Blue Saturn Mohair Shawl - Design A2

I knew it wouldn't be long until I am back using more of the Colinette Yarns that I have in my yarn stash.  This time I have chosen a bright blue Mohair yarn in shade Blue Saturn and it is an Aran weight yarn in 78% Mohair, 13% Wool and 9% Nylon.

I chose a simplistic pattern due to the fuzziness of the Mohair and this pattern is adaptable to the amount of yarn that you have.  I cast on on 13th January and you work the basic pattern from the top down and then you decide how many rows of eyelet lace you want to work and if you want to split it up into sections of eyelet lace and plain and how many rows of each.  This way you can use up all of your yarn and make a bigger shawl or just work the minimum if you have a partial skein, its up to you.

It appeared slightly out of shape when it came off the needles on 14th January 2015 but as always a soak and block has rectified that.   A simple, quick yet elegant shawl to make.

Hillcrescent Farm Jacob Fleece No.4, Part I

This is yet another of the Jacob fleece that I bought from Hillcrescent Farm back in June 2013.  This time I selected Fleece No.4.

This was sheared on 26th May 2013, had not been skirted and had a good amount of surface VM.  After I skirted it it weighs 1.4kg, photos were taken after skirting had taken place.  I think this is from the sheep on the right in the photo.

I separated the colours as best as I could into black/brown, white and a mixture of the colours.  I washed and dried the colours separately and was left with 823g of clean fleece, a loss of around 577g of dirt and grease, broken down as follows: 364g black/brown, 247g white and 212g mixed colour.

The White Fleece

I took the 247g of white fleece and combed it, removing all the short bits and rubbish leaving me with 110g of hand combed nests.  I totally forgot to take any work in progress photos of this, what am I like?  Anyway, wanting to make a "negative" version of Remember, Remember the 5th of November yarn that I made from Hillcrescent Jacob Fleece No.5, I decided to spin this in the same way but instead of using Black Jacob, I used White Jacob.  In total, with the addition of the colourful wool, I have 149g/283m and I call this "Gunpowder, Treason and Plot".

I will blog about the black and the mixed colours from this fleece when I get around to working on them.