Northern Wanderings - week one......

September a month of Indian summer days and our favourite month for travelling...........

Our travels began on September 9th when we travelled up to Bury and spent a couple of days at Burrs Country Park on the Caravan Club site - no surprises that we were pitched right next to a railway line - preserved steam of course......

Of course we had to have a ride on said train, and I managed to get a little knitting while waiting for the train

But the main reason for the journey north was to visit the Sheepfest in Sedburg - it was the most amazing day, the whole community had engaged with the project, even the assistant in the local shop was dressed up as a sheep!  My favourite was the Post Office sheep a parcel addressed to:

Mrs BaarBarr Ewing at the Lambington Maternity Hospital, Fleece Street, Ramsbottom-on-Hay, Sufolk, SH3 3PS

Besides the sheep the was the most amazing dress of many colours in the church - made by the local school children..

While there was a lot of sheep on our travels, there were several trains rides and while we in the area we just had to ride the train over the Ribbleshead Viaducton the line from Settle to Carisle

Lovely on a warm Autumn day - but guess it would bleak and cold in the winter..............

So ends the first week of our Northern Perambulation ........... next stop Blackshaw Moor!

Out and About - Sedbergh Sheepfest

Miss Bliss and I are on the road again! This time we are in Cumbria for Sedbergh's
Sheepfest

When knitting gets in the way of spininng...............

Question do you spin to knit, or knit because you spin?  Just recently I just seem to have got the balance between the two quite right...  OK for the past couple of years I have knitted shawls as cover ups - which is a wrong reason for knitting shawls!  Last year my GP told me that I had to lose weight, or risk becoming a diabetic.  Perhaps that was the wake up I needed. In my heart I knew that I wasn't happy as I was which was why I hid behind the shawls..

Well, I have been a good girl - as of Sunday I have lost 13 kilos and I rediscovered my knitting sweater/cardigan mojo - garments that I want to be seen in, not something to hide in.

So my spinning wheels are feeling a little neglected as the knitting needles are my constant companion in the evenings.............

As time goes by............

When you no longer have a regular commitment to work or family weekends no longer have the same significance, in fact some days if it wasn't for the fact that my medication says today is Thursday I would be hard put to say what day of the week it is!  And has for the date - well that's something to be checked up on my smart phone...

And that's it, technology love it or hate it, in today's modern world you cannot get by without recourse to it.  It struck me yesterday as I was ordering my new car the salesman asked if I had access to a scanner so that I could email him a copy of the one document I had forgotten to take with me.  If I had been younger would he have even asked!  In today's world access to the Internet at all times is not a luxury but an essential and even when away from home you still expect to send and receive emails all the time.

I can remember my Grandfather had a little routine that he went through every time he left the house, he checked to see that he had his keys, his pipe and matches and his camera if not going to work, gave Gran a peck on the cheek and left the house, stopping on the front step to put on his hat.  Today I never leave home without my phone, iPad, car keys (although these just have to be in my bag) and my knitting or drop spindle!

Since Fibre East I have been indulging my passion for sewing! Intrigued by a friends large project bag I set out to recreate one for myself and in true sassy fashion I didn't just make one I made lots.............

There are a couple more, but I gave them away before I took a pic!  Each of the large bags has a smaller one inside which is attached to the large bag so you can't lose it and for some I have made a medium sized bag to match!  And they all have beaded pulls for the zips - just because I like making them.....

Now Mr S wants to know what are they all for............ 

What a silly question, bags are for stuff and I have rather a lot of stuff, so need bags for my stuff!  The more stuff you have the more bags you need, so you have buy more stash to enable you to make the bags for the stuff you already have and the stuff you bought to make the bags for the stuff! 

Have wheel will travel - on the road again!

After her holiday in Yorkshire for Le Tour, Miss Bliss demanded another!  So I took her to Fibre East..

Fibre East for those not in the fibre loop, is a festival of yarn and fibre held for the last four years near Bedford - hence the name!  This being the only event of its kind held on the eastern side of the UK.

I have been involved from the very first - taking part in the Back to Back Challenge in 2011, sitting sewing up Woolsack cushions in a waterlogged Marquee in 2012 and sweltering in the heat at the new venue of Redbourne Community College in 2013!  This year it was bigger and in my opinion even better - this year we had workshops!  Deb Robson, Sarah Lamb, Sarah Anderson, Abby Franquemont and Ann Kingstone.  All were very well attended and from speaking to the participants afterwards it seems that everyone had a great time and learnt loads!

