Blending some black Jacob fibres

Today I have got my blending hackle out and finally taken to task the small bag of Jacob fibre that I combed back in the first week of July last year.  It was from a fleece I got back in 2014.  This is the fleece it has come from, fleece 2 from Home Farm in Elford, Tamworth.  Its a lovely fleece but mostly white.  I am using the black fibres from this one.

I started out with 127g of black fleece last year but after it was combed this was reduced to just 77g of beautiful combed top.  I did forget to take any photos of the combed top but I have borrowed one from another Jacob fleece I prepared and spun a while ago to give an idea of what it looked like before I blended it with all the other bits and pieces, although the dark fibres from this fleece are less brown and more grey-black.

Top Row: Jacob, Yellow Silk, A sparkly white and gold blend
Bottom Row: Yellow Corriedale, Firestar (Tri-lobal Nylon), Bronze Angelina

 All the other bits and pieces have come from either one of the HilltopCloud Ingredients boxes that I've bought or from a big bag of lap waste that I got from World of Wool.

 I will be spinning this over the weekend and I can't wait to see the finished yarn as it is ever so slightly sparkly all over.

SB168 - Custom order for two capelets

Way back in October I was contacted about a custom order for two capelets in a particular colour combination.  The lady knew what colour she wanted so I took myself off to the local craft shop to have a look at what they had in stock and I picked up a couple of things but nothing like what the lady wanted.  She sent me a photo of yarn that she had seen and I tried to get it here in the UK, searching online but nothing for that yarn thickness in that particular colour.  I did find it on a US website, got excited, but then I got kicked off the website with the message that was something along the lines of "You're in an EU country, you do not have permission to view this site".  Very strange but not the first time I've had this happen.  The customer informed me that she would get the yarn, a Super Bulky weight yarn.

Soon after, the customer messaged me to say that she had got the yarn and would send it to me, so I gave her my address.  Fast forward a number of weeks and the yarn arrived with me on 23rd January, along with a few things that the customer sent to me as gifts.  It wasn't the yarn that I was expecting, so that was a shock when I opened the box and was I initially perplexed at what I was looking at, as some of the gifts were yarn.  Once I read the letter that was enclosed and figured it out I worked out that I would have to knit this yarn holding four strands together to make it the right thickness for the pattern as the yarn she had sent was only Double Knit weight.  It wasn't easy keeping it all together, smooth and the colours aligned with each other, but I did as best as I could and I did manage it, slower than usual, but hey-ho.

Spinning up the Texture Sparkle blend

Last year I bought some spinning fibre using money/vouchers that I had for my birthday.  I've just spun up one braid from that purchase.  It was a bit of a challenge for me as it is so textured, lots of bumps of sari silk, and I am a little OCD with wanting to create a nice smooth even yarn but I am trying to get out of my comfort zone from time to time and push my own boundaries of creativity a bit.

Its 28% Manx Loaghtan, 28% BFL, 28% Sari Silk, 10% Merino, 6% Stellina.  I've spun it at sport weight and I have 246m of lovely squishy to play with.  Its not super super soft but it is really nice.

I've used my Christmas vouchers

Part of my Christmas present were some vouchers for my favourite spinning fibre supplier and I wasn't going to spend them until later in the year but I saw this fibre and it just called to me and I had to have it.  There were two braids available so I had them both so I can make a larger amount of yarn and make a larger shawl.

Its 50% Romney Wool, 25% Silk, 25% Linen and just look at those colours.  The first two photos below are not of each braid but both braids lay side by side and wound to create a wonderful effect and they are each side of the coil to show the variance of colour throughout the braids.

I also got a little freebee in with the package, 4g of 70% Superfine Merino, 30% Tussah Silk in shade Soft Fruit.  It's gone into my bag of "ingredients" for making my own blends.

January's Fibre is here - National Trust

A few days ago I received the emailed letter giving details about this months club fibre and today it has arrived.

Its not something that I would pick up if I were at a fibre festival, I wouldn't be attracted to it, but it is nice and is very close in colours to the paint that was her inspiration.

The fibre content is 50% Merino Wool, 37.5% Bluefaced Leicester Wool, 12.5% Swaledale Wool, so a pure wool blend of 3 different breeds of sheep.

January's Fibre Club Letter

January's fibre club letter has arrived.  Its about the founding of the National Trust, of which myself and my family are members.  We have been to Dinas Oleu, which sits above the town of Barmouth in Wales.  We had a camping holiday there, which you can read about here.

The letter reads:

2020 marks the 125th Anniversary of the founding of The National Trust. They’re one of the UK’s largest charities and care for many historic buildings, places, and areas of countryside. 

One of their founders was a woman called Octavia Hill. Throughout her life she campaigned for social reform, and worked to improve the lives of people in the ever growing urban parts of the country. She believed that accessing nature was vital for good well being. 

She campaigned to ensure that public rights of way remained open and also wanted to stop the destruction of the old buildings that form part of our cultural heritage. She was born in 1838, the granddaughter of Dr Thomas Southwood Smith. A leading early Victorian public health campaigner, he spent his life working to give the urban poor access to better housing. Her parents were also social reformers and were followers of Robert Owen (who was born in Newtown near to where I live, more links to him in the further references). When her fathers business failed her mother took charge of the household, and encouraged all her daughters to take jobs. Octavia ended up running a workroom at a Christian Socialist cooperative managed by her mother. Octavia organised middy meals for her workers, visited them when they were sick, and took them on nature study walks around London Commons. 

