Ginger Knits UK

Or is it??? Here it is, in all it's technicolour glory, THE MYSTERY OBJECT!!! Your guesses have been getting closer. It is for the garden and it does decorate a plant pot. However that is not it's main function. The main purpose of this woolly item is still in the experimental stages. I should be able to report back if it works in a few days time. So, any last guesses as to what it does?

OK, so I don't know how to say Mystery Object in German. Here it is, the final guessing day for the mystery object. All will be revealed tomorrow. No one has guessed correctly yet but some of you are getting warmer. Keep on guessing folks. PS. If anyone knows how to say mystery object in German please let me know in the comments below, along with your guesses. Danke Schoen.

Is the suspense killing you? Is it? Is it? Here it is folks, part II of the mystery object competition. Clue: This photo is taken in context. Please leave your guesses in the comments. There'll be another clue on Thursday...

Remember the manky fleece I spun a few days ago? I 've knitted it up, added some acrylic crochet flowers and a decorative button closure. The finished item measures 4cm x 68cm. If you think you know what it is please leave your guess below. I'm not sure if there'll be any prizes on offer yet but there will be glory and kudos if you do guess correctly. There'll be another clue tomorrow...

This is my third attempt at spinning. It's a whopping 17.5m in length with a WPI of 11. My aim was to make the thickness more consistent. While it's not perfect it's definitely an improvement on my last yarn.

I was going to post about my various knitting projects today however we had some sad news in the Atheist and Agnostic Crafters group in Ravelry yesterday. One of my favourite on-line friends and all round lovely bloke, Scenter died yesterday. I'm finding hard to voice how I feel. I suppose in the increasingly internet dominated age we make contact with people from all over the planet and form friendships which are different to real life friendships but are just as real in camaraderie and emotion. "Single, atheist, bear who likes fibercrafts" is how Scenter, real life name Bruce, described himself on his Ravelry homepage. He was all of those things and so much more. He was highly intelligent and his understanding of a fascinating range of subjects, fuelled by a passionate thirst for knowledge, was admirable. I often had to google some of the things he wrote about but they always turned out to be interesting. He had a wonderful way with language and often provided words of ...

Flicking through the latest Yarn Forward magazine I spotted not one but two photos of my other half. His words were "I don't even knit!"

I had a lot of dilutions of blues and yellows left over from yesterdays dyeing experiment so I made another skein, this time trying to eliminate the mucky yellow and mottled blues. I made up a solution of yellow dye with a hint of green which turned out very yellow and is a bugger to rinse out. I gave up in the end and now have a towel with yellow blotches on it. The blue end is still mottled but lighter in colour. Anyway, having yellow fingers aside, both the skeins look rather nice together.

This months challenge in the I'd Dye for Britain group on Ravelry is to use primary colours to make secondary or tertiary colours. I thought I'd add to the experiment by trying food colouring for the first time. I approached it with my scientific hat on, making graduated dilutions using blue and yellow colouring. As you can see the dilutions are all carefully labelled and measured with scientific precision. One of the things I like about working with fibre is things do not always go according to plan. It turns out fibre is more like chromatography paper. If the dye is made up of more than one pigments these pigments may separate due to their different molecular weights. The first skein I dyed worked beautifully in the mid sections with varying tones of vibrant greens. The yellower and bluer ends weren't so great, especially the blue/greens which separated into indigo and turquoise rather than deeper greens. Reskeining really does work wonders for making yarn look better, I ...

. I had a day out at Tate Modern today. The weather was very blustery, just the sort of British summer day I like, which made the sky look very dramatic. The Millennium Bridge which links St Paul's and the Tate is in the new Harry Potter film and is shown in trailers being attacked by Voldemort's forces. I didn't see any Death Eaters or Dementors, just tourists enjoying London, although maybe there were evil forces at work and I didn't see them as I am a Muggle. Anyway, back to the serious art. I first went to see the Per Kirkeby exhibition . I'd not heard of him however I have Tate membership so will go and see nearly all their exhibitions so I'll get my monies worth. I'm often pleasantly surprised and will find a new artist I like. This happened with Per Kirkeby. The first few rooms were abstract nonsense which I like to think I could paint, however moving further into the exhibition I was treated to huge canvasses of colour which are brilliant for imagini...

This is my second handspun yarn which is much neater than the first. I have a feeling this is due to my materials rather than skill. I used prepared merino for this yarn which was so much easier to use than the manky fleece. I'm not sure what I'll do with either yarn as there isn't much but I'll think of something.

...OK, it looks like a sheep has had a fight with a barbed wire fence but this is my first ever handspun yarn.

...for Godot We booked tickets ages ago to see Waiting for Godot with Sir Ian McGandalf, Sir Patrick Jean-Luc Picard-Stewart, Sir Simon Callow and Ronald Pickup. You know the feeling, when you really really want to see or do something and wait patiently for months, then just before the desired thing happens apprehension sets in. I've been a fan of McKellen for a long time and my admiration for his acting talent escalates the more I watch him. I like the fact he's not too much of a luvvie to play daft roles in Coronation Street, or panto dames or wizards or magnetic mutants and he puts his skill and dexterity into all of his roles. The thought of seeing Magneto opposite Professor X was too exciting. Would the play be as good as expected or would I be horribly disappointed? I needn't have worried. As a pair of dirty, worn hands clambered over a crumbling wall at the back of the stage to reveal a dishevelled McKellen as Estragon in Beckets seminal work I was drawn in to the l...

As hundreds of cyclists and cycling enthusiasts oil their gears, prime their brakes and fettle away in readiness for the Tour de France spinners across the globe are priming their wheels, carding fleeces and getting ready for The Tour de Fleece. I tried spinning with a drop spindle last year at a free event at Vauxhall City Farm. I bought a homemade spindle and a bag of mucky fleece to practice on which has been untouched since last autumn. I've signed up as a rookie in the Tour de Fleece which will hopefully give me the impetus to get spinning. Will I win the coveted yellow jersey? I doubt it but I'll have fun trying.

Knitting, via Ravelry and the Iknit newsletter, have led to some interesting things over the last few months. The most recent was seeing Girl and Dean comedy duo perform at the Hen and Chickens. We laughed a lot at the sketch show set in a tea room with a John Craven memorial chair, marvelled at the cabbage giveaway and were sad to lose biscuit bingo. There wasn't any direct knitting comedy although the cheeky girls wore some fetching chunky red handknit hats. Touch my bum! If you get a chance to see Girl and Dean do so. They may be the next big thing.