What I'm Working On and a Finished Pair of Socks

I haven't done a WIP post for ages. I've got into a bad habit where the only thing I seem to be posting about are finished objects. This blog was never meant to be a simple catalogue of FOs. I wanted to share my ups and downs and thought processes, but I think I've been sharing most of that on my podcast or posting on Instagram for a quick "here's what I'm working on right now" photo and explanation. I think in order to get round these omissions I might try and set up a way of posting those update photos from Instagram to the blog. I will try it as an experiment for a week or so and then decide if it is working or not. These updates will be titled as Instagram posts, so please let me know if you find the posts helpful, interesting or a pain in the neck.

In the meantime here are some updates on what I'm currently working on.

These vanilla socks are being knit out of some of my favourite sock yarn, which is from Knitters Nightmare. Sadie's Boogieman Sock is a wonderfully smooth and soft sock yarn that is strong as well. The yarn is 75% merino and 25% nylon and the colourway is Seashore, and yes the colours really are that vibrant! I love knitting these socks and I can't wait to get them on my feet.

I just realised that I haven't shared with you a pair of socks that I finished a couple of weeks ago. I do tend to knit them quite quickly these days and they get lost in the rush. These socks are rather splendid though so I want to share them with you.

I decided after working on only stocking stitch socks, I wanted to make texture a part of these socks and chose a pattern from The Knit Stitch Pattern Handbook, by Melissa Leapman, called Little Boxes on Pg 25. It's a simple and easy pattern and it worked brilliantly with these socks. I adore these socks and I think they will really last because they are a high twist yarn made from Blue Faced Leicester and Nylon, which is sturdy stuff! The yarn is Hedgehog Fibres Twist Sock from The Golden Skein's club inspired by the photo Tornado Over London, which I got as a left over single skein. I love the idea of this club and in fact have entered a photograph into their recent competition to be used as inspiration for the first quarter of 2015. If you are interested you can go and vote over on their Ravelry group. (Mine is Butterfly and I would receive the club shipment, inspired by my photo, if I won. Entries close on Friday 16th May 2014)

I know I have a bit of a tendency towards to knitting rather bright socks but after the success of these more neutral socks, I decided I wanted to try some more muted yarns. I picked up some ordinary Regia yarn so I can throw the socks in the washing machine. I don't have many pairs of machine washable socks using my new personalised vanilla sock pattern so it seemed sensible to knock up a couple of pairs. Regia is such a great workhorse yarn. These socks will be worn for years.

The yarn is Regia Design Line Ombre Stripe in colourway 04480. I really like how this muted stripe looks and it's a nice contrast to the Knitters Nightmare socks that are so vibrant. Sometimes it's nice to knit soothing stocking stitch in a nice soft colour. It's calming!

In contrast to all the soothing stocking stitch I have a couple of interesting projects that I need to concentrate a bit for. The first is the Simene Stole, by Melanie Edgar, from The Scrumptious Collection Volume 3 that I reviewed in January. I'm using Fyberspates Scrumptious Lace in the Teal colourway. It's gorgeous stuff and the pattern is pretty straight forward, for a lace pattern.

I've got as far as midway through the 7th chart repeat, in the first half of the stole. There are only meant to be 6 repeats but I wanted to use up as much of the yarn as possible, and also ensure that the stole could be properly wrapped around my ample frame! When I've finished the 7th repeat I'll weigh the skein and measure the worked part and see if I think I can squeeze in another repeat without running out of yarn or making it into a Doctor Who scarf rather than a stole!

The other "thinking" project is knit using cables. The pattern is from Coopknits Toasty Vol 1 by Rachel Coopey. I really enjoyed her work in the Fyberspates Scrumptious Collection Volume 3 book and decided that as I enjoyed her writing style and her design aesthetic I would buy this book, and it's worth every penny of it's £12.00 price tag, especially as you get a digital download code for the patterns on Ravelry included in the price of the hard copy. The pattern I decided to start with, from this book, is Ripon. It's a lovely slouchy hat knit in 4 ply and covered with cables. What more could a girl, who loves hats, want?

The pattern is written to use Titus 4 Ply but I wanted a hat to match the new stole I am making, plus my new turquoise handbag. I decided to use Jamieson & Smith 2 Ply Jumper Weight Yarn in the Very Bright Turquoise (132) colourway.

I haven't got very far, but I am enjoying it immensely. I hope to get this hat finished by the end of June 2014 as that is the deadline for entry into the Island KAL being run by Sarah of the Fiber Trek podcast. The project uses Shetland wool, which means it is eligible for the KAL, as it is an island produced yarn. It's a fun idea for a KAL and it's nice to do some cabling work again.

