Moving

As promised we have been busy little bunnies and moved over to wordpress. You can find up to date posts on our new blog here. I hope you like the new blog. We will be working on it over the next few weeks to bring it up to date.
xxx
N

It's been a long time coming

So the last post on this blog was waaaay back in June 2012 and now is June 2014 and I really don't know how to sum up the last 2 years!!! Well first off I got married in September 2013, so that explains the loss of about a year between work (which I *love*) and preparing for a wedding which we organised mostly between ourselves so the blog took a back seat. I am working on moving to wordpress so I will be posting about moving over yonder soon.

Now, I know most of you will be wondering how the buns are doing, well they are perfectly fine. I had to crawl about on my tummy to get this picture but they are doing really well. Ninja is fully grown now and is coming around thanks to some raisins. Berry is still being Berry i.e. a drama bunny. Lots of ear throwing and kicking turning into binkying when she hears the raisin jar.

Also towards the end of 2013 we found out that we are having a Little Trouble Bunny of our own, who is expected to arrive some time in June 2014 and let me tell you bump is one little kicker already. We have spent the last 2 years moving from town to my fabulous in-laws and also buying a house of our own (which is none to easy in these times). So the next few posts I'm going to do will be either wedding / knitting / bunny / house related :) It will be a bit sporadic as the little one is due soon but hang in there and I will get you up to speed on all projects.

xxxxxxxxx
N

Textile Thursday - Crochet Cowl

This Textile Thursday is a little late and my apologies for that. The bunny doctor has been and gone and today I finally get to show you my first ever crochet shawl - Pia!!!

Pia

This pattern is a free ravelry crochet pattern by Pia Linden which you can find here. I really enjoyed this pattern and it took away a few of my feelings of dread towards crochet. First of all, my comfort zone is knitting and my ventures into weaving and crochet have allowed me to expand my craftiness. When I weave or learn a new crochet technique I get that butterfly feeling in my stomach that for some reason does not exist  when I knit. I love learning new things and this pattern helped me grasp the techniques used to create a triangular crochet shawl. I also learned how to do crochet nupps!!!!!!!

Look .....cnupps!!!

So with this pattern under my belt, I have ventured forth in to Pax by Aoibhe Ni.  I love Aoibhe's patterns   and Snapdragon is THE reason I took up a crochet hook (this has mostly to do with it hanging in This is Knit for a few weeks waving its gorgeous Hedgehog Fibre colours at me). I was daunted by the idea of using charts and crochet lace but with the help of her online videos and well constructed patterns I suddenly found that I was working some very beautiful tunsian crochet in BFL by Hedgehog Fibre. 

Pax - under construction

I was trying to get a good photo of how well this pattern suits the variation of the yarn, alas my apartment is still the dark pit of Dublin that it has always been, even on a bright day like today. So I tried to zoom in and take a picture for you to have an idea. I am very confident that this will block well and will show off the short rows beautifully but for now this is the best picture I could get. (Yes I really need to do the photography class by Elven and Jewelndarlin. 

Close up of BFL

I really hope that my wrist holds up and that I can finish this by next Thursday - eep

See you then
N

Happy Bunday

**warning this post has numerous pictures of bunnies**

Today I was having a hard time figuring out what to post so I started going through our pictures of the buns. I realised that I somehow missed Berry's Birthday with us. We got Berry in June 2010 (for my 28th birthday you can read about that here). So for today, Berry, This is your Life (insert proper musical accompaniment here)

Baby Berry

From a little bun , Berry was always hard work and pretty much a diva in every way, though its hard to be cross with something that is pretty much a fluff ball. She never really liked being held but LOVES cuddles and pets (the harder the better). Berry never really had any fear and makes J's collie submit to her every time she visits. This started when she was about 6 months old, yes she was pretty much in charge from the start. 

July 2010

By Christmas 2010 Berry was almost fully grown and was very tolerant to my knitting, she even sported some head wear that was carefully had crafted just for her. Come to think of it this could be why she now destroys my knitting with glee. 

Santa Bunny Xmas 2010/2011

2011 was a blur for us and for Berry with many horrible things happening but Berry never gave us much trouble with all her commuting. She even allowed us to pick her up more over that year and she was comfortable enough to zone out see:

zoned out Berry

What we see (yes I took all the bad pictures)

2011 lead to both of the hoomins working, so Berry got a little lonely so we re-homed Ninja and now they are pretty much inseparable.

She loves him really, shes just grumpy on mondays

see bunny kisses

So much has happened I really can't put it into words, though I tried earlier in the post and it has gotten away from me. I will leave you with some bunny kisses and cute bunny pictures:

Smoochies

'she's a good lookin' bunny'

Textile Thursday

Photo from goingbydrigiblefiles.files.wordpress.com 

Well I'm sorry everyone but my hand is still all strapped up so I havn't been able to knit, weave or crochet so I have no FO's to share with you. I promise that Textile Thursday will be back next week and I will share some weaving with you but for now I have to go on a little hiatus.


lots of love
n

Weaving Yarn Counts

There are many mysteries of weaving out there and for those of us who started out as knitters, buying weaving yarn is one of the great mysteries that give us headaches. When you look at weaving yarn you see lots of 2/20's cotton (and more examples here) so hopefully this post should help with figuring out counts. 

