The postman and my friends have been really good to me over the past few days. I have been sent fine lace knitting needles (US #00) by Sharon, and beaded stitch markers from Tricia, who makes lovely markers and also row counter bracelets:

The blue ones were a gift, and fit sock needles and fine lace needles. I was so impressed I bought the red ones (with that lovely bonus one) to use with thicker needles.

Then yesterday, the postie brought a package of hand-reeled silk from Michael (a.k.a. Oaken King) You can read more about the different types he sent.

If you are at all interested in silk fibre or silk moths, you must explore Michael’s web site.

As for what I’ve been doing since my last entry, I finished the corrugated ribbing on the first Sanquhar glove, but it is on hold while I try to come up with a chart I like for the initials block. I realised that when I put my ALF aside weeks ago, I was actually within 20 rows of finishing it. I’ve decided it makes sense to finish it before getting back to the shawl I started more recently. ALF was intended for me, but it will also serve as a fall-back for hte scarf exchange if I can’t finish the other shawl by the deadline.

Now I have to eat some Haagen-Daz Chocolate Midnight Cookies ice cream, so I will get back to blogging another time …

Before I could start these gloves, I had to decide which of the 4 designs from the SWRI patterns I would use, or even whether to use one of the Sanquhar designs described elsewhere such as in Rutt’s book. A lot of the most famous Sanquhar designs are based on an 11 x 11 stitch square grid. The SWRI pattern using that square has 99 stitches around the palm, which for my 6.7″ palm would require a gauge of 14-15 sts/inch, which I didn’t want to do. The other patterns have 80 (Shepherd’s Plaid).and 90 (the other 2) stitches, so would work better. Perhaps one day I’ll make a pair for Rys and then I could use one of the grid patterns..

Of the other traditional designs, my favourite is Prince of Wales, so I swatched that one first, using some J&S lace weight send to me by Jenny S (thanks again!) using 2mm dpns (11.5 sts/inch):

After some thought, I decided that as an overall glove pattern, I preferred the Midge and Fly glove, so I swatched that next, using the same yarn but 1.75 mm needles:

That gave me a gauge of 13 sts/inch, which is what I needed, and I liked the fabric, so I cast on without swatching for the corrugated rib cuff, but fortunately it fits well. I like the blue and natural swatches, but as you can see I’ve chosen to go with the grey and white yarn which I had already ordered.

Earlier this month, I finished a pair of socks for a friend, but I didn’t want to post pictures here until she had received them. She has them now, so here they are (pictured before washing, and not on Ann’s feet):

Here is a close-up of the faux plaited cable, actually a slipped stitch ‘cable’ from Barbara Walker’s first Treasury, p108:

The yarn is Super Sport Strumpf wool/nylon, given to me long ago by a kind Knitlister living in Germany. It has been maturing in my stash waiting for the perfect recipient.

My current small project is Sanquhar gloves, similar to these but with a different traditional stitch pattern. The SWRI has patterns for 4 versions of these gloves. I am swatching J&S laceweight. I have done a swatch on 2 mm needles which is too loose for the gloves to fit my narrow hands, so I started another on 1.75 mm (promising!) and I’ve just changed to 1.5 mm. I’ll post photos later.

My other WIPS are socks for me in Opal and 2 Faroese shawls, both from Heartstrings. Pendants is for a friend, and ALF (All-Over Lace Faroese) will probably be for me unless I decide I haven’t time to knit another shawl for an exchange with a May deadline.

… just not updating the blog as often as I should. One reason was not wanting the intended recipients of my recent projects to see what I was making. The exchange mittens have reached their home, so I can post pictures of those now. .

The recipient requested natural or warm colours, with a preference for orange. Orange is not a colour I would usually use, but I like a challenge. I was going to spin the yarn from BFL/silk, but my dye attempts didn’t work out the way I wanted (though some of the silk turned out really well). Eventually I decided to buy yarn, but there wasn’t much choice of orange yarn locally. I ended up with Jaeger Baby Merino 4-ply, even though I don’t really like using superwash merino.

My first attempt at knitting the mittens was aborted as I found I couldn’t control my gauge with the longer floats (5 stitches) in this yarn, though I’ve done so successfully in the past. The final pattern was derived by combining elements from various patterns in Folk Mittens and the Mitten Book.

I like the texture the stranding produces on the inside, and all those little air pockets trapping heat.

I received lovely thrummed mittens in return. I don’t have pictures yet as Mary intentionally left them slightly large so I could full them to an exact fit. I’ll post pictures eventually, but for now, here is a link to the picture on Mary’s blog (January 26th).

We had a Christmas raffle at the guild today. My ticket won a prize, but I was so busy warping the warp-weighted loom to demonstrate that I didn’t even notice, so my DH went across to choose my prize. Knowing him, I’d expect him to come back with the box of chocolates I knew was there. Instead, he came back with this:

Here is a closer look:

The collar is knitted in stockinette-based lace using very fine thread. It is 2″ wide from the points to the inner adge, and the whole thing is about 9.5″ across. It was knitted by a friend of the late sister of a guild member (and friend), and it is beautifully made.

So isn’t that a great raffle prize? Bettter than chocolates or toiletries. :-)

Well, quite a lot has been happening since my last blog update, but most of it involves sorting stash before we move out, and that would be a boring blog entry. I’ll just say that I have a LOT of yarn and fibre and fibre-related books, and even though I’ve parted with some, it has hardly made a dent in it. Deciding what I need available over the summer and autumn and what I can take to the storage unit is .. well .. difficult.

However, I have managed to get a little knitting done, and some spinning on my amazing birthday present, a Bosworth book charkha. Rumour has it that there is a birthday spindle on its way too :-). I won’t display my attempts at cotton spinning at this stage (maybe soon), but I’m finidng it a struggle even with such wonderful equipment.

As for the knitting, I’m making slow progress on a pair of boring socks and I’ve just finished and blocked a scarf in purple Jaggerspun Zephyr (wool/silk). It is a standard seaman’s scarf with a stitch pattern taken from the centre of the Fiber Trends’ Estonian Garden pattern (see March archive). I love knitting lace in Zephyr!

First pictures of the finished Estonian Garden scarf/stole – there may be more to follow. Click on these pictures to see larger versions (close popup between clicks, or the second one will come up in the wrong size window):

A friend of ours is going through a difficult time, so some of us have decided to make her an afghan, contributing an 8″ square each made from undyed handspun yarn. I haven’t felt much like spinning lately, so I went digging through my yarn stash. I had very little undyed handspun, but I found some oatmeal Blue Faced Leicester (one of my favourite breeds – soft and lustrous) that had been spindle-spun at demos soon after I learned to spin. It’s rather uneven, and overtwisted in places, which limited the kind of patterns I wanted to use. I spent a while trawling through Barbara Walker’s Treasuries, but finally decided I’d just do a simple seed stitch ‘square spiral’ on a stocking stitch ground.

This is just a quick entry to show off the finished bag, as I have to get ready to go out soon. To give an idea of scale, it is 3.5″ tall as shown.

I did want to do something more interesting with the ends of the drawstring, but I couldn’t find a suitable bead locally, and my attempt to create a ‘beaded bead’ in tubular peyote using the same beads as I used in the knitting were’t very successful. If I had more time, I’d keep trying with that, but I want to send it off tomorrow, so …

… though it looks more like a vase. It will, of course, soften up once it is handled. Now to make a drawstring for it.