Jewellery

I went on a fused glass and dichroic jewellery workshop yesterday. It was hard work but great fun. Not at all good for my back and neck though. I don't think I could consider adding this as a hobby although I loved it. And if someone gave me a kiln I'd be tempted to give it a go. we managed to make several pieces of jewellery. I don't think mine were the most successful ones. There were some talented people there.

This is my first piece which I turned into a brooch.
My next two pieces the girls loved so I let them keep them. We turned them into necklaces. I'll have to retrieve them at some point over the weekend to take photos.

I then decided I'd try to make a bracelet. I wasn't very good at cutting the pieces of glass. And trying to cut 6 or 7 pieces of identical size glass was beyond me so I decided to go for different sizes. I did make one more piece but forgot to take it home with me. It was rather difficult when the pieces came out of the kiln as several of us struggled to recognise our own pieces. I did recognise other people's pieces but I couldn't remember some of my own.

Anyway, heres the bracelet:
I'm a little concerned the pieces is a little big but I've got big wrists so it may work okay.

Here's my favorite and most succesful piece. I'll keep this one for myself.
And here are my failures:The were supposed to be for the girls but the blue one failed completely and the pink one I used a silver paper heart on pink stone which I shoudn't have done apparently.

I finally managed to get some pics of my Luscious Lace tuck stitch scarf and Handmaiden Seasilk moebious. The weather was very grey so the lighting was exceptionally bad.

this is the Luscious Lace scarf. I used 2 skeins although I'd used a tiny bit of it before so it wasn't two full skeins. it was extremely quick to knit and I love the resulting fabric. It's light and soft and luxurious. I blocked it like I do with my lace items.

And here is the moebious scarf in Handmaiden Seasilk. I'm not 100% happy with this. Not sure if it's too wide or too short or what but the moebious twist doesn't seem to work very well. It doesn't drape properly. But the yarn was gorgeous and has been in my stash for ages. Not sure why I bought this colour as it's not 'my' colour. The machine loved Seasilk too.

Tonight is Halloween. We're not big halloween fans. Our church is generally very against halloween. I'm not sure that my reasons for not liking halloween is for Christian reasons. I think most kids do trick or treating as a bit of an excuse to dress up and beg for sweets. Which is whyI hate it. Where we live we get a huge number of 'trick or treaters' and I don't mind the little kids who look cute and turn up with thier parensts. What I don't like are the older kids and teens who go around on their own and are incredibly rude and unpleasant. One year some kids demanded money when we said we'd run out of sweets. They were then rather rude when Simon said no. Basically it's an evening of the dog barking like mad every time someone knocks on the door. Opening the door and handing out sweets to rude kids. We've tried turning the lights off and closing the curtains and sitting here in the dark but they still knock on the door.

So now we normally go out. Our family tradition is to take the girls to the cinema. This year their grandparents wanted to take them to an event which involves a bonfire, a Meatloaf concert (I expect it's not the real 'Meatloaf') and fireworks. So Simon and I have got a night to ourselves. We've decided to go to the cinema but struggled to find a film to watch. Most of them are halloween themed or scary or kids films. None of which I like.

So now to my next decision. I need to take some knitting. My current secret project is not suitable for cinema knitting. I can carry on with my plain sock but I kind of fancy starting a new scarf in Manos Silk Blend. So I'm off upstairs to wind the yarn and do a quick swatch so I can cast on before we go to the cinema. I've got some gorgeous colours of Silk Blend in my stash. Now, which colours shall I choose?

