Mitten-knitten

Hi guys,

I know I know – so few posts this entire year, but I’m sure those who know me and buy easyknits.co.uk know that I’ve been working extra hard all year to bring you too yarns and clubs… So hard that one thing I’ve not found time to do is blog!

Going to remedy this by not worrying too much about content, and blogging about more ‘everyday’ things when I feel I don’t have anything AH-MAZING to share 🙂

So, many of you will have seen and indeed samples the DEEPLY WICKED METALLURGY yarns, right? Our delicious semi-solid range of metallic inspired yarns!

just a small sample of the jewel like tones of the Deeply Wicked metallurgy range

I’ve decided to include DWM in one of my designs for our winter booklet ( oh that’s right, we’re putting out a booklet this year too, I call it a bookLET because it is a small collection, perfect for Christmas quick knits, just a few patterns and some other exciting extras for Christmas too )

So here is a sneak at some DWM and some of the simple, basic, quick knits I’m working on for the booklet!

simple mitten design, super quick to knit

Back later this week with more sneaky peeks!

Cherry Bomb Spin-a-thon!

 

Well here I am again, and who would have thought 2 posts in a row would be about spinning? It’s not that all I have been doing IS spinning, but for the moment the things I’ve been working on I can’t share with you … y’know… top secret and all that jazz 😉

In my last post I talked about how thrilled I was with the result of my spinning ( having not spun for a long time, except to teach a spindle class in December ). I was super happy with the results of my Punk Pansy spinning, the only disappointment was that I was going for ‘sport’ weight yarn and ended with DK, and a pitiful 150m.

I thought about it a while, then asked some of my spinny piers for their advice to achieve the illusive ‘fingering weight /300m’ mark with my handspun. A few conversations later (thanks Marieanne) and I realized there was a simple truth to my lack of length to my spun yarns …. I wasn’t checking my WPI in my singles. Had I done this way back when, I would have been a lot closer to my goal a long time ago. Going by ‘eye’ doesn’t cut it with spinning I’m afraid, well not for me anyway, I needed to see just how fine my singles needed to be to achieve the perfect fingering weight yarn.

So with much pride and a little delay in my ‘once a week’ blog post promise … welcome my first ever Twinkle Fluff (extrafine Merino/ Silk / stellina) spin – Cherry Bomb

 

95g / 280m / 16wpi 3-ply medium/light fingering weight. Spun on Mach II

Cherry Bomb, is my first real ‘fingering weight’ yarn… and with a whopping 280m in the 95g skein here, by far the longest I have ever ever spun any yarn. I feel like this marks a turning point for me and my spinning, achieving fingering weight has hung over me like a shadow for a long while in my spinning life, and if I’m honest, at times kept me away from my wheel.

Now I’m not saying that this is the best spinning I’ve ever done, by far it is not. IT has thick and thin moments, and the plying was a little ‘iffy’ in places as my wheel and I had a little falling out (don’t worry we’re friends again now)… but as far as length and weight go, I’m pleased as punch, and ‘Cherry Bomb’ will go a long way towards restoring my confidence on the wheel. Also spinning a blend of Merino/silk for the first time too, made me more confident with spinning new fibres.

It feels good to set a challenge and make it a long way towards achieving it in 1 spin, so before I loose momentum, I think I should publicly set myself another challenge…. and after this mornings success at counting the best yardage I’ve ever achieved… I can afford to critique myself a little. I love my latest handspuns, but what I feel my handspun yarn lacks is ‘loftiness’ and ‘air’, although I’ve achieved a great length, I still feel my yarns are too dense and compact. An answer to this is simple, well it’s simple to say, but possibly not to achieve, longdraw – EEEP!

The next time I post about spinning, I will have spun 100g of fluff in the longdraw method, from chats and youtube videos I’ve seen that it is all about technique and style, and just ‘going for it’, so that is what I will do. Wish me luck 😀

Oh.. and for those of you wondering what is going on with Mummy Mitts, being knit out of my Punk Pansy spin from the last post? Progress has been made and will continue slowly while other more urgent projects take over for a while… but it’s cute huh?

Mummy Mitten

More News and updates from the dyepots and wheel next week folks 🙂

Spin, Span, Spun

Hello, gosh is it 2012 already? I look back and see I haven’t posted in the longest time… oh dear.

Well I’m making a resolution today, you can do that right? It doesn’t ONLY happen at new years, surely? From today I will post at least 1 blog post a week, regardless of how little I feel I might have to say, or how uninterested you most likely will be, deal? OK, good, lets move on.

I hope you all had a fabulous festive season, I certainly did, it was my 30th birthday and I celebrated in style with my gorgeous husband whisking me around the world for 17 days of adventure and sightseeing… but that is all things I can share with you in quieter weeks on the blog right? 😉

I have finally gotten back into the swing of dyeing again, after a long break over the holidays it took me a while to find my mojo again, I started off gently, dyeing up colours I know and love to dye, replacing out of stock items on the shop etc. But this week, I felt more like my adventurous old self and got busy with the Deeply Wicked, which as always has been very well received.

But today I want to share with you my delight, and overwhelming smugness with my latest attempt at spinning.

