My favourite indie dyers of 2015

For the month of December, I've been joining in with fellow designer Louise Tilbrook over on Instagram in a month of random acts of kindness, the aim being to spread a little love during the festive season. Louise has provided a list of suggestions for each day, alongside encouragement to do your own thing if some of the items don't work for you.

On day one, I posted a review for the yarn shop Ringarosie. For day two I travelled all the way to London to join my brother for the launch of his new book (very exciting! Attending was very much a last minute decision, but definitely the right one.) On the third, I sent six people who had it in their queue a copy of my Twit Twoo mitts pattern. And on Friday I gave my office mate a bag of numbered sweets to unwrap before Christmas as she'd not managed to get an advent calendar before the shops sold out.

So far the decisions have been pretty easy. Either I've gone with Louise's suggestion, or subbed it for something that worked for that day. Today is day five, and the suggestion is to write a review for a podcast. For whatever reason I've never got into podcasts. So instead I am going to bring you a round up of my favourite indie dyers I've discovered in the past twelve months.

Before January, I hadn't used yarn from indie dyers. Most of my knitting was done in relatively inexpensive yarns, unless they came in the form of yarn support for magazine submissions. This year something changed; I started knitting socks, and a skein of sock yarn is really goof value - even when knitting fast, it takes me at least a week to knit a pair of socks. So my Facebook and Instagram feeds have become very yarn heavy, and hand-dyed yarn has become a big part of my knitting life. I've now amassed quite a collection; here are four of my favourites.

1. Devon Sun Yarns
Devon Sun Yarns was my first foray into buying yarn from an independent dyer. I think I first came across her as a result of a competition she was running on Facebook, and could not resist this beautiful skein of jewel splashed white yarn; it made an excellent hat.

Since that first skein I have bought several more skeins from Daisy, and a couple of sock blanks (not that they've yet been knitted, but part of the joy of pretty yarn is that it looks amazing without you actually having to do anything with it!), and I'm sure there will be many more purchases. Daisy has an excellent eye for colour, and always has a good selection of yarn weights and bases available. She's recently moved her shop to its own website, where you can also find kits for dyeing your own yarn.

2. Mothy and the Squid
Mothy and the Squid is an indie dyer based in Scotland. Her business is named after her two sons favourite things, and from her Instagram feed you can see that it's very much a family business. I had been eyeing Jillian's yarns for ages, and was delighted when I won one of her (frequent) competitions on Instagram. Her yarn is beautiful, often inspired by rainbows, whether little flashes or full stripes. It is also packaged beautifully, with hand stamped labels and a little extra inside every package - I've ordered from her twice now and have had moth and squid stitch markers and a 17g sample of some lovely fuchsia and pink yarn. She also let me have an extra large (120 g) ball of yarn so I would have enough to make socks for my husband, and didn't charge me for the extra!

3. Cuddlebums
Another dyer specialising in rainbows, Jodi makes stunning yarn. My sister bought me some for my birthday and Jodi made sure to include a little birthday note in the package, as well as some cake soaps as a little birthday extra. The socks I knitted in Twilight Rainbow Donegal Nep are my favourites, and when I went to Yarndale I specifically sought out her stall to get another skein of something wonderful, coming home with sparkly cornflower blue rainbow yarn.

 

4. Hand Dyed by Kate
Kate is based in Wales and dyes a lot of striped yarn (a hugely labour intensive process!). Her colour choices are amazing, and every month she has a self-striping yarn club, which I am very, very tempted by! I went to Kate when I wanted some watermelon striped yarn for a friend's birthday, and she was really helpful with my request. When Amy had finished her socks, she sent me the spare and my daughter got a pair of matching socks. I've ordered Kate's Snowflake self-striping yarn box for myself for Christmas and am very excited about it.

I love supporting small and local businesses, and shall continue to do so in the new year. Who are your favourite indie dyers? And if you fancy joining in with the random acts of kindness, it's not too late!

A month in yarn: October 2015

October has been a good month for getting things off the needles (excellent news as my WIP list was getting out of control). As it was Socktober, there was a bit of a focus on knitting socks, but plenty of other knitting was done too. And I had a bit of stash clear out - much needed. I did completely fail on not buying any more yarn though. I really must try harder!

Finished 

Watermelon striped socks for my daughter

Knitted using yarn from my friend Amy, these socks are properly adorable. Not that my daughter will deign to wear them. I keep trying, and I'm sure she'll give in eventually.

Ex boyfriends shawl

Knitted for a friend whose baby arrived a few days ago instead of a conventional baby gift. But now the baby's here I might knit something small for him too. I can't resist a baby knit.

Rainbow hat for my daughter

October school runs are cold! A new hat was much needed.

Whale blanket

So the baby recipient for this is now three months old, which is a bit later than I would have liked, but there were rather a lot of ends to darn in (and edgings always take longer than I think they should). Now it is done I love it. The pattern will be available eventually.

