In the Making...

The Bluefaced Weekend at Mickle Trafford was fantastic. Lots of lovely knitters and lots and lots of scrummy yarn; even with just a few stalls I found myself bamboozled with choice yet again.  Bought waaay too much but boy was it fun. I bought 5 skeins just from Posh yarn Catherine - Colourway - Sent to Coventry - Heavy Laceweight - 100% Organic Merino Olivia Lace - Orphan - 100% Mulberry Silk Megan - Orphan - Sock Weight - 100% Superwash BFL 2 Skeins Gretchen 2ply - House On The Mountain - 55% superwash BFL, 45% silk. Provisionally I'm thinking of making an Oregon Coast Cardigan Now the rest of the yarn! Babylonglegs Radiance Sock - 100% Pure Wool - to make a Marin And two lots from easyknits ; I could have bought lots from here. The colours are just so bright and saturated! Right up my street. Finally settled on just these two. Deeply Wicked - Electric Dreams - 75% Superwash Merino, 25% Nylon  ...

 I've been experimenting recently with Adobe Illustrator. It's an amazing piece of software; there are a few tutorials around on how to make knitting illustrations but I wasn't 100% happy with it as I was sure there was an easier way. I have no experience or training in Illustrator so this is amateur hour. This is what I figured out to produce the illustration below: I'm assuming you know the basics of illustrator such as how to draw shapes and change the stroke and fill.

At Woolfest, I bought a dyeing kit from D & T Crafts and I've been amassing all the equipment I'll need (such as gloves, dye pots etc.) when a lucky find turned up. I'd been planning to do most of it on the stove but a Burco Water Boiler appeared! It's from my parents-in-law, they used to keep turkeys commercially and used the boiler for cleaning up; they've moved on to arable farming so it was looking a little lost and forlorn in one of the barns.  It's been re-appropriated for dyeing. It's quite big so think I could do a fair amount at once. Not sure which technique to try with it but looking forward to some dyeing. I'd bought some lovely undyed rovings from Wingham's when I was there at the beginning of the week - (a very happy coincidence!).

Major Oak We had an absolutely wonderful day wandering around the bowyers and archery shops of Nottinghamshire - bow shopping. While we were there we stopped off at Sherwood Forest.   Next month, Mr. and I have booked in to do a willow basket weaving workshop at The Basket Case . We had a bit of inspiration at the Archery Have-a-Go in Sherwood Forest. They had some beautiful wicker ground quivers.  Mr. decided to "Have-A-Go" even though he's been an archer for over a decade and already been to three archery shops that day to try out their bows! Boys and their toys! Spotted Robin Hood while we were there too...

I've had a mass of finished objects recently. Above are just a few of what I've finished in the last month; there's a scarf and a jumper as well plus two secret projects (I'm going to be writing the patterns up for them). It's nice to get all those unfinished objects done and I can start on some new exciting ones.