Lixie Spins It

I am still knitting though, honest. As proof, here is the wip - dreamcatcher cardigan from loop-d-loop.

That big hole in the middle is what you put the cobwebby bit in. Knitting with two balls of wool is no particular fun, although I am now aware that it is easier if the balls are smaller.

But actually that's the most knitting you're going to read about now because Byrne has the spinning bug, and she's got it bad. A little trip to handweavers studio yesterday yielded excellent results....
I love Wendslydale curls. There's just something *SO* "look at me" beautiful about them. I'm yet to actually knit anything that includes me but, hey, what's the rush?

And then I got lots of lovely merino (lots of red for my pinky hat - and I thinks I have spun enough for that today.
Lots (200g) of blue faced leicester and more camel for my first knitted homespun item - a scarf. Although now I feel compelled to spin some sequins or something into. I shall try to resist though. Spun some of this up at nickerjac's.

Lots of glittery and generally lovely stuff, plus some mohair.


And some random stuff to experiment with.

As I dropped in there earlier I was at Nickerjac's lovely studio yesterday and...an idea was born. Under the codename Nickerlix it is currently being churned over in my tiny mind. With my organisational and Nik's people skills and contacts we've got it sorted - I'll keep you updated as things develop.

On the way back from Nik's got terrible stomach ache and have been wiped out since then with a summer cold. Really sore throat, oh, poor alex. Luckily Pooch came home with a surprise for me to cheer me up...

It's the first time he's had his hair shaved since we got together and it is *so* soft and strokable. Like a beautiful cat. He has just said I just want to spin from him. But nah, would need too much washing.

So let's see, how's life at the mo. Well, madwise everything is all stable and well. Poochwise all is good. Jobwise the future looks rosy. Housewise we're moving in a month and searching is under control. Having said that the neanderthals downstair have just put the boom boom techno on. And people like them will actually breed. Yuck. Anyway, where was I...

Yeah anyway, stuff's fine. Bring it on, tomorrow.

Stitch Markers for Sale

All of these are £2 for 4. P&P is free within the UK. £1 within Europe and £1.50 for the rest of the world. Email me at littlelixieathotmaildotcom with the description of the ones you want and what size needles you want them to fit on (in mm up to 25mm) and I'll make sure I've got some in stock! Posted within 7 days of payment receipt. Payment by paypal, cheque or postal order. Please don't post me cash but feel free to throw wads of it at me if you see me in person. All are about 1cm square apart from the rose petals which are more like an inch, the dragonflys which are an inch across the wings and the sewing ones - the tape measure ribbon is about 3cm square. The semi-precious stone ones come in purple (amethyst) or orangy-red (red agate) or a mix of the two.

Quick spin update

Pooch, poor tired thing, went to bed at 8.30 but I stayed up til midnight and carried on spinning. This one is done but needs the twist setting.


This one I really love and want to make the pinky hat on knitty with it.

Recognise those sequins purlpower?!They are perfect for this.

So the more retentive of those among you will notice that if I was spinning at midnight, and it's now 7.15 am, that suggests not a lot of sleeping. And you'd be right. 5.58 am I was wide awake. What a bugger. Feel *exhausted* but can't go back to sleep. Oh, isn't life just so hard!

Catch up, ketchup

Yay, settled in front of the tv with the laptop (OK, Pooch's laptop), a twirl and a pepsi max cooling in the fridge. Watching the A-team (bless you dvd) with two whole days of la la la ahead of me. So where to start?

I guess with the bag that finally got to my secret pal.

Another of my trademark button bags. Found the bag itsel in matalan and has a zillion pockets so thought would come in useful and she seems to like it. Here's a close up of the buttons.

And let's not forget this was pre-jane so had limited buttons to work with. Am now plotting to spin with buttons, but more of that later.

Next up would have to be the brooch I won on ebay. It's a lot bigger and heavier than I thought but I think it'll look good pinned to a bag. It was only £3 including postage so I'm not bothered.


And finally in the picture stakes, I've come over over spinnable. Here is me trying to spin three threads at once and realising that it's not for me.

Got into rather a tangle and had to literally cut my way out of it. Here is what the second attempt looked like (all 10 g of it!)


Sorry, got distracted...
Baddy: Oh you're a big one aren't you?
Mr T: More to the point I'm a mean one sucker

The thing is, the thing I still haven't got a handle on, is what do you do with your handspun afterwards, Nickerjac made a hat. But what do you do with 10g? Sell it to a scrapbooker possibly? Or is there another option? Anyway, between philosophising and biscuits I spun/span 3 shades of grey merino together and got the stuff wrapped round the bottle. My plan was then to ply it with the flourescent letters on the coral 4-ply but I actually quite like the greay stuff as it is. But then we come back to the big philosophical 'why'? or 'what'? Depending on how you look at it. If I don't molest it with letters then does it have any point or is it just an existential protrusion into undefined craft-space. (I designed that sentence hoping that Terry Pratchett would drop by and be proud of me).

