Great Vegetable Experiment 07, Day 148

Harvesting!

Yodel-eh-hi-hoooooo

So I've been on Holiday, to Switzerland, twas most most fabulous, i think i would happily move there 2moro so much more civilised!The Matterhorn! and mother and IMet some San Bernadino dogs (sounds so much better in Italien dontcha think)

I tried to run away with some pirates:But sadly they werent sailing til the following evening by which point we had moved to our next destination, twas a tour you see.Went to the Geiger Cafe, which is somewhat outta place in the middle of very scenic medievil Gruyere!I discovered i have my own town which sadly we didnt get to visit (apologies for blurryness, was taken out the bus window with me pointy and telling my dad to "take a picture! take a picture!")
Saw some sheeps with toupees!
Sheepies shading under a cable car station, at first i thot they were rocks til we got closer!

There was of course knitting:At Lake Maggiore, where the pirate bag took in the lake:And knitting at 10000 feet!Which means the pirate bag now looks like this:
I also finished the mohawk hat, I had it knitted before i left but since i couldnt take knitting needles on the plan, i saved adding its 'hawk til then so once again father is my obliging knitwear model Mohawk hat from Domiknitrix by Jennifer Stafford, Yarn Lamb's Pride bulky in onyx and limeade.
There was shopping:
Alpine felt hat, rather fetching i think Swiss pirate T-shirt, cos i like pirates and bag made from recycled Swiss Army blankets that i bought at the top or Gornergrat, the highest shopping mall in Europe possibly the World.
A Swatch Watch with tea and donuts on it, and possible the Worlds loudest tick!
Yarn?
Regia Mosaik, because its pretty, and i hadnt seen 100g balls before
Black sorta generic own brand swiss stuff, cos black stuff is a pain to find and it was cheap, about £1.30 a ballSupersock, cos its Swiss (i think)
Overall i was very restrained there was LOTS of sock yarn i could easily have bought roughly my body weight but i figured it wouldnt fit in the case and i am running outta storage room! I also bought the O-zone but the less said on that the best prolly

I also nearly bought a spinning wheell....Oh so very pretty (again sorry about the fairly crap photo it was thru a window) but i resisted a) because is was 400 odd squid, b) woulda been hard to get home and most inportantly c) the shop was shut!

So that was it, if you wanna see more photoes then you can see the flickr album here

Bad blogging

I've been withholding an FO, for no reason other than i am lazy

I actually finished these on Monday and this is now Thursday tut tut tut
Yes those are actually my legs, they may look plastic but thats just my pale scottishness!

you wanr details?? Yarn is Artsygal Handdyed sock yarn in Bumblefee!!
Pattern is Anastasia socks, i really like this pattern, gonna make me a slightly altered pair sometime soon!

Thats just not Cricket...

An FO! wheeeeeeeeA wee vest for the chap i work withs wee boy who will be 1 next week, cute dontcha think, looks like something one would play cricket in! Cygnet wool rich 4ply and this pattern
Was a fairly quick knit even if i did have to frog half the front due to unclear pattern, but i muddled thru!

I also have new shoeses! I am the worst person in the world at buying trainers cos I am very picky about what i want and very cheap! Thankfully there are skechers in the world and they fulfil my needs!Are ya loving my sheepie PJs? I'm ill thus allowed to slob in my jammies...

I am the Fire..cracker?

Remeber this:
The firecracker fibre obtained at woolfest?

it doesnt look like this anymore...
At first i was gonna ply it but then i thot its busy enoug colour wise so just kept it as a single which meant i got more yarnyness:
Very full bobbin!!

Finished yarn
I'm not sure the colour is entirely accuarate in any of these, i think the last one is closest tho its possible a little on the bright side, problem with tryin to take photoes in the late evening sun

Anyway its 101g, 147.5 yds of i think mainly DK weight tho its mightily uneven, i have no idea what the fibre content is, as i was spinning i thot it was distictly ahem synthetic, now i have the finished yarn I'm less sure, answers on a postcard!

To top of my week my shiny shiny daddy made me this:
A shiny new swift! no more tangled skeins wheeeeeee
Note that i am using a ruddy great dewalt drill to wind the yarn, this is not the norm, usually i have a wee black and decker electric screwdriver with about an 8th of the power but it was charging...

Great Vegetable Experiment 07, Day 130

Hmm it has been a while hasnt it, oh dear. anyway things are happening!flax has wee (blurry) blue flowers! pretty!
Cotton seems to be doing well
Courgette plant is threatening to take over the conservatory...AND:
An actual courgette! the only one so far....
Again with the blurry... a flower and an itty bitty pepper
a wee red tomato (not the first tasty wee guys!)
Brocolli with the beginnings of a brocolli!
Peas! prolly gonna get a good crop off these chapies at the weekend
Onions, doing oniony things
Potaters, hopefully gonna be ready towards the end of the month!

