Advent Calendar 2023 Day 24

The Tradition

Day 24 is called Christmas Crackers and the tradition comes from the United Kingdom.  A Christmas staple for us that were invented in 1847 by Tom Smith when sales of his bonbons, a small chocolate confection filled with liqueur or other sweet alcoholic ingredients and sold wrapped in brightly coloured foil, slumped and he tried ways to get people to buying them again.  He first tried inserting love messages inside of the foil wrapping, much like a fortune cookie.  After hearing the crackle of a log on the fire, he was inspired to incorporate the banger and changed the size and design of the wrapping to allow for this. Eventually the chocolate was replaced with a trinket such as a fan, jewellery or other item and later the hat, gifts and varied designs were introduced by his son, Walter Smith.

Christmas Crackers are now used as a table decoration in the UK, Ireland and Commonwealth countries such as Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and more.  They are basically a segmented cardboard tube wrapped in bright paper with a gift, paper hat and a joke in the centre section and the look like oversized wrapped sweets.  The cracker is pulled from each end by two people, each holding an outer chamber, it will split unevenly with one person holding the centre section with the prize and a slight "bang" when it splits.  They come in various sizes and various price points depending on the quality of the gifts inside, from cheap and cheerful sold in boxes of 6 or 12 in supermarkets for an average of £10 to £40 right through to really luxurious crackers sold at places like Fortnum & Mason where you can buy a set of 6 crackers for £5,000 where the prizes are contained in golden envelopes inside the cracker and can be luxurious hampers, elegant china, afternoon tea experiences and such like and obviously have to be claimed afterwards using the enclosed ticket/voucher.

The Fibre

The actual fibre content is 40% Merino (Pearl), 45% Sari Silk (Lagoon, Orb & Punch), 15% Cashmere. This blend has Merino, Cashmere and Sari Silk in it and it has a lot of colours.  Christmas Crackers have always been bright, they weren't dull, ever, they were always meant to be bright and beautiful, just like this blend.  It's so so soft, that will be the Merino and the Cashmere, because we haven't featured Cashmere yet in this box and we have to put it in somewhere,  The Sari Silk brings all these streaks of colour and if you've ever fought over the colour of Christmas Crackers with your siblings you'll know the excitement of getting the shade you want.  This is not a spin for the feint of heart, it requires concentration because as you draft it out the cashmere is going to want to zoom ahead and the Sari Silk is going to try to hold it all together and give you a really textured spin. 

My Thoughts

OMG this is ugly.  This is my reaction to this one.  I really do not like this one!  Some people have spun this one up already and I still don't like it and others are like me and will either dye it or tear it up into different colours and use it in other blends.  For me, this one will either be split up by colour and used in my own blends or I may do a similar thing to what I did with the "Stonewall" braid. This one is so different to how the camera on my phone captured the colours at the time, which looks more blue than it is but thankfully my Canon camera has come through and got it captured perfectly.

The information that has been printed on the bags is not always correct and there are no fibre content percentages, these have been provided on the chat boards.  The percentages that they gave on the chat boards were initially incorrect as they only added up to 85% but we got there in the end.

What I have done with my bags is to write the actual fibre content on the bag using a gold gel pen in the gap immediately below the printed details, pretty much the only thing that will show up on black are the metallic gel pens.  This is why I have not taken "new" photos of the bags.

Advent Calendar 2023 Day 23

The Tradition

Day 23 is called Cavalcade of Lights and the tradition comes from Canada.  An annual festival that has been held in Toronto since 1967.  The Nathan Phillips square is decorated with upwards of half a million(!) lights and a giant Christmas tree which is usually around 18 metres high. There is an opening night celebration with live performances, the lighting of the city's official Christmas Tree and nightly ice skating and festive lights for the entire festive season.

The Fibre

The actual fibre content is 40% Merino (Charcoal), 30% Corriedale (Raven), 30% Tussah Silk (Lemon, Acai & Taro).   This is a very bright blend.  This is Merino, Corriedale and Tussah Silk.  The lights are best seen at night which is why we have black Merino and black Corriedale in this because that makes the Tussah Silk colours pop and they are so vibrant, look at these coming through here.  So just like the lights you will see the shimmer and the sheen in this.  This is a very Silk heavy blend, we've got the wool in to help contain it all otherwise the Silk will just run away with you anytime you try to do anything.  In terms of spinning, take this one slowly.  If you do a finer yarn you might loose the colours because this hasn't been overly blended if you break it up very carefully you may just be able to get a black and blue or bit of black and yellow.  Alternatively if you spin from the fold you can get all sorts of different colours coming though randomly.

My Thoughts

Oooh, I got excited about this one.  It is so different looking to most other blends.  Those bight silk colours really pop against the black wool.  The silk is not blended in so it may be possible to separate the silk colours out away from the black wool and then I can think of two ways to spin it.  You could break it up into short lengths and re-combine individual colours of silk with the black so that you have everchanging pops of colour against the black and then maybe chain ply to keep the colours together or you could spin the black and the spin the coloured silk as two separate singles and then ply them together but this does rely on there being the same amount of coloured silk as there is wool and there isn't but it might be possible to do a three ply of 2 black and 1 coloured.  Another way it to just split it down the length in thin strips, ensuring that there is both black and colour in each strip and then just spin from the end and its up to you if you want to do a 2 ply, 3 ply or chain ply or something else. The camera on my phone captured most of the colours but my proper Canon camera has done a slightly better job.

The information that has been printed on the bags is not always correct and there are no fibre content percentages, these have been provided on the chat boards.  The percentages that they gave on the chat boards seem to be correct.  

What I have done with my bags is to write the actual fibre content on the bag using a gold gel pen in the gap immediately below the printed details, pretty much the only thing that will show up on black are the metallic gel pens.  This is why I have not taken "new" photos of the bags.

Advent Calendar 2023 Day 22

The Tradition

Day 22 is called Dia De Las Velitas and the tradition comes from Colombia and means "The Day of the Little Candles" and it is celebrated on 7th December, which is the eve of  the Immaculate Conception.  On this night small candles and paper lanterns are lit and placed outside both a home and in public places, anywhere they can be seen in honour of the Virgin Mary and her Immaculate Conception.  It is not mandatory to work the next day, on 8th December and it is customary to hoist a white flag with an image of the Virgin Mary for the entire day on houses.  

