Painting the skeins.
We decided to use the dish washer for steaming the yarn, after wrapping it up in plastic bags and a big bin bag.
Then we rinsed.
Now it's hanging up to dry. The roving didn't take the dye as well as the spun yarn, probably because it's still quite greasy with lanolin. It still looks quite good though. It'll be interesting to see if the colour changes as it dries. 
Pinkphish and I went halfies on some natural dyes, so I bought some undyed sock yarn and lace weight to play with.
Some wool/silk/ramie sock yarn from Knitting4Fun.
Pretty roving from Wingham Wool Work
A small amount of Wensleydale Fibre
Some vanilla flavoured British Sheep fleece, which I brought for £1 to practice with. It is now washed and I am part way through carding it.
It was unfortunate that a couple of friends of mine popped round when I was soaking it (following instructions I was given by the lady on the stall). It's hard to explain to muggles when you have an old washing up bowl full of brown pooey water in your kitchen sink and your house smells strongly of sheep.
I also bought a Blue Faced Leicester Fleece, which will probably get it's own post later. I was hoping the weather might improve so I could dry it in the sun on the lawn.
A second hand, Ashford, Elizabeth wheel, which I got for £50. It's in good condition and works really well. Here's my first attempt at spinning, using Shetland fibre in a range of colours.
I'm a happy spinner. I'll never touch a drop spindle again.
The poor owner came back to the site to find most of his belongings stowed in the toilet block and his tent in a heap, held down by bricks.
After recouperating with a cup of tea, Emily and Alice decided to try and get some accommodation in the B&B, instead of exposing themselves to the elements. The owner kindly let them have some floorspace. 
We had a lovely pub tea in The Bitter End, Cockermouth, which raised our spirits. Lucy and I were a bit worried about whether our tent would cope with the winds but after a couple of hours the weather calmed down a bit.
Friday ended up being a lovely sunny day with only a few showers. Becca joined use during the day. I wasn't so overwhelmed by the festival this year and just enjoyed being there with all the lovely fibre and fibre folk.
One of the parts I enjoyed most, was seeing the sock knitting machines. The lovely old man who was manning the stall even let me have a go. It was fascinating to watch the stitches being made. We also saw some sheep shearing 
Plenty of sheep
Some of the items from the Knitted Wedding were there too.
. In the evening we got to enjoy the barbecue we'd planned for Thursday night, followed by a picturesque sunset.
Saturday was good too. It was good to go back and pick up a couple of things that I'd been thinking about getting. The weather wasn't so great, but we were treating to this double rainbow. The campsite was really empty by this point so not many people got to enjoy it. 
It was a shame we ended up so depleated in numbers this year, but I managed to have a fantastic time, despite everything. After the stress of everything over the past few months it was lovely to have a little holiday. Thanks to the girls for making it so much fun.
We're knitting little hats for the Innocent Smoothy/Age Concern campaign (these are Lucy's).
Even Becca, who normally scorns knitting in favour of crochet, made some.
The countdown is on to moving day. I did a fair amount of packing yesterday. Planning to get more done today. If all goes to plan should be on track for a panic free move. Keep all your fingers crossed for me.
Also need to fit in writing two essays at some point. Urgh!
Hannah Scoffield -- [noun]: A human transformer (Robot in disguise) 'How will you be defined in the dictionary?' at QuizGalaxy.com |
I have also found a bit of time to knit. I started knitting and joining hexagons based on a pattern from Knitting Nature. I felt that the pattern worked well with this handspun, naturally died yarn. The three shades are all created using onion skins. I bought the yarn last year from WoolFest and have been wondering what to do with it ever since. I think it will probably turn into a cushion cover.
I have also been knitting some baby shoes. I've been messing about with the guage to get different sizes. The small ones are really too small for anything but a premature baby or a doll. They'd make a cute ornament though. Just need to find some buttons.
After knitting today Graeme and I had some lovely sushi for lunch. I couldn't resist these flower shaped pastas in the oriental supermarket. I think I might put some in a salad for lunch next week.
Not much knitting going on this evening as I managed to slice a chunk out of the end of my index finger, while cutting up veges for dinner. Not having a great weekend in that respect. Missed King Creosote last night, because I had an asthma attack before the support had finished, and had to come home (and bring poor Graeme with me). Can't remember ever feeling that bad before. It wasn't great.
I'm not going to make any remarks about moving house because I don't want to jinx it. Slightly worried that I still haven't manage to pack anything more than this little lot, from a couple of weeks ago. Maybe we'll get some done tomorrow.
We spent the weekend in Sheffield. On Saturday evening we attending my cousin's 40th birthday party (Happy Birthday Emma!), where I managed not to take any photos. During the day time we met up with my friend Cat who'd come up from London and visited the newly revamped Western Park Museum. I was pretty impressed. 
They've revamped all the displays. I remember going as a child through gallery after gallery of stuffed animals. The stuffed animals are still there but they've made excellent use of them and their not creepy at all any more. They've still got a hive of bees that you can watch, but what I want to know is, what happened to the sumo wrestlers and the mummies? (I tried for quite a while to find a picture of these on the web and couldn't). It was lovely to see Cat too and it wasn't till I got home I realised it was the first time I'd seen her in person since August. This year is going so quickly.
