Sloochie

Pattern: Sloochie by Woolly Wormhead
Yarn: Wensleydale Longwool Sheep Shop Aran
Yardage: 153 (around 88g of 100g)
Needles: 4.5mm DPNs and 16" circ.

Knit as part of the July Vertical KAL in the Wormhead's Hats group on Ravelry. I made the largest size with no real mods (body ended up a little longer) and it fits very well. I love the pixie style. This was the first time I'd knit a top-down hat, and for once I did OK with DPNs, changing over to a circ at around 90 stitches. The Wensleydale is lovely wool, quite "heavy" in its own way but it makes a good fabric. I may knit this hat again in a "loftier" wool.

As promised here are a few photos of the animals at Woolfest.

Just been shorn!

These two young 'uns were having a head-butting contest with the black sheep next door!

Gorgeous alpacas - they look like they are knitted when they've been shorn

Woolfest stash!

I don't often post stash acquisitions on here, but will make an exception for my Woolfest haul! We ended up going to both days, and spectacularly failed to meet almost everyone I'd hoped to! The place was busy though, especially on the Friday. On Saturday we managed to get in to a number of stalls we couldn't see for people on the Friday :-) I'm sorry not to get to meet folks, I really am, it's so rare for me to have this kind of opportunity. Hopefully we will go next year, and maybe organise a mini meet-up too. I think leaving it to chance given the size of the venue, and the sheer numbers, isn't the best idea!

On to the yarn. First off, a three-pack of Caber from The Yarn Yard in a lovely silver-grey. Destined for a cardigan or sweater methinks.



Two skeins of the new Yarn Yard Kelpie laceweight cashmere. Beautiful stuff.



More YY laceweight, Gloaming:



The Yarn Yard Woolfest 2009 colourway in Toddy!



Lovely laceweight from Knitwitches - Lime Cordial in merino/silk (800m/100g), and Storm Clouds in organic water mill spun merino (1000m/100g):



The lime is destined for a cardigan, probably Paper Crane (unless I'm brave and do my own top-down creation!).

There was also some fibre from Wingham Wool Work, who also had a subscriber offer for a free jute bag which came in very handy for purchases.



This will be used for both felting and hopefully spinning. I already have a drop spindle from the Wool Clip, and after having seen people spindling, I now have a much better idea how it "works". There was so much lovely fibre around but I didn't want to buy lots until I know I can use it successfully.

There were some other bits and bobs, including some polystyrene foot forms(!) (ideas about making felted slippers and pixie shoes!), and a pair of sock blockers:



I also have some photos of the animals, which I'll save for my next post. I didn't take any of the stalls etc. as I wasn't at all sure it was the "done thing", and anyway I was too busy browsing to think about taking photos!

Woolfest or bust

This year will be my first visit to Woolfest (along with the Mr), I'm looking forward to it very much! I've wanted to go for the past couple of years but it has tended to coincide with holidays elsewhere.

We'll be visiting on the Friday, thankfully this is one fibre festival that is within reasonable driving distance for us (still 2 hours though!). I will be wearing my Ravelry badge with my Rav/blog name knittyinpink. Please feel free to say hello if you so wish (or indeed skedaddle in the opposite direction). If I spot any of my blog/Rav/forum pals I will do likewise, I am mostly depending upon name badges though!

My Tempest cardigan is currently pinned out and blocking, and may be finished in time for Friday. I may even wear it if the weather is on the cool side. I ended up frogging Ishbel though, as I had made some mistakes and after starting the wrong section and not realising until the centre of the row, it seemed the best thing to do. I really must try to knit lace in (a)daylight, and (b) peace and quiet. No TV! It's a pity to have to frog it this time, I don't have a problem with lace per se (and the charts for this are excellent), but do need to concentrate :-)

In lieu of knitting photos, here's a picture of one of my moth orchids, I love the pale yellow.

