Home › Posts tagged Woolcount › Page 2
Tag: Woolcount

by RoxyPosted on Posted in Knitting 2 Comments

So, let’s begin at the beginning. Over a year ago, two crazy yarn friends convinced me to go to the wool experience and got me hooked on fleece. I bought a whole Jacobs fleece that day, and a bunch of samples. Then, a few weeks later, so just shy of a year ago, Engel bought me a spinning wheel. A few months later a hand carder followed suit because carding with brushes is hard and tiring and time consuming. Anyhow. I finally had the chance to take the spinning wheel apart, clean it, seal it and have Engel reassemble and service it during lockdown.

I also stained her as part of the sealing process, but as all the shops where closed I had to use what was on hand, which was ebony. She looks looks like something from a dark fairy tale and has subsequently been called Grimm. After the Brothers Grimm. Because I was told very firmly that all spinning wheels have names. It’s not just me that’s mad.

But I digress.

Jacob, who you will meet shortly, has been over a year in the making. The past few weeks I have spun the wool to make him:

(Look! My first three balls of handspun wool! All wound into pretty little cakes!)

And then I finally got to knit him.

Jacob isn’t just special because he’s knit from the very first wool I have spun, but also because he has a set of real Roe deer antlers that were still attached to a bit of skull that I have incorporated into the actual knitting. I will tell you now, knitting around antlers is a very tricky thing indeed! And pointy. He’s also very cute and practical with his coat hook.

So there you have it, my current knitting triumph. But wait! I have a second set of antlers, just in case anything went wrong with the first…and instill have some of my very first handspun left over…I think Jacob needs a friend, don’t you?

Oh, in non knitting news I went back to work this week. And it was boiling this week. I survived but I think I need a month to recover…it wasn’t the work exactly, it was being around people again, having to think and talk about things above that of a 6 year olds mind set…

Till next week!

Wool Count

Starting total – 704

Wool used – 97 (5 this week)
Wool bought – 18
Wool given to me – 296
Wool gifted to others – 3
Wool handspun – 10 (4 have been used!)

Total – 927

Tagged with: , , , , ,

by RoxyPosted on Posted in Knitting 2 Comments

After the success of Rabbies Unbirthday I couldn’t resist making just one more Alice in Wonderland inspired knit…

It’s a pencil bird!!! The body is based on the free pattern Songbird by Sara Elizabeth Kellner, and the head is one of the Mochimochi pencils I knitted the other week.

I am somewhat smitten with him! Though he will be making his way up North to join his friend hammerbird.

And please note the home grown cauliflower! The garden is brimming with all sorts of vegetables just about nearly ready to eat…

In other knitting news I have a somewhat bigger project on the needles, more next week, and have had the opportunity to try helical knitting – again, more next week.

I have also finally managed to get spinning! The wheel Engel got me for my birthday needed a good clean, wax and oil. I finally had the time to do all that over the course of two weeks of lockdown and have finally, finally gotten to play with her! First attempt spinning is hard, as are all new skills, but very satisfactory. And the wool may be clumpy and uneven, but I have just the project in mind…when I finally spin enough to actually ply and then knit…

In non knitting news…not a lot. I’m still on furlough. The gardens coming along great. Engels dentistry nightmare is finally over after I had to dig around in there and pull out eleven chunks of shattered tooth…

So yeah, ticking along…

Wool Count

Starting total – 704

Wool used – 56 (3 this week!!!)
Wool bought – 7
Wool given – 8
Wool gifted – 0

Total – 662

Tagged with: , , , ,

by RoxyPosted on Posted in Knitting, Little one 2 Comments

This week and last I have been knitting Christmas gifts. Yes. Christmas gifts. I always say I won’t do them then change my mind in December and rush, rush, rush. Seeing as I am in the limbo of lockdown, I figured I would start now.

There is one gift I can show you though…

Inklings birthday was on Monday, and like most three year old boys, he is obsessed with Paw Patrol, and Zuma is his favourite. So I knit him Zuma as part of his present. I used the free pattern Dexter the Labrador by Amanda Berry. The pup tag I just winged, but I feel it came out well!

It was a very quiet celebration this year, again because of lockdown, but at three he doesn’t understand what he missed, which was a blessing really. I suspect I was more upset than anyone else as I didn’t get to see my family from up North. Twice now this year and lockdown. Twice!

Anyhow, back to Christmas gift knitting – I’ll try and fit a few things in that I can show you or else it’ll be a rather dull couple of weeks blog post wise!

Wool Count

Starting total – 704

Wool used – 46 (7 this week!!!)
Wool bought – 7
Wool given – 8 (Engel brought two home today as a little pick me up as he noticed the home sickness was setting in)
Wool gifted – 0

Total – 672

Tagged with: , , , , , ,

by RoxyPosted on Posted in Knitting 1 Comment

Not quite, but Yesterday the 8th of May, marked the 75th anniversary of VE day.

A little history: Victory in Europe Day is the day celebrating the formal acceptance by the Allies of World War II of Nazi Germany’s unconditional surrender of its armed forces on Tuesday, 8 May 1945, marking the end of World War II in Europe.

And for this big event I had knitted a whole bunch of poppies. That were never used as the event was cancelled due to Covid-19. (Pattern used was the free pattern knit flat, no-sew poppy by Suzanne Resaul)

But life continues, and my mum asked me to knit up a few baby things for a colleague who was expecting her own “little ray of sunshine” so with that to go on I made these:

Does anyone else think it screams sunshine? Managed all these in a day and posted them the following. Which was good as the little ray of sunshine arrived yesterday, 4 weeks early!

