The colour is hard to capture but it is a greeny-grey with small amounts of other colours. This one will take a little bit of time to grow on me, I think. It will probably spin and knit up quite plain.
Tuesday 25 September 2018
September's Fibre has arrived - Penicillin
Considering this months fibre colour is based on Penicillin as per the letter, it doesn't look mouldy at all. I quite like it and its a new to me fibre by way of the Llama content. I've never spun Llama. I have spun Alpaca, which is often confused with a Llama but they are very different in temperament and fleece, so this is going to be interesting. Its 75% Corriedale, 25% Llama and it is soft and lovely. She is using some new packaging, that is eco-friendly and whilst it is not recommended to be put in the household recycling bin with other recyclable plastics it is recommended that it goes either with other household waste in your regular bins or to put them in the compost and let nature do its thing. As always it has come unbraided so I have braided it myself as I think that shows the colour off much better and its better for storage in my opinion.
The colour is hard to capture but it is a greeny-grey with small amounts of other colours. This one will take a little bit of time to grow on me, I think. It will probably spin and knit up quite plain.
The colour is hard to capture but it is a greeny-grey with small amounts of other colours. This one will take a little bit of time to grow on me, I think. It will probably spin and knit up quite plain.
Saturday 22 September 2018
Spinning the Golden Carrot
I've sat and spun up something special. This is the original post about how I made the dye and what fibre I dyed. I added more to it and blended it all together in this post. Now I have gotten around to spinning it and I am thrilled with the results.
I have called it Golden Carrot and its a fingering weight yarn 92g/316m and is 49% Merino, 28% Alpaca, 7% Mulberry Silk, 6% Angelina, 5% BFL, 5% Sari Silk. Well, you certainly can't buy that in the shops!
I have called it Golden Carrot and its a fingering weight yarn 92g/316m and is 49% Merino, 28% Alpaca, 7% Mulberry Silk, 6% Angelina, 5% BFL, 5% Sari Silk. Well, you certainly can't buy that in the shops!
Wednesday 19 September 2018
I've had some goodies arrive
Whilst I was working in the front garden today the postman bought me a nice parcel. One item is something that once spun will make a fabulous shawl and the other is so that I have small amounts of different fibre in different colours to use with my blending hackle to create my own interesting fibre blends for spinning.
This is another Ingredients Box from my regular fibre supplier and this colourway is called Leaf Kicker, very autumnal. The pack contains: 20g each of three shades of Tussah Silk, 10g each of two shades of Silk Noil, 10g each of two shades of Hemp, 10g each of two shades of Firestar (Trilobal Nylon) and 1g each of two shades of Angelina (in the little bags)
This is another Ingredients Box from my regular fibre supplier and this colourway is called Leaf Kicker, very autumnal. The pack contains: 20g each of three shades of Tussah Silk, 10g each of two shades of Silk Noil, 10g each of two shades of Hemp, 10g each of two shades of Firestar (Trilobal Nylon) and 1g each of two shades of Angelina (in the little bags)
This is a gradient pack in shade Sea Shell and its 50% Merino wool, 25% Shetland wool, 25% Seacell. There are 5 main shades in a gradient pack with smaller amounts of transition shades to produce a gradual shift in colour and not stripes. All the colourways are limited edition and so quite unique.
Septembers Fibre Club Letter
Its been very manic here, trying to make sure my youngest has all her uniform for secondary school, it has to be bought from a specialist supplier and I finally got the last specialist piece 3 days before she started her new school. Anyway, the next Fibre Club letter has arrived, yay.
The letter reads:
On the 28th of September 1928 Sir Alexander Fleming made an observation that changed the face of modern medicine. The Scot came back from a summer holiday and discovered that some of the bacteria he had been studying had been contaminated with mould growth. And here’s the crucial part, instead of just cleaning out the dishes, he made an observation, the bacteria he had been studying had been killed off by the mould. He recognised that discovery, wrote a scientific paper about his findings, and identified that if the mould growth could be industrialised it may be possible to use it to treat bacterial diseases. However, he neither had the resources or the knowledge to continue the development of the process to go from Penicillium mould to what we now call antibiotics.
