My next scarf is again some vintage Mohair but this time only one of the 5 balls have a label so I have no idea if they are all the same dyelot but they are Luxury Mohair by Chevy.
I am sticking with making broomstick lace scarves for now. The yarn is 78% Mohair, 13% Wool, 9% Nylon. The pattern that I am working has a standard length of 118 rows and this is what I worked.
Once again I didn't take any work-in-progress photos and this colour is just beautiful.
I've decided that I need to use up some of the smaller amounts of vintage yarns to make smaller and quicker to make items that still fit within the lace theme of the shop but that might be more marketable and at a lower price point. I have 10 balls of Charisma 83% Mohair Rich but 7 balls have one dye lot and the other three have 2 different dye lot's between them.
Using the 3 rogue balls with odd dye lots I decided to make a broomstick lace scarf, putting the two balls with the same dyelot on the ends and the other ball in the middle. The yarn is 83% Mohair, 9% Wool, 8% Nylon. The pattern that I am working has a standard length of 118 rows but I worked 134 rows to use up as much of the yarn as possible and to make sure that the same number of rows were worked for each of the balls of yarn with the same dye lot so that if there is any slight difference in colour those sections would be equal.
I didn't take any work-in-progress photos. I must get back into the habit of doing that!
Spurred on by my recent spinning of the previous years' 12 Days of Advent set of fibres I decided to tackle this one which was produced the year after and was the last one that I purchased from that particular supplier before I parted custom with her. It seems that I didn't make such detailed notes about the different options available that year on my stash page for this fibre but my chosen pack was called "Frost Fair" and the inspiration for the colours is the picture below. Having said that I have discovered that I did, however, write a blog post about the options available back in the day and that can be found here.
The main braid is 60% 18.5 micron Merino, 20% Yak, 20% Tussah Silk and the 11 x 20g smaller packets are all 14.5 micron Merino, which is also known as Ultrafine Merino. The original post that I wrote showing all of the fibres in my pack after I opened them can be found here. Apparently, according to the notes that I took from the supplier at the time, the colours are all on a theme but I haven't managed to work out what that "theme" is yet. Answers on a postcard to...
This time I started with the main braid first and I spun this over-the-fold and chain plied due to the short Yak fibres and to try and keep colours together as much as I could. It's lovely and soft and spun up to sport weight 102g/293m.
I spun all of the 14.5 micron merino fibre bumps in the same way, over-the-fold and chain plied. I did have a few problems along the way with it breaking on me during the ply and this was due to it being underspun in parts. I'm not a fan of such fine Merino, or at least not the stuff from this supplier, the fibres were very short in parts which didn't help in keeping the yarn in one piece. Personally I prefer something with much more body and more hardwearing.
So this...
All of the Merino spun up to sport weight. At some point in the future I will figure out what I will make with it but I doubt that I will use all of the smaller merino bumps together in one project. I'm glad it is all spun up now though because about half way through it began to feel like a tedious chore but I was determined to push on through and complete it.
Ha, ha, ha, of course it did, that is my story and I'm sticking to it. Last year they were earlier than the previous year and this year they are even earlier! 5th September last year is the date that World of Wool released pre-order for their annual Fibre Advent Calendar. This year it was 31st July! That is that date that I ordered it, no messing around. The price has gone up a bit, again, but I was kind of expecting that anyway. Because of the amount of money it costs it automatically triggers a 5% discount on the website and the money you save pretty much covers the cost of delivery within the UK.
Last year it was a limited edition of 250 and this year it has risen to 500. Last year there were 24 x 50g bumps of fibre, this year it has risen to 25 x 50g bumps of fibre. This years theme is "Christmas Characters", inspired by Christmas Characters past and present. This is their fourth Advent Calendar and it will be presented in a black gift box for the third year in row and the individual bags are similar to last years but feature a different style of design printed on the bags. They have now released some photos and I am pretty excited. The designs on the bags appear to be a mix of modern and nostalgic Christmas wrapping paper patterns and it looks like the bags will only have a number printed on them this year, rather than all the details which kind of ruined the surprise a little last year whilst looking for the right bag to open each day. All the fibre details and information about the Christmas Characters are printed in a booklet. The Advent Calendars will be shipped from November.
This year they are also doing a matching Yarn Advent Calendar, exactly the same blends and fibres as the Fibre one but it's pre-spun for you. It is considerably more expensive though but then once you factor in the labour costs of spinning it, it's probably not that bad. It is a limited edition of just 100, I guess that is to see how popular it will be. 25 x 50g of Double Knit yarn in a handy cardboard tubes within the black gift box with the same book as the fibres.
