Advent Calendar 2024 Day 9 - Knecht Ruprecht

I have never heard of this character and the spelling is a little bit confusing to me, I kept reading it as Rupert, but it isn't helped by the fact that the main heading in the booklet has a spelling mistake in the fact that there is a K before the last letter of the first word when it should be a H. All other instances of the word are spelt correctly, as far as I can tell.  All the information can be found in the first photo and if you click on the photo you can zoom in if you need to.  

I wonder if the design on this packet is meant to represent the children in the tradition.

I have undone the tightly wrapped little bundles and made them into braids to take any pressures off the fibres and also so that I can see the colours properly and feel the texture too.  It's nice and soft quite smooth so I have no idea what I will pair this with right now but I do notice that this is the fourth fibre on the bounce that has been quite dull and in the grey/browns kind of range.  I do hope we have a nice colourful one soon.

Spinning up May 2020's fibre from the fibre club

I am so glad to have reached the point where I have spun up the last full braid of fibre that I purchased directly from a previous supplier that I had issues with.  I wish I could say that that is it with fibres from her but I can't.  I still have one double braid lot that I bought second-hand and I still have fibres in my "ingredients cupboard" that are from her, although they are going down gradually.

This one is "Athena" and from May 2020.  I wanted to keep a lot of the colour separation to create an interesting yarn rather than one that is blended together to make a boring "beige yarn". I split it in half across the length, creating two shorter pieces, and then each half I split down into lots of long thin strips to keep as few colours as possible in each piece.  

I spun it finely and plied to produce a yarn of Light fingering weight of 103g/510m.  The fibre content is 40% 18.5 micron Merino, 20% Alpaca, 20% Baby Camel, 20% Mulberry Silk.

Advent Calendar 2024 Day 7 - Yet to Come

Just like that we are back to "A Christmas Carol" by Charles Dickens but this time it is for " The Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come".  All the information can be found in the first photo and if you click on the photo you can zoom in if you need to.

I do like the designs on the little packets and I am not entirely sure that they are themed to match the character on any given day.  I think that maybe some are as best as possible, where they can kind of match them from the designs available to them from wherever they've got them, possibly the printers.

I have undone the tightly wrapped little bundles and made them into braids to take any pressures off the fibres and also so that I can see the colours properly and feel the texture too.  I quite like this one and this may be one that I purchase more off because, due to the type of fibres in the blend and the drape that these will create, it may be difficult for me to match something out of my stash that would work with this one.

Advent Calendar 2024 Day 5 - Loathe Entirely

This one is Loathe Entirely and even as I read it I hear Jim Carey's voice in my head as "The Grinch" and I am imagining that it is going to be some kind of green or maybe a green with splashes of red and white.  All the information can be found in the first photo and if you click on the photo you can zoom in if you need to.

I do like the designs on the little packets though.  Each one is different and this one features fir trees with berries and cones.

I have undone the tightly wrapped little bundles and made them into braids to take any pressures off the fibres and also so that I can see the colours properly and feel the texture too.  I like this one and it will probably be paired with another bump from either this or previous years' advent calendars.

Advent Calendar 2024 Day 4 - Cinnamon Bear

This one is about a character called "Cinnamon Bear".  I have never heard of it and all the information can be found in the first photo and if you click on the photo you can zoom in if you need to.

I do like the designs on the little packets though.  Each one is different and this one, whilst Cinnamon in colour, features some kind of fir tree branches with pine cones, although at first glance I thought they were feathers!

I have undone the tightly wrapped little bundles and made them into braids to take any pressures off the fibres and also so that I can see the colours properly and feel the texture too.  I like this one, it could be an interesting spin.

Making my own yellow blend for the last day of the TDF2023

I've been playing with my blending hackle again today and making a yellow fibre blend in preparation for the upcoming Tour de Fleece 2023.  There is always a "yellow jersey day", usually on the last day of The Tour.  I'm not buying any fibre for this event this year, I will make do with what I have because I have plenty that needs to be used up.

I have already dyed some fibre for this purpose just a few days ago and I have sorted out what else will be added to it to make it more interesting.

Top row: unknown cellulose/plant fibre and Trilobal Nylon both dyed a few days ago
Middle row: Angelina, Merino/Suri Alpaca blend I dyed a few days ago, Sari Silk in shade Honeycomb
Bottom row: Bamboo in shade Clara and Mulberry Silk Noil I dyed a few days ago

So the fibres I have picked out are all yellow but in different shades and textures and some are matt and some are shiny/lustrous.  In total 140g of fibre went through my blending hackle and I got 130g back out all nice and ready to spin in four bumps of fibre, which when paired up give me two x 65g lots.

