Thursday 12 December 2013

Woolly Wednesday December 2013 ...

Welcome to the Woolly Wednesday gathering for December. Sorry it's late, and don't worry if you have nothing to link with, I'll be back in January - but if you do have a post I'd love to see it.


Whether you are a regular or a new visitor - come and share what you have been doing with wool or fibres in the last month, or plans for the month(s) ahead. All crafts and inspiration welcome. I look forward to regularly sharing this space with you here.

 Woolly Wednesday falls on the first Wednesday of every month. Think of it as a creative gathering, or a virtual guild meeting. Bring along any fibre-related project, whatever it may be. If you are starting out in fibre arts, share what you are interested in pursuing. Let's show each other our projects, share any tips, tutorials, ask questions, seek advice. Add your post to the Linky below and we can visit one another and share, support, encourage, be inspired!. 

 Please feel free to add the button to your blog's sidebar with a link to Woolly Wednesday, a lovely way for us all to link together. Just copy the image to your desktop and then in your blog design - add a gadget, add picture - upload the picture and then add the url (http://raisingseedlings.blogspot.co.uk/) and the image will link to here. Join in with the linky below, link to a recent blog post of your woolly adventures in the last month or to a post in the month ahead, I look forward to seeing you, no time limits just join in when you can.


Wednesday 11 December 2013

Oops! Woolly Wednesday sleeping ...

Oops, I just realised it is Wednesday, but the 2nd Wed of the month so that means I missed Woolly Wednesday posting last week. Sorry, just busy here.

So instead, how about we resume again in 2014!

Do other bloggers still want to join in the Woolly Wednesday? Just pondering for now, can still keep in touch with other blogs so wondered if it was still worth posting the linky. Your thoughts in the comments would be appreciated (if you want to leave a comment that isn't published, just let me know and I will read it but not publish it). I intend to keep blogging, so will catch up with you all on your blogs even if the linky came to an end. We'll see, but please let me know either way.


Have a lovely Christmas/Festive season everyone, hope to see you again in the New Year.

Monday 18 November 2013

I Yarn bombed my chair!

So the Guild challenge piece I've mysteriously mentioned over time is a chair that I yarn bombed. I can't find the photo of the chair before (although I'm sure I took one!). And yay I managed to blog in between Woolly Wednesdays!

Here are the pictures of my chair, which is already well loved and very comfortable.

 Ta dah ...
 View from the front and side

 The other side
 Seat back
 Back of seat
 Back of chair
 From below

and another angle!

It received many admiring looks, and a few members are inspired to do something similar around their homes.

What next ...?

Wednesday 6 November 2013

Busy Woolly days

Busy days again. Spinning, knitting, crocheting and have been felting a little lately too. Ah it must be time for Woolly Wednesday.

Since my last post on spinning, yes last months WW (still not finding more time to blog yet!), I continued to spin the Masham rainbow fibre. This was so lovely to spin, such a lovely feel to the yarn.

 Masham fibre and spinning on the bobbin

I then also spun another rainbow of Tussah silk fibre. A different rainbow, different dyers, with similar shades to the Masham but also some differences. My idea was to ply these two together, not knowing how it would look.

 Tussah Silk and spinning on the bobbin
(still have a skein of this silk to spin!)


To say I was pleased to see these plied together would be an understatement. I love how they plied together, sometimes the colours matched up, other times not, but love the overall look. This is destined to be a shawlette/scarf for me but the knitting hasn't started yet due to other projects and commitments.

 Skeins and on the Niddy noddy of the finished yarn
 Silky, smooth and scrumptious!

Soon after finishing this yarn it was our Guilds sampling day with Winghams visiting and filling the hall with all their goodies. I didn't really have a lot I wanted to pick up, just a few bits and pieces, but went with the intention to have some fun sampling fibres. And fun I had. There was a moment in the afternoon that I (and others!) embraced the trilobal fibre - blending it in with everything. Gold, silver, copper and rainbow trilobal were consumed by the wheels!

I always come away from guild meetings inspired to do more and dug into bags and picked out oddments of fibres and continued to create a medley of samples. The results of all this fun are below which is navajo plied to keep the colours and blends seperate.

