Black and White Tour de Fleece

After all the uncertainty this year with the Covid 19 pandemic, no-one was sure if the Tour de France would happen this year.  As it turned out, it was cancelled until late August. However, the Tour de Fleece organisers decided that the Tour de Fleece would go ahead in July anyway!  And there's an added bonus this year because we're having a second one starting at the end of August!!  What fun!

This year I rooted through my stock of fleece sacks and found this very messy cria alpaca (baby alpaca's first shearing) which was given to me about 3 years ago by my friend who runs an animal park over here.  We were actually visiting on the day this little girl (her name is Liesje) was born, in fact we probably arrived less than half an hour afterwards, so it feels extra special to be spinning her fleece.

This fleece has quite a long staple and probably would have been difficult to card, but it was really all the straw that decided me to use my combs to prepare it.  I couldn't face sitting for hours picking all the vegetable matter out only to then have to card it.  Combs get rid of everything, so that was the way to go.

All ready for the big start up (note the extra large fan to keep me cool through all the hot weather we've been having lately) :-

The finished bobbin has a lovely sheen and quite a nice halo.  I'm hoping to be able to use this on my weaving loom, but will need to spin more alpaca to go with it.  I'll probably use Liesje's Mum's fleece as she's black too.

Next up, I unearthed an even older bag of merino fleece that had never even been opened.  I've prepared it by flick carding each end of the locks into lovely fluffy piles and then spinning from the cut end.  This is being spun "in the grease" as I don't really like to wash fleece before I start to prepare it.  I don't like the lock structure to be messed up, and however careful I am washing fleeces, the lock structure always seems to suffer.  This way, it's easy to separate the fleece into piles of individual locks and then flick.

The first full bobbin arrived 3 or 4 days later

and was plied.  Here's the next bobbin being prepped.

The second bobbin was finished and plied by the end of the second week.  Guess what's next?

Last night (afternoon in the US) our TdF team had a Zoom meeting over a 4 hour period. It was really good to be able to meet up face to face.  There was one lady there who joined the DIY and Dye group in May 2013 (same as me) and I'd never ever even seen a photograph of her.  So it was lovely to be able to meet her "in person".  We have new people joining each year too, so it was good to be able to put faces to names.  We all sat spinning, carding, combing and generally chatting and I got quite a pile of fleece flicked ready for my third bobbin.

So, next week is the final week of the first 2020 Tour de Fleece.  I'm planning to spin this third bobbin of merino and then dye it all using the copious amounts of yellow onion skins I've been saving.  I really want to knit a cardigan with this yarn and I realise I won't have enough with just three skeins, but I'll spin the rest after TdF and then dye it to, hopefully, complement these three.  Maybe I could do various colours and knit a Fairisle pattern.

I'll be back next week with the finished yarn skeined and ready to use.

Spinning Again

The length of time between posts seems to be getting longer just lately, mainly because we've been busy trying to get my new kitchen to the stage where we can put in the cupboards, cooker, sink etc.  All the electrics are now in, the plaster-board is finished and painted, and the woodwork is almost all stained.  Next - floor!  We bought some oak flooring for in here and should start fitting that within a day or two.

So, spinning . . .

I've been gradually working through a dustbin liner of baby alpaca (from Jorrocks) and now only have about a plastic carrier bag left.  He's a really nice colour, rose-grey with white and paler grey bits, and the wool has turned out super-soft.  But the other day, right in the middle of spinning this, I felt like some easy spinning.  Something someone else had done the preparation and dyeing work for.  I pulled this out of the bag and spent a few days spinning :-

This has been sitting around since last July when I bought it at Le Lot et La Laine festival.  I have no idea what this is - it was prepared by Katikolor and she couldn't remember which fibres she'd used.  I didn't care really because I loved the colours and the feel of it.

At the same time, I realised my bobbins were getting full again and I really need to empty some in time for the Tour de Fleece which starts on 5th July.  I had half a bobbin of some blue and white merino that I spun ages ago, and then I had lots of bobbins with just a small amount on each.  I didn't really have anything that I could ply with the blue and white merino, so I made the single thread into a centre-pull ball and plied from each end, i.e. the end from the middle of the ball and the outside bit.  I was surprised and happy at how easy it was to do this as I'd envisioned getting into a real tangle with it.

Most of the random bits were then plied together onto a bobbin - amazingly, I ended up with 70g of yarn.  Haven't a clue what this will become, but it looked quite good in the skein.

Happy Skeins!

The one on the right is the unknown mix by Katikolor - 289 yards/267 metros, 130g; centre is the blue and white merino - 165 yards/152m, 50g; and the one on the left is the odds and ends of bobbins.  I haven't worked out the yardage for this one as I'm not sure if it will be used in it's entirety for a project, or just bits and pieces here and there as accents in other projects.

