UK Ravelry Day the first (1)

Somewhat after the fact:
I went to UK Ravelry day in Coventry with my friends Caroline and Katie a few weekends ago. It was a rainy old day but I had a fantastic time - it was a lovely, friendly, interesting occasion. The first thing I did was some shopping (my afternoon was pretty full with other events so I got in early, but more on those later). So - the haul!
Jamieson & Smith 2-ply jumper weight in lovely pinky-grey. Enough to make a smallish jumper/vest or something.
Jamieson & Smith sampler pack of Shetland - there was more cream, but I've already spun that up (although my plying was a bit terrible). The plan is to try & spin it up in a consistent weight so I can do a wee bit of colourwork with it. Might be a pretty lofty dream...!

Old Maiden Aunt black Shetland and blue tussah silk. Gorgeous gorgeous stuff - saving this for when I am a better spinner :) This photo does not do it justice - go see Jared Flood's website for better pictures (in a different colourway).

Old Maiden Aunt Massam wool in Storm & Sky colourway. Beeeeautiful. I'm starting to get the hang of imagining what dyed fibre might look like as yarn, but this is so much more subtle and gorgeous than I expected. I am very proud!

And this is my new drop spindle, from Kevin at Whorl drop spindles. Its made of Tambootie elm, which rolls of the tongue about as easily as this things spins.
Oh, by the way - I've started spinning :)

Preservation

I really love cooking jams, jellies, pickles and so on, and I'm hoping to expand this a bit more this year. So, first off the rank, I turned these:

into these:

The lovely little artichokes came from the Stanton St John pick your own farm (although I didn't pick my own, I got them from the shop). The recipe is from here, except I only used half a litre of wine as this seemed plenty to cook the artichokes. I'll let you know how they taste in a week or so.

Woodland memories

I recently finished this cardigan - its a Drops pattern (elegantly named 97-18 Tailored Cardigan), knit in Drops alpaca (7815m petrol green). The pattern is lovely - simple, with plenty of waist shaping and nice increases at the neckline. The bottom hem and the sleeve hems turn up too much though, and I think I might face them in grosgrain to try and combat this - it makes it just a bit too short in both body & sleeve. But the yarn is the star of the show - it looks like moss and woodlands (although a friend said it looked like the sea), and appears to be made up of three strands of green - petrol, forest and a yellowy green - which gives it a good depth of colour. And because it is so light and squishy, it makes for a really warm cardigan that you can squish into your handbag. Perfect for England!

Its a lovely piece to wear, and wear it I do!! Anyway, time to get onto the weekend chores - and a bit of Father's day celebration!

Call me Ishbel...

A bit of catch-up knitting:

For mothers day (the Australian version!), I made my mum Ishbel, from Ysolda's Whimsical Little Knits. I have knit very little lace in the past, but I thought this looked lovely and I had some great yarn that I thought would work nicely. And it did.

This is my mum's Ishbel, knit in St Ives sock yarn (maybe this is Heather? I can't remember, but the names are beautiful). The pattern is lovely - after a few false starts, I worked out what I needed to be doing and it all fell into place. I actually think this project might be without error, which is unusual for me! The central stockingette panel makes it very quick, and the lace pattern is easy to read from the previous row. The yarn was great - I thought it might be a bit scratchy, but after just one wash & block it softened up beautifully. And although you can't see it here, it has a lovely heathery colour, with blues and some lovely purply flecks.

I haven't blocked lace before, and I didn't do very well on the points, but it is a revelatory process! This looks really cute worn as a scarf, the points kind of sit around your neck very prettily. I think there's one due on the needles for me this coming winter....and maybe a matching beret too!

Anyway, I hope mum likes it as much as I liked knitting it :)

Time to go bath baby boy and enjoy the last bit of evening sunshine....

(PS. I also really like this new scarf from Ysolda too! Beautiful).

I'm back, baby...

......hopefully! I have been busy, as you may have guessed.

First, last November, something wonderful finished, and at the same time something so so so much better started:

Which has been fantastic. Its a serious work-in-progress, we are currently up to here:

which is pretty great.

I still haven't decided whether he will feature in this blog in pictorial form, so these might be the only pics you see. Or I might not be able to control my maternal pride :)

There has been much knitting, sewing, cooking, baking of cakes, and general craftiness. I might retrospectively blog about some of it, for I am pretty proud of some things. Having been at home with bubs for the last few months has given me headspace to think about such things more, and I feel like I have really made some progress technically with knitting. And I have taken up spinning (on a drop spindle) over the last few weeks. And I went to Ravelry day yesterday, and came back with a great haul of stuff, a love for my fellow knitter and a brain full of knit facts from the most ace Jared Flood (aka Brooklyn Tweed), who took a workshop I attended in the afternoon. So more on all that to follow!

If you are reading this, thanks for sticking around! Hopefully it won't be quite so long between posts again :)