New Shawl - Maya

I am making a shawl from Kristin Omdahl's Wrapped in Crochet for my sister in law.

I am making this using Sublime Tussah silk yarn in Mulberry - I have no idea why it is called mulberry, its not purple at all, at a push it has a slightly blueish tint.

The yarn is a 50% Tussah silk/50% viscose blend.  I hope you can see from this photograph how wonderfully shiny the tussah is.

I'm not that far through making it, I've got the medallion band at the bottom done so far.

Its difficult to see the effect of the yarn in the wider shot, so I took a close-up as well.  I think it was a good yarn choice.

Handspun kid mohair

So I finished that kid mohair, if I'm going to be honest I finished it a while ago .... but I've been cracking on with spinning more yarn - for the socks, and for a shawl I'm making (seemed like a good idea when I started!)

Anyway, back to the mohair.  If I say so myself I am really pleased with it.  It was lovely to spin, even with the fluff getting everywhere.

I decided to 3 ply it, 3 ply is rapidly becoming my standard.  I know that it takes a bit more time and a lot more spinning, but I really like the results.

I didn't make very much yarn, I only really had a small amount of fibre (100g).  I think that this is destined to be tassels on my new shawl ... but we'll see.

Getting to grips with handspun

I've been spending quite a bit of time peddling away on my spinning wheel (Ashford Traveller), trying out various fibres and trying to get the hang of it.  I'm pretty sure I've not got a classic style or indeed spin "properly" but to be honest as long as I create something I'd be able to make something with then surely thats OK?

Here's some of my efforts, some more successful than others as you can see.  The big blue ball sitting on top is Merino/Silk blend and was lovely to spin - this is done 3 ply (as is the brown ball that its sitting on).

At the other end of the scale is the ball of silk (over on the left), that was really tricky to spin - if you have rough hands (as I do all winter!) the fibre sticks to your hands and the fluff gets everywhere.  Also I didn't realise just how much twist you need to put into silk.  For a first attempt I'm not too disappointed, its a little inconsistent and there are a fair few fluffy bits in the yarn - but overall its OK, and good enough for me to try making a little lacy scarf with it.  I'll post the results of that adventure when I get closer to finishing.

The others are camel - right at the front, merino in the middle, generic "wool" at the back and the black one at the right side is black shetland.

I'll post again with close up photos of the yarns when I get a moment.

My handspun booties

As promised .... here are the booties I am making for my friend.

So far I have just finished the body of the booties.



I still need to sew up the fronts so that they sit in the correct position, add the piping, flower and fastening.



You can see in the background my little ball of handspun yarn.  In the end I did have enough to finish my project - and even a little to spare :)



I think that, although I actually spun this in the wrong way - clockwise for the singles and anti-clockwise for the ply.  I think it turned out pretty well. 

The consistency is not bad, and it worked up quite nicely into the booties.

My first attempts at spining

I have had my spinning wheel for almost 1 month and now that I have worked out how to setup it up I am starting to get into actually spinning some yarn.

 One of my first attempts is this generic wool top.



Its pretty inconsistent and lumpy .....



You can see some of the areas look like actual yarn, but others are pretty fluffy!

But I don't like to give up so I kept on going and spun this from some Grey Suffolk wool tops.



I think I am getting a little better with my consistency



Don't get me wrong, I know its a long way from perfect and I still have a LOT to learn about plying but I feel like I am making some progress - what do you think?

I'll keep posting with further progress or if I actually make anything with this yarn I am creating :)

Expanding my crafting empire ....

I've been toying with this idea for a long while, ever since I tried out a drop spindle.  I managed to get the hand of drop spinning "fairly" quickly, but was frustrated at the speed of progress.  Also I had the habit of dropping the spindle on my feet rather too often (OUCH!)

I love hand spun yarns, they are so much more interesting than most commercial yarns.  But with the slow progress in trying to spin with a drop spindle I thought that the only course of action to continue was to get a wheel.

I first enquired about a wheel back in May and got some really good and honest advice from Shiela Dixon at Handspinner.co.uk.  I wanted a compact wheel that I could store relatively easily and I wasn't sure if I should go for an Ashford Joy or an Ashford Traveller.



