MonkeyFeet

Ohhhh I love winter! Lovelovelove it!

It seems a while since I last updated, but I don’t actually have all that much to show for my time, because I spent all of last week furiously dyeing.

So anyway. As soon as I finish writing this I’m going to catch up on replying to your comments, I’m sorry for being so bad at that, I’m just really rubbish at keeping in contact – what more can I say!

So here’s a nice holly leaf to show my festive spirit. I really hate all the commercialism over Christmas, I just enjoy the time to be with my (very small) family, and chill out, enjoy the cold crispy weather, enjoy the food, watch TV for a change (I very rarely watch TV), and just enjoy drinking tea and pigging out really. A certain person in my life (not family) has spent the last week or so obsessively wrapping presents, this person’s been shopping for weeks and must have spent a small mortgage on presents, and that seems to be the main concern, I find it a little disconcerting. In our house we’ve not got presents under the tree, our decorations are the nativity, not santa (we’re not even religious), we’re just enjoying twinkly lights and mince pies. Don’t get me wrong, I’d be a hypocrite to say I don’t like recieving presents, I do enjoy recieving well thought out things that my family have put a lot of thought and consideration into, and yes, I love giving presents, I love surprising the recipient, and putting a lot of time and brain-effort in. But, most of all I just like the nice, relaxed atmosphere.

I’ll stop lecturing now shall I?

I’ve got a bit of spinning done, this is 100% merino, it’s actually pink, toffee and black, though you can’t tell that well. It’s a singles, with about 200 yards to 50g.

This is the same, but in humbug colours, and is two plies, with about 100 yards to 50g.

Remember the beautiful wintery Ice fibre from two posts ago? Well this is it all spun up. It took ages to spin, and I wanted a nice, thin singles yarn, so it’s mostly even, with a few bumpy areas where I got really tired or cramp in my hand (that happens a lot).

I’m so in love with this skein, it’s pretty big and I’ve not measured my niddy noddy so I don’t know how many yards there are, but there must be quite a lot, so hopefully I can make a beautiful, sparkly shawl with it

 

I did get *some* knitting done. This is my wrap done in Sirdar Peru, in Picco colourway. It’s kind of turquoise with greyish bits. It’s realy gorgeous and warm, but didn’t open out as wide as I hoped when i blocked it. I would really like to gather up lots of this yarn in the different colours and do a nice blanket with it.  I’ve got three balls in this colour to start my collection anyway!

I made these a couple of weeks ago, aren’t they cute! I’d like to have a go at miniature knitting – as in thread, and tiny wee needles. The brown fairisle one is much smaller than t’other two, though you can’t tell!

 

I also made these earrings for myself. I love the earrings I’ve made for my shop, so I made some really long ones in my favourite colours, mostly purple, but also pink and blue. They’re pretty heavy so I don’t wear them loads, but I also made myself a white pair about half the length! Both pairs are really sparkly, I love them so much

 

I made these, they’re quite long too but don’t have as many glass beads so aren’t as heavy. NickyKnits has bought them, so I hope she enjoys them

There are other pairs, they’re in my shop but I thought I’d just put a wee selection on here (don’t want to overload the post).

 

Last week at SnB Andrea gave me a belated birthday pressie, which was really naughty as I (embarassingly) missed hers. It’s the most beautiful, deep purple, and it’s Zephyr. Ahhhh   I hope I see her to return the generosity before I move away.

And Suzi gave me this, which is Du Store Alpakka (I think I got that right). It’s unusual, and really gorgeous. Again, she was naughty and didn’t need to – I really didn’t expect anything at all!

 

So, here’s the dyeing I’ve been doing. Well there’s tonnes of it, so I’m not going to go through it all, instead I’ll give you a quick view of what I’ve stashed for myself. I rarely stash from my own box – mostly for sock yarn when I do. But I really want to get on with designing. I’ve got loads of ideas and am itching to start swatching and playing, so I’ve stashed quite a few yarns for that.

This is Maya chunky, the gorgeous baby alpaca that’s good enough for nekkid stash diving. It’s the kind of stuff you want to pile up and use as a pillow.

This is a new one – it’s Tikal, (a Mayan King actually, according to the National Geographic) – it’s organic cotton tencel. I’ve not done cotton before, and I had to really rinse it before the colour became colour fast, so I hope it’s all ok. You never know with cotton if it’ll fade in the wash, but I rinsed it uber-thoroughly so it should be fine. Anyway, that’s in the shop, and if there are any problems I will of course sort it out! It’s a really gorgeous yarn, the tencel makes it so much more luxurious than just pure cotton.

This is Unicorn Lace (merino/silk – the same as zephyr) – in Ripple.

 

This is Manyana (merino/tencel sock), in Silverdale, the same as JulieR’s bolero/shrug. I’m thinking it’ll be great for highly patterned socks.

This is more Unicorn Lace, in Cranberry.

Maya Chunky in Ripple (I’d like to design with it but I think I’m going to do a Thorpe actually as I really need an earflap hat for dog walking).

Manyana in Harvest Gold. I actually really dislike orange. But this goldy browny orangey colour really took my fancy, which is great seeing as it was kind of an accident. There’s another skein the same in my shop I’m lying it’s sold, but it was for sale not long ago.

I also stashed Harebell Lace (baby alpaca – oooh yeah!) in turquoise/cornflower, and BFL sock in Cranberry and Fresh Berries. Hey you know what I haven’t stashed any of? Bambino, oh I need to stash a skein of that, my monkeys that I made are such awesome socks. I’ll have to decide what colourway to stash. I might actually have dyed myself a skein and forgotten, I’ll have to check my stash box and compare it with The List.

 

Anyway, I’m still taking my camera about everywhere. Here’s an interesting (so I think) shadow.

 

I can’t really tell if this isn’t slightly out of focus, but I like it anyway. The wind just slightly blew it as I pressed the shutter release, then I couldn’t pursuade my camera to focus on it after that.

I know you’ve seen these trees before, but they’re still lovely aren’t they!

That’s all for now! I’ve just finished an Ice Queen in Rowan Tapestry, which is too big (the yarn stretches too much), and I’m knitting a pair of socks for Dad to give his mate (I think), on commission for £20. It doesn’t really cover the hours at all does it, but I couldn’t ask more than that. That’s using the Regia sock yarn from Kaffe Fasset which I can’t say I think much of!! (the colours, that is)

I’m also knitting my Japanese Feather Scarf still, and I’m about to start either a hotbot cover for mum or a we call them pirates for OH – I’m undecided which to do first.

I also made some more earrings tonight – Dad commissioned them from me to give to his ‘partner’ (isn’t that a rubbish word) – they’re all pearls and crystals, very glamourous! And I’ve made a new batch of stitch markers seeing as I’m nearly out of them now. There’s some posh ones and some really funky ones coming up!

So that’s it for this week. I hope you’re all enjoying the festive atmosphere, I know it can be a lonely, depressing time for a lot of people – I heard an old lady saying in the street that she had no family and was dreading Christmas and I felt awful for her. Anyway, so this is a time that really highlights your lovely family, or lack of it, and I have to admit to being a bit bipolar around this time myself. So in the meantime, I hope you have a relaxing time and enjoy the crispy weather, beautiful winter sunsets, and mince pies   (I say this, I’m probably going to fit in another update before christmas!)

 

Ciao for now!