Thank Folksy it's Friday!

Not done one of these for a while, mainly due to being in the office from hell on Fridays.

Here is a selection of gorgeous spring/summer knitwear :)

Apologies.

Some of you may have noticed that I haven't been all that chatty recently - on here, on Twitter, Facebook or Folksy. Unfortunately my depression has reared its ugly head again and so I have been quite withdrawn. It's a battle I've been fighting since my teens but it became worse when I had my breakdown a couple of years ago. I think my office job, although it's only 2 days a week, makes it worse as I really don't like being there. Unfortunately my dyeing does not make enough money to cover my part of the bills yet so I have to struggle on unless I'm made redundant. My doctor has upped my anti-depressants and I'm feeling a little better now so hopefully I'll be more sociable over the coming weeks. I must be feeling better as I've finally got round to having my hair done!






















One of the positives that has come out of the last few weeks is that I've been experimenting with some new dyeing techniques and base yarns. The first of these is my Merino Tweed Sock. It is made up of two strands of ordinary merino yarn plied with one superwash strand. The superwash strand takes dyes more intensely resulting in a yarn that knits up with a tweedy effect. This does actually feel a little bit like cheating - like the magic painting books we had as kids where the colours magically appeared as the wet brush passed over them. I've decided to do some of this yarn as self-striping - this takes a lot more time and work than normal dyeing as the skeins have to be wound off and then re-wound for dyeing in different colours. It's easy to get things in a tangle, so it can't be rushed. For this reason the self-striping will be more expensive than the variegated version. Here is a photo of the first few rows of a sock in Watermelon self-stripe...






















Coming soon I will have Merino/Tencel Sock and Lace, Bluefaced Leicester/Silk Sock and Sparkle Sock in both gold and silver versions. All of these would make lovely shawls or wraps for cool summer evenings.

Before I go just a quick reminder - I currently have a sale on in my Zibbet shop - 15% off everything!!!

Happy New Year!!!

I know it's a bit late, but it had to be said :)

Can't believe my last blog post was back in October!

Things at the end of last year all seemed to disappear into a blur - first there was the flu, which it took me until the middle of November to get over fully and then there was the chaos that is the build up to Christmas.

Somewhere in the midst of all that I managed to open my Etsy shop. Coriandr and Misi simply weren't working for me so I have closed those shops now. I also now have a second Folksy shop, Woolworks Too, for knits. This has been a little neglected recently though I plan to add more to it in the near future.

I have also started to add spinning fibres to my shops, with an emphasis on British Breed fibres. See the examples below:
















Top: (L) Masham, (R) Dorset Horn
Bottom: (L) Merino & Soybean, (R) Black Welsh & Tussah Silk

I will also be carding vegan batts including fibres such as banana, bamboo, tencel, cotton, soybean and seacell.

As if that wasn't enough I have somewhat stupidly agreed to take part in a year long KAL on Ravelry. The UK Sock Knitters group is doing an A-Z 26 pairs in a year challenge. Here is the cast on of my first sock:












Unbelievably it's the first time I have ever done toe-up socks - I'm really enjoying it :)