Small little jumper

I've been working on this for the last week.



Its a baby jumper for our friends who had a baby in February. (The pattern is from purlsoho.com and is by Joelle Hoverson. This is such a lovely website, loads of good tutorials and it looks generally beautiful). Just knitted in Sirdar Snuggly as its washable and will hopefully stand up to being worn by a little person. I've knitted it for age 6 months to a year but having to knit very loose as my gauge is always too tight and I have to go up usually one whole needle size any time I knit from a pattern. Does anyone else have this problem? Or the other way round, that they knit too loose. I'm not really liking knitting so loose. I feel my knitting also looks tidier when its tight. Never mind. I'm looking forward to starting my mohair lace cardigan one day soon. Have a lovely evening xxx

Wonderwool Wales

What an absolutely lovely day my husband and I had on Saturday. We went to Wonderwool Wales which was an extravaganza of beautiful colours, lovely friendly people and bucketloads of inspiration. I don't know where to start as I have so much to say about it, so I think I'll begin with Sarah at Bigwigs Angora. This was one of the first stalls I came to and I was immediately attracted to the stunning shawl you can see on the left. It was beautifully knitted and looked so soft, and even at the end was one of my favourite sights of the day, even though I'm not usually a "neutral" person.


Unfortunately you can't see it very well from this photo so you'll have to wait until I've knitted it. Also, Bigwigs Angora doesn't yet have a website, which is a shame.

I spoke to this lovely lady from Woolcraft who told us about spinning yarn from onion skins and about the craft workshops she runs at her farm in Carmarthen. You learn all about the fibre, from watching the sheep being sheared to the wool being...I don't actually know the names of any of the processes but basically you go all the way to making your own "thing".


I've been inspired by all the spinning information online and had been meaning to give it a go, so I bought a starter kit with a spindle and some, is it called roving? Fibre? I have much to learn! Unfortunately thats packed away tidily so no photo but here is some other beautiful fibre to look at.



Talking of spinning, I met Megan who blog is "I saw her stranding there". She gave me some good advice on spinning and was lovely and friendly. Nice to meet you Megan :)
There were also lots of fibrey animals around, such as sheep, angora rabbits and llamas.



What a funny guy!

There was a feltmaker, Jenny Pepper, who Marno bought a pot from. I suppose you'd call it a pot. It goes very well with his collection of caramic pots anyway, and is in nice juxtaposition.




Jenny Pepper's stand.

And I just loved this stand. There were lots of neutrals and naturals around which I do really like, even though, as I said before, I'm very much a colour person.

I thought this just captured so well the textural interest you can achieve by creating different surfaces with the yarn and putting all those neutral hues together.
I feel the need to elaborate some more about what I said about being a "colour person". Colour is really important to me. I'm actually really interested in colour theory and how colours affect people. I also love contrast and how colours are affected by each other. At the same time, I don't like loads and loads of colours together, a la Kaffe Fassett (I do like his work but sometimes it's a bit too much). I'm more a fan of perhaps one or two strong colours together, not as many as you can thing of. I suppose a good illustration would be thinking about hippy style clothes. I don't like the kind of crazy use of loads of colours, whereas I like a garment in a strong colour with perhaps a self pattern or interesting fabric surface. There, I hope that clarified the situation! :)

x Sam

Loads of things

For me, the weekend begins when my husband gets home from work on a Friday as he finishes early. This Friday he was home extra early and the first "first" of my weekend happened. He asked me if I wanted to go to the driving range. Haha yeah right, lets go, that'll be fun... NOT! Since we've known each other I've teased him about liking golf, that it's not a sport blah blah blah, but anyway I thought, "Its a nice evening, it'd be nice to try something different," so I said ok. I watched Marno for a bit than asked if I could have a go. Well I think I must have had a secret ability hidden inside me as my first ever golf swing sent the ball 100 yards, dead straight. And just to show it wasn't a fluke, so did the second one. Ok I hearly dislocated my shoulder on the third but once I'd recovered I was back on the little fake grass thing you stand on and hit many more great shots. Hmmm, what to do now? Ma has a set of clubs for me which she's been keeping for the day I have a go and realise that golf is actually amazing and tell her I would like to have them. I wonder if that day has come... though I'm certainly not at the amazing stage but think it could be fun to have a go.
The second first was getting up at 6am on Saturday to go to to Cosmeston to see what birds we could see. It would appear you actually have to be up at 4am for there to be any difference to going in the day time. There were hardly any birds except for the usual blue tits, robins and chaffinches, although we did see a male and female Reed Bunting actually on a reed! Pretty exciting! We just ended up freezing and ridiculously tired so we got home about 10 and slept for an hour.


I did get the chance to take photos of my dress, or rather Marno took the photos and I posed. Here is a selection.






I'm rather pleased that my new White Stuff cardigan goes so well. Mmmm my favourite shop. Talking of cardigans, heres a photo of the KSH I bought to make the mohair lace cardigan with the dress fabric.


A perfect match.
And finally here are some of the beautiful blossoms in the park at the end of our road. They are so beautiful at the moment. I think I've never noticed spring as much as I have this year.



And its another delightfully sunny day today. First flip flip day of the year! Hooray!

Pretty dress coming up...

I spent a lot of last weekend slaving away over this dress, with some help from Ma.


I finished it yesterday but am hopefully going to take some photos of me wearing it on Saturday in the park, as the fabric I've used is really pretty and spring like. Its a Laura Ashley fabric. This was supposed to be an "easy" pattern, but I've only ever made one other thing which is this top I made a few months ago. My parents in law came over for the day and Ma gave me a lesson in using dress patterns.



