Fibre Friday #41

I've had the week off work this week - and I've been enjoying it immensely - I must get out of retail! ;) I've achieved a fair amount on the fibre front this week - without further ado...

I finished my Skinner hat by Melissa LaBarre! This is knit out of my handdyed yarn - Stranded Dyeworks Oasis, in the 'Shiner' colourway (which I listed in my shop this week)! I love how the colour has knit up, the lace was enjoyable to knit and the finished hat is very pretty. BUT. It's too close fitting for me - I like my hats to have a certain amount of slouch, otherwise I worry that I look like I'm wearing a swimming cap! Not a good look. But this is a sample for my shop and not for me to wear out and about - although I would've done if it looked better on me - so it's not the end of the world! If I was going to knit it again, I'd consider increasing after the ribbing, to fit another pattern repeat into the stitch count widthwise and possibly add another repeat in length...

I have also knit another Bird of Happiness! This is knit out of leftovers from my Prickly Thistle Mittens - the 'Steel' colourway on Bowland DK by Eden Cottage Yarns. The pattern is Bluebird of Happiness by Sara Elizabeth Kellner. This is the first I've knit out of something other than my handspun - and I really like it! I'm going to be knitting a few more of these as Christmas gifts I think.

I've put some work into the first sleeve of my Pomme de Pin cardigan by Amy Christoffers - after avoiding it for weeks in  favour of the dreaded Divine cardigan... I'm knitting it out of Madeline Tosh Pashmina in the 'Leopard' Colourway. The sleeves are driving me a little crazy if I'm honest. I looked back over past FF posts, but I haven't talked about it before - despite having cast on for the sleeve about a month ago. There are no increases on the sleeve, you cast on with the full amount of stitches, knit the ribbed cuff and then knit the pattern until the length desired. Now, I have seen a few podcasters knit this cardigan - Laura of The Dyer's Notebook and Kristen of Yarngasm - and I don't think either of them mentioned this, but they are both slim ladies so perhaps this wouldn't have been an issue. However, I am more upholstered person, and my wrists and my upper arms are not the same width! The first time I cast on for the cuff, I knit the recommended amount of stitches for the third size and it was huge! Like a wizard's sleeve... Haha. So I'm knitting the smallest size and increasing up twice at the end of each pattern repeat - until I reach the stitch count of the size I'm knitting! These are mods written by Meljay on ravelry. I have a stockinette panel going up the centre of the inner arm - which I'm not thrilled about, but who's going to see the inside of my arms, right?! I just want it done now!

My Duotone cowl has seen a bit of work, I'm at 11 stripes - with 4 more to go until I switch the colours. However, it's not anywhere near as long as it's supposed to be - I didn't swatch, because who swatches for cowls?! And my row gauge is way off. So this will be frogged and restarted with bigger needles... The Duotone cowl is a pattern by Orange Flower Yarn that I'm knitting out of Fyberspates Vivacious DK in 'Slate' and '80805'. I may switch out the green for another colour, because it's just a bit too Slytherin for me and while I'm a huge Harry Potter nerd, I don't think I want a house coloured cowl.

The sparkly rainbow socks have progressed - I've passed the heel and I'm working my way up the leg of sock number one. I'll be pleased to get these off my needles to be honest, there are too many colours for me to cope with! These are being knit out of some yarn I picked up at a local wool fair in the summer.

My Sunburst granny square afghan is progressing! I have 19 squares finished and another 7 inner circles to edge. I'm making it out of Cascade 220 in a variety of colours, using a 3.5mm hook - I'm a really loose crocheter...

Dyeing-wise, I've been working on some tonal solids this week - and I'm pretty happy with the results - although today's dye session was a bit hit and miss, but I guess it goes like that sometimes.

I'm heading to Milton Keynes for a dress fitting this weekend - one of my good friends is getting married next Spring and I'm a bridesmaid - which is exciting - so there's a lot of hours of train journeys ahead of me, so hopefully plenty of knitting time! I haven't decided what project I'm going to take with me yet - probably socks... Anyway. Enjoy the weekend everyone!

♥

FO and Tell - Hitchhiker

I've just noticed that I haven't written a FO and Tell post since August - which isn't because I haven't finished anything, but because I haven't finished anything that I consider to be worthy enough to warrant it's own post! Anyway, without further ado...

I have finished and blocked my Hitchhiker Shawl by Martina Behm! This is knit out of my handspun yarn - a 2ply yarn using fibre from Play Sweet Music and Little Owl Crafts. It's a fingering weight yarn and I love the how the colours stripe throughout.

