Sweet!

I did a tiny, decent thing the other week.  The smallest act of kindness, but something that anyone could have, would have, should have done.  The only reason I'm talking about it is because of the huge reward it precipitated - the most divinely dyed sock yarn from Verity of TrulyHooked.

She offered me the choice of any yarn in her Etsy, but I had to leave the choice to her as every yarn I looked at I thought 'yes, this is the one', only to look at the next and think 'wait, no, this one'.  The only one I rejected was a chartreuse - so not my colour.  I was thrilled to receive the above in her Antique colourway.    I think it is the shades of fading rose petals - so lovely!

Spinning my winning

At the pre Christmas meeting of the Guild of Long Draw Spinners, we had a free raffle where I was the lucky winner of a shoe box full of gorgeous poonags. They were soft, wormy and not my usual colours, but oh so beautiful. I had no time to spin them before Christmas, then a shoulder injury took care of the first 6 weeks of 2015.  It was frustrating to say the least.

Finally I was healed enough to open the box and spin!  I had a jumbo flyer and maiden for my Sonata for Christmas, so I decided that I'd try it out and attempt to wean myself away from the fine spinning that is my default.  (I attribute this to parsimony - so many more hours of pleasure from fluff if you spin it small!).  I realised half way through that I hadn't taken pictures of the poonags in their glory, so here you can see a few with the singles that flowed from them/

Here's the singles caked up - still not particularly chunky, but going in the right direction

I didn't know what to ply it with at first.  Then I remembered that years ago I was gifted a wrap with permission to unravel it.  This proved to be a game in itself until I realised the cunning way in which the wrap had been put together.  As the unravelling breakthrough happened so late at night, there were no pictures and I would feel mean about revealing too much about the wrap - both who it came from and what pattern it was.  Suffice to say, the two ends of colourmart silk matched beautifully with my singles

I decided to play on the differing fibre contents and experiment with a spiral ply.  I found it a bit hard to start with, but eventually cottoned on to what I needed to do. Initially I thought I would ply the silk around the singles, but it looked a lot better the other way round as it allowed the handspun to poof at will.

You can see the fun I had with spiral plying!  (Sorry for the off colour - definitely not so orangey in real life!)

It's not very even throughout the skein - you can definitely see my progress as I learnt what I needed to do.  This is before finishing.

My daughter had a doll with hair like this

Are these glasses ageing?

All washed, relaxed, skeined and twisted into skwooshy beauty.  Look at those shots of orange, the lemon and the mushroom gill shades

Caked into 146 grammes, 322 yards of DK squish!

I could pretend that the start of the cake is flat to aid cast on, but it's where I was getting to grips with the technique

I've yet to decide what to knit with it.  Plus, as these are so not the colours that suit me, I am toying with the idea of over dyeing the whole thing.  Would it be rude to do so?

Being kind to myself

I'm transitioning from one job to another this week.

I've been a contract accountant for rather a long while now and have fallen into the habit of going directly from one role to another without a break.  Good sense financially, but for once I thought a bit wider and  decided to be kind to myself by taking a week off.  I've hit lucky with the weather, so that in itself makes the week seem like an extra special bonus

So, what to do with the week?  I've a day charity shop touring with my lovely friend Jill (and I know exactly where we're going for lunch!) and a day with my hubby.  I've got the computer repair man booked and a craft fair to visit with the lovely Elly.  I have to squeeze in a visit to Sarah if we can sort out a time. I've got a long list of possible things I might want to do, but have promised myself that I don't have to do any of them unless I want to

Today though, has been busy already.  The garden's been a bit neglected as I'm a fair weather gardener, and the weather has been anything but that for rather a long time.  Yesterday, inspired by the return of the sun, we went and bought some plants to restock. Now, I don't really know what I'm doing with plants, so I buy what I like and put them where I think they'll look nice.  Oddly, my taste currently seems to accidentally be on a yellow/acid green and purple scheme

This morning I was out gardening by 8.30.  There was a whole run of shrubs that were lushly overgrown, so out came my favourite loppers and shears....

Yes, that is a lawn rake on top.  This pile was over knee high

I was quite pleased with this planting

 and this one

Planting above the rodent graveyard led to a tense time with the border spade

but not so chuffed to see these little visitors who had been hiding in an old plant pot

(I'm hoping the blackbirds have been busy over lunch time....)

So, a short afternoon and then I'm picking up an excited daughter and friend from school to take them to a manga evening in a comic store.  Mother love or what!

Waving from happy times

Lovely blog readers, I feel that I'm neglecting you.  In my defence, I am having a fabulous time with my family - there has been ear piercing, morsbagging, computing, berry picking, jam and jelly making, sleepovers, barbecuing, playing, sewing and general relaxing galore.

We've cared for a friend's hamster for a week and in return received the most amazing trug full of fresh allotment produce

My husband took me out for lunch in Loughborough and we were transported to the middle east

Children and friends have enjoyed trampolining

and composting

I am loving the summer break this year!

Ironing = love

Image via Wikipedia

I am being very naughty sitting on here and playing about when I should be doing the ironing - again!  Mountains of rumpled clothes are waiting to be turned into expressions of love, hugs to wrap around my loved ones (not that they will think that, but I will know!)

 

I'll have to add a reward onto it - watching Wallander as I go and alternating between ironing and getting on with sewing my skirt.  Now if I could only find my needle case, I could finish off that flipping jumper as I think they might match up - all by accident and not design