2 skeins from sampling day and fun at home

Still inspired by this I then dug into my box of dyed merino fibres, mostly used in felting, and selected handfuls of many many colours and laid them out in a rainbow. Spinning from one end of the colour wheel of fibre to the other, navajo plied to retain the colours again and it resulted in these lovely skeins - squeeeeeee  I love these and plan to do this again, a lot.

Rainbow yarn skein and on the niddy noddy
 close up of the purple and blues end


Couldn't resist a picture of all the rainbow and sample yarns together, makes me smile!
Now the bobbins once again lay empty, waiting for my next inspiration.


I have been busy knitting and crocheting too. After finishing previous projects I decided to pick up a project I started back in May and knitting a few rows and then put down not to be picked up again until last month. It's my Sheep Heid hat, a fabulous pattern, made with singles yarns of various breeds - mostly Icelandic shades (5 of them), with some Shropshire, BFL, Norwegian, and maybe another that I can't remember now. I adapted the pattern to suit my preferences, keeping the sheep and the rams heads.

 My Sheep Heid hat keeping warm this Autumn

At the October Guild meeting we had a flock of sheep heids ... baaaaa!

I love this hat, had a few arrrggh moments - just me not reading the pattern from the correct point on the charts, but nothing major, just my own lack of concentration. I would totally recommend it as a pattern and have plans to make another soon.

I also have been knitting and crocheting a few hats and scarfs to send to The Great Syria Knitting Project, to give warmth to the children affected by the ongoing Syrian conflict; many of whom have lost everything, displaced from their homes. It warms my heart to know that I have been able to create something to keep them warm this winter.

Parcel of warmth to Syria

My other knitting and crochet is .... a secret! Cannot share it yet, nope sorry. It's something previously mentioned and been an ongoing project, and is now nearing the end. It's something for our Guilds annual challenge which this year was entitled "2nd time around", to be interpreted as you like but with the emphasis and recycling or re-using something, giving life to something that may have been discarded. This is going to guild on 16th November, so if I can get organised I will post about it then and if not it will feature in Decembers Woolly Wednesday.

Commencing some Christmas knitting and spinning soon.
Looking forward to seeing what you're all up to.

Dawn x

Woolly Wednesday gathering November 2013

Welcome to the Woolly Wednesday gathering for November. Come along and link up to with a crafty post on your blog. Planning for Christmas or Yule yet?

Whether you are a regular or a new visitor - come and share what you have been doing with wool or fibres in the last month, or plans for the month(s) ahead. All crafts and inspiration welcome. I look forward to regularly sharing this space with you here.

 Woolly Wednesday falls on the first Wednesday of every month. Think of it as a creative gathering, or a virtual guild meeting. Bring along any fibre-related project, whatever it may be. If you are starting out in fibre arts, share what you are interested in pursuing. Let's show each other our projects, share any tips, tutorials, ask questions, seek advice. Add your post to the Linky below and we can visit one another and share, support, encourage, be inspired!. 

 Please feel free to add the button to your blog's sidebar with a link to Woolly Wednesday, a lovely way for us all to link together. Just copy the image to your desktop and then in your blog design - add a gadget, add picture - upload the picture and then add the url (http://raisingseedlings.blogspot.co.uk/) and the image will link to here. Join in with the linky below, link to a recent blog post of your woolly adventures in the last month or to a post in the month ahead, I look forward to seeing you, no time limits just join in when you can.

 I shall enjoy reading all about your woolly days soon x

Wednesday 2 October 2013

Busy September Spinning and Knitting

Wow these months are disappearing fast this year. September has been a busy month with a new school year starting, a little persons birthday and some lovely woolly Spinning days too, so I have some things to share this month. I rarely seem to be able to blog in between though, even about not woolly things, Instagram has taken over a little - so easy to just share a moment, a picture and a few words there. But I do like my blog so I shall get on with todays post.

I had been knitting away on a special gift for my daughter for her 8th birthday, only able to do on evenings after she was in bed, and occasionally hidden under a cushion if she came back downstairs for something! So here is her knitted Harry Potter, I am very pleased with how it came out and she loves him too. A list of other characters is being drawn up!

Knitted Harry Potter

Another quick knit for a friends birthday was a phone cover similar to my own, and I have since made another for a friend who had admired mine. Such a quick and easy seamless knit, only need a needle to sew on the button and it's done.