Of WIPs and knitting

I've been casting on for more projects as the mood takes me, most recently Tempest in this lovely Violet Green Socrates 4ply I originally bought for Shoalwater:



I'll have a WIP photo soon, as I only started this last night and am about 20 rows in to the back. It's a cardigan I've been wanting to make ever since I saw it, but I'm doing a non-striped version instead. There is plenty of the Seascape, and I love the colours without adding any toning stripes. Thanks are due to pictish for suggesting this as I hadn't considered this option before.

Shawl That Jazz is on a mini-hiatus, about half way through the first section. I generally like the colours in the yarn but have a small bee in my bonnet about the dark bottle-ish green elements. This is one of the very very few colours/shades I don't really like. That said I like it overall, and thankfully the rows are getting shorter!



I've also been working on Ishbel this week, heading towards starting the lace section. The WIP photo isn't terribly exciting but it's on Ravelry should you wish to see it. The red Eva is showing its semi-solid nature, when observed in daylight you can see quite a variation in depth of shade. More interesting than a true solid shade, I think.

There is also my first ever sock! I had to learn the long tail cast-on for this, having never bothered with it in the past. Once I watched the video on Knitting Help I "got" it, I do seem to learn much more readily from demos rather than pictures in books. It doesn't help that I can't often make out what goes where in the diagrams in books, despite how clearly they are drawn. Photos are easier, and I learned how to knit in the round with 2 circs from a very helpful tutorial I'd printed out (which now seems to have disappeared online). My "join" stitches are a little loose so far (not helped by plumping for plain stockinette for the main sock body!), but I'm getting there!



This is the yarn I dyed with Kool Aid a couple of weeks ago, I rather like how it is knitting up!

Petersburg

Pattern: Petersburg from Rowan 42
Yarn: Rowan Cocoon, shade Scree
Yardage: 5.74 skeins for size M
Needles: 7mm & 6mm bamboo straights, & 6mm circ for front borders

I decided to finish off Petersburg this past week, as I'd started it back in January when the weather was truly cold! Given the damp day we're having today, it was nice and snug to try on. I'm pleased with how this turned out, the Cocoon is a lovely yarn, very soft and squishy. It does tend to shed some fibres (mohair content) though.

A foray into dyeing

A while ago I won a Kool Aid dyeing kit, which comprised a skein of sock yarn and quite a few sachets of drink mix. This week I decided to make my first attempt at dyeing yarn. The original idea was to dye two skeins of sock yarn a pale lime green, basically a solid-ish colour.

In attempt 1, I used a stock pot on the stove top. For the green, I mixed one sachet of Lime with one of Lemonade, and small amount of Mango. I'd printed out some instructions from Knitty, and also had an info sheet that came with the other skein of yarn. Based upon these I put the dye solution into the pot, then put the soaked skeins in on top of this. I quickly realised this wasn't going to give an even distribution of colour, far from it! The yarn took up the dye incredibly fast, and because at this point there was very little water in the pot, it was pretty much confined to the lower parts of the skeins that were in contact with the solution. Now I realised that my original plan was probably rather ambitious, given the quantity of dye available, but even after adding water, I could tell the solution was just about exhausted before I switched on the heat!

Ending up with 2 skeins dyed in patches in green, I mixed up some Pink Lemonade and some Grape. The first skein I just used the pink, applying with a turkey baster that we have never used (skein laid out flat on some plastic). The second got the purple with a few splashes of pink. This bit is a lot of fun - I wasn't aiming for anything terribly organised, just trying out the techniques. These skeins were set, one by one, using the microwave. They have turned out pretty well, considering they have been through twice the process!

Pink/green skein, rewound into a centre-pull ball:



I had to snip this part way through, as both skeins had developed a few tangles due to not being tied well enough (I just left the ties on that they came with, which probably weren't quite snug enough to begin with)

Green/purple/pink skein, rewound:



I wound the first part of this one off by hand, as this had got a wee bit more tangled.

All in all, I'm pleased with how these turned out, especially as a first attempt!

