Hello everyone. What a busy day it has been! I managed to get all my work done (I hope) lesson planning wise. I still need to get lots done for displays and what nots too. Talking of displays, here is the start of my ‘Plants’ one. 

I know, I know, not very impressive! And it’s dreadfully squint too, you can tell by the table at the bottom! Bit annoyed, but it took me long enough to put it up there so I’m not moving it again. I also ran out of yellow wavy border so had to make do with plain yellow at the bottom. I have printed out some labels to label a plant (which I still need to make!!) and some pictures showing how a bean seed develops. I want to see if I can get hold of some sycamore seeds and do a mini tree, with the sycamore seeds scattered by it. We shall see. 

I’ve done a little bit more on the blanket, but only about ten rows so not worth putting up another picture I think. I also started making a little bag. I saw my handspun singles wool and thought yeah, why not? No pattern I’m following, just making up the pattern as I go along. I want it to be predominantly grey/silver Corriedale, with brown and white striped across it. It feels lovely so far, and I’ve been using something like 7mm needles. I think! I cast on 60 sts, knitted and purled about four rows, and then joined it in the round. It’s knitting up pretty quickly and I can see that I am going to need some more wool very soon. Oh no, ANOTHER trip to ‘World Of Wool.’ *tries to hide excitement!!* 

Mum and I went to Hobbycraft today and we picked up a number of things to try out. There were quite a few sales on but I only bought a few things. There were some stunning cross stitch kits; one was a bear cartoon type one which was gorgeous, but the one I really liked was The Last Supper. The threads were so bulky there were that many! It was only £10, but I just couldn’t justify buying it as I knew it would never get done. So beautiful though, and will give someone a great project! I did pick up some mini cross stitch kits though! 

Thought I might do these when I have a spare few minutes and can put them onto Christmas cards. So pretty! 

I have seen the following kits a few times when I have been in HobbyCraft. They were £2 each, and today I felt like trying something new, so got some. These are all a doll kit, but each has different hair/clothes, etc. 

My Mum and I completed the little kit on the bottom right. Don’t tell the others, but I think shes the cutest! We got quite a bit in the kit, everything we needed really, except a thin needle for sewing on the buttons and eyes. 

So, I started on the body and Mum started on the clothes. 

I really enjoyed sewing this up. Simple and easy, but still challenging. I like trying out new things. 

Here is the finished dolly… 

Isn’t she dainty?? And here she is with her new clothes on. 

I think she is so pretty. She now sits on the shelf of the fireplace in my room, looking at everything. Can’t wait to make her friends to join her. She isn’t perfect but I’m happy with what she looks like. 

Here is how Fred was lying on the sofa as we worked. No-one else was allowed on! 

Comfy, huh? 😀 

Right, I better get going to bed then I think! Off shopping again tomorrow, somewhere else this time. Let’s see if I get more than ONE Christmas present, grrr! 

Night night everyone, 

xXx Love Kais xXx 

Hello everyone. What a day it has been today! 

I was working in the charity shop again this week, like I do when I’m not working or anything. It wasn’t fantastic for knitting stuff this time, although they did have a few things come in. A couple of folders of knitting patterns for babies, toys and children were there, and I did have a quick flick through, but only a couple of patterns caught my eye. I think you can see why … 

Soooo cute! I really like the look of the cardigan in the bottom right hand corner. I have quite a few of these old grey and silver Patons patterns. But the dress is also so dainty too! Hmm, decisions, decisions! Someone else came in with a big bag of knitting needles too. They were all bright, colourful plastic ones, which would have been PERFECT when I had been teaching my class how to knit a few years ago. But no matter. I didn’t buy any. I personally do not like knitting with plastic needles. Much prefer metal, but my bamboo ones for double pointed needles. How about you? 

I also bought some nice, new clothes too. I will rifle through the racks when I’m there (I am there for three hours) just to see what there is. Here is what I found. . . 

