Plans

Well, it’s Sunday again which seems to develop into my designated blogging day.  With the deadline for my dissertation looming in a few months, my life feels like one big schedule  and I find myself adhering to some kind of plan even on my one free day of the week – Sunday. Not so healthy in general but the blogging seems to benefit from it. Also, the end is in sight! By Christmas this will be over! Since everything revolves about work at the moment I thought I’d show you my working place!

Remember this?

I took this picture right after I managed to assemble the parts (Thanks, Ikea!) and since then the inevitable chaos has crept in a bit.

I suspect it will get even worse in the next months…

The highlight of last week was a trip to the garden centre to pick up some plants for my flat!

There has also been some spinning with my new spindle. Also, I seem to have lost my knitting mojo. I hope to free up my wheel and the spindle in time for the Tour de Fleece!

I love the look of the cop, but it takes longer to wind it than on a normal drop spindle. I think I did something wrong as well because the cop should start to look more like a ball. The fibre is a Southern Cross Club Fibre, a beautiful Texel in the colourway ‘Spring Meadow’. I love a proper wooly fibre!

I’m off to enjoy the rest of my scheduled free Sunday – I’m dreading next week because come tomorrow the weather forecast promised our first summer heat-wave. Hope you’re having a better June! I’ll leave you with another summer sunset from my window:

Have a good week!

Busy Week

I’ve had a really busy week doing not much besides writing and reading with the occasional short walk thrown in for good measure. So, I thought I’d Show you some of the things that kept my mood up through all the work!

A walk and a visit to the museum of roman life in Haltern am See

A vintage type-writer I bought some time ago at a flee-market – it has a place of honour on my sideboard!

My new turkish spindle from IST Crafts – so cute and it spins beautifully!

Lunch fresh from the farmer’s market

Sunsets viewed from my window

Hope you had a good week! Happy weekend!

halfway through

It’s June and I don’t know where the first five months of 2013 have gone! I seem to be stuck in a perpetual dilemma the longer I go without posting, the harder is becomes to select what to post. Not that I actually do a lot these days, well, apart from sitting at my desk with writing my dissertation (not yet desperately, but getting there). My goal is handing it in by the end of the year and defending in January or February 2014 – I can’t wait until this is done!
The only thing besides writing and reading and working I’ve been doing recently is cooking (because I want to eat healthier Food) and Spinning (because I seem to have lots my knitting mojo).

Here’s the latest output:

Southern Cross Club Fibre
Colour: Dark Wings
 Fibre: Polwarth
 230m/110g – 2ply

I’m still not sure if I like this colourway, have to see how it knits up.

This is Wildcraft fibre, I think the colourway is Sea Pool! It’s a Gradient dyed mix of BFL, silk and camel. It came out at approx. 700m/100g – left it as a single.
(I’ve cast on for a Dew Drops Shawl yesterday evening with this but haven’t taken any pics yet.)

I’ve spun this Hilltop Cloud roving on my IST spindle (took me nearly half a year) and plied it on my wheel. Very squishy! It’s a 2ply – about 310m/100g.

And another Southern Cross fibre, this one from shop update. Polwarth, again!

And finally my first batt – Hilltop Cloud again and a mixture of Merino, Shetland, soy silk and sari silk. It Looks great but I’m still finding bits of soy silk all over the flat and on my twice washed clothes.

That’s it for now! I’m still spending most of my time at my desk, but there should be another post coming up soon with pictures of a grand day out and some knitting!

Wovember & spinning

As promised, the next post in my November catch-up series! Before I get to the spinning I wanted to tell those of you that haven’t seen it already about Wovember. Wovember is a project initiated and invented last November by Kate Davies (needled) and Felicity Ford (the domestic soundscape) and dedicated to Real Wool during November. This year the project has gotten an addition by Tom of Holland whom you may know through his Visible Mending Project (if not, go take a look!).

The idea behind Wovember is to explore and celebrate the properties of real wool in all its dimensions, from the different breeds of sheep to the shades of the fibre, from the people producing wool to those who use it and from the feel of real wool to the sounds of wool (and for me, the smell. Love the smell of sheepy wool!).

