William Morris quilt

Last Wednesday I was on a lunchtime wander round York, when I passed a curtain shop with a small sign saying they had roll ends from £3 per metre, and bags of scraps from £5. I couldn’t resist a look, and was amazed to find that the bags of scraps were enormous bags of big pieces of lovely fabrics, much bigger than I was expecting. I did go a little bit crazy, ending up with two big bags of ‘scraps’, for £10 each, and £50 worth of roll ends. I had to leave them there as I couldn’t manage it all on my bike, and hold my impatience until I could go in in the car on Saturday. But it was worth the wait! I was like a child at Christmas as I unpacked it all :)

This is the two bags of scraps – all William Morris Sanderson prints, mostly full widths of fabric, and varying between about 20cm and half a metre. There are multiple pieces of some of the fabrics too. I’m very pleased with this lot!

And this is the bigger pieces, more Morris, and a few pieces of more contemporary designs.

This is my very favourite piece, it’s a half width, but it has the full repeat of this beautiful tree on it, which is about 60x80cm. My first thought was to frame it, and I’m still thinking along those lines, but now I’m thinking it’d be nice to embellish it first by sewing over some areas with embroidery thread. So that might be a project for the future.

But my first project was to make a quilt, to keep on the sofa for chilly evenings. I’d come across this old wool blanket a few weeks ago, and was thinking of upcycling it, so this seemed like the perfect chance, especially with the heavier upholstery fabrics. I reluctantly discarded some of the coarser weave ones, thinking they’d probably fray too much, and decided on six floral prints, with a leafy one for the background and backing – that was one of the ones I’d bought a roll end of, and there was more of it in one of the bags.

I did some sums, and decided that for the size of my blanket, I needed 6” squares with 1.5” sashing in between.

So I spent an evening cutting out squares, doing a bit of fussy cutting to centre the bigger designs.

Then worked out a layout that looked random but does in fact have a pattern to it – the first six rows have one of each fabric in every row and column (think sudoku!) and the last row is a repeat of the first one.

I took these photos on my ipad, and it was very handy when it came to checking the layout as I sewed the pieces together – new technology helping an old craft!

I sewed all the smaller sashing pieces in first, then inserted the long horizontal strips, before adding borders.

I didn’t want to quilt this, due to the thickness of the blanket in the middle, so I’ve tied it, one tie in the centre of each cross of the sashing. I hope it holds!

I did sew the binding on by machine, using my walking foot, but as I suspected my machine really didn’t like it – it kept skipping stitches, leaving very long stitches, and generally misbehaving. But I got there eventually, and then spent an evening handsewing the binding down on the back.

And this is the finished thing! It’s lovely and warm, and a good size for the sofa (about 45” x 51” – the blanket was a single bed size, but I think it had shrunk when I washed it years ago).

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Still here

Hello! Waves! I’m still here, just a little quiet – I’m not sure why, I had a lovely week in Wales a few weeks ago, but it seems to have eaten my blogging mojo. Let’s see if I can get it back…

So, what have I been up to? Let’s start with the week in Wales. My parents have a caravan in Trearddur Bay, on Anglesey, not far from Holyhead, and it’s one of my very favourite places – I’ve been there every year since I was about two, and it feels like going home. I usually have a bad effect on the weather when I go away (cf my recent soggy week in Hay-on-Wye!) and I’d almost decided not to go, but I gave it a go, and even as I drove across the Pennines the sun came out, and it was glorious all week.

I stopped at Rhos-on-Sea on my way, and came across this tiny church – the sign said it’s believed to be the smallest in the British Isles (I think!) The bench gives an idea of scale.

Inside there’s seating for six.

I drove onto Llandudno and had a bit of a wander, still marvelling at the sunshine.

Then drove onto Trearddur. I went down to the sea after tea (it’s only a five minute stroll from the caravan) and sat in my favourite spot, a rock which takes a bit of scrambling to get to, past a rock pool we used to catch tiny shrimps and crabs in when we were small, and sat and watched the sea. It was so peaceful.

And a few more random photos.

The woods at Penrhos, once the gardens of a big house, now sadly demolished.

One of the small bays at Trearddur, with Holyhead Mountain in the distance.

The house I’ll buy when I win the lottery – it looks over the bay in the previous photo. Imagine sitting in that glassed in veranda with your knitting or spinning wheel, and going to bed in a turret.

