Wool

:: In my hands

:: On my feet

:: Over our beds

Gosh, it's truly the season for digging out wool. Wrap up warm, friends!

Winter Wear

Glad of these winter woolens that I knit when it was too warm to need. Already making plans to cast on for some more.

Applied Yarn

The witchcraft has begun. This ability to transmute fluff into wearable, necessary, life saving clothes has begun to trickle through the spinning-to-needle process and we have a result. We have ... a hat.





People, I feel like a boss. I have found how to turn mud into gold. In primitive societies I would be a priestess now... along with the guy who learned how to make fire by rubbing two sticks together. Stories should be written about me and I should go down in folklore like Rumpelstiltskin... because, dude, I can turn fluff into solid cloth. Hear. Me. Roar.

Yes, I am rather happy about this amazing transformation of myself from a consumer to producer of yarn.

Now all I have to do is practice until the yarn is a consistent thickness, learn how to dye, buy some sheep, buy the farm to put the sheep in, learn how to be a sheep farmer, learn how to shear and card and .... I can knit more hats.

Seasonal Living :: Wool for the beds

Yep, it's the obligatory yearly woollen blanket shot. Each year I take these out of storage and each year I say the same thing :: 'Didn't I JUST put these away?!', and each year I think, 'Wow that looks a pretty pile, where's the camera', and so each year you get this shot in some form or another. It's like a milestone in the blogging year.

Oh Lord, today is cold - not as cold as I know it will get, but still colder than we have known for a long while. And at night my husband and I, once trying to escape each other's heat in summer at teetering diametric edges of the bed, are now snuggling in and saying how soon it will be time to turn the heating on (a secret message meaning, 'time to start burning ten pound notes and flushing them down the sewer'), as we shiver if we leave the sheets for any length of time.

(I'm all for crisp Autumn days rather than the summer-straight-to-winter thing going on here if anyone Out There is wondering).

It's a times like these that my craze for making and storing blankets seems suddenly half sane. And that (mad lady) quilt finished just in time for storage? Well it's certainly coming in very useful...

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Thankyou for your kind comments and emails about the new ezine. I'm so happy to know that other's are just as interested as I am in these things! The 'followers' button on the site isn't working, will try to rectify that, but I'll probably mention here if I make any updates to Seasonal Living & Learning in the meantime.

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Seasonal Living :: Digging out the Woollens

Digging around in the cupboards for scarves, cowls, gators, hats - is it really time to wash them again and put them out for daily use?


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Spin Me A Yarn...

So. The wheel has found a home, and a chair to work from. It has been set up as it should be, and I have nice Suffolk wool tops to work my magic on...





... yeaaaaah. It takes practice, right? And patience? Hmm...



I think it's time I called in the cavalry and made a real effort to meet up with the spinners and weavers of our city. Soon.

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The Missing Scarf Chronicles

One of the advantages of moving things around a house is that you find all manner of things you had forgotten about shoved under other things that you wanted to forget about. And when you are reaquainted it's like a little present - a new toy - a long lost friend - finding something that was lost is a good feeling. If I had a fattened calf I might be tempted to make it into a special occasion.

In this case it would be some scarves made for these cold days and forgotten about, and a WIP that had been destined to be frogged, but now is saved and loved. Hurrah.





This badly mangled scarf was crocheted in the spring, based loosely on a scarf from a stolen glance of one similar in Noa Noa. It's OK. I don't like my crocheted work so this may end up in the charity bag.



This one is one of four made from cut-offs of the Witney wool blanket I repurposed into cushion covers a short while ago. One for me, one for the husband squatter and one each for the boys.

Each scarf is backed with soft blanket and is the warmest thing ever.

I could have tarted it up with doilies or something, but honestly, it wasn't meant for fashion but for solid warmth.





And finally, THIS :: the WIP saved from frogging. I need to finish the seams of the arms and it will make a useful shrug type sweater.





I love it when lost things are found and re-loved all over again!


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From Old to New :: Repurposing Woollen Blankets

I don't like cutting up vintage woollen blankets. I don't know why, I just don't. I don't have any problem in repurposing other vintage fabrics, but I just can't do it with vintage wool blankets. In fact it makes me feel like an evil thrift witch, bringing home an old dear, only to dice her up.... I'm probably being over-sentimental about it.

But to give you some idea of how much I loathe to part with woollen blankets I will tell you that I have had a couple of Witney blankets in my cupboards since last winter, doing nothing, too shabby really to be any 'use' as a blanket, but too pretty to be chopped up!



Well, the other day I was a very brave girl and took a deep breathe and cut. It didn't hurt as much as I thought it would, and having a promise of a bit of cosiness as a reward on a grey November day was just the incentive I needed.





In less than half an hour two enormous covers for two enormous feather-filled cushions were ensconced in the sitting room, warming my babes as they did their important snuggling up with a good book.



Just as Witney would no doubt have intended.

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