Holiday knitting round-up

 I usually knit quite a lot when we are away in the van but this year the never ending cross stitch sampler has been taking up quite a lot of my time.

 You can see from my previous post on Soed Idee Jubileum that I am working on part 40 so only ten more parts to be sent to me. However, I will probably add two more to take it up to the end of the tear if I have enough space on the fabric. You can catch up with the previous stitching here if you are new to this blog.

I did find time to pick up the needles can cast on this shawl to wear with my fishermans smock, this is an ongoing project until I run out of yarn.

A couple of Petes fibre studio braids found their way onto the wheel.

and three hats found their way off the needles.

road trip knitting

 I'm thinking ahead to our next road trip and what to pack. I've discounted the lace as I don't think that I will be sitting outside much and pins in the van carpet does not sound pleasant. I do have a small cross stitch project that I'm doing for my sister in law so I'll slip that in along with the big band sampler.

As usual it's a charity shop find but I'd forgotten a certain baby called Fox so it's now being claimed by his grandmother.

Spinning wise I've opted for convenience  and a selection of Petes Fibre Studio fluff along with some polworth that need finishing.

For knitting I'll chuck in my knitting bag with some natural yarns and patterns along with a road knitting project using again Petes fluff, This was one of my TDF spins.

It will be interesting to see how much I get done !

Tour de Fleece day twenty, ( I think )

 I finally finished the Argonaut spin !

I plied it up this morning, gave it a bath and popped it on the line. No idea what this will become so it will sit in my stash waiting for inspiration.

The colours are stronger in real life, the sun is bleaching them out a bit in the photo.

Tomorrow I will weigh and label this weeks spinning, I'm not sure if I will do anymore, we will see how I feel.

Tour de Fleece day Seventeen and Eighteen , Argonaut takes a trip to Southwell

Day 17, Monday was my usual knit group meeting so no photos but I did take my Argonaut and carried on spinning the Polwarth as I really want to finish it by the weekend.

Once back home I carried on with the Romney, finished the second bobbin and plied them

                                      

                                                     I then did the same with the blue fluff

Both of these were washed and dried on Tuesday and are now in the bag awaiting labels.

both are darker in real life, the camera isn't reading the light very well as its so bright even with the blinds shut.

On Tuesday I went over to Southwell, mainly to visit the sweet shop so you can imagine my shock when I found that it had closed down. It was our nearest place for buying Dutch salted liquorice so it looks like I may have to buy on line in the future :-(

Breakfast was in the cafe at the Minster although its under temporary management at the moment and I'm not a fan of paper/plastic cups for coffee especially when they make your coffee taste sort of plastic. Hopefully new owners will be in place before my next visit.

as usual, I can't resist taking a few photos

Ooops, nearly forgot, another four bobbins of Texel ready to be plied in the morning.

Tour de Fleece day sixteen, a day of contrasts

I've been spinning in-between visiting a couple of craft fairs today. First up was plying the White face woodland bobbins and getting the skein on the line to dry.

                          nice and squishy, ready to be measured and labelled later in the week.

Then I started on some Romney, 50 gram so far today, definitely a much finer spin so we will see what we get once the remainder is spun and plied.

Between the craft fairs I spent an hour or so on the Argonaut and Pete's Fibre Studio bobbin no 2

Then when I returned home I grabbed some of the World of wool carded fibres and quickly spun 25gm not really worrying about the texture, thickness etc.

All in all, not a bad day :-)

Tour de fleece day fourteen and week two round up.

 Somehow its already the end of week two, how did that happen? Today I've been rewinding and labelling skeins from this week now they are dry.

The good news is that the kitchen cupboards are back on the wall in spite of their age and we have some new lighting as well.

This weeks spinning, three texel skeins and one zwartblexwensleydale. I then popped out for coffee and finally finished the first bobbin of the dyed polworth.

and started on the next one, I'm really hoping to finish this before the the tour finishes.

Once how I did a little house work (haha) then finished up spinning the Shetland. This was an oddment so there is around 40gm on each bobbin. This is a useful amount for a hat with another yarn as the background colour.

Plans for tomorrow are a little different but I will try and ply the Shetland if I get time.

Tour de Fleece days twelve and thirteen

 Day twelve was fairly uneventful spinning wise as I wanted catch up with my sampler stitching before the next part drops on Saturday. Just a small amount of ryeland spun on the Ashford.

The next day (Thursday) saw me start the day in Neros, which you have all seen before, spinning on the Argonaut. I have bought a smaller phone charger to save weight and I'm just seeing how long it lasts. The one that I've been using lasts for a week or so but is fairly heavy.

I've nearly finished the first bobbin of this fibre from Pete's Fibre Studio and I'm impressed with how easy it is to spin.

After the compulsory morning coffee I jumped on the tram to Hucknall. I had intended to take photos but my camera battery was dead when I picked it up this morning so we will have to make do with the phone camera today. Not my favourite choice.

I scoured the charity shops, looked at the church and decided that I need to return on a Saturday when the church will be open and the market will be on.

I finally stopped for a cuppa at Mrs C's Vintage Tea Room although this nearly didn't happen as they are cash only and I only had a handful of change on me but a managed enough for a cup of tea, This was one of the friendliest cafes that I've been in recently and will definitely go back.

I will return to Hucknall with my camera as a few things caught my eye as I walked around the town.

Tour de Fleece day seven, 2026 and first week round up.

 We almost have a kitchen, they have been able to refit the original cupboards saving us the cost of a new kitchen which we really didn't want to shoulder at this point. The electrician is due on Monday to fix the new light fittings then I will thoroughly clean the walls and cupboards and see how it looks. To be honest it looks better than it was originally and the insurance has covered the cost.

This means that I carried on spinning this morning.

So we now have another 100gm texel to add to yesterdays spin.

I then decuided to take advantage of the warm weather and washed the weeks spinning, popped out for a quick coffee with my argonaut then set about labelling the skeins.

this is coming to the end of the first 50gm of Petes dyed fibres.

This weeks spinning, 300gm texel, 200gm ryeland and 3 small skeins of various wools.

Tour de Fleece day five, 2026

 The builders are still with us, this morning they plastered the new ceiling and we are now waiting on the decorators to come in and paint it. As a result I  had plenty of spinning time so 50gm of Ryeland destined to be a four ply weight.

50gm of world of wool carded wool, not sure what this will be.

Once they had finished I headed out to a favourite book shop cafe in town and spent around 1 1/2 hours more on the braid from Pete.

I now have to wipe down the kitchen again before thinking about dinner, I may spin a little more later or fall asleep as its hot again.

Tour de Fleece day three, 2026

Not a very productive day due to have to clear out the kitchen so that the builders could access ceiling but I tried . This is going to be the case over the next few days.

We now have 100gm plyed Ryeland making a total of 200gm of fibre finished so far.

The builders finished early as they are now waiting for the electrician before they can go any further so I escaped to Costa for an hour and treated myself to a free drink ( I've been saving drinks on all the apps )

Of course, I took a wheel with me, this is the progress on the Polworth from Petes Fibre Studio.

As for the kitchen, this is where we are at now. We are hoping that the cupboards will survive to be put back on the walls as we don't want to have to replace them.

The problem has been caused by a water leak ( now fixed) which has left the ceiling damaged.