Real wool opposed to what sells as wool in shops, mind. When I wanted to buy a new winter coat last year I simply couldn’t find one made solely of wool! I had to settle for one with a mixture of wool/Cashmere/Nylon but I found ‘wool’ coats with only 10 % wool in total. If you don’t make it yourself, real wool is hard to find in clothes and even finding 100% wool fabric proved difficult.

This year the motto is ‘closing the gap’, meaning the gap between yarn and clothes and the origin of wool used.

You can read more (and much better explained!) about the purpose of Wovember here and have a look at what has already been going on (since I’m late) here .

I really love this project and I’ve been looking forward to November very much.I’m trying to wear as much wool as possible this month and I will be spinning fibre from different sheep breeds (more on that in a later post). My mobile phone has a sheepy ring-tone which you can download from here ( together with other wool related sound files) and I will be wearing the assorted Wovember badges Felicity Ford made for Wovember.

Now to the fibre and the spinning!

I’ve finally finished spinning and plying the rest of my Hello Yarn Polwarth in ‘Cauldron’!

Together with the skein I finished ages ago this is destined to become a squishy cowl!

I’m also on the last part of the Wildcraft Falkland I started spinning at the Spin-In in Dorset in September (I forgot all my fibre at home in Germany) and I plied the first half on my wheel.

I’ve wound the third part on my Nostepinne and got another fibre-egg and I’m now spinning the last 50g.

Further spinning plans involve making a DKish yarn for a pair of leg warmers and to spin wool from German sheep-breeds. Happy Wovember!!!!

From the cauldron

As promised, reports on my spinning and cooking activities!

Since I’m very much into cowls at the moment – so useful and easy to wear – I wanted to spin up the second bump of the Hello Yarn Cauldron Polwarth. The first bump was finished ages ago (around February, I think) but the meterage wasn’t enough for a nice snuggly cowl.

I’m attempting to match the yarn I’ve already finished which is a bulky weight chain-ply. Looks ok so far:

While rummaging around I found one yarn that I haven’t blogged about at all despite it being a novelty for me – a heavy laceweight single.

It’s a Southern Cross Fibre Club, colourway ‘Wisteria’ on a mixed Corriedale. The singles are still a bit ‘wavy’ but I really liked how it turned out. I got over 400 meters out of the 4 oz which should be enough for a small shawl.

Also, I spent Saturday partly at my desk but also in the kitchen playing around with some of Heidi Swanson’s recipes:

Yummy Sesame Seed Banana Bread:

I had to substitute the mixture of black and white sesame seeds for all white ones and I skipped the icing. Tastes delicious and not too sweet.

I had a rice casserole for dinner from cookbook I mentioned in my last post but it was already too dark to take pictures. This was equally tasty and I will certainly make this again!

Now for a relaxed Sunday without any work, just knitting and spinning and listening to my new Mumford & Sons CD. Great music I’ve only recently discovered although the cover of the new record strangely resembles a Tommy Hilfiger ad…

Still here

I’ve been back from London and the Wildcraft Spin-In for almost four weeks but with my dissertation deadline looming I had to dive back into it right away. Now I’ve finished the first chapter and I’m feeling a bit better – maybe this will turn out ok in the end and my PhD will be done by next summer. Keeping my fingers crossed!!!

I’ve decided against a full post about my London adventure and the Spin-In but you can have a look here and see what I’ve been up to.

I want to get back into blogging more regularly which for me seems to be a question of not trying to write the perfect post but just get on with it.

So, I thought I’d show you what has made struggling with that first proper chapter of my dissertation bearable!

Fibre & Yarn from London and the Spin-In

I had lots of fun doing the dyeing workshop at the Spin-In and since I’ve been good with my yarn purchases in London I allowed myself to splurge a bit on Wildcraft fibre and spindles.  The Spin-In provided lots of time to get used to my new spindle and I finished spinning the first part of a lovely Falkland fibre.

This is another spindle I couldn’t resist!

As for yarn, I only bought some Brooklyn Tweed Loft from Loop London and some lovely soft Tweed yarn from Studio Donegal at Nest while I waited to be picked up for the journey to Dorset.

