Tour de Fleece - stage 7

Tour de Fleece - stage 6

Tour de Fleece - stage 5

Tour de Fleece - stage 4

Tour de Fleece - Stage 3

Tour de Fleece - stage 1

Utrecht - Utrecht

Tour de Fleece - stage 2

Utrecht - Neeltje Jans

RSVP: Otherwise Engaged

You might be confused about what I've been doing for the past two years, if all you had to go by were my most recent purchases....

As a matter of fact, I've not touched dear neglected Bea in two years. I've spindled a whopping 50 grams of adorable fluff since the beginning of the year.

There's no rational reason to purchase these, or is there? Well, Juno Fibre Arts appears to end business soon, if not already. Catch it while you can, that's what I say.

This one contains camel. Camel fluff. You heard it. Camel in this fluff. It's for research and learning purposes. 

There'll be no irrational spending here!

PS. Exciting times ahead. Soon, soon!

3KCBWDAY1 - Colour Lovers

Hi all, 

Today is the first time I'm participating in a thingymawhattum called... what it says down there in this here banner. 

It's a thing where bloggers all over the world share their thoughts on the same subjects for a week. Now my week is about to be interrupted by a Photographer showing up, so this may or may not be my only entry this year. We'll see. For now, I'll tell you a little something about colour and my craft. The Stash is a good place to start, it's the base of it all I suppose. I tend to pick a yarn or fibre of strong colours. There is a place for pastels and soft tones. I have some in my stash even, but it tends to stay there for longer than most (indefinitely).

There is more enjoyment for me, working with a strong colour. It doesn't need to be a bright, in your face colour, even though I do like those as well. Natural coloured fibre has a certain something to it. The colour is part of its being, not something added later (which doesn't stop me from dyeing my hair, obviously). 

So strong colours do it for me. It may have something to do with the way they brighten up my wardrobe. There nothing like a colourful shawl to lift the black-top-on-jeans-look, is there?

Windward - Heidi Kirrmaier

Tolovana - Marnie Maclean

Jeweled Cowl - Sachiko Uemura

Pea Vines - Anne Hanson

Rock Island - Jared Flood

Damask - Kitman Figueroa

Echo Flower Shawl - Jenny Johnson Johnen

Annis - Suzanna IC

WIP Wednesday: Unsprung

Ahhhhhhh

There's still something to show you! I haven spun anything since whenever I last told you I did. I guess the white merino/some-sort-of-plastic-mix is just not appealing enough for me right now. Soonish I might get the rescue wheel cleaned and fixed, so I'll have 2 working wheels to keep going. Maybe that will help.*

I'm working with my handspun Sound of Music, and as you can see by the state of that cake, quite a bit of it has found its way into a project. I think I named it Windswept. It's stripy and I'm happy I mixed the length of the colour repeats, as that now means it's messy striped instead of fixed and ruled by the pattern alone. 

It's an interesting pattern, which leads to a shawl/scarf shape by adding different triangles on top of one another. It's different all right, and adding a new triangle after every few repeats (except for the middle part, which has a whopping 13 4-row repeats) makes this stockinette and garter stitch pattern very entertaining indeed. 

Because of the simple patterning, it's really nice for a self-striping yarn. This yarn doesn't need much, because it already attracts enough attention on its own. As much as I love luxury brand or indie dyed yarn, there isn't anything like making something from something you already made yourself. Does that make sense?

Looks like Spring, right? Look closely, I did a little tricksy. Our mulberry tree gets chopped back every Autumn, or it will cover half the garden and the pathway behind that wall. *Some* people who use the path don't enjoy hacking their way through our tree on their way to *important stuff*.** It looks awful like this, but once it starts up, it'll be blocking my way out in no time at all. 

Spot that. That, dear reader, is not dew. It's rain. Good for the garden, yes. I understand that bit.

But it makes our Japanese maple look so sad! We've had a few nights of frost in a row, so I sure hope the leaves will perk up a bit when the temperature gets back to normal. Spring definitely seems unsprung from where I'm standing***

At least the vines are waking up. I thought I should mention that... priorities, right?

