February's Fibre is here - Gold

I've been anticipating this one ever since I got the letter come through which said it is very much similar to Illuminated Manuscript.  Really beautiful, sparkly and soft.  Its 58.5% Merino, 25% BFL, 12.5% Mulberry Silk, 4% Stellina. I do love a little bit of sparkle.

Spinning up Iron Age

Next to be spun is Iron Age, which is the fibre from the month fibre club for October.  When this arrived and I blogged about it, I commented that I had an amount of samples which matched exactly.  Well, they appeared to match exactly, almost exactly, but not quite as it turned out.

I split the main braid down the middle and spun it from the end, worsted style, adding in the samples on the end.  It wasn't until I plied it and wound it off that I noticed that the end where the samples were spun was much browner than the main part.  I wound off the darker section separately so that these could potentially be used on the same project but maybe the darker section kept for an edging or used with another yarn to create stripes.

The fibre content is 58.5% Merino Wool, 25% Bluefaced Leicester Wool, 12.5% Mulberry Silk, 4% Stellina.  The large skein is 85g/267m and the smaller skein is 38g/127m.

February's Fibre Club Letter

February's letter has dropped in my e-mail, seems a long time since the last one because the last one was sent out early.

The letter reads:

On the 5th February 1869, 150 years ago, the largest ever alluvial gold nugget was found in Moliagul, Victoria, Australia. 

It weighed nearly 110 kg, and was so large it had to be broken up before it would fit on the bank scales. The nugget became known as “The Welcome Stranger” and at the time was worth £10,000, the equivalent of US$3-4 million in today’s money. It was found by 2 Cornish miners who had emigrated to Australia as part of the Victorian Gold Rush. John Deason discovered the nugget just a few centimetres below the surface, under a tree, and dug it out with his partner Richard Oates. 

John Deason was born on the Isles of Scilly, off the southern tip of Cornwall, in 1829. He was originally a tin dresser, and left to go to Australia in 1853. Throughout the 1840’s Cornwall was hit by a potato famine, just as there was in Ireland, and the local mines provided inconsistent employment and poor wages. Up to 5% of the population in the local area had emigrated to Australia by 1849. Assisted passage was available for certain professions, and John Deason and his family had to pay £8 towards their passage. He likely knew Richard Oates before they moved to Australia, but they did not travel out together. Richard Oates was born in 1827, and took passage in 1847, he returned to Cornwall after the discovery of the nugget to marry in 1870, the couple then travelled back to Australia and had a family. Neither seems to have been particularly lucky with money, despite the huge windfall. Deason carried on as a gold miner, before becoming a shop keeper. He lost most of his wealth due to poor investments in the mining industry. Oates was more successful and bought a small amount of land to farm. 

The Victorian Gold Rush changed Australia dramatically. In 1851 the population of the area surrounding Melbourne was 77,345, 18% of the population. By 1861 this had increased to 538, 628, making up 47% of the country’s total population. This rapid growth changed the area dramatically, and led to the nickname “Marvellous Melbourne” because the amount of wealth that had been uncovered was so large. When the alluvial (surface) gold ran out, the prospectors switched to mining. Eventually the costs rose, and the First Wold War led to the loss of many of the young men who had been working the mines. Many mines closed, but a rise in gold prices, and better technology has meant that it’s now profitable to work some mines again. 

This colour is similar to the Illuminated Manuscript fibre that was in the club in November 2016, though is subtly different… Both take their colour from the magical metal that stays so wonderfully bright and shiny.  

I can't wait for this one to arrive as I've been looking back at some of the past monthly fibres, from before I was a member of the fibre club, and Illuminated Manuscript is beautiful.

From the spoilers chat she has revealed that it will be more draping rather than having bounce and elasticity due to the BFL and silk content.  So it sounds very much like something I am going to love.

Pretty in Navy - Design LF433

So, I pretty much left this at the beginning of December after making a start on it but I did manage to complete all the flower petals before I picked it up again in earnest on 5th February.  When I did come back to it the first thing I had to do was sew all the ends in from doing the petals.  That is one of the worst jobs when making a shawl like this, all the yarn ends, never ending yarn ends.

Finished and waiting for a soak and block.

I finished this but didn't get round to taking proper photos for several months, certainly not until after I had purchased new backdrops in the summer of 2019 so I've popped back to add the photos rather than create a new blog post just to do that.

Spinning up Penicillin

This fibre was the fibre for September 2018 from the monthly fibre club that I belong to.  Its nice, soft and squishy.  Spun from the end, worsted style to a traditional 2 ply.  102g/187m of worsted weight yarn that is 75% Corriedale, 25% Llama.

Spinning up Hawaii

This beautiful fibre has been sitting looking at me for about 6 months but I have finally tackled it.  This is August 2018 fibre from the monthly fibre club that I belong to.  I've spun this up over the weekend and its gorgeous.  Spun from the end in worsted style, I've made a traditional 2 ply yarn and its sport weight 104g/341m.   Fibre content is 62.5% Merino Wool, 25% Mulberry Silk, 12.5% Baby Alpaca.

I've done a small cross stitch kit and had a couple framed

My eldest daughter wanted to do a small cross stitch kit that I'd had for a number of years but she had a bit of trouble following it and gave up so I sorted out where she'd gone wrong and finished it up.

I has a little metal hanger thing that you slot it onto and you have fold and stitch the bottom to form the shape, which is a bit of a pain but its so sweet.

I've also taken two cross stitch to the framers to be professionally framed.  The first is one my late mom stitched years ago and I've had if framed to give as a birthday gift to my husband as he had chickens out the back.  The other one I've had re-framed as it was framed but the back of the frame kept busting off and I wanted it done properly so I can actually hang it on the wall.