Saori weaving

 Not to stick to the norm, if there really is such a thing as normal. But weaving in different forms has always held an interest with me and have been drawn to freeform or should I say Art weaving. Not one for following the rule book, more like having a glance at it & then throwing it out the window.

After surfing the web, Pinterest & social media, I made the amazing discovery of SAORI weaving. Now I am totally addicted to this wonderful style of freeform weaving with no boundaries and truly open to all abilities, even me!

This is leading me on an amazing adventure of colour texture and not to mention an online-community that spans the globe. Wonderful talented creative people, who are willing to share their work, skills and experience. They do not teach but guide you on a path to find your inner weaver, which for me has a Zen. Magical.

These are my first steps into Saori Weaving.

Inverness Farmers Market

Well another market is on the horizon this coming Saturday, 9am - 4pm. Have been busy getting ready, new ideas, colours & yarns. I was not able to attend the last market as I was suffering from a nasty cough that just would not go away. Now fighting fit!!!

Looking forward to the coming year as the spring starts to brighten the days, new awakenings, new ideas and a whole new season to look forward too. The dye bath is about to go into full swing as all these colour palettes start to come to life. New life is due, within the next month the ewe's are due to lamb. My ladies in waiting & their very handsome tupp, not in my good books today as he butted my leg. Showing off, just like a naughty little boy.

New idea's

Rhubarb root, a friend turned up with some buckets with chopped up foot in them & smelt mouldy. As I had a large boiler she wanted dye a large batch of fleece I have to admit I have not dyed with rhubarb before & was not prepared to waste a large amount of fibre. So I was playing with an idea on the knitting machine using a hand knit pattern, as the yarn was let say not the best I thought I would throw  it in the bath. 

Glad that I only dyed this as my first comment was"diry nappies" but being a scrouge, I had to turn it into a wearable project. So by joining a side,a bit of embellishment this is the result.

I think I will have to write the pattern up. Fairly nice neck wrap.

Crochet pattern

One of my simple crochet designs, 150gms of space dyed Romney.light and lacy, will dress up or dress down any outfit.

Inverness Farmer's Market December 2013

We'll with any luck the previous post of pic's taken at the last December market got posted. One of my gifts this year was an iPad  and have had to use Dropbox to upload some of my photo's my HTC phone would not share my pic's with the iPad . So forced to use Dropbox, not very good with some of this tech stuff better with knitting needles and crochet hooks!!!

My New Year's resolution is too be more pro-active with my blog, but with not knowing how this got to cyber space and how to find it again it has taken far longer than I had hoped. Time to go back to the comfort zone and get the knitting out!

Inverness Farmer's Market December 2013

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/uh6v1ratkt6ly53/O04o703CHd

Inverness Farmers Market

THE NEXT MARKET in Inverness is the first Saturday in May.

Patterns

A busy week taking photo's to attach to my patterns. My son is keen for me to self-publish but I feel a bit intimidated so I thought I would practise and print my own that can be downloaded from my website.

I have been very lax of late and not made time to post my thoughts or ideas. A big effort is needed to turn my lazy ways around and I am trying to set some blog time into my day or should I say week. The trouble is I'm too easily distracted, wave lovely fibre at me and I melt at the knees. Yes excuse after excuse and the will power of a melting mars bar!!!!!

facebook

I have been very naughty with my blog but a lot of time and effort has been spent with the facebook page artisan threads yarns.This has been a large learning curve for me and I am sure that my brain is not up to this, what with trying to keep the website up to date, tweet, and now facebook. Not enough hours in the day. the studio has been re-vamped. This is my cozy corner, books and a rocking chair. Just heaven!!!!

 www.artisanthreads.co.uk I still need to add some new arrivals to the site, extreme knitting and crochet and Some lovely British spun in Yorkshire ----- wait for it ----- rare ----Whitefaced Woodland Yarn. This is a very old breed and on the rarebreed survival list. This is a lovely yarn to knit or crochet with, give it a go and keep this lovely breed going.

candyflossdyes1

Dyeing with Candyfloss Dyes

This is my first video it's a first for me, I've posted posted the clip on youTube and then linked it to my blog. Wow! it worked. I only used my phone, as I don't have a video camera. If I say so myself, not bad for a first try.
I have a list of workshop dates on my website http://www.artisanthreads.co.uk/ This was a workshop dyeing with my candyfloss dyes. These are the same food colouring pigments that are used in Kool-ade dyes without the sugar and made in the UK. They are very easy to use without the need of any special equipment, suitable for wool & silk.

