The skein of brown/white yarn is spun on my lovely spinning wheel, it’s drying now, after been washed. The three balls of yarn were spun on my mom’s spinning wheel. The white/red earth ball is one of mom’s first experiments (or the first???) the rest is all mine ;-)

Oh and that twining business… it went absolutely smoothly. I had expected the arm of my spinning wheel to come off, because the screw used to attach it to the wheel unscrews itself while spinning right. But apparently it didn’t this time. If it would have, I’d probably be contemplating a protective cover for my shin and foot… (I’m always walking barefooted or on socks in my apartment… no slippers can contain me!)

Eh, and unlike the convention in these modern times, I’m spinning left instead of right because of that screw. And I’m twining right instead of left. Which will make the yarn spun on my wheel different from what I’ve already spun on mom’s wheel. But I’m not that fussy. I can’t wait to have a whole load of this yarn to start knitting (didn’t I say that already?). I’m so excited!

Off course, now that’s done, I’ll have to get started on my taxes, scrub the floor, make dinner, water the plants, take out the recycled paper and do the laundry… not necessarily in that order…
When I’ve done all that, I get to continue spinning or I can crochet some more hexagons, now that’s a reward, isn’t it? Anyone loathing household chores raise a hand!

Alright, let’s get started :-)

To be totally honest, I was in such a state of panic about how to get Joske home in France, that I did not even try to make a thread with my spinning wheel before wrapping it up. I had already spun wool into thread and twined it into two balls of lovely irregular yarn, but that was on mom’s spinning wheel. Tonight however, I could not suppress the urge to get started. And you know what? I fell in love!

Joske is really a very basic spinning wheel, like the doctor said, there’s no way you can adjust anything really, it spins what it spins. But the way it spins is genius. I mean… my spinning wheel does not compare with mom’s in any way. I’m absolutely positive that this spinning wheel was made for someone like me. It feels very solid and warm. And it has every capacity to make a lovely regular yarn, although I might need a bit more practice to be able to produce that.

And I might need a fleece or two to get over my crush. Oh my, I’m so going to enjoy knitting this wool once I’ve got enough yarn!
I’ll get you some more pictures in bright daylight tomorrow!

Lots of love!

Btw, I think this proves it… that I’m probably about 80% hippie… I feel very zen, very complete when I’m allowed to toy around with wool and ride my bike into nature. Who needs the busy city anyway, right?

Other than that my trip home was rather uneventful… Although, I had to get on and off the train to Nantes a few times (with my trolley) because dimwits didn’t let me cross the passage in the train so I could get out of the way of their “I want to get out now!”-mood. It’s rather hard guessing on what side of the train the platform is going to be…

I did get a few curious looks while I was waiting for the tram in Nantes. But nobody dared to ask what the hell I was transporting… I wonder what they were thinking :D

Anyway, I’m pleased to be home, although my vacation ended way too early, as usual. My spinning wheel (named Joske the Extra Terrestrial) is doing just fine. I haven’t spun anything yet, because I’ve just finished unpacking and I really should get to bed right about now. But I wanted to let you know that I’m fine and my spinning wheel arrived in one piece and even my plants arrived in more or less one piece! :D

Nothing but win! ’till soon & goodnight!

Personally I live my vacation time from day to day, depending on the weather and the mood I’m in. The first days I have felt a pressing need to get out and get some air, which resulted in a 90 km bike trip with M., a day’s hike in the forest with mom and another 100 km solo bike trip. To be continued by some shopping with mom and my first adventures on mom’s spinning wheel!

The bike trip with M. was fantastic, we crossed the language border and have visited Nethen, Hamme-mille and Beauvechain. I’m always pleasantly surprised by the Waloon part of Belgium, even if it was this close to the language border. We’ve spent the trip dreaming up all sorts of futures involving quadcopters with shopping baskets and settling in a green corner of .be area.
However those last 10 km headwind was a bit too much for my taste and I’ve arrived exhausted at the dinner table, with M. making fun of me off course. Surprisingly enough I was more exhausted from this trip than the 100 km trip I would be making two days later. I’m still meditating why that is exactly. Maybe it’s because we’ve made a stop at Hoegaarden for an entire hour? I’m not used to stopping for long periods when I’m making a long haul trip, certainly not eating a big meal while on the road.

