Yeay, my first actual pair of socks! I managed to knit two of them this time :)
I used the Lifestyle Toe-up Socks- No Swatch Needed (yessss) pattern by Charissa Martin Cairn, 'Not a pattern, but a lifestyle' I tried a small band of ribbing around the foot to keep the sock snug. These were a practice pair and looking foward to trying another pair, maybe in one of my homespun yarns :)

Dye It Yourself

Well, I'm way overdue for a post, so thought I'd break the ice by posting some home dyeing :)

We had a go at doing some food colouring and solar dyeing a little while ago with some interesting results :-
Our first try was with 100g each of merino roving. I had a go at 2 colours whilst my wife and son did a great 3 colour job. We put the rovings in bags and placed them in our car. It was a hot day and it didn't take long for the dye to take, it was almost too hot to touch!!

A week or 2 later I had an idea for a colourway and attempted it. It was a cloudy day and ended up trying pot-cooking it. I think this made the food colouring run and ended up not as I expected, but I still liked the result.

I named this one 'Let's make mistakes'

The second attempt I layed out the roving differently than the pot method and it gave me the result I was after. This one I did solar dye.

This one I called 'Spectrum'. Both of these rovings only used 3 colours, red, yellow and blue.

My best yarn, to date!

I finally managed to get some decent pics of the yarn I spun from Mandie's Trinity, my first try at a merino optim top.

This spun wonderfully and the result is this soft and bouncy 2py..

I managed to get 204 yards (186.53 m) out of 100g and 12WPI. Lovely :)

New addition

Well, it was inevitable really...
After the passing of our pets it was only a matter of time until we got another. Here she is; Zula!




Already settling in on her first day 'home'
She is 12 months old and a wonderful 'blue'.
She did have some cat flu which made her lethargic and sneeze alot, and also made her not want to eat for the first three days; a real worry there. But 6 days later, only the occasional sneeze and eating, and playing, and finding laps and getting in everywhere!

Meadows Fair

We went to the Meadows country fair on Sunday 18th and had a good time over all. The Saturday was a hot day so we really didn't want another hot one but we didn't expect light drizzle all morning! Anyhow, we enjoyed seeing the alpacas there!

Also,here is a chunky spun 2ply yarn from the Shyamal roving from EGMTK.

More fluff......

Hi again, starting to get warm here in South Australia, 28c in the city yesterday, 32c today and they are calling for 35c tomorrow! Not exactly inspirational weather for knitting as I'm trying to decide what to knit with some of my handspun yarns. I'm always afraid I don't have enough for a project. Here's some more fluff to yarn pics.
This roving is called 'Earth and Sky' from Mandie at EGMTK. I divided the roving, spun both halves and plied together, not really worrying about keeping colours lined up. Here's the result :-


Here's a skein from a roving called 'Autumn' from Kathy Baschiera, don't think I have any before pictures sadly. This one I navajo plied.

That's all for now, perhaps a knitted pic next time?!

Spins and needles

Well, it's been too long between posts I think! I would like to share some of my creations, both recent and some time ago.

Let's start at the beginning with my first proper yarn spun on my Ashford traditional wheel.
It's a russet coloured Corriedale which started in roving form.

It did come out a little over twisted and unbalanced, but I came away with that great feeling of "I made this!"

Next is some yarn spun from the first raw fleece we bought back in 2003 and really didn't do anything with for a really long time. Very sure it is Romney X. I actually used the yarn to make a beanie earlier this year. It's a great feeling to take a fibre from raw, work with it and produce something with it.

I really like the natural striping from the colour changes through the fleece :)

Time for one more? Ok...

Here is a blended batt from Kathy Baschiera, who sells wonderful batts and now rovings at fibre events at Littlehampton, Mount Pleasant and Gumeracha. She has some fluff for sale at the Heart of the Hills markets in the gallery.






Here is one bobbin....










I love these colours! I didn't have enough fluff to finish spinning, so went to the next upcoming fiber event hoping Kathy would have more. Alas, none, but she did have batts of the green. So I spun that and plied it with the original singles.
The few strands of darker yarn on the left are from the original batt which were left over from plying.

Hope you have enjoyed this little visit, I do intend to post more later, and not just of fibre and knitting !