Making When You Feel Like It

After moving I didn't pick back up my spinning. Mostly because there was a very intense period of extreme busyness, but also because I just didn't feel like it. My knitting always took preference, and so my wheel sat there gathering dust. I did a little spinning here and there, mostly because I felt guilty for neglecting my spinning and decided that I 'should' do it.
Needless to say, that skein I spun didn't turn out very well. I don't like the colour combination, I don't like the texture, and when I'd spun and plied it, and finished winding it onto the swift, what did it do when I took it off? Twisted terribly. A bad job all around, even for this beginner.

In the last two weeks though, I've actually wanted to spin something. I even didn't knit for a few days but sat down with my wheel instead. I pulled out the prettiest pink blend of merino roving called Pink Parfait from my fibre stash and started spinning.
This yarn was spun and plied with joy and excitement, and the resolution that no matter how it turned out, I would knit it into something.

Winter Gardening, Spring Plans & Spinning Yarn

After a week of frosts and chilly days, this week it's been all warmth and mild temperatures. This afternoon was particularly warm, and despite my love of winter, I have to say that I loved the warm change. It's still cold of an evening, but it's feeling evident that mid-winter has passed and we're ever so slowly creeping towards spring.

I've been heading out to the veggie patch every morning and staring closely at the mulch, as I await the appearance of some winter seedlings. I sowed the seeds over a week ago, so I think I can now reasonably hope they'll appear. Among them are Sweet Peas, which I'm hoping will still shoot even though I was late in planting them. It was pretty cold when I put them in, so fingers crossed they sprout! I've put a little teepee over each planting, and if they grow I'll be able to see their pretty flowers from the office window. I'm also hoping to see cornflowers and snapdragons, too.

Handspun Scarf

It's Me Made May, and while I'm not technically joining in by forming myself any challenge, I have been thinking about my handmade wardrobe a little bit more than usual this month. I seem to want to knit nothing but garments lately, and so with the arrival of the cold weather I've loved pulling out my knitted things and wearing them. They span from a handful of jumpers/shrugs and shawls to beanies, a pair of socks and some scarves - including this scarf.

I thought it was high time I wrote about this scarf. It probably over qualifies for Me Made May, because it's a scarf that I not only hand knitted but handspun.
It encompasses the very first skein of yarn that I spun and the subsequent skeins after that. From a yarn perspective, it'd have to be described as art yarn. It's thick and thin, underspun and overspun (severely in a couple of spots where it has coiled up like a spring!), giving it a very interesting texture.

Because of this yarns odd, super bulky nature, I decided a very basic scarf would do. And it turned out that at the end of last year, in the chaos of moving, of trying to find a home whilst moving from accommodation to accommodation, this scarf was the only thing I felt like knitting. I can't remember how many stitches I cast on, but it mustn't be very many. On 10mm needles, I simply knitted. I've not made a project in plain garter stitch for I don't know how long, but I felt that it did the best justice to this beginner's yarn.

Here & Now | October 2017 Link Up

October has crept up on me, and I suddenly realised this morning that it is the tenth, which means it's time for the Here & Now link up again. I've not been taking as many photos as I usually do lately, as I'm still getting accustomed to the new camera, so I hope you'll enjoy the handful I have to share today.
As always, I'd love for you to blog your own Here & Now if you want to, the instructions for which are at the end of this post.

Lately | Spring

The first month of Spring has been very unusual here this year. Usually, September is a month I have trouble not hating because in years gone by it's been very hot, and is always a shock coming out of winter. One year it was so hot that the cattle troughs warped in the heat. (They were those round green ones made of durable plastic).
This month, however, has been a gentle transition from cold winter air into something milder. The mornings are still lovely and cold, and as the day gets going the coldness very slowly melts away into a lovely warm afternoon that just makes you want to be outside. As the sun disappears the cold air descends again, although we haven't needed to light the fire at night for about a week now.
It's gorgeous weather, and with a gentler start to the Spring season more in line with what is typically expected, I'm hoping it means the rest of the weather coming into summer will be more normal, which means rain.

