just stuff

Went to Ro's last weekend and we had a bit of a play with some scrummy Wensleydale that she'd bought at Woolfest. We wanted to wash it so that the structure of the locks was preserved so we set up a couple of bowls of hot water, one with washing liquid and one for rinsing and washed it lock by lock and laid it out on a towel.

When it was dry I showed her how to flick card it on one of her carders and we laid it out in a box so she can spin it worsted style.

This is it in it's finished state. Aint it lovely?

On the knitting front I've completed my latest pair of "left overs" socks. I decided that there was no way I was going to manage to match the stripes up on them as I'd pretty much just changed shades at random so I decided to go for a completely asymmetric look instead. I quite like them.

I'm really into knitting my socks toe up now. So much so that I've started knitting the tilting cable socks from Interweave knits but I've adapted the pattern to toe up. Seems to be working out okay so far and I got lots done last night as we had a co-op meeting which I knitted through. I'm enjoying the actual knitting but I dunno that I'm particularly thrilled with the finished object. I'll carry on though.

I was very chuffed this week as I had a delivery on my run which necessitated my driving past Get Knitted. As the run was pretty quiet I had time to pull over and go in. I bought a new cable needle (can't find mine anywhere) and some Regia silk solid sock wool in Tigers colours. I fancy me some silk socks to wear at the rugby this winter to keep my tootsies nice and warm.

Pastures new

This is where I parked up on Tuesday night. It's a lay by on the main road between Worcester and Hereford. I haven't parked up overnight in a lay by before, but it was okay. Bit noisy with traffic going past but I had my earplugs so I slept pretty well.

I was there because I'd been given a couple of drops off another driver's run because she was busy but my run was quite quiet. So I went to Hereford and beyond on Wednesday morning. Unfortunately I neglected to get any pictures of Hereford itself which is a bit of a shame because it's quite nice and the Cathedral is very impressive. I did get a shot of the farm shop on the road to Brecon that I delivered to. It's HUGE!!! I was driving along, hoping that I wouldn't miss the turning when I came round a corner and saw it. Not much chance of missing it really?

On the fibre front I started having a proper look at the book I bought at Woolfest; Cat Bordhi's "New Pathway's for sock knitters". Here's a picture of one of the trial socks that I knitted from it last weekend. It's quite interesting constructing a sock in a completely different way from usual and I'm looking forward to getting stuck into a real pair that will actually fit me. The book itself is quite difficult to deal with though and requires a lot of flipping back and forth to get the information you require. I guess this is because it's an enabling book which explains individual stages rather than a series of set instructions which one follows strictly to the letter. I'm sure I'll get the hang of it. There's a ravelry group devoted to the book and a number of the people on that have had the book spiral bound in order to make it easier to use. Worth thinking about perhaps?

Busy bunny

I've had all this week off work so I've mostly been doing fibrey things.

I've separated the Shetland fleece I bought at Woolfest out into four piles of distinct shades and have been washing them in batches in the bath.

here's the lightest stuff drying on the airer

and here's some darker airing off in front of the gas fire. Some more intermediate shade is already finished and bagged up (uncarded) and the darkest from the legs and belly is still waiting to be washed.

I've also been playing with my new drop spindle. I did a bit of Manx on it and then after plying that using the handy plying technique from Knitty I started on some of the silk caps which I'd bought at Woolfest last year but not done anything with yet. It's very uneven so far and it's hell on the fingers trying to draft it but I'm going to ply it up into an interesting slubby art yarn and make some sort of a scarf out of it I think.

I was very sad to hear of the death of Charles Wheeler earlier this week. He was the most amazing broadcast journalist. Listen again has broadcast an interview that Jeremy Paxman did with him when he was eighty. It's well worth a listen.