Open Day at the Natural Dye Studio..................

This weekend was the open weekend at the Natural Dye Studio over in Suffolk.
It was an early start picking up the first contingent in Richmond at 8:15 am ready to circumnavigate the A406, otherwise known as the North Circular. Riding shotgun were, Socktopus, Indieknits, Dianemullholland, Larissa, Froggy and I was driving. First meet up was outside Starbucks so we could make sure we were set up for the day then it was off to find Borders at Brent Cross and then Silver Street Station. The journey up was going to take around three hours.

Well the pick ups went fairly smoothly with only one slight variation to the location of Silver Street Station care of Google maps, for some reason only known to them they chose to locate it in the middle of a housing estate. Anyway without too much trouble we located Larissa and we were off.

We finally arrived at the Natural Dye Studio at around 11:45 to shouts of, "Is the BBQ on yet, I'm starving."

I finally got to meet Andy of Bluefaced.com face to face rather than just through Ravelry and also the lovely Jenni of Fyberspates who had some of the most lucious yarn called scrumptious, it truly was.

So straight into the shop for a look around and some purchases ......










Look at all those lovely socks and yarn, I just stood there staring and druelling, how do you even begin to choose when all the yarn is that delicious.

Well I did manage to find a few things to buy like this little lot......



Yes that is roving in there, and no I don't spin, well not yet anyway, Diane has promised to get me started. It looked so lovely and was so soft I thought it would be a great mini project for summer.


This is the scrumtious that I bought from Jenni and I am going to use it to make Hey Teach from this months Knitty summer surprise patterns. I so adored Sarah's that she is wearing in this picture. It's the little lacey number in red,she's the one standing up.



After some initial purchases, some chatting, knitting and some burgers it was time to pop off to the dyeing room and watch the demo's from Amanda and Jenni. Apologise I forgot to take my camera in for this bit but Indieknits has some great photos on her blog which you can look at here.

I did get one of the dyeing room though......



It was fascintating to watch the process and then see the end resulting yarn.

The yarn hanging out here to dry is the yarn from the dyeing demo which both Alice and I fell in love with and insisted to Amanda that she let us buy it and take it home wet!



Here it is wound up once it was dry.......



And again after I re-skeined it this morning to separate out some of the fibres....



It's a beautiful blend of alpaca, silk and cashmere, all my three favourite yarns in one. That's probably why I also bought a skein in laceweight.



We had a really fantastic day and it was great to go with such a fab bunch of friends, it made the 6 hour round trip worth every minute. I finally arrived home at 10:25pm. Thank you everyone for a great day.

The great big sheep........................

Yesterday was the day of the Alternative Village Fete outside the National Theatre in the Watch this space area on the Southbank. I went along to join the boys from Iknit who were getting everyone to knit for their Great Big Sheep. You can read more about what they are doing and why over on their website.















My contributions..................







I went totally loopy....................
Thank you Gerard for giving me a quick tutorial on this stitc because now I can go ahead and make my sheep tea cosy. Never miss an opportunity to learn something new.

Oh and there were some male knitters spotted and they were very proficient. The one in the yellow stripe was speedier than me and knitting continental style...







I had a really great day sitting out in the sun knitting hailing chants of "Oh your back again Craig" to which I got the reply "Oh your still here!" I finally left just in time to hop on the train and arrive on the sofa for a slightly delayed start to Dr Who care of the V+ box. Thanks boys and I hope it goes really well at Camp Bestival in a couple of weeks. I hope the sheep will eventually come to live in the shop!

My, my,my ..........Delilah!

OK so I can now finally blog about my secret project.
Here it is ....................








A little while back there was a thread on Ravelry on the Yarnforward group asking for a test knitter. Well I am generally known for my speedy knitting and with half term coming up this was a realistic possibility so on my doorstep (well actually Carl's school) arrived a package containing lots of balls of this.



I really like this yarn and a few years back knitted an entire mens sweater in it. I love the way that it ages when it washes. It really does shrink and fade just like your favourite jeans.

Anyway I was asked to knit a lovely, summery lace halterneck.



I love the fact that it is knit in the round which gave me another opportunity to use my knitpicks. This time it gave me the perfect excuse to justify having also bought the metal tips as they really are better to use when knitting cotton.



I think this photo shows off the lacey pattern well and also how the dye is only on the outside of the yarn.



This one shows more of the detail from a different angle.





Luckily for me there was also loads of yarn left and I was allowed to keep back enough balls to knit a top for myself. I have to say for that I will need to make a few alterations to accomadate the slightly larger bust. I will be keeping a few more stitches on the needle and picking up extras behind the first cup on when knitting the second to give a little more coverage.

Also it is worth noting here I think that although the back of the top looks a little too large on the model in the magazine this is because it had not yet been washed and when it is washed the yarn shrinks by about 20% as well as fading so it will give a better fit. This is worth considering which size to knit when you have chosen which type of cotton you wish to use. Also worth noting is that Sirdar also do a cheaper shrinkable cotton which you can purchase for around £1.30 a ball at the Black sheep, so that makes this a very cheap summer knit.

If you are looking at it and thinking it is two complicated I can assure you it's not it is just two rows to the lace pattern with no complicated stitches, just very effective.


It seems really strange to see my name in print in such big letters too. I would have had a photograph of that too but I couldn't get a clear enough picture with the camera.

I am a Lady............... a February Lady!

Right I am not quite sure how this escalated into the Marathon knitting event of the last week but maybe I could start to unravel the situation a little and throw some light on it.

