Happy mail and early presents

Happy Friday everyone!

I’ve finally been able to catch up on some blog reading today and I realised that I haven’t shared with you the happy mail I received recently.

A few weeks ago, I won a giveaway hosted by the wonderful Bogga from Knitting in France. Bogga is very talented and is always doing test knits, which is super fun to look at because it makes you want to start all the projects! She also dyes her own yarn and this is what she sent me as a prize for her giveaway, which was super exciting! She didn’t just send me yarn though, she also added so many stitch markers, a few key-rings and a cute little pouch in which I’m now keeping my stitch markers. Did I mention I got very spoilt?

I’m thinking I will make socks with the yarn, I quite fancy having a pair of lacy pink socks for the summer!

This week, I also received my spinning wheel, quite early considering my birthday is still in 3 weeks but I’m grateful we received it early so that I’ll have time to use it before baby is here. It’s a Kiwi2 from Ashford (a New-Zealand company) and it even came with some wool top to spin!

Isn’t it pretty? I put it together yesterday and I’m so pleased with it, I love the double treadle system and I really like the light wood colour. Funnily, the chair I’m using to spin is actually not too bad on my back so I will be able to make good progress on my alpaca fleece in the next few weeks hopefully!

Have a great weekend and happy crafting everyone!

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Hand spinning – part 2

Happy Monday!

I’m sorry I haven’t been on last week much, I had the best intentions to blog on Friday but I ended up super busy with work and then we went to dinner for hubby’s work. And then, my weekend was completely full of spinning! I think I’ve become completely addicted.

If last week was fun, this week was just even better! We got to try all kind of different fibres and I made my very fist skein of yarn! How exciting!

I feel like I’ve gotten much better in a week already, I’m spinning much more even and thinner than I did and it’s been very encouraging to see progress. This week, we got to continue spinning our white Corriedale wool, but we also tried black Corriedale, alpaca and even processed wool top. We also learnt how to ply and wash our wool and I love how the washed wool looks and smell!

I’ve also already spun all my alpaca (the brown skein) and made a little sampler yarn, and you can see already that the fibre looks much finer and even than on my white wool, yay!

Now I just can’t wait for next week, when we will get to try dying!

Have a great week 😊

My first go at hand spinning

Happy Monday!

I can’t remember if I mentioned this, but a few months ago I treated myself to a hand spinning course, which just started this weekend. This was something I had wanted to try for a while and I was just so excited to start!

During our first 3 hours, we got to learn how to work the double treadle spinning wheels, how to recognise good sheep fleece, how to prepare the fleece (from pulling out locks to combing them) and of course, we got a taste of spinning. I have to say that it was as hard as I imagined it would. I got the wheel spinning quite well when I was not thinking about it but it was a bit hard to draft the right quantity of fibre from my fleece while making sure to move the wheel in the same direction. Our teacher, Janet Day from My spin on Things, was so knowledgeable and helpful during the class though. Watching her, you would think spinning was the easiest thing on earth! Although my spinning was not perfect (read very very chunky and uneven!) I did manage to spin quite a lot during the class.

The great thing about the class was that we got to bring the wheels home with us to practice and I’m loving it! I’ve been spinning more and I can’t wait for next week’s lesson, when we get to ply our yarn. I’ll share my progress here with you, and maybe by the end of the course (in about 5 weeks) I will be able to have a beautiful even yarn like Janet (on the left picture).

Have you tried something that had been on your bucket list for a while? Did it match your expectations?

Secret Santa goodies and some cross stitch

Happy Friday everyone!

I just realised that I haven’t showed you what I received for my secret santa yet, so I though now would be a perfect time to do so.

My secret santa was the lovely Kimberley from New-Zealand, and how spoilt I got! I received a beautiful skein of lamb wool from NZ, a project bag, a mug cosy and a pair of socks that Kimberley made, very cute stitch markers and a very nice Christmas card.

Totally spoilt! The socks were slightly too big for me, but they fit my husband perfectly so he is now the very lucky owner of those beautiful socks! I’m a but jealous to be honest!

Before Christmas as well, I finally got back into a little bit of cross stitch and made a bookmark for Claire, as I know she collects them. I couldn’t show you because I was waiting for her to receive my letter, and she has way before christmas but I guess I forgot to post about it until now!

I changed the colours from a parrot pattern I found on deviant art to make it a lorikeet. If you are interested, here is the chart for it.

I wish you all a great weekend!

I got super spoilt!

Happy Saturday readers!

I hope you have all had a great week, mine was very busy but also super productive, which is always a good thing! In the last few weeks, I’ve actually got completely spoilt, not by one, but two of my blogging friends. When I first started blogging, I had no idea people would be so lovely and generous but honestly it’s been so nice to meet new people here and I am so grateful for each and every one of you ❤️

The first parcel to arrive was from Claire. Claire is an amazing stitcher and sewer, and she just recently took up crochet as well. I’m always looking forward to her layer of the month post (she has three chooks) and to seeing some pictures of Gibbs, her adorable pup. Claire organises unbirthdays and she sent me my first unbirthday! It was super exciting!