Ashford Joy

Ashford Traveller

After the some advice I have chosen the Traveller, which I finally plucked you the courage to buy over the weekend.  It is currently en route and I am like a 3 year old at Christmas waiting for it to arrive.  How I am going to explain what it is when it arrives at my office is any one's guess.  They already think I am quite eccentric :)

Check back here from time to time to see how I get on, perhaps I will be a one woman yarn factory before long :) having said that I would be thoroughly satisfied if I can successfully make enough yarn to keep my little projects moving.

.... Think I got the right yarn ....

I tried out making my swatch last night with my new yarn and the 3.5mm hook.  It honestly looked to me like it was working up too big, but when I measured it, it was still 1/2 cm too small !!!

Tried again with a 4mm hook and it came out just about bob-on.  I think I must crochet really tight.

I decided that I didn't really like the colour of yarn I had so I've ordered a couple more colours.  Its so hard to tell what the colours will turn out like when you can't really see the yarn texture and the colours are dependant on the quality of your monitor.

So in the end I've ordered up one each of numbers 5, 9, 19, 33, 58 & 95.  I'd previously got a 48 and 20.  The 48 is a little bit "school jumper" and 20 is quite nice but I think it might be a bit dark for the cardigan I am making.



I will always find a use for the various yarns, so I don't feel too guilty about ordering such a selection of colours.

Trying to get the right yarn...

This is kind of proving a point, I mentioned in my last post that I had found a couple of projects in the Crochet so Fine book.  One of them is a hooded cardigan that I really like the look of (lets see if I can do it justice!).

The pattern calls for "lace weight" yarn, and names the variety used in the photos - unfortunatly it is a brand that is not available in the UK so I have set about trying to find something that will do.

So lace weight yarn is 0 - 3ply - so I thought I'd start with 1ply yarn.  I found some at Buttercup Miniatures

So I got myself 1 skein to see if it would do the job.  The hook size called for is 3.5 mm.

I created the swatch required for measuring the guage and it was WAY too small - so I tried again and used a 4 mm hook, better but still too small.

So I have just bought a 3ply yarn to try it out and see if the size is right, the colours aren't as good but I'll worry about that if the guage is OK.

I think we should start laying bets now on me acutally needing 2ply yarn !!!



Crochet document holder

We always have a mess of documents to take on holiday with us, the flight confirmations, hire car confirmations and sometimes even hotel booking information etc etc etc

Usually they are just folded up and bunged into our hand luggage somewhere.  Which inevitably causes some panic at some point when we are trying to locate the right document.

So I thought I'd put my yarn stash and hook to good use and make a document holder for our travel documents.

First things first ... Pick a suitable yarn - so I chose this vibrant cotton, multicoloured DK yarn.  Its got a really holiday feel about it.  This particular yarn is Anchor Magicline Blocks in 1440 (Yellow) it also comes in Green & Orange shades.



I made this holder using simple Double Crochet (SC for my American readers) all the way.  Then crochet an additional piece for the "flap" at the top.


I also crochet a length of chain and pulled it through under the flap.  Making sure the distance between the entry points matched the distance between the holes on a standard hole-punch.

Punched holes in the top of my paperwork and threaded it onto the chain & tied in a bow.

The document holder folds in 3 and is closed with 2 pretty coconut buttons



I am planning to add on a passport & driving license pocket to the back so that we can keep all of our documents together.

Time to get organised!

My yarn collection has been getting out of hand, I don't know what I have and its starting to turn into yarn spaghetti.  I'd try to extract a single ball of yarn and end up with three more that its got tangled with.  So I really had to take action, the time has come to sort out the mess that is my yarn collection.

So let the sorting begin ....

I have started by putting like yarns together, maybe I'll rearrange later.

The most amazing thing is just how much I have, I have filled 2 storage units like this one & I still have odd yarn's left over in a box.

So I now have a resolution;

I Promise to use the yarn I have before I go buying any more !!!

Yarn storage ...

