Spinning up Mardi Gras

Oooh I just couldn't wait to spin this one up, its just sitting there looking at me, pleading with me to make it into beautiful yarn.  I've never spun anything up so quickly after receiving it but its just so pretty and so soft I have to do it. This is May's Fibre Club package.

It only took me a couple of days to make two singles and ply them together.  I was hoping that I had spun it finer than I discovered I had when I finished.  I'm a little out of practice as I've not done all that much spinning these past 18 months, well, not compared to in the past at least so my judgement of fineness when spinning is a little "off".

Never mind though, it's beautiful, it's soft and squishy, having to prise it away from my kids who just want to cuddle it and keep touching it.  This is 102g/350m of fingering weight yarn.

Blue Cotton Wrap - Design A193

On with the next of these shawls, similar yarn by Garnstudio, I don't really know what the difference is as its the same thickness, same fibre content, feels the same etc.  This time I chose four shades of blue that work well together.

I really like this one but then I am more of a blue-purple-turquoise girl myself anyway.  This one would also work well dressed down and worn casually with jeans I think.  Once again, I didn't take any work-in-progress photos.  What am I like!

Pink Cotton Wrap - Design A193

Following on from the dusky pink wrap we have this brighter pink wrap.  I chose 3 shades of pink from the same cotton yarn as I used last time but this time I didn't take any work-in-progress photos.  Whoops!

I think these work together pretty well.

Enough of the pink now, will choose another colour for the next one.

Dusky Pink Cotton Wrap - Design A193

So I promised I would make more cotton wraps soon as not everyone wants to wear wool, some people want wool free wraps.

I bought quite a few colours in the yarn that I finally managed to source and some of these shawls will be three colours and some will be four colour, depending on what was available.  My original in this design was done in 4 colours.

This time I am using 100% cotton yarn from Garnstudio and this is Drops Paris in three shades of pink.

I didn't take many work-in-progress photos, I just got stuck in and got it made.

I'm not a fan of pink, the colour not the singer, I actually like Pink! the singer, but this one isn't too bad.

My next wrap is another one of these but what colour?

It's here!!!! May 2018's Fibre Club - Mardi Gras

Since receiving the letter and being notified of dispatch I have been watching out for the postman and happy to say that my fibre club parcel has now arrived.

I'm really excited as its absolutely gorgeous, mostly purple with just a hint of green but lots of sparkle and it is oooohhhhhhh soooooooo soft as it is 71% Superfine Merino, 13% Merino and 16% Stellina (sparkle) and it looks like there are two colours of Stellina, gold and green.  I was a little disappointed that it didn't come as a braid but I soon rectified that to show it off to its true potential.  I can't wait to get spinning.

I've signed up for a monthly fibre club

I've recently signed up for a monthly fibre club.  I will get one parcel a month of a surprise blend and colour of spinning fibre.  This is a great way for me to try fibres I've never spun before and colours that I may not ordinarily choose myself.

The fibre seller runs two different fibres clubs and I have chosen the "Time Travellers Club", which is historically inspired, taking a period of history to use as her inspiration for the colours and fibres.

Just before she sends the parcels of fibre to the club members she sends out an e-mail containing a "letter" explaining the theme chosen for this month and giving hints at the colours and fibre blend.

The letter reads:

"May 7th marks the 300th anniversary of the founding of New Orleans.  It was established by Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne de Bienville on behalf of the French Mississippi Company and was named after the Duke of Orleans, who was acting as regent of France at that time. Our fibre this month celebrates the most New Orleans of festivals; Mardi Gras. The culmination of the festival is on the Tuesday before Ash Wednesday, which marks the beginning of Lent. Mardi Gras means Fat Tuesday in French. In the UK we’re more familiar with it as Shrove Tuesday, or even Pancake Day. Lent in the Christian calendar was meant to be a time of fasting, and it was not permitted to eat certain food stuffs. They therefore had to be used up before Lent began, so Shrove Tuesday, or Mardi Gras ended up being something of a feast! 