 Phone cover gifts

On to the spinning of the month. Well it's been a busy one. It started with the Romsey Show, an agricultural show nearby, which the Guild attends each year to demonstrate the skills of the guild and we have an interactive area for children to try things out like braid making and peg looming.
Our events organiser this year raised the idea of spinning and knitting a jumper in a day. So it was an early start for us, a raw fleece was on show and a washed fleece was ready to card and spin into the yarn for the knitters to knit.

I had a near disaster about 10 minutes before we started when I was setting up and started treadling to check the tension and the treadle bar fell off! I discovered that the clip holding it on had come off and was nowhere to be seen. Some string came to the rescue, it wasn't perfect but it meant that I could spin on it okay.(You can see my repairs in the picture below)

Spinning in my Camden Cap at the Romsey Show

So there were 4 of us spinning the Jacobs fleece into singles, 2 ladies plying our singles as soon as there was enough to get going, and then 5 people knitting the various parts of the jumper. There was a little bit of swapping about as the day went on and the knitting was finished just in time for the end of the show. It was only then taken home to sew together and block. It was a lot of fun, and we were spurred on by each other.

The finished jumper! (well jacket)

We had to wait a week to see the finished item, luckily a guild meeting the following Saturday, and our open day for visitors to come and try out the crafts we all love. Here is the finished article, which has been donated to Scotty's Little Soldiers charity for an auction. Such a worthy cause, they support the children of men and women killed whilst serving in the armed forces.

Spinning in the Tower

And finally another day out spinning, a week later at a local Tudor history event. Here I spun some Falkland woodland greens fibre that I had started at home, and also plied some of the yarn that I had wound into a centre pull ball. The remaining singles were plied later at home.

Woodland greens 

2 skeins of loveliness (need a better photo, this was from my phone)

Towards the end of the day I started a new braid of fibre I have had a while, gorgeous Masham fibre in a rainbow of colours. This is delightful to spin, I continued to spin some at home and have one bobbin full and another to do. I have some Tussah silk in a rainbow of colours so I think I may spin this up and see how it would ply together with the Masham.

Gorgeous Rainbow Masham fibre

Plenty of projects in my head, some for gifts, some for Christmas, some just for fun. I have some socks in progress out of my handspun, probably a gift for a friend. I also have a cowl in progress for a friends birthday. I'm also hoping to get in some charity knitting this month before the Christmas knits become more urgent.

Knitting a cowl for a friend out of a thick and thin singles yarn

Looking forward to seeing what everyone else has been up to, come and share your woolly days with me.

Woolly Wednesday October 2013 - come and share your woolly days

Welcome to the Woolly Wednesday gathering for October. Come along and link up to with a crafty post on your blog.

Whether you are a regular or a new visitor - come and share what you have been doing with wool or fibres in the last month, or plans for the month(s) ahead. All crafts and inspiration welcome. I look forward to regularly sharing this space with you here.

 Woolly Wednesday falls on the first Wednesday of every month. Think of it as a creative gathering, or a virtual guild meeting. Bring along any fibre-related project, whatever it may be. If you are starting out in fibre arts, share what you are interested in pursuing. Let's show each other our projects, share any tips, tutorials, ask questions, seek advice. Add your post to the Linky below and we can visit one another and share, support, encourage, be inspired!. 

 Please feel free to add the button to your blog's sidebar with a link to Woolly Wednesday, a lovely way for us all to link together. Just copy the image to your desktop and then in your blog design - add a gadget, add picture - upload the picture and then add the url (http://raisingseedlings.blogspot.co.uk/) and the image will link to here. Join in with the linky below, link to a recent blog post of your woolly adventures in the last month or to a post in the month ahead, I look forward to seeing you, no time limits just join in when you can.

 I shall enjoy reading all about your woolly days soon x

Thursday 5 September 2013

Summer days, not many spinning!

Summer days meant long days, lovely sunshine and not a lot of spinning! A little knitting and latterly crochet has been happening here, but spinning has taken a back seat - it has been too warm to draft the wool in my hands. But now Autumn is approaching slowly, my mind is returning to unfinished spinning projects and planning future ones.

Something I have finished is my Camden Cap - using handspun yarn that I spun early in the year, I started the hat in the late Spring but then left it until about a week ago when I picked it up again and knit to completion.