It took another 10 years for the right person to come across Fleming’s scientific paper. Dr Florey was the director of the Sir William Dunn School of Pathology at Oxford University. He read the paper, and set one of the laboratory employees to work. Dr Ernst Chain was a Jewish German immigrant, and he developed a method of extracting the crucial compounds from Penicillium mould. The science was tested on a group of mice, who were infected with Streptococcus bacteria. Those that were injected with the Penicillin survived. At this point the science was sound, but a big problem still existed before Penicillin as a treatment became viable. It took 2000 litres of mould solution to treat a single case of sepsis in a human. Dr Norman Heatley was another member of the lab who worked on developing processes to produce the mould in large quantities. The drug was first put to the test in September 1940, but the lab couldn’t produce enough of the Penicillin to complete the course of treatment, the patient started to get better, but then the drug supply ran out, and he unfortunately died.
In the summer of 1941 the USA entered World War II and Florey and Heatley flew to America, together with American scientists they worked on developing methods to mass produce the drug. One of the key breakthroughs was when a laboratory assistant, Mary Hunt, bought a different mould species in to the lab for testing. This species of Penicillium yielded 200 times the amount of Penicillin as the original mould discovered by Fleming. By the end of the war American pharmaceutical companies were producing 650 billion units of Penicillin a month, the death rate from bacterial pneumonia in World War I was 18 percent, in World War II the use of antibiotics meant it fell to less than 1 percent.
Fleming actually had very little to do with the development of Penicillin as a drug, but he was still awarded the Nobel prize in 1945, along with Florey and Chain. In his acceptance speech Fleming warned that overuse of Penicillin could well lead to bacterial resistance. So next time you let a piece of bread go mouldy, look down at that patch of blue-green fuzz, and say thank you! Mouldy bread poultices had been used as treatment for wounds since ancient times, but taking a pill is definitely more convenient!
Hmmm, now thinking what colour to expect, possibly mossy greens and blues through to grey but in our house food gets eaten long before it has chance to go mouldy.
From the chat threads for this group she has revealed that its going to be a bit more fluffy than last months fibre, hmmmm.
The letter reads:
On the 28th of September 1928 Sir Alexander Fleming made an observation that changed the face of modern medicine. The Scot came back from a summer holiday and discovered that some of the bacteria he had been studying had been contaminated with mould growth. And here’s the crucial part, instead of just cleaning out the dishes, he made an observation, the bacteria he had been studying had been killed off by the mould. He recognised that discovery, wrote a scientific paper about his findings, and identified that if the mould growth could be industrialised it may be possible to use it to treat bacterial diseases. However, he neither had the resources or the knowledge to continue the development of the process to go from Penicillium mould to what we now call antibiotics.
It took another 10 years for the right person to come across Fleming’s scientific paper. Dr Florey was the director of the Sir William Dunn School of Pathology at Oxford University. He read the paper, and set one of the laboratory employees to work. Dr Ernst Chain was a Jewish German immigrant, and he developed a method of extracting the crucial compounds from Penicillium mould. The science was tested on a group of mice, who were infected with Streptococcus bacteria. Those that were injected with the Penicillin survived. At this point the science was sound, but a big problem still existed before Penicillin as a treatment became viable. It took 2000 litres of mould solution to treat a single case of sepsis in a human. Dr Norman Heatley was another member of the lab who worked on developing processes to produce the mould in large quantities. The drug was first put to the test in September 1940, but the lab couldn’t produce enough of the Penicillin to complete the course of treatment, the patient started to get better, but then the drug supply ran out, and he unfortunately died.
In the summer of 1941 the USA entered World War II and Florey and Heatley flew to America, together with American scientists they worked on developing methods to mass produce the drug. One of the key breakthroughs was when a laboratory assistant, Mary Hunt, bought a different mould species in to the lab for testing. This species of Penicillium yielded 200 times the amount of Penicillin as the original mould discovered by Fleming. By the end of the war American pharmaceutical companies were producing 650 billion units of Penicillin a month, the death rate from bacterial pneumonia in World War I was 18 percent, in World War II the use of antibiotics meant it fell to less than 1 percent.
