More hats and spinning

Well, while I was away on my holiday I managed to get in some crochet time and so I made another sun hat, this time using the 6-9month patter (http://stitch11.com/6-9sunhat/). This one was supposed to be for my niece but it ended up being rather small, I think it may be due to the cotton yarn being so thin. So this is now going to the little girl whom I made the snail for and fingers crossed it will fit!

This is the result of my drop spindling. I did one strand on the top whorl and one on the bottom whorl to get a feel for them and then I plyed them together. The plyed yarn looks gorgeous, the thick and thin bits when overlapped look really interesting! It would look even better if the strands were different colours or variations of colours. I am incredibly pleased.

This afternoon I dyed the yarn with food colouring and this is how it turned out!

I also currently have a work in progress, I am making a giraffe for a friend, this will be my first paid project! How exciting!

Spinning yarn

So 2 weeks ago I decided to hire a spinning wheel to try my hand at making yarn. It was an old Sheridan, from the 70's or 80's I think. It was a traditional style one, I want to say it was called a Macarthur but I'm not 100% sure. It was lovely, but annoyingly big. After the two weeks I can honestly say spinning wheels are not yet my thing. I struggled a lot but the lady who I hired it from said my yarn was great for a beginner. In the future I plan to try again. I also forgot to take a picture of the wheel. Oops.

Here are some pictures of yarn that I spun, they are all single ply.

This is raw fleece, Corriedale I think? I found it realllllllllly difficult to spin it as it was literally just the wool shorn from the sheep, bugs included.

This is a merino wool top that I bought from somewhere... I can't remember where. This was a lot easier to spin as it has been carded so that the fibres are all parallel. I got this in a couple of different colours. They are lovely.

I did really enjoy the experience and since I am going on my trip for 10 days tomorrow I really wanted to get/make a drop spindle so I could keep trying. I went on an adventure to Bunnings on Wednesday and gosh the staff there were rather unhelpful. But I eventually found some dowel, two weird disk things that I thing were for stair banisters and some hooks. My lovely Father helped me put them together I ended up with a top whorl and a bottom whorl spindle for $12. Last night after we made them I decided to test out the top whorl with some undyed merino gifted to me by Katie (http://www.etsy.com/shop/KardedByKatie), a lovely girl in NSW who I have befriended. She dyes, spins and makes gorgeous baby bonnets! 

I think drop spindles are my calling. I found it sooooooooo much easier to use, and get a more consistent yarn although there are still some thicker/thinner bits throughout it. I love it.

Here are the drop spindles, the one with yarn on it is the top whorl, and the one below is the low whorl.

Here is a close up of the yarn I've done so far. I'm rather proud of myself!

Ernest the Owl

Today is my sister's 24th birthday!
A while ago she'd requested that I crochet something for her instead of buying a present and she wanted a pink and purple giraffe  That didn't quite work out due to a lack of nice purple yarn (I shall remedy this one day by dyeing my own). So instead I told her I'd make an owl!

I decided to make this completely on my own, with no pattern to go from. The beginning took forever! I find it difficult to work with very dark yarn because my eyes suck. One thing that was really lovely about just doing it my way is I could use whatever stitches I liked. So I threw in half-double crochet, single crochet (normal and through the back loops) and double crochets. It was really fun and I actually wrote up the pattern, I'm planning on selling it in my Etsy store which is being set up and hopefully opening in December.

Here are some pictures of Ernie (as Lucy has lovingly named him)

Button eyes!

Happy birthday Lucy!

Another Hat

So after I made my green hat I loved it so much that I decided to make the same one for my friend Tobi. Since I tried knitting, 8 months ago, I promised to make her a hat but never did. She'd already chosen wool so I just had to get my act together.
For this one I used a larger crochet hook, a 5 or 5.5mm I think. The hat ended up bigger than mine, which was the plan, and it fit really well.

The flower starting to take shape.

Unfortunately I forgot to take a photo of the completed hat so I will have to get her to take one someday!

I've very excited as tomorrow I am picking up a spinning wheel that I am renting for a few weeks to try it out. After learning to crochet, then decided to dye wool I ended up watching tonnes of youtube clips of how to spin wool and so I thought I'd give it a try!

Flower Beret with Hand-dyed Yarn

Well I used up the first lot of hand-dyed yarn for a toy, pictures will come in the next few weeks as it is a gift and therefore cannot be put up until after it has been given! I decided to try again, attempting not to damage the wool as much as last time it came out rather rough. Well this time it work a charm, I didn't leave it in the hot water as long and used less vinegar. The results were fantastic! I didn't take any pictures of the dyed skeins but I already crocheted a hat out of it!

I used this free pattern: http://kellsbubble.blogspot.com.au/2011/10/tea-time-doily-beret.html

Here are some images of the progress!

Here is the beginning of the petals.

Flower motif finished, beginning on the bulk of the hat.

All finished!

The day I finished it I wore it out with a friend to the Tesselaar Tulip Festival

Originally I really struggled with making the hat, I was used to simple toy patterns so using a variety of different stitches was a bit confusing. But I succeeded and have already made another hat for a friend! A blog post for that is coming up =)

First yarn dyeing experiment!

After doing some research yesterday and getting a little bit over-enthused I decided to try dyeing some old cream colour yarn I had using food dye.

The basic method is to use vinegar and heat to allow for the dye to penetrate the wool and then heat again to set it in place. My very lovely Mumsy let me have her old slow-cooker for my dyeing adventures so with a giant bottle of vinegar in hand I started! And here are the results: 

I'm pretty please with it. Looking forward to seeing how it will look once crocheted, although I haven't quite decided what I will make from it.

I will probably upload a photo-tutorial at some point in the next month!

Happy yarning!