The Fibre

The actual fibre content is 50% Shetland (Corn & Cinnamon), 30% Bluefaced Leicester (Lightning), 20% Sari Silk (Honeycomb & Goldrush).  We have blended together Shetland, Sari Silk and BFL.  The Shetland and BFL are very British fibres and this is a very bright blend, much like all the light given off by all those candles.  There's a lot of texture in here.  The Sari Silk brings streaks of golden yellow, there's some paler yellows, little pops of red in there as well and you can see a pale yellow from the Shetland and then a pale creamy white from the BFL.  Because these are British breeds, they're not as soft as Merino but do not let that put you off, they are absolutely lovely.  They have bulk and a good smoothness and they're not going to run away with you when you spin.  When you're spinning it you will find that the Sari Silk clumps a little bit but that's absolutely fine because it will give you texture, lumps and just make a really interesting yarn so that whatever you make from it afterwards will have just a little bit more character than it would otherwise.

My Thoughts

I really like this one and I think this could work with Day 19, Volcancitos as the colours are closer in those two than they are with Day 14, Misa de Gallo (Festival of the Rooster). The Sari Silk in this will make an interestingly textured yarn and I find Sari Silk easier to spin than Silk nepps, which I have been adding to a lot of my own blends lately.  This one is so different to how the camera on my phone captured the colours, that first photo looks so washed out and pale but thankfully all the colours show up in the photos taken with my Canon camera.

The information that has been printed on the bags is not always correct and there are no fibre content percentages, these have been provided on the chat boards.  The percentages that they gave on the chat boards seem to be correct, although the name of the day seems to read as Vetitas instead of Velitas, that cross on the second t certainly crosses through what should be an l.

What I have done with my bags is to write the actual fibre content on the bag using a gold gel pen in the gap immediately below the printed details, pretty much the only thing that will show up on black are the metallic gel pens.  This is why I have not taken "new" photos of the bags.

Advent Calendar 2023 Day 21

The Tradition

Day 21 is called Roller Blades and the tradition comes from Venezuela, the capital Caracas to be exact.  It is thought that because Venezuela is a melting pot of migrants, including German and other European settlers along with Portuguese, Spanish, Brazilian and other South American countries and, of course, Caribbean, that for some the traditional sledding and ice-skating at Christmas time was replaced with roller skating as there is no ice in the southern hemisphere country where temperatures are usually in the high thirties in December.  Skating to Mass became so popular that the Government closes the streets until 8am in the morning so that families can skate safely together and this happens on the 9 days in the run up to Christmas with a Mass being held in the churches at 5am or 6am, the Mass of the Cockerel, which was the tradition from Spain on Day 14, so this is another influence from the migrants into Venezuela.  After the morning Mass families gather in the street or each others homes to share food, play music and dance. 

The Fibre

The actual fibre content is 80% Superfine Merino (Damson, Violet, Cerulean), 20% Suri Alpaca (White).  In Venezuela some people skate to mass so between the 16th and 24th it's not uncommon for roads to be closed so that people can skate about in their roller blades and basically enjoy being outside during this time.  This has got Superfine Merino and Suri Alpaca so it's going to be very soft and the last time I saw colours like this was probably on a pair of roller blades.  A colour theme that is quite popular with skating.  All of the colours come from the Superfine Merino and Superfine is 18.5 microns which means it has a comfort factor of 99% and I would challenge anybody to find an itch in this.  The Suri Alpaca is the white that you see and because of the locks it has got a little bit more drape to it and there' not a huge amount in here but there is enough just to add a little bit of colour and also a little bit of texture to the blend as well.  In terms of spinning this will spin very quickly and it will make a very fine laceweight but if you do spin it to laceweight there is a chance you will loose all these colours so I'd probably suggest a slightly heavier yarn so you don't get everything mixed and muddied up.

My Thoughts

This is very nice and my kind of colours.  It's fine and soft and I am thinking that it there are not enough colours in this one to make an interesting Fibonacci spin so I might go with an over the fold spin to have splodges of colour or I may just draft it out and spin it and mix up the colours a little bit more.  I may work some other blue and purple Merino with this one to bulk it out a bit, I just don't know at this stage.  The camera on my phone struggled to capture all of the colours at the time and the colours came out too vivid but my proper Canon camera has done a great job.

The information that has been printed on the bags is not always correct and there are no fibre content percentages, these have been provided on the chat boards.  The percentages that they gave on the chat boards seem to be correct.  

What I have done with my bags is to write the actual fibre content on the bag using a gold gel pen in the gap immediately below the printed details, pretty much the only thing that will show up on black are the metallic gel pens.  This is why I have not taken "new" photos of the bags.

Blending the Purple Llandovery Whiteface Hill - Mist at Twlight

Yay, the last one!  Oh I really do ache now because it is tiring on the arms and shoulders loading up the blending hackle four times and dizzing off the blend, especially when you're using wool that you have stupidly managed to felt slightly during the dye process. I seriously need to look at my temperature probe in my dye kit, I'm positive it's on the fritz and I have tried changing the battery but that hasn't resolved the issue.  I think it's a damaged wire problem.  So, the Llandovery Whiteface Hill fleece that I dyed back in September.  I sorted out the additional fibres that I would be adding to all four lots of Llandovery Whiteface Hill back at that time and then dyed the lots of fleece colours to go with the additional fibres that I had chosen.  All of the additional fibres in the different colours are within a few grams of each other and I plan to use all of each bump of fibre so that the final fibre content won't be exactly the same for all four blends but will be very close.

The other fibres that I chose to put in this blend are, from left to right, top to bottom: 19g Tussah Silk in shade Twilight, 9g Trilobal Nylon in shade Violet, 9g Silk Noil in shade Sea Mist, 10g Hemp that I dyed myself in June 2023 using cold water dyes and finally 153g Llandovery Whiteface Hill fibre that I dyed in September.  I have decided to call this colourway "Mist at Twilight".

