Cashmere and crochet

The cashmere is progressing quite nicely. I swapped to the smaller whorl/higher ratios on my Timbertops, and am finding it pretty effortless to spin. I'm still struggling a little bit with consistency, but it's not too bad. My only trouble is that I have absolutely no idea what I am going to do with this when it is all spun up. Mind you, I do have some more very nice cashmere, I could do the lot and then think about it?



Despite having realised that my next class is not until the very end of the month, I am still working on crochet bits and bobs, mostly because I am enjoying so doing. I have said here before, I am sure, that crochet was my first love, rather than knitting, and that I still prefer the physical act of construction, the rhythmic nid-nod of the hook to that of knitting needles. It is just that it doesn't always look right with handspun yarn when completed.

So here we have:



a small tapestry crochet bag under construction, and it will remain pretty much like this to show how it is done. I took a class with Elaine Benfatto last year at SOAR, and although I can't do the magic thing that she can, I did get the gist. She can manage both yarns over the fingers of her left hand so that they don't tangle - I have to drop them turn and turn around, plus untangle them from time to time, which is a bit of a pain but you do kind of get in to a rhythm with it. This is a crochet technique that works really well with handspun.

A collection of bits and pieces



The grey fabric in the background is the plain double crochet (single if in the US!) waistcoat I was working on a while back, now completed and slightly fulled by putting through the washer and dryer once each for a short time. I ended up with what I think is quite a useful garment, if unexciting. The fulling worked very well, just firmed the whole thing up a bit, shrinking it only a tad. I am playing around with a bag in the same yarn, fulled a lot more and hopefully ending up with beads in some way, but it isn't done yet, and looks like nothing on earth at the moment. We shall see. Then, there are two silk beaded bags, a stitch sampler and this:



I have been wanting to experiment with wire in knitting and crochet for a while, and this is my first attempt. Well, it worked...it does actually look reasonable up close, but I can't think what could ever be done with it other than call it an objet d'art. I have though seen some great knitted bracelets, and I think I will try that next.

Now. I mentioned the dread words "web" and "site". And as I have said before, one of the points for me of blogging is that if I put it down in bits and bytes that I am going to do something, then I am honour bound to either give it a go, or explain just why the hell not. And so, I have really and truly started. More than that, I cannot say....but I have begun the designs a Word doc, and am sorting through and taking more photographs. So - ta-da...spindles. (Which is to be the primary focus of the site.)



A small part of my personal collection, and don't they look pretty?