The two small balls of yarn at the front were separated out because the green and white had already been plied and just went into the skein for ease of washing, and the darker one is Ouessant that I dyed for last year's TdF and have a larger ball that this can join. For this one I used the centre-pull ball method of plying again - brilliant because it uses up every scrap of yarn.

Now for the really exciting news.  Yesterday I collected a little package from my friend Sarah of La Maison des Chameaux :-

There are approximately100 silkworm eggs here!!  Sarah was ordering some for herself so just added another 100 to the order for me.  Thanks Sarah!!

I put the eggs on top of some kitchen roll inside a cardboard box.  The bowl at the right hand side is a small foil dish with a wet piece of kitchen paper inside.  This is to give the eggs a bit of humidity so they don't dry out too much.  I've put the whole lot into the greenhouse and will be watching avidly for signs of life over the next week.  They can take about 10 days to hatch, but they've been in the post for probably about 4 days so maybe not long to wait.

You do realise I'll be boring you all for the next 6-8 weeks with photos of my "babies"!! Time to switch off now if you don't want to see!

Catching Up

Posts have been a bit sparse on here of late, not because I've not been doing anything worth writing about, more because there's just been too much going on.  So, here's what's been happening lately to keep us so busy.

There were gigs to be played :-

Sud Rock Festival

Look at the size of that stage!

Jeff, the bass player was to the right, Steve in the centre, Eric left, and Geoff the drummer is just visible in the background!  It's got to be the largest stage Eric's ever played on.  They had sound engineers too:-

and their own air-conditioned porta-cabin kitted out with settees, cool drinks etc.


The next day we went to visit Sarah and Paul of La Maison des Chameaux, to (finally!!!!) deliver her sweater.  I was a bit worried whether it would still fit her, as she's lost weight since we last saw her.  Luckily, she likes them "sloppy"!

We had a fabulous lunch with them outside in the shade (ankles got bitten to death though!), and ogled their kittens,

Basket of Fun!

My favourite

Their mother was killed on the road last week, so Hershey the dog has adopted them and regularly gives them a good clean and keeps them in order.

She's very protective of them, and sees off any other inquisitive cats.

As usual, it's impossible to visit Sarah and not come away with something.  Like half a ton of camel, llama, alpaca and sheep's wool!

I don't have enough lifetime left to spin all of this!


The cotton bolls are growing like mad - can't be too long now before they start to open.

They're still flowering too

These are such pretty plants, even if you're not interested in spinning the cotton.


This was a little dyeing project I did a while ago.  I found lots of these red dock seeds in and around the garden, and thought there must be some potential for colour.  So I collected them, just put the seeds in a pan of water, and soaked them for a day or two.

The dye was quite a deep colour and I was hopeful it may give a reddish orange.  I mordanted some fleece with alum and cream of tartar and heated it up slowly in the dye bath.  The results weren't quite what I'd expected, but it's still a nice colour.  That's it on the right below, next to a second-dip in the madder dye bath.

2nd dip madder on left, red dock seed on right

My current knitting project, the Buds of May shawl, has reached a standstill - I'm stuck! I'm about 60% through, and the pattern has become quite ambiguous and confusing.  So it's sitting in a bag, abandoned, until I manage to find some time to sit and work it out. This pattern would definitely not suit a beginner.  No photo, because I'm pretty disgusted with it at the moment.


Finally, the garden is producing lots at the moment.  I harvested this lot yesterday.

Yes, there are 26 cucumbers there!  Some of these will be pickled in jars, hopefully today, and I think some chilled cucumber soup is in order.

A few days ago I bottled 15 jars of tomatoes, and the next lot are ready for processing. Then yesterday I was given a large bucket of yellow plums, so they need bottling today too.  Maybe it would be a good idea to get out of bed and get on with it!!

Meet the Animals

Here are the photos I took at La Maison des Chameaux at the weekend.  I still don't know which camel is which, but will put names on if I know them.

This one's definitely Alice because she's the only one who wears a harness :-

The rest of the ladies :-

 

Actually, I don't know if I got each individual camel - someone may have had two photos taken.  There was one who insisted on following me around and posing!

This is Brewster Bob, the alpaca, who simply refused to pose or look at me :-

 

And Talullah (llama) is just about visible at the other side of the field, in the sunshine :-

She wasn't having anything to do with me!

This is one of the Ouessant sheep.  They only grow to about 50cm in height - think they're called Ushant in the UK.

 

Then there are the goats and pigs (these are a cross of Chinese and Vietnamese pot bellied pigs, one of which is very cruelly named "Lardon" - except I know for a fact that it's not going to be eaten!)

