Hexipuffs and fairy pillows

As soon as I saw the Beekeepers Quilt pattern from Stephanie Dosen over at Tiny Owl Knits, I was utterly hooked on hexipuffs! 390 little tiny knitted hexagons, all sewn together into the smoochiest quilt ever. It is perfect for using up all those little bits of spare sock yarn, but I decided instead that this will be a handspun project. There are three sources that I'm going to use. Firstly all the end scraps of yarn from handspun knitting projects that I've finished. Secondly all those little end bits from uneven bobbins of singles will be plied together and used up. And finally I have a couple of braids of really pretty fibre that I've earmarked for the majority of the quilt. 

So how is it going... well I've just finished the 12th! So quite a way to go. I've added a little ticker into my sidebar!

The only problem I'm coming across is that the girls keep "borrowing" them because they look like fairy pillows. I wonder how many extra I will end up knitting!

I'm planning on knitting the majority of them, but I also want to encorporate a few fabric hexagons as well to add even more interest and texture. 

I'm off to make number 13!!

Elf travel - meet Gaston

All has been quiet on the blogging front, because I was away at my father's house in The Hague. It is a lovely place to visit, and blissfully quiet because he has no internet connection! I spend a lot of time online for work (and play!) so it is nice to get away from time to time. We used to live in Holland, so it is great to go back for a visit from time to time.

While there, I visited the gorgeous little local yarn shop Woool. Emma was in a bit of a mood following a sleepless night, and didn't want to go in at all. She stood in the corner with her nose against the wall having a sulk while I looked around. Not fun! After a while she crept up to me and said in a very little voice, "Mummy... will you make me something?" Ahhh I love those words! She is obsessed with Little Kingdom - Ben the elf and Holly the fairy have all kinds of fun adventures together. Much of it revolves around the fact that Holly is a fairy who can fly and do magic, and Ben is an elf who can't do those things but is good at making stuff. He has a pet ladybird called Gaston who flies him around. Emma has little toy Ben and Holly dolls that go everywhere with her. "Mummy... Ben can't fly. But Holly can. It isn't fair on Ben and he is sad. Pleeeeeease will you make a Gaston so he can fly too?" What could I say? I asked her to look for some red wool, and she came back with some rather scary looking fluffy yarn with sequins, proclaiming that Ben would be sparkling!

Once I got home, I found some black Baby Cashmerino which had been liberated from a project-gone-wrong. I held it double, used size 5.5mm needles, and made a hexigon. I repeated this for the top, adding in some colour and features. I made legs, sewed together and stuffed, and he is all done. Easy peasy! I really should make toys more often. :-)



He's by no means perfect, but Emma loves him, and sleeps with him every night. We have had long complicated discussions about whether he needs to have antennae, but they will get in the way if she takes him to bed. Apparently, Ben can hold onto the fluffy bits when flying so it is ok! Lucy seems to have fallen for him too, and keeps running off with him when she is tired. So she gets the honor of today's picture!



We had a lovely time over in Holland, but all too short. Now we are into the last week before Emma starts school. On the one hand I'm really excited about it for her, but feeling a little melancholy too. I'll miss having my little fairy around me all day. But I am excited to see what the next term will bring for her.

From Fibre to Finished Cardigan... ta-dah!

I finally finished knitting my hand spun cardigan at the end of last week, so it is time for a "ta-dah!!!" post.


The fibre was 200g extra fine merino, dyed by the extremely talented Helen, Angelica and Imogen Jacobs-Grant at My Heart Exposed fibres. Their fibres are dyed with all natural dyes- dried flower heads, crushed fresh herbs, various roots and other unusual ingredients, which yields beautiful colours and subtle hues that you just can't create with chemicals. One braid was a semi solid pink (Rosetta) dyed with cochineal, and the other was pink, yellow and orange (Cosmos). I spun them to a 2 ply fingering weight yarn on my Ashford Traveller.



Originally I planned to make a pretty summer shawl, but anyone who knows me knows that I have shawls-a-plenty so I decided to make a light cardigan instead. The pattern is Kaleidoscope and it is certainly one that I will use again. It is knit as one piece, so no horrible seaming to worry about. :-) I started it in late May, but took a long break in the middle to work on other projects. So all in all I think it was about 3 weeks of knitting.

I wished I could have eeked out 3/4 length sleeves, but I only had 6 inches of yarn left so I am happy enough simply to have them even! I'm really pleased with the end result though. It has a lovely wide neckline which shows off summery tanned shoulders in a vest top very nicely!


The buttons are from Textile Garden. I was very impressed with them - their prices are extremely reasonable, and they delivered in a flash. Less than 24 hours from ordering!

Thanks for letting me share!

Long car journeys mean lots done!

It has been rather a long time since my last post, because Brett was off work for a week so we have been here, there and everywhere. We spent a couple of days in Ripon, a day in York to visit old haunts, popped in on my lovely aunt Jane near Halifax, came home for a day, went to Bournemouth for 3 hours of seaside fun, up to Nottingham to visit a dear friend... I think that is about it! 800 miles in a week - my bottom has now changed to a bizarre car seat shape!!

All that sitting around in the car means I've got rather a lot done craft wise. Tour de Fleece started this month, which is a daily spin-a-long following the Tour de France, and I was delighted to discover that I can manage to spindle spin in the car. It is slow going, but really relaxing! I'm spinning some merino/tencel blend really fine (it will be a heavy lace weight when plied) on my IST spindle.

I also made really good progress on my cardigan. This is made with handspun merino, which was dyed with natural dyes by the very talented Helen, Angelica and Imogen at My Heart Exposed. I had only done a couple of rows before last week, so I'm really starting to make headway with it now.

Speaking of Tour de Fleece, I finished this beautiful sparkly Blue Faced Leicester blend last night. I'm not 100% happy with the plying, so may run it through the wheel once again, but we'll see how it looks after I make a sample with it. The colours are lovely though, and there is something that I really love about sparkly yarn. It brings out the little magpie in me!

In non crafty news, Emma had her first taster day at "big school" last week. She absolutely loved it, and I think she is going to be very happy when she starts there in September. Me - well I felt like a silly quivering wreck when I dropped her off, which is even more daft when I remember that she has been at pre-school for a year. She is growing up so fast! And Lucy... well she is just little Lucy! A tiny little ball of energy, always happy, and usually up to something a bit naughty. We were very excited to find that one of our sunflowers had burst into flower this week. Emma has tended to it very carefully every day since she planted the seed with my mum a few months ago.

Phew that was a long update! More tomorrow...