Excitement in the Roselea Household!

Another finished pair of mitts - this time another pair of Fetching. A friend's birthday was coming up and I wanted to make something for her. We had agreed not to give each other Christmas presents (cost, etc) but she didn't say anything about a birthday present! I used a ball of wool I had already had in my stash for quite some time so I didn't think she would be able to complain too much!


As you can see the wool I used is an 80/20 blend on merino and possum fur in DK weight from Furlana. The colour is a dark aubergine not too different from the photo above (on my monitor!). It is so beautifully soft and very warm. My friend lives on a small farm and looks after the stock very diligently while her husband works. In winter she is often outside checking on the sheep as they are lambing, shifting the electric fence, feeding out etc. I would imagine her hands would get quite cold so I thought she might appreciate these mitts. Perhaps not very hardwearing but very warm.

You may notice that I extended the top of the mitts a little by putting in an extra cable. I also cast off normally instead of using the picot cast off as is written in the pattern. I wanted the top to be a little closer fitting. It was better, although still not perfect, but maybe they will fit my friend better than me as she has larger hands than I.

I have also been washing up some of the kilo of Hampshire Down fleece I bought recently.

This wool will be quite a challenge to me as the staple length is only about 5cm! I have been hand carding this, on my Ashford fine handcarders, into rolags which I will eventually spin woollen using the long-draw method. I have only played around spinning like this and, combined with the short staple, I have this feeling that no-one will want to be around when I try it out! Or maybe I won't want to try it when anyone else is around would be fairer to say. I have only spun cotton once and I'm not in a hurry to try it again. The one rolag of this wool that I played around with reminded me very much of that! I needed a lot of twist to keep the thread from breaking. I am used to not putting in a lot of twist. As I said before -a challenge!

But my biggest excitement this week is that my darling daughter is arriving home from Britain tomorrow morning!!! One year to the day that she left to go on her big OE. We will be leaving here reasonably early (7.30-8pm) to get up to Christchurch in time to see her plane land. I can't wait! She doesn't intend staying longer than about 6 weeks (sigh!) but it will be still be good to have her home again. To keep up her cash-flow she intends working while she is here so it won't be non-stop visiting but it will be enough. A family dinner is on the cards sometime too, the first time we will have all been together since Christmas 2006. Yes, I realise that this is not long by many family's standards but for me it is a looong time! So, all going well, there should be 11 adults and 3 children at our table soon. I think I'm crazy, I hate cooking food for a crowd!

But that is not all the excitement that is due this week. Oh, no, not by a long shot! Our third grandchild/grandgirl is due on Friday!!! Mmmm, I think my cup runneth over at the moment!