New shawl, old problem, ancient solution

I’ve had so many things going on over the last few months that I’ve mostly failed to blog about any of them. I’d like to say it’s because I’ve been too busy doing to be writing, but mostly, it’s been more a matter of failing to organize my thoughts well enough to write them down. [...]

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Catching Up: One I Made Earlier

It occurs to me that I make a lot of things, and think I’m going to blog about them, and then don’t. Either because the moment seems to have passed, or because I’ve been busy making other newer!shinier! things instead. So, it’s suddenly struck me that No, it’s not ‘Cheating’ to show them off when [...]

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Finally, something to show for myself

Perhaps I should have thought to mention in advance that I was feverishly preparing to list a few things in the Etsy shop, but I was so busy working on the update that I didn’t get around to it on Friday, when the process started. So here’s some fiber-y eye-candy, with apologies for the delay: [...]

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John Lewis, for shame!

I want to start by saying that I have pretty high regard for the standards of the John Lewis Partnership, the eponymous department store chain and the Waitrose supermarket division. I think its goods are generally of superior quality; its ethics are less lamentable than most large-scale retailers; and the somewhat cooperative model of ownership [...]

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Busy, busy, busy

With an election looming, and my mood glowery and looming, I was glad today of a distraction. I have been waiting for this to arrive since some time last week. Originally I hoped to bring the baby home with me from Wonderwool Wales, a couple of weekends ago, but I had to order… and wait, [...]

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A few answers

Every now and then, I get some proof that real honest-to-goodness actual people read this blog, at least from time to time. This information always delights me, although on one occasion it also rather disconcerted me. Sometimes, a gentle reader will pop up and ask a question. So, thank you for asking, and here are [...]

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Lots and lots of wool

This is a short message about wool. I love wool. I really do, and that’s evident from the fact that I’ve been playing with quite a lot of it recently (more than usual). Some has been sold to the nice lady at the local knitting shop, some has been traded for, er, more-but-different wool with [...]

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A Cautionary Tale

The other day, I had a conversation with a friend, which went more or less as follows: Friend: Oh, just by the bye, never ever knit from hand-dyed wool without alternating skeins. Ever. Even if they come from the same dyelot. You will end up looking foolish and you will regret it. Not ‘might’, ‘will’. [...]

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Oh yay, yarn at last

I got some nice sock yarn in from the wholesaler recently, and ordered some more dye, and slowly but surely, I have been preparing for a shop update, in between stirring batches of sweater-yarn custom orders. The sweater yarn comes in one-kilo hanks that have to be wound into more manageable quantities, but although I [...]

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Look: I made a bronze-age artefact

In fact, I made, or at least completed, several things today. First up, the mystery knitting I started just yesterday. I can tell you almost nothing about this yet: it’s under wraps. Embargoed. But I can show you the yarn it was made from (in an astonishingly short time – it took longer to block [...]

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