My Fibre Obsessed Life

This one was an easy one for me, the thing I most aspire to is colourwork.  I long to make those beautiful mittens that I have seen so many of on people’s blogs this week, without pulling all my hair out in the process.

I have tried my hand at some very, very simple colour work before.   I made Xan a pirate jumper (but see how the blue block the design is on puckers at the edges )

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I think I may have even mentioned my longing to do colourwork during last year’s blog week, and then avoided doing anything about it for the rest of the year.  Well this year will be different, I have picked out a pattern and I have chosen the yarn ready to cast on when I get a quiet couple of hours- Wish me luck:

Tutorial- How to make an obsessive crafter.

You will need:

• A stash (yarn and/or fibre)- the type of stash can vary depending on the type of obsessive crafter you’re trying to make, from the small and well organised stash, all the way to the wild and untamed, ‘enough to open a shop if only you could find anything’   stash.

• An ability to devote far more time than the average person to thinking about all things crafty.

• An assortment of tools- again the type of tools will depend on the type of obsessive crafter you’re trying to make-chose from a range of knitting needles or crochet hooks or spinning tools (warning this one can get really expensive) or weaving equipment (again another possible route that will make your bank account cry)- or if you want to make a really obsessive crafter select all of the above.

• Optional (but strongly recommended) a Ravelry account- this is a perfect resource for the obsessive crafter- not only can you browse patterns, tutorials, and meet other obsessive crafters, it is also an excellent source for information on increasing both stash and tools.

Method:

Various methods can be used here with the same end result, this is just the method I used (ymmv ).  Start  small, learn to knit or crochet or spin or weave, etc, etc as a ‘hobby’ , perhaps as a way to fill a couple of hours once or twice a week. Join Ravelry and find the time you spend online reading about your ‘hobby’ creeping up and up, as your stash grows week by week.

Before too long you’ll find yourself staring at people in the street to figure out how their jumper or hat or scarf was made and gleefully realising that you could make your own, better version.

Warning- if you let the obsessive crafter get too obsessive  you do run the risk of living on beans on toast for the rest of the week when you get lucky in the Wollmeise scrum or having your loved ones roll their eyes at you everytime you want to pause the movie to get a better look at that interesting hat.

The obsessive crafter tattoos, like everything else, are completely optional:

I had to think for a long time which of my many finished objects had any kind of story to tell and as I was sat here at my desk trying to decided I felt a little cold and reached for my Clapotis to wrap around my arms.  I never blogged about this FO, I never entered it into my Ravelry projects page, I never even took pictures of it before today- it has just sat there quietly serving its purpose.  A lot of the time I keep it either over the screen that hides my stas and other junk (it made an appearance in my photo for yesterdays post) or on the back of my computer chair ready for if I get chilly at my desk:

I made it with my first ever purchase from Get knitted- the yarn,  SWTC Karaoke, was in the sale, but it was the most I had ever spent on one project before and I had to be talked into the purchase by my wonderful, enabling husband.  Since I finished it, at least 3 years ago, it has been a wrap on a spring day or summer evening to keep the chill off my arms, a thick, warm scarf when its really cold and snowy out, something to wrap around my shoulders when I’m chilly at my desk and occasionally a bad dream blanket that smells of mummy when my littlest one has had a bad dream:

A well used, well loved finished object that, despite my reluctance at the time to spend so much on something as frivolous as yarn (lmao, how things have changed since then), a project that was well worth the money spent on supplies.

Or in my case untidying mind, untidy stash-  the only thing keeping my stash from developing its own habitat is the fact that I have to make sure I can still work in my room without being too distracted by yarn/fibery goodnes.    I try keep most of my stash (the yarn component at least) in these drawers, which I had originally planned to keep well organised (sock weight in the top drawer, DK in the second, hand-spun in the third, etc), but in reality I stuff things in where they will fit:

The majority of the rest of my supplies are kept organised in boxes behind this screen in my room:

Well, actually that was the theory when I bought a supply of boxes last summer in an attempt to get myself organised, but pull back the screen and the shameful, untidy truth is plain to see:

And lets not forget the overspill onto my desk:

I dread to think what my ‘organisational’ skills say about me- I like to kid myself that I just like to have my supplies easily accessible (but I know the truth is there’s just far too many things I’d rather be doing than tidying my stash).

I think the biggest change in my crafting skills since this time last year is that I no-longer have a fear of charts.  Probably sounds like such a little thing, and really it is, but for the first 5 years of knitting I avoided any patterns that were charted.   Last year for blog week the skill I said I wanted to develop was lace knitting, a goal I realised would require me conquering my chartaphobia.

Over the course of the year I stopped letting charts put me off in my pattern choices and I realised something when all those squiggles started to make sense- I actually prefer charted instructions.  A decision that has been influenced by my recent purchase of a kindle, which allows me to zoom in on charts.  This method probably won’t work so well for large charts, but it works great for things like lace or cabled socks:

Now I just need to develop the patience to tackle a bigger lace project without getting frustrated at the seemingly slow progress I’m making on it.