Black leggings with buttons at the ankles, never had any like this before, so it looks nice. These might go well with my gorgeous black shoes! (Oh dear, I mentioned shoes again….) A dark orange top with sort of ruffles on the front with loose shoulder sleeves. This will go perfect for school. A grey top with a sort of cut out back with beading across. And a pink, lace knit jumper which looks like it’s from the eighties! I LOVE it. I haven’t described these very well, but they fit and look better than I’ve described them. (I am terrible for describing things. You should hear me tell jokes…. urgh!) 

Annnnd the best thing? I found this!!! 

Look at the price on it!! £109.90!!! But, no, I didn’t pay anywhere near that, haha. I’ve checked it over and it looks perfectly fine. It even had a set of brand new film with it too. I’ve no idea of the date of the film, but I imagine it is well out of date. However, I was overjoyed to see that there was still film in the camera, which allowed me to have a little go on it. When I finished at the shop, we went over to my Dads shop and he was the first to have a go at trying it out. This is the photo we got… 

Obviously a very different photo to what we would get from a digital camera, but I like it. It’s looks very eighties! This is Mum and I in my Dads shop, holding up a paper supporting the YES! campaign. 

I’m overjoyed to get this, I really am, thought I imagine it will be a struggle to get some films for it. I shall just buy some cheap ones I find online to see what happens. Here is a photo of Freddy that I have just taken. 

Must go now, will edit this or create new post later. Byeeeeeeeeeee!

xXx Love Kais xXx 

Hello again, just a quick blog post whilst I have some time. Thought you might like to see how my cot blanket is getting on. 

I think last time you saw it, it was two repeats long. I’ve just started on my fourth one, and am still loving it! It was easy to calculate the amount of stitches in it too, which turn out to be 6400 stitches! 

I think the pattern said something like 12 repeats, but I’m not sure if that will suit the needle size I’m working with. I don’t want one looong rectangular blanket. I think I will just play it by sight, but the way it is going, I think I am aiming for nine repeats, with the seed stitch border. I’m still pondering over whether to add a border to it or not. 

I still plan on blocking it when I have finished. Probably in the front room or something which isn’t used too often at the moment. I’ve been using normal dressmaker pins to block things (which isn’t often!) but I’ve seen t-shaped pins which look pretty good too. Anyone else used those before? Are they better than normal pins? 

What else? Not a lot craft wise unfortunately. I really want to get onto dyeing these silk hankies but I just have no time at all. Knitting this blanket is the only thing I seem to grab a spare few minutes to do. Good thing it’s in a fairly chunky yarn which means it knits up quickly. 

Well, I’ve been working on the displays in my classroom, and I’ve been super late in putting them up. I just seem to constantly have things to do, and displays were the least of my worries. Well, this week I’ve decided to put up some new ones. 

Here is an example of what you can do with acrostics poems. 

 

The children (lower KS1) wrote acrostics poems using the word ‘home.’ They then wrote this on a house template, and decorated it. I thought it would make a lovely display to show their houses in a street. This isn’t the best display in the world, but I’m super pleased with it. I’m working on a ‘plants’ display as well. Unfortunately, standing back from it, I can see that it’s pretty squint, which hopefully won’t annoy me too much! I’ll try and get a quick photo of it as soon as possible. I need to draw and cut out a giant flower, and label all the insides of it. I can’t find any decent plant label cards online, except ones with very simple vocabulary, which is not what I need. No matter, I’ll just go onto Microsoft Word and type them out myself. It’s just the laminating that takes so long unfortunately. 

Oh, I was looking in my cupboard for something yesterday and found some items I bought a while ago, but never blogged about! Does anyone know what these are? 

These are Russian Support Spindles and I have wanted to try them in soooo long! I think you can tell which one is my favourite! I enjoy spinning with them, but they are a lot more difficult and more time consuming than a normal drop spindle. They are a lot longer than I thought too, I thought they were just small things, maybe a little longer than six inches? These are about ten inches longer I would say. I got these in a big box stuffed with the most amazing fibres – cashmere and silk mix, merino and silk mix, dehaired camel, llama, adult mohair, oh, some lovely things! I spun the llama up a few weeks ago. I did a post on it too. 