Fleming actually had very little to do with the development of Penicillin as a drug, but he was still awarded the Nobel prize in 1945, along with Florey and Chain. In his acceptance speech Fleming warned that overuse of Penicillin could well lead to bacterial resistance. So next time you let a piece of bread go mouldy, look down at that patch of blue-green fuzz, and say thank you! Mouldy bread poultices had been used as treatment for wounds since ancient times, but taking a pill is definitely more convenient!
Hmmm, now thinking what colour to expect, possibly mossy greens and blues through to grey but in our house food gets eaten long before it has chance to go mouldy.
From the chat threads for this group she has revealed that its going to be a bit more fluffy than last months fibre, hmmmm.
Friday 14 September 2018
I've taken the front garden to task
I've gotten thoroughly fed up of the mess that the front garden has gotten into in recent times, a lot of this is due to the fact that I fell out of love with the house and felt vulnerable and threatened in my own garden due to the horrible neighbours living next door. I know that I have mentioned her and her kids before now, well, they are still here, they haven't moved out, more's the pity.
Something had to give. It either gets left in a mess and I put up with it or I muster up the physical and mental strength to tackle it and the neighbour. I decided that I would tackle the garden and her if need be. I had not got many plants left due to things they were doing to them, lack of care from me, the hot summer we've had and being choked out by what I thought was a creeping Sedum that turned out to be a similar looking weed.
I took advantage of the plants being thirsty to saturate the creeper in weed killer a couple of times over the school summer holidays to try and kill off the roots too, drink it up buddy! Inspired by our recent visit to the Isle of Wight and seeing all the lovely plants at Godshill Model Village I had already planned the garden out in my head and set about ordering all the plants in, which were due for delivery Mid-September, which gave me a few weeks to get it into a condition where it can be replanted up.
The weed was pretty much killed off on the surface so I raked off the dead foliage, which allowed me to see what plants were actually left and I have to say, not many! Before digging the garden over and getting any roots out I painted the fence blue and was entertained by some of the neighbours facial expressions as I did so. I just carried on painting chuckling to myself.
The first photo shows the overgrown garden, the other photos show the garden raked off and the fence painted. As always, our dog had to get in on the photos.
A few plants survived and some of these were moved to different positions whilst I can, such as all the lavender is now planted either side of the path by the door, the poppy has been moved forward, away from the fence, to allow for a larger shrub to be planted behind it so we can still see it once everything is grown.
These are images of the additional plants that have been planted in the garden. A few shrubs, a few smaller plants and lots and lots of bulbs in a range of colours and styles.
I will have to take photos next year of it all in colour as it should look brilliants against the blue fence.
Something had to give. It either gets left in a mess and I put up with it or I muster up the physical and mental strength to tackle it and the neighbour. I decided that I would tackle the garden and her if need be. I had not got many plants left due to things they were doing to them, lack of care from me, the hot summer we've had and being choked out by what I thought was a creeping Sedum that turned out to be a similar looking weed.
I took advantage of the plants being thirsty to saturate the creeper in weed killer a couple of times over the school summer holidays to try and kill off the roots too, drink it up buddy! Inspired by our recent visit to the Isle of Wight and seeing all the lovely plants at Godshill Model Village I had already planned the garden out in my head and set about ordering all the plants in, which were due for delivery Mid-September, which gave me a few weeks to get it into a condition where it can be replanted up.
The weed was pretty much killed off on the surface so I raked off the dead foliage, which allowed me to see what plants were actually left and I have to say, not many! Before digging the garden over and getting any roots out I painted the fence blue and was entertained by some of the neighbours facial expressions as I did so. I just carried on painting chuckling to myself.
The first photo shows the overgrown garden, the other photos show the garden raked off and the fence painted. As always, our dog had to get in on the photos.
A few plants survived and some of these were moved to different positions whilst I can, such as all the lavender is now planted either side of the path by the door, the poppy has been moved forward, away from the fence, to allow for a larger shrub to be planted behind it so we can still see it once everything is grown.
