Fleecy

Last weekend I took advantage of a rare spot of sunshine and finally got round to sorting and washing my fleeces.

It was no easy task! For those of you who don’t spin, a sheep’s fleece isn’t usually uniform in it’s fineness or staple length throughout – some parts are coarser and others are softer making it necessary to ‘sort’ the fleece.  Although it’s easy to tell the difference between the coarsest parts and the finest part, the gradations in between can present a bit more of a challenge to a novice like me. It was good experience though and I guess the more fleeces you handle, the easier it becomes. Just need to spin it all now

Barter

Last week I managed to exchange a gallon of our Elderflower Champagne for these….

The fleece on the left is from a Whitefaced Woodland and the one on the right came off a Jacob Sheep. I think I got a pretty good deal!

Other woolly goings-on this week have involved a spot of natural dyeing with Kamala extract….

and a spot of spinning……

This was some jacob ‘humbug’ roving that was a dream to spin. I can see why Jacob is recommended to beginner spinners – it’s the easiest thing I’ve spun and, although not the softest fibre out there, it makes up for it by being wonderfully light and airy.

Fibre-fueled Friday

Well, I’ve finally finished spinning up my experimental madder dyed roving and thought you might like to see…

I’m pleased with how it’s turned out – I wanted a sort of semi-solid effect with subtle colour shifts and I think that’s pretty much what I got.

In between ‘play dates’, cake baking (it’s someone special’s birthday party tomorrow) and jam-making, I also squeezed in a spot more dyeing. This time I used sanderswood and oak galls and ended up with this….

Again, a subtle colour but really rather lovely. One of the things I love about natural dyeing is how all the colours seem to compliment each other so well. See:

Some of these you’ve seen before but, in case you need a reminder, from left to right we have:

nettle, oak galls plus sanderswood, acacia gum first dyebath, acacia gum exhaust, experimental madder, madder.

I love this picture – it makes me feel immensely proud. As well as being dyed by me, all the skeins except the sanderswood one were handspun by me. It makes me realise how far I’ve come with the whole spininng and dyeing lark…. which brings me on to an Annoucement …… drumroll please….. I’ve just booked a place at a craft fair – my first as a spinner/dyer/crocheter – so I’m excited and nervous in equal measure. The fair I’ve booked isn’t until the autumn so that should give me plenty of time to build up some stock. Although rather apprehensive as to whether my stuff is good enough to sell, I’m really keen to get back into the whole craft fair ‘scene’. I did a few fairs pre-baby (selling papercrafts) and I really loved getting to meet customers face-to-face – online selling certainly has it’s advantages but I get a real buzz from chatting to people about my items, explaining how they were made and being able to share my enthusiasm. Craft fairs are also great as you get to meet other craftspeople who are exhibiting, have a chin-wag and admire their work. I must admit though, I often ended up spending more than I earned as I found it impossible to resist all the lovely items on offer! Anyhow, enough gushing about all that…on to gushing about something else. Take a look at what landed on my doorstep today….

It’s some lovely raw Zwartbles fleece, sent by a fellow blogger, Colour it Green. I’m really touched by her generosity and am looking forward to having a go at spinning it. One more breed to cross off my list of fleeces to try….. and yes, I really do have such a list……..

Natural Dyeing: Acacia Gum

This is the Shetland wool I dyed using Acacia Gum extract all spun and navajo plyed. I’m rather pleased with it – it’s a lovely unusual shade – not quite pink but not fully beige – I’ve dubbed it cafe au lait for now and think it’s a perfect shade for baby items. It’s feminine enough for a little girl whilst still having an earthiness about it – plus any alternative to the ubiquitous baby pink is good in my books! 

I must confess, after some only partially successful natural dyeing with plant material this weekend (more on that in a future post), I’m starting to be seduced by the natural dye extracts. I think part of the reason is that I’m about to book a place at a craft show in autumn so the ability to repeat colours more accurately and speed up the dyeing process suddenly seem a lot more appealing!

Of course there’s absolutely no reason why I need choose one method over the other and I imagine I’ll end up doing a bit of both – at least until I have room to grow my own dyeplants. 

More Spinning and Dyeing (now there’s a surprise…)

Lets start with the spinning. I haven’t managed too much this week as I’m trying to spin some very fine yarn and it’s taking a lot longer than usual. I did manage to squeeze in time for a couple more navajo plyed yarns though. First off, this is the BFL roving I bought from Spindlefrog at Wonderwool spun and navajo plyed.

I’m very proud of this yarn – it’s my best to date – so here’s another picture of it….

and one more for good measure…

I’ve set this aside for now as I might offer it for sale once I’ve got a few more saleable yarns to go with it. I’m thinking of booking a place at a craft fair in September but I’m not sure my current level of output is enough to fill a stall – we’ll see, I need to mull it over a bit more first. 

Anyhow, buoyed by the success of the previous yarn, I then decided to get a bit experimental and try spinning a thick and thin very softly spun yarn which resulted in this:

Less pleased with this one but it was good practice and I’m sure it’ll be ok crocheted up – when I can think of something to make from it that is….