The day’s hike, was about 20 km long, which we (mom and I) have spent in the “Zoniënwoud” (forest). We were in luck that there were not many people choosing the same walk we did, so we had a rather pleasant and quiet walk. Mom had never been there before and for me it had been since I was a kid (school trip) so we had lot’s of places to discover. I don’t do that many hikes so I was rather exhausted after this 20 km trip and as usual my toes were blistered.

But off course, what you’ve all been waiting to hear is that I’ve spun my first two skein’s of yarn a few days ago! It’s addictive! Mom kept telling me how fantastic spinning wool is, so I gave it a try on my mom’s spinning wheel. The result had me grinning from ear to ear. Since it was my first try, it’s the most irregular yarn ever to be spun. But! I’m so in love I that picked up a second hand spinning wheel yesterday so I can continue spinning in the train at home in France. (yes I’ll be doing the impossible and dragging that thing with me on the TGV to Nantes… wish me luck!)

It’s all packed and ready to go, so I’ve been suppressing the urge to spin, knit and crochet all morning… AAAAAAAAHHHH!!!
I really hope my trip home goes well… I can’t wait to continue spinning… from my apartment in France :-p

So now I’m waiting for my washing machine to be done so I can head to the train station…
I wonder how K & I’s move is going…

I’ll just pack my shoes… I’ll do that.
See you around.

Well things are coming along just fine. I really enjoy making these little hexagons. They’re pretty quick to make, about 20 minutes for one. Right now I’ve got 49 flowers made and crocheted together which isn’t that bad I think. I’m hesitating at calculating how many hours I’ve already spent on this… but I’m almost halfway, which is fantastic! With 49 flowers crocheted, my original yarn (Drops Muskat) is now almost entirely gone.

The white yarn I’m using is Cheval Blanc’s Mimosa (059 – Ficelle), of which I might not have bought enough yarn (aaaahhhh!). So I’m hoping that the shop where I bought it still has a bit left. I’ve bought nine of these and I’ve got 5 left, so I’m guessing I’ll need two or three more and to be safe I’ll say four (which is not an enormous amount, but might be difficult to get ordered…). It was on sale when I bought it, so I’m risking not being able to buy the amount I want, but rather a packet of 10 skeins… But we’ll see about that this Friday :-)

To be honest, I’m rather pleased with this plaid. I can’t wait for it to be done so I can stare at it all day… I still have a long way to go though. So in mean while, my other knitting projects are on a halt.

*edit* I wrote this post over the weekend so now I’m a bit further along with the plaid and I’ll update soon with a new picture. But I wanted to add that last night @ Kfé Tricot, we were talking about the how some yarns of discount brands are really the same quality as those big name brands. In our case we were discussing the fact that the sock yarn at the LIDL actually feels like the same quality as Regia sock yarn. In that spirit, I think Bergère de France’s Sonora might be the same quality of yarn as the Cheval Blanc’s Mimosa… so, in case I can’t get hold of some more Mimosa… I might be able to substitute with some of Bergère’s probably more expensive Sonora.

In mean while, I’ve bought a sowing kit from the local Ikea (yes, curse me, tbh I was looking for something I didn’t find). It contains various seeds of herbs I use very often in the kitchen so I thought it might be funny to try. Now I thought I still had to buy the soil to put the seeds in, but guess what? I didn’t. They offered a weird brown looking tablet with it, which turns out to be dried and compressed soil. I thought it was just fertilizer but nope, after pouring 200ml of water over it, it filled the little paper cups with soil up to the rim, impressing really. I’m really excited to find out what the result will be!

Spring means it’s time to pull all the beautifully brightly coloured projects out of the hibernation stash. As usual I’ve got a million projects buzzing in my head, but I decided to do things one at a time (yes).
So first one to get started again is my African Flower project. I already had 14 hexagons dozing, of which I’ve undone the border and started on some new colour variants.
I couldn’t help myself and crocheted a few together to have a rough idea of what it is going to be in the end.
As you can see, I still have got a long way to go.

Crocheting is not a craft I am very familiar with. I know how to do it, but starting up again after hibernation was rough. I’ve crocheted all sorts of ugly, but this afternoon I was on a roll and the flowers turned out pretty well.
I’ve also discovered that my thumb gets sore from holding my crochet hook (after crocheting 6 à 7 hours). But that’s already much better than getting my fingers cramped up after 20 minutes, like when I started practising again two or three weeks ago.

Now I’m off dreaming of flowers!