I discovered that I had somehow managed to felt the wool slightly during the dye process so I had a little bit of trouble getting it to open up again.  I didn't pre-comb this one again either.  I've ended up with 200g of a lovely unique blend ready to spin.

The fibre content of this one works out to be:

76.5% Llandovery Whiteface Hill wool
9.5% Tussah Silk
5% Hemp
4.5% Silk Noil
4.5% Trilobal Nylon

Advent Calendar 2023 Day 20

The Tradition

Day 20 is called Weihnachtsmann and the tradition comes from Germany.  Also known as Father Christmas, Santa Claus or Saint Nicholas and I am sure we all know about these guys as they are technically the same person, although depending where you are and the traditions of your country, he either visits on 6th December or 24th December. His attire has been portrayed in different shades throughout the years; one of those colours is green.

The Fibre

The actual fibre content is 80% Corriedale (Emerald, Citrus, Grass, Lightning), 14% Merino, 6% Rainbow Trilobal Nylon. Father Christmas has been portrayed wearing different colours over the years.  We know it as red but it has been blue, green and more earthy tones.  This blend is taking it as green and earthy.  This is a blend of Corriedale and Stellina because you don't need to use Merino all the time to get these lovely colours.  So you've got lovely shades of white and green Corriedale and also some Corriedale Amber in there with some glitter going through it.  This is a really springy blend, its quite soft and it is incredibly easy to spin, it is not too fine that will will run away with you and it will make a thin yarn but also a bulky one as well, if you want to that is.  You can break it down the sides to get little sections of colour.  This blend will do absolutely anything and it will make a really nice finished item.

My Thoughts

I quite like the earthy green, amber and browny tones in this blend.  It's reasonably soft and I have no idea how I will be spinning this one.  I could find a similar green or a white or something like that to spin this with or maybe I might see if I can do a Fibonacci spin with this, not sure if the colours will separate out enough though.  Another option might be to spin from the fold to have little pops of colours all the way along the yarn.  This will require some testing or thinking about and maybe seeing how others have spun it up and the results that they got.  This is another one that is so different to how the camera on my phone captured the colours and at the time I couldn't get it to show the true tone of green and all the other colours, more could I get it to not show any turquoise blue, which is NOT in the blend in real life.  At least my Canon camera has managed to capture all of the tones and colours.

The information that has been printed on the bags is not always correct and there are no fibre content percentages, these have been provided on the chat boards.  The percentages that they gave on the chat boards seem to be incorrect, again! There isn't any Stellina in this one! They initially gave us 80% Corriedale (in shades of Emerald, Citrus, Grass & Lightning), 20% Glitzy Amber which itself is 70% Merino, 30% Rainbow Trilobal Nylon.  If my maths are correct that makes the overall fibre content 80% Corriedale, 14% Merino, 6% Rainbow Trilobal Nylon.  

What I have done with my bags is to write the actual fibre content on the bag using a gold gel pen in the gap immediately below the printed details, pretty much the only thing that will show up on black are the metallic gel pens.  This is why I have not taken "new" photos of the bags.

Blending the Blue Llandovery Whiteface Hill - Evening at the Bay

Pushing on with my quest to tackle the Llandovery Whiteface Hill fleece that I dyed back in September, today I am tackling the blue one.  I sorted out the additional fibres that I would be adding to all four lots of Llandovery Whiteface Hill back at that time and then dyed the lots of fleece colours to go with the additional fibres that I had chosen.  All of the additional fibres in the different colours are within a few grams of each other and I plan to use all of each bump of fibre so that the final fibre content won't be exactly the same for all four blends but will be very close.

The other fibres that I chose to put in this blend are, from left to right, top to bottom: 21g Tussah Silk in shade Evening, 12g Trilobal Nylon in shade Bay, 9g Silk Noil in shade Colbalt, 11g Hemp in shade Bright Blue and finally 155g Llandovery Whiteface Hill fibre that I dyed in September.  I have decided to call this colourway "Evening at the Bay".

I discovered that I had somehow managed to felt the wool slightly during the dye process so I had a little bit of trouble getting it to open up again.  I didn't pre-comb this one this time, I learnt my lesson on the last one.  I've ended up with 208g of a lovely unique blend ready to spin.

The fibre content of this one works out to be:

75% Llandovery Whiteface Hill wool
10% Tussah Silk
4% Silk Noil
6% Trilobal Nylon
5% Hemp
4% Silk Noil

Advent Calendar 2023 Day 19

The Tradition

Day 19 is called Volcancitos and the tradition comes from El Salvador.  These are small fireworks in the shape of a cone (or Volcano!) which are lit, and grow from a small sparkler-type display to a larger eruption.  They're very popular with children... we have no idea why! There are no laws in El Salvador regarding the buying and selling of fireworks so anyone can buy them and set them off, including children and they can be set off anywhere and everywhere and at anytime.  There are a lot of accidents and fatalities around the use of fireworks but they are still unregulated.

The Fibre

The actual fibre content is 75% Merino (Begonia, Loganberry, Pumpkin, Sunset, Gooseberry, Buttercup), 25% Rainbow Trilobal Nylon. This is a blend of Merino and Nylon that is very very volcano like and it does look quite a bit like a firework.  We've blended a few different orange shades of our 23 micron Merino here and the Nylon in this is a Rainbow Nylon so the shine that you're getting is actually multiple different colours of the Rainbow Nylon coming through.  Because you've got Nylon in it you can use it for a sock yarn, it will be hard wearing.  This is more of a traditional Merino and Nylon blend that people have come to know.  It is lovely and soft and the 23 micron Merino is next to skin soft and the Nylon does not detract from this at all.  As you pull it apart you can see all the different shades coming through mimicking all the little explosive colours from these Volcanitos apart from one, which is not quite as hot and a lot less interesting. 

My Thoughts

I like this one.  It's quite soft and with the nylon content this could be a great sock yarn, not that I knit socks!  My immediate thought was that this one might work well with the one a few days ago for the Festival of the Rooster, the colours are somewhat similar to some degree.  I'm not sure if that is what I will do but it might be an option.  The camera on my phone captured the colours reasonably well at the time but my proper Canon camera has done a much better job.

