Weekending - where I stay close to home

After last weekend's fantastic but exhausting sheenanigans, this weekend I stayed home, and had a very crafty weekend.

On Friday I dyed 600 grams of Polwarth fibre, for Andrea Mowery's Traveller hoodie. I was not confident about dying this much fibre in one go, but I decided to give it a go and see. At the end of the oven time, I was convinced that the top was a pale muddy mess and that the bottom would be super-saturated, because it looked like this:

But it actually came out beautifully.

The fibre is a bit compressed, but not at all felted, and it puffs up with just a little bit of predrafting. While I was waiting for that to dry, I plied the rainbow yarn I've been working on over the last few weeks.

I didn't have a particular goal when I spun it, I just wanted it fluffy and delicious, which I achieved. The only problem is that it is only 130 meters for 96 grams. I want the traveller yarn to be about 250 meters (or at least more than 200) so I did something I have never done before and did a sample spin.

I spun up 25 grams to see how it goes. I can't tell you whether it will be too think or too thin, but I can say that it it has a beautiful sheen, and is lovely to spin. I think my dye job worked well too. I'll ply it tomorrow and then assess what I need to change to get the yarn I want.

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Unravelled wednesday and WAYRN - the one where I prepare

We are heading off for some camping and hiking and general R&R on Friday, so I'm currently in planning and preparing mode. Of course that mainly means deciding what to knit - I'm going to make the Old Romance cardigan by Joji Locatelli. The yarn is wound and I'm ready to go. I completed Leon's Winter Set (2023) just in time, and it's currently blocking. I'm reading Georgette Hayer's Fredrica , which I am enjoying very much. Regency romance is so sweet and, unlike current romance offerings, I know it won't suddenly tumble into gynaecological territory! For unexplained reasons, NetGalley is offering some Georgette Heyer books at the moment - (maybe it's re-release?) and I'm taking this opportunity to read a few more of them And that's my week in knitting and reading. To read my all my book reviews, and to see everything I knit, you can find me on Ravelry as Sharondoublekni t and on GoodReads as Sharondblk . I'm joining in with Kat ...

Yarnalong - the one with the final bit of transport

Remember how I took every form of transport known to man a fortnight ago? Well, I was missing just one thing, suburban trains. But today I got to remedy that, knitting my way to Dandenong for work. Yay? My Char jumper has been knitting up ridiculously fast. It's easy, pleasant and a well written pattern. I'm reading Rachael Herron's latest book The Ones Who Matter Most . It's a good read so far, family centered fiction, easy to read but still emotionally challenging. I'm listening to Evelyn Waugh's Men At Arms . I'm enjoying it, I didn't really know what to expect, but some of it reminds me of Catch 22, in that it catalogues the absurdities of war and bureaucracy. The narrator has the perfect upper crust English accent and I'm very pleased it's the first of a trilogy. And that's another week of reading, knitting and catching trains everywhere for me. Do pop along to Ginny's blog to see what she and the rest of the yarnalong ...

Slowly slowly

I haven’t posted about my actual knitting for a while. This might be because not much has changed since the last time I talked about my knitting. This is the edging of my Village Sweater Wrap: The picture fails to capture how much further there is to go. I'm just past the first arm hole, so just over a third of the way through. It’s 47 stitches of relatively simple lace. I’ve been knitting it since Monday two weeks ago. It’s quite pleasant, and slowly growing but I can’t quite work out why it’s growing so slowly. One reason I know is that the first week I was knitting it during Good Beer Week, so I didn’t take it out and about with me. I knit other things, and when I’m knitting two things it makes everything feel like it takes forever. But the main reason, I think, is that this is just a slow knit for me. I love the needles I’m knitting on ( Karbonz of course) I love the yarn, I love the way the lace looks. So really, what’s the rush? I’m not going to be cold...

What I made, by Sharon

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