Wooly Christmas

I've just finished putting up my Christmas decorations. They're pretty minimal, and long time blog readers will recognise them from previous posts.
The Christmas music is on, and I'll be wrapping presents as soon as I finish writing this. I'm using brown paper this year, tied up with leftover bits of handspun, and the tags printed from here.

There's rather a lot of wool going on in my decorations. This advent calendar is made from wool felt, just stitched up round the edges and then a number embroidered on the flap. Slip in the sweet treat of your choice, and when you open it take out the patterned disc so you know where you're up to. The pattern is here

This is my nod to a Christmas tree, it could do with a little more stuffing as the poor things is a little dumpy, it nestles nicely next to the phones, and hides the dust on the Freesat box nicely! Pattern here

And finally my growing collection of Christmas stockings. Two are hand sewn and embroidered the rest are knitted. Now who can I persuade to fill all of them with goodies on Christmas morning?

Speaking of goodies, dates for Christmas posting

Asia, New Zealand, Far East, Australia- 5th December

Africa, Caribbean, Central and South America, Middle East- 7th December
Eastern Europe, USA, Canada- 10th December
Western Europe- 12th December
UK- 18th December

Though if you wanted to point a relative in the direction of something, then you could always try my handblended club. Signups have just opened and you'll get a parcel of wooly goodness at the start of January, February and March. Or there are gift vouchers available here. 

Out of the fog

The last couple of weeks have been going past in a bit of a blur, Christmas is coming, and with it the (very welcome) up turn in sales of Learn to Spin Kits, and general bustle that we all get at this time of year as social occasions come round as a welcome distraction from the weather.

This weekend I decided a day off was in order so took myself off to my friend Katherine. As the crow flies she lives about 15 miles inland, of course this being mid-Wales the route doesn't go as the crow flies and the drive takes a surprisingly long time.
The weather in our valley was beautiful for a change, and unusually as I headed inland the fog rolled in.  Normally the opposite is true, our valley is the first hills that the weather fronts hit as they come in off the sea and we get the corresponding amount of rain.
As I got near to Katherine's house, driving up the narrow country lanes, I emerged out of the fog.

Of course with in the next half hour the fog had carried on rolling up the hill, and we spent the rest of the day in the gloom, such is the way of living in the UK in the winter, I'm already ready for spring, or at least a bit of snow. 

Absence makes the heart grow fonder...

Or something like that.
Inspiration for writing blog posts is becoming a bit lacking at the moment. The shortening days and poor weather haven't helped, there's not much going on that's worth photographing right now.

It's also bee a rather busy week or so.  Last Thursday I heading north to collect a new-to-me spinning wheel. I'm now the proud owner of a Matchless, and I can honestly say it lives up to the hype. I've always been a bit sceptical about expensive spinning wheels, but having now spun on one, I can honestly say it's worth every penny. Keep an eye out for a second hand one though, I paid just over half the price of a new one, and despite being nearly as old as me (made in 1988), it spins beautifully.


This weekend was also the first time I ran a full day workshop for a guild on colour blending. I used my own guild as a bit of a test run, and it worked just how I'd planned. I used to be a teacher so I'm used to engaging with people about new ideas, and explaining new concepts, but it's still a relief that the random thoughts in my head can be translated in to something that others can understand!
I've just been contacting all the local spinning groups and guilds about visiting them, but if you are a member of a spinning group or guild and would like me to come and run a workshop then get in touch.

I love talking about what I do, and feel very lucky that I get to do it full time. Though of course, it's not all plain sailing, this comic in particular has made me smile this afternoon. 

Knitting with handspun

I love knitting with my handspun. 

The texture, is amazing, and I love that I can spin up yarn that I could never buy in the shop. 

This is Shaelyn, knitted slightly larger by adding more repeats, using 200g of fibre from the March edition of my handblended club. This fibre had a few sceptics when it arrived in the post. 

The base colour was blue, but I'd picked to pair it with an accent colour of bright pink, however, when you spun it up you ended up with a tweedy style yarn.

The fibre was a blend of Shetland, Merino and Silk, nice and soft, yet strong, and with a sheen from the silk. 

You don't see the tweedy look from a distance, but get close, and the pink flecks become more obvious. 