I have a couple of plans for the weekend..

1. Visit the handweavers studio and pick up some more supplies of merino, wendsleydale and blue-faced-leicester plus another drop spindle and something to wind spun stuff onto that isn't a water bottle.
2. Visiting Nickerjac in her studio
3. Spinning lots more mad stuff
4. Having a bit of a clear out

Workwise stuff today was quite weird. Sean, Denise and I know I'm taking this new job. I told Vishanti last thing as she's on leave next week so now she knows. I'll tell John I'm applying on Monday, then others will get to know and gradually everyone will know and then I'll move desk and then that'll be it. Weird.

So what happened is...

I fired, let's call him Git, last Tuesday after he kept missing deadlines, pushing work onto another person and coming in late all the time. He immediately played the 'but I have a baby' card (Yes, he does have a baby - 4 months old, very cute, and the reason Git has been given umpteen warnings and wasn't fired 6 months ago) and officially appealed, adding in that I was extremely agressive towards him and bullied him all the time. The appeal interview was this morning and the decision was upheld BUT....can you believe this.....they gave him two months money as a goodbye present *even though he was fired for being rubbish*. Those babies huh? They can really add to your income. So Git gets the money, I get the hassle with everyone internally hating me for being practically a baby-murderer and now I have to recruit someone else while doing both his job and mine and my other staff member's who is off on sick leave til end sept (absolutely not stress related fnah fnah - her only comment when I rang to tell her was "yeah, well I'm not surprised").

Or so I thought. There I was, chatting to my mentor, minding my own business, when he offered me a job. Working for him so same company but completely different stuff (no more bloody chartered status) and....wait for it....no staff. No one to worry about. No one to do appraisals for. No one to have to tell off or, worse, sack for being crap. I get half a PA but she's his responsibility. I'd also 'have' to do an MBA while I was working which they would pay for. What a tough break huh? Although actually that could cut into my knitting or, even worse, blogging time.

Sooooo......how d'you like them apples?

It's so lovely of you - people have been emailing me and commenting all day to see if everything has worked out OK and frankly I'm still pissed off about Git but the thought of being able to up sticks and leave the drudgery of my last 5 years life work behind is a real thrill.

Knitting wise - apologies, not much to report. Off to the golders green group tonight so am sure will have loads to post about tomorrow. Pooch did finally get home (god knows how, I don't think he could see that well) all pleased with himself because his colleagues think he's a genius or something - him keeping me awake for ages telling me repeatedly what happened has all been banked and will be kept for another time. I showed him the swatches I'd done this morning and apparently the colour is all wrong. But wait, you're thinking, didn't he choose it himself? Yes....that's my boy! I've now got 150g of alpaca 4-ply in a gorgeous red. Any ideas on what to do with it? Maybe luxury socks or is that just wasteful? He's going to take me to liberty to buy some 'the right colour' and maybe one or two other things......fnah fnah

Buggery fuck

Spent most the evening swatching and drawing up a pattern for my secret project. Then spent ages threading about 150 beads onto my yarn. Now I've done the first three rows, realised I've written the pattern wrong, and noticed all the beads are on in the wrong order. Note to self - never try to knit with beads of more than one colour. Bloody pissed off now.

Have done two swatches for pooch's life aquatic hat - the alpaca arrived today and is very nice - good work Texere. But......Pooch isn't even here. He decided last minute to stay out to watch the football. Leaving his pmtense girlfriend behind.....with no chocolate. Pooch is in trouble.

The only good thing about today was my temari book turned up along with 'spinning designer yarns'. Tomorrow is d-day. Pants.

Aran madness?

Am I mad (madder than usual)? I have expressed a desire to knit an aran jumper for dad 2 for xmas and, as every knitter knows, one can not embark on a new self-designed project without buying at least one new stitch dictionary. This one is excellent - all the stitches are indexed according to how many row repeats they occur over. Was pouring over it last night and knitted the final tension swatch on my denise needles. But am I aiming too high? It's going to be quite a piece of work and I find cabling very boring. Basically we both know this is a project doomed to piss me off but.....but..... he will really like it and then I can tick "Aran jumper" off my 'what I need to knit before I die' list.

In other news the alpaca from texere still hasn't arrived which is a bit boring. Have half a mind to knit Pooch this hat rather than the more boring one he wants.

