Secret Smorgling Challenge: Knitting part 2

The doll has feet and hair now :).
I made the feet like mini-socks with some white and a bit of the Beryl-green. (filled them already on this photo)

For the hair I've sewn on strands of yarn around the grey edge, then sewn strands on the top. (see photo...)
It's a special hairstyle for a special doll...

One sketch a day: 13 - 16

4 days with sketches from memory, filled with zentangles.
I used pencil, black marker and white gell pen...
Worked two days on the large drawing left :)

Secret Smorgling Challenge: Knitting part 1

I decided to do a fun (first?) project for the challenge: a doll!
I started the head with the dark grey yarn and the tan-colored yarn. The body is knitted with batt-dropping yarn.

Used 'white rabbit' for the panties and continued the legs with a striped yarn from the mixed merino packs. I'm knitting them two at a time on a circular needle, using one strand from outside and one strand from the inside of a center-pull ball... (The colors of the second half of the yarn are spun in reversed order to make that possible.)

This will become a lovely big-headed big eyed doll. I've ordered some big safety eyes for her and have to wait with knitting the arms until they arrive.
I'm not using a pattern so the final result will be a surprise for me too :).

Secret Smorgling Challenge: Spinning part 3

The final yarns from this box:

I  had an idea for a project, but after spinning I'll have to change it a bit. Some yarns came out very different than planned :).

These are the fibres/yarn photo's:

N-ply 27m/15g

3 ply 46m/18g

N-ply 64m/28g

Dyeing wool

I had some time to dye wool for sock-yarn yesterday:

Some super-soft super-wash Merino, blues to make socks for a man:

100g Superwash merino

 And happy colors for the girls:

100g superwash merino

100g Devon

I'm searching for the perfect wool to spin and knit long-lasting socks. That's why I buy some less-known wool sometimes. The Devon-wool feels a bit coarse but OK for socks, I can't wait to see how this spins up...

One Sketch a day: 9 to 12

Day 9:
Timmy in ballpoint.

Day 10:
A cat with glasses :), color pencils

Day 11:
More Shaun the sheep in ballpoint

Day 12:
A cute dog in color pencils

Photographed outside and still dark, it's cloudy in Belgium...

Secret Smorgling Challenge: Spinning part 2

The first batt: "Bilberry Zest" is 90% Merino and 10% Silk. The colors are green, orange and purple.
This is very nice fibre and easy to spin a fine single.

Ready to ply

I made this gradient 2 ply yarn:

103m/25g

This was my lovely batt-dropping: greens, blue, pink...

Made this n-plied yarn:

70m/29g

I'm now starting the mixed merino packs, to make self-striping yarn.

One sketch a day 5-8

Day 5: Another kitten

Experimenting with color pencils and  my sepia pen, it works on the paper but the pen bleeds trough the thin paper :(

Day 6: Baby meerkat

Those animals are so cool! This is a quick sketch in blue pencil and micron pen.

Day 7: a butterfly

Experimenting with color pencils.

Day 8: another labrador puppy

Just pencils, charchoal pencil and the white Signo pen again :)

New design: We have cookies!

I published this new sock design on Ravelry today:
There's a promotion of 30% until november 20th !

These socks are knit from the cuff down, you can find the pattern here.
They are for my daughter, she loves cookies and hand-knitted socks ;).

Handdyed and handspun socks

Sometimes I buy white fibre to dye and spin. It takes more work than just buying a beautiful braid or batt, but it's fun to do.

This is 100g sw BFL, the colors used are: blue, emerald, brown and black.

I wanted to make sock yarn (because of that the super wash...), and 2 skeins to start two sock at the same time. The yarn is a regular 3-ply, but I really mixed the color-repeats.

The socks are a knitted toe up and two at a time, I made them with a wide rib pattern for a good fit. They are for my son, he's wearing them on this photo:

Secret Smorgling Challenge: Spinning part 1

I'll need different small skeins for my project. To start I made combinations of a blended top sample and 2 colors from a mixed roving pack:

Skein 1: 3 ply with 2 singles "March Hare" and 1 single from the two mixed rovings.
I hold the rovings side by side and draft them together, this blends the colors over all the yarn.

48m/17g

Skein 2:3 ply with 2 singles "Antique Rose" and 1 single from the two mixed rovings.

40m/16g

Skein 3: 3 ply with 2 singles "Cobweb" and 1 single from the two mixed rovings.

45m/17g

One sketch a day: day 2, 3, 4

The first 4 sketches are done. I've chosen my favorite animals and have drawn them from a photo on the web.

Day 2: turtle

Day 3: labrador 

day 4: kitten

These drawings took each almost one hour to complete. For the last two I didn't use a charchoal pencil, this makes those drawings 'softer'. It's very hard to take good photo's of pencil drawings, and the weather is very dark in Belgium... I still have to make my drawing for today, I'll do that this evening :)