns and have used a lot of the knitpick yarns these past weeks, dont like seeing that drawer so empty !

Rambles

2006-04-10T16:52:00.000-07:00

I decided today, because I wanted to blend the blonde corrie that I was washing with alpaca, to wash said alpaca..... Not a very good idea ! It instant turns to mush as soon as the collander is lowered into the warm & only ever so slightly soapy water.... We shant be doing that again.. I shalt blend whislt keeping in mind, that the alpaca, whilst dusty, shalt be a smidgen lighter than it shall be once the resulting spun yarn is washed. So when the washed alpaca is dry, we shalt spend however many hrs it takes to tease it out enough for carding .

I finished putting together my last package for my knitty sp6 today, really hope she likes it, i think i got the colours just perfect for her.

The weather here is wierd at teh moment, one day we're basking, outside in T's, and the next day its -5 and out come the gloves & boots again as the snow heaves down.

2006-04-10T16:07:00.000-07:00

My companion for today. Liquid soap made by dissolving lux soap flakes in hot water + 2 dessert spoons of washing soda added to a sink of roasting hot water... Any guesses what I was doing... It involved a blonde, blonde corriedale that is.

2006-04-10T16:06:00.000-07:00

Picked out some of this, flicked the really bad locks and then did

2006-04-10T16:05:00.001-07:00

Lots of This

2006-04-10T16:05:00.000-07:00

The sock has reached the status of being no more than 12 rounds from finished, i stopped in favour of coffee then bed.

2006-04-09T16:06:00.001-07:00

These got finished today, Knitpicks sock garden with Sirdar town & country on the cuff, heel & toe

2006-04-09T16:06:00.000-07:00

Also finished this sock, its a lace pattern from sensational knitted socks, just needs its match now

2006-04-09T16:05:00.000-07:00

Socks I just started using fortisima cotton , got as far as the rib, pattern, if there will be any, is undecided as yet.

2006-04-09T16:04:00.000-07:00

Opened this box which arrived yesterday & got set down & forgotton about, its this years shear of corriedale fleece from Olwen Veevers.

2006-04-09T16:03:00.001-07:00

whole fleece of grey corriedale

2006-04-09T16:03:00.000-07:00

1/2 fleece of white corriedale

2006-04-09T16:02:00.000-07:00

1/2 fleece of light moorit corriedale

2006-04-08T12:21:00.000-07:00

Browns, yellows and what hid at the bottom of one of the big boxes... 4ply, 3ply. lace, cotton, linen & also some hemp... Still 4 boxes to go through but for the moment, as they are all full of unused cones, they are going straight to the atic into the Ready to move pile.

2006-04-08T12:19:00.001-07:00

Red/wines........... 4ply, 3ply & some wine lace

2006-04-08T12:19:00.000-07:00

Whites & creams. 4ply / 3ply, the creams are all cottons and there be some laceweight cotton also

2006-04-08T12:18:00.001-07:00

The blacks & greys, 4ply, 3ply, lace, cotton, linen

2006-04-08T12:18:00.000-07:00

The greens... 3ply/ 4ply, cotton & mohair also

2006-04-08T12:17:00.001-07:00

The blues.... Mostly 4ply with some lace & cotton

2006-04-08T12:17:00.000-07:00

The purples, again lace, 3ply & 4ply, also some linen in here too

2006-04-08T12:16:00.000-07:00

So, the yarn that came via the add in the free adds paper. Well, we went, we collected, and we came home with a rather full trunk.... This is the Pinks. there be lace, 3ply & 4ply

Yay for freeadds !

2006-04-07T17:31:00.000-07:00

Placed an add in the local free adds paper last week looking for books/patterns/punchcards/coned yarns for the knitting machine, thinking that there used to be a huge number of machine knitters here, perhaps some who have given up might still have some kit handy that they would relish the chance to sell.

Sooo, tomorrow (saterday) we have a bit of a drive to go collect near on 100 cones of yarns, patterns, punchcards, books and other stuff, the yarn is all 100% natural fibres too !

