Guild meeting

Hi, last Saturdays guild meeting was a please yourself sort of do with jacket potatoes for lunch.

 Natasha decided to carry on playing with bobbin lace after having attended the lace workshop the previous Saturday.

I had every intention of doing some spinning but as you can see my wheel is looking rather neglected

several members took part in  a mini worlshop on dorset buttons

.and of course there was spinning/knitting to admire :-)

I rounded off the day by spinning for a couple of hours in my favourite coffee shop :-)

surprise gift

earlier this week a friend said I've got something for you and gave me this.

even better...it was filled with cookies  !!!

another slice of history

another slice of history

One of my friends has a special word for me , apparently I'm a Clutter Monkey and I think he is quite right about this. Tidiness and organisation are most definitely NOT two of my strong points. I always claim the excuse of being so creative that I don't have time or inclination to tidy away every little thing. The out come of this is that I periodically have to clear out my workroom and try and prevent too much of my stuff overtaking the next room as well. Obviously I have to store the tools of my trade somewhere but a passion for textiles has resulted in several hundred books, two (sometimes three) spinning wheels, five sewing machines, one embellisher and several small looms, not to mention nine lace pillow although some of these are out on loan.
So, today was a sort out day ( needed to see the floor even if only for a few hours) and I uncovered this...

 

I suspect it dates from the 60's but I am open to suggestions and features many sewing aids  but I've picked out a few knitting related items just to compare prices.

Priced at £3.00 seems quite a bargain!!!

Now we all like to have a ball winder and they are getting to be quite an expensive item ( I jointly own one with a friend, an old knitmaster cone winder) invaluable asset for any spinner!!

This isn't really a knitting item but I inherited one.................................

                                      ..................... and use it as a blocking board

Most of these item are by a company called Dritz and many of the sewing products can be found in my work room even today .

More from me later.

Taking a breath

Part of me says I should be stitching, I have stitching to do but at the moment all I can manage is a bit of knitting. I think its the weather, time of year, going out in the dark and coming home in the dark all having an impact on peoples lives at the moment. An easy knit becomes a comfort blanket, an easy spin becomes something to get lost in. Does anyone else have books that they read for comfort? you read them so many times that you know the plot line inside out and the covers are all tattered?

I have really enjoyed the process from fleece to knitted scarf and have sort of bought another fleece to play with, more on that later :-)

Sunday round up

HI, well its been a long busy week but not a lot to show for it! Yesterday spinnotts met at the new Art Exchange in Nottingham for a bobbin lace taster session and we were very happy to have help from Heather who is a lace teacher and member of the Nottingham Bobbin Lace Society.

And I followed this up with a bit of shopping today,  essential shopping for me !!

Bin workin hard

as we have a spinning and bobbin lace session on Saturday. Hopefully normal service will resume next week :-)

Nearly Sunday round up

Hi, its been a strange week, busy at work and dogged by a raging headache by the end of the week resulting in bloodshot eyes and time off ill. Hopefully that is all behind me now but it means that blog posts have been a little lacking so this is an attempt to bring things up to date. Firstly a quickly snatched photo of Eleanor of Knit Nottingham wearing a shawl that she knitted  from my handspun ( the orange) She never stays still long enough when I have my camera out !

Next, the guys in my local coffee shop were concerned that I only had water instead of my usual latte on Thursday morning and made me a special drink when I called in later to escape from my day job for a few mins.

Next weekend our spinning group 'spinnotts' are having a spin and lace day, that is bobbin lace not knitted lace and I am digging out my spare lace pillows and working on an easy pattern for beginners to play with . We will be at the New Art Exchange in Nottingham next Saturday and hopefully some will get to have a go with this bookmark pattern.
For anyone looking for this weeks TAST sample, well I haven't stitched it yet but here is the buttonhole stitch from last time to keep you going.

Saturday saw me feeling a bit better, doing the usual housework then visiting a friend for coffee (and dinner as it turned out) We washed some fleece.......







Did a little spinning and a lot of chatting and giggling as usual. Admired the results from our last dye session , merino and angora..yum yum

 

Then wikkidknitter demonstrated the latest in spinning footwear!!

Hoping you all had a good week and that the spell checker decides to work before I publish this post!!