Springtime Bandit for a school run friend

Easy yet interesting knitting. Aran weight shawls grow so fast. I used every inch of this yarn, and still had to cast off a row early. If I make another (which I probably will), I'll add a few extra body repeats. I'll blog properly about this one later as it's on my 32 things list.

Twilight rainbow Zigzagular socks 

My current favourites

Silver skies rainbow socks for a friend's birthday

Such pretty yarn from Mothy and the Squid

A cardigan for my daughter

This has taken five months for me to finish as the stripe sequence suddenly went crazy and four shades of red require good lighting to get them to match up. But it is now done, and should still fit! We have been out to take photos but I haven't got round to editing them yet.

WIPs

Charity mitred blanket

No progress this month.

Bee blanket

The bee is charted, and I have worked as far as the charted section. But haven't made any progress beyond that. Definitely one to finish this month.

Wiggly worm blanket

Really ought to work on this one as well if I want to get it done in time for Christmas.

Blue tit socks for a friend

Requested by a friend, these match my first ever hand knitted socks. I feel like I've gone full circle on the sock knitting front. I have noticed though that my stripes are going out of sync every so slowly while I knit them - I suspecvt I'm knitting one sock a bit tighter than the other. The recipient is not a knitter though, and I suspect won't notice. And surely these are the charms of handmade?

Paris Toujours shawl for a friend's birthday

Cast on with great excitement. Three stripes in and I'm finding it a boring knit. It does look pretty though, so I'm going to try and persevere.

Frogged 

Some projects are just not meant to be.

Melodie shawl

Just too orange. I clearly didn't like it much, I never took any photos.

Hermione's everyday socks

Poor yarn/pattern combination. And there was an error, so they have been unravelled.

Yarny maths

Yarn in

650g from Mothy and the Squid that I won in a competition (yay!)

200g sock yarn from a yarn swap

300g festive sock yarn to make into Christmas presents

200g sock yarn from Unbelievawool's yarn club

200g sock yarn from a LYS

Yarn out

500g assorted bits and pieces that went into two swap parcels

26g for watermelon socks 

197g for Ex Boyfriends shawl

840g donated to Amy to make into squares

100g donated to a friend at knit night who was project-less

438g for the whale blanket

51g for the rainbow hat

185g for the Springtime bandit

85g for the twilight rainbow socks

62g silver skies rainbow socks
144g wrap cardigan

-1078g. Which is good. But not good enough! One day I will learn not to buy more yarn...

Plans for November   

Do some advent knitting (Christmassy things that shall be worn for the whole of December).
Knit a pair of mystery socks.

Socktober: Pairs #2 and #3: The tale of two pairs of rainbow socks

Over the past few months I have been stashing beautiful sock yarn faster than I can knit it. In honesty, I was a bit scared of knitting 'the good stuff' as I'm not 100% confident in my ability to make socks that fit properly. But for the whole of September I was a bit miffed that I don't have enough pairs of hand-knitted socks to wear them every day - I have four pairs, and realistically they're only going to get washed fortnightly at most, which leaves me with ten days in a fortnight that I don't have lovely socks for. So in September, I looked through the sock yarn box and chose to cast on something gorgeous: Cuddlebums Twlight Rainbow in Donegal Nep.

This yarn has been in my stash since my birthday in April, and apparently needed Autumn to happen for me to cast it on. I chose to knit a new pattern, one from the toe up, but that has gussets - my knitting of hand-knitted socks so has taught me that I like knitting them toe up best, but that my feet like wearing ones with gussets best. I merged a basic pattern with a slightly more complicated one (Zigzagular) for interest.

The yarn was wonderful to work with. Completely crazily pooled, but I love that it looks a bit like a sari in its colour scheme, and can't help but make me smile. I struggled a bit with the heel, but that was probably just because I wasn't paying enough attention, and knitting them two at a time wasn't covered in the pattern, so I had to guess that bit. But it worked well, and is a really nice heel, with its slipped stitch reinforcement at the back of the foot as well as on the heel flap.

The finished socks are my current favourites. As soon as they're dry from washing they're back on my feet. And my husband has been admiring them, so he's going to get a pair too.

*******

A couple of weeks ago we went to see a friend who we hadn't seen in a few weeks. Things have been a bit tricky for her recently,  but her birthday was coming up, so I decided she could do with something hand made to cheer her up (she is one of the most knitworthy person I know). It being Socktober, I went for socks, and rummaged through the stash to find something beautiful, but struggled to find something that would really suit her. I then remembered the yarn I won from Mothy and the Squid in September (which hasn't yet made it to stash - it has its own special box), and cast on a pair of socks in Silver Skies Rainbow - grey with a rainbow splash and silver sparkles.