Look how soft and fluffy this is.  It's gorgeous and I can't but help think of cute little ducklings.

The final fibre content is: 50% Merino wool, 21.5% Suri Alpaca, 7% Cellulose, 7% Bamboo, 4.5% Angelina, 3.5% Mulberry Silk, 3.5% Trilobal Nylon, 3% Sari Silk

Advent Calendar 2022 Day 21

OMG it's another fawn coloured soft fluffy fibre and it's called Winter Knitter.  The fibre content is 50% Bluefaced Leicester, 25% Alpaca and 25% Muga Silk (geographically linked to Assam in India and previously reserved purely for use by Royalty).

After Christmas, in the New Year, WoW made additional 100g braids of fibre of all of the Advent Calendar Fibres available to purchase to those who had purchased the Advent Calendar.  There were limited stocks of each one available, it was on a first-come-first served basis and there was a short time frame of priority before the remaining stock was made available to general purchase.  This was one of 7 fibres that I bought an extra 100g of.

Advent Calendar 2022 Day 18

Another white one today, soft and fluffy.  Its called All the Trimmings, and they're not joking, 50g and 8 different fibres but they've not given out the percentages on this one.  It's made up of Huacaya Alpaca, Bluefaced Leicester, Hill Radnor, Merino, Mint, Pineapple, Polwarth and Tencel.

Advent Calendar 2022 Day 7

This one is sooooo soft and its white and its called Snowballs!  Made of 50% Tweed wool, 25% Kid Mohair and 25% Baby Alpaca.  I have no immediate plans for this, will have to see what else we're gonna get in the box and see what will work together.

Tour de France/Tour de Fleece 2022 Stage 12 - Briançon to Alpe D'Huez

Stage 12 of the Tour de France and it is a 165.1km long mountain race that starts in Briançon and ends in Alpe D'Huez and today's route retraces yesterday's route in reverse for about half of the route.

The Map

Sights and points of interest along the route

Briançon is in an area of wonderful natural beauty and is surrounded by numerous mountains and mountain passes and is a UNESCO World Heritage Site for its Vauban fortifications, of which there are many.  There is the Fort of the Three Heads, Fort Dauphin and 18th century Collegiate Church of Notre-Dame-et-Saint-Nicolas.  Schappe Park was part of a project in 1815 to convert dry quarries into oriental style gardens to include a lake with a Japanese bridge over, and island and a pagoda.

Roads near to Briançon

So, yesterday's route in reverse is Le Monêtier-les-Bains, Museum of Sacred Art, Church of Notre-Dame d'Assomption, Galibier Pass, Valloire with its hay and straw sculptures, Saint-Michel-de-Maurienne, Saint-Jean-de-Maurienne with the Cathedral of St John the Baptist and now the route turns off onto a new place, Fontcourverte-la Toussuire then Saint-Jean-d'Arves, a family resort and then onto Saint-Sorlin-d'Arves and Saint-Saturnin Church.  Next is Saint-Colomban-des-Villards and then Vaujany with Grand-Maison dam and then the village of Allemont, once home to a royal smelter using local ores, mostly silver.

Allemont

Le Bourg d'Oisans is famous for its slate and minerals and then its onto La Garde-en-Oisans, an historic village documented since the early middle ages and close to the bell tower of Saint-Pierre Church, a former priory.  The race ends in Alpe d'Huez, that hosts a film festival with the theme of "comedy" the only one that does in Europe.  There is Notre-Dame-des-Neiges Church, the Archaeological site of Brandes which was a silver mining village back in the 12th century as well as a museum.

Alpe d'Huez

Who Won the Stage and Who Won What Jersey

The Stage winner is Thomas Pidcock for Ineos-Grenadiers.

The Yellow Jersey won by Jonas Vingegaard for Jumbo-Visma

The Green Jersey won by Wout van Aert for Jumbo-Visma.

The Polka Dot Jersey won by Simon Geschke for Cofidis/FRA.

The White Jersey won by Tadej Pogacar for UAE Team Emirates.

Combatif Award won by Thomas Pidcock for Ineos-Grenadiers.

Leading team: Ineos-Grenadiers

The Challenge: More mountains!  But then, we wouldn't expect any less from the stunning Alps.  Today's stage could be trickier than yesterdays with 21, yes twenty-one, hairpins!  Apparently, this exact stage was done in 1986, lets hope they've resurfaced the road since then!

