Tag: spinning wheel

Old films and new spinning wheels…

Posted on by Alice Neal

I had a lovely afternoon yesterday. My man and my youngest babe are both poorly, so we all snuggled up on the sofa – well, the littl’un snuggled into his daddy and went to sleep – and I spent a very happy couple of hours crocheting and watching the English Patient. The top of my granny square waistcoat is now in one piece, though I have discovered I need four more squares to make it meet at the front. In other words, I went from making it for a giant to making it for a supermodel. I’m neither. Oops. 🙂

One of the upshots of watching the English Patient was observing Ralph Fiennes’ character – Count Almasy – and his notebook/journal. What we realised is that it was a copy of Herodotus into which he had stuck his memories, sketches, observations… What a fabulous idea! I have ordered an old, hardback copy of Alice in Wonderland and am going to do the self-same thing.

Count Almasy's JournalThe English Patient
Count Almasy’s Journal
The English Patient

But then, cruising Tumblr this morning, I came across this rather synchronous and totally beautiful thing:

Crochet Sampler
Crochet Sampler

Isn’t it dreamy? So I’ve decided to make one of those rough, thick-papered notebooks  and am determined to master the rather more intricate of lace patterns, .which I have so far avoided as too difficult and fiddly. 🙂 At some point…

And today I drove to a gorgeous farmhouse the other side of Durham and picked up my spinning wheel!! Here is a not-very-good picture of it:

spinning-wheel

I have no idea if or how it works, but plan to do some research this weekend and see if I can make head or tail of it. I haven’t the first clue about spinning, other than to be careful not to prick my finger in case I need a big kiss from a handsome prince in a century’s time… (Though, frankly, I could do with the sleep)… It came with these two carders and these books, but is missing its manual, which the lady selling it to me has promised to post on, should it resurface:

books

So, I have a voyage of discovery to embark upon this weekend.

And a letter home saying my 6-year old needs to bring a decorated egg into school by Monday. So he and I will be busy, too.

Happy weekend, all! x

Squares and Hearts and…

Posted on by Alice Neal

It may not surprise you enormously, even at this early stage, to hear that there is another blanket in the works that I haven’t mentioned yet 🙂 It is also of the granny square variety, but using a much heavier weight yarn than the waistcoat. This yarn is Sublime chunky merino tweed – 80% merino wool.

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It’ll be much quicker to make a blanket with this, given the difference in size. I took a picture of the two types of square it feels like I’m mass-producing at the moment:

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which, since it takes roughly the same amount of time to make them (15-20 mins depending on the number of children at home and the number of interruptions from start to finish), illustrates the point doesn’t it?

I embellished another little hat when I went to bed last night. I love these little crochet hearts. I found them while cruising for crochet on Pinterest, and it’s only fair that I share the tutorial here.

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My baby jacket is coming on quickly, in spite of the near disaster it encountered yesterday. My unsupervised toddler managed in the few moments I was out of the room, to remove the needles. Suppressing the inclination to flap and panic, I threaded each stitch back onto the needle as slowly and calmly as possible. Note to self: never leave littl’un and work-in-progress alone in the same room 🙂

I have some birthday cards to make and have found another fabulous use for those hearts

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In other news, Norfolk Beard Oil co-founder, Marek Duchnowski has been bigging up my chunky-rib masculine Rowan Big Wool neckwarmers as his neckwear of choice:

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But perhaps most excitingly of all…. Tomorrow I pick up my spinning wheel!! Hard to express quite how excited I am 😉

TTFN

When Life Gets in the Way…

Posted on by Alice Neal

… crochet!

Ooh! My new mantra!