I am a bit of a tart when it comes to yarn, I am drawn to pretty colours and wonderful textures like a moth drawn to the light .  I have to admit that I have a particularly soft spot for rainbow yarn though, like my most favourite handspun rainbowtastic yarn:

Which ended up being made into mittens that cheer up even the coldest day:

So, although its hard for me to pick just one favourite yarn, I am going to sing the praises of the colour riot that is zauberball (particularly in the Frische fische colourway), the lace weight is my own particular favourite:

This particular ball became the rainbow canopy shawl I blogged about yesterday:

As for a yarn that I just don’t get on with, like any good crafty tart will tell you, that’s a hard one to pick.  I guess I do have a bit of a love/hate relationship with handpainted yarn- you know the kind that doesn’t really have long enough colour repeats to be self-striping, but isn’t really variagated either? I am constantly drawn to these beautiful colour combinations, letting them seduce me into a purchase, all the while being completely aware that my experience with the yarn may end up being a slightly less satisfy pooling one.   I guess I have to shyly admit that to this crafty tart, even a frustrating pooling experience with a wonderful yarn is better than no experience with it

I wanted to post some reason why I have not blogged for so long, and when I finally sat down to write this I realised, the simple fact is I just had nothing to say.  I have always been the type of person to submerse myself in my latest obsession, almost to the exclusion of all my other interests.  I know this isn’t healthy so I seem to spend a lot of time fighting myself to keep some sense of balance in my life.  My blog (along with my forum posting, but that’s another story) seems to have been one of the things that fell by the wayside in one of these struggles.

I have still been crafting away all this time I’ve been absent from blogland,  in fact I finally got out my blocking mats and blocked my rainbow canopy shawl:

I am actually a little ashamed at just how long it took me to get around to blocking this, now that its properly finished (and I can wear it) I love it more than ever.

A little bird just told me that its the 2nd Knitting and crochet blog week this coming week, perhaps that will be just the kick up the arse I need to get me posting regularly again.

…so hopefully I should be able to get back to posting on a more regular basis.  I’ve been managing to grab some craft time, I made sure I could for my own sanity lol, but uninterrupted time on my computer hasn’t been too easy to get these past few weeks.

Took the kids to the Industrial Museum in Bradford yesterday afternoon and I think I’m going to have to go back for a more leisurely look round once they’re back at school.  I particularly enjoyed  all the textile industry exhibits on the first floor- so much so Xan exasperatingly said ‘You’re fibre obsessed Mummy.’- I think he even managed a little eye roll lol.

We have a rich history of textile manufacturing in this area and it was fascinating to get a closer look at some of the equipment that was once in use. This machine in particularly made me chuckle:

And all the combed top surrounding this one made me almost want to move into this display:

And look at all the bobbins this machine could spin at the same time:

At the moment I’ve got a more craft projects ongoing than I can really handle, lets see… I have two pairs of socks, a scarf, my forest canopy shawl (still) and a cardi on the needles; I am in the middle of weaving a scarf and I have a woven wall hanging to embellish and finish off; I’m in the middle of dying some handspun corriedale, I’m in the middle of spinning some BFL humbug on my rose and am corespinning a merino blend on my Julia.   Takes a deep breath- hhmmmmm maybe I’d better focus on getting some of these finished before I add any more to the list lol.

Core spinning:

Wall hanging on the loom:

So I had an amazing time at the Damned gig on Thursday night, its been so long since we went to a gig (years actually, last time I was heavily pregnant with Xan who just turned 7 :O ) and I’d forgotten just how great it was seeing live music from the moment you walk in and you can feel the beat thudding right in your chest.  The venue was really good, it only has a capacity of just over 500 so the whole thing had a really intimate feel to it- I much prefer to see bands somewhere like this.   The damned were awesome- they played a really long set and I enjoyed every single minute of it.

Did I mention there was pain involved though?? Yes, I believe I did- well I wore my new shoes (a birthday present which I was allowed to have a day early so I could wear them to the gig):

They look awesome and whilst being perfect for the occasion, were also terribly impractically for dancing for hours.  My feet were only sore for one day afterwards, so it was still totally worth it lol. Besides it meant I could spend my birthday chilling out, knitting and watching movies with the family.    It also meant that I made a lot of progress on my sleepy hollow socks:

I’m really enjoying this pattern, I particularly love how the heel flap and gusset are worked at the same time- it makes for a very neat, well fitting heel.  Not far off decreasing for the toes now.

Time seems to moving so quickly at the moment.   My mum was visiting from France last week and it was really great to see her.   And as an added bonus she baby-sat for us on the Saturday night so we could have our first night out together in seven years.  We didn’t do anything spectacular, just had a few drinks in a local pub, but it was still really good.  I finished the stripy socks I’d been working on whilst she was here and I sneaked them into her luggage as a surprise thank you (so no FO picture of that pair of socks)

I’ve also been plugging away on my rainbow shawl for the shawl-a-long- I’ve gotten 19 lace repeats done and have over 300 stitches on my needles so each row is taking about 15-20 minutes.  As you can imagine its slow going with it now, but I’m determined to keep increasing until I’m absolutely sick of knitting the thing and then start the edging chart.

Xander’s birthday last week went pretty well, although at times he found all the excitement a bit too much to cope with. Its hard to believe that he’s 7 already, he still seems so much younger at times.   He loved all his presents though, but as you can probably tell his skateboard was his favourite one:

Am suffering from a strange mix of excitement and anxiousness at the moment, which is an interesting combination to say the least.   Our night out whilst Mum was staying with us went so well that we decided we could risk doing it again with the MIL babysitting and yesterday these arrived:

Yes, my awesome husband is taking me to see The Damned for my birthday! !! This is the bit causing me the excitement.  The related anxiety is caused by the fact my MIL has never looked after Xan and I’m stressing about whether it will go well or not.  (I really hope so cos we want to go see the buzzcocks next month and it feels so good being able to do this kind of stuff after such a long time).