You may have noticed a lace photo in the previous post, that was part 6 of the bobbin a long on line group. The pattern is Peacocks Eye and can be found in An Introduction to Bucks Point Lace by Jean Leader. Drafted from an edging in the Lace Guild Collection.
I may fall out of step with the lace over the next few weeks due to other commitments but will be doing a catch up in June.
Well, that was the plan but the clocks changed and its 8am and I've only just got up. So its coffee time !!
The weather is overcast and windy so other than the usual clothes wash I'm going to wash some fleece, prep fleece, work on a hat, take part in a bobbin lace zoom and I'm not really sure what else although at the moment its coffee, Facebook and YouTube for the next 10 mins whilst I wake up properly.
Whilst on Skye, I was given a bag of fleece, not a big bag due to being in a small car with all our gear but we got a lot of fleece stuffed into it!! Jacob, Dutch spotted and Cheviot, I'll hopefully get a skein or two from each.
Jacob having a soak in very hot water and detergent. In-between the timed soaks/washes I usually challenge myself to get on with the house work so I'm hunting round all the rooms for dirty washing and dirty mugs :-)
Why the mad fleece washing? two reasons really.
1 I have a lot of fleece to clear out, I'd ideally like to empty the shed ready for fresh fleece at some point.
2 I have a couple of road trips planned so need fibre to spin whilst away along with yarn to knit
3 Since I no longer have a single 100gm skein of yarn, only oddments, I'm getting a bit desperate.
Midday and I'm having a drink. three bags of Jacob on the line, two bags of Ryeland in their final rinse, kitchen tidied, dinner in slow cooker so I deserve a break for a few mins.I have my Sunday YouTube vid to watch now. During lockdown I followed quite a few knitters and crossstitchers on YT, I now only regularly watch one channel. MommalovesyouGB mainly because I like her presentation style, she's a teacher in real life and she has an interest in historical samplers especially welsh ones.
Next, whilst watching the vid, I start plying the two bobbins of Shetland that were spun on my nano during the week.
The big question now is do I comb fibre or spin for the next hour ? I think I'll comb the remainder of the Ryeland which I washed a few days ago. That will give me an empty pillow case for the fleece that is on the line. Its turned into a windy and sunny day so I'm hopeful of getting things dry.
I managed to get the Shetland washed and dried, 60 gm , lovely and soft, destined to be part of a hat.
The Jacob is actually really fine, may try it on the nano at knit on Monday.
and the oddments of Ryeland are now combed and on the wheel, sort of :-)
The day finished with a 2 1/2 hour lace chat zoom, I actually got some lace made amongst the chat.
Alas, no knitting was undertaken !
Some random photos of the landscape
A lazy day after the drive up, we managed a trip down to Staffin slipway maybe a couple of miles from where we are staying. I had seen a few posts about seals being around on facebook and wanted to have a look at them and the new slipway works,
We have walked along here many times over the years, sat eating sandwiches or just watching the sea, There are dinosaur footprints on the beach usually people walking round in circles trying to find them but not today as the tided was in and tide island is quiet as most places are still shut for winter.
One of the original boat huts still stands and I noticed some cute characters attached to the door,
On Thursday we loaded the car, charged up my camera and headed north. The weather was cold, damp and a little miserable as we headed through Glencoe, over the bridge and on to Fort William.
Last month we made a return visit to Coleshill to attend the Round Britain Rally Dinner. The Round Britain Rally ( RBR) involves visiting around 80 places of interest around Britain on your motorcycle and submitting proof in the form of photographs of your bike at each location.
As Ian has been taking part for around 20 years, this is a regular part of his summer riding ( you have from the beginning of April to the end of September to complete this) and the dinner gives people chance to get together and chat about the years riding,
Anyway, back to Coleshill, a small town with a few shops on the high street.
This building give away the fact that this is a very old town which actually dates back to the Iron Age and probably deserves more investigating.
It did give us a beautiful rainbow,
sight of a fascinating book which I didn't buy but spent a while browsing. Excellent second hand bookshop,
and a set of stocks !
Hi, I've been washing and blocking most of my winter knits and labelling up the spinning. Most of this is heading for pastures new and my project this year is to spin and clear the fleece backlog,
Hats ranging from aran to fine spun saxon merino.
Mitts with a bit of texture. I particularly like the ones top left.
We are now on to a traditional pattern called plum pudding, you will have seen an old example of mine in the last post.
Every lace book shows slight variations in working these pasterns depending on where the writer learnt to make the lace. This time the difference is not huge but just a slight variation on the outer edge when comparing the two books.
So this is week five in progress
I saw an idea on Pintrest, traced it back to a blog that gave some instructions , to do what ?
all will be revealed in due course :-)
On Sunday afternoon I joined in the fourth zoom on Bucks point lace. As I have previously mentioned, I am using this as a refresher and also to check for any bad habits along with and tips and hints that I may no know as I am mainly self taught.
We have now covered the basics for point ground, the background. Honeycomb stitch, the use of gimps and the first pattern called sheep head.
I am probabaly going to miss the next meeting but we will be starting a pattern that I have done in the past called plum pudding.
This is my version from about 30 years ago.
as I never kept lace as a regular hobby, I still have a lot to learn or rather re-learn but I'm hoping that, with the encouragement of the group, I may do now.
Today is sunny, cool but its also the beginning of March. Feels so much better than most of February when the country appeared to be trapped under a layer of cloud.
This is a quick round up of spinning and knitting from the end of February, I honestly cannot remember what else I've worked on but here we go.
This is the remains of some of the shetland fleece spun on the nano. I also have some light grey so may use this for something lace once I've checked the yardage.
These mitts are a Shetland / Dorset cross and feel really warm, I like the added texture in the body of the hand.
The hat is knit from oddments of fine spun Shetland held double.
200gm of Jacob, This will be car knitting on our next long trip, plain or textured hats, aran weight. around 135 yd in each ball.
I think that this just about rounds up the end of the month. We are busy this month with different adventures so possibly not too much in the way of spinning and knitting but there will be some lace and possibly embroidery to come. x