 *maybe not
** or whatever
***in full rain regalia, fleece jacket, wool socks, gloves, wool cap.

WIP-Wednesday-on-a-Friday: On Finished Things

Whoops, sorry I'm late again, but for once I was actually busy out of the house. 

Yeah, I do sometimes leave the house for reasons other than workity work work. Last Wednesday I went to see the try-out for Bavel Izz Music, a sort-of-local to me Night-of-the-Promsy-sort-of event with an eclectic mix of music, song and dance, of which I knew at least one participant. In a bid to get people to buy tickets to our (Nootwaar's) own show on June 16th (do YOU have your ticket yet)* I think it's important to guilt-trip other amateur performers by going to their shows. And, it's always a good night when you get to sing along with someone else for a change.  

Yesterday saw me working like a mad-woman, hand stitching my fabric postcard together so it could be sent today (which I did, hurrah!). Obviously I won't show you a picture yet, because that would spoil the surprise. But I was very happy with it, for a first try, so there we go. Depending on the Dutch and Canadian postal services, we may be able to see more soon...

Tomten the Third is finished and delivered, even if its tiny recipient isn't here yet. His or her auntie was very happy with my work, so it'll be a good present for her to give... I think the little ducks brighten the whole thing up, and it was a joy to knit. Oddly, this sort-of boring pattern of garter stitch after garter stitch row is the one and only think I ever made more than one of. 

If you don't have a pom pom maker yet, go and get one. It's all I do these days, pom pom making...

Well, and a bit of spinning. I think I overdid things when finishing the Sound of Music-edition I mentioned before. When everything hurts, you should seriously consider taking a break.

In my head, finishing the spinning and transferring the yarn to another bobbin to make nicer pictures is sort of taking a break, right? Behind it what must be a linen/silk sort of blend in a rich golden colour. Behold below some finished yarn. I mean, feast your eyes. No, really, just look at it, isn't it gorgeous? It's 550m, at a light fingering/2-ply lace weight so it'll become a nice thing for summer wear. It's nothing I would've chosen by myself, but I love it all the more... Even if I bruised my fingers spinning and plying it all...

*yes, I'm talking to you

WIP Wednesday: No Knitting for Me

Making up for it with cake (lemon),

Woollen dress, tights and handknit socks in Noro,

and some spinning. 

Obviously, the yarn this will be when it's done, is not for me. 

I swatched.

for this, which is also not for me. I think this is its 4th incarnation, and I'm currently rows away from finishing its 5th and final incarnation. It's been a journey...

I took a delivery, for me. 

But I think I need some crafting, for me. 

When things are done, finished, taken to the point where it can't be taken further, then I'll make something for me. 

This week was, and still is, a bit of Craptastic. Just a blip...

WIP Wednesday: Stunned and Floored

After last week, the topic of online friends seems to keep popping up. For instance, Ravelry did a piece on how to make (better) use of their friend option. And as of today, you can find more than 2 million friends on Ravelry. 2.000.000 members, can you imagine? We could populate a country with that!

After a few years as a member, I can't imagine what my life would be like without that community of crafters. I wouldn't be able to knit the things I'm knitting, I wouldn't use the yarn I'm knitting with now. I wouldn't be spinning, or knitting with my handspun. I wouldn't be able to give the gifts I'm making my loved ones, and I wouldn't be able to survive on the ideas my head keeps having while waiting for the world to catch up with my needs.

I wouldn't have met a number of interesting people, learned new techniques or even thought about sending a fabric postcard to the other side of the world.*

If you have any interest in fibre arts and crafts, sign up here and prepare to have your mind blown.


Imagine this blog without the existence of Ravelry... oh 't would be a barren place...


So much for the Stunned part of this blog post. On with the Floor...

Last week I've spent mostly feeling like a wet dish cloth** not quite ill enough to call in sick, but miserable enough to be exhausted from blowing my nose and coughing up bits of lung with only a hint of a raised temperature, some of the time. Too tired to knit, but not tired enough to nap, if you know the feeling... Just blegh, is how I describe it. I tried spinning

But I didn't get very far. Bored, restless, floored. 

