sound advice.

Do not test whether you're still allergic to a type of food mid-week.

I still shouldn't eat mussels, and I have to go to work in 8 hours.

Must knit more...

Well, my course is over. But it was great, and I learnt a few new techniques. The last session was pretty much a free run of the equipment, to dye, print and paint what we wanted, so I spent most of the day, poking at yarn with a stick in some dye vats. But its all coloured in now, in a variety of blues, greens, reds and purples.

Above is the silk yarn, that all got dyed in blue to yellow toned green.
It looked wonderful, like seaweed when i was rinsing it out.

This is some alpaca I bought at the craft show on Thursday. Its ony 50grams of it, from the Toft-Alpaca stand. Its a nice aran weight, and it was a lovely cream colour to start with. Although I like this soft olivey green, I was suprised it hardly took the dye at all. And I washed it to get rid of any lanolin first.


This cotton did not want to untangle, so it all got tied up with string, and dunked in different colours to see what happens. And it looks better than the picture! Its gone a lovely sea green blue and turquoise, with white bits where the string was, that looks like sea-foam. I wish I'd made more this colour!


The cotton-linen boucle I split into two colours. The red-brown above, which looks like raspberries...

...and the yellow green above. The white in this picture is from the flash, and its all taken the colour really well.


But this is possibly my favourite. Most of the cotton is now a lovely purple, but with blue sections. The blue is only an inch or so long each time, and is pretty random in the yarn, so it'll show as a few blue stitches on a purple background when it knitted up.

So there's loads to be wound into balls, and I've just got to decide what to knit with all of it now...

Can't stop spending this month!

It's getting to be a bit of a problem.

Im off to Earls Court on Thursday for the Stich and Craft show, where despite my best intentions (although they're not very good ones, really) I may end up spending far more than I should on wool.

And now I've booked my ticket for Taste London. I went last year, and am off with the same girls this time. I've got my spending money paid for too - it's this odd system of 'crowns' where you pay for the coupons and spend them on different stalls.

I've just realised, I wrote about the Taste festival last year in my second and third ever posts. How time flies...

My Yarn is Wonderful!

That's the whole lot spread out, in all its glory!

I've sampled a few bits of each yarn, and dyed some a few different colourways, and knitted it up to see what it looks like. Only got to the cotton/linen stuff so far, but the rest is to be knitted up, and shown to my knitting meet-up group on Thursday, to see what shades they think I should dye it all.

Personally, I like the green/blue, and red/brown mixes. It's a lovely boucle yarn, in a cotton linen mix.

The silk is lovely when its knitted up, but splits like theres no tomorrow, especially when casting on! But it seems to be taking the dye wonderfully.

The pure cotton is so soft and squishy. I've dyed a sample in a lovely purple shade, that'll I'm rather taken with (no sample knitted yet!)

Just got to get it all wound from cones to hanks, so it can be dyed, then back to balls so I can knit it into things. Not a clue what to make yet, but it'll look wonderful in the meantime when it's dyed up.

pics to follow!

My yarns have arrived this morning! I'm going to be late for my class today, as I'm sat on my bed looking at it all! It's wonderful and will be fantastic when dyed! Just taking a sample with me today, for testing, rather than full on dying of it all. This isn't what I want to do, want to chuck it all in my bag and run to class, but it is probably the most sensible plan, to test and think about it first.

Im really very excited and happy, and just had to tell someone, and everybody sensible will still be in bed on a Saturday morning before 9am.

But my new yarn has arrived!!

Stephen Fry and Knitting

Im sat in bed watching QI, and they just mentioned this wonderful looking place - a knitted brain museum!

kittens and yarn

I'm halfway through a course at the college I work at,called Handpainting and Printing for Textiles, and it's fantastic! We've exposed screens (well, watched while we were shown how!) dyed fabrics and printed with the screens, and theres still three more weeks to go! It's taking it out of me a bit as its all day Saturdays, but it is great fun.

As we've got all this time with dye vats bubbling away, I've ordered a whole load of yarn from Texere. £40 worth of the stuff. But it means I've got 6 balls of silk, 2 cotton and 4 cotton/linen popcorn yarn on its way to me! All undyed, so I can paint it pretty colours, and knit it into something wonderful!

When broken down, the price is actually rather good, for the yardage I'm getting. And it can be whatever colour my heart desires. Within reason!

I'm still knitting squares for this blanket, although I've had a fiddle with the pattern and now instead of being about 20x20 stiches, some will be 40x40. It's going slowly, but well. I'm in no rush to be finished, as the whole point is something I can have to just tide me over, knit a bit, put it down again, then knit a bit more. Might take a few months, might take a couple of years. But I like how I can see it grow slowly into something I like.

I have found wonderful things recently, one is my mum's mothers day present (March 22nd in the UK) The other is this. I could watch it over and over! as the website says, it is rather good. And only a little bit traumatic and scary in parts.