Needles on the Move

You may have been wondering - and yes, I’m afraid the next Spin-a-Long will be a little delayed.

This is due partly to a whole lot of other work stuff which I won’t bore you with, partly having several busy weekends in a row, and partly to make way for this weekend’s Steek-a-Long :)

As I’m keeping you waiting I’ll leave the entry date for Colour Ways open until Sept 3rd.

The next Spin-a-Long will be dealing with spinning Mohair, with tips on other fluffy/hairy fibres. If you can get hold of some kid mohair curls that would be best - but processed top is also fine. I will be sharing a little bit of the lovely hand-dyed curls that mum sent me :-D if you are interested then drop me a line and I’ll send you a paypal link.

For the following Spin-a-Long you will need white, un-dyed silk top and some more mohair, white or coloured, for a truly cool yarny experience. I promise you’ll want to be in on this one!

Happy Spinning!

If you’re a spinner, you know full well the lure of a gorgeous, hand-dyed, colourful roving. I have a few (dozen) in my stash at the moment. Although I keep buying multi-coloured roving, however, I’ve never been a fan of the barber-pole effect in hand-spun yarn and I hate it when my beautiful roving ends up being a mish-mash of all the colours once spun, sometimes simply collapsing into a grey or murky brown.

In this Spin-a-Long we look at a few different ways of tackling a space-dyed roving, all of which will produce different effects in the finished yarn.

Download Sunday Spin-a-Long #5 here

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My apologies for being late on this one, it’s been one of those weeks I’m afraid. Also, I finally did the draw for SSAL #4, the winner is Anne K :-D Congratulations!

Silk Hankies are the type of thing I keep buying on impulse. I am a complete sucker for anything in a little bag with a little price, especially if it is dyed in pretty colours! Trouble is, I get home and discover that a) I don’t know how to spin it, and b) I don’t really have enough for anything useful if I did. This tutorial addresses the first question, now I’ve figured it out, and explores the second question by suggesting ways to stretch your supply as far as possible.

Download: SSAL #4: Playing With Hankies

Photos due by August 6th to be entered in the prize draw.

Happy Spinning!

Heather G. Congratulations!

Your prize is winging its way towards you :-D

My box of goodies came yesterday, some of it was not quite dry though, as the dyeing got held up at the other end, and it’s on the clothes rack. I should be able to get spinning tonight on SSAL #4 - Thanks for being patient!

Happy Spinning!

And hence no Spin-a-Long today :-(

I will have it up as soon as I get my big box full of silk hankies and other exciting stuff.

Photo entries for SSAL #3 - Turkish Knot are due 9am tomorrow!

Oops! I forgot to post the winner of Spin-a-Long #2 - but don’t worry, I did remember to contact her and have posted off the parcel of goodies :-D

‘It’s all in the Wrist’ winner was Lucy!

And now that I have the galleries sorted you can go check out the pics she sent in, and everyone else’s as well.

‘Crinkle Cut’ pics, ‘It’s all in the Wrist’ pics

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I also have another FO to show you. This was secret knitting for a while, but they have been sent off to their new owner, proud mum-to-be Nic, so I can post a piccy now.

Baby washcloths for Peanut, made from DB Pure Cotton. It was lovely to knit with and I’ll definitely be making another set next time I hear of a new baby on the way!

SSAL#3: Turkish Knot

Occasionally I get the urge to spin something that has fairly low useful value - but is really fun to do! Knot yarn looks cool, it’s not too tricky and if you can’t think of anything to make out of it you can at least leave it out on prominent display somewhere for visitors to admire.

Click here to download the full tutorial.

Pics for SSAL#2 are due to me by 9am tomorrow to be entered in the prize draw. SSAL#3 due Mon July 16th.

Supplies Checklist: SSAL#4 will be on spinning silk hankies and ideas for things to do with the yarn. Hankies are not expensive and are easy to mail order if you plan to take part (you can get them from Fyberspates). You will only need 1 or 2 to have a play, order a few more if you think you’d like to spin a useable amount of yarn.

It occurred to me this week that I seem to have been doing this bloggin thang for a while. So I tracked down the old Blogger blog, trawled through the archives and …

Yep. I missed my own Blogiversary :-(

On June 11 2006 I decided to start a blog. I was inspired by the Knitsmiths, who I tracked down through searching for sock patterns. This had brought me to Alison’s blog and I used her short-row pattern for my first ever socks and many subsequent pairs.

As I have nothing better to show you today (too much sneakret knitting and spinning going on here) I will send you on a little trip down memory lane where you can laugh at my first ever posts.

And because a no-photo post is kinda dull, here’s a couple to remind you that…

Yep, you should be getting in those entries for SSAL #2: It’s all in the Wrist! Which can be found here.

The winner of today’s prize draw for Crinkle Cut is Anne P  :-D I’d show you a piccy of what I’m sending her, but then it wouldn’t be a surprise so you’ll have to wait a couple of days ;-)

Thank you to everyone who participated, I will be donating £9 to Tricoteuses sans Frontieres for the entries received, and I know that there were a lot more people lurking around who did not send in photos. Keep telling your friends, and don’t forget, all you need to do to enter the prize draw is to spin a little sample and send me a pic!

Happy spinning,

Click here for SSAL #2: It’s all in the Wrist

Or, plying from an Andean Bracelet

I spin a lot of samples. For articles, photo shoots, to test out an idea or to find the best twist amount or wheel ratio. Being of a fairly unenergetic persuasion, I quickly tracked down a way of getting my short samples plied up without having to resort to spinning little bits on many bobbins and constantly unscrewing the flyer on my wheel …

For the whole tutorial click here

Thank you to everyone who has sent in entries for Crinkle Cut (it’s not too late). I will be drawing the winner at 9:00am tomorrow, and the gallery will be up soon so you can see everyone’s work.

SSAL #3 will be a quickie as I want to squeeze it in before I go on holidays later this month, SSAL #4 is a while away but I was thinking maybe silk hankies :-D I’ll let you know in plenty of time what you’ll need.

Happy Spinning!