Flowers by the sea.

And the big bay at Trearddur – the sea is always so clear there.

Paddling in the sea. I really wished I’d taking a swimsuit, but it hardly occurred to me to take warm weather clothes, never mind bathing gear! And looking back now I can hardly believe how warm it was for that one week, it seems like a dream.

I managed a bit of knitting – I finished this sock whilst I was there. Only one to go.

And because a holiday isn’t a holiday without visiting at least one yarn and/or fabric shop, I popped into the lovely Copperfield, at Four Mile Bridge, which is a small village straggling the bridge between Anglesey and Holy Island, just up the road from Valley, and four miles from Holyhead.

This is one of those tardis-like shops which looks tiny on the outside, but grows when you get inside. In the front room is an assortment of ribbons and trimmings.

And a selection of Rowan yarns.

Then there’s a small lobby-like room in the middle,

before you get to the main fabric room at the back. There’s a massive selection of Moda fabrics, as well as some from other designers. The trouble is that I want it to be on my doorstep, so I can just pop in to match a fabric I need – I get very overwhelmed when I visit somewhere like that on holiday! I did buy a few bits, but I can’t just lay my hands on them now to photograph them, I’m feeling very disorganised at the moment!

Back to my wanderings. These allotments in Holyhead always catch my eye, with the Irish ferries in the background.

And up to the slopes of Holyhead Mountain, where a group of Iron Age hut circles have been excavated.

A hut circle with a view. This was a Saturday afternoon, and the car park and cliffs along towards South Stack just opposite were very busy, but I had this part pretty much to myself, it was another magical moment.

One of them was full of bluebells. It must have been a good year for them, they were everywhere.

Some of them are thought to have been workshops or animal enclosures.

I did have a quick walk down to look at South Stack (that’s the lighthouse) in the distance, but I didn’t go any nearer – I’ve been before, and there’s a lot of steps down the cliff!

The sea was an amazing blue-green colour.

This rock caught my eye the next day, when I was wandering round with my knitting and a book, enjoying the views.

Such as this one. This is the seaside to me – lots and lots of tiny rocky bays, some with sand and some with rocks, not long expanses of golden sand, that’s not exciting at all!

And that’s it for travelogues for the time being – and if this dreadful weather doesn’t cheer up it could be it for the year! I’m so sick of thinking it’s been a nice day if it was just grey sky but no rain. But I have been making things, and I’ll do some updates on that very soon…

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Now that’s what I call a yarn shop!

So, my last stop on my trip back from Hay-on-Wye. I was heading for my parents’ house, north of Manchester, and decided that it would be much out of my way to go via Llandrindod Wells and Welshpool instead of going straight up the A49.

It’s a very pleasant drive up the A483, with frequent views like this one. I stopped briefly in Welshpool for lunchtime, but my real destination was at the other end of the Welshpool and and Llanfair Railway – the Colinette shop!

I’ve been once before, so I was prepared, but even so the riot of colour inside was amazing! They’re only open on occasional Saturdays, but luckily this was one of them, and I had the place to myself apart from the very pleasant chap working there. Who endeared himself to me by offering me a cup of tea the minute I walked in – that was very welcome!

I wandered round for ages – I could have bought lots, but I didn’t have any real projects in mind. I love their yarns, but I’m wary of using them for garments these days, having had several bad experiences with colours changing between skeins and pooling, even when striping two skeins as recommended.

I was very tempted to buy the yarn for another Ab Fab throw (the wavy one on the left) but I couldn’t decide which colourway to go for, so I’m going to have a look at finished ones on Ravelry before I make a final decision.

 

The trouble with somewhere like this is that you really need to be able to just pop in when you’ve got a project in mind – the website is okay, but no real substitute, and even Bobbins in Whitby doesn’t have nearly the full range of colours. I’m very jealous of Katie, of HilltopCloud, who lives just up the road. And very kindly invited me to drop in for a cuppa when I tweeted that I was on my way to Colinette, but sadly I didn’t have time as I had to be at my parents’ in time for tea (it was my Dad’s birthday). Next time I’m down that way I’ll take you up on the offer if it still stands, Katie!

 

So, what did I buy?

