Lincoln Longwool - Softly Solid Jade

I brought this from The Fibre Fairy back in October 2012.  I bought 4 different large braids from her and this is only the second lot that I have spun up so far.  My other one to date was the green Polwarth wool.  The Fibre Fairy appears to have closed down the business, which is probably why I got so many bargains.

Being so happy with the result of my spinning and dying of the Lincoln Longwool lamb's fleece I decided to try this Lincoln Longwool in shade "softly solid jade".  There is 345g of fibre here, that is a big braid of combed fibre.

I started spinning this way back on 9th June and I separated it out into 3 fairly even amounts and then each of those amounts into two as I spun up each little bag, and its taken until 9th August to finish spinning it all.  It was quite compacted and hard work to spin, made a lot easier by pulling it apart as best as I could to loosen all the fibres out.  I made 3 skeins of 2-ply yarn.  Its not as nice as the Lincoln Longwool that I dyed and spun myself from raw fleece and doesn't have anywhere near the same amount of lustre, which it should have if enough care had been taken during the dying process, which judging by the lack of lustre and how it has compacted I would guess has not happened in this case.

All three skeins have come out as sport weight yarn and are 107g/269m, 111g/263m and 107g/258m and will be used together to make one large shawl.

Chunky Lace Capelet - Design SB168

With the wedding season upon us, and in hopes of increasing sales, I decided to return to a really quick knit that is really pretty as well, that is in a much lower price range than many of intricate shawls.  I bought in some yarn in the right thickness and quantities and got knitting.  They are all the same design, in the same size, and I made them one after the other so will just put them all in the same blog post.  They are all made from Twilley's Freedom Super Bulky 100% wool, which is a single ply yarn, except for the green one which is made from Rowan Amy Butler Sweet Harmony which is 100% merino wool, which is a chainette ply yarn and is a discontinued yarn.

Beginning on 26th April 2016, the first one I made was in Pearl, an off-white and I made a few in this colour.  I didn't take any work-in-progress photos other than the Pearl shawl and the Blossom shawl.

I started off by making these in pearl and they have a natural light coloured wooden toggle button fastening.

 On 10th May I started knitting a black version, which has black wooden toggle button fastening. 

I began making 2 green ones on 28th April, these are the ones made with Rowan Sweet Harmony and they have a green wooden toggle button fastening.

I also made two in shade Bluebell on 12th May, which was a discontinued colour when I bought it.  I mixed up some of my eldest daughters artists acrylic paint and painted the wooden toggles to match the shawl.

 Onto garnet next and I made this on 13th May, painting the toggle button to match., 

. Fuchsia pink next, on 16th May, again with painted toggle button fastening.

I had a little break whilst I done other things and then came back and made some more.  All the blues are muted tones, so on 18th July I made one in Misty Morning and one in Moonlight, again painting the buttons to match. 

On 19th July I made one of these shawl in Blossom, a baby pink and painted the buttons to match.

Next up was one in a very dark pink called Vintage Rose and one in Ice Blue, both on 20th July, again with painted buttons to match.

The final one of these that I had the supplies to make was in Amethyst and I made it on 21st July 2016, again painting the buttons to match.

The photo below shows some of the buttons on plastic chopsticks, the perfect thing for popping the buttons on and holding whilst you paint them so you get a nice smooth finish, having being painted they are then stud in clean empty jars to dry.  The once dry the colour was checked again against the knitted item.  They were usually given at least two coats of paint and then finished off with a clear varnish to seal the paint so that it can't rub or wash off.  The coat of varnish has made the buttons a little bit darker but they still match with the shawl.

Clusters of Bronze - Design LF427

Hot on the heels of the last Twilley's Goldfingering 1970s fringed shawl comes another one in a different design, also designed by Twilley's back in the day.  I managed to get my hands on 24 reels of vintage Goldfingering in a bronze colour and decided to make one of the other designs in the pattern book that requires a larger number of reels of one colour than the tri-coloured motif shawl.

This design is also made up using motifs that are also joined as you go.  Instructions were not full and clear on how to work the corner joins and this took several attempts to figure out the best way to do them for the nicest result and its quite pretty already.  Starting on 20th June, I was finished by 14th July 2016.

Before and after pictures of blocking.

This shawl is huge, on me at least as I am only 5'4", but is stunningly beautiful.

