Woodland Knits Book Reivew

I have been meaning to talk to you about this book for a while. But with being sick and the weather being terrible (I didn't have any decent light to take photos) it's taken me a long time. So here goes!

Woodland Knits by the wonderful Stephanie Dosen, aka Tiny Owl Knits. I have admired her work from a distance and loved the whimsical theme of her patterns, but never took the chance to buy one. When I learned she was going to be publishing a book I jumped straight on it. 

Inside it looks so beautiful. The layout and the photos are all imcredible. There is a little story to go with each pattern which is fantastic. Everything is clear and consise (although I haven't had the opportunity to work on any of them yet. 

Here I have picked out my favourite pattern; The Free Rapunzel hat to look at in bit more detail.

On the right page we have a lovely picture of it and on the left we have the title, description/story, difficulty level, requirements and stitch definitions. I love the the typography and style, it just screams Stephanie so much!

Moving on to the next few pages are next section of instructions, some notes and another picture.

Overall I love this book, the patterns are great, the photography is great although some of the patterns are a little to whimsical, even for me, I still totally recommend it to add to your collection!

What are your favourite recent craft book(s) additions?

Gratitude Sunday

 Joining Taryn in this heartfelt tradition. A time to slow down, to reflect and be grateful.


This week I have been grateful for: 

...my feathery ladies laying two eggs a day for me 

...Which allowed me to have pancakes for breakfast...

... Having the time to finish the pair of socks I have been working on

...Finally finding a shampoo that keeps my hair clean and doesn't irritate my dermatitis
... Some quiet time to catch up on rest
...The end of British Summer Time which meant I had an extra hour before work

Washing Fleece

One of the main aspects of my self-sufficiency plan is to process wool from fleece to yarn. I managed to acquire two fleeces in May, from a lovely lady down in Devon.

 They are two varieties, a cross which I can't quite remember, but the fleece is quite curly and rough. I find this one quite difficult to wash. And the second is a texel X blue-faced leicester, but it feels very much like a slightly finer than usual texel.

So let me go into the washing process in a little more detail. Firstly you must make sure you store the fleece somewhere cool and dry. In this case my garage.

I have them wrapped in old sheets to keep them cleanish.

So on a nice day, when is relatively warm and sunny (for the uk at least) I tear of chunks to wash. As I don't have anywhere suitable to store a whole washed fleece. 

Firstly you need to do what is know as skirting. Basically you search through the fleece and take out any undesirables; such as poo, bits of bugs and plant matter.

So to wash the fleece is use one of those flexi-tub bucket things and fill it 1/2 full with hot water from the tap and then top it up with boiling water from the kettle. The water needs to be hot, just hot enough so you can barely put your hand in it. To this I add a good squidge of washing up liquid. I like to use traditional green fairy because it quite concentrated. (A squidge probably equates to around a table spoon in normal person speak.) 

I need to weed the patio I know!

Once it has soaked for around 20 minutes you can removed it and change to water to clean water. You may need to do another "soap soak" or use plain water if it is clean enough and soak for another 20 minutes or so. An important thing to note is the temperature needs to be roughly the same otherwise the temperature shock can cause the fleece to felt. Which is no good for spinning!

Once your fleece is clean you can either leave it on some mesh to dry (or the swing chair) or stuff it into an old pillow case and swing it around. This actually has a proper name but I can't remember it right this minute. 

On the left in this photo is an unwashed fleece and on the right is a washed one.

I hope you find this information helpful and let me know if you have any other questions!