Anyway, I ‘spose I’d better get going. Not very sleepy at the moment, would much rather do something crafty, but I’m afraid my eyes won’t let me! (That will teach me to not try and do everything in one day. It doesn’t seem to matter how much I do, there always seems to be so much more waiting. I’ve even taken home two lots of A4 jotters and another classes worksheets to try and mark, but it’s never ending). That’s what being a teachers all about! 

Right, have a great night everyone, I’m off to snuggle up to my sweetheart – If he moves up that is! ❤ 

xXx Love Kais xXx 

Hello again everyone. 

Been such a busy couple of weeks, I feel I’ve had hardly any time to myself whatsoever. I’ve worked loads of extra time at the school lately since one of the teachers is off with laryngitis. Hope she feels better soon, I’m exhausted! Haha. Lots of busy time planning and sorting out things, and because it is December very soon, lots of Christmas plans to make! Urgh, I haven’t even had the time to think about what Christmas presents I’d like to get for other people. I won’t even start until next month. 

So, what has been happening lately craft wise? 

I was helping out in the charity shop again last week, and when I walked in, what did I see? 

 

Oh yes, mine immediately! I was very good however, and only picked them up once I had finished all my school work. There are some good patterns in there, and some I know my Nanny will LOVE. Even a few Alan Dart patterns in there – score! 

I get a little bored sometimes in the shop when it is quiet, so the last few times I have been there I brought my knitting along with me. I started this a few nights ago, using one of the massive Aran balls of wool blend that I had been given. 

It is the ‘Falling Leaves Baby Blanket’ that I found on Ravelry. The designer has used cotton yarn which gives great stitch definition, but I thought wool would be nice, warm, and snuggly. 

http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/leafy-baby-blanket

It is (the one I’m doing) 100 stitches per row, with a seed stitch border. Normally I hate seed stitch, but it’s working out perfectly fine. I’m worried about it being a little small, but I could always block it to see what it’s like after, and perhaps a nice, little crochet edging. Someone left a comment on the page about doing perhaps six rows of seed stitch to begin and end as it will match the sides better. As I knit on and look at the blanket, I can def. see why they would say that. Good idea. 

I’m using my gorgeous brand new needles for this blanket! I’m still so excited about these needles, they are beautiful. Someone one Ravelry was selling a case of Boyes circular needles in coloured aluminium. You know, the kinds with the detachable cables? I saw it, and just KNEW I had to have it. I messaged the seller immediately and within ten minutes – mine! 

I’m using the 6mm ones at the moment for this lap blanket, the red ones at the bottom left. The cables get loose from the needles occasionally, but not enough to come off. Quick tighten and voila! They are so soft and smooth and I adore them. I love the fact that there are little end caps too (the little pink things in the top middle) that I can screw onto the ends of the cables, so I can use the needles later, or if I want to put them away. Beautiful. I wonder now if I can get dpns in the same mixed colours. Then I will have a case of circulars, a case of crochet hooks, and then some dpns. I’m using my circulars as straights too. 

What else? I started spinning some ‘aubergine’ coloured alpaca the other night and finished it a few hours ago. 

100g of DK dyed alpaca. I got out some more of my own hand dyed stuff from under the stairs and quickly spun up some of that too. 

50g of Cheviot, hand dyed – Lucky Dip! This turned into… 

Slightly thinner than DK. When people say that their fibre decides what kind of thickness it wants to be spun, I used to think, oh, how silly. Now I know that it does happen, it does decide for itself sometimes! 

I am desperate to start dyeing up some of these silk hankies. I have plenty of oranges and reds to dye it with. Not sure if I want to dye them in full lots, or mix the colours up. I have about 100gish of hankies to dye. I might just dye them altogether. 

A few great photos to finish this post off… 

On a cold day, we made some porridge for the chickens. Didn’t they enjoy it! 