Vintage Sock Machine

My new vintage sock machine

Spent many hours trying to set up vintage machine, not really knowing what machine I have. You tube videos on other machines not really the same as mine but they all must work in a similar way. Even though I did not seem to make much headway. I then emailed pic's to a very nice lady from Krankers, vintage sock machines and I think I could now be on the right track. I think I could get hooked on this.

Crochet neck wraps

Handspun Jacob

Crochet cords & flowers

Having a stash of yarns that I have spun and then dyed to see the effects I could get. I find myself with numerous skeins of yarn from many breeds of sheep and some unusual fibres. So I now need a stash buster, that is simple and quick. So I turn to my much loved crochet hooks. As simple is best a theme on a rectanle with a vintage button to set it off. Various weights of yarn could be used just varying stitches used. Simple.

Yet another attempt.

Let's see if this photo arrives.
Sent from my BlackBerry® wireless device

Mobile Blogging

Well I have spent ALL afternoon playing with mobile blogging with my new blackberry and after deleting several test blogs I have now resulted in returning to the laptop. With practice I will get it right but I just feel like a snail. Slow and a bit dim, some of the posts are in cyber space and for some reason 84 OLD emails ended up on the phone. Heaven knows what buttons I pressed to get that!!!!
This cyber technology is not my forte I need to return to my comfort zone of fibre, spinning wheels, knitting & crochet. So now with a glass of Pimm's at my side and with much pleasure I am returning to the silk tops that I dyed with my natural dyes and spinning with an Indian supported spindle lace weight for a Russian lace weight shawl. I will try with this phone to take a photo of the spindle and silk and post it. But there is no guarantee what photo appears. watch this space.

New Seaweed Scarf Pattern Freebie!!!!

Check out this glorious scarf pattern! Everybody has a few odd skeins of yarn laying around the house - put one to good use with this floaty scarf!!!! Warm enough for winter, COOL enough for spring!

Seaweed Scarf


Chunky Yarn use size 8mm needles
Double knit use size 4mm needles

100gms yarn





Method,

For chunky yarns cast on 18 stitches

For double knit cast on 27 stitches



Row 1 : knit across row



Row 2 : knit across row



Row 3 : cast off 6 stitches { chunky } 9 stitches { double knit } knit to end.



Row 4 : cast off 6 stitches { chunky } 9 stitches { double knit } knit to end then cast on 6 or 9 stitches depending on weight of yarn.



Row 5 : knit across row



Repeat Rows 3, 4 & 5. You can always add an extra knit row to create an uneven structure. Knit until you run out of yarn, making sure to end with a knit row but leave enough to cast off.



This is a great pattern to play with by adding more stitches or knitting with pencil rovings and then felting the scarf. Beads could be threaded on to yarn and a bead added to the beginning of each cast off row.

Just make sure if adding extra stitches or length for felting make sure you have extra yarn to complete project. But do experiment with this pattern as it will give you confidence to try some freeform knitting.

New Design

Using handspun and a very easy T - shaped jacket pattern and to top it off a vintage fur collar. This little jacket now dresses up casual jeans. The collar is detachable to allow the jacket to be washed. The  yarn, vintage collar and pattern is availble from my web site. http://www.artisanthreads.co.uk/

Just because I have opted to use a natural coloured yarn that does not mean that a coloured yarn would look as good.

At last!

Well lets hope that all is in place, an afternoons work and the web site http://www.artisanthreads.co.uk/  this blog and facebook should all now be linked. With luck it will make me keep them all up to date. This is dawn in the Scottish Highlands, maybe a dawn of a focus for me!

Published new web site

After weeks of work I now have published my new web site www.artisanthreads.co.uk
I still have other pages, links and new items. But I thought I would publish what I had and keep the rest to add as I tweek the site. The old site is gone and it is like sweeping away the cob webs.

Keeping up to date

Well it has been a while since I added any comments to my blog. Most likely because I have been up and down the country. Wonderwool Wales, Woolfest, Portsoy Boat Festival and the FibreFest. What a great time I have been having and meeting very talented people. Not to mention some amazing ideas and technique's that I have been taught.

My monthly workshops in my studio I have enjoyed greatly and my aim has been to keep the day light hearted and informative. I aim to get my clients going home with a sense of achievement.

Time has also been taken up in building my new web site, which if all goes well I should publish this week. Not being very computer literate this has been a challenge and a lot of hard work from friends which I could not done without their help and support. I am trying hard to link my blog, facebook and web site all linked together as in the past I have jut put my head in the sand.