Modelled as usual by my obliging 'DON'T GET MY FACE IN THE PHOTO AMY!' mother, on a very chilly November morning. The shawl has 49 points - which is a few more than in Martina's version of the pattern, but I had a lot of extra yardage. I was originally going to knit until the yarn ran out, but I got slightly sick of garter stitch! Still, it's a good size shawlette - and perfect for keeping the cold air out of the collar of your winter coat!

This is the eleventh project knit up out of my handspun yarn - smashing my goal of 10 projects out of handspun yarn in 2015! I'm not sure if I'll be making the same goal next year, as I have others in mind, but I have definitely fallen in love with knitting with handspun, so I'm sure I'll keep it up regardless!

Have you finished anything big recently?

♥

Fibre Friday #40

Happy Friday! I'm one day away from a week off work - and pretty pleased about it. This week, I've actually done quite a bit of knitting - although I've just realised I've completely forgotten to photograph an FO and now it's dark, so it's going to have to wait until next week!

This week I cast on for a Duotone Cowl by Orange Flower Yarn. This has been in my queue for ages and I've been waiting to cast it on for ages. I'm using Vivacious DK by Fyberspates in the colourways 'Slate' and '80805' and it's looking rather Slytherin-ish - which isn't a bad thing, but not quite what I was planning...

I also cast on for another Slable Hat by Woolly Wormhead out of a lovely burnt orange 100% Merino fingering weight yarn that's been in the stash for a while (You can see my first Slable Hat here). This was going to be a Christmas gift - but after knitting the three inch ribbed cuff, the yarn is so hard and unforgiving, like knitting out of cotton rather than merino, that I decided it wasn't acceptable to gift to someone, so it's been frogged and going back to the stash. I'm not going to name and shame the yarn company, but I've had similar problems with other skeins, so I'll think twice before buying from them again.

I have made progress with the sparkly rainbow vanilla socks, which are being knit on 2.25mm (US 1) Karbonz needles. I bought this yarn from a local wool fair in the summer and it's very cheerful! I've actually worked on them a little more in between taking the photo and actually writing the post, it's got a heel now! It's ready to be my cinema knitting* at the movies tomorrow night - for Mockingjay Part II obviously.

*cinema knitting differs from take-along knitting or handbag knitting, because in the dark, at the movies, I can only knit stockinette in the round - so sock legs are perfect! I can go and go until the film's over. While I can knit without looking in general, when I'm trying to concentrate on something like seeing a film for the first time (especially one with Jennifer Lawrence in it), I can't be worrying about messing up a stitch pattern!

Also on 2.25mm (US 1) needles is the beginnings of a Skinner hat by Melissa LaBarre - I only started this last night, after abandoning the Slable, so it's got a ways to go yet! This is going to be a yarn sample for my shop - I'm using Stranded Dyeworks 'Oasis' in the 'Shiner' colourway, which is a colour I created this week, that I'm really happy with. I just love muted tones.

The reason for all this casting on is because I finally finished the Divine Cardigan!! I have been working on, and whining about, this cardigan for months - and now it's finished! It was all but button-band last week, and now I've knitted the button-band, added a neckband and sewn on the perfect buttons. It's still lumpy, it's still questionably ugly. But it's done, and it's exactly what the lady it's for, wanted it to be. I'm going to reblock it now it's finished and then it's out of my life forever! If my whinging hasn't put you off making a similar cardigan for yourself, this is pattern 7176 by Sirdar, knit out of Sirdar Divine in the 'Lucia' colourway. I modified it to have a button-band as there wasn't one in the pattern and eight buttons rather than six.

I have also done a little bit of dyeing this week - I have yet to list anything new in the shop, but I created a few new colourways - see above - and dyed on a new lace weight base - see below!

Drift is an 80% Merino, 20% Silk base, it's a 2ply with 800m per skein - perfect for shawls, or maybe a Featherweight cardi....

I also had fun dyeing up a couple of sock blanks - one for a custom order, and the one above - just because!

I'll share my forgotten FO next week - but here's a hint - it's my eleventh project knit out of my handspun! Okay. I'm off to check more things off of my to do list / watch back-to-back episodes of the Gilmore Girls - I haven't decided yet! Have a lovely weekend, whatever you get up to!

♥

Fibre Friday #39

I seem to be saying this every week at the moment - but it's another short post this week! There just isn't enough hours in the day. I'm not sure where time is going, but I wish it would stop running away with me!