Yarn Update

I should have been showing you pics of my brand new machine knitted shrug but I had a disaster this morning. After trying to knit a shrug in Noro Kureyon Sock yarn (which my machine didn't like at all, it kept dropping stitches) I cast on with my Fantasy Sock Yarn. I struggled with the cast on but got it right in the end. I needed to knit up 3 skeins. I worked through the first 2 skeins then had to stop as I had knitting group today. This afternoon I sat down to start knitting up the 3rd skein and halfway through it suddenly my machine jammed. In the process of releasing the carriage I dropped several stitches and with the stitch pattern I was using I couldn't rescue them. So I had to unravel the whole thing. I'd only spent about half an hour of total knitting time so I suppose unravelling wasn't too bad. I've also decided to make a slight change. I'd hoped to re-knit it today but ran out of time.

I've been updating the website this evening. Mainly Exotic Cobweb Lace, Silky Merino Lace and Fantasty sock yarn. Next week there will be more Silky Merino and Exotic Cobweb Lace and Bambino Sock Yarn and perhaps something else. All the new yarns can be seen here.

Here's a preview:

Exotic Cobweb Lace - Night out:
Silky Merino Lace - custard:

Exotic Cobweb Lace - Silver (got some in Silky Merino Lace too):

Exotic Cobweb Lace - Pale Gold:

Exotic Cobweb Lace - Plum Pudding:

Some gorgeous Fantasy Sock Yarn colours too. But Blogger crashed when I tried uploading the pics of those. The Fantasy Sock Yarn is gorgeous. So squishy and soft. I love it! I'm knitting my machine knitted shrug in it and will be casting on for some socks as soon as I can. I'm nearly finished with a secret project and will be going straight on to another one.

Tomorrow I'm going on a glass jewellery course. I've wanted to do it for years and I'm looking forward to it. A bit worried about how i'll cope with my back/neck pain as it's been bad today. I may not manage to stay for the whole day. But I'm looking forward to it. Will try to remember to take some pics for the blog.

I'm lovin it.

I'm not talking about McDonalds but my knitting machine. Isn't she beautiful?
Okay perhaps hte machine is not beautiful but I love what it can do. I've got a ribber to but at the moment I don't have room to put it up but we're taking a book case out of my work room to make more space for the knitting machine. And I've been hard at work for the last few days experimenting with tuck stitch. I've tried a few different pattern card but my favorite is no 3.



This is 100g sock yarn knitted up in tuck stitch in about 10 mins. I had hoped to do a scarf but made it too wide so it ended up being very short.
This is the knit side of the fabric:
And the purl side (which is the right side when using tuck stitch):

I loved this so much I decided to try it in some different yarns. I had nearly 100gr of Luscious Lace wound up so in about half an hour I knitted up a scarf.

And this is how it looks on the knit side of the fabric:

The light is so bad today that I can't get any decent model shots.

Next I tried a skein of Handmaiden Sea Silk. I'm hoping to grat the ends together to form a moebius scarf. Slightly worried it's going to be a little too short and wide. It's still blocking so not sure yet if it'll work. But again this took about 15-20 mins so even if I have to frog it and re-knit it a bit narrower it's not a problem.

Today I've knitted up 50gr of Handmaiden Lace Silk using the same stitch pattern. It's turned into a gorgeous, narrow scarf. I'll block it before I share photos.

Another thing I'm planning to use my machine for is knitting up 'sock Squares'. This is the first one I'm knitting up.

I'm knitting the sock using my new square double pointed needles. Yes, I said square. I've read about them in mags and thought I had to try them. I'm not overly impressed. I thought they were supposed to give you better tension and even stitches but mine looks worse. It doens't show too well in the photo but I've abandoned them for my Boyes metal dpns.

I may even rip backto the rib as I don't like the look of the stitches at all.

These 'Sock Squares' won't be in the shop quite yet. I'm planning to get them test knitted by a few friends to test out how the different dye techniques knit up. To start with I'm planning to offer it in Super Merino and Merino Plus but eventually I may do them in some of my other sock yarns too. Emily wants to learn how to use the knitting machine so I'm hoping to train her to knit up the squares for me - saves me a job and she'll earn some extra pocket money.

I've taught Emily to crochet before the weekend and she's been hard at work ever since. She's given me permission to show some of her squares but I forgot to take pics so will show them in the next post.