New tea cup

Back home a parcel from England was waiting for me and I have been enjoying my tea from this lovely new cup from Cecily Vessey:

I love the small Big Ben on the inside! Check out her designs at etsy!

Autumn

In the last weeks the weather has got colder and I finally had the opportunity to wear my Curious Cardigan!

Also, squash season started at my local farmer’s market, so I made some soup last week.

The new semester starts next Monday and I’m already dreading it a bit. It will be harder to meet the deadlines in my plan while teaching and preparing the classes. I’m going to enjoy the peace and quiet this week while I can!

Fibre explosion

I’ve been really busy recently, mostly because I have checked my priorities and number one on that list is working on my dissertation as much as possible. Add to that teaching three classes and some much-needed fun on the side and whoosh – another month gone without a blog post. I’m afraid this will happen again, but for now I have a bit of crafty goodness for you.

There has been knitting but somehow I have spent much more time on my spinning wheel in the last weeks. This is both nice in terms of practice and very necessary because I amass around 8 oz of fibre every month without doing anything. I’m really happy I got the invitation for the Southern Cross Fibre Club but there are storing space issued to consider. Since I still have options for storing I have no intention of cancelling the subscription so I took the train to Ikea yesterday to buy some more boxes :-)!

I know compared to others my stash is small but for me it already has a significant size. Some organisation was definitely in order! My fibre is now ordered by designer as this was the easiest way – I did contemplate ordering by fibre type or colour family but in the end I couldn’t be bothered :-). What I managed to do is finally take a picture of every braid and bag of fibre I have and put it in my Ravelry stash. There!

Apart from organizing it I actually finished spinning some fibre, too!

This is the first bobbin of SCF Club November 2011, colourway ‘Dirt’. It’s a lovely Falkland and very soft.

The stats:
SCF Club ‘Dirt’
Fibre: Falkland
method of spinning: modified long draw
2 ply

I have another bobbin plied but not washed yet and I don’t know the meterage but the weight is somewhere between a heavy lace-weight and a light fingering-weight. Should be enough for a shawl!

Right now I have something novel on my wheel – Southdown! – but I’ll save this for another post :-).
So, have a nice Sunday or a lovely long weekend if your from the UK! I’ll be back soon with the Southdown and more fibre news (maybe some knitting as well, and my new bike….)

More yarn and some knits

I’ve spent the easter weekend up north at my parent’s and had a lovely time as you can see!

We had some rain but over all the weather was quite nice if a bit nippy (hence the layers!).

My parents have a Strandkorb (the leo.org translation of roof wicker beach chair is a bit over the top) in their garden and our dog Poldi is convinced it’s his but we negotiated to share it – meaning I was granted a small space squashed to the side of the chair.

It was lovely in the sun and I spent the afternoon happily knitting on my Curiosities Cardigan. Which brings me to part two of the Great Yarn and Knits Catch-up!

Let’s start with the cardigan. I’m using the pile of Hello Yarn Fiber ‘Curiosities’ I spun up during the last Tour de Fleece. I had 20 oz which came to about 1080 meters of a DKish yarn.

This is the first cardigan I’ve knit without a pattern. I made a swatch and fiddled with the numbers and then kept my fingers crossed that I had managed to put the Raglan markers in the right place (which I did, thankfully).

The colours are a bit paler than what I usually wear but so far I like it! I’m actually further along than the picture above shows and have just about started in on the increase part of the waist shaping. So far I’m still only into the third skein so I should be fine with three-quarter length sleeves. I can’t wait to wear this!

Apart from the cardigan I’ve finally finished a shawl I’ve been knitting for some time now. There seems to be a theme here, because for this I used handspun as well – the BFL from Wildcraft I wrote about in my last post.

This was my first try at spinning a semi-woolen yarn (worsted prep + wonky backward draw with lots of twist) and the resulting yarn and the texture of the shawl is airy and quite lovely. The pattern is Steven West’s Boneyard Shawl which is a nice simple knit – perfect telly knitting.