We also made some for Freddy. He hasn’t been quite right these past few days 😦 He started coughing the other night, and we thought it was because his collar had been pulled a little too hard once he was out on a walk. At night time he woke up three or four times just coughing, which is heart breaking to hear. He was very coughy through out the day too, but last night he was fine. And he hasn’t coughed again since I’ve been back. But the coughing was very loud, like he was choking almost, and sounded like a ‘honking.’ He wasn’t sick on any of the coughs which is good. We were going to take to him to the vets if the coughing continues but he seems right back to his beautiful, bouncy, adorable, energetic self. He is lying next to me right now, snoozing away, which I adore. 

 

Right, I’d better go now, I’m so tired. It’s only twenty to nine, but feels sooooo much later! Might watch some TV shows with a cup of tea and the blanket. School tomorrow, so early night too. 

Nighty night everyone! 

xXx Love Kais xXx 

 

Hello again! 

It’s been such a long time since I posted. Just want to apologise to those who have commented on my posts, I’m very sorry for not replying, it’s very unlike me. Also, for those whos blogs I regularly comment on too, I apologise, I’m not ignoring anyone, I just haven’t been on here for a while. It’s been a hectic month for me, and the past few weeks have been quite stressful. I hope to resume normal service soon! 

Well, first things first. In the last couple of weeks I’ve been asked to take my spinning with me to various places 😀 One is to my Mums work, to show them how spinning works, as part of an ‘alternative art’ session. The guys and girls there absolutely loved it and everyone tried their best. I started off with some examples of what I had for them to try, and started off people using the spinning wheel. I used my Bliss. Instead of allowing them to try with sheep fleece to spin, I simply threaded it with some red acrylic yarn, so they could understand the feeling of spinning, without the hassle of concentrating on holding it properly. Some were very good and got hold of the motion of the wheel straight away. Others had me pushing the wheel for them whilst they felt the treadle go up and down. 

My Mum assisted them with the drum carder whilst I supported the spinning wheel. Some of the clients loved the carder and were fascinated by blending the merino colours together. 

I spun up one batt of wool that one of them had blended. 

All in all it was an enjoyable afternoon. I was due to go to a school the next day, and being the lazy person I am, I left the spinning equipment in the car overnight. I’m sooo glad I did! I asked the Head of this school if I were allowed to give a lesson on spinning and let them have a go, and she said yes! 

The kids LOVED it. They all got their iPads out (the school gives all the pupils iPads) and were filming each other spinning, like awesome reporters. I was very impressed. 

To start off with, I put all the different kinds of fibres I had in the middle of the table and had the children sit/stand around it. (Only 12 in the class that day). We discussed the various types of fibres and how each is prepared. They looked at plastic, silk cocoons and hankies, llama, alpaca and wool.

Later on, we all made felted soaps. 

I love the one in the top right hand corner, the white one with purple felted bits on top. I was very impressed with that. They all seemed to have great fun and all participated very eagerly. 

What else has been going on? Oh, I came back the other night from a party, and Mum gave me three huge bags of wool that someone had given her from work. I LOVE rummaging in wool bags, you never know what you might find! 

Freddy very kindly helped me bring it all upstairs. His contribution is the wool on the top of the bags 😀 There was a massive amount. Most of it was acrylic, old acrylic, with some wool blends, all in different thicknesses. Plenty of new balls there, which is awesome. Two huge new balls of Aran wool. There was also loads of mohair too; I LOVE the bright pinks. 

Acrylics in top left, (going to be awesome just right for my blanket and some the same kind as I buy anyway), chunky yarns at top right, Aran at bottom left, and mohair at bottom right. 

Oooh, and something else amazing at the bottom of the last bag…? 

A whole set of bamboo needles! I haven’t used straight bamboo needles before, preferring to use metal ones. I shall have a go with bamboo ones next time I think. (I use bamboo ones for knitting in the round though… weird!) 

I also got my next order from Wingham Wools. 100g of silk hankies (YAY! Can’t wait to dye these. Just need to buy some more Kool-Aid now), 100g of mushroom alpaca tops, 100g of aubergine alpaca tops, 100g of jute tops, 100g of trilobal nylon sparkly stuff, and a small book on the history of spinning. Thought it might be useful next time I teach spinning and stuff. 