On Sunday we went with my parents to Kelham Island museum. They've made a few changes, but everything is pretty much the same. I was dissapointed to see that my favourite engine (the crosley gas engine) was temporarily out of service.
The River Don Engine was on good form.
Anyway, we were back in Newcastle on Sunday and I had an interesting Monday trying to finish my uni assignment and preparation on the remaining battery life of my computer (I left the power supply in school). Managed in the end, though it was close and I missed out reading all the blogs I usually enjoy for a few days. Now for Thursday. Then there'll be 11. :)
I have to say I was a little ashamed of myself for accumulating so much yarn, although I know it's not an extravagant stash (well, compared to other people's). I had almost started to feel like there wasn't that much, till I remembered the existence of this: 
Well it's all bagged up now anyway, all 5 bags of it. I also stuffed another 15 bags full of various duvets, spare bedding, towels, winter clothes etc. It's worrying that that is only a small fraction of what is to come. Best not to think about it.
Sorry to say that once I started teaching I found it too hard to carry on trying to write my research proposal. I just couldn't concentrate. I think these things will just have to wait until the end of term. Oh well... one thing at a time.
...when the school holidays are on and now it's nearly time to go back again. I knew I was tempting fate when in my late entry I wrote "I'll write some more about that tomorrow.". It's taken me over a week to get round to it.
I did get the wedding invitations done but many of them are still waiting for addresses (mainly G's side of things) and I have become distracted by other things. I wish I had bothered to take a picture of the 70-odd invitations sitting drying on the coffee table. It did look cool, but I was a bit sick of looking at them by then. 
Last week was fun. I went to a mediocre gig (Minotors, Hush the Many and Fields) at the Cloony, but it was enjoyable. Also spent an afternoon knitting in Pinkphish's garden and another afternoon walking along the coast with her and Snaterkat and having afternoon tea in Tynemouth. On Friday evening Graeme and I headed to Edinburgh for a bit of kilt shopping. We didn't go mad sight seeing, since we've both been there several times, but it was pleasant to sit and walk in the sunshine in the quieter places in Edinburgh.
I paid a visit to the fantastic shop HK, described in detail by Purlpower and am ashamed to say that I lapsed from my pledge, buying 7 balls of lovely sock yarn.
We came back to Newcastle on a lovely meandering route along the coast, stopping at various places along the way.
It's unfortunate to say that this week has been something of a let down. I have a large pile of work I'd like to get through. Some of it is preparation for the coming term of teaching, some of it is PGCE assignments for university, and there's the small matter of the basic literacy, numeracy and ICT tests which I have been practising for and must go and take this morning (grr...). I've also had the crazy notion of writing a proposal for a research fellowship, having read nothing related for 9 months and having no real concrete ideas. It's Thursday already and I'm still not close to my ideal state of super-organised preparation. I'm beginning to accept that I am not going to reach that pinacle of achievement and instead will just make do and get on with things, comforting myself with the thought that at least I finally got round to cleaning the bathroom. Wish me luck in the tests......
On Easter Sunday we decided not to go too far afield. We headed up to Graves Park, where we spent many weekend afternoon's when we were younger. We all spent a lot of time looking at the newborn animals and saying 'ahhhh...'. These piglets were my mum's favourite. They seemed only to be a few hours old and hadn't been written on the board yet.
There were also some motherless lambs. 
Refreshed from the weekend I am now throwing myself into the wedding preparations, which have been somewhat neglected over the last few weeks. The first wave of invitations will hopefully be going out at the end of the week. I apologise to people who don't recieve one straight away. Family are getting priority at this point. I'll write some more about that tomorrow.
I followed that up with a trip to the pub and the Lonsdale pub quiz. I didn't make it to the end though. Instead I came home, got into bed and had a lovely 9 hours of quality sleep. I only dreamt once about school, and it was a good dream where kids were all doing what they were supposed to and enjoying themselves too.
In a while we'll head off for a weekend with my family. Hopefully we'll have a chance to enjoyed the promised good weather. Hope you all have a lovely and relaxing Easter.
P.S. Still no sign of the daffodils. Think they're gone for good.
I've nearly made it to Easter. Just three more teaching days and an admin day at school to go. I feel like I've run a marathon already and I am only at the half way point. Fortunately I seem to have relaxed a little. One effect of this is that I am sleeping a lot better and have stopped loosing weight (Wonder how long it'll be before I can no longer fit into my small sized jeans again). The other effect is that I am now feeling more and more like procrastinating instead of getting on with work. Must focus properly on what I am doing. Good to feel like myself again either way.
I've finished another little sweater, in a third of the time it took to do the other one. It's no masterpiece, but I am very pleased with the little flower buttons that I bought in Lewis' on Friday afternoon. 
One thing that put a dampner on my good mood yesterday was stepping out of my front door to find that that large (~50cm diameter), ceramic pot of dafodils that I had sitting in my front yard had disappeared. This feels like something of a mystery. I can't imagine anyone getting that far with it on foot. It wasn't light. I've scouted around the neighbourhood and can't see any sign of it (whole of broken). That probably means that someone has gone out of their way to actually steel it. I am quite angry about this, but at least it wasn't an expensive thing. The bulbs are last years and the pot was cheap.
My only hope is that it was a drunken student prank and they will bring it back at some point, instead of letting it fester in their yard. At the end of the day though, steeling is steeling.
