Handspun silk with beads

I made another small ball of silk yarn this time, I am trying to get the strand thinner maybe too thin in places, so to straighten the thin sections I decided to add another strand of silk sewing thread when I plyed the strands together and to be a bit different added some glass beads, eeekkk I am getting into this, pity about the living room now covered in bits of multi coloured fluff :)

I'm Spinning

Last night I unpacked and played with the spindle and silk tops, as soon as I got home. About 2 hours later and a sofa covered in peach and green silk fluffy bits, I have made a small ball of peach yarn and a small ball of green, I love it.

10 minutes later one crocheted flower and a very happy me :)

Stitch and Craft Show at Olympia2

I went to the Stitch and Craft Show today, again at this show there was very little yarn or jewellery stands, but they had a good selection of workshops. Plus some magazines with free gifts for subscriptions (I like free gifts, even if I know they are not really free...)

We picked a handspun yarn workshop, the teacher Ruth MacGregor (check Ruths website for her book, spindles and silk tops) was excellent, explaining the processes required to produce silk from silkworm to fibre as practiced how to rotate the spindle (ours to keep and take home) and a choice of hand-dyed (by Ruth) silk tops in beautiful colours.

Before long we were spinning and I think I may now addicted :)

I could not resist buying some beautiful silk tops to play with at home :)

Hyperbolic Crochet Sphere

Progress so far, this is the sphere I started at the workshop day. I am starting on some mini ones next.

St Patrick's Day

My aunt sent us some live shamrock from Ireland for St Patrick's Day

and the free pdf file of my filet crochet shamrock bookmark chart. is now available at ravelry.

A Happy St Patrick Day to everyone :)

Hyperbolic crochet

On Saturday I attended the Hyperbolic crochet workshop (at the Royal Festival Hall) run by Margaret Wertheim (a science writer) at the Institute of Figuring.
I have always loved maths (hyperbolic space is geometry) and combining that with crochet sounded like heaven to me and I was not disappointed. After a very interesting talk/ slide show on what was hyperbolic space and how it occurs in nature, corals, sea slugs and many other underwater critters. We were shown crocheted reef forms. (the photos below)

We than got time to play and start our own crocheted reef bit, I'll post mine in a few days when I have had time to play with it.
The aim of the workshop was for us to spread the word and make/ donate our crocheted coral forms for an exhibition at the Hayward Gallery for a Hyperbolic London Crochet Reef (eeekk that's a long title) later in the summer. It will be very interesting to see how it looks.
There is a lot of information at the institute of figuring site, with lots of beautiful pieces of crochet and a proper explanation of hyperbolic space.

EXCEL

The Stitch and Craft show was held at the Excel Centre in the docklands.

The bad bits - cold, wet & windy day (every time I go to the docklands why is it always raining?), the entrance tickets were overpriced at £9.00 each. Only 3 yarn stands & 2 jewellery stands, everything else seemed to be papercrafts.

The good bits - been in the company of an excellent friend (we always have fun on our days out) and I did manage to buy some very nice cotton yarn at a very good price.