Lydia's Woolly Wednesday

Back in April after Wonderwool Wales, a big fibre event in the UK, there was a thread on Ravelry where people displayed their purchases. I saw one of these lovely plaits. I hadn't seen the plaits at the show, I was too busy on my own stand.

The combination of colours really grabbed me. I found out the plait came from Adelaide Walker. I was delighted to find the Adelaide Walker stand at Fibre East, so of course a plait found its way into my bag (after I paid for it)! It isn't really a plait, it's four lengths of top twisted together -dark brown, light brown, grey and white Shetland wool.

It seemed a shame to actually spin the fibre, it looked so lovely just twisted together. But the temptation of ready prepared fibre was too much and I separated the four lengths. I really wanted to preserve the effect of the four distinct colours. I decided to spin two marled singles. I debated which colours to combine. In the end I decided to spin the dark and light brown together:

and the white and grey:

Then I plied the two marled singles together. The contrasts are less subtle than when the fibre was in the plait. I think maybe if I increased the amount of white there would be more contrast. Even so, I'm pleased with the effect.

Do join us for Woolly Wednesday and let us know what you have been spinning. If you add your blog I will come and visit, I'm looking forward to hearing about your fibre adventures!

Dawns February Woolly Wednesday adventures

Whoosh another month.  More Dorset Horn spinning and plying, almost finished the fleece now, just a little more carding and spinning and she will be done.

Plying Dorset Horn

Was hoping for some warmer days to wash and dry (outside) some more zwartble but that's not happening so maybe I could get it dry indoors if done in smaller batches - we'll see.

Singles Icelandic on the Niddy Noddy

In the meantime I decided to leave the Icelandics I spun and finished last month as singles so have set the twist in them.I decided to set these with steam whilst under slight tension and it has worked perfectly. They are holding together really well and as balanced as can be for a single ply! I used my steam cleaner to do this - rather than a pot of boiling water or the kettle and it worked really well - easily controllable and hands clear of hot steam! Yay for another use for the steam cleaner.

Setting the Single ply

Skein  to be wound

I'm going to use some up on some weaving squares for my long-term project of a breeds blanket I mentioned previously. The rest I'm not sure - maybe a bag or cover for something, I might spin up the other Icelandic colours first so as to have some more colour variation.

In other spinning news I have been on a Yarn design workshop with friends and had a fabulous day, lots of laughter as well as spinning. We did lots of samples of different yarns of which some were really out of my spinning comfort zone although I persevered and actually quite fancy practicing them now. Practice makes perfect right? Will share some pictures and experience another time.

Workshop on yarn design

(blurred on purpose for sharing the picture on the blog!)

The workshop was run by my Spinning Guru, a lovely teacher who helped me much in my early days when I used to go to her house for spinning classes one evening a fortnight. Many of the people on the workshop have been to her or go to her now so there was a good mix of abilities. I was quite honoured at one point to be handed a larger amount of wool and alpaca than others for one of the yarns as "you're an experienced spinner now" were the words of my guru! I guess I am compared to some others, but always feel like I am learning. I shall experiment a little more with what I have learnt and share experience and photos on this another time.

I gave my wheel a good clean and oiled the wood before the weekend, forgetting that Danish Oil has quite a pungent smell and did this in the house one night. Hmmm not such a great idea when I almost instantly got a really bad headache! Lesson learnt. Note to self: oil the wheel in a ventilated area - preferably outside in future.

Lots of ideas running around in my head, have picked up a couple of 2nd hand books recently and watched some videos and feeling all inspired to push my spinning to new things, alongside continuing spinning a lovely standard yarn of course.

What's keeping you busy, or inspiring you?