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!

Tal-y-Bont show

My friend Jane and I met up today at Tal-y-Bont show, I love local shows, I love the livestock the crafts, the cake, the giant veg...
I entered some of my knitting in a local show last year, but my new local show only had classes for a knitted cushion or a bag (and I make neither of those), and Tal-y-Bont technically isn't local to me so I didn't bother entering. I may get organised and do it next year though as some of the hand crafts classes were of an amazingly high standard, but unfortunately the knitting wasn't one of those classes, and it would be nice to show people some of the lovely designs and ideas that are now about.

This show had a lovely selection of local sheep, none of them are the super soft fleece breeds that we commonly know in knitting, but the climate around here doesn't suit that sort of sheep.
There were some Black Welsh Mountain though, which is definitely a breed that's worth trying, unlike the white version it's fleece is much softer, and with much less kemp (thicker hairs). I have a few different blends with this fibre in the shop, it's particularly nice blended with silk.


There were also a few of the classic handspinners sheep, Jacobs. I have a washed Jacob fleece under my bed that I really must do something with!


Plenty more photos to have a look at on my Flickr stream if you like that sort of thing.
There was also a handcraft tent, and in there was an old man who was hand plaiting headcollars for sheep and cattle out of cord and twine, beautiful work.




They also held a shearing competition, though disappointingly it seemed to be about the way the sheep looked at the end, rather than the quality of the fleece as an end product, the sheared fleeces would be useless to a handspinner, and as they were only from Welsh Mountain sheep I didn't even bother to try and scrounge a freebie.
There was blade shearing, which left the sheep with rather more dignity than the electric clipper shearing!



This sheep didn't seem to appreciate it's haircut, can't say I blamed it, 12degrees centigrade is not a pleasant temperature for an August day!

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.

Testing, testing 1,2,3

Testing fibres is important to me, I sample lots of my blends, this picture is of some of my pick n mix batts spun and knitted.
Each ply is made of one of the different colour batts, when you knit with it you get a tweedy type fabric.
All the colours above were made with variations of just 6 batts, each is a blend of Merino, Shetland and nylon for strength. If you knit it up at the sort of tension I have then you would get great socks, but you could do lot's more than that as it's still a relatively soft blend.

If you can't decide what colours you like I've put some ideas as the last photos of the listings, or I'm more than happy to take photos of 3 colours you have in mind.
You can buy pick n mix batts by clicking on the link to the right.

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!

A little bit of custom spinning

A friend on Ravelry doesn't spin, but she fell in love with the Slytherin colourway (sorry it's out of stock until I do a fresh fibre order), so asked if I would spin it up for her. It span up surprisingly quickly, and reminded me how much I love spinning with hackled roving.
She's planning on knitting Maja with it, which I think will look fabulous.

I can custom spin anything in the shop if you really want something but don't spin, just get in touch for prices and an idea on timescale. I also sell a Learn to Spin Kit, the main fibre in those is some gorgeous North Ronaldsay, an ancient breed of sheep from the Orkney Islands, that mainly has a diet of seaweed. How cool is that!
The link to take you to the fluffy goodness is just over to the right.

Use it or loose it...

We joined the local library a month ago. The first visit we browsed the shelves and picked out all sorts of interesting books (that you'd never buy because you wouldn't read more than once) like this one on Lost country Crafts, and one on historical folk clothing including how making clothing has evolved, that I can't remember the title of...

Modern library catalogues are online now, so before we returned those books I reserved loads of books that I'd been meaning to red for ages, or just sounded interesting when I searched for the things I'm interested in...


An eclectic selection....

Anyway, my point being, we're all feeling a bit short of cash right now, if like me you have books in your amazon wish list that you'll never be able to buy, why not see if your library has them?