Tidy up time

Tidy up, thats what we get the students to do right now, that gap between handing in the last project, and producing the show, and getting their marks back. Tidying up is also what all the staff are doing between marking, all those planning meetings about finishing up this years teaching and activity and planning for next year. Gosh I even tidied up my desk at work the other day, both the hard mock-wood one I sit at and the desk-top computer one. Its only been two days since I last blogged so there is not much progress to show, but there are a few things that seem to have escaped a report on the blog - so today I'm tidying up all the little blog reports. There is the latest wash cloth, blue this time, where I'm up to with my Tangled yoke cardigan, the latest spinning (cashmere silk!), and some more fiber .... thanks to a very nice local fiber supplier.



But first washcloths, yes I'm knitting another, this will be number 3, Chinese Waves again, but this time in blue. There are over 500 of these knitted on Ravelry, not counting people like me who post them 2 to an entry because that is how many you get from 50g of cotton. I was fascinated by the photo on Maggies blog, but I loved it even more once I had knit enough of the pattern to see what was going on. Because every 2nd row is alternalte slip and knit stitches, the pattern knits up into a lattice, but one with little openwork holes. Something neat happens as the slipped stitches are pulled up and out by the knit stitches.


The reverse side is a little less charming, a sort of a pebbled garter, but there is a hint of the diagonal lattice pattern happening.




And my Tangled yoke cardigan, well it has languished in the bottom of my knitting basked, I might have several projects on the needles, but secretly I seem to be only able to focus on one at a time, and nope, I've not been knitting more tangles... this is where I'm at, I do intent to be back on this in the next few days - because I need to finish it and I'm being tempted by Owls.


So my spinning, this is the softest yummiest stuff I've spun, ever. Knitting Linguist brought this with her when she visited, and I'm sure I've not done it justice, but spinning it was so nice. Its 56g of Cashmere Silk, which I've spun up to 342m of two ply. All I can think of is a scarf or simillar so that I can experience this close to my face - no idea when, I think I'll just leave this around near my chair at home and fondle it every now and again.


and more gotland, Hamish, the nice guy who has the gotland flock known as Chocolate Wool really is a nice guy. He offered to replace the last batch of gotland that I bought from him, the one which has not survived processing well, and turned into a felted bump. I did have other goltland from him which was very nice, so as well as his offer of a free replacment cloud of dark gotland, I also purchased a ligher grey bump of fiber, also as a cloud.

There are so many different fiber preps out there, batts, carded batts, clouds, rovings, pencil rovings, pin drafted rovings, rolags, combed, carded, flicked, picked ... I'm not to clear on what makes a cloud a cloud, as it seems like a loose roving or sliver - but it is nice to spin from. Photos don't do it justice,, the dark is darker, the light lighter - and this one day is intended to be a shawl or two -- after I finish spinning pink alpaca (200g to go on that).


ok - not everything got tidied up in this post, my Honey socks are still to finish, I've got more yarn than I'd like to admit to enter into my Ravelry stash, I've sent off a Kiwi Spinners swop box, which I will link to when she posts, and one of my Pomatomus has a hole, which I've get to decide if I will mend or abandon. I can darn, I have a collection of darning eggs and mushrooms ... but I never really fell in love with the merino bamboo blend it was knit in. Too loose, too crunchy, too something. Sounds like abandon dosn't it?

take care
Stella