The origins of the current Mardi Gras parade pre-date the founding of the city. Bienville established a settlement 60- miles to the south on Fat Tuesday in 1699, it was named Pointe du Mardi Gras. Throughout the area a form of Mardi Gras would be celebrated in settlements around the area by the Beouf Gras Society. Boeuf Gras refers to a fattened calf, which would be eaten on Shrove Tuesday. A Bulls Head would be pushed around on wheels, before people sat down to a pre-Lenten feast. In New Orleans the first reference to the Mardi Gras carnival appears in 1781, and by the 1830’s this has turned in to street processions with masked horse riders and people in carriages. The processions were lit by men carrying dazzling gas-light torches. Processions continued, and became ever more elaborate, with different krewe’s forming, and trying to out-do each other to produce the best parade. 

In 1872 a group of businessmen invited a King of Carnival called Rex, to reside over the first daytime parade. From this point the Mardi Gras started to use “official” colours of purple, gold and green. Popular legend has it that Rex picked these colours to honour the visiting Russian Grand Duke Alexei Alexandrovich Romanoff (the 5th child of Alexander II, who was the Grandfather of Nicholas II, the last Tsar of Russia). He ordered that the balconies be decorated in banners of these colours. The legend states that Rex also announced the symbolism of these colours, but there’s no evidence to support this. What is true however is that a king and a kingdom need a flag. Most European states have flags containing 3 colours, so it makes sense for Rex to replicate that. Purple has long been the colour most associated with royalty, as is Gold. The final colour is probably simple colour preference… out of all the heraldic colours (Red, Blue, Purple, Green & Black) the only one that really “goes” is green. In 1892 a Rex themed parade gave each colour a meaning, and that symbolism has been around ever since. Purple Represents Justice. Green Represents Faith. Gold Represents Power."

This sounds like quite an exciting colour combination and from her club discussion thread, which she sends you the link to if you're a member, she has stated that its a lovely soft Superfine Merino.

Once it arrives I will post again with photos.

Pure Cotswold Lamb Shawl - Design S203

This is my second attempt at this shawl, the first being when I discovered that I didn't have enough of the yarn I was making it with, or should I say that the figures for the amount of metres of yarn I would need was massively out in the pattern.  This design was originally a really old Danish pattern for a doily and has been re-purposed/adapted/re-published as a shawl design using yarn rather than fine crochet thread.   Had I read to the end of the pattern before I started I would have seen that there was a note from the designer to say that she had run out of yarn before the end of the design.  My question is "why didn't she have the yarn requirement figures adjusted before publishing the pattern?"

Anyway, the yarn I was originally making this design with was used on another shawl and for this design I chose some Cotswold Lamb that I spun from an award winning flock, not only because its beautiful but because I know I will not run out of yarn this time as I have so many skeins of this and I used three full skeins plus a tiny bit from another one.

I had a total panic towards the end of making this shawl.  With 15 rows left to complete the metal knitting tip fell off one end of the wire of the circular needles.  With more than 800 stitches on the needles at the time you can imagine that I let out a little scream but thankfully it happened just after I had finished knitting a row and was putting my knitting down to take a break so all that fell off was 2 stitches but they were so clearly defined I was able to just pop them back onto the wire until I super glued the end back onto the needle.

The cast off was a special stretchy kind of cast off that took me over 2 1/2 hours to do so that the edging was stretchy enough to make the beautiful shaped edge you see below.

 I have plenty of yarn left so keep a lookout for more Cotswold lamb shawls in the future.

We have bees!

A couple of years ago we bought a wall mountable bee house from Aldi to see if we would get anything use it.  We almost forgot about it, it certainly wasn't used last year by bees but this year they have moved in.  Hurrah.  I've only recently bought my new camera and have not got used to it yet so I apologise for the poor quality and the lack of clarity but you can see them coming and going.

What we have are Mason Bees.  Industrious little no-sting solitary bees that are far more efficient at pollinating than the honey bee but they don't produce honey.  What they do is go collect pollen and they fill those little tubes, constantly returning to the same tube until they have filled a section of it with enough pollen and then they lay an egg and then seal it with dirt to create a cell and they do this until they have filled the entire tube.  Once they have filled one tube, they move onto another one and do this until they are finished laying eggs.

Update:  On 7th June, on BBC's Springwatch, Chris Packham and Michaela Strachan done a feature on Mason Bees.  Its really interesting and shows how the bees create the cells and even shows the grubs that have hatched from the eggs.  The section runs from 15:20 to about 21:45 and includes information about the Great British Bee Count, which I took part in this year and found to be both informative and really enjoyable and thankfully I am not a "wafter" or "panicker", I am very calm around bees and so was able to participate easily.  I learned that there are far more different species of bees around my garden than I could ever have imagined.