I would hate to think that I was in a rut. After all, ‘Rut’ is such a strong word. But last Tuesday evening when I was casually looking at Instagram, I saw that Jules from Wollenflower had posted about her upcoming Natural Dyeing class at the hand makers factory on Saturday, and naturally I jumped for it! It felt great to have ‘plan’-ned to do something different and spontaneous (it was short notice).

I love taking classes. I can’t remember the last ‘live’ class I took, Craftsy doesn’t count (even though they are awesome, but they’re classes that don’t involve leaving the house). Well I thoroughly enjoyed the class and would recommend it to anyone who has a passing interest in Natural Dyeing. Gosh there’s so much to it! In a way the whole science behind it makes it incredibly interesting and magical, and how much more satisfying is it extracting colour from nature? As expected Jules is a brilliant teacher and very generous with her knowledge. I would love to have a crack at doing some natural dyeing at home, perhaps the Christmas break will allow time for that?

I’ve been working on my sister’s baby blanket with quiet abandon, all the squares are sewn together and all the ends have been sewn in. Only the 5 or 6 row treble stitch border remains. It’s amazing to see the transformation of the curled patches to squares, once the sides had been sewn together.

I did end up going for the mixed up layout of patches, rather than the rainbow variation I had them laid out as last week. It wasn’t a true rainbow, so I think that’s why it wasn’t working visually?

Last week I also plied up the singles that had been sitting on the bobbins for a couple of weeks. I’m pretty happy with the result despite beginning to really dislike the process of plying, I see an e-spinner in my future.

I’ve been listening to Outlander and getting into my ‘other’ book on my Kindle. I’m a little too embarrassed to admit what I’m reading now (read: it’s saucy and possibly the raunchiest novel I’ve ever read) so there you have it.

Go see what everyone else is knitting and reading this week as a part of Yarn Along on Ginny’s blog (bet it’s not as juicy as my novel: hint see last week’s entry).