Finally, I also managed a bit of dyeing – this time using Acacia Gum extract. This was my first time using extracts and I’m not sure I’m a fan yet – I can see the advantages (repeatable colours, longer shelf-life, ease of mixing, time saving etc) but to me it feels less natural somehow. I have no idea how the dyes are extracted for one thing or their provenance. A good deal of extracts do seem to be from quite exotic dyestuffs and I’ve mentioned before that my ideal dyestuffs are things I can either grow myself or forage for locally. Well, I’m pretty sure Acacia Gum doesn’t fall into either of those categories. Plus, although extracts are heralded as being much more convenient, I like the process of boiling up vats of plants – there’s a part of me that wants to mutter ‘hubble bubble” as I dye….

Still, I am very pleased with the colour so perhaps I shouldn’t complain too much. Here’s what the wool looks like in the process of being spun fairly finely:

I’m planning on navajo plying it eventually but must confess to being a wee bit nervous about it breaking during plying. I guess I’ll just have to give it a go and hope for the best!

mellow yellow

I’ve finally managed to make something with some of my handspun – yay! Remember my onion dyed wool? Well it’s been transformed into this:

For the main panel of the headscarf, I used the stitch pattern from Amy O’Neill Houck’s Alpine Frost Scarf (ravelry link) which was published in the Winter 2008 issue of Interweave Crochet. I worked up the panel until it was the right length to go from ear to ear on my then blocked it to open open the stitch pattern. After that, I rejoined the yarn and worked a row of double crochet followed by 8 rows of double crochet (US sc) reducing by 2 stitches per row (one at either end). I then switched to treble crochet for the narrow part of the scarf (purely because I find double crochet mind-numbingly slow) and continued until the scarf was almost long enough to go around my head. I then switched back to double crochet and started increasing by 2 stitches per row until the scarf matched the width of the panel again. I then joined the two ends with a row of double crochet.

I really like the stitch I used. It’s beautiful and simple and I’ll definitely be making the scarf at some point – perhaps as a christmas present for someone… I’ve learnt that it’s never too early to start making christmas presents!

More spinning and some thoughts on navajo plying

Well, seeing as I’ve managed a whole three posts without using the words ‘spinning’, ‘wool’ or ‘yarn’, I think I can allow myself to indulge in a post purely about spinning today! So, without further ado, here are my recent spinning efforts…

First off we have some 2-ply Bluefaced Leicester in shades of blue and green (I know it looks mostly blue in the pic but there is green there too). The roving had been hand-dyed by a lovely lady I met at the Smallholders Show and I really wish I’d bought more. Before now, my wheel spinning had been quite fine, which is all well and good but I was worried that I was settling into a rut so I made a conscious effort to spin a thicker yarn this time. I haven’t measured the wpi but I’d guess the yarn is roughly 4ply / fingering weight. I’m incredibly pleased with it – I feel it’s the best spinning I’ve done so far and is maybe even of saleable quality, although I don’t plan to start selling quite yet – I still need plenty more practice, as you can see:

This started life as some really beautiful handpainted roving but sadly the spun yarn is disappointing. Aside from some generally poor spinning on my part (I was overtired and should have really given myself a night off), I think the main problem was my plying method. To make 2-ply I usually spin two bobbin-fulls of singles, pop them on my bobbin holder and spin them together anticlockwise onto a third bobbin. Up until now, this method has served me reasonably well as I’ve been spinning solid colours or rovings with very subtle colour shifts (like the BFL above). However, as the colour changes are quite distinct in this yarn I think a different plying method would have been more appropriate so I decided it was time to learn how to navajo ply. Navajo plying has a number of advantages over my usual plying technique as it allows you to make a three ply yarn from one bobbin of singles, meaning you have no leftover singles and it also allows you to keep colour changes distinct. I’m not sure how well I can describe the technique but you’re basically making a chain, similar to a crochet chain, the three parts of which you ply together. For a better description of the technique plus a demo, take a look here. Although all the same shade, I decided to use some alpaca that I’d spun to practice on and here’s how it turned out…

…not bad but not brilliant either! Navajo plying requires a lot more dexterity than my usual plying method and it took me a while to get the hang of it. As a result some of the earlier plying got a bit over-twisted meaning the resulting yarn is not as soft as I’d like. It’s also harder to disguise uneven spinning but hopefully as my spinning improves, this will become less of a problem. The other big drawback is that you can see the chain ‘joins’ in places which appear a bit knobbly. However, as I could only spot a few of these, I’m wondering if it’s again a question of technique and hope that with practice I’ll find a way of disguising these. Despite these issues, I do like the technique – once you establish a steady rhythm it’s really rather relaxing. Although not specific to navajo plying, I also like how 3-ply yarns are smoother than 2-ply, with the different strands seeming to fit around each other but most of all, I love the fact that there are no leftovers. Oh, I’m proud of this yarn for another reason too – it’s my first fully DIY yarn as I carded the alpaca into rolags prior to spinning. I can’t say I love carding but I’m gradually getting better at it and perhaps when I’m quicker it’ll seem less of a chore…. if not I’ll just have to start saving for a drum carder! 