The information that has been printed on the bags is not always correct and there are no fibre content percentages, these have been provided on the chat boards.  The percentages that they gave on the chat boards seem to be correct today.

What I have done with my bags is to write the actual fibre content on the bag using a gold gel pen in the gap immediately below the printed details, pretty much the only thing that will show up on black are the metallic gel pens.  This is why I have not taken "new" photos of the bags.

Advent Calendar 2023 Day 18

The Tradition

Day 18 is called Homemade Advent and the tradition comes from Switzerland.  Who doesn't enjoy getting in the festive spirit by decorating their homes. And what is more enjoyable than decorating it with things made by you, your family and friends?  Cookies are a popular thing to make and share and there are special flavours and shapes and all decorated with piped icing.  The Advent is usually celebrated with store-bought or home made advent calendars, just like in most other parts of the world that celebrate Christmas. 

Some small towns and villages take it one step further and organise an Adventfenster, otherwise known as Advent Windows. A window in 24 buildings (homes, schools or business) are decorated with a homemade Christmas design using black paper and colourful dragon paper that will let light shine through and show the design, so a bit like making a stained glass window of paper.  The designs are kept hidden by closing shutters over the window until the allocated date of reveal.  Every evening at a set time people gather outside the relevant house for that day and watch the shutters be opened to reveal the window design for that day. Music is played or a Christmas carol is sung and often cookies and a hot drink are offered too.  The windows will stay lit until at least Christmas eve and often for the last night, a tour is made of all of the previously revealed windows before gathering outside of the last one for the final reveal.

The Fibre

The actual fibre content is 50% Eider (White), 50% Wool blend (Neptune, a mixed wool space dyed blend using colours yellow, orange, sage green, blue, purple).  This is an Eider and wool blend.  This has got some lovely earthy tones in it.  Eider is a semi-lustrous and slightly bulky fibre and it is the white you can see in the blend. It has a nice rustic feel to it and whilst you can spin it fine if you want to it really does play best when you give it a nice bulky light spin with a lot of loft.  It helps trap all of the air in and so the bulkier the spin, the warmer your final garment is going to be.  The colour is brought by one of our space-dyed blends and you can see how the colour changes throughout the blend and that is lovely. That means that no two blends are going to be the same and it also means that every time you spin it and work with it you can get a different colour variation.  The eider really does pull this together nicely, not too bold, not too bright but lovely and rustic.

My Thoughts

The colour of this one does not get me excited at all, very dull and boring despite there being many colours within it and it's not soft, it's definitely one of the hardwearing wools that would be great for hats/scarves/gloves.  The camera on my phone captured most of the colours at the time but I think my proper Canon camera has done a better job.  Ooh, if only they had chosen to base the colours and tradition more on the Adventfenster, which they didn't actually mention in their description of the tradition, I found that information myself when trying to find out more from the internet.

The information that has been printed on the bags is not always correct and there are no fibre content percentages, these have been provided on the chat boards.  The percentages that they gave on the chat boards seem to be correct for this one.  

What I have done with my bags is to write the actual fibre content on the bag using a gold gel pen in the gap immediately below the printed details, pretty much the only thing that will show up on black are the metallic gel pens.  This is why I have not taken "new" photos of the bags.

Advent Calendar 2023 Day 17

The Tradition

Day 17 is called Pastorelas and the tradition comes from Mexico.  The tradition of the shepherds on their way to the baby Jesus and overcoming all temptations which try to stop or divert them - including the devil!  This is often shown as a folk play with the overarching theme of good versus evil. 

The Fibre

The actual fibre content is 60% Puntas Arenas, 20% Merino (Fuchsia, Chartreuse, Denim), 20% Superbright Trilobal Nylon.  This is a fun one. We have Puntas Arenas, Nylon and Merino. The Puntas Arenas is a newer breed that we've got in stock and it's a very bright white, nice and bulky, and very soft, it's like a Merino type and its a very very versatile fibre.  In this as well we've got some lovely streaks of colour and little bit of Nylon.  This has been designed for those who might want to knit socks or want something with a little bit more stability.  The Nylon in it does help hold things together but it is only a small percentage because you don't want anything feeling too squeaky in your yarns.  You might loose the colour if you're not careful so I would break it down the lines to make sure I got some of these lovely colours throughout and if you pull it apart you can see the colours blending into the Puntas Arenas to give you come nice heavy tones.  This is a really versatile blend, its nice and bulky, and it has got a good bit of squish to it and it is also very soft so actually it is quite nice to have something that has got softness and a bit of handle to it so it won't run way whilst you're trying to work with it.

My Thoughts

I love today's fibre, the colours and the way it is put together makes it look almost delicate, reminds me of fine china tea cups with little pink roses on.  It is mostly soft with just a tad hint of something more rugged, something with a bit of grip to keep it all together. I had difficulty getting the camera on my phone to capture the colours in the blend properly but my proper Canon camera has done a much better job. I loved this one so much that I bought more of it when it became available in the New Year.

The information that has been printed on the bags is not always correct and there are no fibre content percentages, these have been provided on the chat boards.  The percentages that they gave on the chat boards were initially wrong but not totally different to that that was printed on the bag.  They initially gave us 80% Puntas Arenas blend, 20% Merino and when we delved into it deeper we got the final fibre content of 60% Puntas Arenas, 20% Superbright Trilobal Nylon, 20% Merino (Fuchsia, Chartreuse & Denim).  

What I have done with my bags is to write the actual fibre content on the bag using a gold gel pen in the gap immediately below the printed details, pretty much the only thing that will show up on black are the metallic gel pens.  This is why I have not taken "new" photos of the bags.

Advent Calendar 2023 Day 16

The Tradition

Day 16 is called Pavuchky and the tradition comes from Ukraine.  The tradition goes that a poor widow and her children found a pine sapling growing in the dirt floor of their shack.  So that they could have a Christmas tree to decorate that year they cared for it diligently but when Christmas eve came they couldn’t afford decorations. The spiders that lived in the shack heard this and spun their webs across the little tree so that when the family came down in the morning and the sunlight shone in through the window, the tree glistened with the web decorations.

