rockpool candy

COMPETITION!

Those of you who know me well, will know that I collect old knitting and crochet patterns. Rarely for the patterns themselves, I must admit; more often for the wonderful cover pics. My walls are covered in them. And I thought, "I want to share my little treasure trove with everyone".

So what better way than to hold an informal competition?

Each month, I'll post a picture from an old pattern. All you need to do is send me a funny caption for it. The person who makes me laugh the longest and hardest will win 100g of my rockpool candy fibre for spinning (or I'll spin it up for those crocheters and knitters who don't spin). It's open to anyone anywhere in the world. I'll pay the postage in return for the laughter.

So put on your funny pants and apply yourself. Here comes picture number one.

It's for Twilley's Health Vest - as recommended by the medical profession, (don't you know!)

Man, I'm laughing already......

Fibre, Fibre, More Fibre and Travelling....lots of travelling.....NI, England & Wales

If you've been keeping up with my blog, you'll have read my post about trolling around Northern Ireland with Pom Pom International,

Cue a bum shot of Miss Amy Lamé.

And I must admit, on that tour, I had the best time I've had since I moved over to the Province. And got to meet just the best people.

Thanks go out to Derry Pride organisers and ball goers.

Here's the yarn you helped me to spin. I'll make and extra-special pom pom with it.

But that wasn't the only bit of travelling I got up to in the UK.

After the tour, I caught the sunny Belfast ferry cross the angry body of water better known as the Irish sea.

Ah.....summer......

I picked up the fabulous Ildi and we had a brill couple of days driving down to London, eating delish kebabs and staying in dodgy hotels to drop off one of my 'Great White' reefs for the Creative Stitches and Hobbycraft shows that are touring the UK.

It's for part of their Reclaim, Re-use, Recycle show and it opens for the first time today in Exeter and goes on until early next year. The reef is just one of the elements I've created especially for the show cabinet they've given me. I can't wait to see the final underwater scene.

Next stop, London and I Knit.

Me and my mucker mate, moonspinning . Hanging out, meeting other complete loons, like alabamawhirly and bringing fibre fiddlers over to the dark side of spinning. Come on, can you really resist ferreting in this and getting creative? (even if I do say so myself!)

 

Whizz bang and I'm in Ross on Wye, rumaging through beach detritus to finish my jellyfish.

  

And may I be so bold to suggest that, should you feel the desire to begin untangling neon fishing line and crocheting it... don't. It's a madness not best visited.

And so to Wrexham, Wales. Yale College to be precise. And their recycling exhibition. The poster is in both English and Welsh, in case you're wondering.

And within minutes, like ants around a just-dropped ice-cream, we fibre fiddlers are circling two spinning wheels and sharing techniques.

I even taught Marcus to make plastic-bag yarn and to spin moonlight, all against a back drop of my jellyfish and second 'Great White' reef. Now that doesn't happen very often.

And finally back home. To rest my weary spinning muscles and enjoy a bit of colour therapy.

Yarn is good........

Welcome to my shop!

As you can see from the banner to the right of my page, my ETSY shop is now open for business.

Come on in, sit down, have a cuppa and feed your inner fibre fiddler.

Oh, and buy stuff.

xxxx

shop

Looking for my shop after I completely sold
out of my new fiber range at the I Knit London show this weekend?

Well don't worry, it will be here next week.

Count down has begun.

The magic is happening.

Launch date 17th September.

Come back then and feed your inner fiber fiddler.

You know you want to!

My Spinning Fibre For Sale At I Knit London Show

This weekend is the I Knit Show in London. There are still tickets available, so come along.
I'll be there with Moonspinning.

And I'm proud to announce that we will both be launching our new range of home-produced spinning fibres and yarns at the show.
My fibre batts have been created especially to give you a unique spinning experience. Slubs and noils are incorporated to be celebrated and embraced. The yarn you spin from it will be truly yours and no one else will have one like it.
Many of the fleeces I use are bought directly from UK farmers at fair prices, washed and dyed by me, and then carded into batts. The silks are fairly-traded from a women’s cooperative in India. This fibre is created with respect.
You are part of the wonderful cycle.
Because of its unique blend of many fibres - home-grown and exotic - your finished yarn will have its own personality.  Enjoy it. Relish it. It’s made just for you.

After the show, the gorgeous Gerard will be selling my batts through his I Knit Shop in London and of course, you'll be able to buy them through my site.

Meantime, here are a few close-ups of my fibres spun up to whet your appetite.