There has been a really nasty spat going on on the UKHK list. Dawn has been really rude to colin - I hate that kind of thing. It's supposed to be a list for people to share their love of a craft. Makes me angry when people spoil it.

1-day til zero hour at work. By tomorrow lunchtime the nastiness which has been ruining my sleep for the last week should be resolved and I'll finally be able to explain what has been going on. I hope I'm not kidding myself as I know the staff gossip will continue but at least I'll be able to draw a line.

;p

Had a lovely day with tess, les from silkwood and nic and two bunnies. They all had a stand at syon park (which is very lovely - I want to go back for a proper look another time). Here it is:

And I know what you're thinking..."Who is that fine figure of a man on the right with the crochet hook?" Well down ladies, he is firmly married to tess but that is les, in full charm mode. Here he is in all his glory:

Note the braces. I love those braces. Les is a self-taught crocheter-extraudinaire and had just finished a second shawl in an angora mix from their own rabbits. So soft and delicate (the shawl) - only 80g for the whole thing. I know he won't like this but I have to admit that while he is everything a woman could possibly desire in a man (stash-friendly, a wood turner so good for needles and peg looms, plus positively disposed towards cats) I long to add him to my collection of dads. You see I have two (so far). Dad A (Chris) who is the biological specimin reads this blog occasionally so obviously he is lovely, wonderful etc etc....he is quite good though. He is business-dad, golf-dad and legal-dad. He also had the good sense to spawn my half-sister and brother, Freddie and Piers. It was Freddie's 17th birthday yesterday but I digress....Dad B (Rob) is gentle-dad, practical-dad and happy-as-long-as-you're-happy-dad. So what role could possibly be left for a Dad C? Well, there is an opening for fibre-dad. Neither of the current two can (to my knowledge) knit, crochet, spin etc etc and wouldn't know angora from merino. And as I seem to collect dads it seems too good an opp to pass up. I need to consult tess to see if she would mind. Ironically I've seen more of les this year so far than of A and I'm getting near to number of days spent with B too. You see that's why I need so many...

Anyway, back to the good stuff, what did I actually do while I was there?

Oh yeah baby. I knitted away and kept laughing when person after person said "Couldn't you find any smaller ones?" fnah fnah...! I thought they were great fun and they weren't hard at all. All the weight is on the floor and of course it all knits up quickly. One woman had a go and tried to hold them continental style. Persuaded her leaving them on the floor is best. Although they are massively long they are (only?) 23mm and I've got some 20mm in the other room. IOf you see some at a show I recommend giving them a try though as they are fun.

So what did I buy...you really want to know....one hair slide. HOW RESTRAINED?! There wasn't much that I fancied but there were some little porcelin earrings like delicate flowers - orchids and roses. But then i thought to myself..."Byrne, £11 not spent on earrings is £11 more towards your spinning wheel." Now I just have to remember to put the £11 somewhere so I don't spend it on cake. I also bought a homemade pie which we had for dinner which was very nice. And Pooch has a new favourite hairdo for me too!


Some people might have thought that after all that I'd be ready to put the byrne feet up and snooze a bit. But no. I made a dive for my handspun which is now all dry and 'set'. Think I have ruined the silk by boiling it when the koolaid was sinking in but it still feels nice even if it's not lustrous. I like the colour too. The other is the blue faced leicester, camel and yak. I'm keeping that on one side til I've got enough for a scarf. Will be so soft and warm!

This was it yesterday so it's a bit of a spot the difference. Now you know me, by now, so you know that I'm not one to stick too closely to a pattern and hey if it feels good go with it. So I have started a middle band.

I'm not sure whether you are supposed to cross the threads like that in real temari so this might have to go down as a bit of a hybrid. I will know once my book arrives, and I must email Liz and ask her. I just think they're so attractive! But I have to slow down on my new-craft acquisition. I almost considered a weaving course today. Woah, that's just crazy talk.

So 'life' continues tomorrow with work work work. If only every day could be working with beautiful things. I live for the weekend!

Raspberries and cream

If I was to tell you that this was merely one of the good things that happened to me today you'd guess I'd had a pretty good time. And you'd be wrong because i had a fricking great time.

But wait. One has to approach these things in a logicial manner, plus provide something of a build up. I got the new rowan mag the other day and there were one or two things that caught my eye.


Yes, I know it's pompoms. But there's just something about it that makes me laugh! There were loads more like all the flower corsages and the button gloves and several jumpers. So a pom pom maker is obviously the next thing to be purchased.