Up for Trade

2006-04-05T13:42:00.000-07:00

I have the following fleece up for trade.

Firstly let me just say, that with regards to fibre, i really am a fussy bitch. My fleece's all come from breeders who breed for fleece quality, many of the sheep who's jackets I have, have spent the year in rather nice jackets to keep theyre fleece as clean and as free from vm as possible, If I do not like a fleece, I send it back, or if having washed it & take a dislike to it during sample spinning, it ends up mulching the garden or shading the roots of my clematis over the summer.

As to what Id swap for.

Id do a lb for lb for fibre thats hard to get in the uk ie, targee, cormo, bond, CVM, churro, fin or..

Id swap for self coloured sock yarns or cotton yarns.

Knitting mags that we dont get here in the uk, patterns.

So whats for offer.

Hebridean

There are 2 fleece's available, both split into 2 lots approx 1.5 lb of fibre each. Dark brown/black to carmel gold at the tips, staple length 3.5 to 5in, medium soft ie soft enough for an outdoor sweater & can be blended with something fine to use for next to skin garments (I have blended this with alpaca 50/50 and made super cosy boot socks that are very comfy)

Llanwenog

2 x 1lb bags of fleece. Lovely soft crisp creamy white fleece. Makes a super sweater yarn, gloves, scarf, sock, laceweight. Staple of approx 3 to 3.5 in very easy spun.

Black Welsh Mountain

3 x 1lb bags of fleece. Crisp clean black fleece with a staple of approx 3in, moderate softness , makes a fantastic yarn which makes caples spring out, also blends well with finer fabrics lending itself to finer use. My husband has sweaters made of black welsh blended with hebridean which he uses at work in the winter, he is a builder, the yarn proves its worth wear wise.

If your interested in any leave a comment & it will be on a first come first serve basis, but do note that I wont be mailing packages out till mid next week due to time comitments.

Fibre fun

2006-04-03T14:59:00.000-07:00

Ok, so I admit it, i have a bit of a fibre hoard, but, it aint half as bad as it was at shearing time last june, since then ive spun up over 10 fleece's & a heist of rovings, of which most have been converted into either sweaters, hats, gloves, scarfs or socks.

I do tend to spin a lot.

Here's a run down of how I work.

Saterday Am. I get up extra early 5.30 to 6am, everyone else is still sleeping, its peacefull. Shove on the kettle, get the makings of a mug of coffee ready & haul out the carder, bolt it to the table. The night before I will have picked out what I want to card, picked over the fibre & started to tease it out & fluff it up.

The next 2 to 2.5hrs are spend carding, recarding, carding , recarding, each batt goes through the carder an average of 4 or 5 times until the entire table ill filled with fluffy batts, the kids work breakfast around about me & put up with me until i have at least 24 batts done.

Normal service resumes.

Saterday eve. As soon as the lil 2 have gone to bed I start Z splitting the batts, lightly drafting & winding into balls, then into the carded & ready box. Once this is done I normaly spin at least 2 balls , each ball equals 1.5 to 2oz of fibre.

Then on a daily basis i spin from 2 to 5 of these balls. Mid morning the lil 2 have quiet time after our walks with the dog, they watch pre-school tv, or just & chill with a book, mom spins out a ball of roving. In the afternoons, they sometimes have a lull of tiredness just before the big two come home from school, when they will lie on the sofa & relax, mom spins out a ball of roving.
After dinner, mom spins out a ball of roving & if im not knitting i will spin out a further 2 to 4 balls, if I am knitting then I normaly just do 1 more then take to the needles.

Doing this lets me get through quite a bit of fibre each week, once I start spinning out a fleece I stick to it until the last few locks are spun, but sometimes on the other wheel i'll have some laceweight or bulky going at the same time to provide a bit of variation, or ill have a few pairs of socks in the works, i get bored doing the same thing all the time.