I do have one FO this week - I finished my Farmers Socks test knit! This is a pattern by Amelia Putri that will be released in the not too distant future! I love the mirroring travelling rib. These are knit out of hand dyed yarn on a sparkle base I'm not sure if I want in the shop or not yet... in the colourway Ice Skating Party. I love this colourway, it's my current favourite colour! The socks are a little small for my feet - that's partly because I have huge feet, and partly because I went down a needle size.

My Divine cardigan is so close to being finished. All it needs is the button band. It looks very lumpy and unflattering in this photo, which makes me a little sad, but apparently using lumpy yarn means a lumpy finished object! I did a very good job setting in the sleeves though - setting in sleeves is my knitting super power! Haha. This is 7176 by Sirdar and I'm knitting it out of Sirdar Divine. The recipient tried it on this week and apparently it looks really good on her (I wasn't there to witness it). However it's going to be tight across the bust, if it meets at all. That however, is not my fault as I did advise going for the bigger size in the first place! I just need to buy buttons and then I can get it done and out of my life forever.

I put one my point on my handspun Hitchhiker shawl in bed last night - after finishing my Farmers Socks - now I'm at 38 points and it is still very very small. I can wear it as a tiny kerchief at the moment, so I have a lot more knitting to do! Hitchhiker is a fabulous pattern by Martina Behm.

I spent my day off this week dyeing sock blanks. This isn't the most colour accurate photograph of them - I was having a 'My camera has 30 seconds of battery life left and the daylight is fading' moment - and one is still drying so isn't included, but they're all quite fun! I'm tempted to keep one for me... I've also done a little bit more dyeing today, but everything's soaking wet, so I'll photograph it for next week's post!

Now my cardigan is nearly finished and my test knit socks are done, I'm going to have a lot more time for knitting my own projects!

♥

Introducing Stranded Dyeworks

I have been dyeing yarn for myself for years - I started out with Kool-Aid and progressed to acid dyes fairly quickly. Selling my own yarn has always been in the back of my mind and it's something I've been working hard on over the past few months - so today it's my great pleasure to introduce you to the reason a lot of my Fibre Friday posts have been on the short side of late: Stranded Dyeworks!

Currently I'm just stocking fingering weight bases - Oasis - which is 75% Superwash Merino, 25% Nylon and Paradise - 80% Superwash Merino, 10% Cashmere, 10% Nylon - as well as a range of fibre braids for spinning. The majority of my colourways are repeatable and I'm excited to expand my range of colours as I progress. Above we have (L-R) Bonanza, Goldfish, Garden Pansy and two skeins of Bonfire Night. And below...

(L-R) Spook, two skeins of Ice Skating Party, Skyscraper, Blue Rinse and Buddleja.
The keen eyed amongst you may have spotted that Ice Skating Party is the colour I'm using for my Farmers Socks test knit - it's currently my favourite colourway, but that's already changed several times!

I have very big plans for my shop - essentially ending with World Domination - haha. But before that, I plan to have an update with some hand painted Sock Blanks - so I'm sharing sneak peeks of two that I've already dyed. I love sock blanks - they're so much fun to knit with. If you're not familiar with them, they're a hand dyed piece of pre-knit fabric, that you unravel and knit from, it creates interesting gradients and effects - especially for sock projects. These are currently all going to be one of a kind sock blanks - because I don't have enough bandwidth to write out recipes for each one yet!

So there you have it - my baby. She's eating up a lot of my time at the moment, after all - you only get out, what you put in! This, and my Divine Cardigan are the reasons my poor spinning wheel is giving me sad eyes from the corner of the room - there are just not enough hours in the day!

I will be having a giveaway for a skein of yarn on my instagram at some point in the next couple of weeks - you can find me there as @amyflorence for details of that, when I decide them! But I'll probably mention it here too...

I hope you have a lovely week!

♥

Fibre Friday #38

Hi everyone! This week's Fibre Friday is prettttty short on actual knitting content - if I wasn't lucky enough to have received lots of woolly goodness for my birthday this week, then it would be a super short post all round! The reason for this week's shortness is primarily because I'm writing on Thursday morning, instead of Friday evening (for daylight reasons, today is the only day I have for photographing things) so that cuts off two days of knitting time! Stupid work - getting in the way!