I have a poorly man and a poorly youngest babe, so there is no out-and-abouting today. On the downside, I can’t go and collect my spinning wheel, which has had to be put off till later in the week, but on the upside, I’ve been working on my mother-in-law’s blog, and had the chance to do a bit more crochet. I’ve finally crocheted enough granny squares to complete the top of my long vest (a WIP – work in progress). I have this vision of what it’s going to look like. I even have a pattern, but I find myself in the small hours of the morning planning modifications, improvements, using things I’ve picked up on Pinterest, Crochet Me, Ravelry and all sorts of other places to make it ‘better’. I have a suspicion it will look nothing like the original when it’s done. I hope I love it as much as I plan to as it’s a lot of work 🙂 Next stage is weaving in all the ends and crocheting it all in place. Then I need to start on the ‘skirt’ of the waistcoat. My vision has it as a kind of empire line affair, with some knitted godets, or maybe granny triangles providing some shaping, but… We’ll see…

Granny square waistcoat
Granny square waistcoat

I’m also hoping to get back to my crocheted hexagon blanket, but not finding enough hours in the day. So, I needed something quick and simple, which would give me speedy results and help maintain my creative enthusiasm. I chose a little pink jacket I’ve promised to a friend for her new baby (who, rather happily coincidentally, shares my name). I’m knitting it from a very simple pattern I bought yonks ago and discovered in a pile of unfiled papers recently, and using Sirdar Balmoral yarn, which is wool, silk and alpaca and beautifully soft, in a lovely baby pink, but not too pale. I love it. This kind of thing is so quick and satisfying to do, and I have plans for some embroidery on the front, though my vision may exceed my capability… Again, we shall see. 🙂

Alice's Jacket
Alice’s Jacket

And I finished a jingly pixie hat for my toddler’s little cousin, embellishing it with a tinkling bell and a crochet heart, which I hope is not too girly for a little boy… This is knitted with Araucania pure cotton, a very unevenly spun yarn which I love – it gives such a gorgeous homemade look. The heart is crocheted with Louisa Harding Ianthe – 50% merino 50% cotton (the same yarn as my granny square waistcoat). I confess to much preferring natural yarns to anything manmade, though it does tend to stretch the purse a bit more.

Marcel's Chapeau
Marcel’s Chapeau

Ooh, ooh! And in other news, though I haven’t yet collected the spinning wheel, this morning a very exciting package arrived all the way from Bulgaria – some wool! This is a totally new experience for me, I’ve done absolutely no research whatever 🙂 and my mother-in-law has promised me a book on natural dyes… Gulp. Watch this space!

Bulgarian Wool!!
Bulgarian Wool!!

Here… We… Go…!

Posted on by Alice Neal

My mother-in-law and I are embarking on a voyage of yarnie blogdom…

She, Susan Campbell, is an enormously accomplished knitter, designer, artist of many years standing, and I am a relative ingenu.

She plans to pass on her pearls of wisdom to me, since I am in awe and unbridled envy of her skill and accomplishment, and love nothing more than to spend the day knitting, crocheting, sewing… Life gets in the way a little too much for my liking, though 😉

Knitting, for me, began when I was 10 and my grandmother taught me the basics. She took me to a little shop in Weybridge, Surrey, where we chose a pattern and some blue, fluffy yarn and I promised her faithfully that I would finish it. A short while ago I came across a bag with the completed front in it, some 30 years later, and felt a pang of guilt.

Then, enter my mother-in-law. She got me going again. She, like my grandmother, took me to a shop – this time in King’s Lynn, Norfolk – and we chose some cream-coloured yarn. She taught me to follow a pattern again, and I made a tea-cozy. Which struck me as rather hat-shaped. So I recreated it without the holes for handle and spout, and put a little sprout on the top, and started knitting hats, for babies, for my family, for friends, and for sale.

It’s a short step from there to attempting larger projects, though I became side-tracked by crochet along the way…

So now, I have half a million projects on the go. I have nearly finished a knitted elephant for one son, have completed a tank top for another, a pair of aran socks for a dear friend, a new baby hat for a relative, a cowl for a friend… and am crocheting a long waistcoat of granny squares, a blanket of granny hexagons, knitting a baby hoodie for a friend’s baby, but my mind is teeming with more ideas and balking at not having enough time to do it all.

Oh, and tomorrow I go to collect my latest acquisition – a spinning wheel – about which I know next-to-nothing and am ridiculously excited.

Pictures and details to follow.

Off to put littl’uns to bed… I’ll leave you with some works in progress:

Elephant
Elephant
Granny Hexagon Blanket
Granny Hexagon Blanket
Granny Square Vest