I’ve had my eye on one of these squiggly scarves for a while, but the kits they sell online are mohair and cotton, and I wanted to splash out on mohair and silk. I’m glad I waited, as it’s much easier to choose colours if they’re all in front of you. I ummed and ahhed for ages, before deciding on these colours.

But the pattern as written needs two skeins of mohair and three of silk, and whilst there were three silk skeins out, there was only one mohair. The helpful chap spent ages going and getting more and trying to match it, but all the others in that colourway had bits of green in them (and were all different from each other!) So in the end I decided to just buy the one mohair skein and two silk ones, and make a narrower scarf. That made it cheaper too!

The only other thing I bought was a skein of Jitterbug in an experimental colourway, from the bargain room for £4. Unfortunately my camera’s no good at photographing teal greeny-blues or purples, so both of the yarn photos are a bit off colour.

The door to the room where they dye the yarn was ajar, so I stuck my head round and had a quick peak. I’d love to see it all working!

And a last burst of colour.

Right, that’s me about caught up I think, stand by for posts either from or about Anglesey (depending on internet connections there).

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Wonderwool 2012. The Cold One.

So I’ve made it to Hay-on-Wye. I arrived yesterday afternoon, after a pleasant drive down, enlivened by my satnav deciding that instead of driving straight down the A49 to Hereford then turning right, which I’ve done before I just needed the odd reminder for, we’d turn right just after Church Stretton and go via the scenic, albeit slightly shorter, route.

It was a pleasant drive, and it didn’t start raining until I was nearly here, but there was an awful lot of water about, both in very swollen rivers and on fields. This is one I managed to stop and photograph.

I’m staying in a B&B, I was supposed to be in their self-contained flat for the week, but there was a mix up with the booking, and I’ve had a couple of nights in the actual B&B, with an evening meal thrown in to compensate. Which is all very well, but the wind and rain were howling and beating on my window all night, so I’ve been awake since before six, and I had to make polite conversation at breakfast, which really isn’t my thing. Thankfully I move into the flat tomorrow and I can be as lazy and scruffy as I want.

But back to this morning. Once I’d finished being polite, I steeled myself to head into the deluge, and set out for Builth Wells and Wonderwool. It’s about half an hour’s drive from here, through country roads, following the River Wye, which was also impressively full. Thankfully at the showground there was a minibus to ferry us from the car park to the halls (a good five minutes walk as I remember from last time, and we would have been very wet!)

I took some photos inside – it’s hard to get a general view, as the stalls are quite spaced out, which is a nice contrast to Woolfest! Apparently it was quieter today, probably partly because it was the second day, but mostly because of the terrible weather. Not only was it very wet and windy, it was freezing as well – my car said it was 3 degrees on the way there and 5 on the way back, and I’m sure it was at least that cold in the halls. Warned by Saturday’s attendees, I’d abandoned the carefully-chosen-to-show-off-as-many-handknits-as-possible outfit, and piled on the few warm clothes I’d brought with me (it’s not been cold at home!) but I was still freezing.

I was jealous of their woolly coats!

And theirs. These two were very cute.

I was pleased to find Brimstone buttons there – I bought a few cards of their lovely vintage buttons at Woolfest a couple of years ago, and they’ve come in very handy, so I invested in a few more.

FeltStudioUK had a lovely stand as usual, but I managed to resist, I have far too much fibre in my stash at the moment. I’d allowed myself one braid, but I’d already bought it by this point!

I did stop to admire some of Daniella’s amazing handspun though. One day I’ll be able to spin like that.

There were lots of stalls with amazing handcrafted things, but sadly they were (rightly!) out of my price range.

There were some amazing things on the Sasha Kagan stall, but there’s no way I’ll ever have the patience to do all that intarsia. Not ever.

There were lots of stalls I would have liked to have looked at in more detail, but after an hour I was so cold I’d really lost interest in almost everything. I was determined not to turn tail and run straight away, having come so far, and I managed to stay till half past two, but it was hard work – my hands were freezing, and my head wasn’t much better. I thought longingly of my Sheep Heid, safe in the B&B! But who’d have thought I’d need in inside at the end of April? I only brought it in case I went for a walk.