For the longest time, I have run hot and cold with spinning, going at it like crazy for weeks then not touching my wheel or spindle for months… but in 2012 I’d very much like to change that. This week I dyed some roving in a new and unusual way, because I had a thought, maybe a finished spun yarn doesn’t have to resemble the fibre it started out as. For some of you more seasoned spinners, this may very well be old news, but for me, it was an exciting ‘lightbub’ moment.

I set to work on dyeing my fibre in the new more adventurous way, and was really quite happy with the finished results, really acid bright and contrasting flecks of colour on a snow white backdrop… like a multicolored Dalmatian.

Punk Pansy dyed fibre

Then I set to work spinning it up, wanting to get the best result I could, I took my time and sectioned the fibre into 3rds, and then each 3rd in half, pre- drafting to get a nice smooth even roving that would slip through my fingers nicely. The spin took just 6hrs over 2 evenings, and the plying a further 2.5hrs.

I was so happy with the final result, if not a little miffed that the yarn is quite short, just 165m. I thought I was spinning to a fingering / 4-ply weight, and when I checked the final WPI of the singles and the finished yarns, seems my singles WERE 4-ply, but x 3 made for more like DK/Worsted weight.

No matter …. it’s pretty, and it’s even and it proved that fibre and finished yarn can look much MUCH different, and it is wound and ready to be cast on as mittens for mothers day. I think I may line them with a baby pink soft alpaca yarn I’ve laying around, even though the Merino/Nylon fibre is deliciously soft, more just to spoil my mum and make them extra special for her, watch this space for progress photos soon.

Punk Pansy spun yarn

There are three more braids of Punk Pansy available along with many more delicious spinning fibres in the easyknits.co.uk shop right now here…. more coming next week in the ‘punk’ range with splashes of colour that blend and soften with spinning.

Chat to you all next week.

 

Jx

 

 

Delicious Deeply Wicked Deluge

Well it would be rude not to share these on the new blog wouldn’t it now?

Hope you are all enjoying the look and feel of the new blog, it’s slowly taking shape as I learn new tricks and techniques in wordpress that will help make this blog gorgeous as well as easy to read.

Today is Friday, and what does that mean here at Easykntis.co.uk HQ? Deeply Wicked update of course!

For those of you who are new to the world of Easyknits.co.uk and have not yet met a skein of Deeply Wicked yarn, I can of course inform you that the pictures you see here, just do not do them justice.

Deeply Wicked is dyed in a unique and exclusive way here at HQ which gives each skein it’s namesake, the yarn is completely saturated with dye and then ‘set’ in a way which allows each and every fibre/pore in the yarn to be penetrated with rich, vibrant colours.

Each skein is like a snowflake, it is unique in every way, although Deeply Wicked is dyed in 4 skein batches, not 1 of those 4 will be the same, even though from the same ‘bath’, making each skein a work of art, never to be repeated.

It is of no surprise to someone armed with the above information that the average update ( and their are 2 updates on a Friday, one at midday BST and one at 5pm for our friends overseas ) only last on average 30-40mins on the site before all skeins are snapped up.

Also at a recent event where Deeply Wicked had it’s debut, over 250 skeins sold in just 48hrs – Amazing huh? Deeply Wicked is ‘everything’ that Easykntis.co.uk stands for, it is fun, bright, unique, loud, cheerful, and luscious, each skein is 100%  4ply or DK Superwash Merino, offering a generous 400m (4ply) and 260m (DK).

In just 8 weeks since launching Deeply Wicked we have sold over 600 skeins and we’re dyeing more and more everyday.

In addition to the beautiful yarns we have been working hard to bring you 1 skein knits that will make your Deeply Wicked yarn simply ‘pop’ when you knit it up into any of the designs.Our latest creation ‘Shazaam’ will be launching next week ( Friday 26th August) and will be on sale at a special introductory price on our pattern store. Click here to visit our pattern store and see our other designs.

We’ll be back over the weekend with news of our first ever Knit-Along, why not pop over to Ravelry and join in the fun?

Click here to go to our KAL forum on Ravelry.com

Welcome to the new Easyknits.co.uk blog

Orbit Shawl designed by Jon Dunn-Ballam

Hi Gang,

Most of you will know that I used to use the blog page on the easyknits.co.uk website…. not at all as often as I should have, but I DID use it occasionally. Today I decided that I should get a ‘real’ blog, one that was out there for the whole world to read, and not just people on my website.

The Theory behind this is that I will need to blog considerably more often, which of course I have failed spectacularly at doing so in previous attempts. But in my defence, there is now a constant stream of things to blog about, even if just once a week I share the latest creations from my dye pots.

So this is the official welcome to my blog post. The layout and design here may change frequently for a few weeks until I am happy with the layout, look and feel of the thing, but bare with me in this teething stage.

To start us off, the image above is one of my most favourite creations this year to date. Above, you should see, if I linked it in correctly, the shawl designed for Sushi Shawl Along 6.0, the design is named Orbit and is available in my Ravelry.com pattern store here. I hope that many of you will enjoy patterns as I upload them to the store, and will find your way there after reading posts here.

Well that’s it for this first ever post, I’m off to get on with some work, and think hard about my next post coming soon ( really I promise this time ).

Keep knitting x