Tag: crafting

Craftiness, knitting, Knitting and Crochet, Tyddyn Bryn on Etsy, yarn

Wooly Wednesday – hats

Ellie

Since moving to the smallholding I wear a lot of hats, literally and metaphorically!! I have a few favourites…

My lattice hat, knitted up in a gorgeous sock weight alpaca yarn I bought on the Great London Yarn Crawl, my River Knits yarn hat, which is a gorgeous sock weight yarn and I knitted a super slouchy beanie hat in it!

More recently I have been knitting up hats for a few people around here and using double knit yarn!

This one is knitted in our hilltop blend and it is rarely off the farmers head at the moment!

I have also been finding the boy’s hat strewn about the place…. this one was found out by the stream in the last cold snap frozen solid!!

It has now been thawed and washed!!

I have a number of hat designs out and up for sale in the Etsy shop, on Ravelry and on Lovecrafts including this Queen Bee hat

And…. I am working on a heap more designs!! All inspired by the natural world around here in Wales!

Here are some sneaky peeks!!

What are your favourite or go to hat patterns??

I still have a Baable on my to knit list!! Knit my mum one but never got round to mine!! 🤦‍♀️

Craftiness, knitting, Knitting and Crochet, Life with a toddler, Patterns, Tyddyn Bryn on Etsy, yarn

Wooly Wednesday

Ellie

I have knitted up some fabulous sweaters for the boys using our beautiful rustic with alpaca yarns!!

You can see which one is more impressed at the photo shoot for his new jumper!!

The yarn is a gorgeous blend of next to skin soft yarn!! And the colourways lend themselves beautifully to colour work patterns and these yoked sweaters, the Diplodocus sweater by Kate Oates is perfect for my two dinosaur enthusiasts!!

We have all sorts of colours sure to please your dino lovers too!!

He really does love it! Just didn’t want to take photos 😂🥴 Here are the colours we have available in the Etsy shop!

Craftiness, knitting, Knitting and Crochet, yarn

New yarn!!!!!

Ellie

So tomorrow the Rustic range of yarns launch!!

All hand dyed by me here at the smallholding and all the wool for the yarn is either locally sourced or homegrown!! From our own Sheep!!!!! So that’s gorgeous fleece from Wanda, Baabara, Wolfy and the three witches!!!!

This time the wool has been blended with a little alpaca and the natural grey that the yarn became is beautiful!!

My wonderful mother helped me out and test knit a huge batch of an early dyeing of the yarn making this gorgeous Ribbon Wrap (pattern link here)

The wrap was knitted up in the Silverleaf of the grey, Gentian or blue, Thistle or purple and the Plantain or Green colourways and is huge and so warm and snuggly!!

Other colourways on offer are the red or Bettany, yellow or Gorse, Pink is Campion and the orange is Valerian!!

The natural grey is also available to buy from Friday!!

This will all go live in the Etsy shop on Friday morning!!

Etsy shop

There will be a discount code for the launch weekend simply put in the code YARNLAUNCH to receive 10% off all yarns in the shop over the weekend!!

In addition to the Rustic with alpaca, there is a small amount of Rustic, which is just the blend of the wool in a few of the colourways!! Great if you need a smaller amount for colourworking!!

There is also a new sock yarn colourway coming this weekend!! This colourway is called Lockdown Sunset, there are only 10 skeins available and I will be using 50% of the profits from this yarn to buy some extra cans to donate to our local food bank which is struggling with donations given the challenging times we are facing!

Can you spot Lockdown Sunset in the yarn mountain???

Fruit and vegetables, Garden, journal, News, The tin hut, Working the land, yarn

So plans for Tyddynbryn!!

Ellie

Social distancing smallholding style!! We have an absolute load of work to get on with here on the smallholding and with the nice dry weather that has started we have made a start!!

Moving the chickens and ducks to new turf. Wood chipping paths and flower beds and around new raised beds!

Having cleared the Polytunnel a while back, we have started some seeds in there and in the house. Today we have started in the veg garden, turning the beds from an absolute weed ridden state into something we can actually plant into!! So we have seeds ready for starting in successional sowings there!!

