Monthly Archives: November 2005

And into what? you’ll ask.. I’ve fallen into online s.e.x. (nice acronym for Stash Enhancement eXpedition, eh?).

I got myself 250 grams of Suffolk worsted to heavy worsted wool, hand-dyed in a nice colourway called Autumn Heather, for a nice warm winter hat (still pattern undecided, maybe I’ll go for the Kittyville Hat from S`n`B handbook) – my head and ears freeze on the way to university, and they’ll freeze more in Belgium, so I’m in need of one that at least I can handwash. You can see the wool in this pic:

And also indulged in 200 grams of pure new wool, DK weight, hand-dyed in Incan Forest shade. This one will be for making myself fingerless mittens/gloves (downloadable pdf pattern), with cabled ribbing. My hands tend to freeze when I’m at the computer or I need to write a lot, which is always, so these will be very handy too. And here you see the Incan Forest shade:

If you’re interested in these yarns, I bought them on ebay, but the seller has her own website www.thenaturaldyestudio.com where you can know a bit more of their work:

Here at The Natural Dye Studio we hand-dye the historical way, using flowers, roots, leaves and heartwood’s. We believe our products are safer for your skin and safer for the enviroment.

We only use dyes and mordants that will not harm the environment, all our spent dye baths and dye materials are composted and used to fertilise our organic garden.

(…)

We only use 100% natural materials and whenever possible use unbleached fibres and fabrics as this eliminates an uneccesary and toxic procedure in the manufacture of textiles.

Some weeks ago I also got 200 grams of nice fleece, washed and carded, from Ryeland sheeps, in dark gray, that I’ll use for learning to spin(!). I want to learn this other fiber art, it looks very interesting and another thing to spend my little free time on. The fleece is waiting for me in Belgium, where I’ll hand-make a couple of drop spindles (both top and bottom drop spindles), and (try to) learn to spin. Pic of the fleece bought at Forest Fibres:

It was nice s.e.x. It felt good (but I’ll try not to boost my stash too much, I’m on a student budget).

Sade

I’ve been playing around with dpn’s and my very first project was a phone sock (phone cozy, phone sleeve, as you prefer to call it). I made up the pattern myself (you can read the pattern on the side bar). The dpn’s were really slippery aluminium ones – old ones my mother had, since she is using the new ones, and the yarn is leftover sock yarn from a pair of socks my mother knit for herself. Anyway, see the pics:

and

You can see the little sock for my smaller phone (yes, I own and actually use two different cell phones *geek*). I will also knit one for my bigger phone, and one for Jan’s (he asked me to, before even seeing mine!).

Sade