News of the day

I have continued to walk around the lake, knitting, and so finished the orange hat and a green one

They're the same as the brown stripey one (which I posted before) because I put them into "Charms class" when I was studying a duplication charm. (lol) The orange one was so non-pooling that I had decided dyeing with iceblocks was a great way to get yarn guaranteed not to pool. Then I knit up the green one and was surprised to see it pooling in diagonal stripes. Now that I look at the orange one again, it has very faint diagonal stripes, too; I guess there's no avoiding color pooling with variegated yarn!

I also whipped up this one

for Jasmine, because I got a felted flower badge with a fibre club I joined (where you pay for a fibre surprise - fun!) I wouldn't give her the fibre to love and cuddle (much to her disappointment) but she loves her flower hat.

This is the fibre: Merino/tencel 70/30 from Kathy's Fibres. 150g. I'm going to spin it in May :)

I have two more plans for May. (Well, two main plans, and lots of other plans... hehe) The first is a Potions OWL. I'm planning on using up some sport-weight stash and knitting a colorwork vest, using this as my guide but making up my own colorwork. The swatch is done; show you next time ;)

The other plan is to spin a Giant Mashup, practicing my 2ply and using up some stashed fibre. I'm going to mix 2 plies each of a bunch of different colors, and make an Idlewood top. It would actually have made a good Potions OWL, but I'm convinced I could get more points by submitting each part to a class. So I'm... researching... Points Maximisation.

And playing with the fibre stash.

The last thing I spun was some pretty, multicolored BFL/mohair from Kathy's Fibres. I loved the mix last time, and I love the socks, so when I saw some more I grabbed it, though it was not a colorway I would have chosen.

I can't think why.

I love it, and it's going to make bright, happy socks. Good Winter socks.

Anyway, the news of the day is that Slytherin won the House Cup again! We have won more than our fair share these last 6 terms, because we are awesome, obviously. Next term I'm going on a little tour to spend my seventh year over with the Ravenclaws! There are a lot of nice people up there in the Tower, and I'm looking forward to seeing how differently they organize themselves.

It's Sorting Week. Want to come and play?

:)

NEWT 2 all done

Well, I finished off Byron's top in time to get all the points :) and he's been wearing it quite a bit during the cool autumn days. He loves it.

I don't think I'm happy with the shape; it's really wide under the arms, and the collar looks ok when off, but weird when it's worn. But who cares, if he's happy. He has been pestering me for a matching hat, and Jasmine wants one of her own. lol. That's because they know the image came from this...

Toothless, from "How to Train Your Dragon", their current favorite, which they are watching for the twentieth time as I write :)

The whole NEWT

I also did another rolag and woollen-spinning experiment. I used some black alpaca Kelly had sent me from London, mixed with sparkly bits, and some "Licorice allsorts" merino from EGMTK. NaturallyKnitty gave me the good idea of making rolags on the carder. (She made these) and so I mixed up my merino/alpaca/angelina and made 12 ten-gram rolags up.

I spun from the ends, letting up the twist and stretching it out, and ended up with some shiny dark yarn with flecks of color all through it, if you look up close.

It's so hard to get a picture with accurate colors. Anyway, it's a bit rough, as you see, and I'm going to prefer worsted spinning for a long time, just because I like it even and smooth, but it certainly is fun to try something different. It goes against the grain to let twist up into the fibre like that, though. hehe.






Well, it's April, which means it's the month between "terms" in the HPKCHC, and I'm having a month off :) to try and finish some unfinished things. Mainly I'm planning to work on Gala and Vivian, although I may have started some socks and some spinning... heh.