So those are most of my currently active knitting projects. It's nice to take stock occasionally and share my progress. I will try and do more update posts again, I do miss it. Hopefully the Instagram posts will help fill the gaps that I leave, but please let me know what you think of that idea, both in theory and reality!

Spinning & Dyeing Yarn - Book Review

Today on my usual day about spinning, I wanted to show you my newly finished fluffy Polwarth yarn.  Sadly, the light is terrible so I'm not even going to try and take photos of it.  Luckily I have something else spinning related to talk to you about today.  I recently received a package from the UK publisher of a new book. It contained Spinning & Dyeing Yarn by Ashley Martineau, to review. As with all the reviews I do on this site, I will give my full and honest opinion, and though I received the book without charge, there was no obligation on me to give anything other than my usual style of review.

The book itself is a very lovely thing.  It is hardback book with bucket-loads of clear photographs and beautiful paper.  (I do like it when books have nice thick and glossy paper, don't you?)  The contents of the book are divided into four sections; Section One - Fibre Identification and Preparation, Section Two - Dyeing Techniques, Section Three - Spinning Techniques and Section Four - Going Professional. Each section is subdivided into chapters and the contents pages at the front of the book clearly list the various items discussed in the books and gives page numbers.  There is also a nice clear index at the back of the book, so between that and the contents pages you should be able to find the things you want to look up, easily.

One of my favourite things about this book are the sections that deal with making your own equipment, including a spinning wheel!  It gives good photos and explanations about what each type of equipment is and how it is used, and then gives tutorials about how to make versions of the equipment at home.  Obviously not all equipment is easily made, but where it is possible, tutorials are given.  This is great if you are just thinking about having a go with spinning.  Most people don't want to spent lots of money on a new hobby, and this book will help them try new tools without spending vast quantities of money.  To be honest, the spinning wheel looks pretty complicated and I think you would need to be handy with a saw and a drill, but if you brave crafter you may be tempted to give it a go.

I like the small sections, throughout the book, where people who work in the fibre industry are interviewed about their work. For example, a shepherd is interviewed in relation to buying fleeces direct from the farm, which is in something most beginners probably wouldn't consider.Talking about the sheep and how you would process a raw fleece may give a reader confidence to give it a go.

The dyeing section was of particular interest to me as I have only just started my journey into this field. There are several different methods outlined, on how to dye different fibres and has techniques that I am interested in trying.  I don't think I'll get much opportunity to try solar dyeing though as it requires several hours of strong direct sunlight.  We don't get many good Summers in the UK, but it's worth thinking about if we get another Summer like last year.

One of my problems with the book is that though it is a great introduction to the world of fibre, it doesn't really give a good clear explanation of what drafting is, what it looks and feels like and how to do it. The only definition of drafting I have come across, before reading this book, were worsted and woollen.  However, this book refers to woollen and aran drafting and states that woollen drafting feeds the fibre forwards into the twist and aran refers to having your front hand hold the twist and pulling the fibre backwards before letting the twist travel up by moving your front hand back, towards the back hand, controlling the twist as your hand travels.

I have not come across the term aran drafting, but of course, I am a beginner spinner so it may be that I've just not come across this term, because nearly all I've learnt of spinning has been from American publishing and websites.  This version of the book has been published for a British audience, and the spellings make it obvious that they have changed terms for the UK, so it may be that in UK spinning guilds I would be taught these terms. I don't think a complete beginner could learn how to draft properly using only this book.  A beginner would probably have to watch videos or read further tutorials to understand what they were doing.

The book really focuses on spinning with a wheel rather than a spindle, though it shows some techniques on a kick wheel.  I think this may well be a route lots of new spinners take: trying to spin on a spindle, possibly using a home-made one, as in the tutorial in the book, deciding they like it and buying a wheel.  The book then jumps straight to creating many different types of art yarns, which is what the book focuses on principally.

The sub-title of the book is The Home Spinner's Guide to Creating Traditional & Art Yarns.  I think the "traditional" part of the title is over stating it somewhat.  This book essentially focuses on getting a spinner to the stage where they create art yarn as quickly as possible. I feel like the middle step of learning to spin is missing from the book.  It introduces basic equipment and then jumps to spinning art yarn on wheels.  There is no middle ground where you learn to spin basic, consistent yarns in a way that the spinner decides. Because of this focus on art yarn, I wonder if the book would have been better served by excluding all the basic information at the beginning of the book and adding more to the latter parts of the book.