I have split most of my time this week, between two projects. My test knit of Farmers Sock for Amelia Putri (you should look her up on instagram @amelia_put - her feed is gorgeous!) is coming along wonderfully. I'm knitting these out of some handdyed yarn and I'm really enjoying how the speckle effect is knitting up - I think it showcases the travelling slip stitch rib really well. The first sock is finished and I've just started the pattern on the leg of sock number two. I'm aiming to get these finished by next week - but we shall see.

The other project that's eaten up a bunch of my time is my Divine Cardigan. If you're not familiar with the saga of the Divine Cardi - firstly, lucky you! - and secondly, let me fill you in. This is a cardigan commission I'm knitting for a friend of my mum's, I've been working on it for what feels like a thousand years and it's knit out of a polyester/acrylic blend with a thick and thin texture - lots of sparkle, lots of felted slubby patches and lots of knots. The yarn is Sirdar Divine - I'll admit, I am a massive yarn snob, but I also appreciate a good acrylic because it has it's uses. This, in my opinion, is not a good synthetic yarn and it's very unpleasant to work with. I'm knitting the pattern 7176 by Sirdar and I'm on the second sleeve. I've finished the increases and I just need to knit it to length and do the cap shaping, then I can start sewing it together and add the button band (which isn't in the pattern but I heavily recommended to the recipient that it should have one, as it looked lumpy and unfinished without it). Okay. Rant over. Next thing...

Finally, and you can be forgiven for noticing any difference from last week's shot of this project, is my very rainbow vanilla sock that I'm knitting out of some yarn from a local wool fair. I've put a few rows on it here and there this week - on car rides in the dark primarily - but it hasn't seen much progress because my Farmers Socks have been my take-along knitting. Also, they're very sparkly in real life, but that was hard to capture on a grey November day!!

And that's it - that's all I've knitted this week. I haven't done any spinning or any dyeing. I cannot wait to get that cardigan done so I don't feel guilty about starting new things! Luckily my parents know me very well and all of my birthday gifts were yarn and fibre based...


My mum was in Scotland in September and she picked me up some Scottish goodies - some North Ronaldsay Roving dyed in fabulous colours. I've never spun, nor even heard of North Ronaldsay wool - this has been predrafted and feels lofty and fairly soft - not quite soft enough to be worn next to my face / neck, but would be perfect as mittens or wristers - I have 45g in total, so I'll probably ply the greeny-blue with a grey so I have enough to make something small. I've also got a pretty hand dyed silk hankie to spin - which is something else I've never used before, so it's going to be a learning curve all round! These are all from The Little Orkney Dye Shed and they have a small online shop.

I also received some beautiful sock yarn - on the left, a skein of 'Ollie's Sock Yarn' from Wren & Ollie in the colourway 'Serendipity' and on the right, a skein of Hedgehog Fibres 'Sock Yarn' in 'Birthday Cake'. I cannot wait to cast on both of these!

This pretty braid is from All The Pretty Fibers, it's hand dyed German Merino and I love the colours. I think it's going to need quite a lot of predrafting before I spin it as it's a little bit on the felted side (sidenote: it's so hard to tell the quality of fibre from photographs!).

I also got a copy of Curls by Hunter Hammersen - I am excited to cast almost all of these on! Just need to finish my Divine Cardigan first...

I also got some little batts from JellyBeans Yarns in 'Candyfloss' and (not pictured) two fibre packs from Nunoco in 'Fen'. Lots and lots of goodies from my wishlist and I'm very grateful. I just want to play with all of them right now!

Okay, that's enough show and tell for one day I think - I should probably get back on with some of my projects!

♥

Lately In Pictures #9 - The one with the fireworks

Guy Fawkes Night is my favourite night of the year - it combines so many of my favourite things - fireworks, autumn, bonfires, tradition and the chance to wrap up in layers and layers of knitwear. To my knowledge, Guy Fawkes Night aka Bonfire Night aka Fifth of November is just an English thing -  with Guy Fawkes attempting to blow up our Houses of Parliament and all... In a nutshell, it's a night where we build bonfires and burn effigies of Guy Fawkes on them, then have huge fireworks displays. You can read more about it here if you're not familiar with it.

On the south east coast a string of local towns have Bonfire Societies that join together to create processions and displays right through the county of Sussex from early September to late November. Our local display was a couple of weeks ago and I thought that November 5th was an appropriate time to share them!

I was expecting it to be freezing cold, so I wrapped up in hand knits - hand knit socks, my Docklight sweater, a big cowl and some handspun wristers. Needless to say, I was boiling and had to strip half of it off!

I'm off to go and play (in a safe, adult and responsible manner) with some sparklers! Happy Fifth of November everyone!

♥