Blending again

A few days ago I combed some yellow Jacob wool and today I have finally made my choices using colour choice tools to help me make that decision and blended some extra bits and pieces into it.

Main photo is Jacob Wool with sunshine yellow merino, a blend of four greens merino and purple angelina underneath and then Elderberry merino, Saffron hemp and Caiprinha trilobal nylon (firestar) down the right hand side.

 I've not worked out the final fibre content just yet, would be pretty high on the Jacob and Merino though.  I didn't use all of the trilobal nylon in this as a little goes a long way and that is what is giving the fibre the shimmery glow.

Jacobs Gold

I am thrilled with how this has turned out and I am having trouble capturing the sparkles and shimmers that this yarn contains.  It positively glows in real life due to the Angelina and the Firestar (Trilobal Nylon) content in this yarn.

I blended it just a few days ago and now it is finished, soaked, snapped and dried.  I have 95g/246m of double knit weight yarn and its lovely and soft.  The final fibre content is: 75.5% Jacob Wool, 10.5% Trilobal Nylon, 5% Corriedale Wool, 5% Silk, 2% Merino, 2% Stellina/Angelina.

Blending some black Jacob fibres

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

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

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

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

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

I've bought some more Ingredients Boxes

I really do like the Ingredients Boxes from my main fibre supplier and they're not always available but she has them back in stock and in a few colourways so I've bought four of them, yes four!

As always each pack contains: 20g each of three shades of Tussah Silk, 10g each of two shades of Silk Noil, 10g each of two shades of Hemp, 10g each of two shades of Firestar (Trilobal Nylon) and 1g each of two shades of Angelina (in the little bags)

I've created these little collages and in the spare box in the bottom corner I have put an image containing a representation of my interpretation of the colours in the box.

First, we have Hydrangea, so delicate and pretty

Then we have Still Life, quite the opposite in its vibrancy, its certainly not still, its more like a fiesta

Next up we have Threads, which is kind of like half-way between the previous two in terms of colours and vivacity

And finally we have Pear, which is more colour coordinated and calm.

This lot should keep me busy for a while.

I've bought some small amounts of fibre

I know that I want to buy myself a blending hackle so that I can start making my own interesting blends of fibre for spinning because trying to add sparkle or other bits and pieces as you go along is really difficult and its almost impossible to do it on my wool combs.  I'm in the middle of researching which one will be best for me so I've started buying packs of fibre specifically for this reason.  They are sold by most places that sell spinning fibre and are usually small amounts of left overs, lap waste or sometimes specifically put together and sold for this purpose.

The first is an Ingredients Box from my regular fibre supplier in colourway Forget-me-not: The pack contains: 20g each of three shades of Tussah Silk, 10g each of two shades of Silk Noil, 10g each of two shades of Hemp, 10g each of two shades of Firestar (Trilobal Nylon) and 1g each of two shades of Angelina (in the little bags)

The second pack are small amounts of blended fibre either from where she has been trialling blends or left overs from blends she's put together for the shop or fibre clubs.  You can't choose what colours you get, she just sells them from time to time as random bags containing a certain weight and this is good just to have lots of options in your stash.  The only draw back is that you don't know exactly what each one is or what fibres they contain but other than that its a fun purchase.