Swap Finale

Well, the Tour de Fleece started on Saturday 4th July, and we were allowed to open our mystery packages from our recent swap.

First off, this is what I sent to my swapee :-

She mentioned she needed a utility bag for her spinning wheel, so I found a skein of Ouessant yarn which I dyed and spun in last year's TdF, knitted the bag and then felted it.

And this is what was in my package :-

A spinner's control card, a bottle to put spinning wheel oil in and . . . a spinning wheel utility bag (made by Karen)!  How spooky is that?

Swap You!

Just recently I joined in my first ever fibre swap on Ravelry.  Our group, DIY and Dye, is only a few years old and was formed originally as a team in the annual Tour de Fleece event.  We do keep in touch throughout the year though and have formed quite a friendly little community.  So when our intrepid team leader suggested we do a swap I thought, why not?

We all filled in a questionnaire giving a bit of basic information about ourselves (favourite colours, if we have any allergies etc) and also about types of fleece and fibre we'd like to try (or avoid!).  We were then paired up with a suitable partner and given full permission to start stalking!  A deadline date was also given to produce and send the goodies by.

My partner, Karen from Denmark, was quite easy to stalk as she'd very obligingly put a list on her profile page of things she'd like to try in the future.  That made my job a whole lot easier and gave me lots of ideas - thanks Karen!

This post is all about the package I sent to her - I'll show you what I received in a few days hopefully.  A couple of weeks ago my camera suffered a fatal fall onto our tiled floor from the arm of a chair - hasn't worked since.  We ordered another from Amazon France and waited . . . and waited.  Yesterday, Eric found the same camera on another site - cheaper, with free postage, and they'll send it in 2 or 3 days.  No contest - we cancelled the Amazon order.  So that's why I can't show you what she sent just now.

Anyway, here's what I sent for Karen.  The first two items were pretty easy as I knew she wanted to try some merino . . .

Fluff from Maco Merinos

. . . and Falkland

Fluffy stuff direct from the Falkland Islands

Little edit here - just realised that when I labelled this fleece I put New Zealand as its origin.  In fact this was bought direct from the Falkland Islands courtesy of a friend who used to live there.

So then I added in some lavender mice to keep the moths away.

I also wanted to send her something ready to spin, so got out all my bags of fleece and fibre and produced this :-

It's made up of all sorts of bits and pieces, some hand-dyed Falkland, some sparkly commercial merino, silk dyed with woad,  Firestar, Tencel.  I  blended them all on my drum carder (I think there were three batts totalling 100g), laid them on top of each other, rolled them up and tied with a ribbon - easy peasy!

The next item was a no-brainer.  This ball of yarn was spun in last year's Tour de Fleece using Kool Aid ice cubes to dye it (Hope's Kool Experience).  Karen had put this in her favourites file on Ravelry, probably because she wanted to save the info on the dye process, but, as she'd also said she'd like to try knitting with someone else's hand spun yarn, I popped this in the box too.

There was also a section on the questionnaire that dealt with other items we'd like to receive, so in went a bar of felted soap (pictured below), a bar of raspberry dark chocolate (no camera by this time!), and a little box of home-made Orangettes.

The next item was a bit inspired I thought.  On Karen's list on her Ravelry profile page she'd said she wanted to try natural dyeing.  So I made her a natural dye sampler kit - alum, copper and chrome mordants, cream of tartar to assist the alum, some dried logwood chips and madder root that I sent for, and a bag of dyer's chamomile collected from the garden and dried in the greenhouse.

By this time there was only one more thing to go in - a hand-made item which I can't reveal yet.  We all had to include a mystery package to be opened on 4th July, the day the Tour de Fleece starts.  I'll show you this, and the one I received, when we open them (itchy fingers here - the package kept beckoning to me, so I've had to hide it from myself!).

And here's the package half packed (again, no camera by the time I'd finished) :-

I got a lovely package in return, which I'll show to you as soon as I get my new camera up and running (the order's being processed as we speak!).  I had a lot of fun working on this project, more than I expected.  It's nice to receive, but it's so much fun to give as well!

Tour de Fleece is Here Again

Can you believe it's a year since the Tours de France/Fleece?  This year we started pedaling on Saturday the 5th and have some interesting challenges in the Team I'm involved with - Team DIY and Dye on Ravelry.

The first week we are trying different dye methods, i.e. something we haven't done before.  I've been wanting to try fermented lichen dyeing so in April I started off some jars with an ammonia and water mix.  These have been sitting on the kitchen windowsill ever since and  have been stirred/shaken every day (more or less).