RWAS Smallholder and Garden Show

 

On Saturday we spent a wonderful day mooching around the Smallholder and Garden Show at the Royal Welsh Showground at Builth Wells.

As would-be smallholders, the day provided both information and inspiration. Naturally, there were lots of animals on show, plus talks, craft demonstrations, and tons of mouthwatering delights on offer at the Farmers Market.

Of course, I spent most of my time in the sheep area – eyeing up the rare breeds, watching a shearing demonstration, handling various fleeces and wondering how long a whole fleece would take me to spin….

In the end I didn’t buy a fleece but I did come home with some lovely hand-dyed rovings and an intention to get a fleece locally when my carding is up to scratch. 

In the Speakers Corner we listened to a discussion about the future of the sheep industry in Wales followed by a scary but ultimately inspiring talk about Peak Oil and Transition Towns. In fact, there was a distinctly ‘green’ feel to the show with a whole area dedicated to green technology and solutions.

Perhaps the best thing about the show though were the conversations we had. Everyone was so friendly! I had a lovely chat about natural dyeing with Emily from Llynfi textile company, got inspired talking to the Transition Network lady, met a fellow blogger and struck up a conversation with anyone I saw at a spinning wheel… 

a bit more about my nettle-dyed wool…

Just a quickie today as it’s been a busy weekend. We visited the Smallholder Show at the Royal Welsh Showground yesterday and I was in sheep heaven! More about that soon….

Anyhow, I just wanted to show you what the nettle-dyed wensleydale looks like now it’s all been spun….

I’m really pleased with how it turned out – pleased and also quite surprised. I didn’t enjoy spinning the wensleydale as much as usual – I found it difficult and was certain that the end result would be a right-off. Wensleydale wool has quite a long staple length – up to 30cm – much longer than I’m used to and I think that’s why I found it more of a challenge. I’m sure with practice it would become easier and given the lovely lustre of the wool, I think it’s certainly worth spending time practicing. Wensleydale sheep are classed as ‘At Risk’ by the Rare Breeds Survival Trust and, as I’m keen support the conservation of rare breeds via my spinning, that’s another reason for me to persevere.

Natural Dyeing: Madder

When I first got interested in natural dyeing, there were two dye plants that held a particular fascination for me. One of these was woad, due to it’s association with the ancient britons, and the other was madder. As my background is in archaeology and archives, both of these plants were familiar to me from historical and classical writings and I was very keen to try them out. 

Dyeing with woad is a very different process to my usual dyeing method so I decided to start off with madder. Although native to Africa and Asia, Madder has become naturalized in many parts of Europe and can be successfully grown in the UK. It has a long history as a dyeplant with evidence for its use dating as far back as c. 3000 BC. References to it appear in classical texts and medieval writings. More recently, it was used to dye soldiers uniforms red. You can read more about its historical uses here.

The dyeing: I premordanted the wool with alum and cream of tartar three days prior to dyeing. When the wool was cool, I rinsed it then wrapped it (still damp) in a plastic bag. This is called ‘ageing’ the wool and is supposed to produce better results when using madder.  For the dyebath I used 100% chopped madder root. I placed the madder and pre-mordanted wool in the pan and left them overnight. The next morning I brought the dyepot to simmering point and let in simmer away very slowly for an hour. Well, that was the plan anyhow – I have a very fierce hob and to keep the temperature below boiling, I have to turn off the heat every now and then. I kept doing this for the first half hour but then promptly forgot all about it and when I next checked it, the dyepot was bubbling away. Apparently, higher temperatures bring out browner tones in the dye and this is probably why my wool ended up a rusty orange colour – not that I mind, I love the colour. Next time, I’ll try to keep the temperature low though so I can compare the colours. I’m also keen to start experimenting a bit more with my dyeing and seeing how various additions to the dyebath (such as lemon juice, iron water, oak galls etc) affect the end result.

That said, I’m really pleased with the colour – it’s reminiscent of autumn leaves and puts me in mind of all the vibrant colours we saw when we visited Westonbirt last autumn. I’d love to dye enough wool for a whole cardigan but I haven’t got a big enough dyepan at the moment – something to bear in mind though…..wouldn’t it be wonderful to have a cardigan that was totally handmade – hand-dyed, handspun and (hand)crocheted?!

About the yarn: I opted for a rare breed wool – Whitefaced Woodland - as this is a breed I’m interested in keeping when we’re in a position to buy land – at the moment it’s just part of my ‘fantasy flock’! The wool was lovely to spin. It did feel a tad coarser than some of the other wools I’ve used but still spun up into a nice soft yarn which I think will be soft enough to wear next to the skin. The yarn is fairly fine with a WPI of 26 (which seems to be my default setting!) and is 260m in length and weighs a little over 100g. I’ve had lots of ideas how I’d like to use it – an autumn jumper for baby small is top of the list but I’m not sure if I have enough yardage so it might end up as a bag or hat….. I’ll keep you posted!