First of all weaving yarn is sold in pounds (lbs) per unit length and is called the fixed weight yarn count system. Here just like knitting, the finer the yarn the more yarn you get in 1 pound. The more yarn you get in 1 pound the higher the count number. This count number gives the number of unit lengths in a pound. 

Yarn	Count
Cotton	840 yards / pound
Spun Silk	840 yards / pound
Worsted spun wool (avg)	560 yards / pound
Linen	300 yards / pound

For example if you get 10 skeins (or hanks etc) of cotton, this is shortened to 10's cotton. This count changes with different fibres and spinning systems. When you see 2/20's cotton this means that 2 strands of the 10's cotton (of equal weight) have been plied together. The yarn is now twice as thick so the amount you get per pound is halved.

So a 2/20 cotton has 8400 yards/pound i.e. 20 x 840 = 16800 / 2 = 8400 yards / pound

                                                                   (units) x (count) / (ply) = yards / pound. 

a 2/40 linen has 6000 yards/pound i.e. 40 x 300 = 12000/2 = 6000 yards per pound. If this is sold in an 8 oz cone then you get just under half a pound so you get approx 3000 yards. (1 ounce is 0.0625 of a pound).

In general weaving yarns on the cone do work out cheaper then knitting yarn of the same weight because you are buying in higher quantities. I will add to the yarn counts above as I come across them in my daily ramblings. For now I hope this helps a little.

Here are some useful abbreviations:

ne - the English cotton numbering system, based on the number of 840 yd strands per lb
nel - lea, the English linen numbering system, based on the number of 300 yd strands per lb
nm - the metric system, based on the number of metres per gram
wc - worsted count, the most common wool numbering system, based on the number of 560 yd strands per lb
den - the denier system, based on the weight of 9000 metres
tex - weight in grams per 1000m length
wpc - wraps per centimetre
wpi - wraps per inch

N

Happy Bunday

What you looking at????

Well the weather may be great but the bunnies are in grumpy form. Ninja has decided that he likes his box and that Berry can not enter it. He has made his emergency exits to the back of the box as you can see (just in case of fire or hoomin interaction).

Berry has decided that she likes walls and flopping out. She has become the bunny master of zen. You can stroke her and move her around with your hands and she stays flopped. You only know that both buns are normal when you open the fridge for some fresh greens!

Everything is quiet here in the bunny house for once. There has been no destruction, no tantrums and the biscuits have been safe and ignored. This makes me think these two are hatching their master-plan of destruction.

I will be vigilant....

Textile Thursday - May

This Textile Thursday I am going to share with you just a little about a woman who is very close to my heart. I know some of you hear every now and again about my troubles in sourcing rug wool and canvas for May (the absolute matriarch of our family). You hear her name mentioned daily and at 92 years of age I can safely say that she does in fact still run our family. You can only imagine the life this lady has had but today I am going to stick to her creative side. 

Painting

Ever since I was a little girl, May has taught me how to knit, sew (I didn't take to this), embroider (I didn't take to this either) and how to make latch hook rugs. She has also taught me how to clean, run a house, bake and just about anything else you can imagine. To put this into perspective May was already in her  seventies at this point.  Because of where I live now I only have 3 of her pieces of work due to the fact that I am terrified that something will happen to them. The painting that you can see above was given to me on my 25th birthday and she took 5 weeks to paint, but only on Thursdays :) 

May being 92, ensures me that in fact the social scene in Dundalk, is on Thursday's, where she attends a social group for the elderly within the Louth County Hospital's day centre. She has quite the collection of paintings now but most of them have either been sold (to help fund the centre) or have been...... lets say acquired by family members via birthdays, gifts etc.  What really shocks me is that May has never painted until her later years. Her husband, in fact was the painter and artist in the family, there is even a local award named after him. He unfortunately passed away quite young and early into their marriage but we have a fair few pieces painted by him around our family home. 

Grey Rug 

Although her painting took root later in life, May has always knitted and handmade rugs. Ever since she was a little girl helping to take care of a big family of brothers and sisters, she was eager to learn and work with her hands. The rug above May made in under a week from Drops Eskimo and some canvas I found in The Woolen Mills in Dublin. The one below she made in 2 weeks from the same materials just different colours. She cut the wool into pieces by hand and knotted them singularly on to the canvas. So each tuft you see in the pictures was placed carefully into place by her.  The template / tester rug below is a smaller version of the massive rug that is under construction at home. This lady has in reality 'done it all'. The only wool craft May has never taken too was spinning fibre. She has washed fleece and assures me she just never had a taste for it. 

Template

The one thing that I admire most is that May has never let age affect where she has wanted to go, what she has wanted to turn her hand too or stop her from working on the crafts that she loves. I can assure you that this morning she has already cut some wool for her rug before getting ready to head on up to the day centre to finish her current painting of the Seatown Castle in Dundalk. Although she has had many things thrown at her throughout her life she has never once allowed them to define her or stop her from doing what she loves. I only hope that in my years to come I am blessed with the same life longevity and that I can still be working on crafts. 

May and my dad enjoying a well deserved glass of champagne on her 91st birthday