Christmas Crafting

For the past week I have been "not working" of course not working when you run your own business from home is actually rather tricky. There have been emails to reply to, parcels to pack, and a fibre club shipment to send out. What I haven't been doing is making any new stock, instead I've been making for me. 

In reality I might have overdone it slightly... turns out that having all day to spin and knit is not actually a good thing. My elbow is crunching, and my shoulder feels a tad odd so having a rest today is very much a good thing!



However, when I look back at the week I appear to have got rather a lot done!

My Little Black dress, made from handspun Gotland/Black Welsh Mountain and hand dyed silk now has a front, and looks like it will actually fit!

A grand plan for a woven skirt made from some gradient batts I bought from someone else now has a warp. I know this looks like a really odd collection of colours, but there's all sorts hiddden underneath and it will all go together, honest!

There's been a Camden Cap knitted in one of the wool free blends (Camel, Seacell, Faux Cashmere), because it has lots of bounce and is perfect for hats. Of course I guessed at the size, and it turns out it's too small for the manekin heads, so will need reknitting, but it's a lovely pattern and quick to knit so I don't really mind. The wool free blends were dyed before the holidays, I plan on photographing and listing them on Thursday.

And there's also this...

I know, it loooks like a very odd bobbin, but it's my entry in to the 2015 longest thread competition. Last year over Christmas I decided to conquer spinning silk, so wanted another challenge for this year. I am being ultra-ahead of the game, but this is not the sort of spinning I want to do under time pressure, and this way if it all goes horribly wronng I have plenty of time to have another go!

How skinny is it...

Certainly not likely to break any records (1000m+ from 10g of fibre), but for a first attempt on a non-ideal wheel it's not bad. If anyone else feels up for the challenge the Ravlery group full of helpful advice is here, and the actual competition details are here. So far I'm halfway through the spinning, there's around 6-7g on that bobbin, just the same amount of singles to go, then some very nerve wracking playing!