Tag: Alpaca & BFL

One, Two, Three, Four!

Harriette has been complaining that she’s not been doing any modelling work. In fact it’s so long since she last modelled anything that she’s forgotten when she last did some. She’s currently stood in my study with some hand-dyed skeins of yarn draped around her and she says that I should either do something with them or put them away as she’s not a hat stand (technically she’s a clothes stand – shush, best not tell her).

Sadly I didn’t think to cater to Harriette’s aspirations when taking pictures of my first object. I think I was too busy making patterns with it! It’s a scarf and I finished it in the run up to Christmas.

scarf-folds

scarf-side

scarf-roll

scarf-ends

The yarn is handspun blue faced Leicester and bamboo that I carded into batts to make a gradient coreless core-spun yarn.

Over the Christmas/New Year period I finished plying some polworth yarn. I threaded both plies with beads and used the intermittent coils technique I learnt on Sarah Anderson’s course. My coils improved as I went along (my hands got better at controlling and moving the twist and coordinating with my feet!) but when I do another intermittent coiled yarn I’ll put more twist into the singles. I haven’t yet decided on a destination for this, or what technique I’ll use for it.

coils

During the summer I spun up some alpaca and bfl. In October I started spinning up some merino and seacell and last week I finally finished the spinning and started plying them together. Even at the last moment I wasn’t sure that plying them together was the thing to do, but as the colours have gone onto the bobbin I’ve been pleased with the result. I’m surprised that two very strongly coloured singles are making a paler more subtle plied yarn. I’m interested to see what the finished skeins will be like.

basket

abms-plying

Finally, I’m still working on the knitted shawl it’s been quite a few places with me, including a beach at the end of October while the children dug big holes in the sand.

sandyshawl

While at the beach I took the opportunity of going for an early morning walk and taking some photos. Here’s sun, sea and sand just after dawn:

sun and sea

sandysun

Harriette is really keen that I finish the shawl soon, so we can go outside for a bit and get some nice photos that include her. She’s hoping to see some daffodils.

To Autumn

We’ve had a run of lovely summery weather, warm with soft mellow sunlight.  There’s been the odd day of rain, but otherwise the weather’s been the best that autumn can bring.  Keats’s poem of mists and mellow fruitfulness, late flowers for the bees and a maturing of the season expresses perfectly this year’s autumn.

heptacodium
Heptacodium miconioides in my front garden.  This has become quite a large shrub and is loved by the bees for its late flowers.

Autumn has brought the start of a new school year, and my youngest is now at school too!  I’ve been working on getting my study/workroom organised, as it has become the room things get dumped in.  Earlier this week, after doing some work on it, I explained to one of my children that getting something from the room could take a while, as it was now “upside down, inside out and backwards”!  It’s a work-in-progress, but at least it now has lovely curtains (with thanks to my mum for giving them to me) and the orchids look pretty on the windowsill.

orchid

I’ve been on tenterhooks all through this week, hoping the good weather would hold – because I was due to spin in a field today!

dahlia
Huge dahlias in a local garden

Fortunately the day was the best it could be.  Pleasantly warm with just a hint of a breeze, though I think it’s best that the hog roast isn’t mentioned.

medlar
Medlars in the same local garden

I took a hand-dyed top of blended alpaca and blue face Leicester to spin.  I get very cold hands in the winter, so I hope the alpaca will make for very warm gloves.

bobbins
Two bobbins in the sun

I haven’t decided how to ply these yet.  Whether to ply with a plain single, to Navaho ply, or to ply together.  I shall let the bobbins rest awhile until I make a decision (but not too long, gloves for winter would be very nice!)

I’d overestimated how long it would take me to do the spinning.  After just an hour I found I’d already spun the first 50g! However, with breaks for tea and sandwiches, plus a few rows of knitting on my shawl, I was able to eke out the second half of the spinning for the whole afternoon.

basket
My spinning basket in the garden with the results of today’s spinning and knitting

It was a lovely way to spend a day.  Spinning outside on a warm, sunny day, in the company of friends, with interested visitors, of all ages, asking us questions and sometimes having a go themselves.