   

 

 

Pom Pom International Northern Ireland Tour

What wonderful things pom poms are.
Natalie's beautiful, handmade yurt was the perfect setting to share our fiber fiddlery.

Despite some reservations from those faultering on the the threshold, once they sat down and began to wind a myriad of coloured yarns around their pom pom makers, they became entranced.

These Pom Poms really brought diverse people together in the name of peace.

There were pirates in Portadown.

Singing novice spinners in Derry.

 

Extended families in Fermanagh.

 

Welcoming volunteers in Darkley.

 

Teams of teenagers on the Shankill Road.

 

It was a memorable, if sometimes wet and blowy tour.

Thank you Northern Ireland.

Peace!

Pride in my Pom Poms for Peace

Right.

Think of three things that you would never expect to hear in the same sentence.

Pom pom.

Yurt.

Place of conflict.

So if I tell you that I'm going to be taking part in Amy Lamé's Pom Pom International Peace Tour, in a yurt, travelling to places of conflict here in Northern Ireland, you might be forgiven for thinking..."huh?"

But it's really happening, Reg!

Here are the dates.

Saturday 23rd August 

10am-4pm 

Lunasa - Bash at the Bann

Portadown

Co.Armagh

Sunday 24th August

7.30pm-11pm 

The Official Pride Ball 

(part of Foyle Pride)

The Corinthian Ballroom, City Hotel

Derry

Co.L/Derry

For which I've dyed up some special 'Pride Flag Roving' for proud fibre fiddlers.

Monday 24th August

4pm-9pm 

Share Village

Smith's Strand

Lisnaskea

Co.Fermanagh

 

Wednesday 26th August 

Time to be confirmed 

Crossfire Trust/Singing Kettle

Darkley House

Darkley, Keady

Co.Armagh 

Thursday 28th August 

2pm-5pm 

UNBCEP Cross Community Sports Day

Woodvale Park

Shankhill Road

Belfast

I'll be teaching folks of all ages and abilities how to spin, make yarns from recycled materials and to dye wool with Koolaid!

And all in a beautiful yurt built by the equally beautiful Nat at neck of the woods. 

So come on, set your cynicism aside and embrace the softness, the fluffiness, the pom pomery that is Pom Pom International's Peace Tour.

Oh, and it's free!

Fibre frenzy

Long time, no post. This is due to me being head down, fingers a blur, getting ready for several up-coming shows.
I'm delighted to have been invited to show my work in a cabinet at the ICHF Creative Stitching and Hobbycraft shows as they tour around Britain. This meant a new reef had to be created. I'd been dreaming of making a white and yellow one for ages so here it is.

It's 1m 30cm wide and weighs a tonne (or feels like it).
But... in my enthusiasm back in the spring, I decided not to make one, but two of these reefs.

Lucky for me, I was also invited to show at Wrexham Yale's Recycling and Sustainability Show.
So here's the second reef in the pair.

They stand on their own, but also act as a pair, giving them a different dimension.

 

They're so huge, I had to hang out of my upstairs window to take this picture.

But two reefs wasn't enough.

I'd also promised Jimbo that I'd make him a reef with his Friedrich's Ataxia travelling hook. (It's the most beautiful hook I've ever had the pleasure to hold.) So I dyed, spun and crocheted like a mad thing to create a very unique wall hanging.

 

It'll be auctioned on the 12th September, along with many other wonderful creations to raise money for research into a cure. PLEASE go along and bid.

All this, and the Coral Collective Hospital Project is going from strength to strength. I received a beautiful coral from someone who'd picked up one of my packs in the hospital.

It made me SO happy to receive it and can't wait to add it to the artwork hanging in the waiting room. Thank you to the anonymous crocheter.

Is that all I've been up to? Nah! I don't sleep. I've got Pom Pom International and I Knit London coming up.

So I've been washing texel fleece and dyeing it;

Dyeing up merino roving;

Creating my own fibre blends that will soon sell through my site and at I Knit London's shop;

 

Carding British Breeds Batts for I Knit London's fetes and Bestival;

Spinning some of my exotic multi-fibre batts;

 

And then there was all the fun I had hanging out a Woolfest with the wonderful Moonspinning;

Here she's teaching Gerard to spin with a drop spindle.

Gnome spotting;

And getting emails from lovely slebs who've been crocheting with my yarns at their events.

I thank you, Miss Amy Lamé for making a corsage from my lemon and lime handspun.

Stay tuned for the next installment - this is only a teeny bit of what I've been up to! I haven't told you about Castlewellan show (you can read about it on Moonspinning's blog) or any of the other groovy stuff I've been up to.
Next stop LA, New York, London and touring Northern Ireland.
I'm international, me!

