Knitter, Printer, Candle-in-a-cup maker

I went to a Soya Teacup Candle Workshop at The Make Lounge and came home (slowly and very carefully) with my first handmade candle.

You'll notice I say my first, like I'm going to make more of them.

I probably will.

I just haven't told my other half yet.

It might need to wait a little while before I tell him I've got another hobby to add to the list.

The Make Lounge is a fabulous place to spend a few hours. The space is great and the atmosphere is warm and friendly.

I heartily recommend booking yourself on a workshop. I know I'll be booking myself on a few more in the coming months.

Tour-de-Fleece Spinning Week 1

I've been spinning. A lot. Almost every day (except the weekend, which got busy with other life type things).

My goal for the Tour de Fleece is to spin enough laceweight Merino Tencel to be able to make something reasonably substantial out of it. Possibly a Clapotis (because apparently, I didn't get it out of my system the first six I made).

Other than that, I've been spinning on a new spindle and I took a bit of a non-laceweight break on Friday night to spin some Yarn Yard Shetland into DK/Aran weight singles, because my hands were cramping up with the fine stuff and I just needed a break.

I'm going to try and get as much spinning in as I can today and tomorrow, because in the wee hours of Wednesday morning my wee sister arrives along with her husband and my 22 month old niece, and I suspect that spinning might well be off the menu once they arrive. I haven't seen them in more than six months, and my niece is, by all accounts, very much her mother's daughter, so will, I imagine, be into everything.

Beady

It started innocently enough. A little puff of fibre on my desk, which I rolled between my fingers into a ball. A thought, a splash of water, more rolling, tiny felt pebble. Hmm.

Before I could stop myself, I'd grabbed a bowl of warm soapy water, some roving from the stash and I was making felted beads (some more successfully than others).

I was originally going to just make a bracelet's worth, but I couldn't stop at just those and kept going for a while longer.

Which is when I realised that my palms were feeling distinctly bruised and painful.

They're still a bit tender and even a bit swollen today.

Note to self: enthusiasm is great, but tone it down when felting.

Perpetual Motion

I've had a stressful couple of weeks, and in times of high stress I turn to spinning, as the one thing that I can do that seems to work off my excess nervous energy. It's not really a time for fine spinning, so first of all, I took the Yarn Yard June Club fibre - Wensleydale (I love Wensleydale!) - and turned it into fairly even DK/Aran weight singles. It went really quickly too, an hour and a half for 200g!

I'm really pleased how it came out.

That wasn't quite enough for me though, so I took some of the sparkly batts I bought from FeltStudioUK and they become bulky singles, spun fast and loose, without stopping to worry about lumps and bumps.

I'm not sure the finished yarn does any justice to how lovely the batts were before they were spun up, but it was interesting to spin without worrying about bumps - something I'm usually quite pedantic about - it was quite liberating, not to mention a lot speedier.

Speedy being a word I can't really apply to my current project. I'm participating in the Tour de Fleece this year and spinning the limited edition Yarn Yard TdeF fibre, which is a base fibre of Merino Tencel in a gorgeous neutral in shades from silver to hematite via pewter and with sherberty bright contrasting fibre alongside.

The neutral is well on it's way to becoming laceweight yarn, which is my goal for the TdeF. I want it to be more even and fine than I've ever managed before, and I've managed to keep it up for five days so far.

I love how it looks on the bobbin, and I'm really pleased with how fine and even it is, but I can't help but think that the plying is going to be a total BITCH. Time will tell.

Further Evidence

They say the first stage of recovering from addiction is admitting you have a problem.

Hi.

I'm Ann, and I'm a fibre-holic.

Knitting, crocheting, felting, dyeing and spinning just weren't enough for me.

So I bought a loom.

I unboxed it and assembled it:

Then I warped it and started to weave on it:

It took me a long time to get set up, but when I'd got it all set up, I produced a piece of weaving that's 11 inches by 9 inches in a couple of hours, and that was with all kinds of newbie mistakes and a total lack of any kind of weaving skill.

This shit is FAST, and crack has nothing on it in terms of addictiveness.

It totally rocks.

More Fibrelust

I've been having some fun with the dye pots over the last couple of weeks, and this is the result.

Left to right and top to bottom there is:

Wensleydale x 3
Wensleydale
British Merino
Alpaca
Wensleydale x 3

I might put some of these up on Etsy later this week, if I can figure out which ones I can bear to part with.

The Natural Way

I heard about Sheep and Wool Day at the Vauxhall City Farm via Ravelry, but didn't hold out much hope of making it along, what with it being on a Saturday, K and I both having hayfever and K being allergic to most furry animals and dust, but without having to do anything in the way of arm twisting, he agreed that we could pop in to see what was going on.

We must been there later than Jane was there, as the sheep that we saw being sheared was white, and considerably less than happy to be suddenly naked than one might expect, given the warmth of the day.

If I'd been less hayfevered up (all hail the great God Clarytin for allowing me to get out of the house) I'd have taken my camera with me, but I wasn't so I don't have any actual pictures from the day (0 out of 10, MUST try harder).

I did take some pictures the last time I was there though, with my niece (who was maybe 14 months old at the time and fell soundly asleep in the car, and remained so during the time we were there, only to wake up on the way home - typical!) and took the following photo and posted it to flickr earlier with the intention of including it with this post. Now, having read Jane's post, I wonder if it's the same sheep she saw being shorn? (or maybe Lamby is the straw covered mop top I posted about months ago?)

Sheep aside, I had a great hour there, chatting to spinners (Hi Helena!) and dyers, and getting predictably excited about the potential for using natural dyes rather than the acid dyes I currently use.

After talking for a while I'm still unconvinced I could get away with natural dyeing at home, but they do have a group who meet (and spin, dye and weave) every Saturday and since the bus goes from here to there directly, I plan on doing my best to get there and get involved, not just for the chance to play with dye, but for the chance to learn from people who clearly really know their stuff.

I left with a gift - a cutting of woad seeds.

Okay, so I'm probably never going to get as far as growing the plants and then using them to dye fibre while in this house, but the idea of a Scot (who was probably descended from Picts, who allegedly used woad to paint themselves when going to war a la Mel Gibson in Braveheart (ish)) growing woad in a flat in Brixton just appealed to me.

Stumpy

Sometimes the cure for crafters' block is a little bit of crazy crochet.

Swatch A Day January 8 Knotted Openwork

Similar pattern to yesterday, just with no complicated purling, which would make it great for socks. Quite stretchy too.

Note to self: find more interesting way to take pictures of swatch and calendar.

Swatch A Day January 7 Crocus Buds

Lovely stitch pattern this. Really like the fabric it creates.

Lifting a stitch over two others purlwise all along the row is more difficult than I thought, especially on public transport. I dropped stitches here, there and everywhere in doing this.

This is also a pattern that could really stand heavy blocking. As it was, I had to push it in a little to get it to the same dimensions as day 1.