First the outgoing parcels -

I signed up for another Magic Yarn Ball swap on swap-bot and have been putting together some goodies for my partner, here they all are ready for wrapping

She is not a knitter and told me she would not be using whatever yarn I wound so just use “something cheap”. Now, as I don’t have anything “cheap” and as I didn’t like the idea of sending something that wouldn’t be used I decided to use ribbon. She is a crafter/scrapbooker and so I think she will use the ribbons, I tied them all together and then wound all the little goodies up like this

and finally wrapped the whole ball up in this gorgeous tea-towel

hope to post this off later this week…….it has a long way to travel and so even though the send date is not till the 15th July I wanted to get it done early.

Next parcel is the final reveal parcel for SP10, now my swap partner doesn’t know who I am yet but will do by the time she received the parcel so even if she sees this before it arrives she won’t know it’s for her and as soon as she does know it’s for her when she gets it then she’ll know who I am anyway……does that make any sense? Anway, basically, it doesn’t matter that I’m posting the details does it?

Here are the goodies

…she isn’t in England so I thought I’d send some English goodies – tea, sweeties, chocolates all from my country.

SP10 has been great fun – I’ve really enjoyed putting together parcels from my giftee and my gifter has been fabulous….which brings me to

Incoming Parcels

My SP10 gifter sent me a gift certificate for Angel Yarns for the last parcel and it’s taken me this long to decide what to spend it on but today my parcel arrived and it contained this –

“this” being Jaeger Extra Fine Merino Aran in Blue Haze, 13 balls of it actually. Angel Yarns had this on sale and I also had a credit from a previous order which, together with my VIP discount meant I had to pay very little to get them!

They are destined to become either Rogue,

Eris

both of these patterns are from www.girlfromauntie.com and I bought them ages ago

or A Cardigan for Arwen from Interweave Knits Winter 2006

I haven’t decided definitely which one it will be as yet….but thanks to my SP10 pal for giving me the means to buy the yarn for whichever one jumps from the needles….

My second incoming today was this

isn’t it beautiful? The gorgeous laceweight yarn I snagged from Posh Yarn this week – from the left 2 skeins of Eva 2ply laceweight 55% silk/45% cashmere in Houri, 3 skeins of Sophia 2ply laceweight pure cashmere in Cumulus and 2 skeins of Eva in Kelpie. The Kelpie was on sale as it is apparantly faulty, having some red on it but it is really hard to see and once knitted into something lacey will disappear completely.

I can’t wait to knit some wonderful, soft, lacey shawls and stoles with these….after my cobweb mohair shawl was such a success (the recipient thought it was wonderful which was the main thing!) I really want to try some more lace but with smooth yarns.

Finally – some actual knitting has been going on. You may remember by Kool Aid dyed yarn which I showed you some time ago? Well, I’ve now wound it into a ball -

and I finally decided what to do with it…thanks to all the suggestions, many of which were for scarves and shawls which is what I’ve gone with, here is –

Clapotis! I think the stocking stitch shows the colours off and I love the drop stitch. I’m making it narrower than set in the pattern (about half the width) and this should give me enough yarn to get a good length. I’m also thinking of adding buttons along one side to allow it to be turned into a shrug. More pictures as I progress.

The stitch markers were a pressie from my SP10 pal in my first parcel so that’s a nice full circle there…..

technorati tags:koolaid, sp10, swap, swapbot, knitty, knitting, poshyarn

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….Jasmine!!!