The Fibre

The actual fibre content is 70% Shetland (Forest & Evergreen), 15% Red Eri Silk, 15% Mulberry Silk (Edinburgh Grey). This blend mimics the tree decorated with spiders webs. We have a base of Shetland, we've used British Shetland in all the different shades of green that we have and then we've added Mulberry Silk and Eri Silk to this to mimic the spider webs and it drifts through absolutely lovely and I think that this really has done the tale justice.  This has got a lovely sheen through it and you can just imagine all of the silk as little bits of spider web hanging off the tree.  Because this is Shetland it has a lovely bouncy spring to it and the weight of the Mulberry Silk doesn't take anything from that, if anything, it adds a little bit of extra softness.  If it was put into a garment in some way it would look absolutely fantastic.

My Thoughts

I love this one.  I do notice that in my length of the blend there appears to be more Silk at one end than the other so when I spin this I will have to split it down the length and turn one half around and put it back together to even out the Silk.  I thought the Silk was white initially and was surprised to find out that it is grey but it must be a very pale grey because it looks almost white.  This one isn't overly soft but it's not nasty, with the Shetland it is another everyday wool with added luxury from the Silk.  I might spin this with something white, I have plenty of options so will find something to match the fibres in this one. I don't think that I want to barberpole this one, perhaps I will blend it first.

The information that has been printed on the bags is not always correct and there are no fibre content percentages, these have been provided on the chat boards.  The percentages that they gave on the chat boards seem to be correct for this one.  

What I have done with my bags is to write the actual fibre content on the bag using a gold gel pen in the gap immediately below the printed details, pretty much the only thing that will show up on black are the metallic gel pens.  This is why I have not taken "new" photos of the bags.

Advent Calendar 2023 Day 15

The Tradition

Day 15 is called Krampus and the tradition comes from Austria. Krampus is one of the variations of "Santa's helper", where the helper is assigned the naughty list duties.  Krampus is an anthropomorphic goat figure with one human foot and a very long tongue. He is said to have accompanied Saint Nicholas on visits to children on the night of 5th December, immediately before the Feast of Saint Nicholas on 6th December, and he would warn the children to be good otherwise he will return on Christmas Eve with Saint Nicholas and punish naughty children with birch rods.  After WWI the Krampus tradition began to be banned and replaced their Saint Nicholas traditions with the kinder version of the American Santa Claus.

The Fibre

The actual fibre content is 40% Mohair, 20% Merino, 20% Bamboo, 16% South American Wool, 4% Viscose.  This blend represents arguably the most terrifying Christmas tradition I have ever come across.  This blend is called Krampus, who is like the polar opposite of Father Christmas, so instead of giving children gifts for behaving he scares them into behaving.  The figure of Krampus is large, horned, has fangs and even as an adult I think if some threatened me with Krampus I would probably start behaving myself.   This blend is very interesting looking, it's dark grey, as Krampus is usually depicted as dark greys, browns and blacks.  This contains Mohair, Merino, Viscose and Bamboo.  There is a lot of Mohair in here, which gives a nice drapey feel to it and whereas Merino blends tend to feel quite squishy this definitely feels smoother and a little bit more lank, which is actually quite nice, makes a nice change.  So the Bamboo and the Viscose that is dotted throughout here gives a lovely tweedy effect and actually the colour of the Merino has been lightened by the Mohair in it.  This is a very versatile blend.  If you're spinning it you probably don't want to spin it too tightly because the Mohair in it could risk it feeling a little bit harsh and a little bit hairy.  If you give it a nice light spin and a light ply it will keep the bulk of the Merino.

My Thoughts

I like this one.  It has lots of different shades of grey and black interspersed with blue viscose nepps which will give texture and interest to the finished yarn.  My initial thoughts were to work this with something equally dark from my stash but then I decided to buy an additional 50g when they became available.

The information that has been printed on the bags is not always correct and there are no fibre content percentages, these have been provided on the chat boards.  The percentages that they gave on the chat boards are incorrect and different to what was printed on the bags. They gave us the fibre as 60% Fable, 40% Mohair.  What?  I don't recall ever seeing a mysterious Fable animal in a field, is that a sheep, a goat, a horse, what is that?  Oh, right, Fable, as in the name of a blend in the shop, so we have to go find out what that is ourselves and work out what we actually have here.  Fable is 33.33% each Merino, Bamboo and Viscose Tweed, but wait a second, Viscose Tweed is itself made up of 80% South American Wool, 20% Viscose.   This means that the overall fibre content is 40% Mohair, 20% Merino, 20% Bamboo, 16% South American Wool, 4% Viscose. 

What I have done with my bags is to write the actual fibre content on the bag using a gold gel pen in the gap immediately below the printed details, pretty much the only thing that will show up on black are the metallic gel pens.  This is why I have not taken "new" photos of the bags.

Blending the Yellow-Orange Llandovery Whiteface Hill - Saffron Sunshine

It's been a few weeks since I last played with my blending hackle, I've been doing some spinning as well as preparing for the festive celebrations, but I really need to tackle the Llandovery Whiteface Hill fleece that I dyed back in September.  I sorted out the additional fibres that I would be adding to all four lots of Llandovery Whiteface Hill back at that time and then dyed the lots of fleece colours to go with the additional fibres that I had chosen.  All of the additional fibres in the different colours are within a few grams of each other and I plan to use all of each bump of fibre so that the final fibre content won't be exactly the same for all four blends but will be very close.

The other fibres that I chose to put in this blend are, from left to right, top to bottom: 15g Tussah Silk in shade Saffron, 7g Trilobal Nylon in shade Sun, 9g Silk Noil in shade Saffron, 9g Hemp that I dyed myself in June 2023 using cold water dyes and finally 139g Llandovery Whiteface Hill fibre that I dyed in September.  I have decided to call this colourway "Saffron Sunshine".

