Egg-cellent and egg-citing sit and spin day

Easter Sunday saw our first North Norfolk sit and spin day. Five of us met in the beautiful setting of Alby Crafts and, well, sat and spun.


Meg had the foresight to bring a drum carder which fascinated those who hadn't used one before and proved useful to others who'd spun the fibre they'd brought with them and needed to card some more! Meg cards amazing batts incorporating all sorts of chopped-up bits and pieces, which she then felts or spins.
The day was a real success. I thoroughly enjoyed the day and loved seeing what others were doing. Everyone got on famously, and there was much exchanging of numbers and talk of meeting again.

Egg-citing sit and spin in North Norfolk?

Would anyone like to come along to an 'egg-citing' 'sit and spin' session in North Norfolk on Sunday (4 April)?

Bring a wheel or spindle (or needles or loom if you like) and drop in and out at whatever times suit you.

Alby Crafts - beautiful setting, lots of other things to enjoy while you’re there. I’ll ask nicely for a small contribution towards the cost of the studio and coffee / Easter cake

There’s a cafe on site if you need more sustainance at lunchtime.

Contact me if you're interested and I'll give you more details.

Design challenge

For a birthday present (it was a while ago) my sister Helen gave me this very cute knitted ceramic pot. She loves the concept as much as I do and we spoke about knitting a yarn bowl and turning it into a ceramic one.

That was a while ago and I'm struggling to fit any knitting in (I'm still finishing my Ravelympics main project!). Does anyone fancy designing and knitting a yarn bowl for Helen to turn into a ceramic version for sale on Handknitter.co.uk?? (In return for some promotion and/or perhaps a small commission for each one sold.)

Speak up if you're interested!

Dear Auntie Shiela

In a new feature for the handspinner.co.uk newsletter, I will be doing my best to help slightly fictional spinners / knitters in distress.

In the postbag this month is a letter from a spinner unsettled by her hubby's behaviour.

Dear Auntie Shiela

My marriage seems to have gone a bit cold. He doesn't pay me compliments any more, he looks right past me at the dinner table and he doesn't change his pants as often as he used to. Has he got cold feet?

A: Oh dear. At least he's not having an affair, his personal hygiene would certainly be better.

Try knitting him a pair of socks to keep his feet warm. Every time he puts them on, and feels their hand-knitted toasty warmth, and how lovely the fibre feels against his feet, he'll think of the hours that you put in knitting them especially for him.

To invest more of yourself in them, spin the sock yarn yourself.

Suggestion: Elemmaciltur's variation on the Boyfriend Socks pattern - Drunk Boyfriend Socks:
http://numenna.360fashion.net/2009/04/belated-february-socks.php

The original Boyfriend Socks pattern is here:
http://slippedstitch.blogspot.com/2006/08/boyfriend-socks-written-up.html

Failing that, your wheel is a good friend and losing yourself in hours of spinning will provide unconditional comfort.

Kind regards, Shiela

Spinning news, events, blog picks, giveaways, offers and siliness like this can all be found in the read it or subscribe at handspinner.co.uk

Lolita legs - finished

I read a post this week from a blogger who takes a very relaxed attitude to frogging any project which isn't working. It was quite liberating to read. So I'm not a huge failure as a knitter if I pull something out and start something else?!

I have a couple of projects which are definitely now going to return to their component parts.

However, I've always been keen on finishing Lolita legs. That may be a strange thing to say given that I started it (them?) in 2007. In this case the lack of activity hasn't been a loss of enthusiasm for the pattern or that I've not enjoyed knitting the pattern.

The problem has been that I've made so many mistakes. And when you're facing pulling half or a whole item and starting again, it's easy to put it aside and difficult to pick it up again.

So they were an ideal project for the Ravelympics 'wipsdancing' event!

And now I have two finished, identical stockings, free of mistakes. And I have a finished Ravelympics project. Hurray!

For the record, the yarn is Debbie Bliss Cashmerino (soft and warm!), knit on UK 10's and the pattern (free) is here: Lolita Legs

Bits and Pieces

I swear the older I get, the shorter my attention span becomes. I just don't have the patience to knit an entire sweater anymore unless it's one of those made with super chunky yarn on massive needles so it's done in a few hours. But those sweaters are too hot to wear, so what's the point?

So, I have been amusing myself with small projects, patterns that can be completed in no time at all.

This is a small purse made with a combination of wool yarn and a little bit of shiny strands of something. The silver is just enough to sparkle here and there. My sister gave me the dyed batting for Christmas, and I discovered a friend in town spins yarn from her angora rabbit. She spun this for me, and I had just enough for the purse.

I used a Lion Brand pattern to knit this shopping bag. It's straight garter stitch all the way through, knitting two strands at a time. I decided to buy some interesting yarn from a small shop instead of using the recommended yarn and colors, and that's the problem. I didn't understand how the two strands were used together, and my colors do not match! What a waste. I was delighted to see my cat, Mike, likes the thing as a pillow at least.

This scarf is a keeper, though. Made from another Lion Brand pattern, it's a simple garter stitch zigzag scarf (start with 2 stitches. Increase one stitch with each row until you have 27 stitches. Decrease one stitch with each row down to 14 stitches, then work back up to 27, and so on). I used two balls of Noro yarn, which is a striping yarn I really enjoy working with, and I always love the results. If I make this again, I'll use at least three balls because I like long scarves that wrap.

Now what will I try, I wonder?

consistency, consistency

For many of my projects I've had enough yarn to knit the whole thing, but some projects I've spin, knit, spin, knit. In fact sometimes I've done this deliberately to keep things interesting, and up till now it hasn't caused a problem.

Over the last week I've spun some more wheatfield yarn for my Swallowtail shawl. I've used a different batch of fibre (with more variation of colour) and a different wheel (single rather than double drive) and a faster ratio. The result is a much nicer yarn for my project - finer and smoother and more 'variegated'.


Having knit a couple of pattern repeats with it, I can't really see that it's different enough to matter. I can see that the lace pattern is a little more well-defined and I can see a little bit of striping starting to happen, but only if I look really hard for it.

The second kind of consistency is with the thickness of my yarn. I guess it has to do with having spun so much of the same yarn, and also starting to think about the best drafting technique for the job (short forward draw) and consciously sticking to it.

My swallowtail shawl is still growing quickly. I've now started the lily of the valley border and looking forward to knitting nups! Seeing it take shape is spurring me on, as is the thought of the Ravelympics starting within the next week (Go Team GB!) I would like to have entered this as a WIP project but there's a rule about not having touched a WIP since 12 Jan. That means that I can enter other projects such as Lolita Legs, but not this one. And I'd like to get it finished before casting on my main Ravelympics project. More late nights!