New Chapter Up

I've just put Chapter Four up on The Raven of Arlon for any who might be interested. It has been a busy Christmas period and it promises to be an equally busy New Year.
Good wishes and blessings for you all!

Ah, the Christmas Time of Year...

Okay, I've never been a fan of this time of year and really feel a little freaked out with the stress surrounding December plus some lovely extras from other aspects of life that we could all have done well with out! But I'm sure it'll all work out...
...it usually does.
Anyway, I have been busy, mostly with stuff that doesn't matter much.
I've taken a new photo of the dyed ball of yarn I plied on my wheel so the colours nicer.

And I finished washing, carding, spinning and plying the small bag of wool I got with my traveller. It's lovely and soft :)

Also I started drawing a concept drawing of a rock eating dragon-like bird thing from one of my story ideas. It's been sitting on my mantlepeice while I look at it and think what to do next and last night I broke out the art supplies!

I'm not the best painter, I'm not terribly confident in colour choice and I've never painted anything that was scales and feathers...or even all scales or all feathers! And I haven't photocopied the original so this could quite literally blow up in my face if I stuff this up but at least I've got the tracing of the original drawing. Wont help with the riders on it. They're freehand and all I have is a tracing of their placement, not their details.
But I like it. This is the first layer so I have to wait until it's really dry before I have another go at it.

So that's what I've been doing so far instead of christmas shopping which I can't do at the moment. Probably helping me stay sane. Roll on Christmas Day. The actual day I DO like!
Happy Knitting and Merry Christmas :)

New Chapter Up

I wanted to tweak these chapters a bit before I put them up but I'm having difficulty finding the time. So, anyone who reads them (God knows who that is!) be aware that I'm very interested in any insights that I may have missed and improvements I can make.
Anyway, Chapter Three is up :) on Raven Of Arlon

I really am Knitting, not just Puddling away with Dye!

I really am! But I've got some more dyed yarn to show so don't make fun of me!
please?

Okay, I dyed this 2ply yarn that handles like cotton but clearly isn't. It certainly doesn't dye like cotton! But it's really a bit thin for knitting anything I might actually wear, like a shirt. So I balled up two of the skeins and plied them together on my Traditional Spinning Wheel. It worked out pretty well actually. If anything I wish I'd plied it a bit tighter. But otherwise it's great! About a 4ply thickness.

It has a slightly stonewashed look about the colour, which is a nice strawberry pinky/red. I balled it up and admired my handywork! I've got to get a better photo tomorrow, the colours not nearly this washed out but it's right near a window.

Now I just need to put it away with all the rest of my VAST collection of yarn until I come across something that seems to have it's name on it. It's not like I haven't got anything to go on with.
I'll be good now. I wont be dyeing anymore fibre for a little while...
...at least I don't plan to.
Happy Knitting :)

New Crockpot+Another go at dyeing!

Now I have my own crockpot to use for dyeing I had another go at dyeing this unknown blended 2ply yarn I have. It looks a bit like cotton but it certainly doesn't dye like cotton!

I'd tried dyeing it and microwaveing the yarn but it hadn't worked out very well (probably more to do with the operator than the yarn!) So I put about 2 and a hald litres of warm water in the crockpot, 5 tablespoons of salt and about a teaspoon of tulip red dylon dye in 1 cup od warm water. I's soaked the yarn in a vinegar/water mixture, wrung it out and plopped it into the pot.

Left it overnight on low. In the morning, although the water wasn;t exactly clear it was pretty close and considering the colour I wondered it some of the old dye hadn't leaked out finally. (Probably not possible. Pretty unlikely that while you're dyeing one colour another one leaves!) I put a glug of vinegar in and left it for an hour before I turned it off and let it start cooling down.

I rinsed it in cold water and spun it in the washing machine and then hung them out. I'm really surprised given that they'd been soaking all night how differently parts of the skeins are coloured. There's still pale patches and dark patches. But it looks nice and far more interesting than the plain nude colour it was before. Now all I have to do is be patient and wait for it to dry before I reskein it all up and see the colour gradients really stand out!

Heaps going on at the moment but this is fun and at this time of year that's hard to come by, something fun without stress :)
Happy Knitting and Merry Christmas!

I love Second Hand Shops!

I've been looking for a crockpot so I can do some dyeing without using the same pans that I cook in and on Monday, I finally had some luck! The Drive-In Mart that we go to (a huge shop of just about anything and everything you can imagine!) had this dinky little crockpot!

There's no way my family can confuse this with our big normal one! A lady had bought it the week before but returned it because it wasn't really what she was looking for. Excellent for me! And just to further make my day, a large bag of blue roving and a smaller bag of some brown fleece, quite soft but very dirty. $20 for the lot, fibre and crockpot. SOooo Impressed.
Unfortunately I can't afford any dye at the moment and I'm beginning to wish very much that I had some of the professional powder dyes used by an awful lot of fibre/spinning enthusiasts!
Sigh, there's always something else to wish for.
Happy Knitting :)

Raven Of Arlon - Chapter Two

Putting the next chapter up for anyone who cares. :)
I've got it on another blog now, www.ravenofarlon.blogspot.com and it's in my favourite sites if anyone can't find it. It's just simpler than putting pages of text on this blog.