I discovered that I had somehow managed to felt the wool slightly during the dye process so I had a little bit of trouble getting it to open up again.  This time I decided to try combing it again before using it on the hackle to try to make it easier but I've lost quite a lot of fibre doing that and it hasn't made it feel any softer than just opening it up on the hackle during the blending.  I've ended up with 179g of a lovely unique blend ready to spin.

The fibre content of this one works out to be:

77.5% Llandovery Whiteface Hill wool
8.5% Tussah Silk
5% Silk Noil
5% Hemp
4% Trilobal Nylon

Advent Calendar 2023 Day 14

The Tradition

Day 14 is called Misa de Gallo and the tradition comes from Spain and translates as Roosters Mass. The Festival of the Rooster has a few origin stories, the one we like tells of how they (we're not sure who they are!) were trying to work out when to have a mass to celebrate the birth of Jesus; it was hard to come up with an agreeable time so they settled on "when the cock crows".

The Fibre

The actual fibre content is 50% Corriedale (Amber & Crimson), 35% Manx Loagthan (natural), 15% Bambo (Ella).  For this blend we've looked at a traditional barnyard cockerel and tried to pull as many colours as we can into this.  I don't think we've done a bad job.  The base of this is brown, like many chickens are and this brown is Manx Loaghtan which originally comes form the Isle of Man, they're always brown and they have four horns, two at the top and two down below.  Quite a short staple but it is a remarkably soft fibre for something that you'd find from our shores.  The rest of the fibres in here are Corriedale because we really didn't want to put Merino in with this, we wanted something that would be similar in handle to the Manx and we've also put a little bit of bamboo in here just to get that sheen that you see on the rooster tail feathers and if you look at a strutting rooster in the sunlight you will see all of these colours in this blend.  For spinning, what I would probably do is split it along the length and do a nice loose spin to make sure I'm not muddying all the shades up.  This is a nice springy versatile blend with a good amount of colours in and every time you spin it it will go differently.  If you spin from the fold or if you spin from the lines (down the length).

My Thoughts

The colours are interesting, I didn't get excited or squeal at this one or anything, but I don't not like it.  This isn't soft and squishy or luxurious but it is a hardworking kind of fibre blend that would make great winter accessories like hat, scarf and gloves.  I'm not sure what I will be doing with this but I could maybe find some similar fibres and similar colours in my stash and make this braid go a little further.

The information that has been printed on the bags is not always correct and there are no fibre content percentages, these have been provided on the chat boards.  The percentages that they gave on the chat boards seem to be correct, yay!  

What I have done with my bags is to write the actual fibre content on the bag using a gold gel pen in the gap immediately below the printed details, pretty much the only thing that will show up on black are the metallic gel pens.  This is why I have not taken "new" photos of the bags.

Advent Calendar 2023 Day 13

The Tradition

Day 13 is called Sinterklaas and the tradition comes from The Netherlands. Based on Saint Nicholas, the patron saint of children, who was a Greek bishop in Turkey.  He is depicted as an elderly, stately man with white hair and a long white beard and wears a traditional white bishops alb with a long red cape over the top and a red mitre on his head. When he died stories of the goodness he did were told and eventually these became celebrated in the middle ages. Sinterklaas carries a big red book which records whether each child has been good or naughty in the past year. The feast of Sinterklaas is celebrated in the Netherlands on St Nicholas' Eve, 5th December, with the giving of gifts. The feast is also celebrated in other nearby countries on 6th December.

The Fibre

The actual fibre content is 60% Bio-Nylon (Rosso), 24% South American Wool, 7% Merino, 6% Viscose, 3% Stellina (Gold). Saint Nicholas has been dressed in red and white and that is what this blend is focussing on.  A blend of bio-nylon, wool, viscose and Stellina,  The red in this is the bio-nylon, chosen because it is biodegradable and even though Sinterklaas is dressed in red we really wanted to focus on the glitteryness and also on some of the textures that you see like ruffles around his hood and his collar and cuffs.  We have the lovely red and the glittery Stellina and you can see the really nice nepps running through this.  The great thing about this, it's got a very very large amount of Stellina in it, more than we normally put in which means it will show throughout all of the work you're doing but because this Stellina is quite soft it's not going to give you an itchy or scratchy feel. If you're spinning with it you probably want to draft it out in advance of spinning so that you can make sure you get a bit of everything in every ply and this really is quite a fun blend, there is a lot going on.

My Thoughts

I took a sharp in-take of breath when I opened this one and then squealed excitedly.  It's gorgeous! I can't wait to spin this one and I might spin it along with a white blend from last year's advent calendar that was pure white but very much similar to the white parts of this blend.  I'm not sure yet but that might be what I do with it.

The information that has been printed on the bags is not always correct and there are no fibre content percentages, these have been provided on the chat boards.  The percentages that they gave on the chat boards were not correct.  What they originally gave us was 60% Bio Nylon (Rosso), 30% Natural Tweed,  10% Glitter White/Gold.  They state that it is a high Stellina content blend, and it does look like there is a lot of it.  After discussion, the Natural Tweed is actually 80% South American Wool, 20% Viscose and the Glitter White/Gold is 70% Merino, 30% Stellina so this means that the final fibre content is actually 60% Bio Nylon, 24% South American Wool, 7% Merino, 6% Viscose and 3% Gold Stellina.  I can't believe that there is only 3% Stellina in the blend, it certainly looks like there is far more than that in the blend! 

What I have done with my bags is to write the actual fibre content on the bag using a gold gel pen in the gap immediately below the printed details, pretty much the only thing that will show up on black are the metallic gel pens.  This is why I have not taken "new" photos of the bags.

Spinning "Sky at Night" and "Magic"

This is the last of four planned yarns that I am making using the last of the black Jacob wool that I have from fleece that I got several years ago.  For this one I spun up the last of the black Jacob and then I spun up the 63g of 100% Merino from that I overdyed in June 2023, it was previously a repulsive "Hot Pink" or "Barbie Pink" colour that was in a "mixed bag" that I bought for my "ingredients cupboard" but I was never going to use it as it was so the time had come to over-dye it in a useable colour. 