Lovely fibre fiddlers make the world go around

Q: What does this world need?
A: More people that spend time fiddling with fibre and wrapping the world in their yarn loveliness.

I contacted crocheting glamourpuss Amy Lamé
on her London show. (Yeah, Danny Baker says it's his, but we all know Amy's satin ribbon hairbands hold it together) to chat about some of the crochet projects I'm involved in.

AND WOW, LADY! Does she have a fabulous project of her own, happening?

Step up, Pom Pom International!

A movement to create the biggest pom pom in the world and use it to promote peace love and understanding.
Ahhhh, pom pom fuzziness. Tell me that it doesn't draw you in like a small child, fluffing the soft fibres against your cheek and nuzzling into it.

Amy's initiative invites you to create your own pom pom and send it to be joined into the giant ball of LURVE.
Pure genius.

I've decided to make my own pom pom for the project out of yarn I've spun myself.

Mrs Moon and I carded it from merino, local wool, angelina and the most beautiful, ethically-traded silk sari waste

and banana fibre, bought from ethnic crafts. This is Anees' bulk buy site, but I found him through ebay where he sells smaller amounts.

Other WIP:

My fibre studio is being refurbished and I can't get in there at the moment - beyond frustrating - but I'm working on more stuff for the IFF (check out the page they've put up about me).

My nipple for the nipple project.

The GIANT reef panel I'm making for the gas station project in Syracuse.

How could I be happier? A wonderful husband (He's always top of my list) and a world filled with pom poms, nipples and coral.

Fibre bliss.

x

I'm the luckiest fibre fiddler alive!

I may be only 37, but boy, I feel 370 lately! I've been laid up on the sofa with a wonderful mixture of phlebitis, (the drugs for which, in turn, triggered my angioedema) and now a liberal dose of the killer flu. If I were a horse, the knackers yard would have been called weeks ago. But I am part of the wonderful world of fibre and I may be falling to bits, but life is great.

Surprise packages have been arriving thick and fast.

1st came Jimbo's chophook.
Jimbo is a guy living in the States, by Deadman's Crick, carving crochet hooks from the wood in his orchard and old chopsticks and selling them to fund the building of his cabin.
I came across Jimbo through ravelry and instantly fell in love with his handiwork, but on reading his blog, was also struck by this man's gentleness and generosity.

His friend's daughter has Friedreich's Ataxia, and wanting to raise awareness of the condition and the need for research into a cure, Jimbo decided to set up charitable auctions of his hooks online. Jimbo has also donated a travelling hook to the cause that will pass from fibre fiddler to fibre fiddler, creating crocheted wonders to auction and raise cash, whilst all the time being blogged about.
I've added my name to the list and eagerly await the travelling hook's arrival. Meantime, Jimbo sent me my very own chophook, with which I'm crocheting away. It's beautifully smooth and incredibly easy on the hands, as it's easy to hold. I'd also recommend it to people who maybe have problems holding smaller hooks. Go on! Get involved!

2nd came a bag of soda ash, from her Royal Highness, The Skein Queen.

She'd read about my dismal forays into banana fibre dyeing and suggested that I was using the wrong mordant. If this little bag enables me to create the sort of colourways she's selling on Etsy then I shall eternally grovel at her royally-slippered pieds.

3rd to arrive was a package all the way from Geneva.

Stuffed to the gills with squidgy balls of lurid and spangly acrylics perfect for the Coral Collective Hospital Project. Thank you Seamus!

Another day, another package. 4th came Ilidko's wonderful corals and their patterns. This woman is like yarn on acid! I asked her if she could see her way to helping me with a pattern or two for the Coral Collective Hospital Project.

She sent six! And they're SO beautiful. I'm indebted to her for her help. Visitors are going to love crocheting her designs.

And then there's Debi's package. Debi is over here in Norn Iron for a while and we're loving having her. She's always surrounded by a gaggle of women at the Guild meetings as she pulls Oak Hammock Farm fleece after fleece from her bags for us to ooh and ahh over.

I've dyed up some in luscious greens.

But as well as her lovely natural fleeces, she's like my cheap yarn pimp, bringing bulk buys of acrylic back from the States for me. This stuff is so nasty it could power a small town with its static. PERFECT for mad coral creations.

So now, all I have to do is clear the backlog of work that's sitting awaiting me after my desktop absence. Argh! There's never enough time to take in all the fabulousness of our fibre community. I need to duplicate myself.

Thanks to EVERYONE!