Oh, went to the same school again that I taught spinning at, and this time we tried some lollypop stick weaving. They loved it! Some got the hang of it straight away, others needed a little more help. But they all made an average of three sets each. Don’t you think this is wonderful? I plan on trying to make it into a big hanging when I have some more time. 

I think I may do this with one of my own classes if we have time. 

Here are some photos which made me smile this past couple of weeks.. . 

And of course, my sweetheart. 

That’s all for now. I hope to come back with some more knitting/crochet projects later on, kinda lost my mojo at the moment 😦 Sucks when that happens. I kinda feel like spinning, but at the moment that would mean getting out of bed which I’m not prepared to do right now, haha. 

Have a great evening everyone. 

xXx Love Kais xXx 

Hello again, another blog post! My eighty first! I wonder if I shall get to one hundred before the end of the year? We shall see.

Can hear the fireworks going off at the moment and they are driving me nuts! Terrified they will upset Freddy. But no, I’ve got up to have a look at the fireworks with Mum, and he sits by the window to watch them too! Does anyone elses pets do that?

So, today I tidied up my room… (well, sort of quick tidy up so nothing is on the floor…) and decided to do some spinning. I found out some of my luxury fibres and decided to spin 100g of superfine llama top. Very soft, very hairy, very floaty.

I tried to predraft this as much as possible. But due to it being so super fine it was very floaty, and didn’t draft as well as I’d hoped. I pulled it into the smallest strips I could managed, and simply drafted from them.

It looks like I’ve yanked out someones hair!

Here is my first attempt at spinning it. Very smooth, and easy to spin. It took a good few minutes to get the brake band to the correct grip for some reason. I have changed it to fishing line wire, and I don’t think I’ve attached it properly. I’ll have to have a good look at that.

Fairly thick singles again, but they look fairly even I think. Here it is plyed…

And here is the whole thing, skeined up and ready to use.

I never know how long the wool actually is. I only ever know the weight, because I’m too lazy to actually figure out the yardage/ meterage, etc. It never bothers me anyway.

I’ve got some cashmere that I need to try out next. Vuchickens (sorry, not sure how to link!!) has been spinning some gorgeous stuff, and I’ve been super jealous :p So, I found out some stuff I had been given and thought I would have a little go.

I’m going to now go and watch ‘Nighty Night’ on DVD, listen to fireworks (yawn) and do a bit more knitting.

Night night everyone!

xXx Love Kais xXx

Hello everyone. Just a short blog post tonight… I think!

Got out my Bliss this evening for a relaxing time in front of the telly, watching ‘Four in a bed.’ Nothing weird, I know what you’re thinking! It’s a competition between B and B owners of who owns the best B and B of that week. Ok, sounds sucky, but it’s not too bad.

Anyway, I had a pack of fibre from World of Wool that has been sitting on my shelf for months just staring at me. I finally decided that tonight was the night! It was a pack of 3 Corriedale wool tops, in silver/grey, brown and white/cream. Each top was 100g each, but knowing WoW, more like 150g each. (They are highly recommended and ship throughout the world).

I started off with the silver one first. I thought I wanted to make a DK, slightly chunky plyed yarn, but nope. As soon as I saw the bobbin filling up I knew this was going to be the first time I had properly spun singles. I was enthralled! So easy, so simple, so gorgeous! I tried not to put in too much twist as spinning, but the more I thought about it, the more twist I put in! So, I simply tried relaxing, and just let the fibre flow through my fingers. It worked beautifully.

I apologise for the very poor photo quality coming up. If this photo was taken in the day time it would have been perfect.

I think you get the idea though. I love how the bits of black show up clearly in the wool. It was a lovely silvery colour with a great sheen to it. You can see how it is fairly chunky, perhaps a DK weight in itself.

I finished spinning up the others – yep, 300g (about 450g) in about 2.5 hours sitting. The time sped by. The brown went quite well, but I think I had got a little bored of the white. I tried predrafting it less, and worked with thicker chunks of fibre, but that just didn’t work for me. I now know I must, must, must always pre-draft my fibre! The white has thick and thin bits of twist in it which are kinda annoying, but hey, all practice, right?