I’m working from home today and it’s another day of course preparation and collecting data for my dissertation. Might throw some knitting in… 🙂

 

Yarn, glorious yarn! (part 1)

So, I’ve finally managed to catch up with the blog posts in my google reader inbox and writing a few comments. The new semester started yesterday and I’m a bit overwhelmed by balancing dissertation work and ‘work- work’ (i.e. teaching three courses). Today I admitted defeat around noon as I seem unable to concentrate on anything. I’m still a bit rattled after a fierce migraine attack on Saturday which caught me right in the middle of the university library. I had to take a cab back to my flat which is on the other side of town. The rest of Saturday mostly took place in my bed. But enough of the bad stuff!

I realized I have a huge backlog of finished handspun I haven’t shown you yet,  mostly because of the battery problem I mentioned in my last post. Since I also have one Finished Object and another WIP to show I decided to make two posts out of it. So, let’s get started with the yarn!

#1: Hello Yarn Cauldron

Stats:

Fibre: Polwarth

chain-plyed; ca. 85m/4 oz; Bulky weight

I had this on my wheel for the better part of three months (I think I pulled the fibre out of the stash around the end of october 2011) and only finished it in January. This is the much coveted Hello Yarn Club fibre which I scored on a destash and I have a nother 4 oz under my bed. It’s destined to become a huge, fluffy cowl for next winter and I spun it fairly thick and then chain-plyed it so it came out at about chunky weight (no idea how much wpi).

#2: Wildcraft/SpotSpins Fibre Calendula Shades

Since this yarn will also feature in my second post I’ll keep it short. The fibre is an oatmeal BFL overdyed with a dark golden orange and darker browns. This was my first attempt at a woolen spun yarn albeit with a worsted fibre preparation. Nevertheless, the resulting yarn is very light and fluffy and looks very different from my usual handspun.
It’s a heavy fingering weight and I got about 388 meters out of 4 oz.

#3: Southern Cross December ’11 Fiber Club Oceanic

Stats:
Fibre: BFL /Silk
2 ply, light DK weight
213m/4 oz

This BFL/Silk mix spun like butter or, well, like silk! It also went incredibly fast, I think it took me just one weekend to spin, ply and finish the yarn. The skein feels very heavy and the yarn is smooth and lovely. I’m totally in love!

#4: Spunky Eclectic Club Fiber Tossed Salad

Stats:
Fiber: Karaoke (50% fine wool/50%Soy Silk)
2 ply
91, 5m / 2 oz

This was the luxury club offering last year and something of a wild card for me. It was a bit hard to spin because the Soy Silk tended to stick together in chunks but the finished yarn is great. The colour is fresh but not too loud and the yarn almost feels like cotton.
So, last one for today:

#5: Spunky Eclectic Club Fiber Mordor

Stats:
Fibre: Corriedale
 chain-plyed
heavy DK weight; 177m/4 oz

I had planned to spin this for socks but decided against it. Not sure what I’ll do with it as the colour would look a bit odd with my wardrobe.
So, this is it for today. As you can see, I’ve got my spinning mojo back and there’s more to see. I’ll return soon with the rest of the lot – some more yarn and a bit of knitting, too.

There’s a change in the air…

Remember my recent spinning spree? Well, after finishing the Southern Cross fibre I immediately dived back into my stash and fished out another bag of fibre.

Spun the first bobbin last week…

… and finished plying on Thursday.
I really like it!

The details:
Spunky Eclectic Club fibre
Colour: Change
Fiber: Falkland
Worsted weight, 132 m/4 oz

This is my first time spinning Falkland and I loved it. It’s not quite as slippery as Merino but equally soft. I couldn’t resist casting on for a modified Eternity Scarf yesterday – the weather has finally turned autumnal (if only for a short while, weather forecast just now said something about 20 ° Celsius on Monday 😦 ) No pictures yet, it’s still to dark outside so you’ll have to wait for the FO.

Speaking of changes, I’ve managed a good work flow this week and got a lot of things done (even the dishes 😉 ) so my master plan seems to do the job! As you can see, it even had an impact on my blogging – three posts in one week. I’m pleased!

Time to finish my tea and get the day started! Have a nice weekend!