knitting neels

…it tolls for knitting (well, in my house it does). It’s been a busy month for me; I have three concerts down and two more to go. There’s been a fair amount of travelling, rehearsals, page turning, taking the tempo into my own hands, reassurance of singers and thanking of audiences. Thankfully, life is not all about work so I have a few things to show you that I’ve been busy with in my down-time.

First up is a time-sensitive project. My mum has requested a Central Park Hoodie for Christmas.

Don’t worry, I have the body already knit. This is just the first sleeve but there is no hood to worry about. Isn’t that cherry red lovely? (I know what date it is, by the way.)

I am not really sure how it happened, but I got completely bitten by the spinning bug last weekend and have been going hell for leather since. I had a bag of longhaired Welsh sheep and decided to spin it up as finely and consistently as I could.

I got quite a lot out of the bag – two big skeins along with what’s wound off here and there is still about 50g left in the bag. I think there was about 200g in it. I made a 2-ply out of it in the end and it seems to be coming in as a light double knit. I love the colour of it. It has the occasional natural fleck of brown throughout so it looks very oatmealy. Delicious! I don’t think I would use it again though. See those hairs poking out? They also cover the entire sitting carpet and most other surfaces, as well as my clothes. Sweet divine, I have never come across something that shed so much. I spun my singles really fast and tight but it made no difference. On the upside, the stuff itself was lovely and easy-going to spin thanks to its long staple length.

As I neared the end of the bag of the Welsh stuff, I caught sight of Eimear’s singles spun from Ashford’s Merino and Silk. I got a pack of blue (‘Salvia’… but if you’re like me, you will constantly mis-read it as ‘Saliva’) from The Yarn Room. I had had a bad day. I was really, really unwell the week before last and needed a treat. This is definitely it! After spinning the Welsh stuff, this is just heavenly. So soft and no shedding!

I just love the colours. I’m not being very attentive about what order I spin the colours in so it’s going to be… interesting. My plan is to spin a nice sportweight 2-ply and knit Quant. The Knitty version is for an aran weight but I found a subsequent version of the pattern free on the Spin-Off website that’s for a sportweight. I think it will be a nice use of the merino silk and will probably use up the whole lot.