Two Years On

This is a catch -up post of the knitting I've been doing over the last couple of years. Actually, it might have to be a couple of posts but we'll see how this goes.
I've made a few vintage jumpers from patterns from the 1930s to the 1950s. I've made a design or three for Renaissance Dyeing. There have been useful but not photogenic socks. Things I've neglected to photograph and are now not looking their pristine best. I've photographed some now but the results are not wonderful. Perhaps a selection will suffice.
I liked this little jumper I made for Renaissance Dyeing and the little model who posed so happily on a very raw day:

Wintersweet

 There was this hat:

Hall of Fire Tam

 And these socks:

Landgirl Socks

And then for myself I used Renaissance Dyeing wool to make these:

A Paton's 1940s Fair Isle design

A 1930s jumper from A Stitch in Time 2

And a 1950s jacket also from A Stitch in Time 2

 Here are a couple of handspun efforts using alpaca and some angora:

A 1940s design, based, I expect, on Vera Lynn singing 'There'll be bluebirds over the white cliffs of Dover.'

 

And another very warm and fluffy 1940s number

  

 This beret and gauntlets I test knitted for Marylene Lynx for Renaissance Dyeing:

Troubadour Beret and Gauntlets

Troubadour Beret and Gauntlets

And that, I think, is enough for today.

After the Frenzy

It's been a few weeks now since my first design kits were launched by Renaissance Dyeing at Knit Nation 2010 in London. I believe the whole event was a huge success and many people are still settling down and gazing fondly at all the wool they bought and wondering what projects will be good enough to use it on. That's the nice thing about a kit, I suppose. It spares you the agony of wishing you'd made something else with that special skein.
I found the design process was less traumatic than I thought it would be but I also thought it might be an idea to make up some designs and kits for tams that many people have said they loved before designing anything new.
I've used Renaissance Dyeing wool to make up a couple of tams and am working on the patterns for them. So they should be available before too long. This first will be this Pink and Gold Tam in colours most suitable for the northern hemisphere autumn fast approaching.

Urban Troubadour 2

Here is a design that will also be launched at Knit Nation this month. This is one I test knitted for Mary Lena Lynx in Belgium. It's the second of two colourways. This one is softer and brighter than the first - more feminine, Mary Lena says. The wool is all dyed with natural dyes by Renaissance Dyeing and the colours are really lovely. It will be going to live in the Blue Mountains when it returns from London.
And here are the original colours -

Bug Socks

We have a small flock of Wiltshire sheep. They are the darlings of lifestyle block owners because they don't need shearing. They either don't grow much wool or they shed it themselves all over the place. I chose them because of their hardiness and the fact that they don't need drenching. However, I do like sheep to have useable wool so I have them shorn and this year I decided to experiment with the wool. They don't have a great deal of fleece and what they have is rather coarse but open and springy. It's very easy to spin and looks fine when it's washed. These socks are test to see how it stands up to hard wear. I expect socks are not the best use for it but we'll see. It has to be better than some of the commercial sock yarns I've tried that go to holes if you walk to the letterbox.

The bug patterns are Estonian from Nancy Bush's book of Estonian Folk Knitting, but the sock pattern is a basic generic design. the dyes are cochineal (bugs), eucalyptus and onion skins.

Yellow Roses

I realise I haven't added the other colourway for the Roman de la Rose Socks. This is the brunettes' version. The socks look rather nice with yellow roses but I wasn't too sure about making a matching tam because so much yellow in the centre might not be very successful. Anyway, both sock colours and the tam will be available from Renaissance Dyeing from the 29th July or thereabouts. I know Andie is taking them to Knit Nation then.