Needless to say, I'd forgotten a fair amount of it by the time I came to make the dress this weekend!
Unfortunately I didn't get the quilt finished for Romania on Wednesday. I've never done machine quilting and it takes a little getting used to. I was also rushing it and ending up with not at all straight quilting lines. Here it is before I started quilting. I know I said I wasn't going to show unfinished projects but I've been going on about this so here it is.


Not very exciting but I'm sure a little child would love the arctic animals print.
I'm now debating whether to begin the Robin hat or wait for this to arrive so I can begin my Mohair Lace Cardigan. I wanted it to go with the dress and the green of the Kidsilk Haze goes perfectly. Also the fabric used in the original pattern only comes in cream, bright pink and black. The KSH ws a slightly more pricey choice but I'm hoping will look beautiful.
Ahh ok, off to do some revision for my IT course now.
Have a lovely day x Sam

Ma's Sockos

Well I certainly knit like the wind to get these finished and I'm so happy I have. I thought I'd still be doing them tomorrow as well so I was very pleased to finish them this morning.



Now I have to wrap them and make them look lovely in order to "present" them tomorrow! I only say that because Ma (my MIL) is amazing at wrapping and presenting things - she could make a potato look beautiful! She is also a wonderful friend and its a great blessing we get on so well :)
I have to say a big thank you to a Christadelphian brother who has a fantastic website of Bible talks. I always listen to talks while I knit as its a good opportunity to be creative and study at the same time and I certainly made good use of it on this occasion. I highly recommend it.
This weekend I hope to see lots of birdies, possibly make a dress and pay a visit to John Lewis to purchase some yarn, and also to have a lovely time with my parents in law. Have a lovely weekend and enjoy the bank holidays and four day weeks xxx

Tying up loose ends

Yes! I've been slaving away on Ma's second sock - I pretty much knitted half of it yesterday so only half left to do. However, my hands are a little uncomfortable and I'm not sure I'll be able to knit for five hours today! They have to be finished by Thursday morning so I'm hoping to get them done. Besides, I have other projects bubbling away in my head to get started, such as this jumper for some friends who had a baby in February. I told them I'd probably end up making it in 6-12 months as I had lots on, so don't worry, its not majorly late for the birth! I also want to knit the Mohair Lace Cardigan in the current issue of Knitting (No 62), hopefully in a cornflower blue or maybe lime green to go with some fabric I bought ages ago for a dress. Ohh and I forgot I have yarn already to make Kim Hargreaves' Robin hat.
Still nothing to show on the patchwork. My friend's walking foot didn't work so I couldn't get on with it. She's sorted the problem now though and I'm really hoping to get it done on Wednesday evening so I can send it off to be taken to Romania on Thursday.
On Saturday we went to Symonds Yat in the Forest of Dean and saw Peregrine Falcons and we also joined the RSPB which I'm really happy about. As well as protecting birds, they do loads of other conservation work with other animals and habitats and you get an excellent free quarterly magazine and other things.
No photos today but hopefully some finished stuff soon. Have a pleasant afternoon x

Some Little Guys

Its funny, since we've been interested in birds, we've taken to referring to them as "guys". I think its because when you start to look at them in more detail you realise they all have such personalities. My favourite personalities at the moment are Robins and Long Tailed Tits, which are just too sweet and are little balls of fluff. Anyway, here are my finished Blue Tit and Robin.



They probably don't look that different to the progress shots I've already posted about. This has led me to the (probable) decision that I'm no longer going to post photos of unfinished paintings, and has also reminded me that here is another thing that used to bug me about painting. I would put loads of detail in a certain part, usually the face, but other aspects I would give far less attention to. I am happy with these considering I haven't painted in four and a half years, but I think this needs work. I also remembered I used to really enjoy working in charcoal and pastels, so I think its another trip to the storage container to retrieve some more old art materials...

I've put these on a shelf on a bookcase for now, and couldn't resist taking a photo as there were a few interesting objects on display.

As well as the paintings, there's the first "object" I knitted, a lavender filled heart with a pearlescent button and bobbles around it, a pair of tickets to go and see Lemar, which should be quite random as my husband bought them kind of on a whim. We have liked his singles but those are all we know so we can sing along to four songs at least! And there's the tree spirit from this most excellent film. But ignore the English as all anime has to be watched in Japanese (in my opinion). Its just so much better and more believable. We are anime lovers here, but kind of go in stages of watching it, and I wrote my dissertation on manga and anime, long ago that seems now. Talking of education, it occurred to me that I feel a bit like I'm at school at the moment. I'm taking A Level Art, Textiles and IT, spending all my free periods in the art department and making my friends faint with shock if I actually go into the library. Just like school! I didn't do A Level Textiles or IT but I'm doing lots of sewing at the moment and I am actually doing an IT course, which I guess is what I would use the library for. So as you can see, I'm not giving enough time to it. Its all online though so I am going to do some revision today...

...before I go to my friends house to quilt my... err... quilt! This is the actual one for Romania, although I've spoken to my friend John who's going and the children are ages five to 15. I've made this one a little bigger than Sue's (whose house I'm going to later). Its seven by 11 6" squares with a 2" border. I'm not going to show you til its finished but here's one of the fabrics I've used.
Somewhat more child friendly wouldn't you agree? In case you're interested, here's the link to the guys website and what they're doing on their trip.

I hope you have a most wonderful day x