Patterns used are ‘Rainbow’ and ‘Sun’ by Sarah Keen from her book “100 little knits” and ‘Beautiful Bootees’ by Sue Whiting from the book “Cute knits for baby feet”.

I shall leave you all there, not much has really happened here apart from baking and playing and home schooling and child wrangling and adventuring and gardening…oh, and I dyed some wool and some fluff for spinning…

Wool Count

Starting total – 704

Wool used – 36 (1 this week)
Wool bought – 7
Wool given – 6
Wool gifted – 0

Total – 680

Tagged with: , , , ,

by RoxyPosted on Posted in Knitting 2 Comments

Not sure what happened, but the past I wrote on Saturday doesn’t seem to have published… so going to write it up again super quick!

Another “pattern” from a 6 yo – so cute! Used the free Turtle II chart by Sandra Jäger and my now standard cobbled together hat pattern.

In other news, I kind of fell off my resolution of using only wool from the stash…

Monday – I needed about 50g of a specific colour for a requested knit, and wound up coming home with the correct colour, just 3x100g worth…

Tuesday – was having a bit of a bad day and when I got home, found two balls of ‘pick-me-up’ wool from Engel. (He’s a sweetie, they’re a good colour and the correct weight and type as the majority not my stash)

Thursday – I was given a 300g ball of wool for another project to help raise funds for Felix’s school.

Friday – bobbed into the shops to get a little something sweet and walked out with 4 more balls of wool…it was a lovely colour!

So my wool count now looks like this:

Wool Count

Starting total – 704

Wool used – 25 (5 this week!)
Wool bought – 7
Wool given – 3
Wool gifted – 0

Total – 689 (it’s gone up be 5 in total!)

Tagged with: , , , ,

by RoxyPosted on Posted in Knitting 2 Comments

A friend of mine needed a bit of a pick me up, and he had mentioned previously that he would like Rammy, a character from a game called Castle Crashers.

How could I say no?

He is made from combining the free pattern Oh Balls! by Marcie Nishioka (which I used last week to make Inklings blaster ammo) and Skull by Vanessa Mooncie from the book ‘Monster hats’ (another pattern I’ve used, though that was for the matching family cultist hats!)

Funny how two patterns can make something completely different!

In other knitting news, I’ve nearly finished one of the big projects I’ve been doing – with luck, I’ll be able to post about that next week!

In non knitting news, not much to report. Works been busy, kids have been happy, and other than an incident involving them sneaking downstairs in the morning to eat a tin of homemade shortbread destined for my work, there’s not much to tell.

But no news is often good news, and with things the way they are in the news lately, I’m going to keep hoping for quiet times!

Wool Count

Starting total – 704

Wool used – 20 (3 this week!)
Wool bought – 0
Wool given – 0
Wool gifted – 0

Total – 684

Tagged with: , ,

by RoxyPosted on Posted in Knitting 3 Comments

Literally.

I’ve been knitting balls this week.

inkling has been wanting to join in with our little Nerf wars in the house, only he can’t prime a standard blaster, and the flywheel ones are too heavy for him to carry and aim at the same time. A solution has been found, in the form of a “Little Tikes blaster”.

Inkling adores it. He can load it, shoot it, and run around all at the same time. Only issue is that it came with just three balls for ammo, and that lasts all of four seconds.

So I have been knitting balls. Bright, multicoloured, balls.

And a Nerf bag for them to go in, that match his blaster, so he can join in with the rest of us when dart sweeping.

The pattern used for the balls is a free one called ‘Oh Balls!‘ by Marcie Nishioka. It’s a great pattern for using up little scraps, or in my case, wool that’s so bright and obnoxious I’m not too sure what to make with it!

Not much else to say really for this week – it’s been busy, like really busy, but not a lot to talk about it…oh! I got to play my new game, Llamas unleashed, and am now resisting the urge to knit an army of llamas, alpacas, goats and rams to match all the different artwork! So cute! Fun to play too…

Wool Count

Starting total – 704

Wool used – 17 (2 this week!)
Wool bought – 0
Wool given – 0
Wool gifted – 0

Total – 687

Tagged with: , , , , ,

by RoxyPosted on Posted in Knitting, Little one 2 Comments

Something that isn’t hats! But what exactly is it?

Is it a llama? Is it an alpaca? We can all definitely agree it’s cute! Pattern for the actual critter is a free Ravelry download – Flounce the Fluffy Alpaca by Tabitha Rose – and I just winged a blanket and teeny tiny pom-pom detailing!

I made this cutie as a thank you to a fellow yarnie work colleague who crochets as opposed to knits, and gifted me a cone of the fluffy wool as it wouldn’t behave for her crochet hooks! I made it yield to the knitting needles!

(The llama unleashed game was Engel giving me a random ‘saw this and thought of you’ gift, squee!)

That’s all today, Inklings had a stomach bug start of this week that rivals THAT scene from the exorcist, and after one day of peace, Felix has now started…when will it end?!

Wool Count

Starting total – 704

Wool used – 15 (2 this week!)
Wool bought – 0
Wool given – 0
Wool gifted – 0

Total – 689

Tagged with: , , , , , ,