Spinning for a Project - Really??

 I very rarely spin especially with a project in mind.  Usually I spin for the pleasure of it and then put the yarn away until I find something to do with it.

Recently though, my sister bought a pattern for a knitted shawl plus the recommended yarn, enough to complete the project.  She was slightly disappointed when she'd finished in that the shawl was not as big as she'd envisaged.  The length was OK, but the depth made it quite a small shawl.  I have to admit that when I looked at the pattern and the yarn she'd used, I was a bit shocked that the yarn had cost £68!  Now, I know I'm probably a bit out of date with the price of yarns because I rarely buy any, I usually spin what I need, but this sounded quite a lot for a shawl.

She wants to knit another one but make it deeper so it covers her shoulders a bit better.  I said I'd search my stash and see if I had something she could use (I couldn't imagine her spending that amount on a shawl again, especially as she'd have had to buy an extra ball in order to make it bigger).  The problem with my stash is that it's mostly single balls of each colour, and she needed 2 balls for the main colour, 1 ball for the 2nd colour and a mini skein for the edge.  I couldn't find enough of one colour in 4-ply that she could use for the main colour.  So I offered to spin some for the project.

After spinning and knitting a couple of baby blankets using Falkland superwash, I had what I thought would be enough for this project, so I set to and started spinning.  I soon had 3 finished skeins, but when I measured them I realised that although there was probably enough yardage, there may not be!  I couldn't risk dyeing it, sending it to her and then she doesn't have enough.

I decided the best thing would be to choose one ball from my stash for the 2nd colour and then dye the Falkland to complement it.  

This is something I spun a while ago.  There's a bit of sparkle in there, but it doesn't show up in this photo.  I Facetimed my sister with various options, but she chose this green.  Then we had a dilemma - what colours do we dye the rest of the yarn?  I don't think either of us are very good with colours, but my big sis is definitely better than me!  We ummed and ahhed for a while and didn't really come up with anything, and then I had a "lightbulb moment" . . . I'd forgotten about the merino I spun during the Tour de Fleece in July. 

I had 4 balls of 4 ply, dyed with onion skins, just waiting for a project.  Two of them would be enough for the main colour.  We thought they complemented each other nicely.  So, I just had to dye a mini skein of the Falkland for the edging colour.  She decided on dark green for that.

When I rooted out my acid dyes, I only had a pale green, so I added in a bit of dark grey and hoped for the best.  I think it turned out OK.

So, after getting all excited about finally spinning something especially for a project, I ended up only using 35g of it!!

This is the final line-up for the shawl :

Hopefully she'll send a photo when it's finished and I'll put it on here.

Now, what am I going to do with 692 yards of 4-ply superwash Falkland?  I suppose it will go into the cupboard and wait for a project!

Only 5 Years in the Making!!

Remember this :

Spinning Feathers

I bought this art batt almost five years ago at Le Lot et La Laine Festival and spun it at the end of 2015.  There was a huge mix of different fibres in here, plus bits of ribbon and feathers.  I originally planned to use this for a weaving project, but never plucked up the courage!  I was afraid I'd make a mess of it.

In 2017 I started knitting a blanket and used this yarn for the centre.  You can see how far I got here.  I'd picked out lots of individual balls of yarn, all double knitting thickness, and continued knitting around the central piece until I ran out of appropriate yarn.  It then sat in a cupboard for the next 3 years!

Here in France we've now been locked down (because of the Coronavirus Covid19) for the last four weeks so I've potentially got lots of time to finish all my projects that are sitting waiting.  In reality, I've managed to finish this blanket!  I haven't finished anything else . . . yet, although I am working on a few other projects.  So, here are a few photos of the finished blanket, with a few close ups of some of the details.

Feathers!!

More feathers!

Feathers and ribbon

and a close up of the edge :

The blanket itself is lovely and cosy for sitting in front of the TV at night.  Just have to try and keep the cat away from it!!

Stay safe everyone.

More Babies and Blankets

First of all, Happy New Year to all my readers, hope it's going to be a special one for you. Also, for all the spinners amongst you, Happy St. Distaff Day!!  This was the day that women, in general, went back to their labours after Christmas and New Year which included their spinning tasks.  Unfortunately, it doesn't look like I'm going to get any spinning time today, but I do have a few finished projects to show you.

This is the final photo of the blanket that I was knitting before Spinzilla.  Mara's blanket :-

This was delivered in October when we visited our new grand-daughter in Scotland.  She's a real cutie, but I can't show you photos - Mum and Dad are a bit sensitive about putting photos on the internet for which I can't really blame them.  Maybe when she's a bit older.