Dancing with tears in our eyes

The past month has been slightly surreal, to say the least! We were looking forward to seeing the re-formed Ultravox on their "Return to Eden" tour, on April 14th at Manchester Apollo. As a fan from the early 1980s, who wasn't able to see them live back then, this was a dream come true.

We were not disappointed - the band are every bit as good now, after such a long break, as they were back then. The Ultravox "sound" is there, and with the advent of better technology allows them to enjoy the performance much more, without huge racks of equipment to nurse along and pray it doesn't fail! We were in the third row of the stalls, which at the Apllo meant you were extremely close to the stage, a fantastic viewpoint.





I was particularly glad to be able to see Billy Currie play his violin/viola solos live, something that inspired me to stick with the violin myself, all those years ago (and to eventually have the experience of playing many times as part of an orchestra, in front of audiences).



I took our compact digital camera along to Manchester, and while the photos it managed weren't brilliant, they were good enough for my own personal memento of the event. The Ultravox site linked above will have plenty of great tour photos and other material uploaded soon!

After Manchester, I decided that one gig wasn't enough - this may never happen again, after all! I decided to acquire a ticket for the Camden Roundhouse gig on April 30th, which was also being filmed for a live DVD. I had the most amazing day, and got very close to the front at the gig itself (the main area at the Roundhouse was standing). The sound here was hugely more rich and powerful than at Manchester, and much clapping, singing, and punching the air was the order of the day :-)

Afterwards I met back up with some people who were at the same hotel, and we went around the back of the venue to wait for the band to leave. To cut a long story short, I was lucky enough to get the autographs of Chris, Billy and Warren. This wasn't something I'd factored in to my plans at all, the gig was reward enough, so it was a wonderful end to an amazing evening.

All this excitement has meant that knitting has rather taken a back seat in the past few weeks! I'm now picking my WIPs up again, and have ordered some yarn for a Shawl That Jazz. I did manage to finish reading "Wives and Daughters" by Elizabeth Gaskell, and was rather surprised to find it was unfinished, as she died before completing it. It appears that only one chapter remained unwritten, and from notes we can glean the events it would contain. I did enjoy the book despite the missing ending! Last week I read "The Graveyard Book" by Neil Gaiman, which is just a wonderful story, highly recommended. One of those books that you really don't want to finish, and you miss it afterwards. I'm about to start "Twilight", which needs little introduction, but may switch to the sixth in the "Saga of Seven Suns" series by Kevin J. Anderson when that arrives.

Ms Marigold

Pattern: Ms Marigold by ZephyrStyle
Yarn: Rowan Calmer shade Kiwi
Yardage: 188g (less than four standard balls)
Needles: 4.5mm Addi circ & 4mm for the neck and arm edgings

This turned out very well indeed, the combination of a stretchy yarn and making a size smaller gave a good figure-hugging fit. This tank/top is knit top-down, and surprisingly I didn't have to make any mods to the pattern as written - I was expecting to have to add extra before I rejoined the armholes, for example. My only real mod was to finish the arm edgings with 3 rows of rib, rather than the crochet edging and ruffle. I'd look a bit of a numpty with ruffles at the top of my square shoulders!

I would definitely make this again, the Calmer is a delightful yarn to work with. The top was hand washed, then spun in the machine inside a mesh laundry bag, and line dried as the weather is so lovely. No stretching out of shape or any other problems. My next version may well be in a wool yarn, although I'm tempted to make one in deep pink Calmer too.

Last weekend I started a mini shawl in variegated DK on large needles, and that has now been frogged. I realised I wouldn't really have enough to finish it in that shade alone, and decided a toning border/ruffle just wouldn't be quite right. It had been a choice between that and Ishbel, so I cast on the latter a couple of nights ago. I'm using Posh Yarn Eva 2ply, in a deep red which according to my records was the PY Lace Club November 2006 yarn. About time it was knitted with!



This is the larger version of the shawl, and I'm hoping to have enough yarn left over to make the beret too.