Back in April, I mentioned that I’d made my first takadai braid. I had to dismantle the takadai again so I hadn’t done any more until we were lucky enough to go to a two-day takadai workshop with Jennie Parry, held at the home of a Kennet Valley Guild member, Debbie.

Between chatting, laughing, eating lunch in the garden and petting Debbie’s two labradors, we packed in a lot of braiding, but we still came home with unfinished warps. Fortunately, it is easier to re-install a warp onto a takadai than onto a shaft loom, so last week I managed to finish both of mine.

Here is a picture to give you a taster of what we did, but for information on what a takadai is and how it is used, bigger pictures of these braids and details of the individual sections, click here or on the picture.

I mentioned in the May 24th entry that I had hoped to use that yarn for the Mulitcoloured Sockies in Socks, Socks, Socks but the colour spacing was too long. Instead, I spun up some undyed superwash merino top and handpainted it, and here are the Sockies I eventually made:

After many tries, we still haven’t managed to get the colours to show correctly. The actual sockies are darker, more saturated colours, but this picture does give some idea of the effect. I wanted the ‘dashes’ of each colour, just 4 or 5 stitches, and no pooling and that is what I got.

These sockies are fun to knit. I have a lot of the yarn left over, but not quite enough for another pair. I’m going to spin and dye a bit more yarn, maybe solid dye it in a colour from the yarn, then use it to knit parts of the sock – maybe just for the soles and cuffs and to make the cord.

I also want to spin some sock yarn for myself (maybe BFL/silk or BFL/nylon) and dye it in the same way and the same colours – watch this space but don’t hold your breath. :-)

One of my guilds, Kennet Valley, has been meeting in a church hall for many years. As a gesture of thanks, it was decided to make a tapestry for the church using as many of our crafts as possible. It took us a few years, but it was finally hung in the church last month.

The main part of the tapestry is woven from Cotswold and other long wools spun by guild members (including me *grin*). The cross was inkle woven, the dove and the crown are bobbin lace (I’m not sure whether they were made with handspun thread) and so on.