But despite the cold, I did manage to sneak in a few purchases. Well, it was inevitably really. And it would have been rude not to support the poor sellers, who couldn’t even walk round to keep warm – there were an awful lot of sample shawls and hats being worn, sometimes all at once…

So, what did I get? Apologies for the photos, it was gloomy when I got back, and I couldn’t get close enough to the window in my bedroom here.

First up is the aforementioned buttons – I got all these for £24, which seems like a bargain to me. They’re all vintage shell buttons, so should go with most things. The trouble with coloured buttons is that unless you buy them first and then buy yarn or fabric to go with them, the chances are they’ll never match anything, but these are more amenable.

I didn’t go too mad on the yarn/fibre – there’s two skeins of alpaca/super kid mohair from Bluefaced which seemed too good to miss at £6 per skein, then some Shetland fibre in colours which just caught my eye. Next is a skein of merino/tencel in greys, greens and lilacs which isn’t a combination I’d usually go for, but is very pretty. And lastly, a mixed twist of different fancy yarns from Oliver Twists, with a skein of fine silk – I’m thinking of using the fancy yarns for the warp of a woven scarf, interspersed with some silk, and then a silk weft.

I was nearly done when I spotted that Thread Yarn had masses of cones of DK cotton on top of their stall, in all colours of the rainbow, for £5 per 500g cone, so I bought these six for yet more crochet. The colours are pretty bad here, there’s two terracottas, two greens, a pale yellow and a cream, which should go with my living room.

And last but not least, a pretty poppy corsage from the Feltmakers’ stall.

So that was Wonderwool. I’m sure it will go down in memories as ‘do you remember that really cold year’ – hopefully next year will be warmer! Tomorrow I’m heading into Hereford, I’ll try and take some photos, but there may be a bit of rain between the camera and the subject. Just possibly.

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York – Grace and Jacob

Regular readers of this blog may have noticed that I often mention my favourite shop in York, the lovely Grace and Jacob. Long time readers may even remember that I’ve posted about the shop a couple of times before, the last time being in August 2010, but things have come a long way since then! For a start, Fiona’s moved the shop into a space twice as big, next door to the old shop, but fronting onto Walmgate – this is the front of the shop, the door is still on the passage into Barleycorn Yard.

And the stock range has increased dramatically – the inside is like a tardis, but with beautiful things wherever you look!

This is in the first room you go into, with lots of gorgeous fabrics, patterns, feltmaking kits and yarn.

Then you go into the front room, which is just amazing.

This is my favourite feature of the shop – the building used to be a pub, and this was the original dresser with the holes intact where the beer was pumped. Or something.

Next to it is the window where off-sales took place – locals used to come with a jug which was filled with ale for a small fee. Now it has much prettier things, including Knitpros. And the dresser has a large selection of coloured merino fibre, as well as a huge range of crafty tools and notions, which make me want to start many new hobbies, it’s very hard to restrain myself!

Fiona is also a very talented hand-dyer, producing beautiful yarn and fibre (including the fibre I used for the socks I finished a couple of weeks ago).

And there is a great range of fabrics, with more arriving all the time – I took these photos a week or so ago, then when I went in this morning, more loveliness had arrived –

If you’re planning a visit to York this summer, I’d definitely recommend a visit to Grace and Jacob – it’s down Walmgate, so a little off the beaten track, but it’s less than five minutes walk from the main shopping street, just go down Fossgate, over the bridge over the River Foss, and keep going – you pass a couple of interesting bookshops on your way too, if you fancy a browse, as well as other slightly more quirky shops than you find in the city centre.

There’s also a popular spinning group twice a month, on the first and third Thursdays of the month, from 6-9pm – details are in the Grace and Jacob Ravelry group (which also has opening times and contact details). All are welcome, and Fiona’s happy to teach people to use a spindle.

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Shopping!

It’s that time of year again, yesterday I went to the Knitting and Stitching Show at Harrogate (thankfully it didn’t snow on us this year!) and spent some of my pennies on exciting things…

I was going to take photos of the event, but it was heaving with people after the first half hour or so, and I couldn’t be bothered trying to wait for gaps in the crowd, so my camera stayed in my bag this year. But I’ve made up for it by taking photos of my spoils!

I was quite restrained knitting-wise, there was lots of lovely yarn there, more so than in previous years I think, with more indie-dyers, but I have so much already that I resisted, apart from a kit to make the Autumn Tam from Jamieson’s of Shetland.