In the meantime, we had another grand-daughter arriving mid-December which called for . . . yes, you've guessed - another baby blanket!  Wingham's are doing a steady trade of super wash Falkland fibre to keep up with this lot!

I spun the yarn during Spinzilla because it was a good opportunity to get it done quickly. This time I chose Star Light Star Bright Baby Blanket by Anna Dillenberg Rachap.  It's a well designed, well laid out pattern which is easy to follow.  There are a heck of a lot of yarn-overs in there though, and I found it very easy to miss the odd one here and there and then waste a lot of time going backwards to put it right.  This is how it was looking after a few pattern repeats.  At this point it was actually going quite quickly, mainly because of the plain knitting in between the stars.

I worked on it for a few hours every evening, hoping to get it done in good time to send to Dubai before the baby arrived.  Unfortunately, baby had other ideas and was born a month early.  Mum had pre-eclampsia and the baby had to be delivered in a hurry, for both their sakes.  They called her Holly, because she was supposed to arrive at Christmas time.

After I finished the main part of the blanket, I had to decide whether to add the border or not.  When I looked back at project pages for other people who have made this blanket, quite a number didn't knit the border, preferring to leave the edge as is.  Although theirs looked pretty good without, I really did like the lacy border so it really had to be done.  This was knit separately to the blanket and then stitched on afterwards.  Easy peasy, I thought, it's only 16 stitches per row, I'll have it done in no time!!  In the end, this part ended up taking me longer than the blanket itself!  I worked on it continuously, every spare moment, for probably a couple of weeks.  Then I ran out of wool!!  Luckily, Wingham still had some of this fibre so I sent for some more, then spent time spinning, plying etc. so I could finish the thing.

Although I probably won't be doing this blanket again, I did enjoy it, and I'm really glad I made the effort to add the border as I think it really makes the project work.

Here's the finished blanket :-

I actually finished this before Christmas, but have been hanging on to it for a while as I didn't want it to go missing in the Christmas post, especially as it needs to go to Dubai and I know from experience that their post can take quite a while to arrive.  It will be sent very soon and I'll have everything crossed hoping it gets there in one piece.

Baby Blues

Recently I knitted this cute little baby sweater for a friend who's having a baby soon.  I still had some Falkland super wash yarn left after finishing Mara's blanket, so put it to good use.  The pattern is Jeudi by Elisa Di Fiore and was a very easy knit.  I think the original pattern is "vendredi", but it's written in French and I still can't cope with that.

Apparently it's going to be a boy, so a visit to the woad patch seemed in order.  I now have woad growing in a few different parts of the garden so I was able to harvest quite a bit from "volunteer" plants first, meaning I still have lots to harvest here:-

Woad is considered a pernicious weed in some parts of the world, but if they're as useful as this one I don't mind if it colonises the whole garden.  The farmer who owns the land all around us might not be too pleased if it spread everywhere though!

I won't bore you with photos of the dye process - I've posted lots in the past, so if you're interested in knowing how it's done you can find out in older posts.  I'll never tire of the magical transformation from yellow, through green to this amazing blue though.  In fact, it actually turned out a bit patchy, but hubby said it made it look more like old faded denim, so I can live with that.

This is the back view, which is equally cute.

For the buttons, I searched through my late mother-in-law's button tin which I inherited.  I think they're pretty old.  They've never been used, and were still stitched to the original cardboard.  They had a sort of faded bit in the middle which matches the patchy sweater! Perfect.  And I have two spare in case they're needed.

As usual, there was still some colour in the dye pot after the sweater came out, so I found a random skein of sheep's wool to put in there.  It's not ultra soft, but I think will go well in socks.

Mara's Blanket

Early August (2nd) brought the arrival of my new step-grand daughter, Mara Valentina. She was a bit impatient to get here as she was supposed to be born two weeks later. Nevertheless, I was still way behind with this project for her.

When the two step-grandsons were born I made them both a blanket, the first one had blue elephants, and the second one had a celtic knot design, so I promised I'd make one for this wee one too.

I used super wash Falkland fibre (from Wingham Wool Work) for this so it can be washed more easily without felting, and spun it into a 2-ply.  One of the skeins was divided into three, and two of them were dyed in green and lilac.