The final section of the book, relating to becoming a professional spinner, has several useful subjects, the first of which, relates to photography.  It even shows you how to make a cheap lightbox to take photographs for a shop. However, even if you don't intend selling your yarn, this will be useful for any blogger, or someone wanting to take a good photographic record for listing your finished yarn on Ravelry.

There are several good tips about selling any crafted item, moving from a hobby into becoming professional, however, this area of the book doesn't go very far in depth.  The resources section is very good, as the book has been re-published for the UK, so includes some UK resources as well as US ones. This is very useful information to have, if you looking at developing your hobby, even if you don't want to go professional.

In summary, I like this book.  It has lots of interesting information that covers a broad range of information.  I think there are many books that go in depth in a very specific area of creating yarn, but there are few that touch on so many subjects.  It would be a good book for someone to use as an initial resource to give you starting point to find out if you want to go further in a specific area, and then go on to do more studying.  It shows you what is possible with spinning and dyeing and inspires the reader to try different things.

The publishers of this book have very kindly offered a discount from the RRP of £25 to £20 including UK P&P. To order Spinning and Dyeing Yarn by Ashley Martineau for this reduced price, telephone 01903 828503 or email mailorders@lbsltd.co.uk, quoting the offer code APG73 and the book ISBN 9781909342460.  The book is released in the UK on 20th February 2014.

Fyberspates Contest Winner

I drew the winner of the draw for a copy of Fyberspates latest book Scrumptious Collection Volume 3, this morning.

© Jesse Wild

I actually left the comments open for a couple of extra days.  I would say it was because I was being generous to the people who listen to the podcast, but don't read the blog, but in actual fact it was because I was too caught up in the Winter Olympics.  It was so exciting yesterday when Team GB got it's first ever medal on snow!  Jenny Jones did us proud in the first ever Slopestyle in the Winter Olympics.  By the way, have you ever seen Slopestyle - it's amazing! It's like skateboarding tricks on a snowboard, plus flips and spins.  A very exciting sport to watch.  I can't wait to see the same thing done on skis.

Anyway, back to the important stuff.  I listed the entries in a spreadsheet in the order they appear in the comments at the bottom of the blog post.

I then used the random number generator at www.random.org to draw between numbers 1 and 27.

The winner is number 11, Rose.  I've contacted Rose by email and her prize will be sent out as soon as I get a reply.  Funnily enough, she wanted to knit the Lerryn Mittens, which I cast on for the Winter Warmer KAL, that we are having over on the Ravelry group.  Mine haven't got very far, because the Winter Olympics got in the way. Maybe Rose will get hers finished before mine get done!

Thank you everyone for joining in with the contest, it's been fun seeing what other patterns people like.  I hope if you didn't win you will consider buying the book.  It's excellent value for money at £12.00 for 13 patterns, especially when you consider the quality and appeal of the designs included.

The book can be purchased in both print and digital form at a price of £12.00 or $26.00. The digital version can be purchased through Ravelry or in physical form from Fyberspates, or your local Fyberspates Retailer.

Thanks too, to Jeni at Fyberspates for giving me the opportunity to share this lovely prize with my readers and listeners.

Socks, Socks, Socks and More Socks

Today I thought I was going to tell you about the most recent pair of hand knitted socks that I got onto my feet this last week.  I wanted to refer back to something I had started to work on in November and realised I haven't told you about any of my recent adventures in sock making!  This is a vast oversight because I have been on a bit of a journey in recent months, trying to find my perfect sock pattern.  It's time to tell my tale!

My journey began with the purchase of Big Foot Knits by Andi Smith. I have spent a long time playing with various sock designs but had not been completely happy with the fit that I came up with.  I bought this book to try and learn some new techniques in sock fitting.  As a result of working my way through this book, my first pair of socks were done in Twisted Limone Tangy Sock in the "Knock Your Socks Off" colourway. This pair of socks was the first I knit socks in hand-dyed yarn.  I have made a decision to start using my pretty sock hand-dyed yarn for socks, as hand washing using no-rinse soap is no hardship and this way I could use the yarn with nylon content, that is beautiful.  This way I can use up stash and feel pampered!

The reason the stripes don't match was due to deciding the leg of my first sock was too baggy, after putting in the afterthought heel.  I ripped back the leg and re-knit it leaving the stripes of the next sock in the wrong order.  I adore this yarn.  It's the first time I've knit with hand-dyed self-striping yarn.  I think it looks amazing. The best thing about these socks is the yarn.  The second best thing is the way the toes fit.  The feet have toes that are shaped left and right and they fit brilliantly.  The increases are worked a few stitches in from the sides of the sock to give depth to the toe shaping too.  I've never had such perfect fit in a toe. My toes are no pinched the way they usually are. This has become my default toe.  The other thing that stuck from this sock was the foot length.  My right foot is 1/2" longer than the left and as I am doing shaped toes, it seemed like a good idea to tailor the length to fit better, and it really makes a difference. However, the heel experiment did not work as well as I hoped.