Unfortunately when I unpacked it this morning, I realised that I have two balls of one colour and another is missing. I’ve rung them, but the girl answering the phone said she’d have to speak to the people in charge, who are all at the show. She did helpfully suggest that I could just order the colour I was missing from the website, but having spent £29 already, I’m not minded to spend even more rectifying their mistake. Hopefully it’ll be sorted when they get back next week, I’ll keep you posted.

My main purchases this year were fabric. I came across The Silk Route very early on, and after using one of their packs to make a cushion a few weeks ago, I was inspired to buy two more. Sadly the red I bought to back the pack on the right doesn’t match in daylight (it looked okay in electric light) so I need to find something for that. The colours of the silks in the pack are on the back, so maybe I’ll just order one of those from their website.

I spotted the fabric on the left made up into a bag on the Fabrics Galore stand. I wasn’t going to buy any more bag-type fabric from them, only because I have a load I bought last year and the year before still waiting to be used, but I couldn’t resist this, there’s half a metre, so it’ll probably be a bag. Or maybe a cushion, that would be cute. The one on the right was from the Bernina stand, and was on sale at £5 a metre, the circles have sewing phrases in them, coupled with tape measures and cats I thought it would be perfect for little project bags.

I also wasn’t supposed to be buying fat quarters, but this amazing Japanese fabric cried out to me. Irises are one of my favourite flowers, and I love the other colours.

I bought a chrysanthemum FQ from the same stall (I think it was Japan Crafts, but I may be mistaken, I can’t see any fabric on the website, just kits) and two cheap ones for £1 each from someone’s sale basket).

I’ve had a vague plan for a while to use up my handspun leftovers by using them as warp for a woven scarf, so when I’ve got enough I’ll use this cone of thin silk for the weft. Oliver Twists did have some lovely things, but I was good and restrained myself to this. It wasn’t easy!

Texere had a stack of squares of sheepskin, I bought this one with the stiffest back I could find to make insoles for my winter boots. I’ll have cosy feet this winter!

My main spending this year was on dressmaking fabric and patterns. Well, not so much on the patterns, they were from the Sew Today stall and were £2 each, with one free if you bought three, so I got eight patterns for £12, which didn’t seem bad. These ones don’t have fabric yet, but I bought fabric for three of them.

A wool mix to make the coat on the right – three metres for £18, so if it does all go horribly wrong (this isn’t unlikely) it won’t be the end of the world.

A check for the jacket on the left, I think it’s a wool mix again, but I can’t remember! A metre and a half for £14.25 this time, so again not too much. It does say that this one’s easy, so perhaps I’ll start with this one!

And a metre and a half of a gorgeous wool check, I think I’m going to use it for one of the skirts in this pattern, but I might change my mind if I find a better pattern. I do like this pattern though, so I’ll definitely make it with something! This one was a bit pricier, at £14 per metre, but it’s lovely fabric. It’s from Fabrics Galore – I wish their shop was nearer, they do have nice things! I did go once, when I was down in London, if I get on with this dressmaking malarky I might have another trip next time I’m down. We’ll see how it goes.

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Manchester Day Out

I was in Manchester at the weekend, to visit my new niece, Holly, who arrived safe and sound on Monday, she’s very wee at 6lb exactly, but she’s got a healthy pair of lungs on her! Once she sorts out her days and her nights and learns to sleep in her cot she’ll be fine. Well, she’s fine already, it’s her poor parents who are suffering. Her big sister (21 month old Daisy) doesn’t seem very interested so far – she did try to feed her by shoving a plastic spoon in her face, but when she was dissuaded she lost interest.

So that was Friday, and on Saturday I headed into Manchester town centre. I grew up nearby, and used to know it well, but I don’t get in very often these days, and every time something has changed. The most interesting (to me)change since last time I was there was the opening of Manchester’s only yarn shop, Purl City Yarns, and I wandered through the Northern Quarter (which is trying to reinvent itself as the arty quarter, but is still rather run down really) until I found the road it’s on.

It didn’t look particularly promising, but there is was, right at the end.

And inside it’s lovely!

There’s a good selection of the usual suspects, plus some more unusual yarns (including a lot of very reasonably priced Drops yarns, Blacker Yarns, Fyberspates, and Manos), all nicely laid out with plenty of space to browse.