I have posted recently about becoming a bit Virral with my knitting and there is now even a viral knits group on ravelry where all us viral knitters meet and continue to either infect one another or offer miracle cures or threats of immunisation.

I think it was Laura (Indieknits) that first pointed out the February Lady Sweater to me in one of her Ravtastic posts. She had purchased some lovely tweed yarn at a very reasonable price to make it so I thought I would have a little look at this pattern a number of people were raving about.

It was great and fulfilled one of my desires to have a go at knitting a top down sweater having been inspired by Sally of Missflipknits, podcasters for procrastinating knitters. Based on a baby jacket by the legendary Elizabeth Zimmerman this was one to add to my queque. Pattern downloaded, added to ravelry queue and no yarn yet purchased.

Then I forgot about it for a couple of weeks until I bought this...





..... and remembered I had this............



Actually when I say rememered I had this it is really 20 balls of this. Rooster almerino in Grape, 25grm balls that spit splice a dream.

So then I started to add up in my head. What about this?



PERFECT!

That would be perfect apart from the fact that it was now Thursday and I wanted to wear the top to Hard Rock Calling in Hyde Park on the 30th June - 9 days away. Could I get it knitted in time? Well I am known for my speedy knitting but there were a few other pressing items on the agenda that week. I had to finish my other Mosiac sock for sockclub, I had my class reports to finish, two reports for govenors to complete and a marketing stall for school to put together for the infant school fair.

I was willing to give it a go so I cast on.



In my haste I made a little button hole phopar but this will be a design feature. All was otherwise progressing well. I even managed to get the socks finished, reports written and my reports for govenors prepared. I still had a fair bit of the sweater to go but I had now set aside Thursday and Friday night to really crack on. I was already pushing on down the back so by Friday I was starting to pick up and knit down the first sleeve. I finally finished the first sleeve on Saturday afternoon and hadn't quite finished the back because I wanted to make sure I didn't run out of yarn. Dr Who and the second sleeve was picked up I was now really in with a chance I thought.

Then another spanner in the works, around 10.45pm, turning out time from the Bonjovi concert disaster struck the house. Everywhere we looked were small pools of blood. It was one of the cats! But which one and what had it done to create such a mess in everyroom? We couldn't hear any sounds which I have to say panicked us even more. Finally we saw Lola with blood all down her leg and unable to put her hind leg down. Luckily she allowed us to pick her up. Anyway cutting the story short, she was fine and DH whisked her off to the emergency vet over in Northolt while I carried on knitting and waited for his parents to arrive back (they were staying with us for the night). Lola came back with a stitch, she had managed to puncture a vein in her leg. I still hadn't finished the sweater.

Having gone to bed late I had to get up early to finish off. The upshot being as we were pulling the car up in Holland Park to park the car to get the tube to Hyde Park I was still casting off the last row of the back of the seater but I did wear it to Hard Rock Calling but that was a close one in the end even for me! Actually I should have just taken it with me unfinished as I would have had two hours knitting time waiting for it to start.

So here is the evidence that
1) I completed it
2) I really did where it to Hyde Park
3) Isn't 100% finished as I have yet to add buttons and some ribbon



These photos were taken on my lap while I was waiting for everything to kick off. Hence the hint of grass here and there!











Notice my jumper neatly folded despite all the debris around it.

Sock(topus)Club Part Four - Fiori di Zucca

Yes it's that time again and the Socktopus Sock Club parcel has been delivered by Mr Postie to my front door. Why should I mention this - well usually it doesnt' actually come to my home address I get it delivered to work but knowing it was arriving on a Saturday I just couldn't bare to wait until Monday.
I have to confess now to having already had a little preview on our Socktopus 'jaunt' down to Brighton last week. I can now remove all those little blue splodges from the photos of Alice to reveal what she was knitting on the train.





Yes there it is Fiori di Zucca - WIP.

I just love these fab summer colours and in one of my favourite sock yarns - Dream in Colour Smooshy. Once again Alice has had this colour especially dyed for the club. This colourway is Gelato al Pistacchio.





Of course as always the package was filled with other lovely treats too, as if the yarn and the pattern aren't enough.....



I have to say the green and the yellow on the bag are going to need some getting used to for me as I am definately a pink girl but oh does it fit all my sock club stuff in so far. The front pouch is the perfect size for all the club patterns that have come so far and there is a little notions pouch that hangs at the back inside.

I love 'Hands off my Socks' logo.



I mean there is no way you can confuse that message can you?

And the back.......



This pattern is certainly going to be the most challenging for me yet. I don't really do knitting from charts, I'm much more a read the list of instructions girl so I am going to have to get into a new mindset on this one. Having said that after the initial excitement of opening up each parcel I have then had to draw breath and consider if I am actually capable of knitting the pattern and each time so far it has just been a matter of confidence and getting stuck in. I may just wait for the start of the school holidays for this one though when at least I can relax a little and draw several deep breaths first.

United at last.................

So Mosaic socks got finished, February Lady Sweater is still pending completion.

Here is the evidence..........




......and I didn't even need to resort to photoshop. I thought at one stage I was going to have to fake the whole scenario.

It was only a few days ago my sock blockers actually looked like this .....



...... one lonely sock waiting for its mate to become a complete pair.

I really didn't think I was going to make the deadline for this one. I only had a few days left, all my reports, and a lady sweater to finish. Oh and not forgetting two reports to govenors in my various roles at school and a marketing stall for the school fair to put together. Deadlines hey!

But I made it and they look great - well I think so.
I also managed to finish the toes on my second pair of Karenina socks too.



A definate improvement.