I got a cute postcard, a little monster pouch and a cross stitch kit (which was started straight away, more news on that next week!)

The second parcel was a total surprise. I was waiting for some music books from my nana, and at first I though that the parcel was those books. Imagine my surprise when I got to the post office and realised that it was a parcel from Tracy! Tracy is an amazing quilter, baker and crafter in general and her blog really is so sweet! Tracy sent me yarn, and look at this colour!

All those blues are just wonderful, and I think I’ve already picked the perfect pattern for it, I might even start it tomorrow (when I get new needles to cast it on). It will be a knitted shawl, and I hope that the simplicity of the pattern will do the yarn justice! ❤️

I am just so thankful for your friendship Claire and Tracy, and for the beautiful gifts you sent, so thank you so much again.

And of course, thank you guys for reading ❤️ have a great weekend!

Jumpers and Jazz in winter

Happy Saturday my lovely readers!

Today I went to a pretty exciting festival that’s local(ish) to me (if you count 2 hours away being local 😂). It was all about the yarn and the jazz!

I bribed my hubby to come with me by driving there and back myself and I think he did end up having fun too. It was a really lovely day, very sunny but the air was quite crisp so I was able to wear some of my yarny accessories! I got plenty of compliments on my Blurre shawl, which was very exciting. I think I’ll let the pictures talk for themselves!

We also were lucky to see two wonderful ladies spin, and it was so fascinating, it actually made me want to try it! That might have to wait a little, though, as I have neither the money nor time to invest in spinning right now!

I hope that you are all having a beautiful weekend

Charmed Gauntlets – Nerdish Delights

Happy Wednesday readers!

As you may know I am in Melbourne, Victoria this week and it is freezing cold! So cold in fact that I thought I needed to make myself a pair of wrist warmers! I’ve wanted to make those for a while, as I won the pattern from Denise from Nerdish Delights on one of her giveaway on Instagram (I was super excited, as I had never won anything before!). I guess it just wasn’t cold enough in Brisbane but here, it sure is. I used LionBrand Heartland to make those and they turned out so warm and cosy.

I just LOVE the pockets on them! They are just so handy to carry some loose change/ credit card/ lip balm. I’m super glad I finally got around to making those as I’ve worn them everyday since I finished them last Saturday. If you want to make those, you can find the pattern in Denise’s Etsy shop and I think she also sells finished wrist warmers there as well.

I hope you guys are all having a great week, and hopefully I haven’t frozen to death by Friday for my next post 😂

Camera play and yarn advice

Happy Monday readers!

Over the weekend I’ve dug out my camera and tried taking pictures using a few settings. I used my reef fish amigurumi (the one I tested for Starbeamer Patterns) and a few different backgrounds.

Which one do you prefer?

I also have some questions to ask you about buying yarn online. I have had an idea lately to design a shawl, but I can’t really find any yarn that would be good for it in local stores. So I wanted to order yarn online but I’m a bit afraid that I won’t like it once it arrives (I really like to squish and pat yarn before buying it). Do you guys have any suggestion of yarn that would be good for a shawl and that you have tested? I was thinking sports weight or 4ply, maybe cotton blend for a better stitch resolution?

I’d love to hear from you! Have a great week 😊

Easter eggs and frogs

Happy Monday lovelies!

This weekend of four days has been great, but I started more projects and didn’t finish much! Oh well! It felt good to put some fresh ideas on the hook, and I’m sure I’ll get there eventually.

I did get to finish a small object, and it was actually very relevant to Easter!

It could be either a pokemon or a yoshi egg, and it’s now my new needle/pin cushion.

One of my big projects this weekend was to continue cleaning up in sight of our imminent move (we should be getting the keys this week and hopefully moving on Saturday). I found an old project in one of my hip containers, a wanna be granny square blanket. There were so many issues with this project, first I don’t know what I was thinking with those colours, they just do go together at all! Then, I was pretty silly and decided that each square would be a different design, which just did not work as they weren’t even the same size and ended up making the joining a nightmare. As a reminder, here are some pictures.

Patchwork granny square blanket

So, I decided to frog it all!

The only thing is that I don’t know what to make out of all this scrap yarn! Do you guys have any idea?

I hope you all had a great Easter weekend 🙂

200 followers giveaway – CLOSED, winner announcement

Happy Friday lovely readers!

This week has been a long one BUT I am super super excited to announce the winner of my giveaway! I’d also really like to thank every single one of you for the wonderful craft memories you’ve shared. It was just so nice to get to know you a little better 🙂

First I put all your lovely names in order in an excel spreadsheet.

Then I went on my google friend and randomly generated a number between 1 and 11. And the winner is… *drumrolls*

Maura from The Messy Brunette!!! Congratulations Maura! If you could send me an email with your details and with the colours you would like for your Manta ray it would be great! (btw, my email is emmazocco@gmail.com).

Thanks again to all of you for participating, and congratulations Maura!

I’ll ‘see’ you all next week for some award participation and nominations (thanks again Nina and Tami for the nominations, I’m definitely take the time to post those next week!)