If you want to enable a few more people to be able to knit or crochet with their handspun then I've just added a new smaller Learn to Spin kit to the shop. It contains 50g of British processed Ryeland roving, in white or brown. Ryeland are a bit of an under appreciated breed of sheep, they used to have wool so fine that it rivalled the Spanish Merino and Queen Elizabeth I would only wear Ryeland stockings. Modern pressures for meat have meant the fleece has coarsened slightly, but it's still nice and soft. Having a proper roving, rather then the combed top we commonly call roving, makes life easier for beginners, it's easy to draft, yet at the same time grippy. 

It's slightly smaller than my existing Learn to Spin kit, which makes it lighter so postage abroad is much lower. 

Misty

It's starting to feel like autumn is properly here now. This morning there was snow on The Arans in the distance, and the morning was cool and frosty.
The past few mornings have been misty and frosty.

This was taken a couple of weeks ago, but pretty much sums up our valley at this time of year. 

The frost took me by surprise a couple of days ago, I stepped out on to my decking and it was rather icey. I ended up sat on my bum in a state of shock, with a rather sore back. Luckily I'm still young enough to bounce and I'm fine!

The cold weather definitely has it's advantages, my Warriston jumper has been in use over the last couple of days. Perfect for when I don't want to bother with a coat, or when I've not lit the fire yet. 

Splatterdash

There's nothing slapdash, about these wrist warmers.

These are the Splatterdash wristwarmers from Knitty, Pip knitted them in some of the handspun from her Learn to Spin kit. She used the solid coloured batt, and the variegated roving, and made them mirror images with how she used the colours.

If you're not confident with knitting with your handspun yet you could always use commercially spun yarn for the main body of the mittens, and then just use your handspun for the flap, this wraps over the top of the main part of the mitten so the sizing isn't quite so important. Lace tends to be quite forgiving of inconsistencies in size as well, the eyelets give the work a lot of flexibility.

If you've made something using HilltopCloud fibre then why not head over to the Ravelry Group. We have a prize draw thread for things made using my fibre, and I'd love to be able to show off more people's work on the blog.

There were 10 comments left in the silk giveaway as of this morning, the random number generator just picked out comment number 10, which is Susan's comment. I'll be in touch to find out an address and get the hankies in the post.
If you didn't win, keep an eye on the shop over the next couple of weeks, I'll be dyeing up some more.

Glasgow School of Yarn

I've just got back from a lovely weekend in Glasgow at an event called Glasgow School of Yarn. The event is organised by the wonderful Antje, owner of The Yarn Cake. In comparison to the big events like Wonderwool and Woolfest this is more compact, more friendly,  more relaxed. There are some wonderful classes that take place from world renowned tutors (we'll gloss over the part where I didn't recognise Amy Singer....), and there is lots of wonderful cake.

This is the view as you enter the marketplace, the tables in the middle were filled all day with people sitting, knitting, chatting, spinning, learning....

As ever, the Learn to Spin Kits proved to be popular, one of the nice things about this event is that it was relaxed enough to let me give people a hand as they took their first steps with a drop spindle. Normally at shows it's so busy that I don't know which way is up, let alone have chance to teach people. 

One of my challenges for the event was to squeeze everything on to a 6 foot table, not for the first time I was green with envy as I watched the yarn vendors stack up yarn, batts in plastic bags are sloppy and take up lots of space!

There were a few new things that I took to the event, I had thought I might bring some of them back with me, but they all sold. One of the most popular new things were some dyed silk. Amy Singer (off of Knitty) ran a silk spinning workshop, and at lunchtime her class descended on the stall like a hoard of vultures.

 I have one pack of silk hankies left, rather than photograph them and add them to the shop, you can won them by leaving a comment here. On the 30th October I'll randomly draw a name from a hat, and send the winner a message (make sure you don't comment anonymously). 

I'll be doing more silk dyeing soon, so keep an eye out for it in the shop.

The event is held in the Mackintosh Church, this was designed by Charles Rennie Mackintosh, and everywhere you look there are examples of his design, the same motifs appear everywhere, even on the toilet doors. 

If you can make it to Glasgow next year, Antje was heard to mutter that she'd be running another event,  then I hope to see you there.