Finally Got the Christmas Tree up!

And on our Wedding Anniversary too no less! So it's up and I still don't feel excited. Just apprehensive like I do every December. Thank goodness the day itself is usually nice. It's just the lead up that makes me feel sick.

I love sorting!

I love sorting things, categorising, putting things into order. So I've had quite a lot of fun (and frustration!) doing over my blog page. Since I'm the one visiting it most often these days I thought, "Darn it, I'm going to change it to something I really like!"
I think I've achieved that!
My thanks to great sites such as:
www.thecutestblogontheblog.com
www.shabyblogs.com
I am indebted to their wonderful free pretties!
I'm still knitting, spinning and dyeing a bit but I'll put phot's up soon. I'm too whacked out from internet searching to do anything now!

Mohair Nightmare

I wish I liked mohair. I know everyone says how lovely it is, soft with a lovely sheen but my skin just hates it! Trying to wear anything containing mohair is like wearing an amazingly attractive barb wire accessory! And that's even after I spun it! Doesn't matter what I do I still feel all these little fibres sticking into me. Which makes this shawl I've just finished the heights of futile endeavour!
I bought 4 of these balls of Moda Vera Boutique. Loved the colour gradients and the pattern I wanted to try worked best if, of the two yarns you use, one of them has some form of gradiation. So this seemed a good choice.

So I paired it with a recycled lambswool which is beautifully soft and cast on. I began to have misgivings when I realized that I could feel the mohair more than the lambswool. And then I thought, this is a shawl. Where will this spend most of it's time? Around my neck and shoulders!
Am I INSANE!!!
So I decided that once I finished the ball I would finish it since it didn't make sense to keep on with something I'm probably never going to wear and which I couldn't in good conscious pass on to someone else unless they can touch it and make sure they don't have the same problem with mohair.

It's such a shame because it looks lovely and the pattern was really good too. I still have plans for doing the pattern again but in yarn I know is nice (The skeins I dyed and nearly felted are going towards that.) Still going to keep the shawl though. Just as an object lesson. No matter how pretty the colour if it feels nasty you are never going to be able to knit something that is not. Just proves the old saying is true.
You can't turn a sow's ear into a silk purse.
Lesson learned!
Happy Knitting :)

New Page

I thought I'd start putting a chapter every now and then of my book I keep trying to finish. I've actually finished it but the polishing process is the part that keeps getting me down. So maybe if I get some feed back I might get a bit more motivated. Raven of Arlon has been so long in the pipeline I can't properly remember when the germ of the idea first came to me but it's been like an albatross around my neck for such a long time now! So, feel free to comment. Just be gentle with me. I really want to get this one off my mind so I can concentrate on the other stories I have percolating!

Raven of Arlon is a story set in a psuedo-medieval world where seige and war bring out deep personal pain in those involved.
Go to the page Raven of Arlon and have a look and leave a comment here on the home page with this post. Constructive critisism greatly appreciated!

Sometime it pays to think before you do something!

Finally dyed all the base yarn I wanted and the house REEKS of vinegar. So, in a fit of amazing obtuseness I put it all into two delicates bags, toss it in the washing machine, added eucalytus wool wash and fabric softener and...
PUT IT ON A NORMAL WASH CYCLE!!!
What was I thinking???
...And here's the result :(

Bugger!
But all is not lost! I figured out that it hadn't destroyed it so much as felted the fibres together so if I put each hank back onto my Swift I could wind them back onto my NiddyNoddy and reskein them up again.
So, after a big, deep, cleansing sigh...that's what I did.

It seemed to take FOREVER!
But now I have a lovely selection of colours where before I had this boring kind of blue/lavender thing. Definitely think I'll try a shawl with this. Probably the pattern I'm doing at the moment in the mohair and lambswool.
I hate mohair! It's itchy!!
This stuff, on the other hand, isn't. It's soft and cosy and I chose the colours all myself!

I've also cleaned out Walpoles IGA of all it's white vinegar and my fingers are slowly losing that green tinge. I'm all out of the dylon powder so that's probably just as well although I'm practising with food dyes and vinegar now. I think I've created a monster :)

But at least it's a fun, pretty coloured monster! Got to get back to knitting though.
Happy Knitting :)

Still Dyeing...but in a good way :)

Okay, still struggling with how much fixative to put in but I'm pretty pleased with this.
First I washed some fleece, carded it and seperated it into two 50g baskets, spun up each 50g onto a bobbin and then plied them together. Viola! One bobbin of 100g of plied wool!

Then I put the washed skein into two jars of dye like the first experiment but I put a heaped tablespoon of salt in with the quarter tsp of dye. It seemed to work although the green still doesn't climb into the skein anything like the pink does!

When I checked it after drying though, I noticed that the strands had felted together somehow. Whether that was a reaction to dyeing or handling and washing, I don't know so I put it on my Swift and re-skeined it up again.