I spun each of them separately and then just plied them together until one of them ran out.  As it happened, I ran out of the Jacob before I ran out of Merino so once I had finished the yarn I made a small skein of Merino by making an Andean plying bracelet of the remaining single on the bobbin and plied it back to itself.  The main skein is 52.5% Jacob, 47.5% Merino.

I love the way the colours of the Merino are constantly changing between blue/lilac/purple and plying that with the black Jacob really makes the colours pop.  It is similar but different to "Night Sky" so I have called it "Sky at Night".

This has turned out to be sport weight and there is 99g/244m

For comparison between the two...

This one is the top one of the two, the bottom one is the one I spun up on 6th December 2023, which was a little thicker too.

The remaining Merino, I spun back to itself so that this little skein is 100% Merino and is sport weight and 12g/33m and I've called it "Magic".

Advent Calendar 2023 Day 12

The Tradition

Day 12 is called Oplatek and the tradition comes from Poland, dating back to the 10th century.  The custom is traditionally observed during Wigilia, a traditional Christmas Eve vigil that extends into Midnight Mass in Roman Cathollic Churches all over Poland. The pale unleavened wafers are baked from pure wheat flour and water are thin and identical to the alter bread given during Mass. The special Christmas wafers are rectangular and embossed with Christmas-related religious images such as the nativity scene, Mary and child or the Star of Bethleham.  The family gather around the table to feast but first the eldest takes one of these large wafers and breaks a piece off and the wafers passes around the table whilst a prayer is said and each person breaks off a piece of wafer.  Once everyone has a piece of wafer they wish good things for friends and family for the coming year whilst consuming the piece of wafer.

The Fibre

The actual fibre content is 50% Suri Alpaca, 25% Shetland, 25% Bluefaced Leicester.  The wafers tend to be pale in colour and so is this blend too.  We've selected some really interesting fibres.  This is Suri Alpaca, Shetland and Bluefaced Leicester.  Everybody knows BFL, they're an iconic UK breed and they have a lovely soft fleece.  Everybody knows Shetland but again they're another well known UK breed with a load of different colours and a very springy fleece but how many people Suri Alpaca, their fibre is silky and it's got a lovely drape to it and you can really feel it in this blend  The Suri adds a whiteness to it whereas the BFL and the Shetland give much more of creamy texture. This is a really versatile blend, whatever you want to do with it it will happily go along with it.  If you're spinning you can spin this to a fine weight, like a lace weight if you wanted to, or you could make something really rather bulky for a nice sumptuous squish that will knit and crochet really nicely.

My Thoughts

I like this one. Soft with almost a halo about it but at the same time it feels like it has a bit of a bite, grip, but not too much, it will still be a nice soft yarn.  I will most likely pair this one with one of the white ones from last years Advent Calendar as there were a number of white blends in that one too that will work lovely with this one to give me a nice amount to make something with.  

The information that has been printed on the bags is not always correct and there are no fibre content percentages, these have been provided on the chat boards.  The percentages that they gave on the chat boards seem to be correct.  

What I have done with my bags is to write the actual fibre content on the bag using a gold gel pen in the gap immediately below the printed details, pretty much the only thing that will show up on black are the metallic gel pens.  This is why I have not taken "new" photos of the bags.

Advent Calendar 2023 Day 11

The Tradition

Day 11 is called Black Cake and the tradition comes from Barbados. A lot like our traditional Christmas cake but made with browning, which is a caramel-like syrup made from sugar and water which darkens as the cake is cooked, giving it a deeper colour and a distinctive flavour.  While our cakes can be soaked in whiskey, brandy or rum, the Black Cake is traditionally soaked in rum. 

The Fibre

The actual fibre content is 40% Jacob (Black), 40% Shetland (Woodpecker and Tropic), 20% Bio-nylon (Bluebell). We have some beautiful blues because you can't think of Barbados without the blues but we also have some natural blacks in here.  The natural black is brought to us by the Jacob and Shetland. Jacob has patches of black and white with grey in between. Shetlands come in a massive variety of colours but they do come in black so you get these lovely darker shades.  We've popped some bio-nylon in which means that it has this lovely blue shade running through it and the great thing about the bio-nylon is it acts just like a wool, you don't get any squeak or sheen or anything like that, it looks matte, like a Merino blend would.  This isn't a super soft blend, its got a nice handle to it which means it will behave itself when you're spinning, it won't try and run away with you.  This is a really really versatile blend and it does have nice bit of bulk and squish to it so just like Barbados black cake I reckon this blend is going to be a bit moreish as well.

My Thoughts

I love the colour of this one.  It's not as soft as I would expect from Jacob and Shetland and I know that bio-nylon is not a harsh fibre either, its really soft.  I have found this though, that Jacob, especially, from suppliers is never as soft as what I get from raw fleece, and I think it might be because I comb all of the fleece that I get in and so all the coarsest fibres are removed to leave just the nicest, finest, softest fibres whilst fleece prepared for spinning by mills probably leave a lot of that in as they will want to get as much from a fleece as possible but my preference is always quality over quantity. With the bio-nylon in this one the yarn should be quite hardwearing.  This one is so different to how the camera on my phone captured the colours and at the time I couldn't get it to show all the variation of colours and it came out quite bright and vivid but in reality it is much duller and it is even a little darker than what my Canon camera captured.

The information that has been printed on the bags is not always correct and there are no fibre content percentages, these have been provided on the chat boards.  The percentages that they gave on the chat boards seem to be correct.  

What I have done with my bags is to write the actual fibre content on the bag using a gold gel pen in the gap immediately below the printed details, pretty much the only thing that will show up on black are the metallic gel pens.  This is why I have not taken "new" photos of the bags.

Advent Calendar 2023 Day 10

The Tradition

Day 10 is called Red Candle and the tradition comes from Ireland and dates back to the 17th century. During the 17th and 18th centuries there were oppressive laws put in place by the British Government to try to restrict the practice of Catholicism in Ireland and churches were not allowed, forcing Catholic priests into hiding.  During the night, Priests would sneak back into towns to say mass in people's homes.  A lit candle in the window would signify that it was a safe place for the priest to go but it also drew the attention of British Soldiers who wanted to know what the reason for all the candles were so the innocent story that they were placing candles in the window to light the way for the safe passage of Mary & Joseph began. On Christmas Eve large red candles are lit and put in windows to mark the arrival of Christmas and also to welcome home friends and family.  Many also use the candles in the window to remember departed loved ones or to pray for the safe return of a loved one who was away from the home at that time.

