Welcome to our Woolly Wednesday gathering for December, whether you are a regular or a new visitor - come and share with us all what you have been doing with wool or fibres in the last month. All crafts and inspiration welcome. A busy month with Yule, Christmas and other Seasonal celebrations so we look forward to seeing what you have been up to or your plans.
Woolly Wednesday falls on the first Wednesday of every month. Think of it as a creative gathering, or a virtual guild meeting. Bring along any fibre-related project, whatever it may be. If you are starting out in fibre arts, share what you are interested in pursuing. Let's show each other our projects, share any tips, tutorials, ask questions, seek advice. Add your post to the Linky below and we can visit one another and share, support, encourage, be inspired!.
Please feel free to add the button to your blog's sidebar with a link to Spinspiration, a lovely way for us all to link together. Just copy the image to your desktop and then in your blog design - add a gadget, add picture - upload the picture and then add the url (http://spinwheelspin.blogspot.com/) and the image will link to here. Join us with the linky below, link to a recent blog post of your woolly adventures in the last month or to a post in the month ahead, we look forward to seeing you, no time limits just join us when you can.
Merry Christmas to all who celebrate it, and Seasons blessings to those who celebrate the season in other ways. See you in 2013!
Wednesday, 5 December 2012
Lydia's December Woolly Wednesday
I am posting appallingly late in the day but it is still just about Wednesday. I haven't had a chance to spin anything this month, which is disappointing, especially as my Lendrum is sat there looking mournfully at me. But I have been knitting, which is a miracle for me because I really struggle with knitting. Spinning is so much easier, you don't have to remember a complicated pattern and the fibre only goes in one direction.
I started the Fatigue Cap a while ago but it turned out to be way too big so I frogged it and then could not work out the maths at all. You would think it would be simple if you know the number of stitches to the inch and the number of inches around the person's head. But every time I tried to work out how many stitches I needed to cast on I got a different answer.
I have at last solved the maths problem and the hat is the right size. The next issue is I am running out of yarn. The Fatigue Cap is a very simple pattern, it is a straight tube with no shaping but the pattern says make the tube 36 inches long. This seems extremely long to me and I'm really not sure how the hat is meant to be worn, it must end up double thickness but that may be uncomfortably hot. As I am running out of yarn I have decided to give up on the pattern altogether and just shape the top of the hat following a different pattern.
This is only my second project using circular needles and I must say I love them. I find going round in circles strangely soothing. I think I may just have to make another hat. This time I'd like to use my own handspun, so I'm bound to have more issues with maths. By the time I've finished pulling out my hair trying to work out how many stitches to cast on I will need a hat to cover my baldness.
I started the Fatigue Cap a while ago but it turned out to be way too big so I frogged it and then could not work out the maths at all. You would think it would be simple if you know the number of stitches to the inch and the number of inches around the person's head. But every time I tried to work out how many stitches I needed to cast on I got a different answer.
I have at last solved the maths problem and the hat is the right size. The next issue is I am running out of yarn. The Fatigue Cap is a very simple pattern, it is a straight tube with no shaping but the pattern says make the tube 36 inches long. This seems extremely long to me and I'm really not sure how the hat is meant to be worn, it must end up double thickness but that may be uncomfortably hot. As I am running out of yarn I have decided to give up on the pattern altogether and just shape the top of the hat following a different pattern.
This is only my second project using circular needles and I must say I love them. I find going round in circles strangely soothing. I think I may just have to make another hat. This time I'd like to use my own handspun, so I'm bound to have more issues with maths. By the time I've finished pulling out my hair trying to work out how many stitches to cast on I will need a hat to cover my baldness.
Dawns December woolly days ...
Busy times!
I have been spending quite a bit of my time during the last month spinning and knitting, lots of different projects, some small, some bigger, some gifts, some just for fun. Lots of other things keeping me busy too with school and Christmas not far away, but enjoying cosy nights with wool in one way or another.
My autumn spinning has been completed, plied as a 2 ply to get a decent yardage - approximately 340 metres of DK weight yarn destined to be a shawlette for me to wear as a scarf. I was intending to have cast it on by now but have been concentrating on other knitting I wanted to do first. Hope to share a picture of the finished item in the new year, here is the yarn.
I am now spinning some fibre from my stash which is drum carder blended alpaca, wool and a little bamboo. Looking good so far with one bobbin full and another hot on its heels.
In knitting I have been quite productive. I have knitted some socks for my daughter out of some of my handspun from 2009! A little lumpy and bumpy but lovely and soft and she helped my dye this yarn in black beans. I didn't get the mordant right so a lot of the colour ran out, but it's a lovely silvery light blue.