Didn't come out bad at all. I actually really like the look of the colour now all the strands are mixed together and at least it shouldn't felt as bad next time it's washed.
All in all, very satisfied :)
I've also played with food colouring but it doesn't fix as well with salt. Pretty insipid :(

I'll have to try it with vinegar because that works REALLY well! I've been overdyeing some ordinary coloured yarn I rescued from a jumper and that's coming along brilliantly! I've already gone through 2 litres of vinegar! A few shots of experiments.

Very promising :)
Happy Knitting!

Ha Ha! Completion

And the second sock...DONE!!

So pleased with it. The stripes aren't even that much different on each sock! They're far too big for me and I'd never get my conservative hubbie to wear them so I'm hoping almost-son-in-law will appreciate them. He's about the only male in my extended family with the quirkiness necessary for something this bright. I hope he likes them. I put a lot of time, thought and effort into them.

First Christmas present down!
Happy Knitting :)

First Sock Done!

I have finally finished the first sock! It's one of the few really good reasons to knit two socks at once, even though I always find the first couple of centimeters horribly fiddly, is to avoid second sock syndrome! But I know what I'm doing this time so it shouldn't take too long. Turned out pretty cool actually.

The sock all stretched out. Nice stripe pattern :)

The heel and toe will be different on each sock because of the stripes pattern but I think that'll look fine. I couldn't be bothered to try and cast on in a similiar part of the colour change.

And how it looks on a real bloke's foot. I had to borrow youngest son's enormous feet because the sock looks ridiculous on my midgy little foot. If they fit the boy's foot they'll definitely fit the almost-son-in-law's!
Have already finished the toe on the next sock and now working my way through the foot so hopefully a pair of socks will be completed in the not too distant future!

Yayyy!
Happy Knitting :)

Let's try a little Dyeing (as in changing things colours, not the other...well, you get the idea!)

I've been wanting to try a little dyeing for awhile but nothing huge so I decided I'd experiment with a small skein of wool I'd spun from the bag I got with the Traveller Wheel.
I bought two sachets of Dylon powder dye in Vert Olive and Fuschia. I filled two glass jars with water, added a quarter teaspoon of each dye to one jar and added a quarter teaspoon of salt and gave them a stir.
Then I added the wool.

What I'd forgotten was I'd rushed washing this skein and it still had a bit of lanolin in it. Didn't realize it would mean the dye would have a hard time getting into all the fibres.

So...the first hour...... And the four hours later......

Then just before I went to bed for the night.....and in the morning!
Was a bit disappointed that it wasn't more vibrant but I thought, well, it's an experiment and just carried on!

So I took it out of the jars and gave it a good cold rinse, worried that the whole thing was going to wash out but very pleased when it didn't! I actually quite liked the more muted shades of the pink, green and white.
I washed in warm water next and washed it properly so all the lanolin was out. I didn't lose any of the colour which I was also pleased with and got this beautiful soft skein of delicately coloured wool!

Then I knit it on 5mm needles with 45 stitches into a rectangle, felted it a little in an ordinary cold rinse with some teatowels and Hey Presto!

I have the softest, cutest little coin purse I have ever possessed!! I'm going to look for a small pink zip to sew into the opening when next I'm in town. For now though, I just pick it up and rub it on my face. SOoooo soft!
I'm going to dye as much of this wool like this as I can spin and then make something epic with it. It deserves the royal treatment :)

Can you tell I'm a little chuffed?
Happy Knitting :)

Spinning, spinning...

I have been having a lovely time with my new Traveller Spinning Wheel!
Have spun up some experiments, all navajo plied (I haven't really had the patience to wait long enough to spin up two bobbins).

These two were the very first I spun. The blue had been a single on one of the bobbins that came with the Wheel and the red is some roving I bought when a local craft store closed down. The red is a lot softer than the blue.

Next I started to make my way through the bag of fleece I got with the Wheel. It is pretty dirty but still so soft! It's been quite a long time since I've had to card my own wool since I've spun mostly from rovings of late. I'd forgotten how unpleasant it can be! Bits of skin off my knuckles from the flick brush and sore hands and wrists! But in the end, all worth it. I'd washed the fleece bits before spinning but they were still a bit tacky so after I'd spun it up I sprayed it with stain remover that specialises with removing grease and then put it in a warm bath. So much dirt came out of that last wash! Now it's lovely ans, not tacky at all and lovely light cream colour!

I'm very pleased with these three experiments and I'm washing more fleece bit by bit so I can keep carding and have lots of fluffy wool to spin when I have a chance. I'm thinking of maybe knitting with the three and making a felted pouch or bag-thing with them. The blue really isn't wearable and neither is the red, really and there's not enough of any of them to make something substantial.
Oh well, so much fun. I'll just keep knitting the socks, the shawl and whatever else I've got on the go at the moment and quietly make my leisurely way through the whole garbage bag of fleece, confident that there is no real hurry.
Happy Knitting :)