The Beekeeper's quilt

If you have spent any time on ravelry recently, you have probably encountered the beekeeper's quilt somewhere along the road...
The pattern has only been around for a few short months, but the ingenuity of not having to line a throw, being able to use up leftover sock scraps and having the gratification of having tiny little finished objects all the time must have helped to make this pattern a bit of a phenomenon!
This picture is off her blog, I hope Stephanie can forgive me for 'borrowing' it. :) Most yarns in the original are koigu, a yarn that is quite hard to find in the UK and if you do, don't forget to empty your savings account beforehand because you will need it! I can't quite justify the expense, so will mainly be working with my own hand dyed sock yarns and leftovers from my sock knitting.

This pattern actually came at the exact right time for me as I have amassed quite a stash of sock yarns, but have finally realised that I am really not much of a sock knitter, or at least that I have knitted all the patterns I wanted to try out (my running total of finished pairs of socks is approaching two dozen). Either way, I have already started picking whole skeins out of my stash and will probably add a few mini skein sets to my etsy shop to make good use out of the rest of it. :) If anybody wants to do some swapping, I'd most likely be up for that as well!

Anyway, here is my current progress of yet to be stuffed little hexipuffs, as those little cuties are called. I've been using up some Noro sock yarn as well and will be using some thin handspun later on. Considering I only started four days ago I'm not doing too badly. ;) Is anybody else knitting one?

Autumn is nearly here. :D

I don't know how this happened, but when I slipped behind on the Tour de Fleece I just kind of disappeared of the blogosphere..... it happens! :P

Anyway, I have since spun some beautiful things, including two SALs about which I'll post later with pictures, yummy.

Other than that my sewing machine has also had a rare outing and I finally finished a bag from years ago - I love it so much! It's got bamboo handles and a tweedy body with hand appliqued tweed flowers and intricate pearl and gemstone embroidery on top of that. Lined in adorable floral cotton.

I've looked through my sketches as Autumn is already nearly upon us (I know, where did Summer go!) and am embracing the theme for A/W this year, which will also be revealed soon with the first few yarns and special items to go in the shop. :D

What else is new? A yes, I've become a bit of a 'pinterest' addict! Don't know what took me this long, but I suppose you can't jump on every bandwaggon....
Here is my link if you're on there as well:

http://pinterest.com/snowberry/

I've mainly been creating my perfect wardrobe over there recently.

More soon!!

TDF Day 7, 8 and 9

Day 7:
After all that dyeing last week I was really looking forward to carding up some beautiful batts and all in the spirit of the cirque de fleece group, this is what I prepared first:
It's a colourful mix of organic Merino, BFL locks, Kent Romney locks with some hand dyed Tussah silk as dark as the midnight sky, some undyed Tussah silk and golden Angelina.

Those two batts are a total of 140g or 5oz, nice and chunky. :) I spun them up into a thick and thin yarn to show off the texture.

Day 8:
I finally started to embrace my personal theme, the snake charmer. Two batts I carded up were in a range of shiny greens, aided by dark tussah silk. The first batt I took along to work to spindle (see how well the fibre goes with my new key lime spindle? :P), the second one was to become an art yarn with some blobs of red Angelina sparkle. The last picture shows the finished skein together with a hand dyed pure Wensleydale yarn I spun yesterday.

Day 9:
Today I have done some more carding, the only picture I have is of a little piece of batt to be spun up. The last bobbin shot shows what I am spinning up right now, it's a thick and thin yarn which will be plied with another thick and thin ply.

Oh, and sorry about the picture overload. :P

TDF Days 4, 5 and 6!

On day 4 I spun a very thick and thin yarn from a very similar batt to the one from day 2:
It's such a fluffy yarn, I can't wait to knit this up into something cosy....

On day 5 I had a go at some of those silk cocoons I just dyed up. The dye didn't go all the way through, but it gives the white a nice touch of colour. I spun it into a textured single to be plied. As one of my goals during this tour I really wanted to use up the neglected singles on my many bobbins, so whilst watching the apprentice last night I plied up these three yarns in the third picture. From left to right: the cocoon silk plied with hand processed brown Alpaca, the cocoon silk plied with organic cotton, organic cotton plied with Merino/Mulberry silk.

On day 5 (so today), I did another lot of dyeing and spun a simple single yarn. The fourth picture shows just a small part of all the freshly dyed goods and the last picture today's yarn. :)

TDF Day 3

Ok, I'm really slacking on the blogging here, but daily posts are quite a push for me. :) I didn't have all that much time for spinning today, but I spindled a little at work - it's organic Merino wool:

TDF Day 2

 Right, day 2, slightly belated. I spent the whole day dyeing up a storm! My new best, 5 full pots and I can't wait to spin with the fibre. :)
I've also carded up a sweet little batt and spun it into a single yarn - I'm a little bit in love!

A big welcome to the Tour de Fleece!! Day 1

Yes, it's back and it started today!! I am once again proud team member of Laila of LaiGrai's amazing team - this year the focus is vintage carnival and my inspiration is the snake charmer. :)

Handily my fresh fibre order just arrived in time as well - it might not look like much, but this is about 20kg of different fibre ranging from BFL locks through soy silk to Mulberry silk and golden Angelina (yummy). When I got back from work I started a cocoon yarn with the dyed fibre and white linen. The last picture shows my latest project: degumming silk. Not sure if it will work yet, but I accidentally ordered gummed silk throwsters waste, so it has to be done.