Making Monday 7- Laceweight

This is the finest I have ever spun..
Proper, proper laceweight, not very thin fingering weight, but proper laceweight. It's been a rocky road making it this far, I somehow managed to ply the wrong way without realising (I have no idea how I didn't notice...), which meant I needed to reply the entire skein.
I still haven't worked out how many metres I had to ply twice, but the original braid of fibre was 100g, so I feel confident in saying there's a lot of yarn there!

The fibre was superwash merino I dyed at the start of my forays in to natural dyeing.


I'm already thinking about knitting Rock Island with it..

You can find all the other Making Monday posts at The Yarn Yard.

Making Monday

Autumn is on it's way... it never really felt like we had summer, but round here leaves are turning colours, and the fruit trees are starting to ripen.
This is our Damson tree, we didn't plant it, by the looks of it this tree has been here for many years. This year it has so many fruits they're grouped on the tree like grapes!
All being well this will be it's last year of fruiting, the barn you can see in the background is going to be converted in to living space, and a big wooden deck will fill the space where the tree is now.


It's sad, but thew views up the valley are as beautiful as the views down it, and it will block out the view. We can always plant another tree, and the next one will produce a fruit that's bigger and easier to pick, as we suspect this might be a wild damson, the fruit on it is small, and ripens very variably!
So what do you do with all these damsons? Well there's jam, and crumble, and wine....
Not quite made yet, we're collecting the ripe ones in the freezer until we're ready, but the intention is there!

Making Monday- Weaving

Todays Making Monday has got me inspired to get my loom out.
The last weaving project I did looks lovely, but I miscalculated my warp length dramatically, leaving me with a scarf that was nearly 3m long...

This time I'm not going to use laceweight (not only was the last one 3m long, I also used laceweight...), instead I've got 4 skeins of Drops Silke- Tweed, I'm not quite sure what pattern I'm going to weave in. After I finish this post I'm off to browse my copy of The weavers Idea Book and see if I get inspired.



My loom is a Cricket, and it's the perfect size for weaving in front of the TV because it's quite narrow. I've o desire to weave anything bigger than a scarf so it's perfect.

Making Monday- Mojitos

This post will be sadly lacking in pictures, for which I apologise, but we drunk the drinks I made last night before I remembered to get the camera out...oops!

I love a nice cocktail, living in rural mid-Wales my opportunities for cocktails are rather slim unless I make them myself. At this time of year nothing beats a mojito, minty, limey, refreshing, and made out of ingredients that aren't that hard to keep around the house.

To make 2 large tall glasses you need-

A handful of mint leaves
2 Limes
Some white rum
Soda Water
Sugar
Ice

I start by grinding up the mint leaves in a pestle and mortar with 2 teaspoons of sugar (I don't like it too sweet, feel free to add more sugar). When the the leaves and sugar have formed a paste divide the paste between the 2 glasses, squeeze a lime in to each glass, add a slug of rum, 6 ice cubes, top up with soda water and give a good stir.

Not quite as good as the ones in a cocktail bar, but quite close, and definitely cheaper!