Spinning the Aqua and Pink Falkland

I blended this fibre last week and now I have finished spinning it up.  I've got two skeins of double knit weight yarn and one smaller skein of worsted weight yarn from this.

The double knit yarns are 107g/308m and 106g/311m, lovely and soft and slightly sparkly and was spun short forward draw. The final fibre content worked out at 70% Falkland, 12% Other wool and fibres, 11.5% Merino, 3% Silk Noil, 2% Silk, 1.5% Angelina.  So now you're probably thinking "Other wool and fibres?", yes, there were some elements that went into the recipe that I didn't know for sure what fibres they included and that is one of the downfalls of buying bags of leftovers/oddments/botany lap waste from fibre producers/sellers but in my opinion the positives outweigh the negatives when you buy that stuff.

The worsted weight skein was spun using the blending hackle waste and I have 73g/153m.  I spun this semi-worsted/semi longdraw just as it come which has produced a slightly thick and thin slightly slubby yarn.  The fibre content is a little different on this one due to the fact that there is no silk noil in it but its not all that different at 70% Falkland, 15% Other wool and fibres, 11.5% Merino, 2% Silk, 1.5% Angelina.

Aqua and Pink Falkland

I've been playing with the blending hackle again.  This time I've been playing with 200g of aqua coloured Falkland fibre that I bought back in November 2013.  It doesn't seem that long ago but I'm glad that I chose to blend it rather than just spin it because it had started to compact slightly which would have made it a little tough to spin as it was.

Once again I have chosen a whole load of bits and pieces to put with this to give it a bit p'zazz, including Merino, Silk Noil and Angelina.

I first of all split everything equally into 4 lots and loaded the blending hackle up quite finely as I only wanted to do each quarter only once.  The wool fibres lay on top of each other really nicely but the Silk Noil had to be pulled apart into small pieces and just placed on top of the layers of fibre as putting it through the tines of the hackle would have meant that it stuck there and it would have been the same with the Angelina.  I dizzed each of the lots off the hackle and had 4 large bumps of fibre ready to spin.

I had a lot of waste stay at the back of the hackle with each lot that was blended so I removed this at the end of each lot and lay it to one side.  At the end of the blending I had 4 decent sized amounts of fibre to spin by another method if needs be.

Good Old Fashioned Cape - Design D194

Staying with my own handspun yarn, this time I have opted for some lovely Falkand/Soy Silk that I spun back in 2012 and put that with a fairly simple little cape that just has lace along the bottom edge.  If you would like to know more about the yarn here is a post I wrote at the time of spinning.

I'm grateful to be knitting this right now as its really cold and with this lot sat on my lap as I work its keeping me warm.  Its got a good weight to it too.  Still needs to be washed, shaped and dried.

I decided that a vintage style cape needs vintage style buttons and these were only one of a couple of types that I have that actually 'worked' with the design and the colours of the yarn.

Yes, I think another one of these would be great in the shop, in a different colour of course!

Falkland Fibre

I've been shopping with Mandacrafts again and this time I have bought some lovely Falkland fibre.  Now, confusing as this may seem there is not an actual breed of sheep called Falkland and the Island does not have its own native breed of sheep per se.  The term "Falkland" is just a reference to where the wool comes from geographically.  Most of the sheep on the Falkland Islands belong to one of a handful of breeds: Polwarth (a breed in its own right these days but originally 75% Merino and 25% Lincoln Longwool), pure breed Merino, Corridale and Romney and the fleeces are all of exceptional quality.  There are no known sheep diseases on the Falkland Islands and so there is no need for chemical dipping.  The fleece and fibre from the Falkland Islands is certified as organic.

I purchased 110g of combed top in colour way "Peaches and Cream", split into two equal parts and spun a single from each part.  Plied together to make a sport weight yarn with a total of 701m.

Falkland Wool and Soy Bean Top

I bought some more pre-dyed spinning fibre to try, different to anything I have tried so far.  These are Falkland Wool Top from Dunnose Head Farm in the Falkland Islands, and Soy Bean Silk Top both bought from MandaCrafts, who dyed them.

The Falkland Wool Top is produced organically and on the Dunnose Head Farm website, it says this about their wool. "Naturally pure, naturally beautiful, and grown without the use of any artificial fertilisers, dips, injections or other chemicals, our wool is as unspoilt as you will find anywhere on this planet.  Hence the DHF green sheep logo - your guarantee of purity."

The Soy Bean Silk Top is the vegetable alternative to Silk and has been spaced dyed.  There is 150g of each fibre.

I spun both fibres individually and then plied them together.  I made two skeins of yarn, one is 148g/193m and the other is 138g/198m and both are Double Knit weight but because of the slight difference in measurements it will be best to use these working from both skeins, alternating every 2 rows to even the yarn out.