Tea Tuesday: Lady Grey

When Bran started drinking tea he was all about Earl Grey. Why is that you might ask? Well we are nerds and he in particular is a star trek nerd. On the show Captain Jean Luc Picard is well known for ordering “Tea: Earl Grey, hot”. Personally while I might occasionally take a cup of Earl Grey the trademark bergamot is often a bit much for me and I’ll generally go for something mellower.

Enter the Lady Grey tea. This variation on the old classic was created by Twinnings in the 1990’s to appeal to a market who, like me, found bergamot to be stronger than they cared for. Like the classic Earl Grey, Lady Grey still features oil of bergamot but in lower concentrations. Plus it adds in the oil of lemon and orange.

I had gone through my own box of Lady Grey tea bags earlier this year. So when we were in Epcot and able to visit the delightful Twinnings Tea store.

The tea has an excellent strong smell. You get the distinct bergamot notes with their spicy scent plus the more familiar sharp invigorating citrus. From the smell it nearly seems that it could be overwhelming. The taste however isn’t too much at all. The bergamot, lemon and orange are certainly present but blended together with the tea it gives an overall strong pleasant taste. It’s also the type of tea that will stay with you and keep you going for a bit.

Lady Grey is a good tea. I wouldn’t go so far as to rank it among my favorites, but it does make an excellent morning cuppa.

Goodbye Summer

Today is the first day of Autumn. And before I look forward at all of the Autumnal crafting that I need or want to do I thought it would be fun to look back and see what I accomplished this summer. Particularly since I have fallen so far out of the habit of posting here. Prepare for MANY pictures.

Way back just after the Summer Equinox I kicked things off by whipping up a little Old Snake. He is a character from one of Bran's favorite video games. Quickly gifted to said boyfriend it was the best most awesome reaction I've ever gotten to something I made for him. It may have something to do with the fact he had been hinting about said item for at least three years now.



I attempted to make a Groundhog to be sold to all the Grundsau Lodge members at the Schwenkfelder Library and Heritage center. Alas when I surveyed my family over a holiday weekend the consensus was that he did not look so much like a Groundhog.



In July I spun up a storm during the TDF.



After the tour was over I felt a bit lost and started working on random small projects......

Everyone needs a knitted snail teapot cosy, right?



I tested out a random star ornament pattern.



Whipped up some little owl keychains.



I also became mildly obsessed with the adorable sheep ball knitted ornaments.



The knitted sheep ornaments led to some experimental knitted ornament testing.



I built a fully functional ridgid heddle loom using cardboard plus a few tools, yarn, and tape.



I did some testing on my new loom. It is indeed fully functional but I must confess not exactly the best performing.



The most excellent discovery of the summer was probably dying. I went all out playing with food coloring to dye up 60 samples. and then wove up some of the samples.



 

I've probably missed some things but all in all I'd say it was a good summer.

Sunday Status Report

I feel like I was starting and working on a ton of things this week. But putting this post together it all seems quite reasonable. Yay.

First up I finished this simple scarf. It is knit from a skein of my own handspun. I loved the colors and was at a loss for what to do with it since it wasn't much yardage. But this pattern worked well to stretch it out into a decent sized scarf.



Also on the finished items list was this Knitted Christmas Sheep Ball. The original pattern is named "Sheep Balls" which still amuses me. I've been adjusting some of the construction elements of this pattern however to make it extra awesome. Next week hopefully I'll have my own pattern.



In the land of works-in-progress I made lots of progress on this pair of socks. They were my go-to work lunch project. As this afternoon was taken up by family visiting a few inches have been added since this picture.



I didn't make a ton of progress on the simple alpaca scarf for Carolyn. But I suspect the way things are going it will be getting more attention this coming week. (Sidenote: my knitting, even with handspun, is really not that uneven but I was working with yarn that I knit up once before and didn't block straight again before re-knitting. It should tidy up with the final blocking.)



My brown lace shawl did not see much love at all this week. It still requires sitting and diligently knitting while following the pattern which just wasn't in the cards. I'm may also restart and use a different method of working the edges.



For quite a while now I've been meaning to dye up these last six bits of roving. In fact I think they've been "pre-soaking" in a water/vinegar bath for a few weeks now. I hope the fiber wasn't damaged in doing that. But anyways they are dyed now and will be spun up soonish to join the other bits from my summer spinning. Eventually they will all become something awesome.



And lastly I've been absolutely itching to knit up another sweater from bulky yarn lately. I had a few different stash options but eventually settled upon using this super weird Ramboullet-X woolen handspun by yours truly yarn with a pattern that I think should be perfect. The finished sweater is almost more jacket like and along with the rustic look it just seems like it is perfect for the upcoming season. Now I just need to knit faster.

I made a loom out of cardboard

I am supposed to be typing up all of the details from the TDF. But instead I made this loom from cardboard:



Well actually it's from cardboard, little popsicle sticks, two dowels, 4 screw things, 4 wingnuts, 8 washers, some yarn, and lots of tape. But it's more fun to just say it's a loom made of cardboard.

I kind of want to make a whole how-to post about it and become internet-craft-famous. Maybe I'll do that tomorrow...

TDF: Results

So I was too busy spinning to keep up with the daily posting for more than 2 days. But that's ok because the results are totally worth it!!!

By request (thanks Jenna!) before posting anything else I give you my TDF results:



Moving from left to right we start with a WIP that was finished in large part to clear up bobbins for more spinning. 62 yards in total I only kind of count it as TDF spinning.

Next up is 100% angora. Spun complete raw with no prep from the fold. I love this yarn so much and may start carrying it around to pet it all day. There is also some speculation that Bran may be allergic, hmmm. 142 yards from the 1.4 ounces.

The brown and white is Noah the alpaca. Prepped by hand from raw into roving. The two skeins have a total of 7.9 ounces and 366 yards.

Up next is the yarn I like to call Monet because of its colors. It's coopworth that I purchased dyed and prepared into roving at MDSW two years ago. The 4 ounces gave me 502 yards.

Next is the the uber-major-accomplishment of the tour. It's a 70/30 Merino/Tussah Top also purchased as roving from MDSW two years ago (it was a good year). There were many a moment when I wasn’t sure if I would survive this laceweight yarn. But ultimately I prevailed and came out with 1314 yards from the 4 ounces. I could barely believe it when I counted.

Next up was most fun project of the whole tour “taste the rainbow”. Having a different color to spin each day was such amazing motivation. And being able to spin my yellow on Sunday was perfect. All in all I started with 5.9 ounces of (hand prepared from raw Tunnis) fiber and got 401 yards of yarn. I’m already swatching for some kind of scarf or something fun.

And lastly is the crazy cloud art yarn (its a slub wool boucle from Sarah Andersen's The Spinners Book of Yarn Design, but I was mostly just trying to make it look like clouds). After a few failed attempts I wasn’t sure if I could do it but ultimately I am quite happy. The fiber used was the same as taste the rainbow. How amazing is it that those two projects are from the same supply. The product was more important than the yardage but for consistency sake I have 14 yards from .4 ounces.



In total I spun 1.475 pounds of fiber into 2801 yards or 1.59 miles of yarn.

If not for the fact that my hands/arms are tired and I've been pushing aside lots of other things that I enjoy doing I'd be pretty much ready for the next tour already.

Stay tuned to this space I would really like to do a few more things with this TDF crafting. I have progress pictures from just about every day. It's fun to see things change and progress. And then most all of these projects can be shared in more detail.