I'm back!

Life has been hectic for the past few months. Medical appointments have taken up most available brain space, and not left much for other things. Despite medical stuff looming large over us, lots of fun and exciting things have been happening too.

I did finally publish my shawl pattern. It took off on a group that I'm a member of on Ravelry and I got quite a few sales over Christmas. I even made it to the front page of the Hot Right Now pattern search for a short while!

https://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/demdike-shawlette

I finished a Dragon's rest shawl made with River knit's mini skeins.

More excitingly, I've started to learn to spin, using an EEW Nano. A mini electric spinning wheel, that has made it possible for me to spin, despite my disabilities. I love it so much. 

I also started trying my hand at dyeing fibre. I've only done it once so far, but it was great fun, and I will definitely be doing more. I started with Southdown, which is supposed to be the easiest to dye. The texture reminded me of the green scrubby bit of a washing up sponge. Not scratchy or crunchy, but very sproingy.

I've only spun up some of the blue so far, but it's going okay.

I've been painting too. I completed Inktober last year, and just kept going. Mainly watercolours, I started an instagram just for them. Follow me at Ceirdwyn Arts to stay up to date.

And as if all that wasn't enough, I decided to try my hand at quilting. It all started because we had nowhere to put a Christmas tree. Never having done any quilting before, I jumped in at the deep end and made this full sized bed spread.

That was a challenge, but I enjoyed it, and now I want to do more. I've had a little go at foundation paper piecing, and that was great fun. I'll do more, I just need the time and the energy.

Ugh, I want to blog, honest I do. I love reading blogs, I like sharing the stuff I'm working on. I just haven't got in to the habit.
At the moment, my phone is broken, and the one that's been laying in a drawer unused for about 5 years that I'm using for now, has a broken camera, so the photo heavy posts that I like to do are tough.
Live is plodding along. Nothing much is happening, or changing. Illnesses are chronic, money is scarce. The only thing that's new is that (a few year behind the curve) Alex and I have started playing pokemon go. It's hard when we can't go out much. But we've found a few places we can drive to and pick up a few pokestops without needing to do much walking. Defeats the purpose somewhat, but at least it gets us out of the house.
We tend to go in the evenings, when everything is quieter, and I managed to get some nice photos before my phone died.

Looking back at those photos makes me smile. I may not love this house, or this town, but I am so happy that I have views like that all within 10 minutes drive.

I still haven't published the shawl design. I did get it test knit, which went fine for one, and terrible for another, so I'm re-knitting it now. If it all goes well, I'll get the pattern up on Ravelry soon.

Harley continues to bring such joy to the house. He loves to play, and while he doesn't often sit on laps, you feel very honoured when he does.

 We built a net enclosure  to keep Tiny the tortoise safe very a very intrigued Harley. He's fascinated by the moving rock, and really wants to play, but we can't chance that he might hurt Tiny, even accidentally.  Now sitting above the heat lamp watching Tiny is one of Harley's favourite things ever.

Hey look at that, when I actually stat typing, I can come up with things. It might not be yummy recipes, or fantastic diy ideas, but it's my life right now. And that's okay.

A tough week

A couple of days after my last post we received some really bad news at a routine medical appointment. Nothing terminal, but nothing treatable either. It's going to mean some big adjustments to our day to day life, and our future plans. 

It's meant I've not had much time or heart for crafting, although I'm still working on the shawl I'm designing. (I've only frogged it twice so far). 
Here's another sneaky peek.

I did finish a long term WIP, a cover for my wheelchair cushion. The top and bottom were made ages ago, but I never got around to making the sides. The top, bottom and sides are all different yarns, scrounged out of deep stash. It's even a mix of knitting and crochet, so it's a real jumble. I don't mind, I think it looks okay, and it's Harley approved.

Harley has continued to bring a lot of laughs and has helped cheer us up. He loves to play fetch with a squishy sponge golf ball, and he'll spend ages taking it up stairs, dropping it, then chasing it back down again. I've not managed to get it on camera yet, but I'll keep trying.

 What we have done this week is cleaned out the back room. We've arranged all the musical instruments and amps in a bit of a music studio set up. It's looking so much better in there now, it had turned into a bit of a dumping ground. I wish I'd taken some before photos, but I'd be afraid to put them up to be honest. It was baaad. So much better now.

And today I made this miniature embroidery necklace for the younger sprog. The frame hoop is from The Works. you got two in the bag for £1, one like this, and a 4.5cm diameter circle one. Not sure what I'm going to do for that one, but I thought the triple moon would fit nicely in the oval. I should have printed my template a few mm's smaller, but never mind, it fits, just. The moons are back stitch in metallic silver thread, and the pentacle is long stitch in a rainbow multi thread. Penny for scale.

Well that didn't last did it? Let's try again.

So much for starting a blog.  I really didn't get in to the habit, and suddenly it's nearly a year since my last post. 

I think my problem is two fold. One is that I am a private person, and when things are tough, I clam up. I don't like talking about it, and believe me this past year has been pretty rough. The other issue I have, is that my live is boring. I'm disabled, I don't work, I rarely leave the house. I don't know how to write about that in a way that anyone would want to read. 

