More of the wonderful same around here lately

      My spinning and knitting projects are going by the way side these days.  I didn't think I would ever say that, but it's true!  I do try each day to knit a few rows on my kuusklacecowl but that's about it.  My spinning wheel is sitting where it always does in the living room but I don't spin much.  Last evening while Rick and myself were busy clearing/rakeing the green slime from the beach so that the grandkids could swim we didn't notice these  guys swimming around our feet.  Some of the neighbours feed them and they have become accustomed to people.  Little do they know a hungry preditor is lurking on the front porch just waiting for "hunting season" to arrive!  Just sayin!

                                          
                                         Thanks for visiting!!

Ta-dah!

   Another lace project, what a surprise!!  I just can't get enough of this lace, it is so addicting!  This one's not a shawl, it's a sun hat for my niece's upcoming summer, cottage  wedding!  She plans to marry in the sunshine and I thought I would carry my shade around with me.
The hat's from the book "A gathering of lace" gathered by Meg Swansen.  Another reason for the hat, my niece's fiance is from UK and his family is from England so I was thinking I would wear this hat in their honour.  Crazy eh?
The pattern knit up fairly easy and quickly.  My handspun is 23 wpi.  Pattern called for crochet cotton or fine linen so my yarn was a bit thicker than called for so I used size 2.5 mm needles.  Pattern wanted size 3.25.  I found using this tighter knitting gauge kept the hat together more when blocking, and wow did I block!

Progress so far!!

 I was worried while I was knitting, wondering what sort of hat block I would use.  But, I found  a plastic pretzel container that I had saved for some reason, I guess this is the reason.  My dh used a dremel tool and cut the top off the container @ 3" in height and the circumfrence of the container was 22", just my headsize.

I used other ravelry's advice and mixed a concoction of distilled water, cornstarch and fabric stiffener.  Plunked the wet knitted hat into the container, squeezed out the excess, saved the excess for spraying on later after blocking, took the whole thing to the blocking board and blocked it out to circumfrence of 36".
It took a few days to dry completely but to my surprise it was stiff, really stiff.  I added a white bow, later I may change this to black as my wedding outfit is black and white.  And ta-dah here is my finished hat......

Holly and Ella Knits

In my 30+ years of knitting I have never knit lace. This year one of my goals is to spin a plyed yarn that is lace weight. The yarn in this shawl is 70 % lambswool/30% silk and is 18 wpi (wraps per inch) The silk was dyed with coolade and carded into the lambswool.

The pattern, called Little Shells by Holly and Ella Knits is a free Ravelry download.

Another thing I've never done before is blocking, I just thought it was a waste of time and besides I like the way the projects look right off the needles. This pattern has made me a believer in blocking. To take a tiny little shrivelled up piece of knitting and stretch it out to the size you want is amazing and guess what, it stretched my handspun yarn out and made it seem even thinner, maybe even 20 wpi. Bonus, big time!!!

So, I have several lace projects in mind and have begun spinning some blue faced leicester for another pattern from Holly Grifin-Weidner and Donna Griffin called Summer flies, another shawl, this time a bit more intense and larger. Planning on gifting it to my "Secret Sister" at church for her upcomming birthday. I've read over the instructions and there are butterflies in the instructions. And she apparently loves butterflies!!

The website can be found at http://www.hollyandellaknits.com/.

I've gone and done it....

I've started a BLOG!

Now what to write about in my blog. What comes to mind is of course my hobby spinning, dyeing and knitting fibre. Through this blog, you'll get a behind-the-scenes look at my life and fibre progress. A journal of my everyday life.