Mail Spin

So i have got parcels this week first up
A spiffy vinyl sock bag made by Sue for me to beta test for her before she goes into mass production, so far so good, I will post a full review in due course

I also recieved a parcel from NM from the darling Sobe
She very kindly obtained this for me in order to knit a birthday pressie for a friend, also in the pacakage as well as a picture from her son and some stuff for mother was this:
From the ever viligant Artsy who is on a constant campaign to protect her fellow knitters from outbreaks of purple funfurflies and has sent out repellant to all.

I've also been spinning today got thru my little dod of tussah silk
Mardi Gras Tussah silk, 18g, 93 yds somewhere in a lace-sockweight i think just a single so it'll go further
The reason why there is a mummy and a baby skein was i thot i had finished and was going to photo it when i noticed some pieces on the back of the living room chair, I had left them there fter taking it with me to watch Lewis Hamilton get pole in the British Grand Prix (woohoo!) and forgot all about it!!

Which muppertry brings me to my exploits yesterday, i had one of those days...
First off on the train to work i was so engrossed in my book i nearly missed my stop only realising cos i happend to look up and thus had to make a dive off the train.
Then since it was friday and we were finished i got outta work a bit early and was at the station in plenty time to get the train so i sat in the waiting room ans read my book, what happened? i got so into it i looked up to see the train leaving the station!! (for anyone whose interested I'm reading Wicked! by Jilly Cooper)

Then at night i went to see my friend who is dog sitting and got well and trully lost trying to find where she was, she was at a relatives house, in a town i had never driven to or round and my googlemap directions were all well and good excpet that the streets didnt have names on them and seemed to chop and change, i eventually found where i was going 40 mins later by sheer blind luck!!

Oh well...

Contenders Ready!

As promised here be my contest! I am starting it as soon as i post this and it will run to 8pm (BST) on the 2nd of August which is a year since i learned to knit!

Tis a fairly simple premise, I have just finished spinning my very first handspun on my wheel and what you have to do it guess the length!


Here is the yarn in question:

Close ups are a little blurry I'm afraid,
The vital statistics:
Fibre: Merino (i think)
Weight: 45g or 1 5/8oz
WPI: 13 (roughly its not the evenest)
Thickness (?) : somewhere in the DK/ very light worsted
Length: ????????

What ya need to do is email me (bumblefee (at) gmail (dot) com with the correct symbols) and tell me your name, your blog if you have one (cos i am nosy) and your guesstimate in either yards or metres I'm not fussy. On the evening of the 2nd i will announce the winner ie whoever guesses closest to the correct length and contact them for further info!
So what can ya win??

First Prize
1 skein of bright dyes handdyed Sock yarn in a greeny blue colour way!

And for the 2 closest runners up:
Very cute stitch markers!

Also if anyone has any ideas what i can knit with it, any suggestions welcome!

So go forth and let battle commence!!

**Edit: I'm willing to post anywhere so dont let geography put ya off!**

Woolfest!!!!

***PICTURE HEAVY POST***

So you have been warned


I went to the LAke District at the weekend to attend a wee event called woolfestI like the Lake District its pretty it was however also rather wet at timeMother looking cheerful despite the rain
there were many stops for cuppas
Including at the Cumbrian Pencil Museum (which is more fun than it sounds)

We went to somewhere I hadnt been before but wanted to see
Castlerigg stone circle constructed they think around 3000BC or summat along those lines twas very pretty nice views dowt valley
Oh that reminds me of a fabulous sign on the way up a hillside: "Tek care lambs ont road" yep a sign with a Yorkshire accent!!

So i suppose now you wanna know about woolfest eh?

Twas fabulous, most funtastic, lots of sheepies and shopping! I will try and get the breeds right but well my brain is a bit sieve like!
Manx Loaghtan Sheep, or as i like to call it devil sheepieTeeswater
ShetlandsWensleydale
Oh i dont know what half these are thus i give up! They are sheep ok



This one seemed to like my camera!

Now non sheep I know what these are
Llamas with which my mum had quite the rappore

Alpaca! looking at me with disdain


Angora Bunny with the funky lugs

So now i guess i should show you what i bought hey


Haul mine and mothersButtons, i love buttons


Regia Nations Colours, i like this is yellow

Regia Bamboo color, pretty



Silk Hankies for the spinning

A posty holdery thingy for a future cardi

Firecracker fibre, dunno exactly whats in it but its puerty

Addi turbos, a wee 12inch 2.5mm for the sockies and and a 2.5mm lace needle wooooo

Bright Dyes handpainted sock yarn, pretty pretty

some wee 2.5mm 10cm long Ebony DPNs for the socking, pretty

Susan Bates peg counter jobby have heard these are invaluable and since I've never seen em here afore i bought one!

Cygnet 4ply, its a little greener than it appears, the only thing so far with a plan, a birthday pressie for a babba

Silk/merino fibre

Same fibre, different colour

My bargain of the weekend, nearly 200g of sock yarn for 3 squid, should get 3 pairs of socks from that

Milk protein fibre, very silky





More Merino/silk


I also managed to fit in some knitting, mainly in the car and in the B+B got past the rather brain melting colour work of my pirate bag:

On the contest front, prizes have been secured, the format decided so more details soon soon soon...