From Fibre to Finished Object

Very excited to share this little scarf with you.  Recently I've completed next to no knitting for myself, so when I spotted a little gap in the scheduled knitting, I grabbed my handspun polwarth skein from FiberArtemis which has been sitting in pride of place on my desk for quite a while now.

I've posted about it here before (and on Ravelry here) - the fibre is 100% polwarth from this lovely etsy shop.  It felt dense yet soft, and drafted beautifully.  There's a polwarth/silk mix in my stash from this shop too, so I might make a little time over christmas to spin it up a little finer for another shawl...  

Since I'm being good (and have spent all of my pennies on presents), the pattern is also one previously purchased on Ravelry - this is Artesian by Rosemary Hill. 

The pattern was very easy to follow, employing short rows for shaping.  The chart is laid out in a way I've not used before, so I used the written instructions, which are nice and easy to follow.    

And the yarn?  Oh dear, I loved it so much.  It's all smooshy and soft and, dare I say it, relatively evenly spun and plied throughout... (not that the garter stitch and yarn over pattern would show if it did!).

 

 

This is what the lovely fluff looked like when it arrived, and after spinning.   What are you working on at the moment?  I have something quite exciting to show you in a couple of weeks, but it'll have to stay under wraps until then :p

  

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.  

Gearing up for Tour De Fleece

Running in tandem with the Tour De France, the Tour De Fleece is a great excuse to challenge yourself (or just to spin more).  

These gorgeous punis arrived from Deb at Fondant Fibre this morning.  Punis are a woolen preparation of fleece, similar to the rolag but originating in India (or so I'm led to believe).  Fibre is blended together on hand carders, then rolled off onto a thin stick to ensure the fleece stays nice and organised - making for some very smooth spinning!

Kicking off on Saturday the 5th of July to tie in with the beginning of the cycle race, there's a 'Getting Started' guide in the TDF group on Ravelry here.  

The main aims are:

• To spin!  Every day the tour rides.  That's the 5th of July through27th of July.  There are rest days just like the race itself, these are on 15th and 21st.  
• On challenge days in the race, challenge yourself!  This year it's July 19th.  Why not try to spin more than you've ever spun before?  Chunkier, thinner, new type of spinning material, core spinning?
• On Sunday 27th of July, wear yellow to join in with the winners :D  

There are lots of teams you can join, both official and unofficial.  There's a FondantFibre Team here on Ravelry.  

More photos of that lovely fluff from fondant fibre.  You can find the shop here, and our chat about how Fondant Fibre began here.  

Oh, and here's an arbitrary photo of the cat who mocks me.  He is currently guarding my fridge.  From me.  Look at him standing there all authoritarian.  

Will you be taking part in the tour de fleece?  What are you spinning?  Is there any fleece you recommend I try out?

Also, I'll be starting a new section on Yarn/Fleece reviews soon - so if you'd like to review a yarn or fleece, or you create yarn or fleece you'd like reviewed, get in touch via email.

Spinning Pre-Tour & Star Wars Marathon

Maybe it's because I figured out how to run my wheel without it squeaking quite so much; maybe it's because I've been getting excited about the Tour De Fleece, but there's been quite a lot of spinning going on!

Firstly though, after several recent conversations and a twitter encounter, Star Wars arrived in my flat.  Being reliably informed episodes 1-3 are not worth watching, I plan to start my marathon of knitting and sci-fi with Episode IV this evening!  It'll involve fizzy pink and some microwavey popcorn.  All good things.   I'll let you know how it turns out.  I'm scared I won't like the star wars.

It has already been quite a film filled day - Edge Of Tomorrow is currently in the cinema and it is gooooooood!!  Not usually a fan of the Cruise man, I was under duress by the boy, but it was definitely worth it.  Now, watching Tom Cruise and Emily Blunt on the Graham Norton show - it ties in so nicely, and they both seem lovely.




Pink alpaca, brown massam & white bamboo, from my epic carding session (and the subsequent spinning session).

BFL / silk from Hilltop Cloud

Merino from Malabrigo

I've no idea what I'll be making this lovely lot into, maybe they'll just be sitting in my smooshing stash for a while... 

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...

Spin Spin Spinning

The yarn has all been spun and the skeins have been a-drying!  But the failing poit in the chain was the spinner being too lazy to share the fluff with the world*
(*read 'world' as 'the small but valued audience of one crazy sheep girlies blog').

As you may have spotted, I spent a whole day last month playing with batts.

Woolfest was aaaages ago, but this is the lovely little pile of fluff I acquired there.  It was awfully dandruffy sheep, so I did end up chopping off the ends and ended up with less than I'd have liked, but hey-ho.  It's very halo-y, there may be a plan for a fuzzy-cowl blooming in my brain.

The next pile of fluff was obtained from the Glasgow School of Yarn.  I was oh-so well behaved, and did not spend a single penny except on this enticing pile of pink/purple/orange nomnomnom-ness.  Katie of Hilltopcloud never disappoints, and this silk was a dream to spin.  

Last but not least, this is the experimental product of a noily batt I carded on my batty day of carding.  It's very think and thin, has wonderfully smooshy lumps and bumps of silk and massam, and will make the most incredible (or hideous?  we shall soon see) hat.  

First Mystery KAL

Having never participated in a Mystery Kal before, I'm a little bit excited.

Perhaps it's the lovely orange shade background, perhaps it's all the handwriting; I have no idea.  All I know is that I'm looking forward to this one!   Why should it be the handwriting, you ask?  I don't know.  Maybe I miss pen and paper.  Maybe ariel typface at work just makes my eyes sad.

With no 'mystery KAL's under my belt & only one Ysolda pattern (which didn't turn out as I expected.  Still have no idea exactly what I did to that one) I was unsure about this at first - but I just couldn't let it go!

Have you any experience with KAL projects?  Was it worth it?

I've chosen to knit it in two colours, part pink/purple silk handspun, approx. 4ply, from some lovely fluff from katie at hilltopcloud (who dropped by for some questions a wee while ago!), part cream laceweight spun from merino.  Gonna be fluffy!

You can find the pattern and specifics at Ysolda's page on Ravelry, and I'll be updating my own wee version on the blog here and on Ravelry too!


Pssst... I totally changed my mind... Different yarn choices and everything here!!  :D

Dragonfly Cardigan

Whew!  One handspun garment!

Starting life as a (giant) bundle of fondantfibre's rolags, this little handspun cardigan took quite a while to make!  

All the details are on my ravelry project page; The rolags were british wool, mohair, silk and bamboo - wonderful to spin, and felt very quick & easy.  The pattern was the featherweight cardigan by Hannah Fettig, which is available on ravelry.  

I did get stuck on sleeve island for quite a while, especially whilst beginning my christmas knitting!  Anyhoo, it's now finished, and I'm having a dilemma as to whether or not to add some shiny buttons... 

Perhaps I'll wait a while before embarking on another handspun garment.  Though, being rather teeny myself, I'm probably in quite a good situation when it comes to knitting clothes!

Today at work, a teeny wee old lady declared to her family that 'that nice wee doctor over there is having a baby!'.  I am not, and have no intention of, having a baby.  I may indeed have just eaten several slices of pizza, but I am not with child.  After waiting for the congratulations to die down, I explained this to the wee lady and her family, who were then a mixture of disappointed (on the wee ladies part) and mortified (for the rest of the family). 

Woe is me and my pizza tummy.