Bountiful Promise

Another scorcher of a day and the veg are beginning to look a bit desperate, have to get the watering can out this evening or wave goodbye to any hope of fresh salad in the near future. Really reminds you how close starvation is if you rely totally on what you yourself grow, drought suddenly becomes a much bigger problem than "oh dear, the lettuce have copped it, have to pop down the shop and buy one instead". On the bright side, we have baby veg appearing, cant wait till its all big enough to be picked and eaten.

I've been drum carding again, and though more pics may appear soon, this one is so lovely i had to share.

think i may call it something like Candyfloss Carnival, Its so lovely and fluffy, all cormo and alpaca and throwsters, with a big handful of merino thrown in for good measure

I'm also currently working my way through 200g of Falkland (isn't it lovely), spinning it nice and thin, just right for summer.

Wavering Heat

I have been extremely lazy this week, the weather in Cornwall at the moment is currently reminiscent of Greece and it is baking when your out of the sea breeze,the light has that quality where it leaches the colour out of everything making the whole world seem slightly ethereal and distant, like a faded photograph. I don't know how the tomato plants (which are only about 2 foot high) can stand it in the hottest of the green houses, it was at least 40'C in there today, even with all the windows and the door wide open. we could really do with some rain right now, the water barrel (my way of measuring rainfall) is half empty and the soil is so dry its like its been cooked. thankfully most of the plants are either big enough to cope, or are verities I've selected for resistance to our local climate (Cherokee trail of tears french beans rock, they cope with droughts really well). I really want to get on with dying, I've finally managed to buy, scrounge and generally collect all the kit, now all i need is a decent opportunity and I'm going to have a crack at it. more on this, hopefully,  soon.

Mini Batt Madness

I really enjoy making minibatts, I made quite a few since i brought my carder I'm really getting into my stride with them, I think I'm even beginning to develop my own style (which is nice). I carded a whole load of them over the weekend so I'm just going to show you some of my favourites.

Aren't they lovely, sadly no matter how many photos I take I just cant seem to get them to look as beautiful as they are in real life. more practice needed on that count I think.

this is whats on my spindle (well, one of them  anyway) currently.

I'm attempting to do the felt add-ins technique from Lexi Boerger's book Intertwined. I have to say I'm struggling with it, but then again whats the point of choosing to do something challenging if it doesn't stretch your abilities. now i come to think about it, possibly my decision to vito the auto wrapping may not be helping, but ive got so far into it i may as well just keep going as i am.

Suprise presents

I've been rushed off my feet this weekend, sometimes there just aren't enough hours in the day to go round. Every thing seems to be going so fast, even the plants in the garden seem to be rushing ahead, trying to use every second of sunlight to its utmost. the beans are flowering and the garden is looking great, (the precociously tall runner bean has already reached the top of its cane  and is now attempting to scale thin air) even the carrots are doing well, something we usually struggle with as our soil is a bit claggy. Anyway, just thought id show you all this...

100g of organic merino spun in a thin, gently slubbing 2 ply. very lovely and , if all goes to plan,  going to be a surprise present for a friend in the near future (if i can convince someone to knit it for me). I recently decided I need to learn to knit, I have all this beautiful yarn, and keep mooning over patterns on Ravelry but am unable to make any of them. so, I've picked an idiot proof pattern and am going to have a go. so, hopefully more on my adventures with knitting in the near future.

My Favourite Hat

I thought it would be nice to show you something made with my hand spun (mix things up a bit), so this is my favourite hat. its made from a skein of my own hand spun (unsurprisingly), and its spun from one of my hotchpotch batts, (the first hotchpotch batt i ever made actually).

 My hotchpotch batt mixes are made from all the little goodies that get left over from projects, like pieces of top, yarn scraps, spare fiber from the drumcarder. I swear it must have at least 15 different ingredients, its definitely got at least 3 different silk preparations in there. anyway, I love it to bits, the pattern is by Ruth Stewart and was free on Ravelry. I should probably mention that i wear it inside out (i prefer the pattern of the stitches like that).

