Look what I have!

I'm soooooo excited, I have a new toy to play with. This was an extremely generous gift from a friend who found it in an attic. I'm overwhelmed at how good people are to me :) It needs some tlc, but nothing that can't be sorted out, just need to find the time to play with it now!

Hats hats hats hats hats hats

I have hats floating before my eyes, been hatting frantically and we think we might just be about ready for the LARP fair this weekend. We've even bought a satnav system to help us get there in one piece! Anway, here are a couple of recent wossnames for you, the little sister of the Dwarven Battle Bonnet, and a pointy hat with detachable fully poseable felted dragon.

Rainbow Welly Socks

Made on my Circular Sock Machine then dyed after finishing, I did the dying for this batch in the microwave. Worked really well too, I normally use pans on the stove for these dip dyed socks but I'm pleased with the clarity fo the colour on these.

Monmouth Hats

There are a lot of patterns for Monmouth Caps on the net, none of them really work to my mind. I base my interpretation partly on the excellent description of the type in the article in Costume by Kirsty Buckland, but mostly on first hand personal examination of the surviving cap at the Nelson History Museum in Monmouth. Every time I knit one I try a slight variation, and after a dozen or more hats I’m starting to feel that I’m getting very close to replicating the key features of the original. I’m sure I can improve further though, I’m hoping to go back with my best efforts to compare them directly to the original again and see if I can refine further. Funny little hat, its amazing how constantly fascinated with this one I am.

Rib Tickler Wristlets

I made these for my sister in law's birthday, and the pattern is now available to download. They are a complete doddle to do, there are only four rows per mitt that you need to pay attention to, and those use simple cable type stitch manipulation to make the sections of ribbing smooth into each other nicely.

The really nice thing about these is that they use less than a skein of yarn and can be worn either way up or even inside out- the pattern is identical if you use a cast on and off that looks much the same.

Do let me know if you find any errors in the pattern or if you can think of a better way to represent the stitch manipulated rows, but its all pretty simple stuff. Just right for cool spring mornings.

Big Skeins

I needed a way to wind really long skeins for some dye projects, so Gareth kindly made me this today. It winds skeins 1.5m long/3m around, do I can do wider stripes in variegated yarn.

I've tried it for one skein so far, a red and dark grey custom dyejob as part of a trade, just need a chance to do some for my own use so I can try how it all comes out.

Pointy Hat and Stash tidying

I had a to do list as long as my arm for today, but I had to put it on hold to do something about my stash, it was about to implode badly and I had visions of having to excavate the cat from underneath it. So, I spent the afternoon bagging, cataloguing and listing a lot of it on Ravelry. Have to confess I ground to a halt when I reached the coned yarn, I just couldnt face photogaphing and listing all of that, so that can wait for another day. This is just the start of it, at this moment I have 14 similar boxes stacked, and thats just the bit that lives in that room.

I also felted/fulled this pointy hat. We went to my parent's for Burns night so I needed something easy to knit in the van.

I intend to give this a hatband of oak leaves, which I think will look rather nice.

Despite the vast stash I had to order wool today, had a commission in and none of the right stuff in stock, typical!