These are images of the additional plants that have been planted in the garden. A few shrubs, a few smaller plants and lots and lots of bulbs in a range of colours and styles.
I will have to take photos next year of it all in colour as it should look brilliants against the blue fence.
I've bought some Black Alpaca
I had the opportunity to buy some beautiful black alpaca, a little late in the year, but seeing as I've just got my blending hackle I jumped at the chance as I may need some black to make interesting yarns.
I bought a 1Kg bag from Aston Alpacas and after washing all the dust and dirt out, Alpacas love a roll in the dirt, and removing a few bits of slightly coarse fibres I am left with 823g. It will be beautiful once it has been combed to get the bits of grass etc out of it.
I bought a 1Kg bag from Aston Alpacas and after washing all the dust and dirt out, Alpacas love a roll in the dirt, and removing a few bits of slightly coarse fibres I am left with 823g. It will be beautiful once it has been combed to get the bits of grass etc out of it.
Tuesday 11 September 2018
Playing with the Blending Hackle
I've been busy creating two new fibres for spinning today on the Blending Hackle.
I've taken the fibres that I dyed with the carrot top, added a few more bits, including some from the goody bag I bought recently, blended them together and I'm over the moon with the results.
I've taken the fibres that I dyed with the carrot top, added a few more bits, including some from the goody bag I bought recently, blended them together and I'm over the moon with the results.
You might be wondering why I chose to put a bit of black in with the all the other colours. Well, if you look at a couple of the other small samples you will notice that some of the them have black and grey in them and I felt that it needed a bit more to help break up the colour and add contrast.
I halved all the fibres as best as I could so that I could make two large nests of blended fibre, one for each ply of the finished yarn. The photo on the hackle top right show how it was built up in layers, I then pulled this off by hand and then put it back on the hackle for another go. I done this a couple of times as this helps to blend the fibres and break up large chunks as in the photo bottom left. The photo bottom right shows what it looked like when I pulled it off through the diz. I done this process twice as I was making two nests of fibre for spinning.
The photos below show the finished fibre wound up into large nests as best as I could and they are ready for spinning. Looks very interesting and its very soft.
I then turned my attention to my second idea of a yarn taking white cotton, bright pink Bamboo, soft pink Soy Silk, Raspberry Angelina and pale pink hemp and blending them as best as I could on the blending hackle. Due to the short nature of the fibres I really struggled with this one, it wouldn't diz off in one continual strip so I had to pull off large chunks by hand and stack them on top of each other in the photo below. I don't like pink but then I wont be making anything for me so thats OK.
My third fibre was some Peppermint coloured Merino that I've had sitting in my fibre stash for a while but although its a pretty colour, I wanted to add a little bit of p'zaz to it. I found a few little samples from a Goodie Bag I'd purchased and a bit of silver iris angelina. I love this one its so delicate and sparkly!
Sunday 9 September 2018
Spinning the first of the Llanwenog
A couple of days ago I added some Angelina to the pale green Llanwenog and today I have finished making it to yarn. Its very pretty and quite soft. Its a sport weight yarn and 138g/376m. I have some ideas about making a vegan yarn with some fibres that I have and also thinking about what I am going to do with the fibres that I dyed with the carrot tops.
Thursday 6 September 2018
I've bought myself a Blending Hackle
I have finally been able to afford to get myself a Blending Hackle. After much research into which piece of equipment suited my needs best, a Blending Hackle or a Drum Carder, it seems that the Blending Hackle is the best way to go and I then researched those and settled with one from Wingham Woolworks, not cheap at all but about half the price one from Valkyrie if I had ordered one and paid the shipping and import taxes to have it imported from the USA. It is a few hundred pounds cheaper than a drum carder too, but the drum carder makes the wrong kind of fibre preparation for my favoured style of spinning so that was out straight away.
It doesn't come with clamps, I had to get those separately once it had arrived so that I knew how big I needed them to be and I got one for each end. The hackle has a working area of 16" long with two rows of approx 60 tines with the back row being 5 3/4" tall and the front row being 5 1/4" tall.
