Confessions of Iknit Day purchases.................

I really didn't buy very much honest!





















I can justify each one of these lovely purchases.
The needles were money left from my birthday back in January.
The Kraemer yarn has been on order for a couple of months.
The lovely little socktopus gadgets are going away to Father Christmas to reappear as if by magic on Christmas day in my stocking and the buttons are for my February Lady Sweater finished back in July and in desperate need of some closeur!
The Malabrigio was the only real induldence as I really don't need any more sock yarn but I just loved the colour and there was a lot of buzz about it when it arrived in Alice's shop. I have already decided that I am going to knit the Shurgatal Socks that Alice designed which are on the insideloop. So all perfectly justifiable as I said in the first place.

NOTE: The baggu was a free gift with purchase from Socktopus. I am not saying how much you had to spend to get one just in case I incriminate myself.

IKnit day and knitting with the YarnHarlot

It's been and gone after all that anticipation and I must be the last person in the knitting world to get around to blogging about it. It is already 14 days after the event and everyone else is moving on to posts about Ally Pally and the Knitting and Stitching Show in Birmingham last weekend.

Well here is a summary of my day in photographs with maybe the odd comment to clarify. I didn't take anywhere near as many photos as I would have liked and many were useless due to my inability to take decent photos but I had a great day. You may have seen me or even have me sell you a ticket for the Mirasol School raffle.

So here they are...........









........so once in through the queue











.....now that's what I call cashmere!



....these were the amazing Sushi sock rolls from John at Easyknits. I made the mistake of not getting one on my first dash around and ended up missing out this time around! Gutted!



I had volunteered to be an usher for the Yarnharlot talk so managed to get this pic before the masses arrived. It also had the advantage of staying dry while it rained on the queue outside.



Yes there was even time for a few silly moments of G taking a photo of me taking a photo of her taking a picture of me taking a picture of the empty hall, haaa, got that all out.



....and then the talk began.









.....so once back in the main hall here was the queue to get your books signed. It finally died down at 6.45pm when I eventually got to join it.



There was plenty to keep you entertained while you were waiting though such as the Erica Knight fashion show of Men's knits and of course the knitted aliens. I love these little critters.







...one of those looks like Zippy from Rainbow on acid.



So finally it was our turn to get to meet Stephanie who by this time had been signing books for hours and hours and hours. So we were very grateful that she was still willing to sign ours. So here we have Emilie, Ems and Gabrielle, I managed to stay behind the camera.



Gabrielle having her picture taken with her first sock - we are not allowed to talk about what happened to the other one!



Ok so meeting a fellow Canadian at that time of the day was just too much.......



This was the nearest we got to Moustachio's all day! This must be rectified next year.

So that was it really. All that remains is to say such a huge big thank you to Gerard and Craig for putting on such a wonderful event and organising such an inspirational and down right humurous speaker. It was a wonderful day and I didn't spend too much while I was there much to a number of my friends surprise ( all purchases will be confessed later) I had a fabulous time. Can't wait for next year.

Competition winner..............................

OK so the winner of the competition is................

Katie with.........

"Just think of England darling, at least I got to you first, poor Mildred over there knows exactly what's coming (and it won't be her!)"

Ok so the minds of the inhabitants of this house live in the gutter too. Can you let me have your address so that I can post you your little prize?

Also sorry to everyone for being so late posting this but the start of term really just took over.

Thank you for all your comments, I had lots of little chuckles as each one was posted.

You can visit Katies blog here

The Wool Clip - Cumbrian adventures part two.......

Although I have already blogged about my trip to the Lakes I did want to do a special post all about my trip to the Wool Clip which is the most facinating little shop at Priests Mill, Caldbeck.





So a bit of background information about the Wool Clip.

The Wool Clip is a co-operative founded in 2001 and currently comprising 15 women.
We are an enterprising group of with a diverse range of skills. These include farmers producing wool and mohair, creative textile and fibre artists and spinners, weavers, knitters and dyers.
We have an emphasis on innovation, creativity and colour and operate through a successful retail outlet at Priest's Mill in Caldbeck, Cumbria
(Taken from their website)

They also run a whole host of workshops which are listed on their website. I wish I lived nearer as there are quite a few I would love to sign up for.

I visited on the Thursday as I knew that Cecilia, who I met up with on the Tuesday evening in Keswick would be working that day.

Here are a few pics of what it was like inside the wool clip. I think we spent at least an hour and a half just browsing and chatting. Oh and of course making a few (quite a few) purchases.









Notice the Woolfest bags and T-shirts, well that's because the ladies of the Wool Clip are also organisers of this fantastic fibre fest which takes place at the end of June each year. I am determined to try and get up there next year.

Oh and purchases........ I know some of these have appeared in the blog already but it wouldn't be right not to show you the treasure trove of goodies that can be bought here and some enabling I did for my sister-in-law.



This was the enabling that I did all for knitting scarves.



And for me it was fibre and a book on spinning.....
(Confession there was a little more fibre than this but I haven't owned up to it yet, some more of the mohair in green blue colours and another bag of Merino top in a similar colourway.)



.......oh and a little skein of yarn



......and this weaving kit for a little girls christmas present. She is going to love it.