The heel fit was ok at the start of the day and gradually got baggier.  I'm sure I could have fixed it if I'd tried, but instead I decided I wanted to try the fabulously popular Fish Lips Kiss Heel, that all the podcasters were talking about.  The thing that sold me on trying this heel was that you don't have to think much about turning the short row heel, which meant I wouldn't have to stop and think, while out and about.  Plus this method promised to avoid holes at the heel.  The pattern is only $1 so I thought it was worth looking at, considering how many people with different feet shapes and sizes had raved about it.  The pattern has LOTS of information about making socks that fit, but I was only interested in the heel part.  However, if you are looking at working out how to tailor your socks, cheaply, this would be a great investment.  To experiment, I decided to make a little test heel.

I LOVE the way this method does the turns on a short row.  I will always use this method in the future in all situations, it's so neat!  Doing this heel, I decided that at as my ankle is quite deep I would do increases before turning the heel.  It turned out that those increases left the heel too baggy!  It's the first heel I've ever tried that meant I didn't need to do increases before turning the heel.  This heel is turned whilst knitting the sock, so you don't need to do surgery to add an afterthought heel.  This method feels quicker, as well as the fit being good, it also means you can manage any striping more easily.

So taking the foot shaping, foot length and stitch count from the sock developed with Big Foot Knits and the heel turn from the Fish Lips Kiss Heel I decided to try another pair of pretty socks.

With these socks I decided to do 4" of leg, after the heel turn, before starting a 2" cuff.   It fit perfectly, and I didn't have to add any increases or decreases to shape, apart from the toe. I love the yarn, which is Penguin Soup, Tuxedo Glitz in the "Rainbow Dash" colourway.  I added a slip stitch to break up the flashing and pooling.  I was inspired by the Pin Striped Sock by Julia Swart but changed the repeats of the pattern to fit my leg and slipped the stitches by 2 rows because 1 row didn't break things up enough.

After the success of this new method of making socks, I cast on another pair of socks done in Twisted Limone Tangy Sock, this time in the "Pippin" colourway.  I knit a vanilla sock with my new methods.

I love this yarn so much, and these have become my favourite socks.  The yarn is beautifully smooth and the colours are great.  However, I decided that the leg of my new sock pattern is a little short, but to add length I would need to work out increases.  I cast on a pair of socks in some Regia Kaffe Fassett Design Line yarn in 04354 from stash.

The increases were done after knitting 4" of leg.  I added a stitch at the back of the leg, 6 stitches from either side of the sock.  I then knit 2 rounds before repeating the increase round.  In this way I did 4 sets of increases.  After the last increase round, 4 rounds were knit and then the ribbing knit for 2".  As always I implemented my usual Jeny's Surprisingly Stretchy Bind Off.  This pattern produces my perfect fit socks. They are so comfortable, they don't bag as the day goes on, but they aren't tight.  I couldn't be happier with the fit of these socks and they used up a couple of skeins of stash.

Finally we come to the socks I wanted to talk about today, the socks knit in my perfected vanilla pattern. The yarn is Knitters Nightmare Boogieman Sock in the "Thank You For Being A Friend" colourway.  The yarn is 75% merino/25% nylon and it has a great smooth and tightly plied feel to it.  The stitch definition is great and the colour transitions are flawless.

Since finishing these socks, they have become my favourites.  They have a perfect fit and they yarn is beautiful.  I adored knitting these, and they are wonderful to wear.

This new pattern, I've developed for my feet and legs has made me so happy.  The socks have become my "easy" knitting.  I do them when I leave the house or when I'm reading.  I can't believe I have knit 4 pairs of socks since the beginning of December!  I now have a drive to replace my older hand knit socks with these new fit socks in gorgeous yarn.

I am linking up to Tami, for FO Friday.  To check out other finished projects, click the button.

PS Sorry for all the phone photos, the reason I waited so long to blog about these was I hadn't pretty photos.  I decided I couldn't wait any longer to blog about these so you have to make do with the mobile phone snaps.

PPS You have to the end of today to enter the giveaway to win a copy of Scrumptious Collection Volume 3, that I reviewed last week.

