Spinning & Un-broken Phones

As a method of procrastination, I appear to have spun all of the things.  Summer is here, I bought new oil for the old wheel, I've got better things to do - so obviously I'm spending hours with the wheel!

The steady trundle of my old wheel is hypnotic, & the small pleasure of seeing the bobbin of yarn grow as it fills with yarn is addictive.  

The yarns this month are a wee mixture from a stash that has been slowly building.  It'd be great to say that I'm implimenting a 'one in-one out' policy, if not 'all out', but I don't really trust myself. 

Another *very* exciting event this week is that I had my phone screen fixed!  Once the initial barrage of glass splinters had passed, I had largely grown to accept the dilapidated appearance of my phone.  Yes, there was tape over the top holding the pieces in, but it worked, and I was ok with it.  

I have a rant but, long story short - friends & family teasing about state of phone / concerned about my delicate wee face = not a problem.  Ladies at work implying at the condition of my phone reflects my lifestyle choices and how dilligently I'll do my job = not ok.  It's fixed now, but for the wrong group of people.

 

On to the yarn! (you can also see all of these in my Ravelry stash).   After my ravings about gradient yarns earlier this month, I couldn't help but spin up all of the gradient braids I could lay my hands on. 

I have no preferred method for spinning gradients, I'm aware that many people like to chain ply to preserve the gradient to it's best, but I quite enjoy the overlapping effects achieved by splitting the braid into two, & just seeing how the two halves marry up when you ply them.

In this case, with the polwarth, I left a lot of black on one half & a lot of blue on the other, so the marching is dubious but has resulted in wonderful short-ish runs of 'barber-pole' effect, which worked really well!

 

This lovely grey skein is a sample from Sara's Texture Crafts, (who dyed the beautiful yarn used in the Fearlas Mor sock pattern). 

It's made up of Alpaca, BFL, Merino & Silk.  Is is light, very easy to draft and well blended.  It's dreamy and I think I might have to find some more of this beautiful fluff.  As it stands, I see a little pair of wristy/mitts?  We shall see.  It ended up at 88 yards of... probably DK.

Polwarth from Fiber Artemis.  This one was good.  The fibre itself feels so smooth, and as such feels a little dense so I worried about how easy it'd be to spin, but this was wonderful too.  So even with minimal effort.  The gradient is lovely too - I'd usually go for a more prolonged gradient, in that this one changes colour relatively quickly, but we'll soon see how it knits up!

I've noticed that in this etsy shop, you're allowed to chose which base you'd like the colour dyed onto, which seems like a very nice option!  I have another braid still to spin from this dyer, this time a mix of polwarth & silk, so very intrigued to see how that goes!

Last but not least, Merino/Seacell/Shetland from Hilltop Cloud.  I love how the seacell pops through this yarn a little bit, giving little runs of pearly white through the warm berry shades.  This is another gradient braid, which changes gradually from purple, then pink, through orange to yellow.  Yum.  It's like a fruit pastel roll.

As ever, fibre from Hilltop Cloud is never difficult to draft, and spins up easily.  This lot has ended up around a DK, so I'm thinking a wee cowl might be in order!



That's my lot, I'm off to a BBQ now for my grandpops birthday!  What do you have planned for this weekend?

Tour De France & Fleece

It has all kicked off and I've spun more altogether than I've managed since christmas.

I missed the first two days of the tour de fleece, because I was down in Yorkshire watching the tour de france!  It was amazing, all the villages we passed through were lined with bunting, and the local gardens, shops & pubs were all sporting bicycle themed decorations.

To see these little pubs, with their beer & good food, I first had to walk.  This was, indeed, a walking weekend.  It was only a little one, as I actually joined my partners family, who were walking a two week long coast-to-coast shennanigan.  Two weeks! 

Once I returned home, I started the kind of tour I was really looking forward to, the fleecey part. 

New teapot filled, tour fleece bought, sorted and arranged for me to spin, my tour began.   This is what I'll be spinning this week, some cashmere/BFL/silk blend.  I'll spin the darker first & lightest last then ply it to make a lovely soft gradient.  

Perhaps I should mix them together slightly, spin a medium colour before finishing the dark, a light or two before adding in the last medium.   Hmm.  decisions.  

During the walk, we found some gorgeous little spots.  My favourite was this farm, where we were served cream tea.  After a long morning walking, it was very much appreciated.  

Also, there were some tiny doggies.  Tiny doggies!  If I lived here, you'd be hard pushed to stop a herd of tiny dogs appearing.  

Spinning like a fiend, these are the skeins I managed to finish during this first week of the tour.  

The first, 100g of grey gotland fleece.  It was lovely to spin, very easy to draft.  I didn't get as much yardage as I'd expect from 100g at this weight, does spinning gotland use up more fleece per metre?  I'll just have to buy some more to find out...

The second is a gradient blend from Fondant Fibre, merino & silk.  Her punis are always easy to spin, and can practically draft from the twist, pulling the puni away from the wheel.  easy.