Yesterday night I spun this silk and so naturally when I got up at 8am this morning the first thing I thought was 'I must boil some water and dye that with koolaid.' So that is what I did. I put the skein in the boiling water first then sprinkled the powder over the hank putting lots more on one side of the pan than the other.

It is now drying so I'll post a pic once it's done. So having done that you'd think I would sit back and have some breakfast. Maybe catch up on some reading. But no. I got out the old ball winder and wound up the silk tess gave me. Then I sat there and looked at it for a while. Come, join me in a moment's reflection.

My reasoning went thus - this is beautiful and so needs to be seen. It won't take much of a beating to ruin it. There's not enough to make a top out of. It's too floppy for a flower brooch. I know, I'll make a chain necklace like the scarf on the front of loop-d-loop. So here we are.

It is still a wip but I'm planning to finish it off for syon park tomorrow.

So then I was in waterbeach visiting Liz from Bradford fame. She's a dude. Her house is wonderful and frankly, I want it. Plus there were two cats. One was pedigree and could obviously tell with one flick of her tail that I was below her so hopped it. The other was nuts, but in a good way. So affectionate! I got some quality stroking in. Here she is

She is actually even prettier in real life. But I wasn't just there to be fed amazing food (this is where the raspberry meringues and cream come into things, following a gorgeous home-made quiche. Liz was teaching me the art of temari ball making. So off we went. I'm not going to go into all the steps because although it all went pretty smoothly it is rather involved. Not something for the train unless it was a very smooth journey. Suffice to say this is what we were aiming for.

This is the sputnik stage as Liz described it. All the pins are measured out and there are metallic ley-line type threads secured to it. I really enjoyed choosing all the colours and the best part is that there is huge stash potential without getting a huge stash as all the embroidery floss packs away quite small. Not that we didn't make quite a mess.

Amazingly the cats don't chase the threads at all and the cute one (pictured here - not really bringing out the great size of the fluffy wonder) left all the apparatus alone while making the odd attempt at scaling my lap. I really love cats. This one was an excellent cat too.

Anyway. Here is what I had done by the end of the afternoon....

Am I pleased with it? Are you joking? It's awesome! Even though I say so myself. And when I say that I'm talking about the whole temari genre rather than my little first attempt. I can see these making beautiful xmas tree decorations for mum and rob among others. 'The Temari book' is snug on my amazon wishlist.

I am so lucky with the people I have met online. I am off to syon park tomorrow to see tess, les and nik, all met through blogging. Oh my god, how could I have forgotten the big news though?

Pooch has agreed to the spinning wheel

Yeah baby. Pooch - I know you'll read this. You're really very lovely. xx

I spin you spin we all spin together

Could spinning be the new knitting for me? Have spent all evening hunched up in a chair using the drop spindle. Now you see pooch, this wouldn't happen if you let me get a wheel. And don't think I haven't noticed it's 11pm and you're out on the raz. I'll be banking that one.

No pics as can't locate camera but have set the twist on a load of blue faced leicester, camel and yak I have spun and done 20g of silk which I intend to get at with the koolaid tomorrow. Green maybe?

Have printed instructions for doing two socks at the same time on two circulars so may give that a whirl too. So busy, so much to do, so little time!

Mega poo, mega yay

I do seem a bit weird with my juxtaposed moods at the moment. The mega poo bit I *still* can't talk about but it got a whole lot worse today before I was reassured by those in the know but am still nervous.

What cheered me up was seeing this photo again that Les took of me in their garden with 2 of their lovely cats on Monday. Can't believe that was only three days ago. (For those who like to be able to count there cats there is one on the ground and one sitting in the basket of orangey pink wool on the right.)

The golders green group last night was very nice. Two new people came along and Liz was on good form. There was a lot of dpn discussion. Guys - stop kidding yourselves about the whole dpn thing - THEY ARE EVILLLLLLLLLL.

Was working on the dreamcatcher cardi last night and have got about a 1/4 of the way up the circle. Going to do a load more of it tonight while watching a nice Morse with my Pooch.

Sleep well everyone x

Smell that sheep

First off - Pooch is lovely. Not just because he washes up....

It turns out the stuff going on at work will take another week before it is properly concluded but Pooch has been lovely about it.

I 'set the twist' in the wool I spun yesterday as soon as I got home. Here it is:

Elegantly hanging off the balcony with half full water bottle as weights. I NEED A SPINNING WHEEL. Pooch - I know you're reading - take pity on me dude. If I hadn't had such a great day yesterday I would have cracked today - really helped me get through it.

Not in the mood to write much so just a quick update on the cardi from loop-d-loop. Am just up to the bit where the circle starts.


