Saturday 22 May 2010

Recovery

Well, somewhat...I think the amazingly warm weather must have de-gunked some minor parts of my brain, as I've actually managed to achieve quite a bit in the last week or so. This will probably be a bit disjointed, sorry :-)

Firstly, I did some fairly major housework :-) which regular readers will know is not exactly one of my top priorities. Inspired by something I spotted in Spin-Off (I think) I bought a rubber brush. Which may sound a little kinky, but is the absolute awesomesauce when it comes to dragging that nasty combination of long hair, spinning fluff, yarn and fibres and dog hair off your carpets and into the bin. My godawful cheap knackered carpets have never looked so good :-) I've still to do my bedroom, as it's actually rather hard work...

Of course, this cleaning frenzy meant that this week a miracle happened.

THE PLUMBER CAME ROUND AND OMG PEOPLE I HAVE A BOILER.

Okay, I don't have an oil tank or the new radiators yet, but we're making progress. I dunno where I'm going to put all the junk that used to live where the boiler is though :-) Of course he and the sparky made a right mess (and rather casually TOUCHED MY YARN AND WORK IN PROGRESS OH THE HORROR) which means I've had to have a bit of a tidy-up as well and put things out of harm's way. I have a dining room floor! Who knew?

This is what was on the dining room floor:

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Yes folks, in yet another attempt to bust some of the crap stash, I resorted to granny squares as it's about all my poor frazzled being could cope with. There's quite a few more now, but oddly the yarn pile doesn't seem to be diminishing much. I think the crap yarn pixies are sneaking it in at nights.

Along with the sewing machine came a gigantor bag of yarn which I've sorted out:

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95% of which is pure wool :-) There's some Wendy Shetland Chunky in there, some Emu Finlandia, a few balls of Jaeger Matchmaker (oh Jaeger how we miss thee) and a fab hank of what must be very early Colinette Prism which will be a hat for me I think. There's enough for a couple of sweaters here, as long as I don't mind stripes :-)

Ange and I went over to Perth, for the Scottish Machine Knitters' Association do, and I got this:

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which is Rennie's tweed, from Di Gilpin. It is the nom, and entirely Scottish. It has that lovely "dry" hand of a really good tweed. The shawl pin came from Ripples Crafts. I also raided Scottish Fibres for magazine back issues, and scored a bag full of naturally dyed raw fleece from Artisan Threads.

What else, what else...

I finally caved and bought a jumbo flyer kit for Caroline. I got a bargain price due to a customer return, but it was missing the little grommet-y thing which fits into the orifice that allows you to use the standard flyer without changing the maidens. So I'm waiting to see if that arrives, I've sent an email. Phone-phobic, moi? It's interesting using it, the ratios are different so it takes a bit of getting used to, but it's already proved its worth plying some seriously bulky thick-and-thin Falkland tops. This is part of a project, more on that in a moment :-)

I spun up two batts of lovely blue-silver-green-purple:

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I used my new Banksia / purpleheart spindle for the singles, then wound them onto bobbins and I will ply them on Caroline. The batts are dyed merino, lap waste, silk, angelina, trilobal nylon, yarn snippings and sari silk threads. It should ply into something resembling a fingering weight.

I finished Liesl today!!! She's drying upstairs (it's a sauna up there) I will try and find some suitable buttons in the stash tomorrow. The only tricky bit with this pattern is getting the sleeves to match the body. In the end I ignored the pattern and used my brain instead :-)

Right, the project I mentioned earlier. In brief: I've been spending a lot of time looking at freeform and Saori weaving this week. (I'll do another post on this with some links and that next time, it's way past my bedtime!) I'm planning a large blanket, made in sections (this is where a 24" rigid heddle becomes a PITA!) and done in a freeform / Saori style. When I say planning, I'm not really as that wouldn't really be Saori, let's just say I have an idea and I'm running with it :-) Lots of handspun, lots of different textures, some clasped weft and all in natural-ish shades. Should be good. I might do the first warp tomorrow...

I think that's it, I have some more pictures and things and I will write a bit more about the Saori project but now it's way past bedtime and this old lady needs all the beauty sleep she can get :-)

Night all

~*~

2 comments:

saoriweaver said...

Looking forward to seeing your Saori project!

Happy Weaving,
Terri

Jules said...

With all that Wool lying around you have no excuse for not knitting me a nice chunky Jumper..... lol!!