And finally this magnificent chap wanders around all day wherever he pleases, keeping his harem in order :-

 

Wish he'd have let me get closer because he really is gorgeous.  Every time I inched a bit nearer, he turned his back on me!!

There were rabbits wandering around, geese (scary!), ducks, hens and, coming soon, silk worms!!  Well worth a visit if you're ever in the area.

Well, don't think I'll make photographer of the year - but maybe I should blame the camera!  And, everyone knows you should never work with children and animals!!

Marciac

Just got back yesterday from our little trip away.  We had a really nice break, catching up with friends we'd not seen for a while, meals out, and just wandering around Marciac and the surrounding area.

 

These gates intrigued me - they lead nowhere.  Maybe there was once a house here, but it's long gone and now only the gates remain.

 

And just a short distance from there, I found this bee orchid growing all by itself on the grass verge at the side of the road.  It's the first one I've seen "in the flesh" so I was quite excited to find it.

 

We spent two nights at Camping du Lac with Rob and Louise, and then went to La Maison des Chameaux to stay with Sarah and Paul for her birthday party.  Brilliant night, lots of new people to meet, excellent food and, of course, loads of wine!

This is a very bad photo of Sarah learning to play the guitar (had a bit of trouble with the flash) but hope you can make it out.

This was taken in the barn next to the house.  Eric had taken his guitar and a small amplifier and set up there to play a little bit of music, when Sarah arrived and very quickly learned to play 2 or 3 chords.  When are you coming for the next lesson?

Sarah and Paul have two dogs, a Labrador and a Briard (spelling??) who recently produced TEN PUPPIES!!!!!!!  They are now four and a half weeks old and are extremely cute.  It was very difficult not to step on one and we had to watch our feet all night.  Unfortunately, I didn't get any photos, but ten puppies around one feeding dish was a sight not to be missed!  And poor Mum is starting to get a bit frazzled with ten of them wanting to feed all the time.

The next morning I walked around and took lots of photos of the animals before we left and set off back home - I'll make that the subject of a different post.  As usual, we didn't leave empty-handed - there was a large bin liner full of camel wool (guess what we were doing at midnight the night before . . . plucking camels!), another of, I think, sheeps wool (very soft and fine - Sarah found a huge sack of it at the side of the road, maybe it had fallen from a lorry?), beetroot, coriander, mint, elderflowers.  Luckily, we managed to get away without a puppy!!

Spinning and Knitting Progress (or lack of!)

Finally got myself organised, and put a spurt on with the spinning recently :-

These are for Sarah from La Maison des Chameaux (camel farm).  It's months since I gave her any wool so I'm quite pleased that I've been able to get going again.  There are 2 balls of camel, one of unknown sheep's wool, one of llama (Talullah) and one of alpaca (Brewster Bob).

And then there's the knitting.  Well, the socks are not far off completion, but halfway through I realised I wouldn't have enough to finish.  I spun some more of the blue and used it for the heels, and I've also spun some more pink to use for the toes, so hope there'll now be enough.

The sweater dress has moved on by absolutely zero percent!  The problem is that I don't really like the way it's going and may have to take some back.  I knit a section of rib at the waist thinking it would fit better.  Well, it doesn't!  So it'll have to go.  I think I've lost momentum with this because it's not exactly the season to be knitting a sweater dress.  Will try and get on with it though so it's ready for next winter.

Long Time No Speak

We're now entering the second week of our stay in sunny Scotland and Eric's Mum is still in hospital.  The doctor has now told us that there's no way she can go home again, so we are trying to make arrangements for a nursing home.  Not good news, but we know she'll be looked after a lot better there.

The good news is that my spinning wheel came with us this time - didn't have to hide it in the boot as Eric suggested I bring it.  I managed to put quite a bit of stuff through my drum carder before we left home, but have brought the old hand carders just in case I run out.  I'm currently spinning Brewster Bob (he's the cutest alpaca at La Maison des Chameaux, in fact, he's the only alpaca at La Maison! - sorry Brewster, but you are cute anyway!!)  Also brought a bag of llama (from Tallulah), a bag of camel, and some red and blue merino which I need to spin to finish my sweater dress.

Spinning activities happen in the morning, hospital visits in the afternoon (we don't go in the evenings any more as she just gets too tired) and cooking and knitting in the evening.  What an exciting life we have here!

Tomorrow night we're going to the local village pub where some friends are putting on a traditional music night.  Pete, our friend who has a traditional music shop in Stonehaven, has promised to bring a guitar for Eric so he can play a tune or two.  That might come as a bit of a shock to the audience though as he's a rock and blues man!  Should be an interesting night.