And last but definitely not least Becky sent me gorgeoous sequins that say 'love' on them for knitting into things accompanied byt the most fabulous card. Can you see it in that picture? It is all balls of red wool and it is *fabulous* - thanks so much.


Am suddenly knackered. And need to stop blogging and start knitting!

Woo hoo for cats, rabbits, tess, les and Nik!

What a wonderful day! I know I'm going to forget something so let's just bang up the pictures and let them speak for themselves...




Yeah baby - cats. There were 8 all together and it was absolutely like cats to the left of me, cats to the right of me, cats all over me, and I loved it. I love cats. I was never less than a metre from a cat for the whole day. And then there were rabbits - loadsarabbits. They were so cute - I never knew andora rabbits have fluffy ear tips. There are pictures of them on Silkwood's blog so you can enjoy them there and see all the gorgeous colours they dye in (that Tess dyes their trimmed fur in, not what colour they go when they pop off).

Calming down slightly and remembering that there were actual humans there: Tess and Les are such wonderful people. They made me feel so at home and gave me free run and I got to spend hours spinning on one of their wheels (that's right, 'one of' - there were many many wheels). Les was awesome teaching me all sorts of new techniques. He showed me Navojo weaving which is woo ha another craft to get into to put on my list. And explained peg looms. And he kept sorting out the spinning wheel for me when I botched it. And he was wearing those funky braces withe the measurements and tools on. Really should have caught them on film for posterity. And tess - she was great - so easygoing and so knowledgable about all sorts of stuff. I hope Pooch and I (if we make it that far) end up like that. So comfortable with each other but not resigned to anything and understanding each other but also still fighting your own corner. AND....no hassles about the stash. And dude, talk about stash.

Nik was there too and was on good form. She was spinning inspired by the pluckyfluff book. But her yarn was absolutely gorgeous and I can't wait to see it knitted up. I managed to spin maybe 50g (?) of merino with the odd wendsleydale bit thrown in. I need to 'set-the-spin' by immersing it in hot water and then leaving it to dry under tension. I think it's supposed to be hot tomorrow so I might do this in the morning and leave it to dry from the railings outside the window during the day. Tess also gave me some gorgeous silk in colourway 'carnival' (you can see it on their blog) which is just absolutely completely and utterly gorgeous. It really was an excellent day although all I contributed was flowers....

.....because finally I had a go at one of the flower badges I was thinking about after seeing some at Loop. I think I might follow Nik's suggestion and start another blog with the pattern and so on on so that people can post their pics of theirs when they are done. Suffice to say this is what my first attempt looks like:

I made another in a huge thick/thin wool while I was there and tess had done a more demure one in some blue/green 4-ply (the same colour and weight as the stuff I got from the yarn house) and when you put the smaller one inside the larger it looked pretty cool. Loads of room for mucking about there! And they are so quick to do. Anyway, enough babbling. I'll post the blog address here when I get round to it.

Any other news? Well, hum...things look set to kick off tomorrow at work. It's been occupying my mind but should all be settled by this time tomorrow. I am re-energised (again!) to try my hand at more machine knitting and to do some navajo weaving and to start the 'spinning-wheel-for-byrne' campaign aimed at Pooch.

SUCH a great day!

Q&A

I've had some questions from commenters recently and haven't answered them so inspired by Crazy Aunt Purl (the definitive blogger) and to fill some space here goes....

1. tabbytuxedo said...I don't think I've seen your knitting badges... What do they look like?

Well tabbytuxedo, the time is at hand because I have put some on ebay (OK, this is a shameless plug but what the hell.) My seller thing can be seen here. There is some yarn up there too. Bid away buddies.

Right, so that's that done. Yes, the selfish motivation for this post was wonga but then I just got turned down for *another* loan so I need to start this business somehow.

Have started the dreamcatcher cardigan from loop-d-loop with my trusty denises just as I planned (I love it when a plan comes together) and have - you'd never guess - been watching a couple more episodes from my A-team dvd. Don't you just love the A-team? Especially Face of course. Anyway, denises are lovely and mean that I no longer make the granny-click-click noise when I pound away on them. Have done about 2 inches of 1x1 rib. I hate 1x1 rib but it's got to be done. At least this is it out of the way.

Was checking out my stitch dictionary for aran stuff to use on Rob's jumper (have gone off that cycling aran pattern) and came across the one for some kind of hem where you knit a bit and then do a row of (yo k2tog) then knit a bit more and fold the two sides over to meet. This is what the flower badges were when I saw them at Loop. So...well...I deserve a little break from the rib don't I? I might just go and whip up another wip. Now I've got my denises it's not like I'm short of needles.... so no pictures this time but more coming soon.