Lazy rainy days

There was so much rain yesterday - the perfect opportunity to finish most of my alpaca cardi-poncho project. I have been working on this since summer last year and now I am finally nearing completion.

Because it developed into a monstrously big piece of knitting I decided some time ago that I would skip the sleeves and just wear it as a poncho. The alpaca felts easily and I knew that I would never ever be able to unravel everything, otherwise I would have considered beginning again in order to get it right. I am now working on the neck and armhole finishing and then I will - finally - be able to move on to the next big(gish) crafting project.

When the rain eased off a bit around early afternoon I quickly took a few photos in the garden, of the whole glorious glossy mess it is at the moment, full of blooming tobacco plants, fennel, verbenas sunflowers, rust-speckled hollyhocks and Japanese anemones.

Much love,
Qaroline

Everything on stitch holders - doesn't even fit in the picture ...

Japanese anemone 'Whirlwind'

Euphorbia mellifera

Sunflowers!

Nasturtium leaves

New pinkish growth on the camellia

Japanese anemones

More anemones

Hydrangea leaves and nasturtium flowers

Hydrangea bloom turning from cream to pink.

Lungwort leaves

Hamish helps

Dyed in Space

Sample skeins of merino.

I spent my whole Sunday learning how to space dye with acid dyes and my fingers still look like the hands of the Corpse Bride, the blue has coloured my nails and the skin around them. I took lots of little sample skeins, some of them white wool, some of them grey wool and some silk - and 4 massive skeins of fluffy white merino that I spun at least 6 years ago when I hadn't yet learned how to ply.

While kneeling on the lawn to take the photos of the skeins I noticed masses of black beetles on the geraniums - lots of mini-dramas going on there ...

Hope you had a great weekend too.

Much love,
Qaroline

Very deep and rich colours on the grey wool.

The colours came out so brighly on the silk that I overdyed the one in the middle and the one on the right.

Big skeins of fluffy merino - I am particularly impressed with the result on the far right skein, on which I dumped all left-over colours and painted them over with grey.

My lovely new geranium - two beetles trying to shove each other from the petals, one bystander.

Stripes and Stripes

Striped squared made from black, fawn and white alpaca 

One of my resolutions for this year is trying to get better at documenting my crafting/creative processes. I have lost so many ideas over the last years just because I didn't get round to actually writing them up. And as this blog originally started out as a crafting blog, I will try to return to its roots from time to time.

As mentioned in my last post, my current project is a short wrap jacket designed by Alison Ellen but with lots of added stitches to allow for my size, especially as it is meant to be rather loose-fitting. Work is progressing well, especially as I like working from square to square and having lots of little moments of achievement along the way! I hope that my wool stash will be enough for the sleeves but I have a some short bits of the black alpaca left to spin.

I have also lined up all blue samples of last week below and am now thinking of knitting them up in a similar technique for a chair cover, with other leftover yarn. The chairs at the guild meetings are a bit uncomfortable and for a full morning of spinning my bum could use some soft merino!

Much love,
Qaroline

Rough sketch of how the jacket is supposed to look like

You can see the "wrong" side in this picture but it also a good opportunity to sneak in a Hamish cameo

Black, fawn and white alpaca - since I splashed out on a yarn-winder, my yarn balls look very professional

Samples of blue from Wingham Wool Work

Sampling Day

I finally have a functioning camera again - and took it to my local crafting guild (The Kennet Valley Guild of Spinners, Weavers and Dyers) sampling day to start documenting my latest craft projects.

At the moment I am knitting a cardigan designed by Alison Ellen but, as always, I am already thinking of future and sampled a lot of different mixes of blue and turquoise in order to choose the perfect combination of colours.

Wingham Wool, the company who visits the guild for the sampling day, has way to many tempting fibres on offer and it was very hard to choose. I will try to blog more about my ongoing craft projects, in addition to the garden visits and roadtrips, I just need to get back into the habit!

Much love,
Qaroline

Dyed silks

Zak - the trusty companion.

Workbasket with blue samples to try.

Soooo many fibres to try.

Dyed merino wool pick and mix.

Large dyed bats.

OOTD: Sustainable Me

Dress: selfmade

I am still making dresses for a summer that hasn't really showed up yet. After one week of blistering heat it's back to woolly cardigans again, and wearing this white summer dress is an act of defiance. I have just finished it; it is made from thrifted old-fashioned duvet covers with a beautiful white-on-white in-woven leaf pattern.

Obviously I had a bit of help. Hamish insisted on taking care of the leftover fabric:

Hamish hard at work

pulling faces for the camera - glasses: eyes+more; turquoise earrings: gift

almost the same design as the ice-cream cone dress

finally, "Constance Spry" is in full bloom

[OOTD]: Treasure Trove

I have been collecting material for quite some time now but somehow I never got around to posting any of it - so this particular post is a multipurpose one, updating my OOTDs, flower blog an craft project blog all at once!

OOTD

I made this skirt a few weeks ago, using my favourite, very simple pencil skirt pattern which I have adjusted to my size. The cloth is very stiff (needs no ironing, yay!) and almost like canvas. As I love to wear stripes at the moment I thought I'd combine it with horizontal stripes in the same colour range, just for fun.

top: H&M; skirt: selfmade; shoes: my garden clogs

Roadside Bouquet

A week ago I picked the flowers for this bouquet from the roadside: gorgeous lupins [insert Monty Python joke here ...] and daisies. It didn't really last long but was quite stunning.

one day later

Treasure Trove

Looking through some of my stuff I found my tablet weaving box, full of old samples I made back in the days when I was re-enacting Viking and medieval crafts. Although only one of those samples is actually made from linen and therefore more "authentically" Viking than the others [the blue one], I loved finding them all again and will definitely need to get to grips with this craft once more.

Love, Qaroline

Bad Wolf.

I have finally finished the embroidery for my pillow case - just in time to hide a little something for this particular date:

The next paisley pattern will be white on red. Let's see if this is in some way prophetic regarding the impending casting decisions!

Love, Qaroline

Garden party @ Fatty Fashion Fun Challenge

Hat: Oxfam; cardigan: Ulla Popken; dress: selfmade

I am a bit late for this month's Fatty Fashion Fun Challenge "Garden Party" but really wanted to participate [can't resist an invitation to any garden, really] - and what a brilliant opportunity to show off my latest sowing project!

I haven't found ANY beautiful cotton summer dresses for fat people in a long while and decided that it was definitely time to make my own. I found this inexpensive printed cotton in our local haberdashery and I love love love it! [Big ice-cream fan, too.]

And as you're already here, why don't you join me on a small tour through the garden?

pond with Japanese maple and floating apple blossoms.

mobile radish/strawberry/salad unit in a basket - on wheels!

lawn covered in lady's smock.

icelandic poppies, salads, baby aubergines, herbs and tomatoes.

love the smell of lilac.

any excuse to wear a hat.