Textile Thursday - L. Hogan Batt #5

Textile Thursday - have a peek at the fibre I'm using this week....  

L. Hogan Batt

Today's post is going to be a little different in that I want to share with you my experience with L. Hogan's  No Rhyme No Reason Batt #5. I am fairly new to spinning and I have been encouraged by a large number of knitters and spinners here in Dublin to learn. Most of all during Laura's visits to the spinning groups and the shop, I was entranced by her colorways in her rovings, but lets start at the beginning. 

Ashford Roving

I knit a lot and was toying with the idea of rovings to learn how to spin. I started with the Ashford silk and merino roving  which  was smooth and the silk content allowed me to learn how to draft  quite easily. You can read more about my experience here. 

Corridale Homespun. 

I moved on to some Corridale I also got at This is Knit while I was suppose to be tidying skeins, the blue colours in the roving started to beg me to take them home. You know that kind of begging where it looks at you from its nestling place on the shelf and no matter where you go, you can feel it looking at you. By the time my shift was over it was almost screaming "I'll never find a good home if you don't take me...." So I said "fine in my bag you go then" (with more than a little encouragement form Lisa) and off I went.  I got home and before I had dinner I was spinning this fibre, I spun all 50 grams in one night and I was hooked. 

Merino Roving by FiberArtemis

I started looking at some hand dyed roving on Etsy and I found some beautiful options like Waterlily and the Merino Roving as you can see here but I wanted to support Irish craft and on Etsy that leaves very little choice. 

Waterlily by NalaniYarns  

As soon as I clicked the option, I was kicking myself for not remembering the Spin in Sundays. I have seen jumpers / accessories knit out of Laura's spun roving and all of them have been mesmerising. I had a browse through her shop and found that she had some batts up for sale. This was great, I don't have a huge amount of experience and I didn't want to jump into buying a huge amount of roving so the batt was a good choice. I ordered it and it was in my hand the next day (which is amazing because it was Good Friday) so I was up to a great Easter start. 

L. Hogan Batt

Laura's roving has some amazing colours and with some Angelina thrown in for an added sparkle. I thought I was going to have a challenge as these batts Laura carded herself are called No Rhyme No Reason for the sheer randomness of fiber and colour in each batt. As it was detailed on Etsy, each batt is unique and some batts could be very textural due to Wensleydale locks that she dyed and threw in. However spinning this batt was fun, I loved watching the colour ways form before my eyes and depending on how you separate the batt you could even get some colour repeats spun too. I loved working with this so much I even have some of Laura's Blue Faced Leicester in my stash now too (along with a huge amount of her sock yarn, yes I have a problem)

If you are interested, check out her shop on etsy here and I'm going to tempt you with some roving just because I can. :) Have a great weekend. 

Batt No. 6

Batt No. 4

Wensleydale

Arg it be a Treasure Hunt!

I was one of those lucky children who got to take part in an Easter hunt for eggs at home, where the bounty was lots of chocolate sweets and small toys and it all came together over the Easter holidays from school. So when I heard about the Etsy St. Patrick's Day treasure hunt I reverted to being ten years old and couldn't wait to take part.

The wonderful Sarah from Sarah Mai Designs has been putting together a bounty worthy of even the most avid treasure hunters out there, composed of pieces designed and created by the Etsy Ireland Team. There are 4 treasures to be claimed  by the 19th of March and they are broken down like this:

1st Place - Treasure Hunter Pirate King: 8 beautifully hand crafted items

2nd Place  - Treasure Hunter Terror of the High Seas: 5 beautifully hand crafted items

3rd Place - Treasure Hunter Buccaneer : 3 beautifully hand crafted items and finally

4th Place - Treasure Hunter Swashbuckler :  1 beautifully hand crafted item.

Whats that I hear you cry? " How do I enter?" Well for details of  this Hunt all you have to do is click this link for the Etsy Ireland Blog and on the 17th of March click on the St. Patricks Day treasure hunt button on the right hand side.

Now me hearties are ye ready? We all know that the best bounty goes to the early risers and the questions will be posted early!!!

So get your swords, pirate costumes and pirate speak to the ready.

Let the Hunt Begin!!



P. S.

Also I have added this little gem to the bounty too!

Updates

Well it has been a frantic month over here with all things medical now under control, I think it is about time for a blog post.

First things first - cowls....cowls.....cowls.

I have not forgotten my pledge for posting 2 cowls a month but with everything taking me by surprise over the last few weeks, this blog has been left on the wayside. I will be uploading a few patterns to Ravelry over the next few weeks none of which are ready to post so on that note I'm sorry guys :(

Second things second - Spinning!!!

To take my mind off things, I started to spin with Ashford Merino and Silk roving that has been taunting me in TIK for some time now. Lots of help was giving to me by Sheknitupthatball to start me off and after many questions (many, many questions) and shared techniques later I was spinning away and surprisingly I love it. I think this has a lot to do with the roving, its easy to spin and it is my favourite colour. When I am at home I still take out the spindle and for me that is amazing. I often get something into my head and loose interest quickly but spinning has finally gripped me. I'm trying to spin for at least 5 minutes a day and it really is starting to build up nicely. I find it really relaxing and it is starting to become my guilty pleasure. Now if only I can figure out how to stop spinning and finish a piece....that's my next goal.

And last things last - Stitch markers

I have been waiting on a delivery for AGES, it finally came at the end of Feburary but by then everything else was falling to pieces and I had no time to make anything let alone knit. So I sat down over the last ten days, finished some knitting and finally finished some markers. You can find these guys in my Etsy shop. I hope you like them.

And yes as its Monday - Happy Bunday everyone and here is a gratuitous picture of my bun buns.

Idyllic Irish Knits - Maleficent

I know you have all been biting your nails waiting for these pictures to go live (I joke, I joke) but finally I do have some nice pictures of the FO's I designed for Idyllic Irish Knits. There is one I am really fond of and I find very hard to say goodbye too (I may even swipe the test knit for myself) and that one could only be .... Maleficent.

I have to say I love the texture, the weight and the pure elegance of this knit. I also handmade the wire wrapped feather shawl pin which I think really adds something to this piece. She can be worn as a shawl, wrap, scarf or cowl and is a mighty 87 inches long!

All of the accessories in the Enchanted Collection (some you will see soon, others will take a little bit longer) are based around my favourite fairytales from the Brothers Grimm, Lewis Carroll and Hans Christian Anderson. As always there is a bit of Disney influence (I am an 80's child after all) but I tried mostly to make  for people I know would wear these pieces. 

I hope you like what you see and what is to come. I enjoyed every last minute of it

Idyllic Irish Knits - Sneak Peak

January has been a very busy month over here and with less than a week to go before the new etsy shop is up and running properly, I thought it was about time to give you guys a sneak peak into one of our Eventide accessories. I could draw this out....but I think a short and sweet post is what is needed.

*Drum roll ........please..........................*

Ladies and gentlefolk, let me introduce to you .......Storm  .....

Storm is a very adaptable cowl / wrap and I love the colour way and textures I finally ended up with. This can be worn so many ways to give a dramatic or eye catching cowl or a warm and snuggle friendly wrap. As this is one of the pieces for the etsy shop the pattern will  not be available until the end of season. Yes I am going to make you wait until next week for the full pictures but I might just add a few treats here on the blog a  little later on.