We have started a few projects for the boys for play, including a bean teepee…

These times are going to be difficult, but I am certain, no determined that we will come through it and be more organised, sorted, prepared and ready to face the new world head on. We are using this as an opportunity to finish projects started, start new projects, action plans we’ve had on the back burner for an age it seems.

So as for plans….

  • Weeding (there is always weeding)
  • Growing veg and fruit
  • Dyeing all the yarn
  • Clearing and sorting first the house, then the barns (I’ve started this as a wet day job and am part way through upstairs…. slow work with two small helpers though)
  • Finishing the new cottage
  • Building a tree house (if W gets his way it will be two storeys!!)
  • Making a garden or lots more garden areas
  • Gates, trying desperately to keep the errant hound in and the free range children!!
  • Processing the giant log pile into useable stacked logs ready for next winter

And there is likely to be more but I’ll add them to the lists as I go along!!

Children, Craftiness, Garden, Life with a toddler, Podcast, Sustainability, Working the land

A week’s worth of vlogs!!

Ellie

I promised myself I’d be better at Blogging as well as Vlogging…. but life kinda happens!! Anyway here are the links for the blogs this week

Something new Sunday

Makers Monday

What we do Wednesday

Sustainable Saturday

Also I’ve managed a load of baking this week!! 😁

Craftiness, Day tripping, knitting, Patterns, yarn

Crafty Catching Up!!

Ellie

Well a fortnight has vanished since my last post!!! Well more than a fortnight!!! That’s what new babies manage to do…. and toddlers… they eat time!!!

So…. now I’m a captive on the sofa with a post immunisation snuggler….

Where was I….

Wonderwool Purchases!!! Those of you that follow me over on Instagram will have seen these beauties posted there!! But look!!!

A good mix of mainly sock yarn and some spinning fluff for my breeds log cabin blanket!! Hurrah now I just need the time to knit them!!

In other news I was lucky enough to test knit the fabulous Peeky Cat socks, a colourwork double knit socks pattern by An Caitín Beag!! Wow these knit up quick!!! I used some deep stash Sweet Georgia merino DK yarn that I bought an age ago with plans for a top for me…. two children later….. and seriously limited knit time…. and it’s now becoming snuggly gorgeous cat socks!!!!

This pattern is amazing!! And she has set it up on Ravelry ready for release on the 25th!!

Other than that I’m plugging in with James’ socks….

And I’ve finally finished the reknit of my hazels shawl in RiverKnits in Indian Giant Squirrel!!

Now I need to block it and finish writing the pattern and get it off to the wonderful tech editor!! Any interested parties for the test knit?!

So that’s the crafty catch up… for the mo!!!

I’ll post again with some farm happenings!!

Craftiness, Day tripping, knitting, Knitting and Crochet, Life with a toddler, Spinning, yarn

Wonderwool 2018

Ellie

So Saturday last Mum and I took the tribe of smalls to Wonderwool at Builth Wells!!

I love this yarn show and have attended every year for the last ten plus!! Apart from the year William was born as him arriving and Wonderwool were just that wee bit too close in dates!! (He would have been a week old!!)

So here are a few photos I managed between yarn fondling and toddler wrangling!!

Best way to travel in the sling right next to the mobile buffet!! Look a snap snap!!! The toddler was very impressed with the crocheted croc!!!

The wonderful wall of poppies I commemorate the end of World War One 100 years ago this year!

Truly beautiful

And then something else beautiful some started smiling!!!!

More about my multiple purchases in another post!

Craftiness, knitting

More socks on the go!!

Ellie

I have cast on another pair of vanilla socks!! Yes I seem to have a problem needing to have some vanilla socks on the needles at all times!!

But it does seem to be all my poor sleep deprived brain can handle!!

Look at this yarn!!

It is Weavers Loft sock wool and I bought it last year at Wonderwool!!

Squee!!!! That is this weekend for this year now!! Anyone going?! I shall be there Saturday with the boys and Mum!!

Soooo more vanilla socks!! And lots of more complicated projects languishing for a day when I feel I have had some sleep!! That may be a while… though this little man is sleeping better than his big brother did at his age!!