On Thursday I carefully (or so I thought!) washed some alpaca provided by Hope who lives with my neighbours Rob and Tammy.  The female alpacas were sheared recently (the day after we did the boys) - they must have known something was happening because the day before they found an old bonfire pit and all had a good roll in the ashes! So, as I said, I carefully washed 100g of the fleece, which I placed in a mesh laundry bag.  The water was warm not hot, there was no excessive handling, just placed in the bowl of water and left to soak then lifted out into the sink to drain, repeated to rinse.  So why did I manage to felt it?  I put it in the dye anyway, hoping I'd still be able to do something with it.

The next day, after soaking for 24 hours, I gently heated the jars in the microwave and then let them rest and cool.  Here's the result of the first one, Xanthoria Parietina, which looked the most promising dye :-

This came out of the dye bath pink but changed to blue when I put it in the sun to dry. Didn't think to take a photo of the fibre when it came out of the dye bath, but this will give you an idea of the original colour :-

This was the side facing down on the table which hadn't been exposed to the sun.  I hoped it would stay pink if I didn't turn it over, but the sun must have got through anyway as it all changed to blue.  Next time I'll keep some separate to dry inside so I get both colours.

The second dye bath was Stags Horn lichen which looked very promising until about a week ago when it changed from reddish-pink to brown.  I have no idea why.  Anyway, in went the fleece and out came . . . yes, you've guessed - beige!  I haven't even bothered to take a photo of this as it's been set aside to be over-dyed with something else.

The good news is that the blue fleece is only lightly felted and I should be able to pull it apart and spin it.  However, I didn't have time to do that before the TdF started, so I'm spinning another 100g of Hope's fleece straight from the bag - unwashed, and uncarded. So far, it's going well.

This shows how fluffy the fleece is, even the blue which was a bit felted.

By the end of the second day, the bobbin is filling nicely considering I haven't had a lot of time to spin :-

You wouldn't believe the colour of my hands after spinning this, it's absolutely filthy!  I'll dye this when I've finished the spinning and plying - this time with some packets of Kool Aid my friend Victoria brought back from the U.S. for me.  Then I'll spin the blue lichen dyed fleece separately.  I'll be back in a day or two to report on progress, but won't bore you with endless photos of a gradually filling bobbin of dirty fawn fleece.  Have fun!

Christmas Market

Sunday was the day our village Christmas market was held.  We were all up early and busy setting up our displays.  My 3 neighbours and I had booked two tables between us, so it wasn't too difficult to fill them with only half a table each.

I took my wheel and spent most of the day spinning, which attracted quite a bit of attention and lots of people stopped to take photographs.

The Two Christines

There was a steady stream of people in the morning, and the afternoon was quite busy. Santa was there (I told him what I'd like for Christmas and he said I needed to write him a letter . . . and gave me a chocolate instead),  and guess what?  I won a prize in the raffle - a memory stick for my computer!

So, what were we selling?  Well, there was Victoria's jewelry and dolls :-

and Sheila's knitted children's clothes (that's the clothes that are knitted, not the children!):-

Tammy had some lovely felted and sewn things for sale (and Rob had made some wooden lathe-turned items, but I don't seem to have any decent photos of those) :-

Tammy's felted shoulder bag - love the mouse!

and I was selling handspun wool, some knitted items, felted soaps, lavender wands etc.

I use the term "selling" loosely - in fact I didn't sell a single thing!  Oh, except a little beaded Christmas tree ornament that my sister had sent to put on the stall.  Oh well, you win some, you lose some!

Actually, I really wasn't upset at all that I didn't sell anything.  Whilst packing the basket with balls of wool I kept thinking "I hope no-one buys this one, I really like it", and "ooh, this one would make a really nice hat".  I think it was a good experience to see all of my yarns together to realise what I had and see which ones went well together.  So yesterday I started knitting - what fun!!

Just off the Bobbins

Some of my neighbours and I are planning to do a one-off sale at our local village Christmas market this year.  We all make things, from hand-spun to jewellery to cards and baby clothes, felted items etc. (ooh, not forgetting Rob's hand-turned wooden items!) and just wanted to make a little money back for buying new materials.  The market is 1st December so we don't have much time.

I've been looking through my stash of hand-spun yarns and have separated out some that I think might sell.

I've also been picking out different fibres for hand spinning.  I made some rolags (don't ask me what fibres these are as most of them are from a mixed World of Wool bag, although I did add some Merino and Falkland plus a little bit of sparkle)

Sexy detail shot

This is how it looked spun up :-

and finally, off the bobbin and finished :-

The upper skein is 65g and the lower one 100g, 452 yds/417m total of double knitting thickness.

A detail shot, as usual :-

This is what it looks like knitted :-

So, the clock is ticking pretty fast.  I aim to spin (or knit) a little every day - the table is booked, we have to fill it!

The Last Iris

After boring you for the last few weeks with photos of alpacas, peacocks, dead flowers, cheese-making (well, OK, that may have been a bit more interesting) and old men in deck chairs, you're probably wondering when I'm going to get around to showing you something productive.  This is supposed to be a spinning, dyeing and knitting influenced blog after all.  Well, you'll have to wait another day at least I'm afraid.