Then came the job of devising a pattern.  The good thing with being so behind with this project is that by the time I started drawing something out, she had a name - Mara Valentina.  I decided to keep it simple and chose green for the "Mara" and lilac for the inside of the heart, which is going to be edged with bobbles.  I may add a little colour at the edge when I've finished, but not sure yet.  I avoided pink as I know that Mum doesn't like it, but she does like green so hopefully this will be OK.

I'm wondering whether to add a little accent of something in the top right hand corner.  I thought about a spider on a thread, but I don't want to give the poor girl a phobia! Thinking cap is still on for this one!

I've pinned the edge of this down to take the photograph because it's curling up otherwise. I'm hoping that if I crochet an edge all round it may lie flat.  Also, not sure whether to define the edges of the letters afterwards with a running stitch in green.  Hubby thinks I should edge it in the lilac, but I think that may be a bit too much.

We're going over to Scotland next month, October, for our first visit, so I need to get my skates on with this.  I was going to post it, but think I'd prefer to hand deliver.  I'll keep you posted on the progress.

Eeeeeek!!! A Steek!

A number of weeks ago, I found an abandoned project bag in my cupboard which contained the body of a v-neck sweater, but no sleeves.  I honestly don't remember when I started this, but I thought it was time to finish it.  I had no clue which pattern I was following at the time, so a bit of research was needed.  Turns out it was the Simple Summer Tweed Top Down V-Neck by Heidi Kirrmaier.

I'd chosen three yarns that really went together quite well.  The first was a World of Wool Botany Lap Waste mix which I spun in March 2015, and if I'd had enough, I would just have used this, but there wasn't quite enough so I found another to complement it.

Botany Lap Waste Mix

The second was spun in January 2016.  This was made up of 1 ply pure Cashmere (from Hilltop Cloud in the UK), and 1 ply "Extasy" by Faerie Fibre here in France (Merino, Tussah Silk, Bamboo and Stellina).

Faerie Cashmere

Last but not least, I chose this boucle which was spun during the Tour de Fleece in July 2015.  This is my first (and so far only) attempt at boucle.  It's made up of mohair, alpaca and tussah silk.

TDF Boucle

It didn't take long to knit up the sleeves, but then I decided to put a rib on the bottom and round the neck.  You can maybe see the boucle in between the bands of colour, I just knit one row to separate them as I knew I didn't have much of it.

Finished Sweater

When I'd finished, and tried this on, I really wasn't happy with it.  It just didn't do me any favours at all - the colours were fine, it was maybe just the shape (or, more to the point, mine!!)

I plucked up all my courage, and did something I swore I'd never try (scaredy cat!) . . . a steek . . . eeeeek!!!!

On to the internet I went and looked up "how to do a steek".  There were a few different methods but I liked the crochet one best.  This is where you find the centre stitch and crochet the right side of it with the left side of the next stitch, all the way down the sweater. Then you start at the bottom and crochet together the left side of the centre stitch and the right side of the next stitch, all the way back up to the top.  You then have two lines of crochet which lean outwards away from each other.  There will be a "ladder" of yarn in between them, and this is where it has to be cut.

I have to confess that I didn't really have enough confidence in my crochet, mainly because of the boucle rows - I couldn't see exactly what I was doing when I picked up the loops from the two stitches and realised if I hadn't got it right, I was going to be in trouble. So I cheated!  I ran a sewing machined stitch down each outside edge of the crochet so that if the boucle failed, it would be held by the machine stitching.

Steek in Progress!

I didn't get a photo of the cutting part!  I was so nervous, I just wanted to get it done in one, and once it was cut, I just wanted to get the stitches picked up so I could finish the thing off!  Anyway, it actually worked pretty well and I had no disasters, thank goodness.

The finished cardigan (unblocked as yet - apparently we're getting a few days of rain, so I'll do it when that's passed over) adorned with 2nd use buttons from my late mother-in-law's button tin, which I inherited.  She was the type who, if she bought something she really liked, she'd buy some more in different colours.  I have to say, I'm glad she did, because I really like the mix of different colours and I think they go perfectly with the cardigan.

Pickwick Cotswold Stephina

A fleece looks pretty much like most other fleeces, wouldn't you say?  It's just a mass of fluff, locks and curly, dirty tips . . .

until you get closer, and see how much crimp it has . . .

and then closer still, where you can almost feel the softness through the screen . . .

but it's only when it's washed and flick carded that you can really see that magnificent sheen.