And all with this gorgeous chappie watching over things from the stairs –

I was going to be good and only buy a bottle of Euclan (Mine’s nearly empty and nowhere sells it round here), but I did succumb to some Drops Karisma to make a Chickadee cardigan – I need a cream for the background to the yoke, but they were out of stock. I’ve got some yarn which I think will do, but if it’s too different I’ll get a ball online somewhere. The birds are going to be the deep pink colour, and the edging to the yoke is the grey.

The staff in the shop were lovely, and after a few minutes I suddenly realised that I knew one of them, Audrey, who came to our knitting group in York a few years ago when she was in the area. It was nice to catch up with her, and as I was leaving she suggested that I visit Fred Aldous, which I’d never heard of, and would have walked past as it looks like an art shop from the outside. It’s in an amazing building (which is very typical of Manchester).

The ground floor is mostly arty things, but there’s an enormous basement –

Which includes a very nice haberdashery section, I can see me visiting again now I know it’s there.

It was reasonably priced too, and I picked up a selection of bits and bobs, including four concealed zips for £1.09 each – I bought one at Duttons a few days earlier, and it was much more than that.

When I’d finished there I had a wander round the area, looking at the old buildings.

I did pop into Akabhan Fabrics, but it was busy and confusing – they have lots of remnants, but they’re priced per kilo with no obvious way to weigh them to find out how much they’ll cost, so I decided that I didn’t really need anything anyway and came away.

This lovely deco building looks very sad these days, there’s even weeds growing out of the roof :(

This is the Manchester Craft and Design Centre, I had lunch there (very average, I wouldn’t really recommend it) and had a bit of a wander round, but sadly I’m not really in the market for hand-crafted things at the moment, my money won’t stretch that far with the Harrogate show and Christmas coming up, so I meandered off again.

Just up the road is the old wholesale fish market, which is just a facade these days – there’s a new block of flats and a garden inside now.

I love the friezes above the gates.

Whilst I was having lunch I remembered that I’d seen a programme on TV a while ago from the textile gallery at the Manchester Museum of Science and Industry, so I hopped on a tram to Deansgate/Castlegate station, wandered around a bit due to the complete lack of signage from the station to the museum, then wandered round the steam hall due to the complete lack of signage at the museum itself (a bit of theme going on here, there were also very few staff around to ask), and eventually found the part I was looking for.

The whole centre section of the gallery is set up with the various machines used in the Lancashire cotton mills to change raw cotton into woven fabric, and twice a day there’s a demonstration, I caught the 3pm one. My family tree includes many cotton spinners and weavers, so I was particularly interested.

Above are the carding machines, which produce a sliver of cotton (after various stages, I can’t remember the exact details, apologies if I get anything wrong!)

Six slivers are then combined into one, and this is repeated twice more to make sure that all the fibres are aligned.

The slivers are then lightly spun twice to make them thinner.

Before they’re spun into singles on the spinning mule. Sadly for a spinner, this wasn’t working on Saturday, but I have seen one in action before, at Trefriw Woollen Mill in North Wales – if you’re interested, there’s a video of it working on my blog post about it.

Lastly the singles are woven into calico cloth, but for some reason I seem to have forgotten to take a photo of the loom. Oops.

Other interesting exhibits included this ribbon loom, which makes labels for clothes etc.

Stamps for finished cloth.

Arkwright’s water frame and carding engine – some of the first powered textile machines.

And a sock knitting machine, which you could make go by pressing a button.

There’s a lot more to see as well, I’d definitely recommend a visit to anyone interested in the history of textiles, especially cotton – and it’s free to go in, which is always a plus. The museum also has halls with engines of various sorts, and a aviation hall, so plenty for menfolk who may not be so interested in spinning to do too! I’m going to go back another time and look at the railway parts of the museum (it’s in the old Liverpool Road Station, terminus of the first purpose built passenger and goods railway in the world), but that’s a post for another day…)

Moving on from the museum, I was entertained by this juxtaposition of old and new – the old sheds the museum is housed in, and the new tower block, which looks very unstable, but stays up somehow!

I then spotted a sign for ‘Spinningfields’, and just had to follow it, but sadly it’s a new shopping and business centre, with not a sign of a spinning wheel (okay, I wasn’t really expecting spinning shops, but it would have been nice!)