That might be changing though, and that's what prompted me to come back to my blog. I'm currently working my way through an online knitting diploma. Now I've been knitting for years, but this course doesn't just teach the basics of knitting. It also teaches designing, and how to market your designs. 

I was sceptical at first, I didn't think I could come up with new designs. But, with a bit of prompting from the course materials, I found that I did have design ideas, lots of them, and just maybe, this is something I could do. 

I love reading designer's blogs, I love following the story from inspiration to finished design. I like seeing a peek behind the curtain into their lives. If I'm going to be a designer, I should take inspiration from the designers I like, right? So here I am, password recovered (it had been so long I had forgotten it) and blogger reopened. I'd love to say that this is it, and I'm going to blog faithfully and frequently from here on out. I'd love to, but I can't. My health, and life are just too unpredictable. I am going to try though. 

Since one of the things I love reading blogs for is the pictures, here's a round up of some of the things that have happened recently.

The biggest change has been getting a cat. This is Harley, he's roughly 6 months old and is an absolute joy. I'd forgotten just how much it can lift your mood to have something small, warm, and soft trust you enough to curl up and go to sleep on you. He loves to play too, and the amount of laughter in the house has increased tenfold since he arrived. 

We spent the Easter weekend down in Wales visiting my mum. The weather was glorious and we spent a lot of time at the beach. Harley came with us, and while he wasn't thrilled about the car journey, he was very well behaved and seemed to settle in fine at Mum's house. He loves playing in the bath, and mum's is huge!

(We were cleaning the bathroom, he was supervising)

I made a knit and crocheted wreath for Ostara. I made up some bits, used free patterns for the flowers and bunny, and did bead work for the blossoms. I only used stash, so the colours are quite as vibrant as I would have liked, but I'm still happy with it.

Apart from the wreath, my crafting has been a bit hit and miss. I finished a hat for me, and one for my daughter to give to her friend. I've worked a bit on my cross stitch of Zojoji temple. I did some sashiko (the rabbit and the dragon). I did learn how to do embroidery, and embroidered my husband's black belt, I also embroidered a couple of drawings I did, that was fun. I want to do more embroidery, but my focus has shifted back to knitting with this course.

Finally here's a sneak peek at the first design I'm working on. A different use for self striping sock yarn.

Thanks for reading.

Finish one thing, start something totally new!

Well that was quick!
I have been working pretty exclusively on the Conduit shawl for the past week. On Sunday I finished knitting it, on Monday it was washed and blocked, and yesterday I took advantage of the beautiful sunny morning to take some photos.

I'm so happy with how it turned out. I had plenty of yarn left over when I got to the end of the pattern, so I added an extra 4 garter stripes. That meant that the rainbow starts and ends with orange. I think it looks much better then ending with the greeny-yellow.

I've got some exciting new things coming up soon. I've started working with some wood and leather to make various pieces of jewelry and shawl pins.

The most exciting thing to happen this past week was the arrival of this amazing prize I won from ravelry.

 It's a complete Learn To Spin kit, with two spindles, a book, dvd and a selection pack of fibre.

 It too a little while to get going, but I soon got the idea of park and draft spinning.

Here's my very first attempt at yarn. It's very uneven, but it's a start :D

W.I.P Wednesday

Welcome to my first W.I.P (Work In Progress) Wednesday. This past week I've really only worked on my rainbow conduit shawl, but since this is the first one, I'll do a full round up. I've pulled out all the projects I'm currently working on and taken some photos.

First is the shawl. It's Kauni Wool 8/2 Effektgarn in EQ (that's the rainbow) and Drops Baby Alpaca Silk. The Kauni is very rough to knit with, but the Drops is beautifully soft, so they balance out.

Next is the worsted weight sweater. The pattern is Split Ends, and I'm knitting it in Knit Picks Wool of the Andes. It's not the softest yarn ever, but it's nice enough, and pretty affordable. Sweater quantities of yarn can get expensive fast!

This is the start of an Everyday Shawl. It's knit in Rowan Fine Art in Kingfisher. This is the third or fourth project I've started with this yarn. I loved the look of it in the skein, but I've never been happy with how it knits up. I think I might be on to a winner with this one, but I need to do a bit more to be sure.

This is a Nautilus shawl I'm doing with a  Schoppel-Wolle Laceball 100. It's going to take forever, but should look amazing.

This is my magnus opus. It's a fair isle sweater knit with 4 kilometers of Drops Flora on 2.5mm needles. The pattern is Peace Jubileumsgenser. I printed the charts out on A3 paper so I can actually see them, but I can't work on it for too long at any one time before my brain turns to mush. I've nearly finished the first page of  the charts, and I started it in July 2017. It does go weeks without me touching it at all though. So much to knit, so little time. 

 And finally I thought I would show you the cross stitch I'm working on too. I've finished the bottom right quarter here, I've still got an awful lot to go. This is my oldest WIP, I got it for Christmas 2014! The finished piece should measure 40x27cm (16x10 1/2”). It’s a snow covered Zojoji Temple.