The last time I bought one of these fleeces was in November 2016 and, not knowing what to expect, I just ordered a basic quality fleece.  I think it must have been the cleanest, least vegetable matter infested fleece I've ever worked on.  I found out later that the guy who owns the sheep, Rob Long of Pickwick Cotswold sheep fame, spends quite a while with each fleece before sending it to its new owner, picking out as much of the grass, weed, seeds, etc as he can (apparently he enjoys it!!).  The experience I had with that fleece was enough to make me wonder what a higher quality fleece would be like.  A year later I couldn't resist the temptation any longer and ordered another.  This time I bought his second-best quality (he has four grades), and I really think it shows.  This was Pickwick Stephina's first shearing - gorgeous!

Hubby thinks these sheep must have a bath every night to be this clean!  When I mentioned that to Rob, he just winked!!

I had to try spinning some, even though I had lots of other things to be getting on with in the meantime.  Then, of course, I had to knit a little sample to see how it would be when finished.

OK, so it's not the neatest knitted sample I've ever done, and it wasn't washed and blocked afterwards, but I think this is going to make a very nice cardigan (woad blue probably) - when I get the time to spin it.

Pink Elephants

Don't know if you remember, but in October of last year I took part in Spinzilla, an annual spinning event where you spin as much yardage in a week as you can.  My first spin was this super wash Falkland which was destined for a blanket for our friend's first baby, due in March.

I'm normally pretty last minute with these things so am quite impressed that I've managed to get it finished six weeks early!

I split the two larger skeins into two and then dyed one ball pink (the baby's going to be a girl!).  I hope she doesn't mind that I didn't have any baby pink dye - this is hot pink!!

I still had the scribblings of the pattern I used 4 years ago for my step-grandson, plus the pencilled charts for the elephants, so off I went.

I only had one false start - after knitting a couple of inches I realised it was turning out a bit too small, so I unravelled and used slightly bigger needles (obviously I didn't write down which size needles I used last time, that would've been too easy!)

I realised part way through that I hadn't been as accurate as I thought when I first wrote the pattern.  That set me back a day or two while I corrected that and the charts.  I've been wanting the opportunity for a while to re-knit this so I could check the pattern, so at least I now know it's correct.

Love this elephant in the middle of the blanket!

It was finally finished at the end of January, washed, and laid out to dry, which took 3 days in a cold bedroom.

I worried all the way through whether I'd have enough yarn to finish - thought I might have to order some more fleece - but here's what was left :-

85g in total.  I started with 520g.  And from a starting point of 1,420 yards, I have 220 yards left.  I'm sure it'll come in for something.

Gradient Spinning

Hi everyone, well, I'm back on line again with my super-duper brand new MacBook Air (RIP old MBA) and ready to deluge you with all the things I've been doing since then.  I was about 6 weeks without a computer, so it's really nice to be back.

A while ago we had a little holiday just north of Bordeaux staying in a chateau with lots of old friends, some of whom we hadn't seen for over 20 years.  Realising that I might just have a bit of spare time here and there, I took my Louet Victoria and some fleece to spin.  I'd been hoarding some really nice merino in various contrasting colours from Barber Black Sheep (it was actually from a "Build a Batt" box that I'd bought and hadn't gotten around to using) so I grabbed that and teamed it with some other fleece that matched quite well from a World of Wool Botany Lap Waste bag.  I like to have an "easy to spin" project when we're travelling so I don't need to take a lot of other equipment with me for preparing it.

I managed to spin every day we were there, but still didn't manage to finish this until about a week after we'd returned home.

This next shot shows how well the colours go together, I really love the deep pink.

Because I wanted to keep the colours true when I plied it, I had to n-ply it and it turned out a bit thicker than I normally spin - probably about double knitting thickness - and consequently I didn't get as much yardage as I would have liked.  However, I think this will go really nicely in a project I started in the winter.  I think it was probably about November/December I went through all my handspun stash and picked out all the skeins of double knitting to make a lap blanket.

Not a very good photo as it's being knit on a circular needle, but I started by knitting a large rectangle in seed stitch with some art yarn I made a while ago, which included lots of yummy colors and . . . feathers!

I love to put feathers into my handspun, but I'm always a bit concerned they might be scratchy.  That's why I thought of using this for a lap blanket because it won't be used next-to-skin.  I still have a nice selection to choose from, but I'm not sure I'll use them all.

Hopefully the new yarn will finish it off nicely :-

but I can't decide which end to start knitting with.  I think it might be best to start on the outside of the one on the left and then start the second one on the outside too.  Of course, that will probably change multiple times before I actually knit with it.