Tuesday 18 June 2013

Days ...

Happy days are ...

Spinning days

Blue Corriedale all spun up and plied
 Some Cotswold fleece spun and plied
Basket of recent spinning - the Purple/grey 3 ply blend, 
the Jacobs n-ply and the blue Corriedale

Harvesting days
Broad Beans from the allotment
and lots of Sorrel but no photo

Funny face days
 checking out the new camera
face mask making for school project

Gift making days
coaster knitting and weaving (and crochet edging) all handspun


Organising baskets of joy, planning projects to make

basket of handspun yarns (just one of the full baskets!)

Wednesday 5 June 2013

Monet felted bag and spinning days

Nothing like Woolly Wednesday to get me thinking back over the month at what I've been up to, and looking forward to the month ahead.

So first is a ta-da moment ... my finished handspun, hand knitted, felted bag. The fibre was dyed (not by me) in Monet inspired colours, spun on two bobbins and plied together with the a gradient effect of lighter shades to darker shades. The yarn was than separated into two balls of equal size to knit a circular bag using up all the yarn for the circles.

A contrasting fibre was spun to knit the gusset in a plain colour so as to get the maximum of the Monet yarn in the circles. I had the perfect fibre in my stash for this.

Yarn for gusset of my bag

Here is the bag pre-felting.

Knitted bag awaiting felting

And here is the bag post felting, really giving that Monet artwork effect. I am so pleased with the results and have received many compliments about my bag which is now my knitting project bag.

 Finished felted bag and close up below

Talking of knitting projects, these were in the bag but now off the needles and ready to be gifted to a friend.

Handspun socks

Now the project in the bag is a hat for me using this handspun yarn from some fibre received via a Ravelry Secret Santa swap. The tale of this knitting project is that because it was a hat I thought it might be wise to break with my tradition of not knitting swatches and knit one to check the gauge was good for a good fitting hat. Well. Never again! My gauge was perfect for the pattern, I picked the correct size for my head but after knitting a while it became evident it was going to be huge! So it was ripped back and re-sized.


In spinning news, I've been busy with the wheel at home and out and about with the Guild demonstrating. I have some of the blue yarn left over from knitting the gusset to my bag, and more of this fibre to spin soon.

Bobbins of spun singles

Another fibre spun and on bobbins was this purple/blue mixed blend above, but rather than just plying these together I wanted to spin a grey fibre and create a 3 ply yarn for a project this year. So I picked up some Shetland grey and set to spinning that up to ply with these bobbins. I spun the Shetland at Mottisfont Abbey for a country fayre day with the guild.

Spinning Shetland 

I'm very pleased with this yarn and think the grey has just enhanced and brought together the colours beautifully. This was plied at Mottisfont Abbey, where I had a few requests to buy the skeins! The rest was plied whilst spinning at Manor Farm for woolly week - our local working farm museum that we regularly spin at, also home to the filming of Wartime Farm last year, hence my friend watching over me spinning!
Spinning position set up next to Peter Ginn!
 Plying a 3ply yarn
resulting yarn

Having finished this plying, I then moved onto spinning some Jacobs fibre that I received in the secret Santa swap too. This is commercially carded and separated into the different shades, so I am spinning it to the gradient of these colours and will then navajo ply it to retain them. I had thought to dye this before spinning but decided to spin it first then decide whether to leave it as the natural colours or dye it.

 Spinning Jacob fleece
Fibre shades and bobbin on the wheel

Keeping busy spinning and knitting x
Cone and link up for Woolly Wednesday and share your adventures.

Woolly Wednesday June 2013

Welcome to the Woolly Wednesday gathering for June, a busy month in the woolly world, shearing time and fleece acquirung maybe? Or spinning at shows?

Whether you are a regular or a new visitor - come and share what you have been doing with wool or fibres in the last month, or plans for the month(s) ahead. All crafts and inspiration welcome. I ook forward to regularly sharing this space with you here.

 Woolly Wednesday falls on the first Wednesday of every month. Think of it as a creative gathering, or a virtual guild meeting. Bring along any fibre-related project, whatever it may be. If you are starting out in fibre arts, share what you are interested in pursuing. Let's show each other our projects, share any tips, tutorials, ask questions, seek advice. Add your post to the Linky below and we can visit one another and share, support, encourage, be inspired!. 

 Please feel free to add the button to your blog's sidebar with a link to Woolly Wednesday, a lovely way for us all to link together. Just copy the image to your desktop and then in your blog design - add a gadget, add picture - upload the picture and then add the url (http://raisingseedlings.blogspot.co.uk/) and the image will link to here. Join in with the linky below, link to a recent blog post of your woolly adventures in the last month or to a post in the month ahead, I look forward to seeing you, no time limits just join in when you can.

 I shall enjoy reading all about your woolly days and be posting mine later too x