Beginning Blue and green striped socks

I have about 400 yards of lace-weight hand spun singles from one of my EC X Texel fleece.
I plan to make some more wooly socks from this as the first ones I made (red striped ones) are so good as bed socks.
So. spent ages trying to find out where I got the space-dying instruction I had used before, with my homemade warping board. Stupidly, didn't include that in the previous post and searching the net didin't bring me any luck.
Then I found it in a folder with all my patterns - sitting there, minding it's own business.
I've based this procedure on Paula Egberts "Dying for Socks", Creating space-dyed mock Fair Isle design which whas published by Spin Off  magazine - it includes several sock preparations and patterns.
I"ve roughly followed the warping method (made the white center hank a little smaller) and then dyed the first, main hand with Eurolana blue dye and the last hand with a mix of Eurolana blue and yellow dyes to get a green.
The hardest part is getting it back on the warping board as the wool yarn shortens during the process - so that's why I have additional nails in the board to accomidate  the shorter hanks when they arrive out of the dye and sit there drying.

The next step will be to wind it off onto the swift so the sections follow as blue-white-green-blue....

After that, the hank will be wound into a center-pull ball.

The blue hank (hank 1) was started and finished with 18 wraps/rows, and in-between, it had 9 wraps/rows, the white was 2 wraps then the green was 5 wraps then the white got 2 more wraps on the way back. This follows Paula Egert's system as she found that the rib on the top of the socks tool 18 rows and she bagan knitting plain once the color changed. The second sock needs to be knitted starting from the center of the ball as there are 18 wraps/rows there too. Thereafter, the blue color covers 9 rows, the white, 2 rows followed byt the green for 5 rows and then a second 2 rows of white. The white spaces the two colors and borders the green in this case. 

I din't try for multicolors on hank 3 unlike Paula who used several short runs of color to mimic the Fair Isle patterns when knitting.  I might have a go at that sometime though as it must look lovley when knitted up.

Alex's Silk

Having got a lovely surprise of 45 gms of prepared silk fiber from Alex McLeod in Wexford, I couldn't wait to spin it.
I pre-drafted it and spun it short-backward draw on my Ashford Traveller wheel -

Spinning Silk On an Ashford Traveller wheel   on www.youtube.com
http://youtu.be/2NM3BFsZa8o

Then I plyed it S-wise:
Plying Silk Singles  on www.youtube.com
http://youtu.be/YFeNQDfmt9Y



Most of it became a little lace-knit scarf:

 Blocked                                                          Awaiting finishing touches:

A small amount, plyed with a woolen single with galss beads, will become a wristlet:

Thank you Alex for letting me experiment with this lovely stuff!

Navy Blue Singles and Silk

I combed some ECX fleece and dyed the roving with commercial Eurolana dye. It came out navy blue.
Spinning it at 12;1 over 1" for singles to be plied with another white or cream (or maybe silk!) singles when all done.

And, here is the silk - send to me by Alex McLeod of Sage Farm in Wexford! He showed some he is spinning on Ravlery/Irish Spinners and he just sent me some - because he is a generous fiber man.

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Synergies - a cat's tale

Rufus, our big soft red flat-faced Persian-style tom cat, showed up out-of-he-blue, in my garden around 2 years ago.
He is a laid-back, super-cool fellow, excellent mouser and all-round good guy ('though not terribly good at managing Hudson, the border collie, who lives here too  - with one gory result).

Some weeks after he adopted us, I was standing considering chicken wings in a supermarket in Athlone, when a fairly unremarkable 'though neat and practical-appearing woman came and stood beside me, also regarding the chicken wings. Ive fed raw meatly bones to my dogs for years, a practice I began while living in New York and having a dog with grain allergies (tinned dog food or kibble = scratch, scratch scratch in his case) but I was surprised when my companion volunteered that her daughter fed chicken wings to her dog. I revealed that I did the same! She went on to describe how her daughter had several animals - including a big red fluffy cat with a flat face, the like of which she had not see about the place (our hedge cats tend to be rather smooth and svelte) and it had shown up recently out of nowhere!! On further questioning it appeared to be exactly like Rufus! The woman was perplexed as she too inhabits a house largely surrounded by fields so no obvious source of the friendly intruder. I'm not sure if that woman really believed that we both had pretty much the same experience especially as I asserted that I too fed raw chicken wings to my dog (something she obviously thought was a rather weird practice on the part of her daughter). She moved on - I think a bit nervously.
Anyway, Rufus is well established here now and puts up with my cutting off matted noyles from his coat regularly.
Today, I attended a small knitting group in Ballymahon library. A talented and  interesting Swiss lady also attends and by chance showed me a phone-photo of her camper van which containg a larger red fluffy cat by the name of Murphy. And, guess what, he showed up in her field-encircled garden, out-of-the-blue two years ago! He is a dead ringer for Rufus - and of similar disposition. Her husband saw hin being hammered agains the garden hedge by her black cat and went to rescue Murphy - who sank into his arms, warm and snugly, matted coat and all.
Where are these benign red invaders coming from? It seems, they or someone else know how to pick a prospective home very very well.Perhaps they are aliens :)

Rambouillet FLEECE - DROOL

FESTIVAL DES ARTS DE LA LAINE ET TONTE DU... by Bergerie_Nationale

Festival Des Arts de la laine et Tonte Du Troupeau M
This video of the festival shows the unveiling of a lush fleece lying protected by an over coat, then it gets sheared - plus the background activities - but who cares about those, let's have the fleece!

The Rambouillet Sheep close up


La tonte du Merinos de Rambouillet by Bergerie_Nationale



http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xrzffb_la-tonte-du-merinos-de-rambouillet_webcam

Shell shocked

For some mad reason, I decided to use some of my low-twist singles hand spun ECX yarn to knit a traditional Shetland Cockleshell stole.
The pattern doesn't seem too difficult until it gets to the "knit 13 stitches together" bit. Couple this with yarn that breaks if you sneeze near it, and it becomes pretty tedious.
But I shall soldier on - and do all the weaving-in of ends and intense blocking when it's done - it will not defeat me - yet anyway.
On 3.70 circulars

There are three shell rows now and I'm beginning to see that it might be nice when there are 11 shells and it's finished and blocked.
May as well put the pattern here:
C/O 348 sts on 3.75 needles (long circular was best for me)
K 3 rows.
K3, (pattern) 18 times, K3
Work 12 row pattern 11 times in all
Knit one further row.

12 row pattern:
1. k1, yo, k2tog, yo, k1

2. k1, kfb, k15, kfb, k1

3. k all

4. k all

5. k1, kfb, k1, ffb, k13, kfb, k1, kfb, k1

6. k1, kfb, k1, kfb, k13, kfb, k1, kfb, k1

7. k all

8. k all

9. k1, yo, k2tog, yo, k2tog, yo, k2tog, (yo, k1) 11 times, yo, k2tog, yo, k2tog, yo, k2tog, yo, k1

10. (k1, kfb) 3 times,  (sl1, drop yo stitch) 12 times, sl 1, k 13 slipped sts together, (kfb, k1) 3 times.

11. k all

12 k all

yo = yarn over

kfb - knit front and back of same stitch.



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And then, an Angora head band

Angora head band:
Lovely free pattern from Ravelry: (will add name later).
I had to crochet around the edges to prevent it from stretching too much - Angora seems to stretch, well my hand spun version anyway. I've added a total of 4 buttons 2 more after the first photo. The pattern contains nice holes anyway so no need for additional button hole knitting.

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