Author Archives: sylvantiger

#bedinburghyarnfest*

You might have seen some of the jealousy inducing blog posts and photographs from the Edinburgh Yarn Festival this weekend.  It looked a truly amazing event and I was jealous not to be there.  So what’s a girl to do in the face of such extreme provocation? Go back to the source of course and go look at some fibre producing animals in the flesh, or should that be fleece?!

We went along to our local urban farm and were met by a couple of very friendly donkeys enjoying some hay.

Donkeys

“Stop pulling faces, if the wind changes you’ll stick like that”

Some of sheep with older lambs were back out in the fields, but many of the ewes were in the barn, waiting to lamb.

Whitefaced Woodland
This Whitefaced Woodland ewe was very friendly, or it could be that she was after the sheep nuts that were scattered on the floor at our feet!

Whitefaced inquisitive
There was a nursery pen with the very young lambs, so clean and bouncy! Some were having a nap, snuggled up in the hay. These two are a Whitefaced Woodland (the white one) and a Ryeland (the brown one).

Puddle of lambs!

Puddle of lambs!

These two Whitefaced Woodland lambs were a bit livelier, bouncy all over the pen and having a good nibble on the hay.

Lambs eating hay

I also managed a bit of knitting over the weekend.  Using my Greengage Glut from my Orchard Collection of 100% Wensleydale lace to knit an Elm Row scarf by Anne Hanson of Knitspot.  This is my Mother in Laws Christmas present, Christmas 2014, better late than never!

Drooping Elm scarf* The hash tag ‘bedinburghyarnfest was coined on twitter by those unable to be at Edinburgh Yarn Festival in person.  Many people joined in to create their very own festivals at home/in bed/on the settee/whereever possible!  Go have a look on twitter at both the #bedinburghyarnfest and #eyf2015 hash tags to relive the weekend’s woolly exploits.

 

New colours on BFL HT sock yarn

This last week has been all about the sock yarn.  My Yan Sock base is a lovely 100% British Bluefaced Leicester High Twist sock yarn.  The high twist gives it that extra bit of sturdiness to help prolong the life of your precious hand knit socks.  The fibre of the Bluefaced Leicester sheep has one of the longer staple lengths of the sheep breeds, which means it’s less prone to felting than other fibres.  All great attributes for socks!

There are three new colours to launch this week, available now in the Etsy shop, drum roll please….

First up is Purple Fuzzy Mouse:

Lac and Saxon Blue semiA dusky pinky purple with brighter pink and purple highlights produced from a combination of Lac and Saxon Blue.  Named for a random conversation on Twitter!

Next up is a deep rich purple (can you see a theme developing here?!):

Purple logwood with iron semiThis purple is created using Logwood Purple, with the variations and highlights produced by the use of different modifiers such as iron and sodium carbonate.

And finally:

Logwood, cochineal, saxon blueA vibrant mixture of pink, purple and blue.  All created with Cochineal, Logwood Purple and Saxon Blue. From the way the dyes have mixed and moved around in the pot, there are lots of subtle variations to the colours.  This would make a great pair of bright and cheerful socks!.

As well as the new colours, I’ve restocked popular colours including Summer Berries, Deeper Under the Sea and Plumlicious.

If you’re looking for sock pattern ideas you might like Ithunn designed by Amanda of Owl Print Panda using my Yan Sock base.  Amanda says that Ithunn is the Norse goddess of spring and keeper of apples and eternal youth.  With spring just around the corner these socks would look great in my Spring has Sprung colourway:

Spring has Sprung 20140125a closeup

And, if that wasn’t enough socky goodness, Yan Sock in Spring has Sprung appears in an Indie Dyer feature in the March issue of Let’s Knit magazine!

Lets Knit March 2015 300