Pretty in Forest Green - Design LF433

I dug out another of the project bags that I made up when I went through my Twilley's Goldfingering working out what I had enough of in various colours to be able to make more of the 1970's style fringed motif shawls that I made earlier this year.

This time I am using lime green, pale gold and forest green.  80% Viscose, 20% Metallised Polyester.

I made a start on this on 19th April, working on it in the downtime between picking the kids up from school and having to start cooking whatever they decide they want to eat.  During the day I was making chunky shawls in a whole range of colours.

I took this project away with us on holiday, camping again but this time on Wookey Farm, a dairy goat farm with a low-impact eco campsite in Somerset.  The pitches are massive, which is good because our tent is a monster and we need a big one with two adults, two kids and a dog where the youngest child has quite severe ASD and needs a lot of room as she sprawls out, twirls about and generally acts like a "fairy on a gob of lard" as my late dad used to say, which is an old local Brummie saying which means "clumsy and all over the place".

We had lovely weather whilst we were there and got out and about to visit local places such as Glastonbury, Glastonbury Tor, Wells where Hot Fuzz was filmed and Cheddar Gorge.  I did manage to get a bit of crochet time, sitting out in the sunshine on the bench provided by the campsite for each pitch.  I was being blinded by the radiance coming from my little pile of flowers as I made them and took this photograph of how the sun catches on Goldfingering.  So beautiful and sparkly.

I didn't take any additional work-in-progress photographs, finishing it on 18th June 2016, but I'm very happy with the finished item.

Corriedale & Tussah Silk - Mink & White

I have been working so hard, concentrating on working on all the lovely fleece that I have, that I completely forgot about the spinning fibres that I have brought in over the last couple of years.

I got this Corriedale Wool and Tussah Silk blend from Bramble Path in January 2013 but I think the business may have closed down or changed names since as I can't find them online any more.

I didn't take any work-in-progress photos and it only took me 2 days to spin, starting on 7th June and finishing on 9th June 2016.  I made a 2-ply fingering weight yarn that is beautifully soft and is 106g/306m.

Camping in Somerset part IV

On our last full day of our holiday we decided to head off to Cheddar Gorge.  The weather was slightly overcast but you don't want it blazing hot when you are walking in the hills.  You have to drive up the steep winding road that cuts through the hillside above the town of Cheddar.  The roads are busy and narrow and there are tourists everywhere.  Its lovely walking through the town but a bit scary if I'm honest. 

There are a few attractions in Cheddar but we found them to be really expensive and walked away from them, as did a lot of other people who enquired about the prices so we decided to do the free hill walk instead.

We found the start of the hill walk in the town and made our way up and boy is it steep to begin with.  Its not for the faint-hearted and I must admit to having to stop several times on the way up but once you are up to the top it opens out to lots of space.

There is a large rock that sits just above the town that looks like a lion sitting there looking out over the Savannah.  It really is a long way up to the top.

There are wild goats living in the hills.  I have no idea what kind of goats these are but they are just walking around up there without a care in the world.  The black one was really nosy, it kept watching us.

When we got back to the town, where we had parked the car, we had fancy flavoured ice-creams before the drive back to the campsite and our last night of our stay.

Camping in Somerset part III

Being Pagan's we cannot come down here and not visit Glastonbury and Glastonbury Tor when we are camping so close to it.  Its a bit of a drive from where we are camping and parking, well yes, parking was a bit of a nightmare but it had to be done.

Obviously I didn't walk around Glastonbury itself taking photos of shops but WOW, the shops.  Unfortunately we are on a tight budget, isn't nearly everybody at the moment, so I couldn't go buying lovely goodies but I did admire lots of lovely things for sale.  We vowed to come back at sometime in the future when we do have some money to spend because it is a Pagan and Wiccan shopper's delight.

We did want to visit the Chalice Well and Garden but dogs are not allowed so we had to walk on by and carry on up to Glastonbury Tor and St Michaels Tower.  OMG I am so unfit.  It is one hell of climb up.  You might look at the photos and think "a gentle incline".  Try getting up there, its not that easy but the views are stunning.

It is really windy up on the top and it takes away that last bit of breath that you have after climbing up that hill to get there!

St Michaels Tower is roofless but amazingly enchanting and a little haunting but you just want to stay there and look up, its a weird feeling.

I don't need to write anything, you can read the plaque for yourself.

We went back to the tent and collapsed in a heap.  We were all exhausted and all had to lie down for a while and recover before having our evening meal.  Come and join me in Part IV.