Scrumptious Collection Volume 3 - Review

If you've read this blog for any period of time, you will be aware that I really, really like Fyberspates yarn. Fyberspates is an unusual yarn company.  It was founded in 2005 by Jeni Hewlett when it was established as a traditional indie dyer studio, with Jeni doing all of the dyeing personally.  Gradually Jeni decided that she could step up production and established her Scrumptious range of yarns, which is a full range of weights of yarn made of 45% silk and 55% wool.  Those yarns are dyed commercially and sold wholesale to retailers as well as directly through her own website.  Since the advent of Scrumptious, Jeni has subsequently added Vivacious and Gleam to her range of commercially dyed yarn.  In addition to these commercial yarns, Jeni still dyes yarn and fibre in her own studio to sell on her website, direct to the customer.  The Scrumptious yarns are available widely now, both in the UK and overseas.  I love that Jeni's business model allows her to maintain her creative individuality in her own studio but also gives a larger market access to her colour sense and yarn bases.

I've used Scrumptious yarns many times, the most recent use was for, my own design, the Refraction Shawlette, which used the 4ply/sport weight, but I've also used the lace weight for several shawls, and the aran weight for a hat.  It is a beautiful yarn, with deep and clear colours and a soft, drapey handle.  It is a pleasure to knit with and dream to wear the finished items.  Having a new book of patterns to inspire me to knit with this yarn again, would be no hardship, so when I was asked to review the new Scrumptious Collection Volume 3 and be part of the blog tour I jumped at the chance.

© Jesse Wild

Other bloggers, who have been part of the tour have focused on their own designs or their role in creating the book, but I come at this book as fan of the yarn and as a knitter.  I am currently in a bit of an accessories phase and because of this, those are the designs I shall talk about, especially as I plan on knitting at least two of them, if not more!

My stand out favourite from this book is the Simene Stole, by Melanie Edgar.  It uses a single skein of Scrumptious Lace and have already bought the yarn to knit it.

© Jesse Wild

As the book is designed to support Scrumptious yarns, it only gives information on the number of skeins of Scrumptious that a pattern may require, and not the exact meterage that will be needed for a project. A skein of Scrumptious Lace is 1000m, which is a generous meterage, so you might find it difficult to use a substitute yarn, without buying more than you might need.  However, I didn't want to use a substitute, I wanted to treat myself to a skein of my favourite colour, Teal.

I plan on casting this shawl on very shortly.  It is a beautiful showcase for this yarn, with it's bold and graphic lace.  The shawl is knit in two halves and grafted together and the patterns are written out fully as well as charted, which I prefer for lace, but I know lots of people prefer the written instructions.  Having both options is always a big bonus and shows attention to details.  The charts are really large and clear and as I have the PDF version to review, I can use knitCompanion on my iPad to keep a good track of where I am in the charts.  My fingers are itching to cast this gorgeous stole on, but I am suffering in our recent bout of cold weather and need I to knit the next project first.

© Jesse Wild

I adore these Lerryn Mittens by Rachel Coopey. I know they would be so much fun to knit, and will feel decadent to wear on my fingers.  I love cabling, especially without a cable needle, and these mittens look like a perfect candidate for using that technique.  This pattern uses the DK version of the yarn, which would mean the mittens could be used for Spring and Autumn as well as the majority of the Winter in the UK.  I need to cast them on immediately.

However, as you know, I have a weakness for hats.  I love them and have LOTS in my box of woolly wonders. I really shouldn't be knitting more hats, but the hats in this book are gorgeous!  I may have to knit a hat before I knit the mittens or the stole. The first hat on my list of gorgeousness is Kenwyn, another pattern by Rachel Coopey.  The hat is part of a set that includes a matching cowl, but it is the hat that makes my heart sing.  It has gorgeous lace and cables with just the right amount of slouch to give it a hint of sass without distracting from it's elegance.

© Jesse Wild

The crown decreases are so pretty and clever, I know I will be knitting this hat, despite not needing one, especially as it only uses one skein of Scrumptious Aran. Any project that uses a single skein will always be a winner in my book.

The other accessories I am very tempted by are the cover hat and mittens, once again by Rachel Coopey.  I am becoming a real fan of her work.  The Divelish Hat and Mittens are made with stranded colourwork, using the 4ply weight version of the yarn.  The cuff and brim of the set are worked as a cabled rib, which run into the colourwork pattern, seamlessly.  This set is a stunning masterclass in design and attention to detail, that uses one skein of each colour to make one set.

I am also very tempted by the lace cowl, by Judy Furlong, Loveny Mantle.  This is a more complex lace design than the stole I am planning.  It is very much thinking lace but the finished item is very pretty indeed, and I think when my mind is focussed enough it may be a wonderful challenge to take.

