Sunday 17 November 2013

A little knitting

Hrm, blogging in the run-up to Christmas is proving a little trickier than I thought! I have plenty of projects on the go, but can't actually write about them at the risk of spoiling the surprise for those who might be reading this!

So I'll just share my own little indulgences:


 


The first one of my Bunty Mitts - the pattern is so Orla Kiely-tastic that it's a wonder I haven't made these sooner! The yarn is Shilasdair 4ply, a gorgeous vegetable dyed blend of merino lambswool, angora, cashmere and baby camel...it's like butter through the hands, and the shifting colours are mesmerising. 

As the weather is turning colder, I find myself in work daydreaming of rushing home to a cup of tea and a big, chunky, proper woolly knitting and so I've finally made a start on my very own hand spun sweater. It's one of the first yarns I spun when I started learning last year, having carded together 3 natural shades of Norwegian breed wool. It was inspired by the lady who delivers our eggs here in the village - she's not a known or conscious crafter as such, but she wears this wonderful, battered, organic-looking sweater on her rounds which she says is the result of her plucking a sheep, spinning the wool on a wheel she happens to have at the farm and knitting it up "just to see if it would work". 
Mine is far from  the best yarn ever spun: sections of the fabric are a little skewed where the yarn isn't properly balanced and there are bigger specks of white where I didn't quite card the fibre properly but the whole thing just feels so earthy and interesting to watch as it grows.



I am planning on sewing this lovely braid woven by friend Jan around the cuffs once it's done, to really complete the home-made-ness of it.