Sunday round up

So here we are on Sunday evening, one whole week into January!!! What have I done this week? well I knitted Charlie again...ongoing bus/coffee/dinner break knit....stitched the ATC for take a stitch Tuesday, made fruit loaf sultana scones and cheese biscuits and started to spin the rainbow dyed merino from the New Year Eve dying session.

Earlier today I wandered down to Costa ( hubby now works some Sundays :-(  ) with my inkle loom and a selection of yarn ready to waep up another Sami band.


The only problem with working in the coffee shop is having to come home on the bus. Todays prize qquestion came from a woman waiting at the bus stop....what does that machine make? no excuse me or niceties so I told her it was a waeving loom. Next question...can you knit jumpers on it??? I really was too tired to explain why not!!

From the mouths of babes...

I meant to share this with you last year but sort of missed it out.towards the end of last year we took the shop stall to the Nottingham Bead Fair to let people know about the newly launched on line shop. A usual I took my spinning wheel and provided entertainment for the husbands...This always happens to me, they all want to know how it works etc and sometimes I pass the time chatting about bikes and trains with them.

On this occasion a mother and daughter stopped to watch and I listened to the mother carefully explain to her daughter  ( late teens) what a spinning wheel was, how it worked etc,,etc,,etc only to hear the daughter reply.............OOhh Muuuum, I know all about them, theres a lady spinning in Costa every Saturday !!!

Made me smile and own up to being 'the lady'

Take a stitch Tuesday...week one... fly stitch

OK, so its been quite some time since I stitched but hopefully this challenge will get things moving again. Anyone who knows me will be aware that I'm not a big fan of stitching on plain fabric or even weave so for the first stitch I have stayed with my spinning fibres that were dyed last weekend.

As for format, I've stuck with ATC size (3.5 inch x 2.5 inch )  which is handy and fits in with previous samples. Also I managed to find plastic wallets at our local supermarket so I can easily file and display them.

The background was made on my embellisher  using selected small amounts of the dyed fibres.

Sorry about the weird lighting in the photo but my workroom is not brilliant in the winter time.

I then spun small amounts of thread on a drop spindle.

and used them to stitch the sample.

So , here it is, Fly Stitch.

biker chocs

nom, nom :-)

weird yarny bits #1

I wrote this post for the Knit Nottingham Blog but thought that you may be interested in it  :-)



What to do with yarn other than just knit with it....


Hi, this is the first of an occasional series on things to do with yarn, some serious and some just long lost fads. If you want to challenge me to try any unusual technique please feel free to do so.

I'm starting with Jiffy lace simply because someone passed me a leaflet of instructions which totally confused me. No idea of the publication date but priced at $1.50 so obviously an import. Now this looks very much like broomstick crochet and I suspect Jiffy Lace is simply an American cover story for it. You use a big needle and a crochet hook to make the stitches, I found it very fiddly to do and certainly not relaxing for me but maybe with practise?? or maybe not!   I mean, I can't see me wearing this...can you?


So I've made three small samples, two in acrylic, one in handspun and I suspect that may be the end of this experiment unless anyone wants to educate me further? I throw the challenge out to you, the readers.....

So , let me know what you think and I'll stick to the knitting for a little while longer xx

Knitting Charlie :-)

If you remember this picture....





and the post 'spinning Charlie'

well here's the update......

Knitting Charlie :-)





beautifully soft, this has been my easy knit on the bus for the last couple of weeks :-)

what we did on New Years Eve.......

.....was have a bit of fun, fluffy fibre style whilst hubby was out with Biker Ted shopping and visiting friends. Firstly we raided the fluff stash as I had bought a bag of off white merino at a bargain price a few months ago and fancied trying to dye it. Some superwash merino yarn was added to the pile and Wikkidknitter bought along some merino/angora to add to the pot.

 first we had a quick check on the colour combinations

seems to work ok

Then we start the chocolates

Then we eat the cheese biscuits fresh from the oven

and bake some cakes whilst the dyes are cooking

I'm thinking this may be my next spinning project, just need something to ply it with...any ideas?

and this may just go to the shop :-)

We had fun as usual, stocked up on a bit of fibre and giggled the day away as good friends often do :-)
Now down to earth with a bump with a spinnotts event to arrange in Nottingham for January 21st where the spinners will be spinning and also looking at bobbin lace.