Spin & Tell

Hello Everyone!

It’s tuesday so it’s time for Spin & Tell. I haven’t been getting as much practice in as I would like due to university starting back up again and that gobbling up all of my time. I haven’t spun for at least two weeks, but thankfully I still have some things to show you! I managed to spin up my first bit of roving, as seen here. I then started on a lovely roll of red roving and boy what a surprise! I thought it was just a mix of a faded red and some white, but upon closer examination it turns out to include some bright splotches of orange, red and yellow. The feel of this roving when spinning is a little different to the first batch. The first batch was very clean and the roving felt a little softer. The red roving feels a little greasy and when spinning for a while leaves a layer on your hands. The roving feels a little coarser on the hands, but when spun feels a little softer (the first was a bit overspun).

Isn’t this the perfect project for fall? The resulting yarn is slightly variegated, but has an overall even tone. The yarn is already a lot more even than my first attempts. I’m trying to not overspin as much and to make sure it doesn’t vary too much in thickness.

Here you can see my first mini and the second on the spindle.

I couldn’t wait to try out my handspun and used it for 2 hexipuffs. In the completely white puff you can see that the yarn is still very uneven. Some parts are almost see-through, because the yarn was very thin in that spot, other spots are very bulky. The puffs were made for a challenge: you had to knit a summer puff and a fall puff and one of the two had to be embroidered. The white one is my summer puff, it reminds me of a fluffy dandelion. The other is a raincloud, as my favorite thing about fall is a good storm. It makes for a cosy day inside.

That’s all for now. I need to get back to my schoolwork now!

Love, Renée

 

 

 

Nails: Summer Gradient

Hello Everyone!

Last Friday I had a party and that party had a theme. That theme was “the holidays”. Now I like themes and getting all dressed up every once in a while. This was not one of those times. I hadn’t seen my friends in a while and there were going to be a fair few strangers there. I didn’t want to look like a fool! So I kept to the theme, but kept it simple and down-key. I wore a shirt with the American flag (as I went to New York for my vacation) and did a summery gradient on my nails. Today I’ll be sharing that nail art with you!

I think it fit the theme very well, what do you think?

Love, Renée

Review: Gosh Tropical Fever Trio

Hello Everyone!

Today I have another review for you and this time it’s not a bath product (although I have several notes waiting to be turned into a review!), but eyeshadow!

I’ll be talking about the GOSH Tropical Fever eye trio (Colourcode TR20) today. I’ve had this one for a while and while I am a little apprehensive of using the colours on my eyes (I will though!) the colours are so bright and cheery that I keep gravitating to it anyway.  I’m very pale and usually stick to neutrals. If I use colour it’s on my cheeks or lips.  If you know how to use them it could be amazing! So, right here and right now: I dare myself to create a look using this eye trio! Expect a post on that soon!

On to the review!

The eyeshadow comes in a sturdy black plastic casing and feels solid in your hand. A transparent pane in front allows the bright colours to draw you in.

The trio has a bright green, intense blue and a very cheery yellow. Not really 3 colours to combine on your eyes, but it will look great as a colourful accent pared with some more muted colours. Or used on a white base for a fantasy look or themed party.

This is why this trio is so amazing, because often enough you see bright eyeshadows that promise gorgeous colours and often they can turn out a bit of a disappointment. This time, it’s as good as it looks. This was one swipe on my pale arms. Look at those colours!!!

Quickie review: 

Quality: The quality is amazing. I mean, look at that pigment!

Packaging: The packaging is sturdy and strictly business. Not very appealing, but it does it’s job (and the colours are appealing enough!)

Would you wear colours like this?

 

Love, Renée

Finished Object Friday #2

Hello Everyone!

Somehow I managed to completely miss Work in progress wednesday, so I’ll do an update on my Giant berry granny tomorrow! That has been my main project for the week, the others have spent some time waiting for me to get fed up with it. But I don’t seem to be getting fed up with it yet, although the rows are getting pretty endless…

But back on topic: Finished objects! I finished my Lindisfarne shawl, but I’m not calling it officially finished until it’s been blocked (which is a necessity in this case!). It turned out a bit small and has me at a loss on how to wear it. I’m regretting altering the chevron rows to make it wider now. But I’ve decided on a plan of action if even blocking does not help. I will add a braid and pompoms and turn it into a cute capelet!

I did finish some other things this week: hexipuffs! I finally picked my dpns up again and got a puffing. I have high hopes of making my goal of 15 for this month! I only have 4 left to go. And one of the puffs I will be sharing today is quite special as it it puff number 25. It sounds like a lot, but it really isn’t when you consider how many you will need to a quilt… So I’ve decided to not think about numbers too much and just go with it and have fun.

These were this weeks first 2 puffs. A purple sparkly puff and a hand dyed brown and blue variegated. Puffs like the second are special because they are made of my first hand dyed yarn ever. And the colours are just really pretty.

I had ordered some yarn in colours that were still missing form my beekeepers quilt form ebay as the pastel yarn I had been using for puffs is so ridiculously soft. I ordered a light orange an bright yellow and a glorious midnight blue. The blue is the exact colour of my favorite shade that the sky turns just before full dark.

