Happenings in craft

Unfortunately, there's not a lot to report of late. I still have some embroidery to finish for a long drawn out swap on Craftster, as well as the second half of the second sock for a different swap, and a couple of skeins of yarn which just haven't progressed at all. I think I'm going to run out of yarn for the sock and it's handspun, so I could have trouble getting the yarn the same thickness. I think it was navajo plied too, which makes it even trickier . . .

See what uni does to a crafting lifestyle?!

Shibori Scarf

Yesterday evening I went to mag nation on Elizabeth St to meet up with some knitters from Ravelry. It was my first meeting with them, but we had a lot in common and I know I had a great time, anyway. Everyone was really friendly and funny and, being knitters, we had heaps in common. It's amazing all the stuff you can learn too!

Anyway, because I was having so much fun, my needles were flying and the scarf I posted yesterday got finished! So today I had my first attempt at Shibori felting and I'm pretty pleased with the results, I have to say. This scarf is for a swap as it's getting far too warm to be needing them around here! Apologies for the sideways pics, I thought that I'd saved them upright . . .

This is a close up of the unfelted "bubbles". The little ones didn't quite work, but the big ones sure did! I like the random pattern on this end, although I was trying to make smaller bubbles as I got closer to the middle of the scarf.

This picture is of the whole scarf drying on the clothesline. Along with the towels I washed as I was felting it! There's not enough water around to be using the machine to felt one scarf, and I had to wash the towels anyway, so they added extra agitation. You can see how the other end of the scarf has a pattern of bubbles in a triangle pointing towards the middle of the scarf. I wanted the two ends to be different. Also, this photo sort of shows the seed stitch border which hasn't been felted out of existence. I like the level of felting on this scarf but if I was making it again, I'd use a looser gauge as it's a very thick scarf now! I used 6.5mm needles when the recommended on the ball band was 4mm. The yarn (in case I forgot to mention) is Lincraft's cosy wool (100% wool) which was okay to work with but did have quite a lot of vegetable matter in it. But it felts beautifully and is pretty cheap with a good range of colours.

Why can't I get into this blogging thing? :D

Obviously, I have trouble keeping up with my blogs. However, the last month has been pretty hectic with health crises in our family and uni and stuff. But I have been knitting!

Project one is the Ruffle Cuff anklets from Ann Budd's "Getting Started Knitting Socks", published by Interweave Press. It's not too far along, which I feel bad about as it's for a Craftster swap :s But to be fair, I did have to spin the yarn first! It's the aqua coloured one under the stripey one on the cover.

The other project is one of my own design, a simple stocking stitch scarf with a seed stitch border. I'm going to try Shibori style felting this one. It's also for a Craftster swap and I'm about 3/4 of the way through knitting it.

Introduction to the crafting blog

This blog will be for my crafting stuffs because I already have a personal blog. Hopefully it will mostly be filled with my own designs, but we'll see how time allows. I suspect it will mostly be knitting, but as I do spinning, felting, embroidery, stencilling and various other crafts as well, I think it will have a nice mix of things. Eventually I might be up for selling things, but we'll see how that goes as well. It would be nice to make a living from this stuff . . .