With the brown, I pull the fibre apart into the wanted thickness, and just rolled them up, ready to be picked up and spun.

Once all had been spun I quickly skeined them up using my black board, and tied them all in three places.

The wool sprang into a mass of mess! It looked like a mixture of boucle and plyed yarn. I stretched it out tightly and it looked great. Because I was going to make singles, I prepared a hot  conditioner bath for them. Each skein was immersed in hot water, and gently rubbed and squeezed. Do NOT do this if you have plyed yarns! This will felt them. I felted mine a little so the twist would stay in and make the singles that little bit stronger. Who knows, it may have ruined the yarn, but I won’t know until dry, haha. So, yeah, I rubbed them gently, and wrung the yarn out. I then draped it over the towel rail with something heavy holding it down to stop the kinks reforming. Thinking about it now, I didn’t do the wrapping in the towel and standing on it method of getting the water out, drat! Oh well, I’m too lazy to get up now!

I went back in the bathroom not long after I had hung these up, and both the bottles in the middle had fallen out, so I grabbed another of my dye jars and put them there instead. I’m very much looking forward to seeing how these turn out. The grey is the softest.

That’s pretty much all of the yarny stuff I have done these few days. Well, I knitted a little cardigan using some of the yarn from the previous post. It’s a newborn size and really cute, and I actually seamed it really well together. Hang on, I’ll get a pic now.

Here is the baby model out again, haha. Underneath the cardigan is the dress I made during my tonsil operation recovery period. That was weird I can tell you. But then again, I made no mistakes with that dress, even though my head was so woozy! Anyway, this is a newborn size cardigan made with superwash merino DK yarn. Lovely and soft to knit with, a real pleasure. Knitted up on 4mm needles.

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0BxG5-ywxwbFkRzdhNm1SUExQdE0/edit?pli=1

Here is the pattern if anyone is interested. I love it, and will be making another. I actually started one straight after, but this time I wanted to time myself how long it took. It took me two hours exactly just to make the back of it.

It’s exactly the same yarn as above, just in a different colourway. I want to time myself knitting the entire thing, as well as seaming it up. Just to see the sort of time frame it takes. I also fancy knitting another of those little dresses as I have some King Cole left over. And another of the chunky quick knit cardies. I love them.

But what else has been happening with me then? Well, for the first time EVER, I’ve lost weight! 5 whole pounds! I know, I know, not a great deal, but I think it’s really made a difference. I know I’m pretty slim anyway, but I’ve had real trouble fitting into some trousers I bought a while back. I tried them on the other day and they were so comfortable. My stomach looks lovely and flat too, which is what I’ve been desperate for, for ages.

What I’ve been trying to do, which isn’t the best way to go about it, so please don’t try it, is simply just eating dinner at about 4pm, and then that’s it. I never eat breakfast, and I don’t tend to feel hungry until about 1/2pm anyway, and then I just binge eat. So, I’m just waiting until dinner, a normal sized portion, and then that makes me feel completely full for the rest of the night. I don’t feel hungry during the day, I don’t feel snacky, so it’s really working for me. If I were hungry though, I would just eat fruit as a snack. I drink plenty of tea too. But however, I think weekends will be my ‘eat anything I want, as much as I want’ days 😀

I bought some gorgeous shoes the other day from an M and S outlet store. Gorgeous black heels, which are a change for me! I’ve been wearing my black boots with small heels for the past couple of years, so I thought I would try on these heels. Fitted beautifully, look gorgeous AND I can walk in them comfortably. Just need something to go with them now!

And they were only £6.99 on sale! Right, I very probably won’t ever mention shoes again on this blog, so, if I do, please slap me! I hate shoe shopping with a passion, but these just took my eye for a moment.

Right, I’m off now to bed. Freddy is lying next to me like another hot water bottle. I’m off to cuddle up to him and listen to The Goodies. Might even read a couple more pages of George Orwells’ ‘1984.’ Excellent book. 

This is how we caught Freddy sleeping last night. He moved straight after we took the picture. It’s the little things that make you smile the most, don’t you think?

Have a great night everyone.

xXx Love Kais xXx