© Jesse Wild

I have focussed on these projects as I really want to knit all of them.  There are some gorgeous garment designs, but I'm not sure if they would suit my body type, and my budget doesn't really stretch to knitting garments in Scrumptious yarn, not matter how gorgeous they are.  My budget does stretch to these smaller projects that use one or two skeins of yarn and the accessories will feel so glamorous and indulgent I will feel as spoiled as if I were wearing a whole sweater's worth of this lovely yarn.

Over all, I really like this book.  There is a wide range of patterns, which are targeted at a range of knitting skills and techniques.  The patterns are written out in full as well as very clearly charted, which means they are easy to follow.  The photos, taken by Jesse Wild, in the book are fabulously clear and show off the knitwear brilliantly, as well as making the models look great.  Clear photos of knitwear AND nice looking photos sometimes doesn't happen in knitting books, so it is lovely to see it working so well in this book. Scrumptious Collection Volume 3 is very definitely a book designed by knitters for knitters. The layout, charts, schematics and photography echo that sentiment throughout.  Each pattern can be printed out without referencing anything else in the book, as the abbreviations and notes are all given within each pattern.  It's a small detail that makes it easier for the knitter, but I think is a very good example of how well thought out the whole book is, down to the smallest detail.

The book can be purchased in both print and digital form at a price of £12.00 or $26.00.  The digital version can be purchased through Ravelry or in physical form from Fyberspates, or your local Fyberspates Retailer.

Fyberspates have very generously offered to give a reader of this blog a copy of the book. If you would like to win a copy you should leave a comment on this post, explaining which of the designs in the book you would like to cast on first.  The winner will be drawn at random on Friday, 7th February 2014.  (Note: Your comment may not be visible straight away as all comments must be approved on this blog, before appearing)

This blog post is part of a tour, and though I was given a copy of the book to review, all opinions given in this post are completely honest, and my own.  If you are interested in some of the other patterns, their designers, and the work of some other people involved in creating the book, you can read the other posts in the tour (there might also be other chances to win a copy of the book too).  Full details of the tour can be found here.

Woolly Wormhead's Hatopia

If you have read this blog for more than a year, you will know that one of my favourite hat designers is Woolly Wormhead. She writes interesting and beautiful patterns that are sized for children up to adults. The patterns are always well written and her tutorials are clear. She is an incredibly talented designer. She also lives on a bus in Italy, with a community of fellow artists!

Woolly Wormhead's home is currently under threat because of a single person, in the village where they live, who objects to this creative community. In order to help fight this individual in the courts, lots of money is required, which is something these artists don't have a lot of. In order to help raise funds to fight eviction Woolly Wormhead has put together a wonderful e-book called Hatopia.  If you want to find out more about the situation, please go here to read the full story.

As someone who believes that no one should be forced to leave their home because one person objects to them being there, I bought the book.  I also bought the book because it is a complete and utter bargain, at £9 for 10 patterns! There are at least four patterns in the book I want to cast on straight away. (Click on the individual images to see their Ravelry pages).

Arkanoid

Castiel

Encircle

Runway

These are all patterns that have been published before, but I only own one of them, which is Runway and I own that because it was in the magazine it was originally published in.  Having it in digital form is much better! However, all the patterns have been revamped with new photographs and new pattern layouts.

All the patterns can be bought separately for £2.50, but I don't know why you wouldn't buy the whole book, which is only available as a limited edition.  Also, if you buy the patterns individually they won't contribute towards the fund, with the exception of Runway, where £2 of the price will be donated to the fund.

As I had the yarn for Arkanoid in my stash, I chose that pattern to cast on straight away.  The yarn recommended is BabyLongLegs Semi-Precious in the "Go" colourway that Sarah dyed to support fundraising for Refuge.  I love this green and the hat pattern is perfect for one of my favourite yarns.

It's got a really lovely brim, created by starting with a provisional cast on and then joining those stitches to the live stitches. It's neat and feels good against your forehead.  I find myself liking these slouchy hats more and more, after knitting Drizzle.  I think they work well with my short hair.

I like how hats made with silk content don't mess your hair up as much, when you take them off.  As this is a hat knit in 4-ply/fingering weight it is so light you hardly notice you are wearing it, which will be useful when there is only a bit of a nip in the air, but I don't want my ears getting cold.  We have a lot of weather in the UK which is cold but not really cold, so a lighter weight hat will probably get lots of wear.

The hat is an interesting knit with something to think about in each row, but not too much to think about.  It knit up really quickly because I was enjoying the process so much.  The crown looks beautiful, in my opinion.  As the yarn has great definition, the decreases really pop out.