I've been meaning to sort this out for a while, my current yarn storage is one large plastic box with everything thrown in.  It started out with some order.  I put the cottons at one end and the 4 ply's together etc, but that never lasts long.  They very quickly become a jumble of yarns getting tangled together.

So I have finally got my act together and have bought myself some storage.

I got 2 of these.  Originally I was thinking of getting some drawers, or those plastic buckets that fit into a drawer unit.  But the problem with those is that you can't immediately see into them.  So this this unit I can see whats been stored in each "pigeon hole".

The units have arrived today!  So now I need to figure out how I'm going to get them into the car - I may be enlisting some help from the guys at work :)

The major downside of this is, now I have to tidy the storage cupboard that I keep my yarn in so that I can fit these in!  I guess there has to be some pain somewhere.

Drop spindle spinning

As you know from my previous blog entries I took a notion to learn how to drop spindle spin.  So my kit arrived

And I started spinning, its not as easy as the YouTube videos make it look !!  So I saught advice from the spinners on Etsy & they reassured me that "it takes time", "don't worry if its lumpy" ... So I gave it a proper try

As you can see, they were right about the lumpy!!  Its so hard to keep consistency,

As you can see, I had a few nice thin bits ... but plenty of chunky fat bits & a few over twisty bits.  But you know what, I was happy enough with this as a first try.

So I thought, lets go again.  So with my new found confidence I decided to give it another go.

Here we go with try #2, I think I am gettin the consistency better - hardly perfect yet, but better.  At least there are fewer chunky lumps :)

I am still struggling a bit with joining in a new piece of roving, I'll still get a chunkier bit there - but I think there's been progress.

Its really good fun, and you know what?  I am starting to think that, maybe, one day, I'll actually spin something I can crochet with ... You never know!!

If you fancy giving it a go yourself, there are some good videos from YouTube

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rPUORvO-GZE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8UOZoYJCQ2Q
http://www.youtube.com/user/AlpacaDirect#p/u/7/-IoF6OtjY2E

Spinning my own yarn - I've taken the plunge

I am quite excited about this.  The temptation of the explorer pack from fibrecrafts.com was too much.  I've ordered one of these packs.

I am not sure how long it will take to arrive, but I'm like a kid waiting for Christmas right  now waiting for it to arrive.  I have to try and tame my excitement & realise that spinning is likely to be quite difficult to get the hang of.

I'm in two minds about finding fibrecrafts.com, its got such great stuff ... I could end up spending a fortune !!!

Spinning yarn

I've been toying with the idea of spinning my own yarn.  Now I have absolutely no idea how to start with this so I engaged with my friend "The Internet".

I have found a site that sells "tops" which I have now discovered is the name for the wool that I can use to spin into yarn.  World of Wool seems to be a good source for the raw materials, but I still need to find a spindle & give it a try.

The Fibrecrafts website seems to have a pretty reasonable selection of spindles

as well as selling tops.   Go to their website for more details of the items below.  I am seriously tempted by their Explorer pack.

I think the excuses to not try out spinning my own yarn are drying up.

I also found a pretty good resource for information on spinning, Joy of spinning.  Its given me some inspiration.  

Well ... I think I really should try to use up some of the extensive stash of yarn that I have already hoarded.. or maybe not :)

Will I have a scarf for Christmas?

The scarf is moving on quite well.  I am getting to the end of my first ball of yarn so hopefully I will be able to see if the 4 I have purchased will do the job.

I want the scarf to be reasonably long, maybe between 4 & 5'  I guess I'll just keep going until I've used up my yarn :)

I haven't decided what to do with the ends yet.  I'm not sure if I should just leave them plain, add a crochet edging or maybe some tassels ....  decisions decisions

Introducing Walnut Baby

Walnut baby is my outlet for my handmade crochet (and some knitted) items.

I love making things, creating something has a real satisfaction.  The downside of the satisfaction is that my house is rapidly filling up with my creations ....   So that I can justify carrying on with my creative passtime I have opened an on-line shop (http://www.walnutbaby.com/), it allows me to clear some space & to make a little money to cover the costs of my yarn habit!!