A grey obsession

I think i'm developing an obsession with grey.

Exhibit 1 - the grey merino I'm spinning. I did a little bit more last yet. Had planned to continue spinning while we watched Question Time but my wheel is making a clunking noise so I stopped.

Exhibit 2 - The grey alpaca I bought on Sunday which is gorgeous and will be on the wheel next. Must get a better pic of it. Still not decided whether to try and get another 100gr bag of the grey merino or ply it with some of the grey alpaca. I weighed what I had left last night, thinking if I'd spun less than half I might do the other half on another bobbin but I'd spun over half so I carried on spinning onto the same boobin.

Exhibit 3 - This gorgeous Organic Merino in 3 different colourways. A customer asked for a custom dyed Organic Merino so I did 3 shades. After months of trying to get a good grey I managed to get 3 good ones in one session. I'll be dyeing more greys I think. I'm really keen to knit something in one of these but must finish other stuff first.Exhibit 4 - The silver Snow Queen. This shawl is hanging on my dress form in the lounge and I love it. The colour is perfect. It kind of shimmers and I keep wanting to put it on. So summing up, I think I can safely say I've got a grey obsession. But then who wouldn't being surrounded by these gorgeous greys.

My secret knitting is going well. I'm catching up on one project. Had to unpick a section this morning but all caught up now.

Last night I grabbed an old ball of sock yarn (no idea which brand it is) and decided to play with tuck stitch on my knitting machine. I chose card no 3. I kind of hoped it would be long enough for a scarf but I made it far too wide - about 80 sts - and it's much, much to short for a scarf. It only took 10 mins though, to knit up nearly 100gr of sock yarn. Amazing, isn't it?! I love the fabric. It looks good on both sides.

So I looked through my stash to see if I had two balls of the same colourway and found 3 balls of Noro Silk Garden sock yarn. I did a quick swatch this morning using tuckstitch and the same card. I'm not sure if it looks quite as good in the Noro.

Here's the other side:

I thought instead of knitting a scarf, perhaps I'd do a very basic shrug. But I'm a little undecided. I think this machine might be magic for using up some stash though. I'm hopefully getting a lace carridge for it soon. Would love to be able to do some quick lace scarves on it.

I did play with some other cards and tuck stitch this morning and this one was interesting, although the yarn is so busy you can hardly see it. The other cards I tried didn't quite work. Any machine knitting experts? Any idea which cards work with tuck stitch? My manual should tell me but I can't work it out.

I coudn't resist the temptation to do a little bit of crochet this morning either and made this quick circle. I'm thinking I may be able to get enough circles out of the two balls of Posh sock yarn I've got to make a scarf. not quite sure about how to connect them yet.

Emily wanted me to teach her how to crochet last night so we had a go at a foundation chain and double crochet. She got it I think but I struggled a bit with my patience. Don't think I'm any good at teaching kids. Adults I love teaching but not sure about kids. This weekend she wants me to teach her how to use the knitting machine.

Distractions

I've got deadlines so the last thing I need is distractions. I've got to finish an accessory set for end of next week and I've got a lot left to do. Also got to finish a cardi by middle of November and have only done a few inches so far. In other words, I should be knitting like mad. So what did I do yesterday? I crocheted. Yes I spent most of my knitting time crocheting.

I made these two granny squares in some left over Posh Yarn sock yarn.
and the one circle I had yesterday quickly became two.

Then this morning I found this old ball of the same Posh base yarn in a blue/lilac colourway which will make some more circles or granny squares. Had to hide my hook this morning to resist the temptation to crochet some more. I may do some more circles and work out a way of joining them into a scarf.

I spent 15 mins on my knitting machine this morning and knitting a square of sock yarn, a whole 100gr in 15 mins. I'll be showing you what I'm going to do with it in the next post. There is possibly a new product in devolopment.