This hat was wonderful to make, and it is wonderful to wear.  I'm so pleased I started with this pattern.  I knit the 20" size as I have a 21" head, so decided to go down an inch rather than go up.  I am glad I did, as this is a perfect fit.  I also have exactly 50g left over, so I might be able to make some mitts to match!

I really recommend this book of patterns, particularly as we are starting to move towards Autumn, and hat wearing weather.  Maybe you could get a "head" start on your Winter Gift knitting too (pun intended).  I highly recommend this e-book, you get a great set of patterns for a bargain price, and you get to help a community of creative individuals hold on to their homes.

Hatopia by Woolly Wormhead

Hatopia - an e-book £9

Tour de Fleece 2013 Roundup

Wow, the Tour de Fleece, went by in a bit of a spinning blur.  I know I haven't knit half as much as a normally do, and whilst I felt off balance I think taking part in the Tour has been an important step in crafting life.  It has introduced me to some new people online and I've added several friends to my Ravelry feed. Posting photos nearly every day was more wearing than the actual spinning, but it was a fun part of the routine, and a really tangible way to monitor what I was achieving. I don't think I won any prizes, but I know that I learnt a lot about spinning and my technique has improved significantly.

I only managed to spin 200g of fibre, but I am really pleased with the results of both.  Both projects were made from Hilltop Cloud Fibre.  I have some Mallard, which was a blended fibre, comprised of 62% merino/25% BFL/13% baby alpaca.

I love the soft, heathered yarn I have made with my Rakestraw spindle.

Accordingly to my beginner's reading of this fibre, I have a DK weight yarn, which is 103g in weight and 184m in length.  I can't wait to knit this up, because it is exactly the sort of yarn I would buy, and I love that I made it!

The other Hilltop Cloud spinning is a BFL/ramie blend, and is much denser than than the Mallard blend.

The ramie, gives a real gloss to the yarn.  It's not quite as soft as the Mallard, but this is to be expected, but I think it will knit up beautifully.  This 2 ply yarn has sections of full purple, full blue and one strand of each to give a lovely transitional barber pole effect.  I think I have a sport weight yarn, weighing 99g and 173m.  I have no idea what to knit with this, as it's not quite soft enough to wear next to my neck.  Maybe they would great mitts?  I do like making and wearing mitts!

Those are my two completed projects.  They were both spun on the Rakestraw.  I do practice on my Tibetan spindle and I eventually gave up trying to spin a soft and fluffy single on it.  It was really hard and I couldn't get into the rhythm of it.  I has some very pretty rolags I bought from Fondant Fibre, but I was so scared to use them and ruin them that I put off starting with them.  Then, last week I got an unexpected parcel in the post from Deborah at Fondant Fibre.  I hadn't ordered anything so I was quite surprised.  Then I opened the parcel and smiled.  Deborah was really sad that I was scared to spin with rolags so had sent me another set so I wouldn't worry so much and actually get started.  It worked!

This alpaca/bamboo/silk pile of rolags is exactly the sort of thing I would choose for myself.  I am very fond of purple, as you might have noticed.  For those that don't know, rolags are made of fibre blended on a board in one direction and then rolled up into cigar shapes, following the direction of the fibres.  They are spun from the ends of the roll and therefore spin woollen, easily allowing the fibres to all jumble up together because they are being pulled into the twist from the side, instead of the ends of the fibre.  I had been told that these are really good for beginners and I think they were right.

I have been spinning on my Tibetan spindle and I haven't been trying to make it any particular thickness.  I have spun 1.5 rolags and this is what I have.

The spindle paired up with the fibre, wants to spin incredibly fine singles.  I feel like I'm on the verge of almost getting it.  My rhythm has evened up, but I still drop the spindle as it tips over onto my lap.  The more I wind onto the cop (the cone of fibre wound around the bottom of the spindle) the more balanced the spindle seems to get.  It is spinning much easier and longer now than it did when I first started spinning.  I can't work out if that is me just getting better, or the extra weight adding to the spin duration.

I love that, because it is so finely spun, you get little pops of red and white for sections of the single.  I think I might be spinning my very first lace weight yarn!

Now the Tour is over, I plan on spinning at least a little bit every day, both on my Rakestraw and my Tibetan, but not quite to the exclusion of all else!  I am sure my obsession with spinning will continue, in fact I've recently bought an Ashford Lazy Kate (the cheap one!), and a new book.

I only got it yesterday, but I can tell it is going to be a great coffee table book, as well as a valuable source of information.  I love spinning as an activity, but is leading to a greater understanding of yarn as a material and how that material becomes a knitted item.  I think it will lead to be becoming a better knitter.

Winning!