As she grew older her socialist connections grew, she developed friendships with the pioneering Christian Socialist minister Frederick Denison Maurice, radical thinker John Ruskin and the anticapitalist critic and author Charles Kingsley. Ruskin purchased properties in her name, and Octavia ran them as a friendly landlord. She still expected the rent to be paid, but was willing to take a lower return on the investment in order to improve and maintain the building (very unusual amongst urban landlords at that time). As time went on she stepped outside her own property interests and joined a campaign to save Swiss Cottage Fields in London from development. Even though that campaign failed, later campaigns to save Parliament Hill Fields, Vauxhall Park and Hill Fields were successful. In 1895 she became one of the founders of the National Trust for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty. The Trusts aim- “so that green spaces could ‘be kept for the enjoyment, refreshment, and rest of those who have no country house’.”

In 1895 the Trust acquired it’s first piece of land, Dinas Oleu in Barmouth, a section of the Welsh coast where we walk regularly. It was donated by Mrs Fanny Talbot, a widow who had inherited land and money on the death of her husband. She was a friend of Octavia Hill, believed in her vision of making sure that open spaces remained accessible to all. From these 4.5 acres the Trust has become Europe’s largest conservation charity, and the views are spectacular. Looking out over the 58,000 acres in Snowdonia owned by the Trust and some of the 196 miles of Welsh coastline also in their care.

Another woman, Beatrix Potter, was another major donor to the Trust, and worked alongside them in her lifetime. When she died she left much of her Lake District estate to the Trust, Beatrix Potter featured as the inspiration for the January 2016 club fibre. 

Octavia did much good in her lifetime, but by modern standards she would still be regarded as conservative in her politics. She believed that social inequality was best tackled by private enterprise and charity rather than by the government. She was against the welfare state, free school meals, council housing, and a universal old-age pension. 

Your colour inspiration this time comes from a paint company who used to work with the National Trust; Farrow & Ball took colours that had been found during the restoration of old houses and turned them in to a modern paint range, but one that could be used sympathetically in old houses. Their collaboration with the Trust has now ended, but the inspiring range of paint colours remains, and has carried on expanding. You can find the list of 7 paint colours that match your fibre in the Further Reading section. 

I’m going to end the letter this month with a quote from Octavia, which is still perfect for our modern world.

‘We all want quiet. We all want beauty … we all need space. Unless we have it, we cannot reach that sense of quiet in which whispers of better things come to us gently.’

After looking at the links and the list of colours she details I am expecting it to be quite colourful, in a toned down kind of way.  I've made two colour palettes below of the colours she has listed that are used in this fibre, one shows the names and the other shows them arranged closer together so its easier to see how they might work as a fibre.

From the spoilers chat she has revealed that its not the softest blend, does contain some kemp, which was falling out during packing and contains some BFL to make it a little more hardwearing for more high-wear items such as mittens.  Once again, as its a colourful fibre, spin from the fold if you want to keep the colours more defined or spin from the end for a more muddied blended effect.

12 Days of Christmas 2019 Part 2

Back in October I wrote about the 12 Days of Christmas "Advent Calendar" for 2019.  All packages have now been opened and I've had chance to take photos and do some fancy work with them to add the names of the colours of the fibre to them.

As last year, I have organised them in the same way, the main braid is in the large photo and then each day thereafter starts with the small photo on the top right hand side, working down and then across the bottom towards the left.

Just in case you can't read the labels, they are in order: Lily of the Valley, Honey, Pearl, English Countryside, Shabby Grey, Hydrangea, Currant, Cocoa, Blossom, Nougat and Night.

The spinning tip for the main braid would be the same as last year due to the Yak fibres and that is to spin it over the fold as the Yak fibres are shorter than the rest and this avoids ending up with just a clump of Yak fibres in your hand.

I will probably spin them all separately and create something that involves all of the finished yarn in all of the colours.

I've made something for myself

I needed to make something for myself, I never make anything for myself so now is my chance.  I started this way back in September and it got put the side whilst I dealt with all sorts of family issues and you may notice a little bit of a line on the second work-in-progress photo.  This is where I stopped, left it for a while, and then picked it back up again and just shows a little bit of difference in the tension but it all washed and blocked out.  Blocking helps to even the stitches out.

I made it using this Whistlebare Yeavering Bell yarn that is 60% Mohair, 40% Wensleydale and I found that it shed like hell.  I was covered in Mohair every time I knit.  I have no plans to add this design to my range as the pattern designer does not allow you to use the pattern for commercial purposes, however small amount of sales you might have, so I won't be going there.  I will be sticking to patterns from designers and yarn companies that allow you to use their patterns to make items to sell.

I apologise for the variation of colour in the photos, I just can't get them all the same due to different lighting at the point of photography.  I have tried to edit them as best as I could to represent the actual colour but I'm still finding this almost impossible.