Club Yarn & Ktog in Devon

It's been a busy week, well actually I don't think it's actually been that busy it's just I've beenrecovering from London. Been very tired and so much housework to catch up on.



But I have had time to experiment with colours for next month's club yarn. I had dyed one skein before we went to London and taken ti to start the sock hwile we were away. But when Istarted knitting the socks it didn't give me the look I wanted so it was back to the drawing board this week. I dyed another skein, which although closer, one of the colours wasn't quite right. I also dyed some other yarns and one of them looked great and I tested it with the sock pattern and it looked good. So now, do I go with m yoriginal choice and just change the one colour that was slightly wrong or do I go with this new version? I can't decided. But we're going to start dyeing club yarn tomorrow so got to make up my mind.

The first sock in the original trial yarn is done. As we were away I decided just to carry on knitting it in the original colour. And finished it today although it's been enarly fone for a while now. And I've event typed up the pattern this afternoon. Just got to test knit it on 2nd sock and do photos and it's all ready to go.





If you fancy joining the Sockamania PLUS Merino Sock Club in time for November there is still time and afew places left. Head over to ETsy to order. If all current places listed sell out then that may be it until at least January. I'm not sure whether or not to add any more places to start in December, but it's highly likely we won't. So next chance to join won't be until January and then current members whose membership is about to expire will get first refusal. So if youwant in, grab a space quickly. Sign ups are supposed to close tomorrow for November but I'll leave it on until the end of the weekend.





And while we are on the topic of clubyarn I'm going to reveal October's yarn. If you're one of the 3 unfortunate members whose parcels got lost in the mail (new parcels posted today) then close your eyes quickly.

A pile of all hte yarn, and yes it's not all quite identical. Photo taken late in the evenig so not very good.Most of the parcels waiting to be postd. Taken lateon a Friday evening.

I've been requested to show pics of my spinning, well here you go



This is the lilac merino tops I bought at Coldharbour Mill udring FibreFest. It's so fine and so difficult to spin. So I stopped here and started spinning some of the red Touch Yarns fibre I got at Ally Pally instead. Pics tomorrow or over the weekend.


Do you live in Devon, Cornwall or Somerset? If so, pay attention. Terri is organising an event on Sunday (this week) in honour of National Knitting Week at Lustleigh Village Hall, which is somehwere near Bovey Tracey and Newton Abbot. There will be a Stitch n Bitch Cafe, workshops, spinning demo, Spin A Yarn (yarn shop) will have a stall. I'm teaching a basic sock workshop. It starts at 1pm. There is a small charge to get in which is for charity and a small charge (to cover materials) for some workshops. It sounds like it's going to be a great afternoon so come along if you can.

Then on Tuesday next week I'm teaching a basic sock workshop at Spin A Yarn in Bovey Tracey (just off A38 near Newton Abbot about halfway between Exeter and Plymouth). Its a fantastic shop btw and I'm really looking forward to teaching sock knitting. I've no idea if it's full or not but if you're interested or to find out more contact Joyce (check out the website for contact details). It starts at 10am and finishes at 2.30pm I think. I'm teaching a beginners lace knitting workshop next month. Lots of other workshops there too: felting, spinning, finishing techniques and lots more. And did I mention how great the shop is? It's fab and crammed full of gorgeous yarns from around the world and local hand dyed yarns.

Wow,

....what a weekend. Sign ups for Sockamania PLUS Merino Sock Club is going great. I orignally listed 20 memberships then I accidentally added 5 more adn there is about 9 left at the time of writing. So if you want in be quick. Sign ups for October close on Wednesday as I need to get the yarn dyed on Thursday. Although I'm hoping ot do most of it on Wednesday. The October socks are nearly done. Just test knitting the 2nd sock now and they're nearly half done.

Not been all that much knitting going on over the weekend. We went looking at kitchens and sofas on Saturday afternoon. We're planning to get a new kitchen soon. We didn't make any progress with that on Saturday. Only managed to look in Homebase and there was nothing there which particularly took our fancy. Had a bit more luck on the sofa front .Liked one in Homebase we rther liked. And we saw two in Land of Leather I liked although Simon only liked one. It's brown leather, which we want. Its high enough back to be comfortable for my neck and I found one especially nice for my back. The price was very goo. BUT all the sofas in Land Of Leather appear to be recliner ones. I'd love a recliner one but it's not that great with kids. They're bound to much around with it and there's the danger of them hurting themselves but the biggest risk is that it'll get damaged and Simon thinks it's 'just another thing to go wrong'. Tehy're having a 12 hour sale on Thursday so I did suggest pickign him up from work on Thursday to go and have a look as I've got to take Ness to dentish in Plymouth anyway.

That's about the most exciting thing I did this weekend. I've got no pics for you either. I was going to photograph the alapaca dk I dyed last week. It's in a pile downstairs and the colours are gorgeous. I couldn't decide whether to reskein them or not this morning so Ididn't bother doing anything with them. But I'll get them ready and listed on Etsy tomorrow.

Tonight I've been given the task by my lovely oldest daughter to knit her friend a mobile phone sock.... for tomorrow. Okay, so they're small and quick to knit but Iwas going to work on Sockamania socks tonight. Got another sock which I want to knit by Friday too. I've started the mobile phone sock but whether or not I'll oblige Madame by getting it done tomorrow I'm not sure. Maybe if I get too tired to knit anything else later on. She told her friend I'd do it for tomorrow.

And talking of phone socks, I've been asked to teach Ness' Guide Group to knit and I thought mobile phone socks were a good idea as most of them have phones. Now, Ido mine toe up on 2.75mm dpns in sock yarn. Is that going to be too challening for 12 and 13 year olds who don't knit???? I'm thinking of using DK yarn instead and 3.5mm needles and knit the sock as two rectangles and sew them together. Not sure if I can get them to manage 4 dpns. Any advice?