I have won a few giveaways over the last few months and I've been really terrible at sharing my spoils with the blog.  I always meant to get around to it, but never seemed to do so.  I've been really lucky and got some great stuff.

iMake

First off, I won an amazing box of goodies from the iMake blog.  I have done some needle-felting and it's great fun, but I've not ever really been taught any techniques.  The book, I Felt Awesome: Tips and Tricks for 35 Needle-Poked Projects has been really helpful in giving me more ideas about what I could do with the craft.

I've had a bit of a play with some stuff and I'm working on creating a set of felt pattern weights, as I am definitely in need of a set.

All the fibre is pretty amazing too.  I have all I could possibly need for quite some time!  Thank you Moxie for the wonderful stuff!

True Brit Knits

An online crafting friend JenACKnitwear had a contest to win Knitting Masterclass: with Over 20 Technical Workshops and 15 Beautiful Patterns.  Her lovely Golden Wheat Shawl was on the cover.  She also shared another place to win the book, so I entered on True Brit Knits, which was a blog new to me.

I won the book on True Brit Knits and found a lovely new blog to read at the same time.  Belinda Boaden, one of the blog's writers, wrote one of the first patterns I ever really lusted over in a UK magazine, The Ripple Cardigan from The Knitter, Issue 3.  It was a pattern I aspired to being able to do and I know I would be able to do it now, but I've an awful feeling the yarn has been discontinued!

The book is great with lots of incredibly useful tutorials, along with patterns that illustrate the use of the skills being discussed.  It's a lovely thing as well.  It's beautifully photographed and put together.  It's a book I would recommend.

Faithfully Geeky

One of the blogs I've read for a long time, Faithfully Geeky had a contest to win Drizzle, a pattern by Mel from Single Handed Knits.  She then did a videocast, which I watched and found out I was a winner of this particular contest.

Single Handed Knits is one of the podcasts that I have started listening too recently.  Mel is a lovely person and lived on an island off Hawaii.  She often records on the beach, so the views alone make the podcast well worth a watch.  I'd seen Mel talk about her hat pattern when it was launched and I'd also seen other podcasters knit the pattern and really liked the way it looks.  I always intended to buy the hat pattern because, as you know, I'm a sucker for a good hat.

Made in Home

Nat, from Made in Home is another of my favourite bloggers.  She had a contest recently to win a hat pattern too!  Again it was a hat pattern I knew about and hat intended to buy.  Once again, I was saved some cash by winning the giveaway.  The hat pattern is Skeppe and is the first pattern released by another favourite blogger Truly Myrtle.  It's a lovely and interesting pattern and a great launch into pattern design.

I hope you check out some of the links in this post because there are some lovely blogs/podcasts mentioned here, and some great patterns.

Another Monster Make

I'm making another monster from my book by Rebecca Danger, Big Book of Knitted Monsters.  This one is Baldwin the Bathroom Monster.  He is going to a be a Christmas present for another nephew, one who didn't get the last monster I made, Hugo the Couch Potato Monster.  This book is so full of fabulous characters it is hard to choose which monster to make, but this one, while similar is some respects to the first one, has lovely long arms.  I'm hoping that a 10 (nearly 11) year old won't be too old for a bathroom monster!

With this monster I have used the disappearing magic loop technique explained by TECHKnitting.  I have used the crochet version of this and like how it works, so I thought I'd give the knitting version a go.  It seems to work pretty well, and this is what it looks like.

It's pretty neat and I think once I've done it a few times more, I won't need to refer to the instructions anymore.

I'm using Cascade 220 Superwash, which is the same yarn I used for the previous monster, just in a different colourway, number 810 which is supposed to be teal, but I think looks more jade in colour.

It may be that it just looks jade to me because the light is so shocking at the moment.  We seem to have been covered in a grey blanket in the UK.  It's pretty normal for this time of year, but I think I blot it out to escape the trauma!  As you can see, I'm not very far on, but I don't think it will take that long to finish, but it will have to go on hold for a while.  I'm not taking it with me when I go away later on today, as I want something easy and mindless, so I think I will take the Nuvem.  The Nuvem doesn't look much different from the photos I've already shown you, so I'll leave it until I've motored on a bit more, probably when I'm back home.

My trip away is to the Knitting and Stitching Show in Harrogate and my sister- in-law is coming to pick me up for an extended visit up North.  Picking me up a couple of days before we go means I can recover from the journey and still go to the show with her and her Mum on Friday.  I'm really excited about my trip as I love the Show and I love seeing my family even more.  So if you see me being pushed around in a wheelchair at the Harrogate Show on Friday, stop me and say hello!

I'm linking this little update to WIP Wednesday at Tami's Ami's, so click the button to find some new and interesting blogs.