 I love this hat, love how it fits and feels and can see it is going to get a lot of use over the Autumn/Winter months. I did have some issues with the sizing of the pattern - after measuring and even swatching (rare for me!) I started knitting the hat and was pleased with the peak. But when it came to knitting the main part of the hat it was clearly going to be way too big. I pondered carrying on and felting it but that would have altered the peak, so I frogged back to the peak, left that as it was, and knit a smaller size. Result of this is that I shal return to the ignorant bliss of not swatching which has always worked out fine in the past!


The plied yarns from last month have been wound into balls to knit with and I have cast on a quick gift for a friend, a phone cover in the silvery rainbow yarn on the right.

I have started spinning some woodland green falkland fibre, more on that next month, and hopefully more spinning now Autumn is here and life is slightly less busy. I shall also be taking part next month in a guild Sheep to Jumper challenge at a show! Watch this space.

Wednesday 4 September 2013

Woolly Wednesday gathering September 2013

Welcome to the Woolly Wednesday gathering for September. Come along and link up to with a crafty post on your blog. Autumn is approaching here in the UK, what woolly plans do you have for those cosy Autumnal days?

Whether you are a regular or a new visitor - come and share what you have been doing with wool or fibres in the last month, or plans for the month(s) ahead. All crafts and inspiration welcome. I look forward to regularly sharing this space with you here.

 Woolly Wednesday falls on the first Wednesday of every month. Think of it as a creative gathering, or a virtual guild meeting. Bring along any fibre-related project, whatever it may be. If you are starting out in fibre arts, share what you are interested in pursuing. Let's show each other our projects, share any tips, tutorials, ask questions, seek advice. Add your post to the Linky below and we can visit one another and share, support, encourage, be inspired!. 

 Please feel free to add the button to your blog's sidebar with a link to Woolly Wednesday, a lovely way for us all to link together. Just copy the image to your desktop and then in your blog design - add a gadget, add picture - upload the picture and then add the url (http://raisingseedlings.blogspot.co.uk/) and the image will link to here. Join in with the linky below, link to a recent blog post of your woolly adventures in the last month or to a post in the month ahead, I look forward to seeing you, no time limits just join in when you can.

 I shall enjoy reading all about your woolly days x


Wednesday 7 August 2013

Spinning around (other things) this month

Spinning around lots of other things right now. Since my last post about spinning, for July Woolly Wednesday, I continued to spin for the TDF on Ravelry and then took a break for a while but got back to the wheel this last week.

So my TDF stalled a little due to lots of other things in life taking up my time, partly going to Larmer Tree festival too which was a fabulous weekend. July was also hot, hot, hot around here and I found drafting wool a bit too hot to handle.

I shared my Golden Weld dyed yarn last time for my TDF spinning. After that I spun some Falkland and some Cotswold yarns for a dyeing day workshop. Here is the spinning samples ready to go to the dyeing day.

Samples ready for dyeing day

The dyeing day fell on one of the hottest days of July, inside the art department of a school with pots of natural dyes simmering away ... wow it was hot in there! But so much fun, I came away with samples of all the colours in the rainbow and more, Here are some photos from the day and my resulting yarn samples.


 Pots of weed samples for first set of dyeing
Results from some of the weed sample dyeing

 Some of my samples drying in the sunshine
 Part of the groups dyeing results of the day
 Me gathering up some of the samples (looking hot and bothered!)
I created a colour wheel when home
(Sheep drawing courtesy of my daughter)

I did some more spinning but not a lot, and I have done a little spinning on my spindle both at home and at Larmer Tree but haven't taken a photo of it.


In the last week my spinning mojo has returned and I have spun up some oddments of fibre before starting any larger projects. Here are a couple of yarns that I spun the singles and then plied from a centre pull ball. Ready to wind off onto the niddy noddy and give a quick soak.

Singles ready to ply
 Plied yarn - rainbow of colours and silvery, with silk
Purple and blue blend with silk
(way more purple than the photo - can't seem to capture it though)

Knitting has stalled a little too, but plans are afoot to get some projects finished and others started soon. I have started some pieces with my handspun yarns both in knitting and crochet for my Guilds challenge this year, but more on that another month. Our challenge is "2nd time around" - about breathing life into something old.