Knitting is with me pretty much constantly, out for walks with kids & dog, socks are with me. socks in the kitchen, socks by the phone, after meals ill knit 20 to 30 mins on a sweater, evenings ill sometimes knit constant on a sweater, or socks if i want to do some reading also.

Shearing time in uk starts mid june, by then ill have very little fibre left in fleece form other than those that are waiting for the hubby to finish making my wool combs.

2006-03-31T14:24:00.000-08:00

Stash flash 2006 !! Enjoy

2006-03-31T14:22:00.001-08:00

Stash flash 2006 *the fleeces* 4 icelandic

2006-03-31T14:22:00.000-08:00

Stash flash 2006 *the fleeces* 8 Icelandic

2006-03-31T14:18:00.000-08:00

The sock yarn stash

2006-03-31T14:16:00.000-08:00

Stash flash 2006 *the fleeces* Black Wensleydale

2006-03-31T14:15:00.001-08:00

Stash flash 2006 *the fleeces* Blue faced leicester x corriedale

2006-03-31T14:15:00.000-08:00

Stash flash 2006 *the fleece* Llanwenog fleece no3

2006-03-31T14:14:00.001-08:00

Stash flash 2006 *the fleeces* Shetland x white blue faced leicester

2006-03-31T14:14:00.000-08:00

Stash flash 2006 *the fleeces* Blonde corriedale no2

2006-03-31T14:13:00.001-08:00

Stash flash 2006 *the fleece* Light moorit shetland ewe

2006-03-31T14:13:00.000-08:00

Stash flash 2006 *the fleeces* Pale grey/blonde Shetland 1st shear ram lamb fleece

2006-03-31T14:12:00.001-08:00

Stash flash 2006 *the fleeces* More Hebridean

2006-03-31T14:12:00.000-08:00

Stash flash 2006 *the fleece* Blue faced leicester x Hebridean

2006-03-31T14:11:00.001-08:00

Stash Flash 2006 *the Fleece* Icelandic

2006-03-31T14:11:00.000-08:00

Stash flash 2006 *the fleeces* More Hebridean

2006-03-31T14:10:00.001-08:00

Stash flash 2006 *the fleeces* Hebridean

***** 1 whole fleece for swap, approx 2 to 3lb*****

2006-03-31T14:10:00.000-08:00

Stash flash 2006 *the fleeces* Black Welsh Mountain

***** I have 1kg of this fleece for swap*******

2006-03-31T14:09:00.001-08:00

Stash Flash 2006 Errrr Fleece

2006-03-31T14:09:00.000-08:00

Stash Flash 2006 30lb of alpaca, first shear baby fleece, from white all the way up the colours to deep reddy brown.

2006-03-31T14:08:00.000-08:00

Stash Flash 2006 stray rovings.

2006-03-31T14:07:00.001-08:00

stash flash 2006 The other half of the rovings closet

2006-03-31T14:07:00.000-08:00

Stash flash 2006.............. Part of my rovings closet

2006-03-31T14:06:00.001-08:00

stash flash 2006 A rainbow of dyed Wensleydale

2006-03-31T14:06:00.000-08:00

Stash flash 2006 Various dyed bombax silk tops, dyed kid mohair locks, bunny fluff & kid angora locks... This is the blending fibres box

2006-03-31T14:04:00.001-08:00

Stash flash 2006 Brown corriedale roving balled up & ready to go, the coloured stuff is some wensleydale that im using to make boucle with

2006-03-31T14:04:00.000-08:00

Stash flash 2006 FIBRE !!! This is the box that sits in the family room ever filled with prepared rollags for spinning, I card at least 2 batts every day, zig zag split them , then draft & roll ready to rock

2006-03-31T14:02:00.000-08:00

stash flash 2006 .... the various box... left over stuff from felting projects, some 2ply lace, the furry stuff the kids insist i buy to make cool scarfs from and left over handspun from a few sweaters i made

2006-03-31T14:01:00.000-08:00

Contents of the kist upstairs.. Note the white cones, that is shetland lace weight & ultra lace that i had spun for me last year over 20kg of it.

