Friday 26 September 2014

Wow thought I should do an update...............

There's a bit of catching up to do lol.

The first three photos show some 110gm hanks which came off a cone of 3ply Mohair from the now defunct Bendigo Mohair Farm.  It was sitting in Mum's stash for nearly 30 years so after knitting it up into a scarf and a few pairs of light grey/brown socks I decided to attack it with some dyes!  I am very pleased with the results too.




The horrible shrug from the last post has been replaced by this pattern and it is going together much better thankfully.  Will help keep Sarah warmer than that cheap cotton on stuff that professes to be a jumper lol.


I dyed some alpaca tops from BWM last year and blended them on the drum carder so time back and got them all spun up a few weeks ago.  Sadly there is no spinning happening here because silly me went crashing down in the main street last Friday when my left ankle gave way stepping off the curb onto the road.  Also managed to wreck my right knee which is what is stopping me from spinning.  Everything is still sore, puffy and bruised.  The ankle will take ages to heal because I sprained it terribly about 6 years ago and it is going to take time.  Mmmm not really happy about it but thats the way it goes.


My new flyer came about a fortnight ago and below is a pic of a standard bobbin next to the jumbo one that fits on it.  I can now make huge skeins rather than little 100gm ones plus it also will allow me to make arty type yarns with the much bigger hole for it to go through.  So the new wheel is now very much complete and will not need to purchase anything more for it.  I did manage to get the poll dorset/merino cross done on it before I was so nicely put out of action lol.  This is the first 300gms of a kilo finished that will become a jumper.  Going to be a long process if I keep getting distracted by pretty colours and blends.



I've also done a little shopping over the past month too.  This lot is from Kathy's fibres in SA and contains some lovely bits which I will use on my blending board for some fun.  I also bought some of her sparkle which is similar to angelina which will take the dyes I use easily.  Will blend and spin up white and then have fun dyeing it to suit a project.  There is also 100gms of optim tops which everyone on the spinning site talks about.  Thought it would be fun to give it a go.


These dyes I picked up from Colleen over in Kyabram when I visited her for the morning about a month ago.  So I am all set now for fibre to spin and dyes to colour it lol.  No more spinning spending will be done until the year 2016 lol.  Well apart from when I run out of a certain colour or something.  Its nice knowing that birthday money has been well spent and Christmas is all organised for me too.  Yes it involves fibre.  

So the word is out that yes I love spinning and things are being shorn all over the place so fleece will soon be arriving and the best part is it wont cost me a cent lol as it has taken some dedicated saving to get me all set up over the last 18 months.

Have a lovely weekend,
katherine



Sunday 21 September 2014

Silly Shrug Pattern!

Well starting to really doubt my knitting abilities when I cant see how this silly thing is meant to go together.   Any help would be greatly appreciated.  Thanks!  Been back through Mum's book and there is definitely no diagram.



Monday 15 September 2014

Romney!

A first for me fibre of Romney has been completed and plyed with brown merino.  I decided to do a little experiment on it, as there was a lot of white, and over dyed it with 3 colours randomly.  I am very happy with how the experiment turned out.

Sunday 14 September 2014

Dyeing and carding!

All the dyeing I did last month has been carded, balled up and labelled.  I have also added alpaca to the mix of colours and will be doing some mohair and English Leicester locks.


Saturday 13 September 2014

Sock wool

This is the result after dyeing some sock weight yarn that Mum had spun up years ago.  Mum is going to use it to make some cute little socks for the little bub next door to them.  I also dyed up a large lot for her to knit herself some socks too.

Friday 12 September 2014

Celebration! and some new listings.

This week I had a wonderful surprise.  I had sold my first item in my Etsy store!  Very excited! 

I have also listed some more items in the shop too.  Not yarn this time but some gorgeous hand knit and crochet scarves/wraps.








All at https://www.etsy.com/au/shop/RoseCottageHandcraft?ref=hdr_shop_menu

Tuesday 9 September 2014

Etsy Shop is now open





I have finally got organised and have opened an etsy shop here.

https://www.etsy.com/au/shop/RoseCottageHandcraft?ref=hdr_shop_menu
Would love some feedback as to anything that needs improvement etc.
I was going to run two separate blogs but might just keep them separate and only use the other for things I am posting onto etsy as I will not only be offering up wooly stuff but eventually handmade cards etc too.

The other blog is at http://rosecottagehandmade.blogspot.com.au/ if anyone is interested in its very meager offerings at the moment lol.



Sunday 7 September 2014

FNWF results!

Achieved a lot on Friday night with friends!  Finished a scarf from some beautifully dyed merino that I spun up into a thick and thin yarn.  Still needs to be blocked but will get to that later.  Have also started another scarf from some mohair plyed with a cone of Bendigo Woollen Mills 2ply yarn which I dyed last week.  Looking good so far!








Also on the needles is a shrug for Sarah which I started last night with the completion of one sleeve.  12 ply BWM is going to knit up so quickly.




Hope everyone else achieved what they wanted for FNWF.

Friday 5 September 2014

Friday Night With Friends

I've decided to join in with the girls at Cheryll's for FNWF.  Haven't done it in such a long time and am looking forward to sitting down now with some knitting featuring a lovely soft thick and thin I spun last month.  Be back with photos on Sunday!