Seeing as the race will be so high, we thought we'd go for a different challenge today, just in case you need a bit of a break from spinning.  Today's challenge is to take a picture of a skein (or bobbin, or ball, or whorl) of your hand spun at the highest point you can find.  For extra biscuit privileges you can see if you can find a high point to spin at!  We probably don't need to remind you, but you aren't Spiderman/woman, so please don't go hanging off any buildings or rickety looking things!  (If you are Spiderman/woman, your secret is safe with us. (Extra follow on: if you could have one super power what would it be?)).

Suggested Fibre: For those who are spinning every day, we've selected our Alpine Range for today's fibre...naturally!

What I did

I don't have anything from the Alpine Range, which is 67% Merino, 33% Alpaca, nor can I get up high today so I won't be doing that part of the challenge either.  I decided to use a braid of fibre from John Arbon Textiles, from their Alpaca Supreme range called Mr Smoke.  It's 40% Merino, 40% Alpaca, 20% Mulberry Silk.

The fibre is so soft and silky and I couldn't wait to try it.

The colours muddied when spinning, which is absolutely fine with me as that creates a more even colour and tone throughout the yarn, which is neither blue nor grey but a mix of the two and is spun to sport weight and 109g/306m which in terms of the TdF length calculations is 918m - 2 singles plus the plied length = 3 x finished yarn length.

Advent Calendar Day 18

It's brown and a bit dull but it's 100% Alpaca so it's forgiven.  Alpaca in natural Fawn shade and today's festive saying is "step into Christmas".  Not sure what I will do with this yet.

Luxury blend Autumn yarn

Onto the next fibre braids, again I got this from someone else's de-stash and its only about 2 years old but this time I have two the same but that throws up a few choices or ideas that I need to consider.  Do I spin them both in the same way or do I spin one of them one way and the other one in a different way?  Regardless of whether I do both the same or both differently my first decision is "what are my options?", so I needed to list different ways that I could spin the fibre but to focus only on the methods that would produce a yarn that I would actually use, so not likely to choose any kind of chain spun methods.

Option 1: split the fibre into two down the middle, the full length of the braid, and spin one single from one end and spin the other single by starting at the opposite end and then ply these two singles together.  This would result in a barber-pole yarn, for the most part at least, and each of the colour sections would be quite large due to the amount of fibre in each half of the braid.

Option 2: split the fibre into two down the middle, the full length of the braid, one single being spun from each half with the second single being spun by starting at the opposite end to the first but before I spin each single to split it further, once or multiple times but each half needs to be split the same amount of times, along each length to make each clump of colour smaller and spin each split length starting at the same end and then ply these two singles together.  This would result in a barber-pole yarn, for the most part at least, and each of the colour sections would be smaller, so whilst technically similar to Option 1 it would look different because the colours would change more frequently.

Option 3: split the fibre into two down the middle, the full length of the braid, and spin each single from the same end and then ply these two singles together.  This would result for the most part at least, a solid colour yarn with long colour changes due to the amount of fibre in each half of the braid.

Option 4: split the fibre into two down the middle, the full length of the braid, and spin each single from the same end and then ply these two singles together. but before I spin each single to split it further, once or multiple times but each half needs to be split the same amount of times, along each length to make each clump of colour smaller and spin each split length starting at the same end and then ply these two singles together.   This would result for the most part at least, a solid colour yarn with short colour changes due to the amount of fibre in each half of the braid.

I went with Option 3, splitting it straight down the middle and spinning from the end so that I have long colour changes.  I also decided to spin both braids in the same way.  When I was spinning the first braid I had already spun the first single the previous day and  I spun the second single and plied them together whilst we had a couple of young workmen in fitting an air circulation system in the loft (roof space) with the vent over the stairs.  One of them was fascinated in what I was doing and couldn't believe I had finished it before they left and was watching me split the second fibre braid down the length and could hardly believe that this is what unspun wool looks like and loved the colours and the look of the finished yarn.  His mum knits, apparently, so he is used to seeing yarn but has never seen anything as amazing and as nice as this.

The finished yarn is 200g of Double Knit weight yarn, 360m in total, with a fibre content of 50% Polwarth wool, 25% Black Alpaca and 25% Mulberry Silk.  It is pretty amazing and the colours are spectacular.  There is a tiny amount of barber-poling in the areas where the colours change but this is minimal and has to happen to some degree, it's the nature of the beast with colour changing yarns.