I knit an entire Tomten the Third sleeve. It's a baby jacket, in baby size. Short arms and such. I did one in 3 days. That's it. 

I managed to take a few pictures of it. Those will have to do. 

If you need me, I'll be on the floor, recovering. 

*not got my head around that one yet. Give it time...
**a Dutch saying.

WIP Wednesday: Say it with Colour

Maybe I'm tired of winter, or maybe I'm just craving a little colour in general, I don't know, but colour is what I worked on this week! You may also have noticed I picked a new colour scheme for the blog. Much more inviting to the new season, which seems to be on our doorstep now the frost has gone. However, it only rains now, so it might as well be Autumn still.

I spun and since n-plied this bobbin full of wool, I started a third Tomten cardigan for a friend's sister's soon to be born baby*, once more did not read the book club book by Paul Mceuen (Spiral), burnt a few candles. I had a lovely lunch and found a trigger and food for thought, knit some more on the never ending Tanit's Jacket, and listened to some podcasts. 

Celebration

Dutch Wool Diva

Tomten the Third

Elizabeth Zimmerman

Tanit's Jacket

Gudrun Johnston

Colour Swatches

by me

The Photographer celebrated his birthday and promptly soiled his new Kindle by putting a picture of me on it. I (re-)established some priorities. I slowed down. 

Float on the good stuff, or sink.

*follow my project here

WIP Wednesday: Frosty

Brrrrrrrrrr


I thought it was cold last week, but little did I know*
Doubling up on leather gloves *and* wool mittens, fleece cowl *and* hand spun hooded scarf *and* wool hat, jeans *and* leg warmers and a comfy wool/cashmere coat, I kept unsurprisingly warm while cycling back and forth to work this past week. It's a good thing I don't have to commute by car, since that has been frozen shut (not even the locks, the doors themselves) for almost a week. Well, it's too cold to fill it up anyway...

So, inside I've been, drinking my coco, staying warm, knitting away...

I love yarn cakes. They look so pretty, don't they? Just before they collapse... And there are only two ways to make them look like that. Pull the yarn from the centre just to make it look pretty, but I prefer to pull it out and make something at the same time. Something, like a finished Damask shawl...

Seems more practical, doesn't it? It's even more gorgeous** in real life, which is a bit of a relief. I'm working on an outfit to match it, so I can show it off on Saturday Lunch With The Girls. Where else to better show off a really, really nice shawl, right?

After all that knitting, it was time for some spinning. I finished the first braid of Tardis BFL and transfered it to a bobbin I can't use on my one working spinning wheel. It looks prettier this way anyway, so that's a bonus!

Taking a break from that blue now, and had to do some serious thinking about what to do next. Such pretty spinning fibres came in the post this year. I just had to subscribe to another quarter!

Frostbite

Mixed bat

Borealis

BFL/silk

With all that, the current weather, still not sleeping enough, and oodles of knitting around, I find it very difficult to get up and dressed and out the door in the mornings. However, it does bring a little happy to the gloom of every day dragging on like nobody's business. We seem to be in the midst of another round of everyone feeling "very sorry about the situation" and needing constant explaining that nothing has changed in any direction for the last 3 years. I know I don't need to explain myself every single time someone asks, but every once in a while it does feel like I need to defend the choices we've made, so I do, vigorously. 

I do count myself lucky to be surrounded by friends and family who don't need explaining, who understand the reason for the decisions we've made, even though they don't always understand the decisions themselves. Friends who help keep me grounded and lead me back when I wander of into the deep dark forest of Maybes, pretty and treacherous as it is... So it's a great pleasure to do something back. Which leads me to the last and final (duh) picture of this post.

I'm playing with colours! Tomten the third, you're about to be cast on! In a few days, maybe... I have until April on this one, unless baby decides to arrive early, of course. 

Until next time, dear reader. Keep warm.

*More proof that I could be a weather women, just like the next person (kidding, but only if you're a meteorologist reading this)
**And I do say that myself