I've started adding new members to Sockamani for October. I'll send out new members welcome e-mails too once I've done all the blogger invites. It's a bit of a prolonged process as I've also gotto save their e-mail addys in my Hotmail list and add them to a Sockamania e-mailing group. We're likely to be over 200 members by the end of the week. I'm totally amazed.

Happy knitting.

Etsy update

Not got muchtime to write tonight. Got housegroup here in 20 mins and I'm leading it. Just wanted to mention I've just finished listing some new BFL lace yarns on Etsy. Also listed a couple of merino sock yarns. The colours are gorgeous, especially the dream colourway. My favourite:

Merino:

Favourite BFL:

I've also managed to finally make my own Blog button and Etsy banner today. Check out my Etsy shop to see how the banner works. I like it and I'm impressed I finally managed to do it. YOu've no idea how long I've been working on this. LOL.

Fundraising - Diabetes research

Have you noticed the wignet in the sidebar. I've set up a page on Just Giving to raide money for a walk for diabetes walk we're doing on Sunday 16th September, so it's less than a week away. I should have set this up a long time ago but only found out about it a week ago and then not gotten around to sorting it out. Not sure why as it's so easy to do.

This is what it's all about. My friend, Helen, asked us earlier in the summer if we'd like to do this walk with her. One of her other friends is doing it as well, so in total there will be 5 adults and 6 children aged from 9 to 12 in our team. The walk is 4-5 miles long and starts at Saltram House in Plymouth. Saltram House is a National Trust property and we've been there lots of times and it's a beatuful setting.

The reason Helen decided to do this walk is that she's got type 1 diabetes and she'd like to do something to support a cause that's important to her. So we're praying for good weather adn then hopefully it hsould be a good day out.

I've set up a team sponsorship page where you can sponsor us as a team. Remember we're doing it on Sunday so be quick if you want to sponsor us. Any donation, no matter how large or small will be very much appreciated. Click on the link in the side bar or this link to donate.

Spinning news:

Here's is my drop spindle this morning before I started spinning

It's filled up a little more now but I havne't spun too much today. Been too tired really. This is the fibre I have left to spin of the first half.

Then I suppose I'll take the single off and spin the other half and then ply it. Not sure how to get it all off the spindle. I saw on a You Tube video someone who wound it off the spindle with a ball winder and someone else told me they slide it off onto a knitting needle.

I had a gorgeous delivery aobut half an hour ago and this is what greeted me when I opened the box.

There was 3 bags of500gr each of Shetland, Merino and BFL slivers. Now sidetracking a bit, what's the difference between tops, sliver and roving. This 'sliver' looks the same as the roving I got last week.

Taking the fibre out, I found this lot of luscious BFL yarns, there are 10 skeins each of sock yarn and laceweight yarn.

I only placed a small order to start iwth to make sure I like BFL. Never dyed it before and not knitted with it yet either. I'm planning to dye the sock yarn tomorrow nad the lace on Thursday. The sock yarn will be tested as soon as it's dry. Can't waitto see if it's as nice as merino. Doesn't feel as soft undyed but that may change in the dyeing process. I'm hoping it'll be on ETsy by the weekend.

In the meantime there are lots of other yarns in my Etsy shop. Lots of merino sock yarn, some cobweb laceweight, merino lace and merino worsted. Teh worsted and lace on Etsy is all I've got at the moment. But I do have some more cobweb but it's on a cone and I can't face winding it off right now.

LAZY DAY

I had a long, long list of stuff to do today and I managed to get all the knitting related stuff done but not the housework. Anyone else got that problem? Which means I should now stop blogging, and go downstairs and get on with the ironing as I have nothing to wear tomorrow, neither does the rest of the family. My bed is full of clothes to be folded. There is clothes in the tumble dryer to be brought in and put away, stuff on the line which has got wet again (so may as well leave it there) and I still haven't cleared up the kitchen after tea.

But I have knitted almost an entire foot of a sock (and I have big feet), reskeined 3 skeins of yarn, taken a pile of yarn parcels to the post office (and walked the dog at the same time), assembled the knitting patterns to send off to One Planet... as they'll be selling my patterns soon. And writing up the sock pattern I'm working on. And had a friend over for a chat this afternoon (good excuse to knit and ignore the ironing). I cleaned my teeth about midday and cleared up after breakfast about 1pm. I was up and dressed by 7.30am though. Not washed hair and no make up. Doesn't sound good does it.

So do you think my husband would be impressed if he read my list of what I did today? I don't so let's hope he doesn't read my blog. He's out tonight btw, so I'd like to curl up in my chair with my sock and something good on TV (welll a girl can dream can't she?!). But instead it's kitchen duty and ironing for me. Punishment for my lazy day.

As I said One Planet Yarn and Fiber will soon be stocking my patterns. I'm so excited about this. A few of my patterns have been stocked by Yarn Grove but One Planet will stock a much larger number and they're all my recent sock and shawl patterns.

If any readers run a yarn shop and want to stock my patterns, just get in touch.

Well, I'd better get off and tackle that huge pile of dishes (by tackling I mean load them in the dish washer) and then iron a pair of trousers and t-shirt for me to wear tomorrow. Then it's knitting time.

One quick note about Sockamania, if you'd like to join, be quick. I've only got 10 spaces left and then I'll pauce it again as we'll be 100 members (lots have signed up in the last few weeks). And I want to make sure I can manage the blog with such a large number before I let more in.

The Sockamania patterns for May and June will soon be for sale on my blog/Etsy and at One Planet.