Yes – finally after more than a year she is finished…..so the details (if you’re interested)

Pattern – Jasmine from Rowan 39

Yarn – Rowan 4ply Cotton

Needles – 3mm needles & 3mm crochet hook

Cast on – Spring 2006

Completed – 22nd June 2007

Thanks to everyone who offered advice/help with the crochet edging, DH’s cousin was staying with us last Wednesday & Thursday and she crochets so she gave me some help as well and I did this –

I don’t know if it’s exactly what the pattern called for but I like it. I finished her on Friday evening and was so pleased as we had friends coming over on Saturday to go out for lunch. I pressed her and chose my outfit to complement her perfectly and we set out into the sunshine together. I was planning to have DH take lots of lovely photos of us in the sunshine by the river in Marlow…..then the biggest thunderstorm in memory struck and we all had to run for home …..so here are some photos taken in our garden and lounge

I was so pleased with my crochet skills that I went off looking for something else to crochet and I have discovered Amigurumi and I’m hooked (ha! no pun intended!!!!). I have bags of small oddments of yarn that I inherited from my grandmother, she used to knit toys and small items for church fetes and Amigurumis seem like a perfect way to use up these oddments – and they are just so darn cute!!!

So, here’s my first ever Amigurumi – “Usagi” (Rabbit in Japanese)

He started out as these little pieces –

The head and body I just made two spheres with increases and decreases, the ears were based on the Best Bunny pattern on the Lion Brand website. The arms were just a spiral of 6 double crochets (that’s single crochets in US). He was made with Sirdar Snuggly Chunky in cream from my stash and a 5mm crochet hook.

I’m pretty proud of him…..and he’s been checking out our house (note the new carpet on the stairs – I’m so excited about it)

What else have I been doing? Well, as you can see from the gorgeous new carpet we’ve been doing some work in the house – the stairs, landing and two spare rooms now have new carpet as well as the lovely new paint job we gave them at Easter and there are curtains on the window at the top of the stairs for the first time in the 6 years we’ve lived here! Wow, after 6 years it’s almost starting to look like a home……

I’ve also been knitting a tea-cosy, this was inspired by my visit to The Natural Dye Studio – Amanda had knit this and I fell in love with it

the yarn is Misti Alpaca DK 4 ply which I got some time ago in a swap together with a Mohair loop from Natural Dye Studio whish has been in my stash for ages – and it has about 300 beads. I’ve got a bit further but batteries have run out on the camera so I’ll have to post finished photos later this week, meantime here’s a close up of the beads

I forgot to mention when I posted about the workshop that I couldn’t resist buying some goodies whilst I was in Suffolk – as well as the tea-cosy pattern and the beads I bought some silk and a pattern for a crochet scarf –

and I bought two lots of sock wool and some beautiful soft chunky mohair

technorati tags:amigurumi, alpaca, crochet, knit, teacosy, beads, jasmine, rowan

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Ok, so this is a plea for help….I finally plucked up the courage to attempt the crocheted edging on Jasmine from Rowan 39 (knit last Spring and shelved since then until I learnt to crochet)

I was really pleased with my progress and it was looking really good. Did 6 rounds and then started round 7 at which point I have to admit I was stumped. The pattern reads

“5 ch, 1ss into next ch sp by going down into ch sps of previous rounds and back up and across into next round”

Now, I understand the 5ch,  1ss into next ch sp but I have no idea where I’m supposed to go “down” and “back up and across”

Here is the work at the point in the round where this instruction comes  – I’m hoping someone out there can help me.

The previous round at this point it was “ch5, 1ss into next ch sp, 1ss into next ch sp, 5ch”. I  would really appreciate if someone could tell me where I should put my crochet hook now -  and believe me I know where I want to put it……..

technorati tags:crochet, help, advice, rowan

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…listed below. The draw was done last weekend in a highly scientific manner – names of all the entries were printed out, cut into individual pieces, folded up, placed in a bag and my husband then picked out 7 tickets. The same was done with the prizes and the first name out won the first prize out, second name got the second prize etc. Three people had two tickets pulled out of the bag but one of those asked that one of the prizes be put back and another ticket drawn.