2006-03-31T13:59:00.002-08:00

Hand spun yarns

2006-03-31T13:59:00.001-08:00

mohair type yarns, cotton yarns & some various shouldnt be in that box , yarns

2006-03-31T13:59:00.000-08:00

Yet more sweater yarns & baby yarns

2006-03-31T13:58:00.001-08:00

Stash Flash 2006..... This could be quite photo intense *coughs mutters splurts* Umm yeah. Ok first pick, kids sweater yarns

2006-03-31T13:58:00.000-08:00

Next up, more kids sweater yarns

Busy Busy Bumble Bee

2006-03-30T15:22:00.000-08:00

Its been rather busy round here these past few days, what with hauling everything out of its various hibernation places for stash flash pics, ive decided to be a good bunny & sort out stuff that i just wont use & make a swap page & if your in the uk there might be some quilt fabrics too for swap. So look out for my Fleece/Fibre/Fabric page going up next week sometime.

Been swatching away on the knitting machine this week rather a lot, teaching myself the various decreases & increases and over 18 different cable patterns & different yarn samples to find something suitable for making the kids school sweaters with, we seem to have settled on a superwash 70/30 wool/acrylic blend for softness & washability, so next on the *get the lil uns ready for school list* is fabric for making art & craft aprons from.

Ive also started to make a vest & a large knitting bag using free form raw edge applique & free form embroidery in fabric collage work, spent weeks going through boxes of fabrics picking out pieces of this and bits of that to theme things together with, now its just weeks and weeks of arranging, re-arranging before the final stitch down & assemble.

The Peter Teal style Woocombs are starting to take shape !! 3 sets on the go and theyre looking good, all 3 made from well seasoned scottish oak.

The woes of stash flash

2006-03-26T15:12:00.000-08:00

Im starting to regret signing up for stash flash.... Yes im while going through closets, sheds & atics im finding lots more yarn & fleece's hidden in dark corners than i can remember putting there.

I found 2 hebridean & 2 black welsh mountain that I totaly forgotton about & stored in utility room, all washed & sorted, so i can only assume that id put them there having ran out of space down here, or perhaps i wanted to use them in a blending project at some point. These I will prob swap out as i already have another 2 of each in the use soon pile. Theyre all lovely soft fleece's being from the 2nd shearings, and all wonderfull thick black through to deep chocolate & carmel colours.

Also found the herdwick fleece id bought & put in the shed to wash & never got round to it & the balwen that was to be spun with it to make a kitchen rug, good project for next winter if i can get it spun this year, the kids can do a rug on the big peg loom.

Yay Friday !

2006-03-24T15:54:00.000-08:00

Nice relaxed easy day. We chilled, watched pre-school telly, ate silly sandwhiches for lunch & had lots of cuddle/book time.

Started on my pics for the 2006 stashflash today, which can be found HERE , i dunno if i'll do the yarn thats stashed in the 3rd floor of our house & the atic, cos its getting to be a bit of a silly amount of yarn on show now and there are boxes & boxes of it in the atic, we'll see what kind of mood the other 1/2 is over the weekend cos he's gonna have to hand down the boxes to me.

Meantime, the pic is my wip's, which shows how Durrow is coming along.

Sp7

2006-03-23T16:32:00.000-08:00

Weeeee ! The penny dropped, cog's turned, pistons unrusted and clanked away as various little details fell into place and a bell went off.

My SP7 was Bev !! Yes, bev with the sock yarn addiction, who I think, has perhaps passed on her wildfoote addiction.... im already thumbing through patterns for using it !

All i can say is a great big THANK YOU to Bev, for being a totaly amazing SP and knocking my socks off with her packages, and there is still one thats mid sail on its way too !

Thimble pin

2006-03-23T15:54:00.000-08:00

Hada get a close up on the thimble pin, just to show how really cute it is !