Knitting - photography

I'm on a quest to take better photographs of my knitting projects and just better photographs in general.

My daughter Rebecca pointed me in the direction of this workshop at Makelight - I hesitated at first, not wanting to go alone, then thought what the hell.  Peter plans to come to London with me, but spend the time I'm there on his own pursuits, then meet up later, so win win.

Rebecca has been on several of Emily's workshops and highly recommends them, you can see the proof of the skills she learnt by checking out her blog - Really Pretty Useful.

So watch this space after September 12th and see what tips I pick up.

To Dye For

Yesterday I had such a good day.  Pauline & I attended a Dye Workshop given by Clare of Boo's Attic fame.  What fun, this really was more me than the spinning.  More like cooking and I felt more or less in control of what I was doing.

Firstly, I dyed a skein of sock yarn - which was a Super wash wool and nylon mix.  These are the colours I went for

and this is what I got - wow!

I then followed up after lunch dyeing my skein of Black Hills Boucle Chunky which is 70% wool and 30% mohair.  It was interesting to see the difference in take up of yarn.  With the super wash there was no surplus dye in the rinsing water, but with the Boucle; I nearly had a heart attack when I took it out of the steamer and saw a huge purple mess, so much dye, not sure how much water I used to rinse this but the end result is very subtle. I wished there had been more green and the orange is more of less lost, but the overall result is very organic looking. 

This yarn I plan to make into a cowl or a short scarf - there is only 150 grams and so not really much else I can do with it, especially as I'm not a hat person

The super wash sock yarn 100grams/400 meters - so there is enough for a shawlette.

Can't wait for the yarns to dry so I can wind them up and see how they look. A big thank you to Clare for a great day out