Grasping the Nettle

Recently we had a little holiday in our camper van in Spain.  We travelled all around the San Sebastian area for 10 days.  Obviously, I took my new spinning wheel (Louet Victoria) as this was bought specially for camping.  I also took the last of the batts that I bought at Le Lot et la Laine festival which consisted of merino, alpaca, silk, soy, silk noil (I think), nettle and a bit of sparkle - 100g in all.  When I bought this it was the nettle content that attracted me, never having spun nettle before.  Well, the colours were really nice too!

I also took some black alpaca to mix with it, mainly to extend the amount of wool I'd have when finished, but also because I planned to ply it with a strand of black alpaca and I thought it would blend better.  The pale colours plied with a strand of black alpaca would have given a definite barber-pole effect that I wanted to avoid.

Ready for plying :-

The finished skein -

240g, 415yds/383m

This is how it looks knitted, but I'm considering using this for my first adventure with my weaving loom - probably a scarf for hubby!

A little post script : what do you think of this gorgeous little church we found in the mountains :-

There was a wall of glass pieces on each side

which didn't look particularly spectacular until you got close up to it

but was really spectacular from the inside :-

As the church was locked up I had to take a photo through the bars on a little window in the door.

It must be lovely to sit in that little church with the sun streaming through all those little pieces of glass.

Spinning Feathers

Last July I bought this huge batt of fibres at the Festival Le Lot et la Laine.

It was a really crazy batt full of texture and colour.  I have absolutely no idea of the different fibres that made up this batt, but I just loved the colours.  There were all sorts of lumpy bumpy bits that cried out to be spun erratically and un-uniformly.

I managed to save it until December before spinning it, even though I periodically had to go and get it out of the bag and admire and pet it!  Eventually though, I succumbed when I took my spinning wheel to a Christmas market being held in a local cafe.  It was a delight to spin, especially when I realised there were feathers in there.  Imagine - feathers!  I'd often thought about spinning feathers into my yarns, but somehow never got around to it.

This batt could just not be spun smoothly and finely, and I didn't want to do that anyway. However, during the afternoon an older lady called in and sat watching me spin for a while.  She kept telling me I should try and spin more smoothly and evenly and get a nice regular yarn.  I tried telling her it just wasn't possible with these fibres, but I don't think she understood.  I hadn't the heart to tell her I'd spent the last 26 years spinning smoothly and evenly and it was time for a change.

Anyway, this was the bobbin at the end of the day.  Yes, there is a bobbin in there somewhere!  I was determined it was all going to fit on that bobbin.

This then sat around until last week when I finally decided what to spin for the other ply.  I dredged through my bags of World of Wool botany lap waste and came up with these colours, which I thought complimented the fibres I'd already spun.

I fed these onto my drum carder and added some sparkly white tencel for highlight.  This is what it looked like after one pass, but I thought it would benefit from another journey through the tines.

After the second pass I was happy that it would compliment what I'd already spun without stealing the limelight :-

The finished bobbin

And here it is plied together (note the fluffy feather in the centre) :-

210g, 292 yds/223m.

Here's another feather :-

I think this yarn deserves something a bit different, and I may just summon all my courage and have a go at weaving with it.  I've only had my loom 23 months, so it's probably time it had an airing.  In the meantime, I'm so pleased with the way the feathers performed, I need to spin more.  Now, where can I buy lots of feathers?  We live in a duck-producing area of France and have a friend who has a duck farm . . . maybe duck feathers would work?

Summer's Looming

Spent two afternoons this week assembling my new toy :-

I've been talking about getting a loom for a long time now, but didn't actually take the plunge until recently.  Being a total beginner at weaving, I'd planned to buy quite a simple loom - a rigid heddle - which I hoped even I could understand!  That was until I was "talked into" buying something a little more complex by Eric and my friend who is a weaver.  They seem to have great faith that I will actually be able to drive this thing, so I hope I don't disappoint them.  Looks a bit scary to me.

This is a 32" Ashford 8-shaft table loom on which I look forward to making lots of gorgeous woven fabrics . . . you know, I'll just wack out the odd table cloth, set of curtains, dress fabric etc.  Ha!!  That'll be the day!  Maybe I'll just start with a table mat or dishcloth.  I'm beginning to feel a bit "in at the deep end, over my head" here.

Said friend's hubby also made me this for my birthday last month :-

Although I knew this was a warping frame, I didn't like to admit at the time that I wasn't entirely sure what it did!  I've since been surfing on youtube and found some very useful videos for both this and the loom (all Ashford videos - excellent), and finally feel like I might actually be able to get started without too much help.  So, all I need now is a bit lot of time, some yarns to practice with, and a good book at my side (which I should be picking up in a couple of days), so wish me luck, and if you're a fly on my wall - close your ears, there's bound to be a lot of swearing going on.