The third, a 'peacock' blend of alpaca & shetland from Hilltop Cloud.  Again, these fleece braids are dreamy to spin, and lovely & soft washed up.  

All in all, not difficult spinning, but I'm proud of the meterage :D  All of my spinning is listed in my Ravelry stash - otherwise I forget what it's made of and how many metres I have!

FInally, someone we mustn't forget - grumpy cat.  He waits for me.  He tries to steal my food.  

Intention to Knit

This past few weeks, there have been some incredibly pretty cardigans appearing on Ravelry.   One of my favourites is the 'Snow in May' cardigan by Suvi Simola.

Knit in sportweight on 4.5mm needles, it's a simply constructed garment, styled to great effect.  I'll definitely be knitting it next time I start a project for myself!  

Suvi also designed one of my current favourite sweaters, the 5200K, which I've blogged about in the past.

This week I've also been spinning quite a bit, so I've just finished plying this lovely fluff - and started on the second :D  I shall need to take photos of the finished stuff.  

These braids are from Hilltop Cloud.  Her stock is amazing, and I have difficulty buying anywhere else (except from the lovely Fondant Fibre).  Do you have a 'go-to' fluff store I should try?  Do let me know, I need to try all the wool!

This is something I've been thinking about a lot lately - experimenting more with different types of fibre, different methods of spinning and dyeing.  There's a great site called World of Wool, which has fleece from over 30 different breeds of sheep!!

And, of course, to spin so much fleece, I might have to upgrade my wheel...

One Batty Day

The wee Yarn Cake round the corner recently acquired a rentable drum carder...  Well that was just a fleecy disaster waiting to happen really, wasn't it?

Regardless, what happened was that I ended up dragging out all bundles, bales, baggies, tops and scraps of fleece of all shapes and sizes I own, and attempt to mix them all together in some sort of frantic jaggy-ouch-I-stuck-my-finger-in-it-again frenzy of fluff.  

Frantic frenzy of fluff.  Pahaha, I make me laugh.  At least, it would be funny if it hadn't likely been so true.

By the time David came home from work I had managed not only to re-carpet the carpet with a layer of fluff, but to create a mountain of batts which I will likely never manage to spin.  They're oh so pretty though...

Some of it has turned into yummy yarn now, over here.

My favourite:  30% copper merino, 30% brown sparkle, 15% soyabean, 15% brown locks.  

My second favourite: 30% pink merino, 30% brown sparkle, 15% soybean, 15% brown massam

Third, I really did think this would be my favourite - look how pretty it is in that basket!  20% beige camel, 20% white silk, 40% copper merino, 10% brown locks, 10% yellow silk noil.

Oh, and not to forget the harry potter marathon I found myself watching at the same time as this carding marathon.  They may have prompted some 'house' batts.  What the hell am I going to do with these.  Uncontrolled batting got the better of me.

One last element to this odd day was that I did invite the pig inside.  Several times I did think I had lost the pig.  Spot the pig.

 

I'm being mean, you can't see him in the first one because he was hiding under the tree.  But this is exactly my point; sneaky pig.  

Beachy Picnic & A Visit to Old Maiden Aunt

What do you do when you have a little day off?  Well, you take a friend, some yarn, and pink bubbly to the beach.  Cold enough to wear our woolens with pride (but not cold enough to stop us picnic-ing on the beach), t'was a perfect day for a wander.  

For aaages I've been wanting to visit the studio of Old Maiden Aunt, in West Kilbride.  This quaint little place is Scotland's only 'Craft Town', and is lined with workshops where you can see the shop owners at work.   Though she was (supposed to be) busy packing for a trip, Lillith was wonderful - so friendly and ever so helpful :D  We may have spent 2 hours deciding what yarn we 'needed'.  And playing with the woofy dog!

Old Maiden Aunt dyes her colourways onto several different bases - all of which alter the final colour.  I may have bought the same purple twice, one on a silky base and one on a cashmere blend.  Nomnomnomnom.

Some of the two hours may have comprised of a woofy dog photo shoot.

Too much choice!

Yarn Cake?

Trunks full of goodies!

'Tardis' colourway.

My wares.  And a woofy dog.

Woofy dog photo shoot

On the way to the Old Maiden Yarn shop, we came across this gorgeous little glass workshop!  Everything was so teeny-tiny and detailed!  Apparently she also does workshops... I might have to visit again...

Finally, the beach!!  So many woofy dogs.  I actually didn't realise when I planned this trip, but I used to come to this beach when I was little!!  

 

When you go down to the woods tonight you're sure to find a Lauren exploring in the forrest...  All of these forresty photos look a little trippy; apparently trees + fish eye lens does crazy things to the mind.  

 

You still have time to enter the shawl pin giveaway, and the christmas yarny swap!!

AAAlllllso, there's now a GIANT pile of fluff in the shop.  Jus' sayin'.