The Fibre

The actual fibre content is 55% Merino (Crimson), 30% Bamboo (Harrietta), 10% Flax (Carmine), 5% Stellina (Gold).   We have blended Merino, Bamboo, Flax and Stellina for this blend, you've got to have a bit of glitter when you're talking about candles. The Merino is what holds all of this together, this is 23 micron Merino so is soft but not super soft and the flax adds a bit of texture. The bamboo in it will just give a very very light sheen and we've balanced the Stellina with a little bit of white as well so its not too heavy in the red department.  This is a really really versatile blend. In terms of spinning and weaving this will do that all day long if you draft out and pull it into sections you can make sure you get a bit of sparkle in every single bit of yarn.

My Thoughts

I love this one, it's red and sparkly and I love me some sparkles! The phone on my camera didn't do too bad this time.  This should make a soft yarn and it shouldn't be too difficult to spin as the flax and Stellina will give a bit of grip to the other fibres. My immediate thought is to put this with the other red that we've already had this year on Day 3, the KFC related tradition. We will see in the future.

The information that has been printed on the bags is not always correct and there are no fibre content percentages, these have been provided on the chat boards.  The percentages that they gave on the chat boards seem to be correct.  

What I have done with my bags is to write the actual fibre content on the bag using a gold gel pen in the gap immediately below the printed details, pretty much the only thing that will show up on black are the metallic gel pens.  This is why I have not taken "new" photos of the bags.

Spnning "Mint Chocolate"

This is the third of four planned yarns that I am making using the last of the black Jacob wool that I have from fleece that I got several years ago.  I made sure I had a full bobbin of the black Jacob and then I spun up some odds and sods of green Merino that I had in my "ingredients cupboard", which is a cupboard full of small amounts of various fibres in various colours that you can buy as "mixed bags" etc and most are generally 10-30g sample sized bumps of fibre, into a gradient.  I made the green merino gradient by just simply pulling bits off of each adjoining colour and basic hand blending it a bit to make a "go-between" colour.  I did this for all of the adjoining colours.  It's far from perfect but it's worked pretty well.

31g Conifer, 18g Forest, 18g Leaf, 14g Peppermint
89g Natural black/brown Jacob 

As you will note, there was far more of the darkest green than any of the other 3 greens and I could have decided to not use all of it but I did use it all and my thinking was that I could use this to my advantage if I make a semi-circular shawl that starts with just a few stitches and increases with each row. I would have quite a deep section of the lightest colour and then as the shawl gets bigger the next two colours would be used on a decent number of rows, but not as many as the lightest colour, and then with the length of the rows being so long by the time I start using the darkest shade I would need that extra amount to get any decent number of rows worked in it before it runs out.

I spun each of them separately and then just plied them together until all of the green Merino gradient was used up.  I used 89g of black Jacob with the 81g of Merino.  The fibre content is 52.5% Jacob, 47.5% Merino.

I'm not totally in love with this one.  I had an idea and I had to try it out.  It could have gone better, I could have done it better.  I think the palest of the green looks almost white and I think that is what is throwing me off this a little bit. It is what it is.  I've called this one "Mint Chocolate".

This has turned out to be Double-Knit weight and there is 166g/396m

Advent Calendar 2023 Day 9

The Tradition

Day 9 is called Julebord and the tradition comes from Norway and translates as "Christmas Table", also called Julefrokost in Denmark, Julbord in Sweden.  This tradition is about feasting and drinking with friends and family.  People gather and enjoy all of their favourite sweet and savoury traditional Christmas food.  This can include lamb, spiced sausages, rice pudding, jam and mulled wine and also Akevitt, which is a distilled Scandinavian spirit that has been made since the 15th century and is distilled from grain or potatoes and flavoured with a variety of herbs.

The Fibre

The actual fibre content is 50% Superwash Merino (Syrup), 20% Soybean, 20% Milk Protein, 10% Tussah Silk (Kale). With this blend we have been very careful with what we've put in it because we wanted to mimic the sort of foods that you might have at a Juleboard so specifically we have a Superwash Merino which is named Syrup and we've got Soybean and, Milk fibre and then we have Tussah Silk in the colour of Kale.  We wouldn't recommend eating all of these together by the way as it probably wouldn't taste very nice.  We have a lovely bright yellow blend and this is immensely soft and the kale in this is very very pale blue green colour coming through it, which adds a nice bit of depth to this blend.  This is very soft but unfortunately this will not work for felting.  If you spin, crochet or weave this will work very well in everything that you do and you can also put it through the washing machine but only on a gentle wash.  You can see the white of the Milk fibre and the Soybean in it.  The Soybean is slightly more creamy and the Milk is a bright white.  Merino in Syrup is the yellow and the Tussah Silk in kale is the green and that is a lovely blend and it really is so soft without being overly drapey.  You find that sometimes if you put too much of a fibre, such as a Mulberry Silk into it the drape is so heavy it pulls the blend apart but the Merino does a really good job of holding everything together and giving it a really great handle.

My Thoughts

This is a really fine fly-away blend, there is Milk fibre and Soybean in this, which are cellulose based fibres and these are very much like the Tussah Silk, which is also in this and these fibres make up 50% of the blend with the other 50% being the Superwash Merino. This one is a lot brighter/bolder than how the camera on my phone captured the colours, which looked quite washed out. I think I will need to spin this quite slowly and carefully so that it doesn't clump up.

The information that has been printed on the bags is not always correct and there are no fibre content percentages, these have been provided on the chat boards.  The percentages that they gave on the chat boards seem to be correct for this one.  

What I have done with my bags is to write the actual fibre content on the bag using a gold gel pen in the gap immediately below the printed details, pretty much the only thing that will show up on black are the metallic gel pens.  This is why I have not taken "new" photos of the bags.