Spinning this month

Spinning this month, Shetland spun whilst demonstrating on the Guild stand at the Countryside Live show last weekend.

And some merino from the grab bag I scored at World of Wool.

Botany Lap Waste

From World of Wool. Yummy!

I'm so lucky that I live near enough to just drop in after work (I was on a six / two shift today).

Not sure what some of it is but it's lovely!

Finished Bag

Well, except for lining it. That could wait for some time knowing me! Anyhow I've pictured it against the fabric I'm intending to use for the lining so you can use your imagination!

Close up of the detail. All the information about it is on my project page in Ravelry.

I'm already planning the next project. There was an open weekend at Texere this weekend, so being contrary I went to Coldspring Mill. I was hoping to get some Noro Sock or Silk Garden as I've seen some pretty nice finished projects using them. But they didn't have any Noro except that odd stringy stuff.






I did walk out with this though.










And this. Both are a cotton / hemp blend I'm thinking of a Ruana in a houndstooth weave. I believe that hemp softens up and drapes quite nicely when it's washed.

New Project

I've decided to weave another Tibetan Bag as I liked the last one I made. I wanted it to be a bit brighter than the last one so I've done a bit of stash diving and came up with this. For the warp I'm using some scarlet chenille, crimson boucle, a last little bit of green cashmerino and a tiny sliver of some lurex that a friend gave me.

The weft is the boucle and the chenille with a smidge of some fun fur as a trim. I quite like it but have to say I didn't fully think through the implications of using boucle as a warp. Now that I've got going it's not so bad but to start with I was having trouble beating the weft in. I used an afro comb as a beater for the first few inches though and now I'm okay and back to using the heddle.

Can't wait to finish it and get it sewn up, but I'm going down to Ro's this weekend and I don't think she's got room for me to take it with me. (I can see a twelve inch knitters loom in my future!)

In love with BFL

This is what the Blue Face Leicester fleece looked like when I bought it (together with free yellow flanelette pillow case).

You can see in my previous post what it looked like when I'd dyed some of it.

But this is what it looks like now I've run it through the drum carder twice. Isn't it beautiful?

To be honest I wasn't entirely convinced it was going to come out very well, it was very tightly curled and seemed a bit dense after I'd washed it. I did wonder if I'd felted it.

Once I'd picked through it though it went through the drum carder beautifully; much better than any other fleece I'd processed myself. Of course this could have something to do with a guild meeting I attended where Freyalyn showed us the correct way to use a drum carder (I'd been doing it wrong!)

I'm really looking forward to spinning this fibre, I bought some hand dyed BFL tops from Wheeldale Woolcrafts earlier in the year and loved it. I think this may be as nice as that. I can't decide whether to card it into a multicoloured batt and spin it as it comes or if I should spin the colours separately.

Suggestions?

Guild Meeting

Today I've been to the Victoria Hall in Queensbury for the Bradford Guild of Weavers Spinners and Dyers August away day meeting.

Freyalyn; one of our members was giving a taster session on dying which was great fun and not a little messy. I've done a spot of dying before using Kool Aid but that's pretty much as far as I'd gone so it was great fun to be able to do some more outside my own kitchen.

I took along a skein of undyed sock wool that I'd bought some years ago and some Blue Faced Leicester that I'd bought as a raw fleece and scoured at home. I quite liked how the sock wool came out but I love how the BFL came out.

It's scrummy! I'm so inspired that I'm going to do some more of this at home. A couple of weeks ago i got a very cheap knitting machine on ebay so I'm planning on knitting up some blanks and dying them.

More pictures of our dying day on Flickr.

Spinning

This is some BFL that I bought from Wheeldale Woolcraft. I got a50g of the dark blue and 50g of the variegated light blue. I spun them then plied them together (had a bit of the dark blue left so I Andean plyed that using my home made cardboard Andean plying tool).

I've never spun BFL before and bought these tops so I could try it out. I have to report that all the stuff I've read about it is true. It was fantastic to spin; very easy to draft. I'm not absolutely sure what I'm going to make with it. I've ended up with over 400yards of the variegated and just under 100 yards of the dark blue at about twenty WPI. I'm considering using it for weaving rather than knitting, but I'm not wedded to anything in particular as yet.