Isn’t the colour amazing? It almost seems to give off light!

The yellow did not agree with my camera unfortunately. It is quite a bit brighter. It actually borders on neon… The puff with the bow is number 25! (I have a grand total of 27 now I think) I have decided to give every 25th puff a bow in one form or other. Might be tricky to come up with enough different ways of adding a bow! The puff on the right was an experiment. I’ve decided to call it a success as in reality it’s quite charming. I wanted to do something different and so made an intarsia puff. I forgot that the switching to the yarn from side to side would create a seam down the middle, but the duo puff is quite cute. It somehow reminds me of a bum!

That’s all for this week. I’m heading back to my granny blanket to take some pictures for tomorrow!

Will be linking up with Tami’s Amis again!

Lots of love,

Renée

 

More shopping!

Whoa guys! I fell off the wagon today! I wasn’t planning on spending any more money this month, but the weather took a sudden turn for the amazing and I was dying  in my warm woolen winter coat. So today I jumped on my trusty bike (well after fighting for 15 minutes with another bike that had blocked mine in… grrr! So annoying!) and sped to town. My mission: to find a light, not to warm, summer coat as my favorite coat  was stolen last year (thankfully sans iPod, which had been in my pocket until I removed it about 10 minutes earlier! maybe they thought it was still in there?). It needed to be soft and summery and a worthy replacement of my old one. I had seen some cute coats on the H&M website, so I went there first. Et voila, within 5 minutes I was outside again and I was wearing my new coat! The first coat I came across, I tried on and loved. And I took it home. Unfortunately I’ve been really, well, blond, the last few days. Before speeding off to the H&M I had received an email with a 25% off coupon. Tadaaaa, what did I forget to show at checkout… the coupon. I need to return to town tomorrow anyway ( My second mission was returning some items from Mango, but (tadaaaa!) I left them at home. After packing them up in a bag so I could take them. Sigh. Being blond is though sometimes! It’s a good thing that I’m going to the hairdresser next week!) so I’m going to pop by H&M and beg them to still give me the discount. I can’t return the coat because I wore it straight away. But I kept the tags and the receipt, so I hope they will work with me on this.

Boekenvoordeel Haul

My yarn stash is frightfully full of dark yarns. I don’t have a lot of bright yarn! And since I want to make some sort of blanket out of small squares and a lot of colours a bit of shopping was necessary. Right? Upon visiting a store (Boekevoordeel, for any Dutchies that want some to!) that stocks my favorite yarn to date (Pingouin Pingofine–> 100% acrylic and amazing colours and very soft!) and it was on sale!!! SO I bought way way way more than I intended… But on the bright side: I probably have more than enough for a blankie as I had several other nice colours already!) Three colours here (bright yellow, teal and light pink) are of a different brand (Strengels), but it feels soft enough and similar enough to work well with the Pingofine yarn. I already had some mint, hot pink and several shades of blue. This cost me around 20€, pretty cheap for such nice yarn!

Make-up

I also had to indulge one of my other passions, make-up, as some new limited editions had been released. My favorite products are blushes, highlighters, lipsticks and nail polishes, but the only thing that interested me form the new LE’s was a blush (from the Essence Floral Grunge LE) and a huge highlighter (from the Catrice Candy Shock LE). And I had run out of nail hardener so I picked up a bottle of that too!

More yarn!

I have forever been wanting to try this yarn. I had some grey, but had read that there were amazing colours available in this line. The Zeeman that I visited had just been stocked so I got to dive through bins stuffed with yarn (amazing!!! I recommend this for anyone having a rough day!) I’m thinking of using these in the same blanket as the yarn above.

Moarrr!

And yet more yarn! I couldn’t resist the mint Royal yarn. This would be so cute for hexipuffs, but it might be a bit too thick… You may remember my dark purple sparkly hexipuff. I love how this yarn works up so I picked up a hot pink skein for puffing purposes! I currently have a lot of darker puffs so I need to brighten it up a bit. The three other balls of yarn are for my ripple blanket. I’m afraid of running out. One of my largest fears came true. One of the colours is gone. The dark red was gone. The purple was almost gone and I grabbed the last white skein. Still plenty of the pink though. But I think I have enough now! I have two more of each colour for the ripples and 2 more of each colour for a border (except red, only one of red).

Needles

A new project, which I have yet to share, has taught me to love circular needles (this was my first time using them), so I picked up some different sizes ( size 10mm and 5mm) and a back up of my 4mm as that seems to be used often and I can have multiple projects on the go this way!

I also picked up some random articles. Cotton pads and eye make up remover. I’ve never seen this brand before, but it feels really nice! I also picked up a pack of trash bags (last time I picked up a teeny tiny size haha! Not very useful! And a set of clothing rollers (to take care of icky hair, etc on my black wool coat). the weird thing: they’re scented! I’ve never seen these scented before!

Okay that’s it once again. I’m off to stash this new yarn on Ravelry!

Lots of love,

Renée