Festive fun and a look back

Well needless to say I didn't manage all my knitting in time, but Mum seems happy with the progress on her scarf/shawl thing and I now have the measurements from my little sister for her gloves.  Over Christmas itself though I gave up and just indulged in some me-crafting-time.  It was so nice to just make for the sake of filling up hours with chilled out productiveness, rather than panicking about a deadline (though I did spend a good four hours of the drive up to the Lake District working on Mum's scarf in the car... DH was driving I hasten to add!).

Now seems as good a time as any to have a quick look back over the last year from a crafting point of view.  I think I would have said that I was a reasonable knitter at the beginning but this year has definitely seen me improve a range of skills.  Having completed an Estonian lace shawl for Mum in Kidsilk Haze early on I learnt not only a range of increases/decreases etc but that the yarn used can make a huge difference to the finished object!  That project goes down as a labour of love that I was glad to finish but fundamentally utterly disappointed in.  The pattern was gorgeous (so much so that I instantly cast it on again) but it just didn't match the yarn.  Ho hum we live and learn!  What my move to lace has taught me though is the careful matching of decreases to the direction I want the fabric to flow in, which has influenced how I create "simpler" garments in turn.  All in all good lessons.

This year's big lessons though have come in my move to becoming a spinner as well as a knitter.  Whoever it was told me when I started that it would put me off ever buying commercial yarn again wasn't far wrong.  The freedom to create exactly the yarn you want for a given project is both inspiring, humbling when trying to achieve it, and incredibly liberating when creating and using the yarn.  Having started on and learnt the basics with a couple of top whorl drop spindles I'm finishing the year a huge fan of both my supported and Turkish spindles.  I'm far quicker spinning singles on the former, whilst the latter can't be beaten for portability (important when having such a peripatetic couple of months!).  I think what they both have over the drop spindles though is a lack of bendable/breakable parts, again important when travelling so much.

So in what is probably my final post for 2011 here is a picture of the project which I'm possibly most proud of to date.  It is a very simple pair of socks made with my own handspun.  That though overlooks the range of new techniques I've had to learn to create them - spinning supported, from the fold, long draw, plying on a supported spindle, knitting two socks at a time.  It might not sound much, and they don't look like anything particularly amazing, but you know what, I know the work that's gone into them and I'm going to have damn warm feet for the New Year :)

I hope the New Year finds you well, your needles busy, spindles full and wheels ever turning. 
Best wishes,
Kay x

I can haz long draw from the fold

Well my birthday money finally burnt a hole in my pocket and I bought a new supported spindle, completely with the intention of spinning up the second ply of the silk I'm working on... so much for good intentions!  I also treated myself to these scrummy mix-and-match batts from Hilltopclouds with the idea of spinning up the smooshiest sock yarn I could manage.

Well as all good spinners know smooshy is probably going to need a woolen spinning style (yes I know worsted would probably be more hard wearing for socks but wearing them through is just a good excuse to make more surely?), and anyway I'd been getting better at spinning the silk longdraw so it seemed only logical to get cracking with the socks :)  My first time spinning batts that aren't designed to create art-yarn and my first time playing with spinning from the fold.  All in all I'm pretty happy.  It's not horribly inconsistent, and anyway it'll be a 3ply so a lot of that will get evened out.  Oh and a pretty shot of my newest toy too :)

Time management

As you've probably guessed from my last couple of posts, and the general lack of consistent posting, I've utterly over committed myself on the knitting side of things this Christmas.  As if a baby jacket, 6foot shawl and a huge scarf weren't enough, I'm also spinning several art-yarn style skeins for my SIL (she's much much better with colour and texture than I am).  Oh and I'm just about to move house as well having started a new job last month!

So in the middle of this lot I was brought up short by a very pithy comment by a good friend of mine.  It was along the lines of "time management is a misnomer, you can't manage time, it will continue plodding along no matter what you do or don't do, so concentrate instead on making the most of it".  Whilst he was posting from a leadership and work management perspective, it struck me actually just how deep that sentiment is.  How often have are we told to manage our time better, as though we are some separate entity independent of the rest of the world. 

I think this is one of the driving forces behind me learning to spin this year.  It lets me fill in those little gaps in my day where I would otherwise be wasting time.  A ten minute tube ride is now a productive time for me rather than something to be endured.  Speaking of five minute time fillers though, I admit it, I've given in to the hexi-monster and am now part way into creating my first Beekeeper's Quilt (or maybe just some seat cushions for our dining room table!).  This one is going to be made with all the scraps I get from making socks etc but I'm also about to start a second using up the mini-skeins I get from sampling different types of wool.  Whilst the former will be predominantly blues, purples and greys, the spinning quilt will be almost totally cream.  I'm hoping the latter will help me show off the different textures and feels of each of the yarns and breeds.  Each of the hexipuffs only takes about 20 mins to make and take up next to no space in my handbag so are perfect commuting mini-projects :)

So a quick gratuitous shot of the first 10...