VIDEO: Miss Zooey

Hi folks, please watch our first ever video on the blog and see my beautiful new uke, Miss Zooey!

Oooh Purple

Hiya from a,

Today we are in purple town - population us.  I have two things to show you today.  The first is some yarn that I spun.  This was a bit of an experiment, but I am pleased with the results.  It is two different yarns that I twisted together.  It has a dark purple corriedale strand, and the other is an alpaca/wool blend that I dyed blue with some dots of violet.  I spun it with a fairly tight twist and here are the results:

I have to say that it is nice to be in a location right now where I can go take photos for the blog out in natural light.  In the twist there are spots where the purple is more dominant, and others where the blue is the focus, but for twisting together fibres from different animals, it actually came out really well (I think).
The second thing I have to show you is a beret/cap.  It is a hat with a slash because the pattern called in a beret but it fits more like a normal hat - though I can where it a little slouchy. 
Here is the side view:

It is made with a purple stripe sock yarn from the good old Patons outlet.  Looks like a normal boring hat from the side, but the top/back is what makes this hat really stand out:

How pretty is that??? It is this gorgeous spiral/flower shape, and the striping in the yarn just works so well with it.  I was able to do this hat in under 24 hours as well, so pretty and quick - this is a big check in the awesome column.

See you space cowboy....

What's In the Box???? (yarn, but you could have guessed that)

Hiya from a.,

In the great move, my yarn box took quite a beating.  It took even more of a beating when r. started using it as his end table and spilled coffee on it.  This is what it was looking like:

You can see the stains on the top.  There are also some dings into the wood, but those don't bother me as much as they are a part of an object that is used everyday, but the dirt on the yellow was really starting to bother me.  So I decided to paint it.
The first step was to sand it down a bit, just to strip it and rough it up (and yes I know that talking about painting can sound a little dirty):

Let me tell you that it is so much easier working on a project where you have the space and tools you need at your disposal.  One of the benefits of the move is a garage to work in and a collection of work tools and supplies that will cause you to drool a little bit. 
At first I thought I would go for another light/pastel shade, but then when I got to the Home Depot I saw the colours labelled 'saturated' and I was sunk. 
Here is me working on the project:

The nice thing with this photo is that you cannot see that I am wearing two different socks.  You have to love garages that can't actually hold cars because they've been turned into a work space.

Here is the finished result.  As always with our camera the paint is a shade or two darker than it looks in the photo.  Right now I am in love with the colour so much that I am not sure that I'll add any other details.  I might eventually want to change out the hardware, to white for a better contrast but that would be about it.  After this photo was taken, the box had to be taken back into the garage as it has been damp for the last for days and the paint is still a little bit tacky.  By the end of the weekend it should be back in place and stuffed with yarn once more.

see you space cowboy...

A Couple of Infinities

Hiya from a.,

Today I have a couple of infinity scarves/cowls to show you.  One is a pattern I've done before (the calm cowl) but in the magic awesome birthday box I got from the FLBs there was a couple balls of this gorgeous mini mochi that I knew would look killer in this pattern:

So this is the cowl, the yarn came out in all these nice dark blue/purple/green stripes and is all soft and cozy.  Here is a better look at the striping:

It was a simple granite/seed stitch but I didn't want to take anything away from the yarn itself.  I love how that one bright blue just pops out.  This scarf is a shorter infinity and I can't really wrap it around my neck, but I am fine with that because I also made this:

This is a really nice mottled yarn that was an alpaca wool blend.  Again the colouring in the yarn was such that I didn't want to do anything too wild with it.  What I did was just grab a large hook (that yarn is an aran weight) and working in the back loop only just did half double crochet stitches.  It gave it a bit of texture and just let the yarn shine through.  Here is the scarf stretched out:

I'm pleased with how both turned out.  What's nice is that where we've moved to is more mild than where we were.  This means that I'll be able to wear all the scarves I make more easily as I don't have to wear a huge charlie brown kind of winter coat as much (just a normal light winter coat).
see you space cowboy... (and yup I love cowboy bebop enough that this is now how I'll be signing off).