So the names and prizes as they came out of the bag are -

• Susanne who blogs at http://suse-dol-amroth.livejournal.com wins the stitch markers donated by ShelbyB
• Kathryn wins the sock kit donated by Amanda at The Natural Dye Studio and she also wins a Kool Aid Dye Kit donated by Bright Dyes
• Nic who blogs at www.talesfromtheplain.blogspot.com wins a Kool Aid Dye kit from Bright Dyes
• Sue from my knitting group in Marlow wins 2 skeins of yarn from my stash (to be decided on – this replaces the sari silk which was withdrawn as a prize)
• Melanie wins the Apeldoorn sock yarn donated by Sonja at Thank Ewe

• Glynis wins the 2 skeins of Bealtain yarn donated by Jo at Celtic Memory Yarns
• Lisa blogs at www.saratogaknitting.blogspot.com wins a Forget Me Knot pattern from Noni Patterns and also the Opal sock yarn from my stash.
• Mary who blogs at www.silverbellsallinarow.blogspot.com wins the Fleece Artist “Parrot” yarn donated by Get Knitted
• Kaedekat wins the Fleece Artist “Hercules” donated by Get Knitted
• Sally A who blogs at www.xanga.com/miserycord wins the Rowan Pure Wool pattern book.
• Roo who blogs at www.rooknitting.blogspot.com wins the “Indigo Plus” sock yarn from The Yarn Yard. This was rather fitting as it was Ruth who introduced me to The Yarn Yard when she was my swap partner in Sockret Pal and it was Natalie at The Yarn Yard who donated this skein of yarn and gave me the idea to run this prize draw.

• Dianne blogs at www.randomknitter.blogspot.com wins 2 skeins of “Sorbet” sock yarn donated by Dee at Posh Yarns.

• Sally, who has a Ravelry page at www.ravelry.com/projects/sallyjoy81, wins a Forget Me Knot pattern from Noni Patterns
• Michael Woelfel wins the Scarf Kit donated by Art of Yarn. I have sent several emails to Michael to inform him that he has won but had no response. If you’re reading this then please contact me as I need your address to send the prize.
• Helen Kilcoin from Putney blogs at easystitcher.blogdrive.com wins the Fleece Artist “Tiger” donated by Get Knitted

Finally, I want to say a really big THANK YOU to everyone who donated and helped me to raise over £300 from the Prize Draw. In total, since last June, I have raised over £1,600 for breast cancer charities and this is way beyond my original target of £1,000.



Prize Draw £307.64

Moonwalk £667.03

Sale of knitted items & phone charms £238.00

Thames Trail Walk £212.30

Sales on eBay/Carboot £192.81

Total £1,617.78



THANKS!!

technorati tags:breakthrough, prize, draw, raffle

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I had a wonderful day in Suffolk yesterday on a dye workshop at The Natural Dye Studio. This is the showroom at The Natural Dye Studio showing all her wonderful yarns –

This was the first workshop Amanda had run and there were 5 of us eager to learn everything she had to tell us! The first thing we did was collect our materials for some “hedgerow dyeing” – here we are cutting Cow Parsley and Nettles

after collecting the plants we had to cook them up to release the colour – both plants should give a yellow dye

This is Amanda filling one of her dye baths (which some of you may notice are 35 litre tea urns) with water

Amanda only uses only natural dyes and mordants, nothing that will be harmful to either the environment or herself – the mordants she uses are Alum, Cream of Tartar, Tannin and Washing Soda and for dyeing she uses only natural plants such as Alkanet (a native British plant), Madder (the root of a plant used since ancient times) and Weld (another British plant which grows alongside motorways)

For the dyeing workshop we used -

• Brazilwood- red
• Indigo – blue
• Nettles – yellow
• Cow Parsley – yellow

Once the nettles and the cow parsley had cooked up for a while we strained out the vegetable matter

and then returned the, now coloured, water to the heat adding the yarn we were to dye to simmer in the pans. The nettles produced a wonderful yellow dye and we continued to get colour from them all afternoon. The cow parsley was a little disappointing only giving a very pale yellow – this is one of the issues with using natural dyes from hedgerows etc, so many things can affect the colour, weather, age of the plant when you pick it, soil…..but it makes it quite exciting to experiment.