This morning was Liskeard Knitting Club. It was great to catch up with everyone after missing last week. We are getting a lot of regular ladies every week now and we have a good laugh. There is a great mix of ages too, from 30s to a lady who is probably over 80. I even managed to do some knitting this morning. Not a lot. A few rows on my cardi. I never seem to get much knitting done during knitting groups.

I'd better get on with some knitting. Determined to catch up over the next few days. But first I have to deal with this big box that arrived this morning.
It's my latest wholesale order. I was thinking the other day that I seemed to have more space in my workroom. I won't have once I've unpacked this lot. But it does mean there will be more Silky Merino Lace and a brand new sock yarn in the shop next week as well as some more Exotic Cobweb Lace, which has been sold out for a while.

Picture Story

I'm going to let the pictures tell the story of the last few days. On Saturday Simon, Emily, our dog Sam and I went for a week at Whitsand Bay (about 20 mins drive from us). it was a fantastic day and this is why we live in Cornwall.

Emily, Simon and Sam:

Isn't the beach stunning? There were some other people on the beach but not many. It's not an easy beach to get to. Access is a walk down a very steep path through an Army firing range. I keep forgetting to take a pic of the access path but it's STEEP.

After a little while I had to sit down as my back and neck was hurting. I'd brought my knitting and sat and knitted while Simon, Emily and Sam carried on. This was my view:

After our walk and the steep climb back up to the road we drove on for another 5 mins until we came to a restaurant called 'The View'. Perfect name for this restaurant. We sat outside and this was our view:

and the other way:

We had a drink and shared a Cornish Cream Tea which I forgot to photograph before we dug into it, but it consists of scones, Cornish clotted cream and jam. Gorgeous. The restaurant has a n impressive sea-food menu and is very popular.

On Saturday evening I went to stay with my friend Marianne in South Devon and on Sunday morning we drove up to Ilsington near Newton Abbott to attend the Ktog event organised by Terri and her knitting group. This is the 3rd year the event has been held. I had a stall:

a close up of my sock and lace yarns:

I also taught an hour's taster workshop on 'continental knitting'. It was also a great opportunity to catch up with old friends and chat to knitters.

Spin A Yarn had a stall there too.

And John and Juliet from John Arbon Textiles were there.

The biggest temptation on their stall was this little selection of fibre. This lot was also right next to my stall.

And did I resist? Ofcourse I didn't. They had some gorgoeus dark grey, almost black alpaca roving. It was so soft. I decided at £1 per 100gr I had to get 500gr. When I went to get mine there was only 660gr left so Igot the lot.

The picture below doesn't do this fibre justice at all. It's stunning. No idea what I'm going to spin with it.

I've got a thing about grey at the moment. Last week I got this gorgeous natural grey merino from Spin A Yarn Which I started spinning the other day. I've only got 100gr. I meant to ask if they had any more when I was at the shop teaching a lace kniting workshop yesterday but I forgot. I'm thinking about plying it with the charcoal alpaca.

Yesterday I was teaching a lace knitting workshop at Spin A Yarn. the workshop went well and everyone was lovely as always. A couple of participants had been on my workshops before and it's nice to see people coming back. I always end up buying some yarn while I'm there but yesterday I managed to walk out without any more yarn!!!! But I did get 2 crochet hooks. All mine are cheap plastic ones so Itreate myself to a couple of Clover Soft Touch hooks. And this morning I decided to take a break from my knitting to crochet this circle. The yarn is some leftover Posh sock yarn. I crocheted a circle. It's not perfect but I like it. Not sure what to do with it but I'm planning to do more and then perhaps i'll try to combine then into a scarf or something. I used mainly trebles and a couple of rounds of half-trebles.

Last week was so busy I got behind with my knitting. I've got a secret project due by the end of next week and another big one by middle of November so I'll be focusing on those for the next week or so. I've also started an exciting project on my knitting machine but more about that next time.