There was a branch of AllSaints though, with their trademark window display. It’s not easy to see in the photo above, but the whole window is full of old sewing machines.

Including one very much like mine, I was pleased to see.

I slowly made my way back to Victoria to catch the tram back to my parents, it was busier as I got to the more popular bits, but the buildings are still impressive, including the Barton Arcade.

The monstrosity which is the Arndale Centre lives on though.

So there you are, well done if you’ve stuck with me this long – I was going to do two separate posts, but once I’d started I just seemed to keep going… Come back tomorrow to see my new cowl :)

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If Ikea made spinning wheels…

They’d come out of the box looking like this!

This is my new Kromski Mazurka, bought yesterday at Wingham Wool Work for the super bargain price of £150, because they’re being discontinued. I’ve been fancying a small single treadle wheel for a while, and this looked perfect, especially at the price. It took about half an hour to put it all together (thankfully the instructions were somewhat clearer than Ikea’s usual offerings, having words as well as diagrams), and now it looks like this –

I’ve left the distaff and its support off, as I can’t imagine that I’ll use them, and it just looked like something to get snapped off at the first opportunity.

The wheel can be set up in either scotch tension or double drive, and I thought I’d have a go at double drive, since my Sonata can only do scotch tension.

There are two whorls, for four different ratios; I started with the smaller one then switched to the bigger one as I played with the wheel and different fibres. It’s spinning okay, but I still need to get the hang of it properly, especially how to adjust it – there’s screws at the front and back of the flyer to adjust the tension. But I think I’m getting there, and though it’s tempting to just set up the scotch tension and go, I’m trying to persevere!

One thing that does disconcert me is the channel in the flyer – on my Sonata it’s angled so that the yarn travels up it to the orifice, but this one seems at completely the wrong angle, unless I’m missing something really obvious. The hooks are on the opposite side of the flyer to the Sonata too, which it going to take a bit of getting used to.

Moll would like a go, but her feet just won’t reach the treadle.

This is the bit of yarn I spun up yesterday – you can see that the natural BFL is much more even than the white. There’s about 70m, so I don’t know what I’ll do with it, but it was nice to practice with no distractions.

More successful is the Falkland I spun at the weekend – this was from the Yarn Yarn fibre club a few years ago, there’s 200g and about 300m of chunky-ish weight, which I’m pleased with as I find it hard to spin thicker than very fine these days.

And what else did I buy yesterday? There’s this batt, which is part of a new range Ruth’s trying of repeatable colourways – this one is cherry truffle, and there’s 365g there. I tried spinning with it first on the Mazurka, the batt was lovely to spin, it was the wheel I  was having trouble with, but I’m sure that as soon as we get used to each other everything will be fine. Mollie doesn’t look so sure though.

And I picked up a selection of silks, alpaca, mohair, tencel and sparkle to put into batts along with some of my merino collection – I’m hoping to borrow a drumcarder soon and have a play, watch this space…

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Home again

Well, I actually got home late on Tuesday night, but since then it’s been a whirl of work, knitting group and spinning group, all in a bit of a sleepy haze. But now it’s Saturday at last, I have no plans to leave the house, and I’m finally feeling a bit more human. I think I must have had some sort of minor virus that left me with a huge dose of post-viral fatigue, it seems to be going round at work.

So, my last two days in London. On Monday we managed to drag ourselves out of the flat in time to stagger to Hammersmith for lunch, then we decided that a nice walk by the river might just wake us up. Wrong. We just about made it from Hammersmith Bridge to Putney Bridge, but it was a struggle – it’s only about a mile and a half, which shows just how weak and feeble we were. We did stop to watch some small boys being taught how to row, which seemed to consist of them dipping their oars into the water at random points, and occasionally missing it altogether. Bless. It was funny though. No photos, it was grey and miserable, and I was tired.

Lucy had to go home in the afternoon, and in the evening Kerri and I took at bus to up Diane’s, where we sat and ate pizza, drank wine, knitted, and admired her yarn collection until we gave in to exhaustion at the ridiculously early hour of 9pm.

On Tuesday I wanted to have a poke around Liberty and John Lewis, so we hopped on a bus – this one took a while, so there was time for knitting.

