This entry is brought to you by a cracking cup of English breakfast tea and a couple of slices of Soreen. I went shopping yesterday and found the Soreen. I had to buy it! I haven't had it in years. If you've not heard of Soreen, it's a malted fruit loaf. Very sticky and gorgeous. Now it comes in pre-sliced loaves which is great. So much less faff. It proudly declares on the packaging that it's low fat. Well, it was until I smeared a generous amount of butter on each slice! Nom nom.
The week has been nothing short to manic. The days leading up to a bank holiday usually are. Easter seems to be worse than others. I think it's because the dispensary is shut for 4 days on the trot. Patients are convinced the world will stop spinning and disaster will strike!
Somehow or other I managed to survive the week and now I'm off work until next Friday. My plans for my time off involve some serious house work and some serious crafting.
Last Friday was Good Friday. It's was also Ben's eleventh birthday. It's taken 11 years for his birthday to fall on Good Friday again. He had a lovely day. We bought him a new digital TV for his bedroom. His Xbox had previously been hooked up to our old TV which was huge and the picture quality wasn't good enough for some of the games he wanted to play. We bought a new digital arial too, so now he can watch TV in his bedroom. I managed to maff up the purchase of the TV though. Matthew had been instructed to look online for a TV and tell me which one to get. He picked a JVC model which was a smart TV with £100 off. Bargain! I managed to buy the next model down though. The price was the same, but it didn't have the smart capability so it won't record. Sadly no once noticed this until the thing was fully installed in Ben's room! Gutted. But Ben isn't, he's as happy as a lark with his new equipment!
Yesterday I started the epic clean-a-thon. I'll carry on today. I'm hoping that I'll be pretty much done by the end of the day as Ben's having 2 friends over to stay on Monday and Tuesday, so there'll be little time for cleaning. Weather permitting, my dad is going to fly into a local airfield and Ben and I are going to meet him and go for a flight. I think Ben's best mate Charlie will come too. I've said we'll buzz his house!
This is my dad's plane. It's a year or so since Ben and I last flew with him. Ben is much taller now! I still hate having my photo taken though!
The weather has been beautiful for the past few days. I finally managed to take some decent photos of my mum's Evenstar. It's only taken me a year to get around to it!
One day I really must make one for me too.
Feeling the love -
This week I have mostly been spinning. I've worked on the logwood BFL a bit more, but most of my focus had been on the Nunoco watermelon. It's finished! I had an epic spinning day on Friday. I finished the second single and stayed up to stupid o'clock to ply it. I spun each batt into a single ply and hoped that the transition from green to pink would match up. For the most part it did. I ended up with 520yds of a heavy fingering to sport weight. The green part is 160 yds. I'm hoping to make a shawl with it. I'd like the green to be the lacy edge. So far I'm thinking of knitting another Multnomah. If you have a suggestion you think would fit, please comment below.
LOVE!!!!!!
Next on my wheel was some silk my friend had given me to try and spin up. She's wanting to learn how to spin and wanted to know if the silk she'd bought at Woolfest last year is spin-able.
It's beautiful stuff. It's very matted, but it still drafts easily enough. I tried it on my wheel to no avail. I backed off all the tension and treddled like billyo but I couldn't get enough twist in. I'll try using a spindle and see if that helps. It may be I have to admit defeat for a while until I research spinning silk a little more. I'll be reading my Ply magazine cover to cover to see if I can glean any juicy bits of advice.
So as not to have a naked wheel, I plunged my hand into my fibre stash bag. I came out with another pair of Nunoco batts. This time I'm spinning their Jewel Bug batts. These were a special they made for the PhatFibre boxes. They're stunning.
How divine are those colours!? The batts contain 21 micron merino, tussah silk and silk noil. So far I've avoided spinning anything with bits in! They offend my OCD! I'm trying to be good though and leave the silk noil where it is. I'm spinning the blue batt first. I zig-zagged the batt and I'm spinning it straight through. My thoughts at the moment are to chain ply each single and retain the gorgeous colour progressions. I'm hoping to spin it much more evenly than the Bah Humbug merino I chain plied last. Once again it's beautiful fibre and I'm loving spinning it.
I have knitted too. I've been pretty much monogamous working on the Dragonwheel shawl. It's coming along nicely. I've worked 16 teeth so far. Just 20 to go!
On the horizon -
This week I'd like to -
Clean my house
Spin like a whirling dervish
Knit my heart out
Sew (the fabric for my project bag is looking at mope sadly as I write)
Cross stitch.
Fingers crossed
Have a beautiful week
Ellen x
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