Here's a little hint though,

a pan of baby alpaca (alpacas again! and no, not from mine) yarn that I've been spinning recently.  This is in a mordant bath (alum) and will stay there cooling until tomorrow when it'll be ready for the dyepot.

This is the last iris.  No, I'm not going to be using just one iris to dye 350 grams of wool - I've got a freezer-ful of the dead ones (oh no, not dead flowers again!).  Each day for the last couple of weeks I've been collecting the flowers as they started to wilt and saving them for dyeing.

So, what colour do you think I'll get from these?  Ha, well I do wonder myself.  We'll all find out tomorrow won't we?

A little eye-candy from Rob and Tammy's horse-chestnut tree, just because I can!

Speaking of Tammy, she's been very busy picking straw and seeds out of some fleece (dare I mention that it's alpaca) so she can felt it into a rug.

Got the patience of a saint that girl :-

This is more of the dreaded alpaca - it's actually all the short bits from shearing, which aren't long enough too to spin.  Nice colours, should make a lovely rug.

The cat found it all too stressful and went to sleep.

One final photo for today :-

. . . OK, I'll get my coat!!

My Little Champ

Did I tell you my alpaca won a competition last year, before I got him?  I'm sure I must have done - I've told everyone else!  Well, look what I've been given :-

Impala's rosette.  He got champion fawn male.  Rob went up to visit the breeder we bought the alpacas from on Monday and the guy gave him this to give to me.  They were shearing all their alpacas and invited Rob to go watch and learn.  He also brought back two large sacks of fleece - not the main "blanket" which is the prime spinning fibre, this is from the neck and upper legs, but still very soft.  The shorter bits will probably be made into felt, but there were some very spinnable lengths in there too and lots of different colours.  Tammy and I will have to have a drum-carding session soon.

This photo amuses me - where did his body go?  Looks like I chopped his head off :-

Ah, there it is!

He's still a skinny little malink.  He's put quite a lot of growth into his legs recently though so no doubt he'll start to fill out soon.

Mousie Mousie

Finally got around to making Jak's mouse :-

He's made with camel wool, knitted and then felted.  I stuffed him with slightly smelly sheep's fleece, which Jak seems to like to suck (yeuch!).

It was a tense moment when I gave it to him.  He looked, twice, sniffed, turned away and went to his food bowl.  After he'd finished eating, he came back and actually played with it for about 10 minutes.  He loved it!!  Success.  He even cuddles up with it to go to sleep - after giving the tail a good old chewing (still in one piece though!)

It worked so well, I decided to make some for a friend (not a cat!, but a cat person), but filled them with clean fleece and lavender.  I thought she could put them in her undies drawer, hang them in the wardrobe, or slip one inside her pillowcase to help her sleep.

Monday was Katharine's 50th birthday so I decided to give them to her then.  She did not have a good day.

Poor soul not only had to go to hospital because of an ear problem, but also her car broke down on the way back.  She waited two hours for the breakdown truck to take the car to a garage, then got a taxi home (quite a distance).  She finally arrived at her party (at a local restaurant) over an hour and a half late.  In the meantime, the guests (us included) partook of aperitifs and the local wine.  Thankfully, she soon caught up with us - must have been the champagne!

One very blurred photo of Katharine opening her presents :

Too much champagne obviously!

Happy birthday Katharine.

Christmas Makes

Now that Christmas Day has been and gone, I can show you the things I made this year for presents.  There's only one more to be delivered, but I don't think she looks at my blog so it shouldn't be a problem.

This is what I made for my sister :-

Annis

I used hand-spun merino and silk, hand-painted with acid dyes.  The knitting caused me a lot of grief initially.  For this pattern, the outside edge is the cast on edge, so I had about 320 stitches - normally not a problem, but I didn't have the right size circular needle so I used ordinary knitting needles.  The problem was, if I made a mistake I couldn't see where it was and ended up pulling it back quite a way each time.  Eventually, I had to cut the wool and start again with fresh because it was becoming quite ragged.  A lesson learned - always make sure you have the right needles before starting!

Next I made some knitted cowls (Thermis), this time using a hand-dyed merino/alpaca mix with a bit of angelina sparkle added.

This one was for me (just to try the pattern out, you understand) :-

I used some hand-spun baby merino wool that I'd dyed with woad, and it's super-soft round your neck.

Some people received apricot and orange chutney (really nice) and jars of mincemeat (not easy to get here), and I made a whole heap of these :-

Hand-felted soaps

These were such a lot of fun to make, I can see myself making lots more in the future.

I was a bit late starting my presents this year, so not everyone received something hand-made.  Must do better next year!!  (I say that every year)