When Pantone announced the colour of the year for 2024, I realised that I had to put in a spurt of activity on these socks and get them finished before Viva Magenta stopped being the colour of the year.I love the colour and the pattern. The problems have been being distracted by other projects and a new craft and the fact that I've spun a 3-ply yarn by spindle. (A habit such as& ..read more

 I wasn't able to share my progress with this because I made it for my partner's birthday. He now has it, so I'm free to tell you all about it.Here's the finished project in daylight (above) and in the dark (below)If the location 'West of House' and the hidden warning about being eaten by a grue mean nothing to you, this is all from a text adventure game called Zork from 1977.  The pattern is ..read more

 This can be made to wrap once or twice around the neck and worn tied or untied.This is quite popular with handspinners and there are some examples here.I have some yarn that I spun for socks. The details of the fibre are lost to time but I think it's a wool/silk mix. I spun the singles finely and made a three-ply, aiming for sock-weight but it's probably closer to DK and this is probably the ..read more

At the start of the year I was really inspired by the colour of the year, viva magenta, and also by the Spellcaster Socks by Wyvern Knits, a pattern that allows you to "Embrace spell casting whilst playing with the chaos and magic of the dice". Yes, you throw a die to determine various pattern choices, so no two pairs of Spellcaster socks will be the same. I decided to spin the yarn. I looked ..read more

 A while ago I finished this project,  You may think the neck looks a little odd or a little wide. It certainly felt that way to me. The truth is that I ran out of yarn with maybe a a few rounds left to go. I'd used all of the John Arbon fibre and didn't think it worth ordering another 100g just for that tiny bit of extra yarn.I haven't worn the jumper much, and I think that's because I wasn't ..read more

 I've listed this loom for sale on UK Weavers group on Ravelry, but thought I might as well list it here too.It's an 8-shaft loom with stand and lots of extras. It's difficult to transport, but for a reasonable offer I'll be prepared to deliver it myself within East Midlands / East Anglia.  Further than that and we might be able to meet halfway.I have owned this loom for a long time, it was a ..read more

I'm a recent convert to Soda Stream. I was buying big bottles of fizzy water regularly but felt that I was creating plastic waste.  I like to take one of these bottles walking with me, but the bottles get scuffed while rattling around in the rucksack.That's where Vivienne Morgan's bottle sock comes in! It's like a sock without a heel. She has three bottle sock patterns to choose from. For my ..read more

 Almost ten years ago to the day, I published this blog post in which I said that I'd converted my Traddy from single-drive to double. I said that I would publish instructions. If I ever did so, I can't find them now.I won't go into the whys and wherefores here, only the how. Suffice to say that I did this ten years ago and have been using this wheel for almost all spinning since, and I way ..read more

On another blog I wrote about using Kendall Down's Knitwear Designer on a BBC micro to generate a knitting pattern.That was November 2020. I'm not a fast knitter. I tend to just knit a few rows each day rather than spending hours at a time on it. Plus I spun the yarn for this project. Here it is done. I don't have a record of the exact measurements I fed into the program, but the fit is fantastic ..read more

 Just before the first lockdown I had taught myself to make the crocheted Mitred Granny Square.  I thought it looked really nice and I enjoyed making them.  When we went officially into Lockdown, I came up with the bright idea of making one of these squares for each day of Lockdown.  I would them make them into baby car seat blankets and give them to charity.  Little did I realise what I had let ..read more