Unfortunately because I was so busy I forgot to take many photos...........

Ampthill was festooned with knitted bunting as was the walkway leading to the main entrance, where visitors were confronted with a knitted bike,  

a decorated spinning wheel and

 a ram with attitude who presided over the information desk.....

I did manage a 'quick' tour of the marquees catching up with old friends and chatting with new ones! 

This cushion I think really represents the colour of the whole event - it was on My Fine Weaving Yarn's stall, which was a riot of colour as it always is, but this caught my eye!  I really must get out my loom - think I said that after Wonderwool too!

Miss Bliss was a little disappointed that she didn't get out and about much, but after the stresses of a day volunteering she and I did managed half an hour spinning each evening and I finished my final challenge for the Tour de Fleece with this gorgeous skein of Southern Cross Fibre's Polwarth, Cashmere and Silk in the colourway Bushy Tailed!

Next year?  Yes of course.........................

Singles, love them or hate them.........

By singles I am not talking about people without partners, or the record single of the 1960s, or even the one to one game in tennis, nor the film or the singing group - but of the single stranded knitting yarn..........

A singles yarn, often called a single is what you end up with when yarn is spun and before it has been plied with another singles to make a plied yarn. Often called a 'one-ply yarn'  but that isn't really accurate because there are no multiple plies in this type of yarn.  Because of this singles yarns are not balanced yarns.  

If you look at a plied yarn you can see that the individual ply has been spun in one direction, and then multiple plies added and spun in the opposite direction to make what is known as a balanced yarn. Plied yarns generally do not lean to the left or to the right, and they do not curl.  Singles yarns will curl.  In fact, they are guaranteed to curl...............  This where the love hate thing comes in!

Several of my knitting friends are totally in love with single yarns, so much so that they seldom knit with anything else!  Because they love them so much I was asked if I would custom dye  a sweater quantity and naturally I said yes!

Didn't think that there would be any problems and since I acquired 'Baby' (my Baby Burco water boiler) I can easily dye 500 grams at a time!  The undyed singles bought I set to work sampling

 The aim was to get as close to the yarn on the card as possible - the far right sample is almost bang on - so onto the 400 grams of singles! 

Simples, or so I thought!

What a disappointment - uneven coverage and lots of places with no colour at all!  Not at all what I expected and I couldn't understand what had happened until..

About a week later, by mistake I skeined up some singles for samples rather than the superwash merino that I normally use and I got similar results to the whole skeins!

I'm not sure that it is clear from the photo but these samples are patchy, lots of undyed yarn, not like my normal samples with an even saturation of colour.

It was then that the light bulb moment happened - singles are slightly felted so that the fibres stay together - felt sheds water - so the answer is that the yarn wasn't getting wetted right though and dry yarn doesn't absorb dye like wet yarn does!

So here is a sweater quantity of singles, no undyed bits and a good even coverage....................... 

So the dyeing problem is solved!  But do I like singles as a knitting yarn - well I am sitting on the fence on this one, will see how much I like the sweater I am knitting with singles when it finished and blocked.





 

Have spinning wheel will travel....

I been more than a little absent from my blog over the last few weeks, but with good reason - I have taken my spinning wheel on holiday.............

To Yorkshire, so that she could watch Le Tour de France, and she and I had a wonderful time

We were fortunate to have booked a pitch at Cragg Vale right on the route for Stage Two

Here is our pitch with bunting - all knitted my yours truly, and yes I know that there isn't a pink jersey in Le Tour, it is my celebration of the Giro where the leader wears a pink jersey!

Mytholmroyd at the foot of the longest continuous climb in the UK attempted and made a new world record for the longest stretch of bunting -  12,115 metres

Some of the Bunting

The Robin Hood Inn at Cragg Vale

Painted Bike

More Yellow bikes

The sign reads 'no cycling!'

Bonjour!

The bunting stretched from the village right up the hill and all along the route there were yellow bikes, and various effigies and on the hill a painted bike that really needed to be seen from above....

Did I really spin? Yes I did and so did a lady cyclist from Somerset who couldn't resist getting a fix!

Two bobbins of singles that were spun on the roadside - SCF Perendale in Cheese Platter

And to finish a perfect Mr S was lucky enough to catch a musette thrown by one of the Garmin riders......

Thank you Yorkshire!