Batt Attack

I'm not feeling brilliant today, and I'm not sure why. I don't have a cold or hay fever, or anything concrete like that, maybe I've just got the blues. I was hoping it was going to be nice and sunny today to cheer me up, but sadly (despite glimpses of sun earlier) it has turned out to be one of those in between days. ah well, at least  its not heavy and humid. I was planning to lug the drumcarder outside and do some carding but i think i may do it inside instead (breeze is a bit chilly). but on the subject of drumcaders, I finally got up the nerve to card the fleece. and It was Awesome! I swear, in the last couple of days i have produced the best batts I've made so far. its like I've turned a corner or something, just goes to show that practice does pay off.

                                                                   

these are my first ever textured batts, the curly blue faced Leicester fleece I dyed was amazing through the drumcarder (though I need to be a bit more rigorous about picking the twigs out as i discovered half way through). I put the Falkland in as well as the bluefaced Leicester, and also quite a bit of kid mohair and silk. I was also going to put nepps in, but i never got round to it, and on balance, i don't think they need them anyway. I cant wait to spin them.

these are  my newest hotchpotch batts (there was only supposed to be one, but when i took it of the drumcarder it was 30g shy. so i made a mini batt to go with it to make up the weight). as usual they have a bit of everything in them as they're made from all the goodness that comes off that gets left on the drumcarder after I've finished carding a batt, and are lovely (though as usual very hard to photograph), there's even some of of the nylon I dyed in there.

these 4 batts are all my spindrift blend (lots and lots of silk in there besides other goodies, theres even a little alpaca), wonderfully smooth, think I've really got into my stride with smooth batts, which is nice. I swear i put about 8 different colours in them (somehow, it works),

I've also been planning a present for a friend shhhhh, don't tell them, its supposed to be a surprise but i cant work out what to spin, I've got so much beautiful fibre littering my bedroom at the moment (some mine, some other peoples) its really hard to choose. maybe I'll spin one of the top's i dyed myself, that would be a nice present and very colourful. hmm, have to think about it some more.

Yarn Pile

Sadly the lovely weather we've been having has broken and now the rain is falling, ah well, at least its good for the garden. Wouldn’t want the peas (which are only about a foot tall at the moment) to shrivel up after all, especially after all the trouble we had getting them to sprout in the first place. I finally have some yarn to show everyone, its not that I haven’t been spinning (I have), I just like to save up my skeins till I have a decent amount so I can finish them all together (less hassle that way). I've been playing around with thick and thin singles (some very large), I’m going through a chunky yarn phase at the moment and chunky with slubs has always been my default yarn. If I stop concentrating I automatically start making slubs, I suppose you could call it my autopilot setting.
so here they are, in no particular order. beech trees, Cheshire cat, two i have yet to name, summer lightning and fruit cocktail.. Enjoy!

Merino Medly

Cor, today is a real scorcher, its almost too hot to sit in the sun and then only for a short while. on the up side the last of the fibre is dry! thanks mainly to the sun and a now rather damp towel.

This fleece is gorgeous, its so deliciously soft. I also love the bubblegum colours which came out really well, especially considering it could have done with more time in the dye. the candyfloss pink is Falkland and the beautiful turquoise is blue faced Leicester.

this is my colourway called desert (the arid wasteland not the pudding), and though it didn't quite come out as i imagined it (though to be fair, that's half the fun of it) its going to make a wonderfully soft  batt (or two if i lucky)

I think my favourite (if i had to pick one) is this kid mohair, I'm severely wishing id dyed two bags instead of just the one. I can't wait to blend this, its going to be so beautiful.

the silk cocoons (my favourite silk preparation) are so soft, they are going to be really nice to spin. I think i may have to think up something special to spin with them.

and last but not least, 100g of wool neps (in my opinion, an essential ingredient in a textured batt) and in case your wondering, no they didn't go back in the bag they came out of. these dried surprisingly quickly (they would have been dry at the same time as top if i hadn't run out of mesh bags and resorted to putting them in a colander).

I went mad with the camera yesterday and suffice to say that the super macro setting and i are now firm friends. Ive put several of the best on my flicker, but this picture is by far my favourite (just in case you can't guess what it is, its the flower bud of a walking/Egyptian onion), I love the way all the stalks seem to be reaching towards something unseen. life should be like that, always reaching to grasp the unknown.