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.

Hi.

Hi, and welcome to my blog. I used to blog on Tumblr years ago, but I drifted away from tumblr, and so stopped blogging. I've decided to get back into it, so here I am.

This is a place for me to blog about the things I make, and also my day to day life living with spinal deformities and chronic pain.

I knit, crochet, paint, and draw. I do cross-stitch, pyrography, wire-work and beading...Basically if it's a craft I can do sat in my heated recliner, or at my desk, there's a good chance I do it, or want to learn it. You can see most of my knitting and crochet projects on my Ravelry Page here, but the plan is to put my current and future projects here too.

Photo shows the start of a striped knitted shawl project. Black yarn and rainbow yarn are striped in garter stitch with short row sections in black making 3 wedge shaped sections on the left .

The above photo is one of the things I'm working on right now. It's by a designer caller Lisa Mutch. A group of us in the LSG monthly thread on Ravelry decided that we were all going to choose any design of hers we liked, and all of us would knit them at the same time in a Mutch-along. I'll show you more of my projects as I work on them. I have a  worsted weight cabled sweater, a 4 ply fair isle sweater, a crocheted dragon, a knitted skirt, a lace weight t-shirt and a couple more shawls in progress right now. I really should get some things finished!

One of the things I've just started making are hair accessories. I have long hair, and the problems with my spine mean that it's difficult for me to do much with it. My husband washes and brushes it for me, he'll even french plait it for me, but I wanted to do something different. I got some bamboo chopsticks, and using wire, beads, alcohol markers and my dremel, made a selection of hair sticks to match my clothes.

Photo shows 6 chopsticks in different colours. Each one has coordinating charms and beads at the top, held on with wraps of thin wire.

So now you know a little about me, and the kind of things I like to make and do, I hope you'll stick around and join me on my blogging journey.