Determined to work my way through my handspun stash, I have knitted several small projects to use up all those oddments. So I have knitted a tablet cover, a kindle cover, another kindle cover (different sized kindle!), a mobile phone cover and a small bag to felt.
Not from handspun but I have knitted some booties for a relatives baby due in 2013. I will be knitting more and some other pieces for them in the new year.
Back to handspun yarn, this Dorset Horn from my stash has been wound into yarn cakes ready to knit the next pair of socks.
Other crafty projects in the making, but I can't share them here just yet.
Looking forward to seeing what everyone else is doing.
Thank you all for sharing this space over the year. I leave you all with a wish for a wonderful festive season however you celebrate it, and I look forward to sitting and chatting with you in 2013.
Merry Christmas, Yule blessings ...
I have been spending quite a bit of my time during the last month spinning and knitting, lots of different projects, some small, some bigger, some gifts, some just for fun. Lots of other things keeping me busy too with school and Christmas not far away, but enjoying cosy nights with wool in one way or another.
My autumn spinning has been completed, plied as a 2 ply to get a decent yardage - approximately 340 metres of DK weight yarn destined to be a shawlette for me to wear as a scarf. I was intending to have cast it on by now but have been concentrating on other knitting I wanted to do first. Hope to share a picture of the finished item in the new year, here is the yarn.
I am now spinning some fibre from my stash which is drum carder blended alpaca, wool and a little bamboo. Looking good so far with one bobbin full and another hot on its heels.
2nd bobbin and a sample of the yarn plied
In knitting I have been quite productive. I have knitted some socks for my daughter out of some of my handspun from 2009! A little lumpy and bumpy but lovely and soft and she helped my dye this yarn in black beans. I didn't get the mordant right so a lot of the colour ran out, but it's a lovely silvery light blue.
Handspun, hand-dyed local fleece socks hand-knitted
Determined to work my way through my handspun stash, I have knitted several small projects to use up all those oddments. So I have knitted a tablet cover, a kindle cover, another kindle cover (different sized kindle!), a mobile phone cover and a small bag to felt.
Various covers knitted in Double Knitting style so completely seamless
Not from handspun but I have knitted some booties for a relatives baby due in 2013. I will be knitting more and some other pieces for them in the new year.
Newborn booties
Back to handspun yarn, this Dorset Horn from my stash has been wound into yarn cakes ready to knit the next pair of socks.
Yarn ready for socks
Other crafty projects in the making, but I can't share them here just yet.
Looking forward to seeing what everyone else is doing.
Thank you all for sharing this space over the year. I leave you all with a wish for a wonderful festive season however you celebrate it, and I look forward to sitting and chatting with you in 2013.
Wednesday, 7 November 2012
Woolly Wednesday November
Welcome to our Woolly Wednesday gathering for November, whether you are a regular or a new visitor - come and share with us all what you have been doing with wool or fibres in the last month. All crafts and inspiration welcome.It's a little quiet here some months, we would love to hear from you. Have you been spinning, knitting, felting, crochet, etc
Woolly Wednesday falls on the first Wednesday of every month. Think of it as a creative gathering, or a virtual guild meeting. Bring along any fibre-related project, whatever it may be. If you are starting out in fibre arts, share what you are interested in pursuing. Let's show each other our projects, share any tips, tutorials, ask questions, seek advice. Add your post to the Linky below and we can visit one another and share, support, encourage, be inspired!.
Please feel free to add the button to your blog's sidebar with a link to Spinspiration, a lovely way for us all to link together. Just copy the image to your desktop and then in your blog design - add a gadget, add picture - upload the picture and then add the url (http://spinwheelspin.blogspot.com/) and the image will link to here. Join us with the linky below, link to a recent blog post of your woolly adventures in the last month or to a post in the month ahead, we look forward to seeing you, no time limits just join us when you can.
Woolly Wednesday falls on the first Wednesday of every month. Think of it as a creative gathering, or a virtual guild meeting. Bring along any fibre-related project, whatever it may be. If you are starting out in fibre arts, share what you are interested in pursuing. Let's show each other our projects, share any tips, tutorials, ask questions, seek advice. Add your post to the Linky below and we can visit one another and share, support, encourage, be inspired!.
Please feel free to add the button to your blog's sidebar with a link to Spinspiration, a lovely way for us all to link together. Just copy the image to your desktop and then in your blog design - add a gadget, add picture - upload the picture and then add the url (http://spinwheelspin.blogspot.com/) and the image will link to here. Join us with the linky below, link to a recent blog post of your woolly adventures in the last month or to a post in the month ahead, we look forward to seeing you, no time limits just join us when you can.