I wanted to look at dress fabric at John Lewis, but it was very disappointing – I was after Linen mix or thickish cotton mixes to make skirts, but everything seemed to be very fine, or else had mad tiny floral patterns. The yarn is also unexciting, unless you’re looking for Rowan, of which there is lots.

I was more excited by the furnishing fabric, and succumbed to two pieces from the remnants bin.

One is plain fabric with velvet flowers and leaves/stems – I don’t know what I’m going to do with it, but it was beautiful and it was half price. Still £20 for a metre, but one day the perfect project for it will come along. The other is oilcloth, which I’m going to use to make a cover for the white plastic table outside – it got left all winter, and now the surface has gone and it’s all grey, so this’ll cover it up nicely.

Then we headed up to Liberty, which was also a bit disappointing – they don’t really seem to know what they’re doing with their haberdashery section, and it all seemed a bit messy.

It’s a beautiful building though.

I didn’t buy anything, which I felt was very restrained. Don’t laugh.

Next we headed up to MacCulloch and Wallis, just over the road from John Lewis. Again there wasn’t any fabric which inspired me, but I can see how this would be a useful shop to have locally – there’s a huge selection of ribbons and trimmings upstairs, but I find it hard to buy them without a project in mind. Well, it could be very easy to buy them, but I just know that whatever I needed would always be something different. So I was restrained again. At this point it started raining (this was something of a theme of the weekend, but we managed to be inside for most of it), so we headed back, via a few more fabric shops, but by that point I was really just too tired to be interested.

I came home on Tuesday night, lugging all my purchases across London on a busy tube, then up to York on a busy train, and regretting that I’d taken/bought so much with every move I made. But I made it here eventually, and pretty much collapsed in a heap.

This is what I’ve been knitting during the weekend and this week – it’s a second Hypernova, the smaller version this time, in Wollmeise 100% merino in the Miss May colourway. I needed something that would look pretty but be easy to knit whilst talking, so I hurriedly cast on and got past the slightly more complicated initial section on the train down, then it was all plain sailing.

I think this pattern is just perfect for showing off the beautiful Wollmeise colours.

Of course when I got home I was dying to cast on something with my new yarn, but I’ve been very good and forced myself to finish a project first, and I’m pleased to report that the Kidsilk Haze shawl which was started by Rachel before she lost the will to live and sent it to me to finish is now blocking.

Last night I started swatching for Cria in the Blacker Yarns Jacob/mohair I bought, I’ll finish the swatch tonight in front of the TV. I think it will block to the correct gauge – I’m getting 26 sts/4” at the moment, and I need 24, on 3.5mm needles (this is for my own reference as much as anything!) I’ll wash and block and weight the swatch as instructed, then have a think.

But right now I’m going to start the shawl in the Skein Queen cashmere I bought, which is all wound up and ready to go. Mmmm, cashmere.

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Knit Nation Saturday

Well, today was my main shopping day at Knit Nation, and I’m afraid it wore me out some completely I crashed out and came back to Kerri’s flat at 5.30pm, missing the bingo completely. Actually I’m not that upset, I’m not a fan of bingo, and it was £20 to get in, which after the excesses of the day, seemed like a lot of money. I tried going for a walk to wake me up and get me going, but it just rained on me, so I took it as an omen and gave up on the day.

But I did have fun earlier! I did lots of walking round the marketplace and looking at things, and did make, um, several purchases (more of those another day, it’s too dark to take photos now, and I was too out of it earlier to even think of it. But I did take lots of photos of the marketplace, here are some of them. Apologies for the lack of captions, my brain just isn’t up to it… Clicking on the photos will enlarge them though, and I think a lot of them do have the stall name in there somewhere.

There was a place to chill out this year, apart from the tables outside, which was just as well, as the rain was torrential for most of the day. We took over the SCR upstairs, and Ysolda set up her salon there, with samples to try on. I did try on quite a few, but neglected to get any photos taken. Perhaps tomorrow I’ll be more organised. I did sit and knit with a few different groups of people, although I was feeling a bit out of it even by that point, so apologies if I didn’t respond to anyone. Hopefully I’ll feel more with it tomorrow.

Ysolda’s stand.

Pretty samples.

Lots of knitters.

And an unfeasibly large ball of laceweight Wollmeise, hand wound by Louisa, aka Velvet, who has more patience than me!

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