The yarn in the middle here was dyed with the cow parsley, the red was dyed in Madder.

We all had great fun and started experimenting with dip-dyeing -  here are all our skeins of yarn hanging over the indigo dye bath to dye just one end….

some of us tried tie-dying, over-dying one colour with another- I think we all quickly got caught up in Amanda’s obvious enthusiasm for dying and began looking excitedly to see what colour was coming out of the dye bath next! From just three dyes – we produced a huge range of colours, shades and patternings

One of the most interesting things is how different yarns take up the colour differently so mohair and blue faced leicester placed in the same dye bath for the same length of time come out different shades.

The indigo is fascinating, it’s an eastern plant and one of the oldest recorded dye plants. It is mentioned as a colour chosen for the Tabernacle of the Arc of the Covenant and some of the oldest scraps of fabric are dyed with it and it was the original dye for denim. Woad, which was used by the ancient Britons, produces the same chemical dye compound.

Indigo is water insoluble and so to dye with it you must make it undergo a chemical change – when a dyed fabric is removed from the dyebath the indigo oxidises and reverts to it’s insoluble form, which is why the blue dye in jeans rubs off onto your skin or your furniture. The earliest method used to dye with indigo was to mix it with stale urine – luckily we now have other additives which remove the oxygen so we didn’t have to go the stale urine route!!! Once the indigo has become soluble by removal of the oxygen from the water, the dye bath turns green. The yarn to be dyed has to be introduced carefully to avoid making bubbles and then removed carefully. As it emerges from the dye bath it is green and then it magically turns blue as it oxidises.

I had a really lovely day and would highly recommend a visit to Suffolk to see Amanda, she is so passionate about dyeing that you can’t help but come away enthused and inspired. Here are the yarns I dyed during the day –

From left to right – merino chunky dyed with Brazilwood, BFL dyed with Indigo and Brazilwood, BFL dyed with Nettles, Mohair Loop dyed with Indigo and then overdyed with Brazilwood, BFL dyed with cow parsley.

I’m off to collect plants now to try some more dyeing…..

technorati tags:workshop, dye, Natural, studio, dyeing

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….that’s dye not die!!!! I’m really excited that tomorrow I am off to spend a day on a workshop at The Natural Dye Studio learning to dye with natural materials.

I have no idea what to expect as Amanda at the Dye Studio admits she’s never run a workshop before but I’m hoping that by the end of the day I should have a couple of skeins of yarn dyed by me that I won’t deel too ashamed to knit up….will share photos once I get home.

Meanwhile, here’s a picture of my new hair-cut and an “in-action” shot of the mug my ISE4 pal, Mamere Knits Too Much, sent to me.

I made a HUGE mug of chocolate (it holds about a pint!) sprinkled on some marshmallows and then used the chocolate spoon to stir – it was hazelnut flavour and melted perfectly……yummmmmmm!

Off to bed now as I have to get up early tomorrow for the 2 1/2 hour journey to Suffolk.

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I got home from work today to find a card from the postman…oh no i thought, they have my parcel at the post office and I’m going to have to find time to go collect, and I’m out this Saturday…..but no, the card said “We have left you parcel…..in the zipped cage at the back near the water tank”. What this meant was inside my little mini green house (staging with a plastic zip front cover) on the decking next to the water butt.

So I was very restrained, I brought the parcel inside then fed the cat, got changed from my work clothes, made a cup of tea and then got the camera before I opened the parcel and saw ..

when I took out the various packages and removed the bubble wrap I had -

The first zip-lock bag I opened contained a skein of the most wonderful coloured yarn -

this is 440yds of “Knitables” in a colour called “Pleasant Bay”. The label says it is a North Carolina business started by someone to earn money but still have time to care for a father fighting against cancer.

