It’s official: I love spinning. The great thing about using a spindle is that it’s so portable; it takes up hardly any space so it’s okay to stop right in the middle of something, shove it in a bag, and forget about it for a while. If I had a wheel… but let’s not go there. I once thought I would never spin, so I won’t be making any resolutions about not-owning-a-wheel lest I be proved completely wrong again.

The purple-grey merino (from The Thylacine, in the Kinvarra Estate colourway) above is half spun up, and I’ve been making little doll-sized jumpers with the resulting yarn (photos soon). I may use the other half for something for myself, but we’ll wait and see.

At the moment, I’m spinning another braid of fibre from the November instalment of The Thylacine’s fibre club. (My birthday was a few weeks ago and I decided it would make an ideal present, since the gift goes on for several months and there’s an element of surprise in the type of fibre and the colours.) It’s Wensleydale, which is a lustrous long-stapled wool with some similarities to mohair. The browns, oranges, golds and dull grey-blue remind me strongly of autumn leaves against autumn skies – or at least, the autumn skies here in England! I’m still not quite used to the early evenings and chilly weather, although they’re a knitter’s delight.

I hardly know what I’ll make with it eventually, but then that’s not really the point, is it?

Oops! My RSS feed was broken, and I don’t know for how long. It’s fixed now.

Other than that, if you have a few minutes to spare today I’d highly recommend watching the video of Alexander McQueen’s Spring 2010 Ready To Wear collection, entitled “Plato’s Atlantis” (and I love that this is meant to be “ready to wear”! Ha!). It’s beautiful, bizarre, weird, terrifying (in that I was scared for the models in those fantastic shoes) and wonderfully inspirational. There are cameras on robotic arms, too – what’s not to like?

I tend to keep a close eye on the world of the catwalk, and while there are many things to dislike about that world, there are some designers who make outfits that are more art than clothing. I hope we never lose that. McQueen is among my favourites, but I’d put Gareth Pugh, John Galliano and Christian Lacroix at the top of the list.

Summer is not my most productive time of year. I don’t know why this is, but ever since the weather’s been getting cooler I’ve been just itching to do and make. I won’t over-analyse it, but I’m glad that I’m feeling more enthusiastic.

Witness the results (both are works in progress, but both are well on the way towards completion!):

Aeolian shawlette, just pinned out to dry.

Some of my handspun being knitted into a doll-sized cardigan.

The problem with having (seemingly) twenty million projects on the go is that one has nothing to write about, and then it’s three months later and one feels slightly stupid when one notices the last date of one’s post on one’s blog. Ahem.

I have pattern writing that I’ve been putting off by the simple expedient of designing more knitwear, some of which is going well (we will not speak of the hat that I have now started five times). I’m enthusiastic about using beads, and I’m making a simple yoked cardigan with what I hope will be a scattered necklace effect around the collar.

The yarn is Wensleydale Longwool which I bought at iKnit some while ago. I’ve found it hard to match to a pattern, and this is my third and happiest attempt. The yarn has a definite halo, which when combined with the dark grey colour, means that it really doesn’t look at its best in a complicated pattern. I’m keeping it very simple, therefore, with some neat twisted ribbing and smooth stocking stitch. The beads will do all the talking. (I hope. I wouldn’t be surprised if I ended up having to do some unravelling, given my recent track record…)

I once read that buying a book is like a promise to yourself: a promise of making the time to one day sit down and read it. I think the same goes for crafting materials, don’t you? In that spirit, I bought several hundred grams of grey merino top a while ago, and I am really looking forward to the day when I sit down, open the bag, pull off a big chunk and start to spin it.

I believe the correct expression is OM NOM NOM NOM.

The above image is of a rather wet cotton jumper, knitted from a 1940s pattern contained in the excellent book, A Stitch In Time, Vol 1. I offer it up as proof of my continued existence, as things have been rather quiet around here lately. I hope to get back up to speed soon!