Dawns Woolly November post
Autumnal fibres - more on that later
October has seen a flurry of activity spinning, knitting, and felting. First off I have finished spinning the Romney Marsh fleece I was spinning last month. I ended up with several bobbins full, so many that I forgot to leave one of the Wee Peggy bobbins free for plying! Doh! I pondered plying it on the Louet wheel, but instead I sat and wound off one of the bobbins onto a spare ashford bobbin I had. Plying commenced and took quite some time. I have a lovely bundle of skeins of this 2ply yarn - decided to ply all of the remainder as a 2 ply and it has resulted in a lovely yarn approximately 4ply with 14 wpi. All together I have about 630m, enough for a decent sized project. Awaiting washing still, but it's on my to do list!
Romney Marsh skeins
A few weeks ago was our local Guild meeting, a much anticipated meeting as we welcome Wingham Wool Works to the guild with all of their lovely wares to feel, to sample and to buy. I haven't previously taken my wheel to this day as I get involved in other things and never get around to spinning. But this year I was determined I would take the wheel and sample some fibres not spun before, and colourful combinations to get an idea of things I would like to spin again and also inspiration for colour blending. I had a lovely day, sampled lots of different things and have resulted in a lovely sample skein still patiently sitting on my niddy noddy. I was so busy having fun I only took one photograph at the beginning of the day. Ah well, my skein of finished samples is pretty to look at and shows what sort of day I had.
Sampling bobbin
Sampling results n-plied and on the niddy noddy
We did have a committee meeting in the afternoon that went on for quite a while so some samples were finished at home. I made a few purchases, but not a lot, I have enough fibre and fleece at home to be getting on with for now (whoa, did I just admit that!?!).
Finishing the romney and sampling got me thinking about all the skeins of yarn I have sitting waiting to become something, so since then I have spent time logging my handspun in a book - what the fibre is, yardage, approximate thickness. The idea is to then look at projects I'd like to do and see what skeins match the project. That's the plan anyway. Among all the larger skeins, I had several small skeins or balls of handspun samples or bit left over from other things, and lots of bits of my early uneven spinning. So I set to using these up, firstly making a cover for a tablet we have (my pattern database!), and for a kindle (on loan to us) and a couple of bags. A great way to use up all those scraps, oh no I can't call handspun yarn scrap, even just a little bit - all those bits and bobs.
Since the wheel was empty, I have started spinning some superfine merino roving from the stash in lovely Autumn Burnt Leaves colourway, beautiful bright colours for those grey days - holding onto a little autumn beauty. Pondering whether to 2ply or navajo ply.
Seperated the roving lengthways to spin
Spinning started
(have now a full bobbin and almost full 2nd bobbin but no updated picture)
Will show you this next month when it's finished.
I'm still knitting my tunic jumper - need to pop it on to see if the length is okay, so maybe that will be finished soon-ish. Knitting a few other little projects too, and this week I have cast on 2 pairs of 2-at-a-time socks too, with others in the planning.
Falling in love with silk
Lots of woolly things happening again here, but what to talk about?
I could tell you the story behind a custom order for a macBook cover, using handspun wool, but it's very similar to things I have said before.
I could tell you about using up odd bits of handspun wool to make brooches, hair grips and bobbles for a stall the Guild are holding this weekend and Compton Verney, but that too gets a bit repetitive.
So how about I tell you about a series of talks we've had a Guild recently? One of our members grows her own silk, and gave us an amazing talk about the history of silk, the different kinds of silk, the different properties of silk, and had samples upon samples of all these different silks, from tussah to mulberry, from cocoons, to hankies. And it was the silk hankies that really excited me.
A hankie is a stretched coccoon. It has to be processed to remove the sericin (the glue the silk worm uses in making the cocoon), but then can be stretched into a square and dried. This site http://www.wormspit.com/mawatas.htm shows the process in more detail.
Once you have these hankies you can seperate them out and then , whilst sticking your thumb through the centre of it, you stretch it. Keep on stretching and stretching (there is a lot of fibre in these hankies), and yyou end up with a long loop.
Break the loop, and you have a pure silk yarn. No spinning required, you can knit or crochet with it as it is.
I could tell you the story behind a custom order for a macBook cover, using handspun wool, but it's very similar to things I have said before.
A hankie is a stretched coccoon. It has to be processed to remove the sericin (the glue the silk worm uses in making the cocoon), but then can be stretched into a square and dried. This site http://www.wormspit.com/mawatas.htm shows the process in more detail.
Needless to say, I had to buy myself some hankies. I've had a little play, but would like to dye them first and then have much more of a play.
This coming month we are learning how to make paper from silk. I am very much looking forward to learning more about this wonderful silk.
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!
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:
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!
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