HOW TO DO A CURLICUE

Just in case anyone wants to know - here's how to do a curlicue - it's really easy - a great finishing fringe for a beginner - or novelty earings made from those wee bits of really fabulous handspun yarn.

start by making a chain of any length you fancy - for the green & pink one in the pic I did a starting chain of 7.

Next do another 3chain to make your first treble (double for Americans) then do 4 trebles into 4th chain from needle.

from here on do 5 trebles (doubles) into each chain.

The principle here is that there are too many stitches for the piece of work to lay flat - so it will all curl up on itself - once you've finished just manipulate the curl as you want it.

The picture above is how it might look as it comes of the hook - just start at the end and coil it up on itself so it looks like the picky below

now all you need is to do is make enough for your fringe





Woad dyed curlicue earings - made with yarn dyed in Norfolk.

IRELAND SCARF - ALL FINISHED

Over the weekend I finished off my Ireland scarf - hoorah! I'm really pleased with it too - it's been my consolation for the lousy "summer" weather, because I've had an excuse to wear it!

It was the simplest pattern:

I made a chain with an uneven number of stitches

then I did a row of double stitching (singles if you're American) before starting the pattern rows

then the patten consisted of one row of - three chain to make first treble(double if you're American),* chain one, miss one double stitch, treble into next double stitch repeat from * to end.

then three rows of double stitching - then repeat pattern row and three rows of double to end of scarf (finishing with only one row of doubles after the final pattern row).

I added some rows of double stitches in a solid colour and then some more in a matching barley twist yarn at each end, then I added a row of curlicue danglies done in the barleytwist yarn.

notes about spinning of the yarn I used for this can be found at

http://fromfuzztofinished.blogspot.com/2008_04_01_archive.html

OH RAVELRY!

Well I say - I've joined Ravelry - finally.

It's amazing - I'm completely hooked (no pun intended!) - there's just so much going on there. I love looking through all the patterns - and there're FREE ones too - I've picked loads as favourites.

I love the fact that you can look at other peoples projects and read their notes - errata and things to look out for eg with sizing or choice of yarn. You can also see how patterns really look when hand knitted by ordinary mortals (as opposed to the designers version on the cover).

It's also nice to have a record of projects of one's own - both for current organisational purposes and for reference in the future.

Then there're the groups - linking with like minded people - I've joined the Time Team group and the Ravelympic Slackers Group already along with the UK Swappers group (which I don't really understand yet, but hey what the hell).

If you're into Knitting and Crochet I'd strongly recomend Ravelry - it's just so cool.

SPINNING IN THE MUSEUM GARDENS NOT

The title of Saturday's meeting was Spinning in the Museum Gardens - however the weather intervened and we were, sadly, indoors instead. It was, nonetheless a fun meeting - one of those chatty informative ones where you find out snippets of useful info that can be taken away for future use - in this case we were talking about weaving and it came up that someone in the Mid Essex Guild always leaves thread on the loom so that a new warp can simply be tied to this and pulled through - how cool is that.

We had visitors from the Mid Essex Guild (hence the previous conversation) which was particularly nice, and the museum had a Roman event where they built a bread oven based on an upturned basket covered in clay - this was fired by lighting a fire inside, the embers were later scraped out and bread was cooked inside. The first loaf cooked to a crisp on the outside in 5 minutes flat, whilst remaining soft inside. They also had a little bakery type stall set up demonstrating other Roman delicacies.

Inside in the dry with us was another lady in Roman attire demonstrating drop spindling and weaving on a warp weighted loom.

I spun more green and pink fibre towards the finishing of the scarf that I started in Ireland - this is nearly finished now, just a curly fringe to complete the look - so, by the end of the week.......

HOME FROM IRELAND

Well we got home safe & sound yesterday evening having had a wonderful time. Ireland is completely stunning and we saw quite a chunk of it in the few days we had - our friend, with whom we stayed, drove us all over the place - via all of the most scenic, one track, country lanes.

He lives on the rural edge of a small town with quiet neighbours....

and a dog

SOME VIEWS EN ROUTE TO SLIGO

SOME SIMILAR VIEWS ON THE WAY HOME

DYEING DAY

Last Saturday (actually it's a few weeks back now - pre Irish break) our guild held a natural dyeing day at one of our members houses. The weather was a little unpredictable so, instead of dyeing and spinning in the garden, we were housed in two barns - one for dyeing and one for spinning, chatting, eating and general conviviality. There was a good turn out and we also had visitors from the Mid Herts guild which was really nice.

We arrived in the morning and got ourselves settled in with tea and coffee and some wonderful home made biscuits - yumm. Then the mordant baths were set up and we all put various bits and pieces into each bath - four mordants were used - alum, chrome, copper and tin. These were then left to work and we went off and spun or knitted or socialised or all three. I had a sock knitting lesson - which was great fun and I may have a new obsession gripping me now!

After lunch various dye baths were brewed including coccineal, cota, bracket fungus (don't know which one) hollyhock, comfrey, coreopsis, dyers chamomile and maybe a few others - actually I wasn't paying proper attention as I picked three dye baths only, and then went back to sock knitting and yattering. I had some super wash merino and silk fleece which I split and put into the coreopsis and cota dye baths and I also had some alpaca, silk and wool fleece which I put into the cochineal dye bath. In the afternoon the tea and coffee came around again - this time with the most amazing cakes - I was briefly sent to heaven with a chocolate muffin stuffed with cream and jam.

I wasn't totally happy with the coreopsis samples, so I've over dyed one piece with some ancient dye bath which I'd had in the garden - I think it may have been madder - it was a little pungent and it came up a warm brown which I was quite pleased with - I'm planning to over dye another couple of bits - hopefully with a very fresh madder dyebath - perhaps next weekend when we get back from Ireland - I'm hoping that I'll get a stronger orange - can only try.

sadly I have no pics of the actual day as my batteries were out of power - lack of planning and forethought there!

I'd hoped to post this earlier but life is a little busy right now - my in-laws have just celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary so it's been a very family oriented time with my niece and nephews over from Canada and brother & sister in law over from Paris and the celebrating and general getting together. Then my own father will be visiting later this week, in order to go to the cricket at the oval with my hubby. All of this means that housework needs to take precedence over spinning (and blogging) - how dull!

OFF TO IRELAND

In about 35 minutes we're off to Ireland - I've only got one thing left to do - seeing as we're not taking hold luggage I've got to work out what I can take with me to do - knitting needles are out - can I get away with a drop spindle? opinions are divided on crochet hooks hmmmmmm....

next post when we return - next weekend