It seems I've been neglecting my blog again - a month since the last post. To compensate, I'm posting photos of a recent project that took a lot of planning and that I'm not too sure about now it's finished.
I started with some natural coloured merino, tussah silk, various beads and bits and pieces of silk and lace from my wedding dress.
A few years ago I dismantled my wedding dress after it spending 22 years packed away in a box. I made another dress from it and wore it to my stepson's wedding. The bits I've used in this yarn were from a frill on the bottom of the original dress. I removed the lace and made it into little bows, then cut the silk fabric into strips and knotted them twice (one knot on top of the other to make a bigger knot). The beads were then threaded onto locks of fleece, ready to spin into the yarn.
I spun all the bits into the merino and then plied it with a strand of handspun tussah silk. The resulting yarn wasn't quite as thick as I'd planned, even though I'd spiral plied it with the silk, so I spun it back on itself making it double the thickness.
I'm really not sure about this yarn - maybe I over-estimated my spinning abilities, or maybe it'll grow on me. I once heard someone say that if she made something she wasn't too happy with she put it in a bag under her bed for a while and was invariably happier with it when she took it out again. If only I could remember who it was I'd ask her to put this under her magic bed - maybe it would improve my yarn!
Here are some close-ups of some of the details. I quite like the way the beads and bows etc. have turned out - it's just the overall effect of the yarn I'm not happy with.
This was going to be made into a necklace, and maybe still will, but for the moment I'll file it away in the hope that I'll like it better when I re-find it in a year's time!
I started with some natural coloured merino, tussah silk, various beads and bits and pieces of silk and lace from my wedding dress.
A few years ago I dismantled my wedding dress after it spending 22 years packed away in a box. I made another dress from it and wore it to my stepson's wedding. The bits I've used in this yarn were from a frill on the bottom of the original dress. I removed the lace and made it into little bows, then cut the silk fabric into strips and knotted them twice (one knot on top of the other to make a bigger knot). The beads were then threaded onto locks of fleece, ready to spin into the yarn.
I spun all the bits into the merino and then plied it with a strand of handspun tussah silk. The resulting yarn wasn't quite as thick as I'd planned, even though I'd spiral plied it with the silk, so I spun it back on itself making it double the thickness.
I'm really not sure about this yarn - maybe I over-estimated my spinning abilities, or maybe it'll grow on me. I once heard someone say that if she made something she wasn't too happy with she put it in a bag under her bed for a while and was invariably happier with it when she took it out again. If only I could remember who it was I'd ask her to put this under her magic bed - maybe it would improve my yarn!
Here are some close-ups of some of the details. I quite like the way the beads and bows etc. have turned out - it's just the overall effect of the yarn I'm not happy with.
This was going to be made into a necklace, and maybe still will, but for the moment I'll file it away in the hope that I'll like it better when I re-find it in a year's time!