I was also lucky enough to pick out a gorgeous skein of yarn that my sister-in-law has bought me for my birthday but I have to wait until January for that and unfortunately I don't have a picture to show but it is in My colours and absolutely gorgeous.

Unfortunately we spent so long in the shop the tearoom was closed by the time we had made all our purchases but that just means we will have to go and visit again. If

If you are up in the North Lakes definately put this on your list of places to visit it is a real aladins cave. Oh and don't expect to come out with your credit card in tact, you just can't help but buy!

The Teacher Swap............

No, I don't think this is what you think this is. This is the Ravelry secret swap among the members of the Teachers Who Knit Group.

We signed up to provide a package of knitting goodies and extras to send to a secret pal. We were provided with a questionnaire to fill in asking about our favourite colours, yarns, things we would like, things we don't knit with and this info was then sent on to the person who was going to get together the parcel.

I had great fun getting mine together but I only had the questionnaire to go on as the person I was sending to didn't have a blog that I could stalk to find out more information. In fact she didn't post too much on Ravelry either so I had to go with things I thought that I would like to receive and as I was sending to America I wanted to add a bit of Britishness to it aswell.

This is the package that I sent off to MnMknitter.



I had found out she very much liked both greens and purples and liked to knit hats, so one of the yarns I sent was some Rowan soft tweed that had some silk and cashmere in it. I have knitted a jumper for myself in this yarn and I am also knitting one for DH and it seemed perfect for a snuggly soft hat. The second yarn was a laceweight silk that I thought would make a lovely shawl in a simple stitch. I have made a similar one.

I also managed to find some lovely ceramic buttons that had a school theme to them but I have to confess to liking them so much I ended up buying some for myself too.

The London bus postcard was really to signify the journey that the parcel was making.

As it was a teacher swap some of the items were to have a bit of a teacher significance to them and you can't really see it in the photo but underneath all the goodies is a cookbook that was put together by the staff, parents and children at my school as part of a healthy eating campaign in school. There is also a little wallet for storing all those knitty tools and yes you guessed I got one of those for myself too.

Anyway after posting across the pond I then had to sit and wait patiently for my own parcel to arrived and last week it did. I got all the goodies below.





I have to say a big, big thank you to Biologyrose who put my package together and has obviously been doing quite a bit of reading of my blog to come up with all the perfect contents that are there. I had mentioned on my questionnaire that I would love a shawl pin and she sent me a beautiful wooden one. The rest of the package takes a rather footy theme. There is sock yarn by happy feet in a lovely cloth bag and then some lovely treats for my feet to keep them beautiful too. There was also a really ingenious set of DPN holders on an elastic for keeping my sock needles together and is one of the best ways I have seen yet. I will be looking to get a few more of those.

I really enjoyed the whole swap experience and it was a great task for the school holidays and I am already looking forward to the next one. I also want to say a great big public thank you to Ravelling who organised the whole thing for us and to whom we are all very grateful. Thank you.

My very first skein of handpun.....................

I am sitting here grinning from ear to ear as I type as I am so proud of what I have achieved today. A few days ago I posted about starting my adventures into spinning. Well this evening I finally finished my very first whole skein of handspun. A whopping great 95grms of it. Ok, so it is having a bit of an identity crisis at the moment as to whether it is a DK or a 4ply but I am very proud all the same. It actually looks like real yarn.



I finally finished spinning up the first plys on the two spindles that I had been practising on. I was getting a much finer thread on the Bosworth but decided to spin half and half over the two spindles I had been using hoping to get a more even yarn when I plied them together.

Here is the result of each ply with each of the spindles. Each one sitting next to the yarn that it produced.



As you can see I got much better results as I went on.

My next job was to work out how to ply without getting in a tangle. In the book I bought while I was on holiday it suggests putting the two balls under plant pots and bringing the yarn up through the drainage holes. Well I didn't have any plant pots but I am one for saving the empty plastic soup pots so I made some holes in the bottoms, thread the yarn through and then fixed the lids on so the yarn didn't fall out of the bottom.



I have to say I am very smug about this improvisation.

Then I was off plying although it took a little longer than I thought and by the end my back was aching quite a bit. I managed to get away without either of the plies getting too tangled at any one point and ended up with another spindle full of plied yarn having remembered to turn it anti-clockwise.

Next was grab two of the dining room chairs and wind up my skein.......





......and then secure it with a few holders in place.

I then lifted it off the chairs and guess what it hung pretty well open. I still need to soak it and do the distilled vinegar thing to relax the fibres and let them balance but I am already pleased with the results.





All I have to do now is decide what to knit it into.

NOTES:
1)I have named the Yarn - Purple Heart after the wood that the whorl on my Bosworth spindle is made out of.
2)The reference book I have been using is Start Spinning by Maggie Casey
3)It all takes a lot longer than you think, but it's fun.

Competition time..............................

Ok I have been away in the Lakes last week for my holiday and while I was there I visited the Alpaca centre and took some very cute photographs of Frolicing Alpacas. This was amongst the more amusing section of pictures taken!
So what do you think these alpaca were saying to each other.



Please make all your entries before Midnight Sunday 31st August (just before I go back to work) and I will choose the winner and award a little prize. Don't forget to include your email address so that I can contact you to post your prize if you are the winner. Good luck and most of all have some fun!