I realise things have been a little bit quiet here this past week, as I've been busy doing other things. Keeping on top of the housework as the surrounds continue to dry out and create more dust is always an ongoing thing, and I've also been busy with my shop.
Last week I created some goodie boxes which was heaps of fun, and I also translated my jotted done notes of my Bunny's Veggie Garden into a legible PDF and published the pattern. (You'll find it in my shop and on Ravelry if you'd like to knit one!).
The camera and my favourite lens also returned from repairs last week, and I only decided I'd better have a go with them yesterday. I've missed my 50mm f/1.4 lens so much. I love the clarity of the images I take with it and the fun I can have with such a wide aperture. The camera itself is brand new, as it turned out to be more economical to replace the 550D rather than repair it, due to it being so young and obviously flawed. I'm always nervous around new cameras and computers and things like that, but after snapping a few photos with the camera (which is a 650D) yesterday I think I might quite like it.

100 Days of Spinning

What a busy start to the week here with an early trip to town to express post an order, and consequently do the week's grocery shop earlier in the day than usual too.
I cast off this shawl last night in anticipation of being able to wear it out today and was quite excited to drape it around my shoulders this morning. It's a small shawl, so it functions more like a scarf. I'll tell you all about it when I write a blog post just for it. At the moment it's sitting on the dining room table, pinned to a towel and feeling rather damp after a good spray with water. It's being blocked - and I'm afraid my blocking gets as complicated as a towel and some sewing pins!
I didn't want to photograph it before blocking, even though I've already worn it out. A little contradictory, isn't it?

Along with knitting, I have set myself a spinning challenge. I've been barely touching my wheel, which is no way to learn, and my lovely friend who is also teaching me to spin emailed me on the weekend and told me I must spin for 2 hours a day.

Spinning

Hello!
How is your weekend going? It's been one of restful slowness here so far, amongst the little things that always seem to need doing on a weekend (like watering plants, washing clothes and baking bread). Although it's so dry here at the moment, that the sprinkler is on every single day. We certainly can't keep the entire block green but it's nice to have the grass around the house and chickens pens green, which is an area of several acres in itself. The other land shall just have to wait until the rain comes!
As I look out from the window now I can cast my eyes over the back half of the property - the dam looking very low and covered in unruly lilies and water plants, the trees in the bush starting to look less lush and the paddocks brown and crispy. The paddocks disappear over the hill, but I know what that the ones out of my sight are dry now too. And the mountain is blue as always in the twilight, looking very far away this evening and lovely in the soft light.

It's feeling like spring at the moment. The wattle is in full flower, the days are almost a little hot in the middle of the afternoon and the nights and evenings are awfully cold. I think they feel even colder because the days are getting warm.

Lately

I've been feeling a little disconnected to my poor blog lately, and I'm determined to remedy that. I enjoy writing, and I find when I get out of the swing of it, it's hard to get back into it. So here we go - a little post about what's been happening around here lately to try and get my mojo back - also serving as an excuse to share so many photos. I hope you enjoy it!

Handspun Rainbow Scarf | Cast On

I mentioned on Monday that I'd be writing a post about my spinning here this week. When I wrote that, I had every intention of doing just that. A nice little spinning post on Friday was what I had planned. But, as weeks so often do, this one got busy and I found myself without a moment to blog or even upload the photos I had taken of my handspun to the computer.
Nearly a week has gone by now, and I have decided that if I jump on here and get a post written quick sticks it still counts as "this week".
I originally planned to share with you my first few spun yarns. Some alpaca, some brown wool, and then some rainbow organic merino.
But I cast on with my rainbow merino on Friday and since then I have wanted to only write about it. I want to skip the part about the other yarns I have spun and talk about this one.

Learning to Spin

Learning to spin is something that I have had at the back of my mind for several years, a little like the thought of owning a yarn shop one day. This year must be the one for bringing those thoughts forward and taking action on them, because just as I dusted off the yarn shop dream this year, so too have I decided that it's finally time to learn to spin.

I haven't learnt a new craft in several years. I started knitting around ten years ago, and to be perfectly honest I took to it like a duck to water. I really didn't encounter too many problems.
The last thing I probably learned involving tools was how to use the digital SLR a few years ago. But that was easier too, it comes with an "auto" mode perfect for beginners.

My little timber spinning wheel isn't like that. It doesn't have a beginner's button. I really love it though, it's handmade which I think is very clever, and was one my Dad found at a garage sale several years ago and brought home to be an ornament for my Mum. It's being put to use now, though.