Hello, I hope that all is well with you? It is well and truly autumn here and we are being treated to some glorious colours. The last couple of weeks have been full of preparation for Glasgow School of Yarn which I am very much looking forward to attending this coming weekend………..apart from dealing with the parking and navigating in the city! I’m much more comfortable with rural driving and Glasgow always seems to have a baffling number of one-way streets. I’m sure they make complete sense when you know the layout but, as a not very frequent visitor, they have been confusing me ever since the mid 1990s when I first visited one of my brothers who was studying there. 

Earlier this month though I had a wonderful few days visiting Barra, one of the southernmost islands in the Outer Hebrides. I was joining some of my very lovely swimming buddies and should have travelled out by ferry. However unfortunately my ferry was cancelled with a few hours notice and it looked as if the ferry service would be uncertain for a few more days. Rather than miss joining my friends I decided to fly out the following day. The flight from Glasgow, in the very small Twin Otter plane, was mostly in the cloud but we dropped below the cloud for landing which was just as spectacular as you could imagine given that the plane lands on the beach (Traigh Mor, or Big Beach)! When I was around 10 we spent a week in Barra and I distinctly remember watching the plane land on the beach as we waited to collect my Grannie who was joining us for a few days. Anyhow, I thoroughly enjoyed this special way of travelling to Barra, not something I ever imagined that I would do. We spent our time walking and exploring the island and the neighbouring Vatersay. The weather was mostly wet and windy but we did have a few hours of beautiful sunshine and made the most of that afternoon with a fantastic swim from Vatersay’s Bagh Bhatarsaigh. 

Glasgow School of Yarn

I’m very much looking forward to this year’s Glasgow School of Yarn this Saturday and Sunday 29th and 30th October. The event is held in the lovely old Trades Hall which is in the Merchant City and not far from the city centre. I think the main tickets for Saturday are now sold out but there are still some staggered entry tickets left and there are still main tickets available for Sunday. Ticket info can be found by following this link, and location info is here. I will be on the first floor in the Grand Hall (there is a lift as well as the stairs). I’d love to see you if you fancy a day at this lovely event.

I’m afraid that I have been so focused on dyeing that I don’t have any beautiful yarn photos to show you, though I thought you might like to see the photo below which is the very last of the newly dyed skeins drying on the washing line this afternoon. I will have a lot of yarn with me – as well as dyeing more Balblair DK, Killen Sock and the latest batch of Longwool Blend* I have been dyeing the new batch of Auchen Sport. Those of you who have received my newsletters for a while will know of the delays in spinning this next batch – I still don’t have the bulk of it back but I did manage to get an advance portion of the batch sent to me before the remainder was sent off for post-spin scouring.

The new batch of Auchen, I’m delighted to say, is just as lovely as the first and is a very similar shade of oatmeal grey. I had wondered whether there was a similar enough proportion of dark Shetland fleeces (a tiny amount amongst the remaining white BFL, Shetland and Cheviot fleeces) to end up with a close match to the first batch. There is a slight difference but close enough that I’ll keep calling the undyed shade Haar. 

* The latest batch of Longwool Blend has a slightly different m/100g  and is 275m/100g.

A couple of new finished knits
I have a couple of finished knits which I’m very happy about. I’m not the fastest of knitters and don’t often get as much knitting time as I’d like so finishing anything a knit always feels like an achievement.

The first is a lovely wee colourwork hat which I couldn’t resist starting quite recently. It is published in the latest issue of the Making Stories magazine, issue 8 with Campfire as the theme. The hat is the Fire Shadow and is designed by Mara Licole. I thoroughly enjoyed the pattern and would happily knit more. I slightly shortened the length to reduce the slouch a little but otherwise knit to the pattern (Size 1). I do plan to add a pom pom to mine, hopefully before setting off for Glasgow on Friday! I used Shetland DK for the hat and have enough left for a second hat in the same colour combination, and certainly two skeins of Shetland DK should be enough to knit two hats in all sizes if the colours were reversed for the second hat. There isn’t a great deal of Shetland DK left in the shop but it shouldn’t be too long before the next batch is back. 

The second knit is a sweater which I have been working on for several months. It is the Soiree Sweater by Emily Foden (I can only find a Ravelry link), a design I have had my eye on for quite a while.  When I first handled Balblair DK I felt that it would be ideal for the Soiree, and that its drape should work well with the over-sized style of the sweater. I knit size 2 and it is by no means perfect. I haven’t knit cables very often and there is the odd one which is a bit wonky but which I decided to leave since the sweater is for me. I lengthened the body a little before splitting for the sleeves but then, after reaching the neckline decided I wanted more depth so added another two (I think) repeats of the main chart. This worked in terms of length but completely threw off the neckline and armholes and required quite a bit of fudging when picking up stitches for both. I tried it on part-way down the first sleeve to get a better feel for the body length and whether my sleeve picking up had worked reasonably well. At this point it struck me that I quite liked the sleeve as it was and decided to go for short sleeves – I’ll wear it much more like this, especially when I’m dyeing. I love the sweater and have had it on all week since it finished blocking – but I have to say that I didn’t find it the easiest pattern. I think that is largely due to me but do be aware that it might not be a pattern to whizz through without any thinking involved. 

In terms of the yarn Balblair DK has worked beautifully for this sweater. It has a lovely textural but still soft handle and has beautiful drape and lustre. Quite early on in the sweater knitting I worried about the amount of curl on the bottom hem and mentioned this on Instagram. I was given lots of fantastic advice, which was really helpful. I decided to try blocking it first, not really expecting that would be sufficient to reduce the curl, but hoping it might help before I tried some of the other suggested remedial actions. Much to my surprise a wet block and pin to hold the curl out was all that was needed, and the same treatment has beautifully on the neck and sleeve hems. 

Hirsel Collection
Thanks so much for all the interest in the Hirsel Collection. I have really enjoyed pulling this collection together and working with the lovely, talented local women whose special hand-crafted items are included. There are still a few sets left but I will be closing orders on Tuesday morning so that we each have enough time to make our contributions to the sets. You can read more about Hirsel here and all the details are in the shop here.

Shop Update
I’ll close the shop on Friday morning, except for the Hirsel Collection listing, in advance of Glasgow School of Yarn. I plan to keep it closed next week to catch up on work admin and some household and garden tasks too. I expect to re-open the shop during w/b 7th November and will send an email to let you know when it is back up and running. There should be lots of new yarn colours, especially in Auchen Sport which has been very low in stock for quite a while, as I have dyed loads for this weekend’s event!

I’ll look forward to being back in touch in a couple of weeks or so and hope that all is well with you in the meantime. With best woolly wishes, Juliex