Finished Grettir Sweater and some Hand Dyed Sock Yarns.

I've been stuck at home for a while feeling sorry for myself, first an infection then the flu. But, I have kept myself busy, here's what I made:

Yes, it's the Grettir Sweater that I mentioned in my last post. I really enjoyed knitting this and the Naturelle yarn was lovely to work with. I hand dyed one of my skeins a deep orange as I decided to go for a retro look in the end rather than choosing the grey tones that I originally planned.
The only thing modification I made to the pattern was that the neck ~ if knit as stated in the pattern, sat very wide and low. So I decreased extra stitches in the shaping of the neck area and knit a few extra rows for the neckband to make it sit higher. I love how the short row shaping makes the back of the neck sit higher.

I must be on the mend because yesterday I got the urge to get the dye pot out, a few more sock yarns to add to my stash:

My personal favorite is the maple toned one at the bottom of the pic, just loving the Autumn colours at the moment, but of course there had to be a purple skein in there somewhere!

















Here's my finished Plain & Fancy Socks:

Oscar Wabbit, Spinning for Socks and a Cowl.

I've been grooming Oscar every 2-3 days to keep his coat nice, but I noticed over the last week his fibre is starting to shed when I comb him and he has been feeling the heat, so obviously it's time to pluck him. This doesn't hurt the rabbit, you are just removing the old coat and leaving the new short coat behind. It was rather time consuming as I went slowly, not wanting to frighten him with it being the first time either of us had gone through this process, but he was happy enough and enjoyed the cuddles and attention.

Here he is before plucking:

And after, notice how dark his new short coat looks compared to his old one:

Here's the box of treasure, it weighs just 28g.

The good thing about plucking as opposed to cutting the fibre is that you get the full staple length, whereas in cutting I would not dare cut near to his skin and would be lucky to get a 2" staple length.

I didn't cut the fibre from his ears or cheeks, but I did clip his legs and paws and trimmed his claws which were as sharp as needles before. 

Hopefully he will feel much cooler and will be easier to groom. Now I'm going to spin some of the fibre ~ another bonus being that it's already clean and not full of v.m...... unlike the alpaca's!

I started spinning some Corriedale sock blend fibre that I dyed a while back, more Autumnal colours:

Then I cast on for a cowl, and learnt a new method of doing a provisional cast on in the process:

The pattern is Callicarpa

The yarn is Sublime Yarns Extra Fine Merino Dk in Purple Plum.

Here's a link to the winding on provisional cast on tutorial.

And that's all for now folks!