The crazy year that is 2013

Hello dear blogging friends! Despite the fact that I *was* planning on spending less time blogging, I didn't expect to write my first post of 2013 in November.... even I will admit that is a bit late! I'm not sure if anyone still hangs out around here or sees this in their feed, if you do, thank you so much for your loyalty!

Either way, let me tell you about a few things that have happened this year so far. Last Winter my big obsession were freeform crochet hats and whilst I am spending my time doing other things again as well, I still do love making those hats and have plenty of them that still need to be photographed and listed!

Late last year at some point I also finally finished my beekeeper's quilt, but after having used it a few days my worries came true and the knots just didn't keep the whole blanket together. It was rather devastating after having spent so much time on it, but I did start sewing the hexis together individually on all seams. I'm at this point about half way done and am fully intending to finish within the next few months. Although I can't say it's been a massive priority, as it is currently usable, just a few more seams to go the other direction, so not too bad.

Well, the really big thing this year has been that I got married to the best guy ever, my best friend and partner of 9 years! We had a lovely weekend of celebrations in my home country of Switzerland, followed by a cute little honeymoon in Paris. We were lucky to have some of our very closest friends come join us, despite lots of travel involved for some. We had friends from so many nations united, off the top of my head we had the UK, Switzerland, Germany, Italy, Austria, the US, the Netherlands and Japan in attendance. Not bad for a group of 30 guests! :)

So yes, it's been a pretty eventful year for us already and there is more to come yet!

Hello autumn! And say hello to my new handspun freeform crochet hats!

Hello! It's time for my quarterly blog post! ;P

I know the rest of the world has been struggling with a heat wave, but not so in the UK, so despite the fact that it is only late August, I'm already completely in autumn mode and have started wearing more layers of scarves and other woolens...

This year I am really and truly excited, because after years of planning and quietly crafting, I am finally able to present a brand new item in my little etsy shop! Over the coming weeks there will be plenty of hats presenting themselves. They stem from my desire to create something beautiful out of some of my handspun yarns, which were just too labour intensive or to small to make it into the shop as yarns... Many of these hats feature some of my favourite ever yarns and lots of different art yarns with beads and other trinkets!

All of them are handmade by me using the finest yarns. To give more choice there will be two lines:
1 - the all handspun, lots of art yarns, way over the top hat designs
2 - slightly simpler designs reminiscent of 1920s cloche designs featuring handspun yarns as well as Noro Kochoran, a commercially spun high end colour transitioning yarn with lots of snuggly angora combined with wool and silk. (See the sneak peek below)

Both are intended to be showstoppers and true works of wearable art! It helps that they're also so cosy and warm - I know I'll be wearing mine all winter. :)

Anyway, they'll be coming soon, so keep an eye out for them!

To blog or not to blog

Hello friends,

to blog or not to blog; this is a question I do often ask myself. I love the idea of blogging, as it gives space for pictures, but also lots of text to tell the story. Twitter has always been a little short for my taste, although I am on there occasionally. At the same time, I couldn't resist some of the newer ways of communicating, especially pinterest has currently stolen my heart. Barely any text, but lots of lovely pictures. Of course it's an entirely different space, it's not about me, it's about the things I love and the things that inspire me. Do pop by if you're on pinterest yourself, I'm always looking for new boards to follow. :) http://pinterest.com/snowberry/

Now what I'm really trying to say is that it is perfectly possible and plausible that there might not be all that many blog posts this year, writing an entry worth reading takes time, time that currently gets taken by other things, including sewing and crafting. I am however a lot more active on facebook and would love it if you could stop by there and perhaps even follow my crafting in this way. Posts are shorter, but there is the option of going into detail and of course links and picture galore. https://www.facebook.com/Snowberrylime
Ps, if you're not on facebook, my feed there goes on to twitter directly, so that's another way to follow.

I'm not saying this blog will be abandoned, but just felt like sharing where I currently hang out. :)

Wasn't it only just Christmas??

After a rather busy Christmas, New Year and birthday, things are slowly getting back to normal and I myself am getting back into my more normal crafting routines. Around christmas, every minute was spent creating some pretty (at least I think so) gifts and I continued obsessing about my beekeeper's quilt, which is still going well, albeit a little slower.

This is quite an old picture now, but still one of my favourite quilt in progress ones. :)

It was our first christmas at our place and it turned out we really hadn't bought quite that many lovely glass baubles over the years as I thought - so off to do some crafting! I grabbed some old linen and lovely cotton nottingham lace as well as some old lace bits and one of my favourite supplies, mother of pearl buttons.... and started stitching away. They turned out rather lovely and I might make it a little tradition to add one or two every year from now on. :)

The last picture shows our tree last christmas, not the best of pictures, but as always, a lovely nordman fir with real candles and glass baubles. :)

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