The next parcel was the scarf- and it is gorgeous. Alpaca (I think) in a lovely winding cable design. Details on the yarn and pattern please ISE4 pal!!!!

as you can see it is wonderfully long (and went perfectly with the clothes I was wearing!)

The final part of the package was so beautifully wrapped it seemed a shame to undo it

the first thing to appear was a chocolate coffee spoon –

then I took off the pink net to see this

my pal has obviously been reading my blog and knows I’ve been raising money for breast cancer care!! The whole package is in support of breast cancer charity – a pin, a wonderful pen shaped like a lip-stick, a note pad and the gorgeous, huge, mug. It says it’s a latte mug but I think it’s going to become my hot-chocolate cup!!!

this was a lovely, thoughtful package and I want to thank Mamere Knits Too Much for sending me this gorgeous things. In particular for the scarf – it’s very rarely I get something made for me, rather than me making things for others, so it is very special and will be treasured.

Here’s another shot of all my goodies

and me in my new scarf

technorati tags:ISE4, scarf, knitting, breast, cancer

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Thanks to everyone who donated and bought an entry in the Prize Draw over the past month or so. The draw is now closed and I will be starting to contact the winners tomorrow evening (Monday 11th June). Once I have a full list of prize winners I will post it here.

Over 300 entries were bought and so I’ve raised over £300 for Breakthrough from the Prize Draw which means, together with all the other activities I’ve been doing, since last July I ave raised over £1,600 for Breast Cancer charities.

Thanks to everyone who has donated and helped me reach this target

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…if you still want to enter the prize draw then there’s a few more days to do so. The draw will now be open until Sunday 10th June (as I had forgotten we are away for the weekend!) so tell your friends/colleagues/family and come donate to a wonderful cause.

There are also only a few days to go on my wedding gift knitting. The couple in question are getting married in Italy on 16th June but will be flying out on Thursday 14th so I need to have the gifts finished on Tuesday night so I can give them on Wednesday…..hmmm

So, the shawl is finished

it’s had a soak

and is currently blocking in the spare room upstairs –

I’m really please with how it’s turned out and hope the recipient will love it too!

Details

Yarn – Cobweb Mohair from The Natural Dye Studio

Needles – 4.5mm aluminium circular and 4.5mm Birch dpns

Pattern – Melon Pattern shawl from Victorian Lace Today

Cast on: 25th May 2007

Cast off: late Wednesday 6th June 2007

As for the socks for the groom – one down one to go

These are South African flag socks adapted from the Gentlemans Winter Sock in Knitting Vintage Socks.

Yarn – Black & Red is 4ply Sock Yarn (80% Botany Wool 20% Acrylic) from Angel Yarns, Green & Yellow is Lornas Lace Shepherd Sock in Coral Green & Sunshine respectively and the Blue is Roway 4ply Botany in Royal Blue.

Needles – 2.5mm bamboo dpns

Cast on – 3rd June 2007

technorati tags:lace, shawl, socks

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I sent off an email about 6 weeks ago to sign up for the Rowan/Innocent offer for Knitting in Public Day. The idea was if you wrote to them they would send you a pack for your knitting group to help knit hats for Innocent Smoothie Bottles and raise money for Age Concern.

I wrote to them and asked for a pack for my knitting group – unfortunately (a) I didn’t make it to my knitting group on Monday evening and (b) the pack didn’t arrive until Tuesday morning anyway!

So, I now have a stack of vouchers offering 10% off Rowan/RYC & Jaeger which expire on 30th June and my knitting group only meets once a month so ….if anyone wants one email me with your address and I’ll post it to you…..only valid in the UK I suspect.

Also want to make a final plug for the Breakthrough Prize Draw- there’s still time to buy a ticket to win a wonderful prize. The draw will remain open now until early Monday 11th June (as I’ve realised that we’re away for the weekend!) will draw the prize winners that evening (UK time) and send out notifications then.

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