A Little Luxury Blend

I'm working through the oldest fibres in my stash that are ready for spinning.  This one I bought back in April 2018 and it's 50% Polwarth wool, 25% Alpaca, 25% Mulberry Silk and was one of my first purchases from my new favourite fibre supplier.

I've spun this to sport weight and I have 102g/170m and it's really, really soft.

May 2020's fibre is here - Athena

I knew what this one would look like and I was totally bang on.  I do love this one and its such a shame that I have felt the need to give up the monthly fibre club that I loved receiving as I will miss the monthly surprises but I won't miss the other things that go with being part of that club.  For my own mental health I have had to leave the club and the chat group.

There are lots of shades of a similar colour in this one and I like that.  What I don't like is lots of different colours that, in my opinion clash, like last months fibre.  However, that is not saying that I don't like fibre with different colours in them altogether as I do like January's fibre, National Trust, and I think that is because the colours are more muted and do work well together rather than fight each other for attention.

The fibre content of this one is 40% Merino, 20% Alpaca, 20% Baby Camel, 20% Mulberry Silk and I have to say that is very nice to touch and stroke.

Combing some Suri Alpaca

Way back in 2015 I bought 200g of Suri Alpaca fleece from someone in Gloucestershire.  The fleece came from a female Suri Alpaca called Shimmy.  She must have sent me more than 200g because even after washing the dust and dirt out it still weighed 208g once it was dry.

I've put off working on this because I've never worked with fibre this long, silky and slippery before, most of it is between 5 and 8 inches in length.  Time to stop being scared of it and just get on and at least prepare it.

There are lots of different shades in this fleece and most of it could be easily separated from the other shades and so I kept it this way as I combed it so that I would have hand combed nests in different colours which gives me more options than just blending it all together.

At the end of combing I have 160g left.  Its incredibly soft and silky, very much like long human hair in terms of texture and apparently incredibly difficult to spin on its own as there is no memory to this fibre, no elasticity and you need plenty of twist to keep it together but not too much else it very quickly turns rough and rope textured, but not enough and it will stretch and fall apart. 

From doing some research Suri Alpaca is OK on its own if you want to weave with it but not so much for knitting or spinning, it has good drape but is likely to loose shape completely quite quickly so is better blended with something that will provide grip and elasticity, like wool, merino perhaps.  I do have some small amounts of merino in similar shades of brown so I will compare those and order more if necessarily and then make a gradient yarn in a blend of Suri Alpaca and Merino but I will have to cut the Alpaca fibres in half to make them similar length to Merino so that they will blend.  By blending with Merino it not only will it improve the finished yarn but will make the gradient go further meaning that I can make a much bigger shawl from this.

The Blue Llanwenog

Last year I bought a Llanwenog sheep fleece, split it into four amounts, left one undyed and then dyed the other 3 amounts in 3 different colours.  This is the blue part of the fleece that started out at 400g and now that it's been combed I only have 153g left due to some of it felting, and an amount of coarse fibres which I have removed.  That is a lot to lose, more than 50% but I am fussy and would rather not spin rubbish and waste my time spinning rubbish.

It is pretty as it is but I wanted to make it something special and to add things to it that would help to soften it a little.

I went and raided and supplies cupboard and came out with all these that work well with the turquoise blue Llanwenog and they come from various supplies I've brought over the last few months, mostly small amounts with one or two larger amounts thrown in.

I split everything in two and blended each half on my blending hackle to get this fabulously interesting fibre ready to spin.

I'm really happy how this has turned out, very interesting.  I have two skeins of double knit weight yarn, 99g/284m and 96g/262m and the fibre content is about 65% Llanwenog Wool, 12% Merino Wool, 10% Tussah Silks, 4.5% Sari Silk, 3% Bluefaced Leicester Wool, 2% Alpaca, 1.5% Shetland Wool, 1% Linen (Flax), 1% Sea Cell.

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.

Oh no, not another one! - Design F213 - Golden Carrot

Back in September I spun this yarn that I had dyed using plant dyed from the boiled up carrot tops from the homegrown carrots.  This will be the last shawl of this design that I make, for a while at least.

This is really sparkly and I used the same beads as last time, Toho size 6 in shade 83, Metallic Brown Iris.

My eldest daughter doing the modelling again and the shawl is certainly a one-of-a-kind.

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% Falkland Merino, 28% Alpaca, 7% Mulberry Silk, 6% Angelina, 5% BFL, 5% Sari Silk.  Well, you certainly can't buy that in the shops!

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.