Creativity, inspiration and distractions

At our guild meeting in November we were all handed a bag of merino fibre in various colours and told to take it away and create something with it. It could be just spun, felted, knitted, crocheted or what ever we wished to do with it.
I haven't had a very good relationship with pure merino so far, it has tended to run away with me and I haven't enjoyed spinning it at all. In fact the first skein I spun was so dreadful I made art yarn by adding a glitter thread to it.
The intention was to make a femme as my challenge answer.

As we all know plans can be changed and indeed often are.

I didn't want to give in so a few weeks ago I had another go at spinning the stuff. The colours were lilac, a mid green, 2 shades of yellow and 2 shades of blue.

I decided not to plan but to take random clumps of fibre and spin them, no colour scheme in mind. I wanted to go with the flow and I hoped that doing so would appease the powers that be and they would let it magically turn to yarn on my wheel.
Well they did and it did.

I then had to decide what to knit with it and came up with 2 items I've knitted before. One old, one new.
Firstly Calorimetry, I've made quite a few of these and it is an easy fairly quick knit. I made a smallish one as the yarn I spun was a double knit weight. It will fit a teen I would think. It just needs a button for decoration now.


Then, as it is a spinning group, I thought another felted bag for the bits of fluff and vegetable matter would be in order. This bag will hang on the tension knob of the wheel and is perfect for those odds and ends you don't want to incorporate in your yarn.
What do you think?

I've also been knitting my first item this year for the hospice. I wanted to use hand spun and obviously smaller projects will be easier, in the main, although I am not ruling out making larger items for them. No sense being definite about it we all know where that gets us. Loki is never far away when I make promises.
This is my fallow fields Felicity hat, pattern from Ravelry, BFL yarn hand dyed and hand spun by me.
How do you like my new modelling head? It is pot and cost under £4.

Back view of the hat. This photographing under electric light doesn't give the true colours sadly. Hat is very warm and soft.


I liked it so much I made one for me. This is my purple hand spun from a few weeks ago,the fibre is Falkland tops from Mandacrafts.
I decided I wanted a wee bit larger hat for my head and wanted it warm for this icy weather. I added a strand of a very fine commercial mohair to the mix.
It almost feels felted and is very warm.
I'm still in a great deal of pain, the bruising may have faded but the pain certainly hasn't yet. I'm not the most patient of people and this constant pain is a distraction to say the least.
It doesn't help that the weather isn't fit yet for going out. I'm longing for a thaw and some sunshine to enable me to get in to the park at the very least.

Knitting allergy:( + finished socks etc

There has been knitting chez Moggies and not just socks.
I wanted to make another calorimetry for a friends daughter and ended up making two as you do.

Both in Adriafil quarzo trends, less than 1 x 50gm ball for the two. 1 to fit a 4year old, the other to fit an adult.
They brighten up the day don't they?
Then I knit Mr Mog a pair of socks using the yarn that Laal Bear dyed for him as part of his Yule gift.
I added a contrast red/yellow yarn for heels and toe on 1 sock. Mr Mog doesn't like matching socks so one toe was done in the yellow/orange and one in the contrast yarn. He loves them and they fit him. What more can you ask of a knitted item?
Now for the other part of my posting. I am allergic to the nickel part of my knitpicks harmony needles:( My hands are manky and I've narrowed it down to the needles. Now I am not going to give up my knitting, it serves me well as a meditational aid and as therapy for arthritic/rheumatic joints. I am not going to give up my knitpicks either as they make the knitting much easier. But saying all that I can't go on with my hands affected so much. I've read that other people with this reaction paint the nickel with clear nail varnish to stop it. That is what I'm going to try so wish me luck.
The sun is fabulous today and we had a walk in our local park to see if it was waking up. As you can see from these pictures, spring is in the air.

there were flowers on show

in odd corners under trees.
There were squirrels
and buds on trees, what more could I ask?