 

These socks were lovely to work up; I liked the reinforced heel so much I used the same pattern as for the Twilight Rainbow socks, but minus the zigzags. The yarn kept me guessing the whole way through, and I raced the rainbow splashes, getting the socks done in a record five days (admittedly these socks are for size 5 feet, not my monster 10s)! I haven't yet passed them on to my friend, but I am hoping she loves them as much as I loved making them.

*******

I think that's probably it for completed socks for Socktober. I have cast on a pair of West Yorkshire Spinners Blue Tit socks for another friend, but they're not going to be done by the end of the month. What has everyone else managed for Socktober?

A break from finishing things

As you might have noticed from my September yarn round up, last month I won a lovely bundle of yarn from Mothy and the Squid: 5 skeins of yarn, totalling 450 g. I was really excited when the parcel arrived, and pretty much like a giddy child when I opened it. All the yarns are lovely, such bright vibrant colours, and there were a couple of bonus gifts: a beautiful sock blank in shades of deep blues and teals, and a couple of stitch markers - appropriately enough, a moth and a squid. There was also another sock blank that I bought to be added to the parcel (oops, it has been on my wish list for ages though), it's a beautiful double sock blank dyed in rainbow colours and I cannot wait to turn it into socks.

'Unloved' yarn. It's not; I love it!

This month has so far been all about finishing things as I have lost track of how many projects I have on the go (this happens occasionally; I have terrible startitis), but last week I let myself have a little break and cast on a hat for my daughter (it was cold on the Monday morning and she has grown out of all her hats from last winter). One of the skeins I had won was a 50g skein of rainbow coloured yarn, which I knew would be perfect for a toddler hat. Looking at the skein I assumed it was variegated, so braced myself for winding a centre-pull ball and working alternate ends from opposite ends of the ball (to reduce pooling), but when I undid the skein I was delighted to discover that it was in fact a self-striping skein, hooray!

Oops, wound it in the wrong direction...

...that's better

So, skein wound into a ball, I used my Apple for Teacher pattern to improvise a little hat (actually not such a little hat, my daughter's head already has a circumference of 19 inches, which is big!) with a rolled brim and an i-cord at the top (the I-cord is 20 rows long, then tied in a knot at the end, should you wish to replicate it). The yarn was perfect for the hat: I used almost the whole skein, and the hat features all six colours (there are six colours, but the initial pink is mostly hidden in the brim). The yarn was lovely to work with, and I'm now really excited about working with the rest of the yarn in my parcel. I probably ought to get back to finishing a few more things first though!

And if you'd like to make your own hat, you can have 50% off my Apple for Teacher hat pattern on Ravelry using the code RAINBOWAPPLES until the end of October 2015 (23.59 GMT, 31/10/2015).

A month in yarn: September yarn

What's that? A monthly update at the right time of the month? Yes it is! Here's what I've been up to in September, crafting-wise.

Finished

Vest and hat for a friend's baby

Commissioned shawl (top secret)

Commissioned cowl (no photos allowed yet) 

Commissioned lace cowl (no photos yet)

WIPs

Whale blanket

Almost there! Just a little bit more seaming and the border to go

 

Bee blanket

At the minute it just looks green. And the baby is here already!

Wiggly worm blanket

For my son. In all the colours!

 

Twilight rainbow Zigzagular socks 

Gorgeous yarn from Cuddlebums, I wanted something new and I love them

 

Striped shawl for a friend

Using the Ex boyfriends pattern in DK weight and making it up as I go along

Watermelon striped socks for my daughter

Half way through the first sock and I've stalled... The yarn is from Hand Dyed by Kate
 

Hermione's everyday socks

No progress this month

Charity mitred blanket

No progress this month, although I did finally post three baby blankets I finished last year to charity, and donated a pile of squares to be incorporated into a charity blanket, so I don't feel too bad

 

A cardigan for my daughter

Yes, still got the sleeves to go

Melodie shawl

No progress this month

 
Yarn in

300g yarn from Unbelieva-wool (there was a sale)

200g Unbelieva-wool yarn club

550g yarn from Yarndale

Yarn out

85g for shawl

71g hat and vest

86g for cowl 1

126g for cowl 2
About 1kg of oddments got donated to my son's school. I didn't weigh the bag, but it did get rid of lots of bits I was never going to use!

Yarny maths

Probably about even this month after donating some bits and bobs and finishing a few things. But this month I realised how much my yarn stash weighs, so I'm going to focus on using stuff up over the next few months.
 

Plans for October   

Finish up the socks on my WIP list - it will be Socktober after all!

The children need hats. And so do I.

Use 5 kilos of yarn before I buy any more (or drown in yarn) - I've already failed in this as I've just won some yarn from Mothy and the Squid, which I am unbelievably excited about! Isn't it gorgeous?

My prize yarn. Image copyright Jillian Gabrielsen (@jillian.gabrielsen on Instagram)