It is a lethal looking piece of equipment and can be very dangerous, it's really heavy and you would not want to drop this or fall over whilst carrying this.
You might be thinking, hmmm yes, OK, but what on earth is this thing for? Take a little look at this video from the brilliant Woolwench, who has been inspiring me for years. I will be doing something similar myself.
I did have a little play with it and added some sparkles in with the Llanwenog Fleece that I combed about a month ago and I am happy with this now. It just needed something and I've found what that was!
It doesn't come with clamps, I had to get those separately once it had arrived so that I knew how big I needed them to be and I got one for each end. The hackle has a working area of 16" long with two rows of approx 60 tines with the back row being 5 3/4" tall and the front row being 5 1/4" tall.
It is a lethal looking piece of equipment and can be very dangerous, it's really heavy and you would not want to drop this or fall over whilst carrying this.
You might be thinking, hmmm yes, OK, but what on earth is this thing for? Take a little look at this video from the brilliant Woolwench, who has been inspiring me for years. I will be doing something similar myself.
I did have a little play with it and added some sparkles in with the Llanwenog Fleece that I combed about a month ago and I am happy with this now. It just needed something and I've found what that was!
Monday 3 September 2018
Making natural dye from carrot tops and using it
Today I've boiled up the chopped up tops of the homegrown carrots. The strained greens were added to the compost heap and then I prepared the fibre for dyeing. The problem with natural dyes is that whilst the dye itself is eco-friendly the mordant that you need to use to make the dye fix to the fibres are all metal chemicals and far from eco-friendly.
With carrot greens you can get a range of colours depending on the mordant that you use so you can get yellow, bronze or green. I decided to try and obtain bronze which means using Chrome as the mordant. I had to leave the dye to one side whilst I mordanted my chosen fibre in Chrome at a rate of 4g Chrome to 4.5 Litres of water. I have some washed but unprepared white fleece so I used 55g of Merino, 40g of Alpaca and then a chunk of Mulberry Silk that I had left that weighed 6g.
Once they were mordanted they all went into the dye pot at the same time, keeping them in their own little section of the pot, trying not to let the fibres mix at this point. They simmered in the pot for about an hour then left to cool before I took them out and rinsed them in salt water, washed it, rinse again and then put them on my hanging drier to dry.
In the photo below, from left to right is the Merino, Mulberry Silk, Alpaca with the top row showing the unprepared but dyed fibre and the second row shows the combed Merino, which was reduced to 33g after combing, the Mulberry Silk which didn't need anything doing to it and finally the Alpaca, which was reduced to 28g after combing. The last photo shows all the fibres together, looking wonderful. I'm very happy with the results.
I have ordered a blending hackle, as this was the right thing for me, so I am just waiting for that to arrive and then I can get blending all these fibres together.
With carrot greens you can get a range of colours depending on the mordant that you use so you can get yellow, bronze or green. I decided to try and obtain bronze which means using Chrome as the mordant. I had to leave the dye to one side whilst I mordanted my chosen fibre in Chrome at a rate of 4g Chrome to 4.5 Litres of water. I have some washed but unprepared white fleece so I used 55g of Merino, 40g of Alpaca and then a chunk of Mulberry Silk that I had left that weighed 6g.
Once they were mordanted they all went into the dye pot at the same time, keeping them in their own little section of the pot, trying not to let the fibres mix at this point. They simmered in the pot for about an hour then left to cool before I took them out and rinsed them in salt water, washed it, rinse again and then put them on my hanging drier to dry.
In the photo below, from left to right is the Merino, Mulberry Silk, Alpaca with the top row showing the unprepared but dyed fibre and the second row shows the combed Merino, which was reduced to 33g after combing, the Mulberry Silk which didn't need anything doing to it and finally the Alpaca, which was reduced to 28g after combing. The last photo shows all the fibres together, looking wonderful. I'm very happy with the results.
I have ordered a blending hackle, as this was the right thing for me, so I am just waiting for that to arrive and then I can get blending all these fibres together.
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